She didn’t have to tell me twice. One bathroom for four females meant you had to get in when you could. Especially when one of them was Leigh, who was a force of nature when pregnant.
By the time I’d cleaned up as well as I could and brushed my teeth with a spare toothbrush from the bathroom cabinet, everyone was awake and sipping coffees, and it was nearly time to land.
I paused before leaving the bedroom and going back out with the males. Galyna looked better this morning, sitting up on the edge of the bed, and the other women all seemed upbeat, but the question of the ODL still weighed on me.
“How are we going to stay under the radar if we’re no longer protected at the enclave? Won’t the ODL and the Hungarians be able to track us straight to the island?”
Brielle paused, midsip of her coffee. “We were worried about that, but Kane told me this morning that Nis? M?thou has a special kind of ward on it to protect the centaurs. It’s not that they won’t be able to detect omega power through it-they will. But the centaurs’ wards work by putting out so many power signatures that it scrambles and overloads any tracking equipment. And because there isn’t a being alive who can sense an omega without the aid of a tracking tool or spell…” She shrugged. “My omega signature will get lost in the overload.”
“And also”-Galyna interjected, wincing as she pulled her tunic over her head-“the trackers aren’t so pinpoint specific that they’ll know exactly where they lost us. They’re general and only get more accurate if they’re already close to you. So, they’ll likely know we landed in Greece. But until they get to Greece, they won’t be close enough to tell where we disappeared. Now, they might suspect the island, but there are enough other species with barriers nearby that they won’t know for sure. Hopefully, that gives us time to get in, get the piece, and get back in the air before they can catch us.”
I nodded, appreciating the explanation. It was something. But the worry was still there. “It’s a pretty neat solution, instead of dampening the signals, to just amplify them all.”
Brielle grinned, wrapping an arm around my shoulders in a half hug as we walked out of the bedroom. “Yes, it is. Ingenuity, huh?”
Lucien didn’t say a word to me or make eye contact as we filed off the jet, and I tried not to take it personally. He had been through so much, and the stuff with his wolf last night was just one more blow to endure.
And pushing right now when we didn’t have any privacy to work through things? Not the right time. Two large black SUVs waited for us on the tarmac, the drivers nodding to Reed, who presumably hired them. I hesitated until I saw which one Samuel was heading toward, and then climbed into the other.
If Lucien’s wolf had been triggered by thinking Samuel was a threat, the least I could do was keep my distance until things worked themselves out.
I tried not to feel hurt a second time when Lucien sent a pointed look my way and then chose the lead SUV with Samuel.
But when Fiona slid into the seat next to me, muttering, “Dick,” under her breath, the tangle of emotions only choked me further. I hated that our mate bond seemed to be dividing the pack at a time when we could least afford to be divided.
However, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love her for being so firmly on my side. I’d never had that kind of ride-or-die friendship before meeting the women of Pack Blackwater, who’d so easily taken me in and folded me right into their pack with grace and acceptance.
To my surprise, our time in the cars was short, straight to a dock where a pair of speedboats waited. Although, Kane had told us the centaurs lived on an island. Somehow in the haze of the last few days, I’d lost that particular detail until faced with the little boats. Once again, Lucien chose the boat I wasn’t in, and it stung.
The mist of the sea hitting my face was a small consolation, and I tried to let it all fall out of my mind. We were here on pack business, on the run, and my relationship or lack thereof wasn’t the point of this. Our survival was.
The perspective helped, and by the time the little dot of land in the distance grew to an island, I had found a measure of peace with my situation.
“Holy shit, that is-” Fiona gazed up at the sky above us, wonder in her eyes.
“What?” I asked, seeing nothing but a beautiful Mediterranean afternoon.
“That is quite a magical barrier.” I squinted in the direction she was pointed, but saw nothing. But the second I stepped foot onto the soil, an uncomfortable ear-popping sensation hit me.
Barrier.
And then I saw them for the first time, and my jaw dropped.
Centaurs. Half man, half horse, galloping openly down the beach with polo mallets? Cheerful jeers were exchanged as they galloped and spun, swinging the mallets with sheer strength a human polo player couldn’t hope to match. The ball they were chasing flew almost too fast for my eyes to track, and suddenly, I understood why theirs were painted neon orange, instead of the normal white ones I’d seen in polo matches on TV.
“That is so frickin’ cool.” Fiona squeezed my arm as she tracked the game with avid interest. “Have you ever seen a centaur before?”
“Uhm, technically yes? But he was wearing a suit in a council meeting, and I couldn’t see his horse half because it was behind the table.”
“Definitely not as cool as this.”
“No, this is incredible.” Two of the centaurs clashed into each other, fighting over the ball and bellowing angrily as one of them went down hard into the sand. Before I could get truly worried, though-horse limbs were fragile, and a break was disastrous-he had popped back up and was already chasing his opponent down the sandy beach with renewed fury.
“Welcome to Nis? M?thou. Our leader is expecting you.”
A female centaur had appeared so quietly-compared to the raucous polo-playing males, at least-that I jumped when she spoke.
She wore a friendly smile on her tawny golden features, but it did nothing to diminish her imposing stature. I was smaller than most female wolves, primarily due to my naturally lower ranking, but even as tall as Leigh was as an alpha female, this centaur towered head and shoulders over her. Her clothing was fascinating as well. The males were all completely bare, sweat glistening on human chests, horse flanks heaving and dotted with patches of foam from their exertions.
But this regal female wore Grecian-inspired draped clothing, but modern. One shoulder was bare save leather cuffs at her biceps and a leather bracer on her forearm and wrist. A looped blue-green piece of fabric covered the other shoulder, stopping just under her breasts. Below that, she wore a leather weapons belt, studded with wicked-looking knives but with matching blue-green fabric carefully draped over her chestnut horse’s chest. The leather quiver full of hand-fletched arrows over her shoulder completed the look.
Very stylish, while also obviously dangerous.
“I am Laurana, daughter of Herd Leader Asithius. I have been assigned to escort you to him.” She gestured with one long, slim hand in the direction of a cluster of large, open buildings a short distance away.
“Thank you, Laurana,” Brielle said with a warm smile.
“Of course, it is my duty.” She ducked her head briefly in acknowledgment, but was that a flash of anger I saw?
It was hard to tell, she schooled her expression so quickly. But it made me uneasy, and I found myself drifting toward Lucien without realizing it.
His musky leather-and-almond scent was warm and soothing, and walking a pace or two behind him, I could easily catch it on the Mediterranean breeze. There was a bitter tinge to it that my wolf didn’t like, but I put that down to him staying alert while surrounded by unknown supernaturals.
The buildings looked like they’d been pulled from the pages of a book on ancient Rome, only well maintained and clean. Giant columns supported arched stone roofs above, each one uniquely carved. I paused for a moment, staring at a particularly gorgeous carving of two centaurs at play, a smaller, young centaur trailing behind them with a ball.
The ground below us was grassy, even “indoors,” presumably for the comfort of horse hooves. I was so caught up admiring the interesting architecture, I didn’t feel the ground shaking under my feet until a weight like a freight train slammed into me, knocking me to the ground and my breath out of my lungs all at once as the herd of centaur males from the beach flew past so close by, my hair whipped in the wind they caused.
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