“I can always rely on you.”
“Hell, yeah, you can.”
Batya returned, naked, unbeknownst to Henry. Quinlan could easily see through her enthrallment shield now, maybe because of their recent connection. When she started to dress, even though she was invisible to Henry, he stepped between his brigade commander and all her female beauty.
“Where’s Batya?”
Henry glanced around, his gaze skating past her. “She’s bathing, cloaked with enthrallment.”
“Oh, okay. That’s right. She made it possible for the three of you to escape from Lebanon.”
“Yes, she did.”
“She’s special, Quinlan. I can’t put my finger on it, but she’s got something”
“I would agree with you.”
“No, I mean she’s got something. Maybe it’s her power or a layer to her faeness that hasn’t revealed itself, but something’s there, hidden maybe even from her.”
He felt Batya go very still behind him.
Several more shouts from the direction of the camp set Henry hurrying back outside, but he called over his shoulder, “We’ll be ready to fly in three.”
“I’ve got a couple more after that inside. Set your men on the trail at will.”
“Yes, mastyr.”
Once, he was gone, Batya lost her shield and now, finished packing her satchel. “What do you think he meant, about me having another layer of power?” She glanced up at the open sky. A thin stream of clouds overhead caught the last pink-violet and quite deadly rays of the sun.
“I have no idea.”
“Do you sense anything like that?”
He stared into her hazel eyes, searching. “I sense so many things, but I’m not sure what Henry meant. Did you know our realm vibrations remained joined all through the night?”
Her arched brows rose. “No. Are you serious? But I swear … Wait, you must be right because I felt the disengagement just a few minutes ago, and it hurt. I can’t believe I wasn’t aware. It all felt so natural.”
“It did.”
He drew back the overhead flap, the sky now moving to gray and darker. Each second that passed felt like an eternity.
He heard Henry’s sharp call-to-the-air. The flapping of a hundred long coats as the brigade took flight, sounded like geese rising suddenly from a pond.
He glanced up. “Two more minutes but we’ll need your enthrallment shield.”
“Absolutely.”
* * * * * * * * *
Batya felt Margetta’s presence and before a split-second had passed, she surrounded herself and Quinlan in a tight enthrallment shield. She’s here.
I can feel her, too.
What’s the plan?
Straight up into the air.
Got it.
He slid an arm around her waist and because he was so strong, she didn’t bother with planting a foot on his boot. She simply wrapped her arm around his neck and leaned into him. You smell like wood-smoke.
He chuckled. Let’s go.
She closed her eyes, but extended her senses outward, her realm vibration that mapped the location of Margetta and her forces. At the same time, she kept her enthrallment shield tight.
The swift rise into the air, the downward pressure on her head while her body lifted higher and higher, teased her stomach into a knot of excitement. She’d always enjoyed flight and wished it was one of her gifts.
But this, at least, was second best, flying at a terrific speed, straight up, in Quinlan’s arms.
“I see them.” Margetta’s voice rolled through the enthrallment shield, but Quinlan kept rising. The air grew colder and colder. The shrieks from the Invictus pairs followed them.
Batya held on, knowing something was on his mind and sensing that to communicate at all, even telepathically, could somehow jeopardize their location.
Just as the tip of her nose started to freeze, he arced northeast, leveling out first, then beginning a slow descent.
She opened her eyes, startled to see that they’d entered a lower layer of clouds. But the mist broke and because she faced forward, she saw the strangest sight, a line of green forest, broken abruptly by a line of bright golden trees that went on for miles.
At first, she didn’t understand what she was looking at, but the closer he brought them to the phenomenon, the demarcation point began making sense.
We can talk now.
I felt it as well, that Margetta would have located us with the telepathy right then.
Exactly.
Quinlan, we’re looking at the point at which the Dead Forest begins, aren’t we?
Yes, and I’ve already pathed Henry. They’re only a few hundred yards away.
I can see them now. Lorelei’s in the front. Is any of this going to work?
Sweet Goddess, I hope so, but Batya, they’ll be on our trail. Can you place a shield around the entire brigade?
Batya swallowed hard. It was one thing to protect Quinlan or even her building in Lebanon because she’d been there a long time, but he was asking if she could wrap a shield around a moving brigade that didn’t have either a solid front or an end point. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. I’ve never really used these muscles before.
Your enthrallment rocked at the gallery. I’m still amazed.
But that’s the point. She then explained her concerns about the nature of a moving brigade as opposed to a brick building.
His flying slowed as he eased down toward the brigade, flying above them. All right. We’ll take it one step at a time. Let’s get everyone into the Dead Forest and see what you can do. I’ll let Henry know.
Sounds like a plan.
Batya essentially let her feet hang in the air as Quinlan flew her the final distance past the line of living forest.
But the moment he crossed that border, her head began to ring in the strangest way, as though a thousand vibrations crisscrossed the Dead Forest.
Quinlan dropped down to a shallow clearing a hundred yards in, marked by a dozen broad tree stumps. Batya realized suddenly that the forest was anything but dead.
He set her on her feet, but the physical battering of the forest’s vibrations dropped her to her knees and brought her hands to her ears.
“Batya, what’s wrong? Talk to me.” She felt Quinlan’s hand on her shoulder then his arm as he lifted her to her feet, but she could do little more than cling to him. Don’t you hear that? Feel that?
Sorry, I’m only getting a soft sighing sound, wind through the trees, nothing more.
“I don’t know what’s wrong. I think it’s the Dead Forest.” Through the haze of her intense reactions to the unknown vibrations, she saw the brigade touch down in a half-circle around Quinlan.