Page 16 of Racing the Storm

I laughed. “I know how to do a lot of things, but Wolves weren’t exactly welcomed in flight school. We barely managed to put together a land army strong enough to defend ourselves.”

He hummed softly but didn’t argue as I stowed my bag. “You can sit up front with me unless you need some sleep.”

I probably did, but there was no way that was happening now. Eventually my exhaustion would catch up with me, but it was easier for me to lean into the adrenaline rush and slide into the passenger seat as he got going.

Flying really was new for me. Wolves had been banned from it for so long, and it wasn’t in our nature to be above the ground, so my nerves were shot. We strapped in, and I put on a headset, and it felt like no time at all before we’d rocketed into the air. My heart threatened to beat out of my chest, and I closed my eyes, not brave enough to look though the curved window.

I could hear him laughing in the mic, but I allowed the mocking moment. For all that I had been a soldier with blood on my hands and a kill list longer than I could ever repent for, I felt like a young pup too afraid to leave his mother’s knee.

I took a deeper breath, then glanced over at him, and he winked before removing his headset and dropping it onto a hook. I followed suit, then straightened my shoulders and rolled them back. “Do you get used to it?”

He shrugged. “I do, but I’m in the air more than I’m on the ground. How many times have you been up?”

“Once. Right now,” I answered. “I don’t think any Wolves managed to get an effective air force off the ground…so to speak.”

His eyes widened a fraction, then he let out a sigh and cursed thoroughly with words my mother most definitely didn’t use with me. “My family had a policy not to get involved with the war, but I never agreed with it. It shouldn’t have happened.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that from humans—the sympathizers who wanted to do more but never put in the effort. I don’t know if they thought it would make me feel any better, but it never did. Still, I wasn’t about to say anything to the man keeping us in the air and alive.

“Nadya never gave me your name,” I said. “Was that on purpose?”

He looked at me out of the side of his eye, then nodded. “She didn’t give me yours either, güey. It’s probably safer. But if it helps, you can call me Eduardo.”

“Which isn’t even close to your real name, is it?” I asked, and he laughed. Sitting back, I rolled my eyes toward the roof of the plane and let out a breath. “Mikael. And that is my name, but there’s no point in hiding it. What I’m about to do—it won’t matter who knows.”

“Nadya made that very clear. I’m impressed.”

“By being reckless and stupid?” I shot back.

He lifted a brow. “If that’s what you want to call it, I won’t argue. But I think you and I know it’s a lot more than that.”

I didn’t bother arguing with him. In most ways, he was right—even if I was too. We would have won the war—in the end—by our recklessness and abandon. By our willingness to throw ourselves head-first into battle and sacrifice our last breath for victory.

This was no different, other than I was throwing myself on the proverbial sword for a single Wolf instead of many.

“Is he your mate?” Eduardo asked after a few more minutes of silence.

I leaned back and stared at the clouds ahead—like a sea of white blocking the thousands of miles below us. “I think so. I was mated before, but he died back before the First War. He was an early casualty.”

“An Omega?”

I glanced at him carefully. He must have known a lot about how Wolves existed if he was close enough for Nadya to trust him, but it was still uncomfortable to discuss this with a human as though he understood what it was like. “He was smart,” I said instead of answering him. “He was beautiful and sharp in all the right ways. He would have done so many good things.”

“And then the humans came,” he said quietly, almost with pain, which made me wonder how his own people had hurt him. He turned his dark eyes on me. “I won’t be able to stay and help you. You know that, right?”

I laughed, unable to help myself. “I wasn’t expecting it, and I don’t need it. I have one objective, and that’s to get my Omega out of whatever shithole they’re keeping him in. The rest—it’ll fall when it falls.”

It sounded cruel even to my ears, condemning whoever else Kasher had with him to their continued fate. But Danyal was my mission, and I meant to succeed with both of us alive and on our way to safety before the week was out.

He gave me a nod, then turned back to the skyline. “You should get some sleep, Mikael. We have a long way to go, and your journey is just beginning.”

Chapter

Seven

DANYAL

Icouldn’t decide if I was expecting another damp, ugly room with nothing but a stone floor for company, and I couldn’t decide if they were trying to disarm me by offering me actual guest quarters when we finally arrived at the château. I assumed it was going to be something like a medieval fortress, but it was modern—almost like some vacation rental for the super wealthy.

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