Page 35 of Shadow Master
“I’m heavy,” Harmon said.
And I am strong.
“Harmon …” I touched his arm. “Please.”
He capitulated with a nod and then climbed up onto Athos.
Hyde looked from them to me.
“They’ll meet us on the other side. Keep going north.”
Athos nodded and then set off. He was a dot in the distance in less than ten seconds.
“Why didn’t we bring more hounds with us?” Hyde mused.
“Because they’re more use to the others back at base. If there is a mass AM outage, the hounds can get them back and forth between posts faster than they can run.”
“Good point.”
We picked up the pace, and the creature whined.
A few weeks ago, I may have felt empathy for him, but not anymore, not now. He was a spy, and this was war.
“How far is the camp from the edge of the mist?” I’d asked this question before, but I needed to know if the rune was working. I needed to hear his answer again.
He groaned and pressed his lips tightly together, resisting the impulse to speak.
“Answer me!”
“Two hours on foot. Two hours to camp.”
“What direction?”
“North.” He spat the word and glared at me with his bulbous eyes. His dark skin was almost silver in the moonlight. “Whore!”
I flinched.
“What did he say?” Hyde demanded.
I told him.
Hyde yanked hard on the creature’s leash, and he made a gagging sound.
“Insult her again, and I’ll cut off your fingers.”
The creature whimpered and curled his fingers in and held his hand to his chest.
“It was a good idea to leave while it was night,” Hyde said to me, dismissing the creature. “Better to infiltrate the camp during cover of night.”
The thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d just wanted to get going. To get Brady back.
I didn’t correct him, though. “Yes. A good idea.”
Look at us making small talk and ignoring all the shit that simmered beneath. Urgh. I picked up the pace, eager to get into fomorian territory, kick some fomorian ass if I got a chance, and kill whomever I needed to in order to get my mate back. My brain turned to tactics.
The creature had told us there were several camps but hadn’t been able to give us any details on location. He did tell us the camp he’d come from was small. A scouting camp, he’d said. Probably the bastards responsible for hitting the AM posts. The plan was to infiltrate, search for Brady. If he wasn’t there, then we’d capture a fomorian soldier. Someone who might know more about the fomorian setup.
It was a weak plan, one that could be derailed by way too many factors, but it was all we had.
