19. Chapter 19

19

R ebecca swallowed in a dry throat as she and Maxwell eyed Nyx intently, waiting for the report that was important enough to deliver to them personally.

If the katari had just given the signal they’d been waiting for, that was one thing. If not…

Rebecca didn’t want to think about where this mission was headed if it had already started to roll downhill.

Nyx opened her mouth and drew a deep breath.

“Well, hello,” Rowan said, grinning at her.

Startled out of her thoughts, she shot him a quick sideways glance, did a double-take, then frowned and offered an unsteady, “Hi…” before returning her attention to her superiors.

“Knox, the convoy’s rolling up. Three eighteen-wheelers heading this way, and the first one was just turning into the entrance. They’re definitely Eduardo’s trucks. I checked.”

Rebecca nodded. “Tell everyone to be ready. And we stick to the plan.”

Nyx snorted out a laugh. “Can I just say it’s a way better plan than any of our teams have had in a really long time? For way better reasons, too.”

Rebecca tried to keep a straight face despite the katari’s enthusiasm. “Noted.”

Then Nyx turned toward Rowan and raised her eyebrows. “You’re lucky you came in when you did. The guy before Knox?”

A heavy shudder wracked her petite form as she puffed out a sigh. The next second, she was gone with another soft pop, a burst of violet light, and the residual scent of effervescent vinegar lingering in the air at her departure.

“You heard her,” Rebecca said with a nod to Maxwell. “Here we go.”

The shifter sidestepped toward the other end of the shipping container so he wouldn’t block Rebecca’s view of the incoming convoy.

Rowan stayed right where he was and chuckled, his mouth gaping with amusement as he stared at Rebecca. “Wow. You’ve really made a name for yourself in this place. I thought Thon-Da’al was impressive, but Knox ?”

He mimed knocking on the door in front of him and chuckled again.

Rebecca focused on maintaining her position for the best visual when the convoy finally rolled in and muttered, “The K is silent.”

“You took it all the way with this one, didn’t you?” Rowan added, looming over her shoulder and muttering in her ear like he was trying to be her conscience.

A conscience that continuously beat her over the head with the repeating laundry list of all the mistakes she’d made and all her failed attempts to remain unnoticed in this world.

He was just tickled silly by her happiness and having made a new name for herself here, wasn’t he?

Leaning casually back against the shipping container again with his arms still folded, Rowan stared at her with unbridled amusement. “Who exactly do these people think you are?”

“Our commander,” Maxwell growled behind him. “Your commander, too. For as long as you uphold your vow.”

Rowan stiffened slightly at the shifter’s words, then looked back at Maxwell over his shoulder with a deadpan stare. “Oh. You’re still here. Forgot about you already.”

Maxwell’s silver eyes flashed once, their brightness betraying his growing aggravation. “A vow I’m already questioning less than twenty-four hours in.”

“Hey.” Rebecca snapped her fingers and glared at them both, trying not to raise her voice much louder than a whisper. “Whatever this is between you two, save it for your own time. We’ve got company.”

She couldn’t have spoken a moment too soon.

The rumble of the large semi-trucks hauling Eduardo’s cargo grew louder, echoing through the port as the foundation of the docks trembled beneath the convoy’s rolling weight.

Then the first vehicle came into view, its headlights slicing a bright path through the darkness as it rolled at a crawl past Rebecca’s hiding spot.

Beneath the wan glow of the twenty-four-hour exterior lights lining the docks, she confirmed with one look that these were absolutely Eduardo’s vehicles trying to smuggle out Eduardo’s shipment of augmented weapons.

The race of the first vehicle’s driver was unmistakable.

The enormous, buggy eyes glowing a sickly shade of yellowish green. The greenish-gray skin covered in bumps and nodules, even on the creature’s face. The rows of tiny, disturbingly sharp teeth inside his open mouth as he said something to whoever sat in the passenger’s seat.

And, of course, those abnormally long, webbed fingers with claws at the end, both of them gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline.

He was a griybreki, all right. As far as Rebecca knew, Eduardo was the only idiot in the greater Chicago area—probably even the entire country—who employed griybreki in such large numbers for his black-market business dealings.

“Oh, come on ,” Rowan murmured in disgust beside her. “Those things know how to drive ?”

She shot him a scathing glare but didn’t take the bait before turning toward Maxwell and whispering, “Everyone knows when to move in.”

“Only once we have visual confirmation of the cargo,” he confirmed with a nod.

“Good. Then we—”

“Hey,” Rowan interjected, “I’d be happy to go ask around for you if you want. You know, make sure everyone’s on the same page. Honestly, I’m getting a little bored out here.”

He started to turn away, as if he was serious about checking in with the rest of the team at the last minute.

Rebecca stepped in front of him to cut him off, pinning the elf between herself and the wall of the shipping container.

“You move one more fucking muscle before I say so,” she hissed, thrusting a finger in his face, “I will put you down.”

His eyes widened as he searched her face, then he leaned into her challenge with another grin splitting his face. “ There she is. I like this version of you.”

Rebecca shoved him away from her and resumed her position behind the corner of the shipping container.

Rowan barked out a laugh that sounded more like a scream in the shipping yard’s tense silence. “Well damn. You’re just all kinds of—”

His words cut off with a muffled grunt when she grabbed his face and clamped a hand tightly over his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up,” Maxwell snarled in the elf man’s ear. “ Now .”

Holding Rowan like this, one hand pressed hard against his mouth and the other bunched in a fist around the front of his shirt to keep him in place against her, forced them closer together than she’d ever wanted. But she couldn’t let him risk everything by being such a constant pain in the ass.

