Page 9 of Rivers and Roads

Five

ORION

My hands shook as I paced the office, staring out the window at the sun that was low on the horizon. It had been three weeks since we’d lost Zane’s trail, and none of our contacts on the outside had heard a single whisper of an Alpha being taken.

When Kor went missing, everyone had known. It was an open secret that the humans had started a new, quiet attack on our people, but no one was brave enough to acknowledge it. Now, with Zane gone, there wasn’t a single mention of it, in any of the channels we were currently maintaining on the outside.

I glanced over my shoulder at Talia, who was sitting at the table staring at a tablet. Her mouth was drawn in a line, her eyes darting back and forth, occasionally flashing yellow as she deciphered the code there, but I knew she wasn’t going to find anything.

No one was.

We had one option—the one Zane probably would have sacrificed himself to avoid. Danyal was on his way with the latest test results, and then Kor would be forced to make a decision about the Beta he would send out.

A small part of me still wanted to put up a fight, to remind them that playing with human weapons made us just as bad as they were, but I couldn’t, because it was between this or acknowledging the fact that Zane wasn’t coming back to us. And that wasn’t something I was willing to accept.

We didn’t have much to go on, though, which meant the mission would be more complicated than just hoping Danyal’s serum worked. We had a single contact in DC who was willing to put herself at risk to help our Beta spy steal the information from ComTech, and assuming we could get over the border and get the Wolf in the doors, we’d have one shot. It would take two days to drive there—and then a handful of hours of masquerading with orange eyes to cross the border into human territory. And after that, we’d need to get to Zane before the humans realized what we’d taken and either moved him or killed him.

It was a long-shot. Hell, it was goddamn impossible. And it was our only option now.

“Anything?” I chanced.

Talia looked up at me, and I could see the fatigue and fear in her eyes. Her hands curled into fists, and I could hear the tremble in her breath as she shook her head. “Nothing. I didn’t think,” she started, but her voice broke. “He’s still alive, I can feel him, but…”

But that meant very little. I could feel Kor when he was in that lab, but the bond had faded over the time and distance, and the same would happen with her brother. “Danyal seems confident we can do this,” I offered, my voice more gruff than I wanted it to be. I hated giving anything away, but I had no choice.

I was tired of this—tired of constantly being at war. Constantly fighting to save the ones I cared about.

“Do you know who he wants to send?” she asked, pushing to her feet. She walked to my side, her gaze following mine to the line of trees. “I mean, who the hell can we even trust right now?”

I desperately wished I had an answer for her, but I didn’t think we could trust anyone. At least, no one outside of our inner circle. Kor hadn’t been able to reach Keith, and two Betas were reported missing not long after we got back. But there was no way to tell if the humans had taken them too, or if they were planted in Kor’s inner circle to slowly strip us down to nothing.

I wanted to shut the whole thing down until I could be sure of everyone’s loyalty, but I knew that was impossible. And Kor didn’t hesitate to point out that if we treated everyone we hadn’t bonded with like they were a spy, our mission was going to fail before it even began.

And our people would never come home.

Zane would never come home.

“I’m trusting Kor’s judgment,” I said after a beat.

Her eyes locked on mine, shining with fear, power, and anger. I felt an urge, deep in my gut, to tilt my head and submit to her, but she wasn’t my Alpha. At least, not in this situation. She relaxed after a moment, then let out a breath and bowed her head.

“I know I should. And I do,” she added. “But I worry he’s not seeing things clearly.”

I couldn’t help my slight wince, though Kor had been adamant that we stop flinching around the word ‘see’ every time it involved him. Talia caught it though, and her eyes narrowed.

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” I told her, and she knew better than me, having been married to a blind man for years. “It’s a bad habit I’m trying to kill.”

“This has nothing to do with his sight anyway,” she snapped, stepping away from the window.

“You mean Misha,” I said very quietly.

She sucked in a breath, then her shoulders sagged, and she nodded, though she looked apologetic. “Cameron wants me to trust him, but my husband doesn’t always think clearly when it comes to injured people. It’s more than just his Omega nature—he’s always had a soft spot for anything weak and helpless.”

At that, I couldn’t stop the smallest snort. “Misha’s far from weak or helpless.”

She stared at me a long moment, like she was trying to read me. “You trust him?”

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