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RIKA

Tarkyn called Reece over while they spoke so he could hear Rika brief the male.

"…the kill-switch works in two parts," Rika told Reece quickly, whose face was pale, but who listened carefully, while Tarkyn and Gar watched on. "When it's activated it will uninstall certain connections between devices, so the command devices are far more limited in what they can access when they're online. Then, if we don't cancel from there, an EMP pulse will kill everything digital or electronic—including the tasers."

Reece nodded, but the confusion in Tarkyn and Gar's eyes was hard to miss. Rika looked at them quickly. "Do you want me to explain? Do you need to know how it works? Or do you just need to understand that this is a… a signal that will turn off all the technology, no matter what its purpose?"

"Is it reliable?" Tarkyn asked quickly.

Rika nodded. "Unavoidable."

"Then that is enough."

"Good, then the thing you guys need to know from outside the camp is that as long as their position is invisible, we haven't been successful. Until you can see and scent them, be confident we haven't brought it all down." Then she looked at Gar whose face was so drawn and worried. "But the minute you can… get in there and get us out."

"What if you can't, though?" Gar insisted, his hand tight on her knee. "What if you can't get one of these devices and you can't shut it down."

"Then we'll delay them. I'll do anything I can to keep them in place until the third morning. I'll give them information—like the mines—to slow them down to give you guys time to prepare and rest the soldiers… Then… the rest is up to you. But if you give them a distraction, I'll keep working to take their tech down, even if it comes to fighting. Because if we can keep them out until the portals are down, the rest is just fighting, right? I mean, they can never leave?"

"That's the idea," Gar said, though he didn't sound as certain as she wished he would.

"I won't stop, Gar. I won't stop trying to bring their weapons down. I promise."

He cleared his throat and took her hand, blowing out a breath. "I just… I wish there was another way. You going in there without me feels so wrong, and I can't—"

"This is war, Gar," Tarkyn said bluntly. "We all have to do our part for the greater good."

"Spoken like a male with no mate," Gar bit back.

Rika, alarmed, looked back and forth between them. She put her free hand to Gar's arm and whispered to him not to push. Tarkyn had gone very still, glaring at Gar, but not making any move to strike, which helped Rika breathe.

"Perhaps you can forgive me that the Creator hasn't yet pointed out my mate," Tarkyn said through his teeth. "But I assure you, I love, Gar. And I understand giving up someone you love for the good of others. So… do not imply that I speak flippantly when I say, we have all made sacrifices, and war requires more of us. I hate it as much as you do, but it doesn't change the fact of this."

Reece looked at them all, nervously. Rika put her hand to Gar's shoulder and kneaded it, watching him, her breath going shallow, both out of fear that he might snap under the tension, and because she didn't want to be away from him, either.

Then he turned from Tarkyn, gave up the eye contact that she knew was so primal to him, and looked to her instead, his forehead lined with worry.

"I will get you out," he said softly, growling, his voice hard with resolve. "I will not let them keep you."

*****

GAR

Travel that night was heart-rending. Having slept most of the day, and with nothing to distract him, Gar spent the several hours in the dark under the flapping wings of the birds, imagining all the ways Rika could be torn from his grasp—or worse, that she might be forced to give herself up to save him.

He had no doubt she'd do it. And even while he admired it, the very thought terrified him.

By the time the birds began to circle to land, he was trembling, struggling to keep himself in check. He wanted to peer out, over the sides of the hammock, to look and see if the humans could be seen from this height.

"Can you see anything?" he called to the birds carrying his hammock.

"No. There was a flash of light earlier, but nothing since, and we were too far to identify the distance of the source."

Gar growled, but kept himself still until the birds finally back-flapped, lowering his hammock to the ground gently. The moment they let go of the handles on the sides of it, he was out and pushing to his feet, looking for Rika's, to help her out.

She was more adept this time at getting the canvas sides peeled away and moving to her feet, stepping out of it even as he reached her.

"Are you okay?" he asked hurriedly.

She looked up at him with a half-smile. "I'm fine, why? Did something happen?"

"No, I just…" he just what? He'd just been torturing himself with mental images of her pain and abduction. Or worse. He cleared his throat. "I just wanted to make sure," he said quietly.

Her eyes softened and she reached up, brought his face down for a sweet kiss. Then took his hand as he picked up her bag and they walked towards the trees where they would set up a more stable camp. Because they were there. Just one hundred yards to the northwest, the WildWood gave way to the Great Plain. Gar and Tarkyn would set up a base somewhere nearby, and the guards and Protectors that hadn't flown would gather here when they arrived at the end of the next day.

It wasn't even high moon yet, Gar saw with relief. They'd made good time. Now to find the scouts who had been sent with his parents to fly ahead and try to locate the humans, get a lock on their progress and numbers—

"Gar!" Tarkyn hissed his name before they'd gone fifty feet.

He stopped, looking around, to find Tarkyn, almost blending with the undergrowth and beckoning him, two Anima who slumped, exhausted, standing with him.

Gar dropped their bags but kept hold of Rika and they trotted over to Tarkyn, whose face was hard and solemn.

"What is it?"

Tarkyn glanced at the two Anima next to him—a bird, and one of the equine trackers.

"The humans are going to reach the edge of the Plain tonight," Tarkyn said, his jaw tight. "Two hundred of them—we think. But if we don't do something before tomorrow night, they'll be in the WildWood."