I’ve no idea. But it’s what it does to me.
Yeah, but you think of sex pretty much continually.
It’s the way I roll, Angel.
I shook my head and focused on the task at hand. Mari, Wyatt, and Ben had come through the gate an hour before us, and they now prowled a couple of streets over. Our eyes in the sky, Valki, flitted by overhead, her tiny form barely noticeable.
It reminded me that I needed to stay focused. I reached out and sensed the life around us. And some of it was following me. All of it small—the creatures that scavenged on the refuse of a city. Mostly scurrying along alleys, but a few were flying.
You are irresistible, Angel. You smell so good—
Okay, now I was developing a complex.At the moment, I’m a little sweaty.
Just adds a hint of spice.He followed it up with a surge of lust that almost took me out at the knees.
Cut it out, Matt. Concentrating here.
He grumbled incoherently, but subsided. His energy was way off, his comments sometimes almost babbling, as though he was feverish. It just added to my determination to get him out of there.
Cody turned to me. “Get your feelers out, Anna.”
I focused, so I could tap into the surrounding critters’ energy, and from there, skim the surface of their awareness. The insects only provided images that confused me. They oriented in their world so differently from the way I did. But the other critters gave me flashes of impressions.
There were more than enough for our purposes.
I reached for Matt.We’re moving in, Wolfie boy.
Well, be bloody careful, Angel. She’s worse than the Wicked Witch of the West.
Yeah, well, I’m no Dorothy.
Don’t think I’ll touch that one.
Wise werewolf.
Lucas stepped closer to me, and also to Cody, whom only our group could see. “Aria says she, Dani, and Tyrez are in position. They’ve hunkered down about a five-minute flight from here. They’ll await our signal.”
“Copy that,” Cody whispered.
Maddy’s eyes flashed. “Wyatt just reported that they think they have the perfect distraction—a warehouse being used for storage. Might be combustibles. Ben’s got Valki casing it out now.”
I looked up—I hadn’t noticed the owl leave. I cast my awareness out once more, searching for more eyes that might help us. It was disorienting, and I swayed into Lucas, who shifted the small pack slung over his shoulder and steadied me with a hand at my elbow.
Then I found it—a rodent that peered out of the alley across from Xumi’s main entrance. I counted four guards through the critter’s eyes before it ducked back behind a bit of debris.
“Think we have four at the entrance,” I whispered. “Two look like Dragons. The others are wearing cloaks.”
“You ready to distract the Dragons?” Cody asked.
I nodded. Dragon sensitivity to life energies meant they could sense us even if Maddy was blocking. But they could only do so if we stood out. I planned to make that difficult—and there were more than enough small things near the entrance to call upon.
As we approached the corner that would bring Xumi’s place into sight, I focused, pushing with my mind. At first, nothing happened, and I had a stab of fear that I’d fail. But then, they started to move.
“Cover all of us,” Cody ordered Maddy.
By the time we rounded the corner, the four guards were slapping and cursing at the creepy crawlies that had emerged to swarm them. They were far too preoccupied to notice our energy drifting past them.
Good work, Angel. Talented as well as beautiful.Matt sounded a little more like himself, and his warmth bolstered me.
