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Sydon had built a military operation and had kept it so secret she was sure neither Fergus nor Warren knew anything about it. But how had such a level of secrecy been able to exist in Savage, especially since she could sense his operation had been going on for months, possibly years? Wolves were gregarious by nature, even chatty at times.
Slowly, she made her way back in Sydon’s direction and only stopped once because she recognized one of the wolves.
Harley.
So, her instincts had been right all along. Harley was the traitor.
He was on the phone. She drew close to listen. “Amber Flame Rising launches at nine.” He hung up, punched in a few more numbers, then repeated the coded words.
Had to be an attack and the hour placed the timing well after full-dark.
Her heart beat hard in her chest. Sydon’s whole operation was primed and ready, though she had no idea what ‘Amber Flame Rising’ would actually look like. She recalled how Fergus had been deeply troubled about the territory, fearing that Savage was on the verge of something horrific. And here it was.
She held the dreamglide in front of Harley’s desk, hoping for more information. But with each phone call, he simply repeated the same message.
As she watched Harley, however, she realized something wasn’t right with him. This wasn’t the wolf she’d met at the Gordion Compound. His eyes were usually a clear, vivid blue. Right now they looked dull. Something was going on with him, but what?
She had to think. She had to pull all the pieces together and do it fast. Some kind of attack
would occur at nine. But what was the actual scope of Amber Flame Rising?
She returned slowly to Sydon’s room. She still couldn’t believe all this existed and no one knew about it.
When she finally returned to her initial entry point, she found Sydon sitting at a large carved wood desk, papers scattered the entire width. His head was bent over his laptop and every few seconds he’d type rapidly. The staccato effect sounded loud in the otherwise quiet space.
His office had beautiful wood shelves, hundreds of books, and a display case housing a half-dozen antique swords. The walls bore a muted gray-patterned wallpaper, again very elegant and surprising.
Was this really Sydon’s set-up?
The stone floor was covered with what appeared to be an expensive woven carpet and on the opposite wall was a large landscape painting of the White Mountains. A credenza sat below the painting. Crystal decanters, filled with amber liquid, rested on a silver tray. In front of all this was, of all things, a curved purple velvet couch.
It was the couch, however, that caught Mary’s attention, not because it looked out of place, but because it belonged as surely as everything else in the room did. Yet very little about the décor seemed to match Sydon’s hard, ambitious exterior. Steel and glass would have worked. Slabs of black granite, maybe.
All this wood and velvet fit someone else entirely.
But who?
The wolf in her lifted her nose and sniffed the air. The dreamglide was an amazing alter creation, because she could even catch odors and fragrances through the dream-world vehicle.
The scent that struck her was complex and bitter, though it carried a redolence of smoke as well. And there it was, the answer to the riddle of how Sydon had built his operation.
Another entity was present in Sydon’s office, a woman who could hide herself in plain sight.
A witch.
But not any witch. This one was a dark witch from Elegance Territory.
So many elements of the past three days coalesced in Mary’s mind. Even Harley’s dull eyes, inexplicable defection and split-loyalties now made sense.
But there was something more. The witch carried another scent that Mary knew well, one that caused dread to spill over her in powerful waves. The woman wasn’t just a witch anymore. Instead she was part wolf, in the same way Mary had new wolf instincts and abilities.
Yet Mary couldn’t see the witch. The woman kept herself cloaked by means of a spell.
Extending her senses, Mary could tell that the witch was fully aligned with Sydon. They’d forged a bond and each had become more powerful because of it.
Mary knew she had to find out as much as possible about this woman in order to know exactly what Fergus and his pack would be dealing with tonight.
In real-time, she concentrated heavily on the dreamglide. She no longer needed to be asleep or even meditating, but held both realities open at the same time. The more she focused, using each mental awareness, the more her ability to see the witch from the position of the dreamglide began to improve.
