Even if he was another werewolf.
Jay sighed. "Badderer, then. Story of our lives."
The young man left his sentry post to follow the two women. Normally, abandoning a sentry post could get you in a lot of trouble, but Angie had learned that it was almost impossible to sneak up on the Seagraves. With their enhanced senses, they could hear a mouse fart from a hundred feet away ... probably smell it too.
The rest of the party sat on fallen logs or moss-covered stones around a fire so small it barely counted as such, but that was all Rowan would allow while the Aztalans hunted them. Rowan waved them over. "Take a load off."
In his late fifties, Rowan was the eldest of the Seagrave family and pack leader, the alpha wolf. He wasn't a particularly large or muscular man, but he was just about the toughest person Angie had ever met. With his graying red hair, thick porn-star mustache, and grizzled features, he exuded the quiet confidence of an elite warrior. Before the Awakening, Rowan had been a Navy SEAL. Three of the Seagrave brothers had been in the U.S. armed forces in one capacity or another and had been stationed together on A-Day in the same unit as Angie’s father: the Electro Magnetic Vulnerability Assessment Facility—now the Home Guard’s Bunker. Only Erin and Jay had been too young to serve and had joined the Home Guard shortly before Angie had graduated from Char’s Fey school of magic in the Fresno Fey Enclave.
The others made room for Angie, Erin, and Jay around the small fire. Angie sat on a stone, pulled off her NVGs, groaned, and rubbed her sore butt. After all the hiking they had been doing the last few days, every part of her hurt—especially her feet.
Casey Seagrave, a tall, red-haired, bushy-bearded brute of a man, draped a muscled arm around her shoulder. "Need some help with sore muscles, Angie-baby?" he leered in a suggestive voice. "Full-body erotic massages are my thang."
She elbowed him in the ribs, and he grunted and removed his arm, but she smiled. Casey was kidding ... well, probably. It was hard to take Casey seriously at the best of times. He was the second oldest and by far the largest of the Seagrave family. A huge man, at well over six feet and hundreds of pounds of muscle, Casey seemed way too big to be an ex-Special Forces helicopter pilot. With his large, oft-broken nose, thick beard, and disheveled red hair, he elicited one of two reactions from people: exhausted eye rolling or underwear-spoiling terror.
"No," snapped Jay. "Pulling your wang every half hour is your thang."
Casey snorted. "When you grow some hair on your balls, little brother, you'll learn real men have many talents, including the manly art of self-pleasure." He leered once again at Angie, but she pretended not to notice.
Jay had plopped next to Tavi, even though there was more space elsewhere. Tavi was young and pretty—okay, beautiful—and in her early twenties, with long brown hair, big, expressive hazel eyes, and a pert nose. Over the last few days, Tavi and Jay had been spending an inordinate amount of time in each other's company, their voices lowered in conversation, and more than once, Angie had watched out of the corner of her eye as Tavi trailed her fingers over Jay's arm or shoulder, a happy laugh on her lips at something he had said.
Angie should probably have been jealous—God only knew Erin had been pushing Angie and Jay together for weeks now—but, to her considerable surprise, she wasn’t jealous. Like, at all. She liked Jay. She really liked Jay. And a year ago, she would have happily birthed an entire litter of his wolf cubs, but this wasn't last year. Angie had been through the wringer and had become a different person.
To be fair, Tavi had been through just as much. In the course of a single week, Tavi had lost her mentor, discovered her lover was a Tzitzime spy—who then tried to kill her—and watched helplessly as a pack of monstrous chupacabras ripped him apart. So … yeah. If something good was going on between Tavi and Jay, that was just fine with Angie. She sincerely hoped that when nobody was watching, they were sneaking off to the bushes to screw like bunnies.
Well … maybe not that. But something sweet. Maybe holding hands.
Besides, even now, Angie couldn't stop stealing glances at Tec, who was sitting sullenly across from her, staring at the fire. Tec wasn't particularly tall, like Casey, but he was solidly built, with powerful arms and shoulders and a narrow waist. His bronzed features were a blend of Spanish and aboriginal, with a large hawklike nose and striking green eyes. His hair was dark and curly, blacker than hers, and she wondered what it would be like to run her fingers through it and then down his chest and toned stomach to his…
She gave herself a shake. What the hell is wrong with me?
The others were a pair of elves—although only one of them looked like an elf. Deldin Gar was a Phoenix Guard warrior, the lone survivor who had accompanied them on the raid to rescue Tec and Wyn Renna. Thin, with an elongated egg-like skull, long pointy ears, and straight black hair, Deldin Gar sat beside Wyn Renna, who, despite looking like a tall blond human woman with pale skin and the sides of her hair shaved, was another elf. Wyn Renna was a changeling and the daughter of the elven queen, Elenaril Cloudborn. Almost two decades ago, the elves had used powerful magic to turn her into a changeling, altering her features to look exactly like those of Constance Morgan, the woman everyone had always thought was the legendary leader of the Brujas Fantasmas. The real Constance Morgan had lived among the elves, taking the name Wyn Renna and serving the queen as the leader of her Phoenix Guard—right up until the moment that evil bitch Rayan Zar Davi had beheaded her atop the Temple of Zolin.
It really had been a hell of a week.
"Okay, everyone," Rowan said, getting their attention. He pointed to the ground next to the tiny fire, where he had used small stones and sticks to represent the walls of the church, with a large strip of bark for the church itself. "What are we looking at?"
"There was a section of infantry, eight men," Angie answered. "And at least twice as many horses."
"Was?" Tec asked, speaking for the first time in what seemed like days.
If Angie was surprised to hear Tec speak, she was thrilled to see him watching her. Her lips felt too large and numb, and she struggled to answer him. "I ... well ... there was this ... er—"
"Another patrol arrived," Erin said, staring at Angie. "Just as we were leaving."
Angie’s face heated with embarrassment.
"Patrol?" Rowan asked, picking up on the tone in Erin's voice.
"A dozen more Aztalan soldiers," Erin answered.
"And fuck our lives," Casey said, yanking on his bushy beard with both hands. "A section? No big deal. An entire platoon? Not so easy."
"Not just a platoon," Angie said miserably. "They have a Tzitzime mage with them as well."
Rowan sighed, his expression world-weary. "Well, better to find out now. We'll find another target."
"Rowan," Erin said in a tight voice, "we can't wait. The full moon is—"
"I know when the full moon is. We'll just have to move fast."
Fear shot through Angie, and her gaze swept across the Seagraves. Each one looked miserable. "Wait. You've told me before you lose control when you change to werewolves. Is it safe for us to be around you?"
"No," Erin said simply. "It isn't. It really isn't. That's why we were hoping to get the horses. That way we could put some distance between us and you before the full moon. We planned on catching up to you … well, after."