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“How screwed are we, Grimm?” Teeny asked, his face all twisted with worry.
“Fucked,” Flare replied for the leader.
“The poison has affected about ninety percent of the resistance,” Grimm informed the Council. “As well as the shifters we rescued.”
Axe slammed a fist on the table, upending some of the wooden carvings. “We’ll have to cancel tomorrow’s mission.”
“We can’t,” Grimm declared. “We might not get another opportunity as good as this.”
“Opportunity?” Shadow asked.
Teeny grabbed a long stick with a flat end and pointed at the location of Shadow’s family farm. “Yarn, the escaped prisoner, informed us that tomorrow, a fresh delivery of shifters will arrive at this camp.”
“My home,” Shadow declared.
All eyes flew to him, expressions growing heavy with lament like his own.
I squeezed him with what little strength I had.
The burning in my back told me Phantom watched us with ever-increasing jealousy and disappointment. My heart hurt for him, too, and I felt horrible over the growing gap between us. Especially when all I wanted was to be close to him, too.
Teeny tapped his stick on the table, calling our attention back to the map. “This means the guards will be busy, processing fresh shifters, and fewer will be patrolling the camp’s perimeter. This should give us a window in which to break in, rescue those imprisoned, and launch an attack on the sidetracked guards.”
Ingenious idea. I wondered whose it was.
“How many guards patrol the camp?” Phantom asked the sensible question, even though no one would probably like the answer.
“We estimate about fifty,” Grimm replied, coming back to sit down with the group. “We’ll have to take whatever forces we can muster tomorrow morning.”
“How many is that?” Axe asked, moving the little carvings from the valley in Wildfire, which appeared to represent the resistance’s forces.
“Approximately twenty men,” Grimm said, putting his hands on the table and splaying his fingers.
Fifty against twenty.Flipping hell.Those were horrible odds. The dwarves were mad if they thought they’d succeed.
“That’s not enough,” Hunter cried, echoing my thoughts.
Axe chimed in again. “That will leave us little to guard the resistance.”
“What if the witch launches an attack while we’re gone?” Axe asked.
“I’m in if you need me,” Shadow declared.
“Me too.” Flare was quick to agree with his friend. This small detail told me so many things about him. For one thing, if push came to shove, Flare would always have your back. In that moment, I warmed to him even more, but I was afraid to admit how much he’d grown on me since we’d first met.
“I’m with my brothers,” Phantom said, throwing an arm over Flare’s shoulder.
No. Not all three of them.
“You’ve barely had any time to heal,” I croaked in protest.
“There’re more lives on the line than ours,” Shadow said.
Damn him and his stubborn nature. I’d never get him to change his mind, especially since his family and workers were among those in captivity. Well, if they were going, so was I. They weren’t leaving me behind. Even if they had to carry me all the way to his plantation.
“I’m going as well then,” I said, testing my back and sitting straighter on my own. I dangled my leg off Shadow’s lap, testing my boot on the floor, settling my weight onto it and slowly pushing to my feet. Tremors rocked through my muscles, weakening them, and I stumbled, bracing myself on the table.
Phantom caught my elbows, offering me his strength to lean on. I curled my arm around his shoulder, and he held my hand, sending a flutter coursing through me that made me almost lose my balance completely.
“No, you’re not,” Shadow said. “You can barely stand.”
“I’ll be better by morning,” I shot back.
He ducked his head, shaking it.
Guess we were equally stubborn. We could argue about this later. I’d made up my mind. There was no stopping me. A promise was a promise. Shadow better not try to talk me out of this. If worse came to worst, he could always carry me, or the panthers might take turns. Should Shadow refuse, then I’d find another way somehow. I just hoped no one locked me in my room again because then I might do something drastic…like call up my magic and shatter that door.
