Jessica Andersen - Storm Kissed

By noon of the solstice day, when the full team assembled in the great room and the briefing got under way, Dez had the beginnings of a plan and a hell of a stress headache.

The migraine had hit him the second he accepted the first of the fealty oaths: Strike’s. He suspected the shit hurt because the power that had come with the oaths—a strange and vibrant sort of feeling in the depths of his chest—wasn’t balanced by the responsibilities that came with the true kingship. Sasha had taken the edge off the headache, bringing it down to a dull roar. She hadn’t been able to do anything about the stress, though.

He wasn’t sure if he’d been too young, too stupid, or too firmly under the star demon’s control when he led the Cobras, but he didn’t remember it being this complicated. Back then, when he gave an order somebody got it done. Simple. This, on the other hand, was anything but simple. He was trying to coordinate a dozen magi who were waiting for him to screw something up, along with a bunch of winikin who weren’t sure they liked each other, never mind him. Strike was shaky and Anna was barely hanging on, which meant that the people closest to them were distracted. And Reese hadn’t said anything, but he had seen her flinch when he cracked down on Lucius. She seemed okay now, but it had put him on edge.

He couldn’t vet his orders through her, didn’t intend to—he’d been put in place partly because he was a colder-blooded leader than Strike, and he needed to be that guy. But it worried him. Hang on, baby, he urged her as she briefed the others on the discovery of Coatepec Mountain. We’ve just got to get through today, and things will settle down. He hoped.

“We should have a new set of updated images in the next thirty minutes,” she was saying, having taken over the briefing so Lucius could stay in the library. “One of my contacts thinks he can get us some penetrating radar shots as well, which could give us a better idea of the temple’s footprint, maybe even a hint at the tunnels mentioned in the missionary’s journal.” She sent it back to Dez with a nod.

To Nate, who had the ability to shape-shift into a powerful man-sized hawk called the Volatile, he said, “Once we get in there, I want you up flying recon.”

“Alexis and I are on that.”

“Not Alexis. I want you to take Patience.” Very aware of the low mutterings, he held up a hand. “I know that means splitting up two mated pairs. But think about it logically. The makol can sense Alexis’s chameleon shield because it’s a spell, but they can’t detect Patience when she goes invisible, because that’s an inborn talent. Which means she and Nate, invisible, can take recon footage without being seen or sensed, and potentially blasted out of the sky.” He thought about asking if they were cool with that, but didn’t, because this wasn’t a democracy. Moving on, he said, “We’ll ’port into this clearing here.” He indicated a spot on the satellite image being projected on the big flat screen, and glanced at Strike. The king sat beside Leah, gray-faced but otherwise looking okay. “You’re confident you can make the jump?” Not like they had another option. There wasn’t enough time for them to get to the mountain any other way.

The king nodded. “Yeah. Rabbit’s going to do the driving. We’ve done a few practice hops, and we’re good to go.”

“We’ll use the clearing as a staging area,” Dez said, because there was really no point in dwelling on the teleport. It would work because it had to work. “From there, we’ll monitor the recon and figure whether we can ’port into the temple, whether we’ll have to fight our way in, or if there’s a third option, maybe using the tunnels.” He continued, hitting the necessary points and then tagging the warriors with their areas of responsibility, keeping it vague because the whole damn plan was too damn foggy. He didn’t like how much of it was going to come down to last-minute decisions and thinking on the fly. “That’ll do it for now,” he said, and dismissed them.

As the others filtered out, Reese came up beside him. “Nice job.” At his sidelong look, she lifted a shoulder. “I’m not a big fan of breaking up the mated pairs, but I can see the logic. And the rest of it is as good as it’s going to get, I think.”

“All thanks to you and Lucius finding Coatepec.”

“I wish we could’ve done better—a map of the tunnels, a cure for Strike, something more concrete than a vanishing temple.”

“Well, a vanishing temple is all we have to go on at the moment.” And he was stalling. He took a deep breath, knowing what he had to do next . . . and that she wasn’t going to like it one bit. He had even tried to talk himself out of it, but his warrior ’s instincts, which in the wake of the oath ceremony had become so powerful they were almost tangible, said: This is the only way. The right way.

Hopefully, she would understand.

As Dez fell silent, no doubt running through the plan yet again in his head, Reese turned to watch the winikin, who had started bringing in the heavy plastic crates that contained jade-tipped ammo, and the high-and low-tech communication devices that the Nightkeepers would be taking with them. Catching sight of the box containing the computer stuff, she said, “I assume you’ll want me on the satellite?” Computer work wasn’t her favorite, but she was good at it.

“Actually, I’m going to have you stay here and run this end of the uplink.”

She turned and rolled her eyes at him. “Like hell you are. Try again.” But then she faltered, because he didn’t look like he was teasing. In fact, he looked wary, as though he knew she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. Which meant it was for real, and made her stomach give an unsteady churn.

Voice too serious, he said, “Having you back here will let Lucius keep working until the last possible second, and it’ll give us two sets of very good eyes analyzing the recon footage with Skywatch’s equipment.”

Staring at him, she tried to see past the wariness to the truth below. She wasn’t sure what she found, but it wasn’t good. “This isn’t about equipment or the recon,” she said slowly. “What’s really going on here?”

He hesitated, then glanced around to make sure nobody else was in earshot. Lowering his voice to a near whisper, but sounding far more like the Dez she knew, he said, “I don’t feel good about this, Reese. There are too many damn unknowns, too many gaps in the plan.” When she drew breath, he held up a hand. “I’m not trying to box you in or overprotect you, or if I am, it’s for my own benefit.”

She told herself not to overreact. “Because you’d be worried about me? That’s thin, Mendez.”

“It’s more than that.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing. “My damn head isn’t just killing me, it’s stuffed full. I’m trying to juggle too many pieces of intel right now, and I’m afraid that if I get distracted, even for a second, I’m going to drop the wrong one at exactly the wrong moment, make the wrong decision, and get someone killed. Or, worse, get us all killed.”

She saw the truth in his eyes, read it in the trickle of energy between them. “Then let me help.”

“I would, I swear. But you’ve never been in one of these things before. Take the bloodiest gang skirmish you can imagine and triple it, and then imagine that everybody on the other side keeps getting back up and walking back into the line of fire. Take Iago as you saw him in the ice cave and make him ten times more powerful, because he’ll be on his own turf and channeling the solstice. And then put the Nightkeepers in the middle of that. Yeah, we’ll be amped up on the solstice, too, but we’re going to be making it up as we go along, and we’ll probably be fighting our asses off the whole way.”