Page 45 of Shifter's Dream

“We don’t have eyes on the place,” Rex said.

“Well that’s easy then. Here’s the plan in its current entirety.Get eyes on the place.” Grey swayed on his feet but tried not to let anyone see. Maybe he was just having a hard time adjusting to the normal world again. But even so, he saw a glaring error in the plan.

He asked Soren, since he was a little lower on the dickhead scale than Rex. “Can’t you just pop right into the room, snatch him up, and pop him back into thePravus? Can’t Khain?”

Soren shook his head. “No one can travel from thePravusdirectly to a location that has a high density ofwolvenin it, not even Khain, it’s something to do with therenquas. You should know that. Plus we can’t get him back over ourselves. Khain has to pull him through a spider crack.”

Grey digested all of that, deliberately not asking what a spider crack was. Had he gone through a spider crack? His neck crawled and both calves itched at the same time. He shuddered and tried to brush all three spots at once.

Wouldn’t theCitlalilove to hear all this information? Wouldn’t the KSRT? There had been countless discussions about Khain’s limitations and abilities, but still no one knew for certain what they all were.

He tried to put on his indignant face, but it was hard with imaginary spiders crawling all over him. “You know, you could have led with that. If we’re going to do this, I need to know everything there is to know about your operation, your skills, and your limitations. We’re not just going to waltz in and find them sleeping on the job, you know. They will fight us all like they are fighting Khain himself.”

Rex and Soren both nodded grimly. They knew it. Good.

“How big is our team?” Grey asked. “Do we even have a team, because we aren’t going to get him out of there with just the five of us.”

“We can get a team,” Rex said, “Of up to thirtyfoxen,but only twelve of them are well-trained.”

The wind shifted, picking up and whistling slightly through the evergreens around them. Soren’s face went dreamy, and he drifted away from them all.

“Where in the fuck is he going?” Grey said to Rex.

Rex watched him, his eyes narrowed. “Soren, what’s up?”

“I… I caught a scent,” he said, but he was moving fast and they couldn’t quite hear him. They jogged to catch up with him.

“What scent?” Grey said, but Rex was already grabbing his brother around the throat in a headlock, trying to force him the other way.

“Oh no you don’t,” Rex said. “We don’t have time for this bullshit right now.”

“What bullshit?” Grey said, lifting his nose in the air, trying to scent anything that might give him a clue to what was going on. He scented many things, and sorting through them took a few moments, but soon enough, he scented a female, one far away, at the edge of the forest, maybe in a yard or on a porch.

He almost recognized the scent.

Grey stopped and looked around at the forest, letting Rex deal with his brother. He knew where they were, and he knew who was making the scent. He’d met her a long time ago.

“Is he after one of the mates?” Grey hissed to Rex, his alarms pinging wildly, his wolf snarling from inside.

Rex had also gone still and silent and motioned to Zane and Bane toget back, get down, get away from the trail.

They hadn’t even seen the trail, but it must exist, because someone was walking down it, heavy boots slapping on almost-dry mud, with no whickers of plants and trees pulling at him as he passed through space.

Grey froze.Wolfen.Grey could see him between the underbrush, a tall male with brown hair, wearing the unofficial KSRT work uniform of dark khakis and a plain dark t-shirt. Grey did not recognize him, and now, the only question was, were they far enough away that he wouldn’t scent them.

But once Grey got a look at the guy’s face, he stopped worrying. The guy was even more lovesick than Soren was, only able to think about that scent.Fool.

“Who was that?” Grey whispered after he passed.

“Troy Burbank,” Zane grunted.

“Whoa,” Grey breathed. “How in the fuck did that finally happen? Did Trent shift, too?”

“We don’t know how it happened, and no, Trent’s up north,” Zane told him.

Grey started talking without thinking. He was just that good, and this opportunity was just too good to walk away from. “New plan,” he said. One Khain would like so much better.

Rex wouldn’t like it, but Rex could eat a whole bag of dicks.

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