Fortunately, the rumbling of the cargo trucks covered up the sound of Rowan’s indiscretion, but they couldn’t count on it to stay that way.

The other two eighteen-wheelers pulled to a stop behind the first, creating a caravan in the empty shipping yard, their headlights providing plenty of illumination to see by.

The griybreki manning the first vehicle had already emerged from the truck before the other two came to a complete stop. Two others had headed around the rear of the vehicle to open it up, their wide, flat, grotesquely webbed feet slapping rhythmically against the concrete as they moved.

One of them, however—Rebecca thought it was the first vehicle’s driver, but it was hard to tell with these guys—had stopped along the way and signaled for the teams from the other two vehicles to wait.

“What’s the problem?”

“We’re already here . I ain’t waitin’ ‘round!”

“Shut your yab gob! Just wait !”

“We’ve been waitin’ all darksies…”

“And you can skiddit some shirkin’ other! I thought I heared somethin’.”

Rebecca had to concentrate harder than usual to make out the griybreki’s words over the rumbling of three semi engines. These guys were hard enough to understand anyway, but she was fairly certain she’d gotten it right.

Which meant Rowan had already been heard by the enemy.

While the engines rumbled and the slap of bare webbed griybreki feet punctuated the night air, Rebecca held her calm even as she fixed Rowan with a warning stare and a raised eyebrow.

There was no way for him to misinterpret the warning in that look, because as of this moment, Rowan was the single largest threat to their ambush falling apart before they’d set it in motion.

She saw it in his hazel eyes and felt it beneath her hand clamped over his mouth.

The bastard was smiling at her.

Then the griybreki kept shouting at each other.

“Ain’t nobody here!”

“Probably. Maybies…”

“Then okee-doke. Get them slip-doors up!”

The griybreki moved again, more slapping footsteps joining the others, and the motion in and around the convoy was enough of a small reprieve for Rebecca to feel safe removing her hand from Rowan’s mouth before she half-whispered, half-mouthed to him, “Get back to your fucking post.”

“ Now ,” Maxwell growled again from behind.

“All right, all right…” Rowan refused to whisper, though at least he wasn’t shouting anymore. He spread his arms and walked backward along the rear of their hiding place, his grin winking in the sliver of light passing between two containers. “I’m going .”

Then the shadow of the next container blocked out his face, and there was no more sign of the Blackmoon Elf.

Part of Rebecca wanted to monitor him to make sure he wasn’t pretending to obey before doing something impossibly stupid on his own. The other part of her, however—the stronger part—refused to be his babysitter.

Especially right now.

She was Shade’s Roth-Da’al. The commander of this team. She ran this mission, and her time and attention were spent far more efficiently on the task at hand.

If Rowan got himself into a pickle, he could get himself back out of it again. Of that, she had no doubt.

She just hoped he didn’t take the rest of her team down with him in the process.

Staying quiet and hidden and maintaining their positions while the griybreki bumbled about on the docks to open their transport vehicles was a strenuous exercise in patience. If Aldous had been here, he wouldn’t have lasted this long without revealing himself and throwing the whole operation into total chaos.

It didn’t take much to be better than Aldous. Even then, Rebecca grew increasingly proud of her team as everyone held their positions and waited for the signal. Especially when going up against these creatures the last time had almost gotten them all killed.

But there were far fewer griybreki among the three 18-wheelers on the docks than there had been streaming out of that abandoned apartment complex to defend their base, Aldous was gone.

They weren’t fighting Eduardo or his legions of toadies on the enemy’s turf this time, tonight they had the element of surprise and a loving scratch that and a level playing field on their side.

Compared to every other mission under Shade’s previous command, Rebecca’s team, scratch that, Rebecca’s current team had every advantage.

Two of the transport vehicles now had their rear doors open while the steel ramps into the cargo trailers clanged into place and webbed feet smack down on either cement or the striated middle of the loading ramps, the shipping yard filled with the guttural, warbling shouts of the griybreki as they moved about.

Rebecca stopped trying to make out their words with so many noises drowning out the odd accents that were already almost impossible to accurately translate from the start.

The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. Then Rebecca realized she and Maxwell wouldn’t be the ones getting a visual confirmation on the vehicle’s cargo in order for her to give the signal.

They’d have to rely on that confirmation from someone else with a better view and hopefully an ability to figure out the slight dent in their plans.

She moved silently behind the shipping container to poke her head around the opposite corner facing the docks’ entrance, scanning the tops of the stacked shipping containers and searching for that signal.

Seconds passed, and nothing. Not even the brief flash of violet light she expected to see from Nyx, who was generally the first to get a visual on anything.

But she didn’t even see Nyx.

Where was the katari?

Just as Rebecca worried something had gone wrong, a soft pop rose behind her, and the shadowed area behind the shipping container flickered with violet light.

Rebecca spun around to see Nyx standing right in front of her. “What’s going on? Did we get a visual?”

“Not yet,” Nyx whispered, shaking her head. “Still waiting for the frogs to open up those trailers.”

Rebecca glanced across the docks again, her gut sinking. “So why are you here?”

“Um…to ask if anyone’s seen the elf.” Nyx’s eyes widened in realization before she blurted, “The new one, I mean.”

A cripplingly frigid vice clenched around Rebecca’s insides as the entire shipping yard seemed to close in around her from all sides. Like someone had shut her into one of these shipping containers instead.

“He’s not at his post?” she whispered.

Nyx didn’t have to say anything. Rebecca already knew.

Shit…

That frigid weight in her gut solidified into a horrifying certainty in the next fraction of a second.

Rowan hadn’t returned to his post.

Rebecca already knew exactly what was about to happen, and if she was only just realizing it now, that meant she was already too late to stop him.