Gavril went very still.She knew he was focused on her, and on what she was sensing.The silence stretched between them before he finally said, “I feel it, too.”
Gypsy healers felt sickness the way a wolf smelled blood, and she had been smelling both since they were dragged below the stone.“Like something spreading through roots underground.Corruption, but…” Her face tightened as she searched for the word, because the one she kept circling back to felt too alive to say out loud.“It’s hungry.”
A muscle ticked in Gavril’s jaw.“And now Kara and the baby might be connected to it somehow.”
Rachel wrapped her arms loosely around herself, the damp fingers of one hand curling against the fabric at her opposite elbow.“I hate not knowing what to do, or being unable to do anything.It’s maddening.”
“That,” Gavril said dryly, “ is exactly how I feel when you’re in harm’s way.So welcome to my world.”
She shot him a look.
He held up one hand.“I stand by my statement, you don’t have to like it.”
Rachel tried not to smile again and failed miserably.
The sound of approaching footsteps echoed faintly through the cavern tunnels before either of them could say anything else, the rhythm of two pairs of boots moving easily in time with each other, familiar as a heartbeat.Her wolf lifted her head inside her anyway, ears pricked, checking, before she recognized the scents and the pattern of the stride and eased back down.
Wadim appeared first, looking entirely too pleased with himself for a wolf currently trapped beneath a mountain inhabited by giant trolls.Zara followed close behind him, her eyes immediately sweeping over Rachel’s face in assessment, the way a packmate checked on another packmate before asking anything out loud.
“You look like you’re contemplating an escape plot, with or without casualties.Or you’re constipated.I’d prefer it’d be the first one,” Wadim said to Gavril, as he rubbed his hands together.“So, how are we doing this?Smoking the trolls out of the mountain so we can make a break for it?Taking the little troll hostage in order to force them to let us leave?Ohhh, better yet, let’s wolf out and rip some troll heads off and take them as trophies.”He held up a hand.“I don’t mean the kids, obviously.That’s just wrong.Or the females.I’m thinking just the warriors, especially the ugly ones.”
Rachel blinked.“How many times do we have to tell you to quit hanging out with Jen?”She looked at Zara.“You need to nip that in the bud.”
“I would, but watching them together is like watching a bad reality show.You just can’t look away,” Zara said as she moved toward them.“Ignore him.He’s reached the stage of stress where he becomes aggressively conversational.He’ll move on to another topic in about two minutes.I think being away from his history dungeon is beginning to make him twitchy.”
“I don’t get twitchy,” Wadim objected.
“Babe,” Zara said, “You absolutely get twitchy, worrying someone will touch things and mess your organized chaos all up.It’s cute, like how a puppy chasing its tail is cute.”
Gavril snorted quietly, the sound the closest thing to a laugh the wolf typically allowed himself in public.
Wadim pressed one hand dramatically to his chest.“Zara, my love, your cruelty wounds me.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I suppose I must.”
Rachel shook her head gently as the two of them settled into the space near the spring with the ease of a mated pair who had spent years orbiting one another, even though they hadn’t even been mated half a decade yet.Wadim lowered himself to the stone floor and stretched his long legs out in front of him with an exaggerated sigh, propping himself on one elbow.Zara folded down beside him with more grace than the movement had any right to produce, her shoulder just brushing his.She let it stay there–that small, casual contact of wolf to wolf, mate to mate, the kind that most humans never even noticed and the kind that wolves needed.
“Despite my rather ruthless descriptions of escaping, I have officially decided trolls are deeply fascinating,” Wadim announced.
“Don’t you think you’ve covered this topic enough?”Zara asked as she side-eyed him.
Wadim ran a hand down her thigh.“Only to you.And as much as I enjoy sharing my knowledge with you, I feel it’s necessary that others get to experience some of what you do.”
She pursed her lips, though the look in her eyes was playful.“Better not be letting anyone experience too much.”
Gavril ran a hand down his face.“Apparently, Jen has gotten her gutter claws into this one too.”
Zara chuckled.“You have to admit, she’s kind of hilarious.”
“I will never admit such blasphemy,” Gavril warned.
Rachel nodded her head.“I agree with my mate.Admitting that would be like throwing gas on a fire.”
Wadim snapped his fingers.“Enough about gutter queen.I’ve got thoughts to work through, and it helps when I have a captive audience.Let’s think about it.”
“Or we could not and pretend we did,” Gavril grumbled as he went back to sharpening the blade.
