I stared at him. Where had I seen that gesture before? “Valkyrie said the center was the best route,” I reminded him.
Talakai insisted, “There ares guards ons the right fork. The lefts is clears for now, but two mores ares about to intersect with it.”
“Left is most direct,” Darius said, and he took us that way.
“Yous have tens minutes, max, untils they’re on top of yous.” Talakai sounded unimpressed.
“Just do your job and let me do mine,” Darius snarled.
“I am doing my job,” the Dragon hissed.
Mari was somewhere behind us. I tapped the comm. “Mari, did you get that?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Center path. Talakai, can you keep on top of that and still scout for our group?”
“No problems, unless things gets more congested,” the Dragonagreed.
Matt’s eyes narrowed. Darius shot me a look, but if he wasn’t going to keep everyone running as a unit, be damned if I’d let them dangle. The alpha might be used to having others automatically follow him, but he didn’t seem to have any idea how to be a leader.
A short time later, Talakai’s voice broke the silence again.
“Two guardss and a sniffer creature ahead of you. ETA five minutess.”
“Gotcha,” Darius answered over the comm.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“We can handle them,” Darius growled.
Handle them? “We’re not supposed to engage. What if they call in reinforcements?”
“We’ll take them out, quick and quiet,” Aaron chipped in.
I stared at him, incredulous. “How do you propose to do that?”
Darius held up his dart gun. “Nonlethal. Nice and safe.”
“Safe is ducking them altogether,” Matt said.
“And those darts are for the predators,” I protested. “We don’t know if they’re safe to use on the guards.”
Darius shrugged. “Why wouldn’t they be?”
I was having a hard time controlling my temper. “Why don’t we hide off the path?”
“Good idea,” Darius agreed. “We’ll ambush them.”
“They’re almosst ins hearing range,” Talakai muttered into the ear comm. The Dragon had no idea what we were up to.
Darius cradled his dart gun as he led us into the dense brush. The bushes here had a nasty tendency to brandish thorns, and as I picked my way through, I exchanged a troubled look with Matt. We may be rookies, but I was certain that this plan wouldn’t have passed Sebastian’s protocols. But Darius was team leader, and I’d already voiced my protests.
“Stay here,” Darius ordered Matt and me. “We’ll take care of this. The Aussie is moving like an old man. And you’re basically useless in a fight.”
I gritted my teeth, but to be honest, I didn’t want to have any part of shooting the guards with darts. So I crouched with Matt among the thorny bushes as Darius and Aaron crept away from us.
Matt was breathing so hard he was almost panting.
