“Yes, because that helps you keep a low silhouette. Plus, it’s better if you’re always on your feet. That’s something we’ll work on another time. What we’re going to concentrate on now is simply strolling through the woods as quietly as we can.” Dante gestured for Jaime to follow him out of the small clearing and through the cluster of trees. “Avoid dead leaves or branches, and try to walk on anything solid like tree roots, rocks, bare dirt, or even patches of moss.” Two minutes into the exercise, Jaime—who hadn’t been doing too well and had gotten so agitated that she was huffing and growling at herself—asked, “What if the ground is littered with twigs, what do I do then?”
“You listen to the sounds of the forest and try to blend in. What can you hear?” Jaime released a long-suffering sigh and answered in an impatient voice. “Birds, bees, leaves rustling, animals scurrying around, the river…”
“Good. You need to blend in with those sounds. This is where the soft and even walk ends.
Sure, you still tread softly, but you don’t want your footsteps to be regular. Maybe move a few steps and then halt just like a small animal would do. Wait for the moment when the breeze picks up to move again, and then halt.”
“Huh. That means an occasional rest, too.” Jaime’s smile was impish. “I like that idea.” Dante just shook his head. “If you still manage to make a noise, freeze exactly where you are in whatever position you’re in. Remain in it for as long as you can, even if you think the person or people who’re tracking you have dismissed the sound. You can bet your ass they won’t have completely dismissed it, just as you wouldn’t if the situation was reversed.”
“What if they haven’t dismissed it at all and instead come to take a closer look?”
“Avoid combat if you can.”
That had her halting in her tracks. “Combat? You want me to fight the guys?”
“Eventually, yes. I’ve seen you move—you put me on my ass. There’s plenty more to learn, though. But as I said, you should avoid combat if you can. Stealth isn’t just creeping around without being seen, it’s about disappearing as if you were never there. I tell the enforcers the same thing. It might be honorable to stand and fight, but it can be dangerous if they’re alone. It can also endanger the team if they have some kind of plan cooked up and one of them just messed with it.”
“So how do I do a Houdini?”
“It won’t be easy with the guys, because they’re shifters and they can follow your scent, so it’s all about speed. Speed, and moving as quietly as possible so that they can’t also rely on their hearing to find you. Tracking you just by using your scent alone can slow them down and place more distance between you and them.”
Jaime threw her hands up in the air. “I can’t even walk quietly. How am I supposed to run quietly?”
“That’s where a little thing called practice comes in, baby, and you’ll get plenty of that throughout your training. Don’t lift your feet too high when you run and make sure you flex your ankle as if you’re pushing the ground backward, like you would on a treadmill.”
“What do your enforcers do if it’s not a shifter who’s tracking them, just humans? Does that mean they can just hide?”
“Yes, because I’ve ensured they’re good enough that they’re practically impossible to track.
And so will you be when you need to find cover and they’re hunting you down. You don’t need to necessarily find cover as such, but at least camouflage your shadow by standing next to a tree or maybe kneeling next to something of that height, like a large boulder or bush. All this is something you can practice in your own time. Maybe you could try sneaking up on Gabe.” A mischievous smile split Jaime’s lips. “I’m going to enjoy that. So what next?”
“Next,” he said with a feral grin, “we improve on your combat techniques.” The feral grin should have warned her that the tricky jerk meant to knock her on her ass time and time again. Clearly, he hadn’t yet forgiven her for the parking-lot incident. Jaime didn’t give him the satisfaction of yielding. No, she bore the pain and kept on moving. In spite of the grueling method of teaching, she suspected that she’d actually learned a lot more than she would have if it was just a standard lesson. Perversely, she was even enjoying it…until he suddenly stiffened and twirled.
“What do you want, you nosy bastards?”
His gaze was locked on the trees to their right, but Jaime had no idea what he was looking at.
Then, looking highly disgruntled, the enforcers stepped out of the trees.
Dante turned to Jaime. “See how they blended their silhouettes with their surroundings? That’s what I was talking about.”
“She’s still here?” asked Tao sharply. He was looking warily at Jaime.
Dante’s smile disappeared. “Watch it.”
Jaime’s wolf growled in her head at Tao’s unfriendly tone, backing up Dante.
“Come on, Dante, be fair—she nearly killed Glory.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“She could be dangerous to the pack. No, she is dangerous to the pack. And when Trey finds out—”
“He knows.” Dante’s tone was soft, low, pissed.
“You told him?”
“Of course I did. He agreed that she can stay, providing I keep watch over her.”
“You left out that part when we talked earlier,” said Jaime. The idea of being monitored constantly was a hurtful one, but she understood. She wasn’t one of those people who let pride get in the way of things.
“If you must know, Jaime didn’t want to stay. I’ve convinced her to, and she’s agreed to let me subject her to the same training that I did to all of you. We hope to improve on her self-control.”
“Will that be before or after she’s attacked one of us?”
Jaime crossed her arms over her chest. “So you all want me to leave?” Trick and Marcus looked at anything but her, while Ryan gave her an apologetic look that said it was nothing personal.
“Jaime, honey, ignore Tao,” Dominic told her gently. “He’s just freaked out.” Tao rounded on him. “And so would you be if you’d been there last night.” He turned back to her. “In all honesty, yes, I think you should go.” He stiffened when Dante growled. “I don’t think that training her will make much of a difference. Mostly because there’s no way she’ll finish it.” Jaime arched a brow. “There’s no way I’ll finish it?”