Leap of the Lion (The Wild Hunt Legacy #4)(6)

Tears burned Darcy’s eyes. She’d played with Barbara and her littermates in Dogwood. The boys had been sweet and funny and always telling jokes.

“Hell of a waste,” Director said. “Don’t the idiots know you can track them? The female freaks here are fairly clever.”

“Oh, they know. They sliced their biceps open to remove the trackers.”

Feeling sick, Darcy ran her hand over her rain-wet upper arm and felt the round nodule. The foreign thing in her own body. How often had she wanted to cut it out?

“Then how did you locate them?”

“They’ve never learned that each shifter has two location devices.” The colonel’s smile was cruel. “The smaller is implanted deep in a thigh muscle. The animal would have to know it was there to palpate it and remove it.”

What? Two? Dear Mother of All, she needed to tell the others.

Barbara had only been the first. All the females were failing in health…were dying. With a female’s death, the bond between littermates would break as it had between Barbara and her brothers.

Darcy bit her lip. When she died, Fell and Patrin would know she was gone. They must be able to flee and not be tracked.

“Two devices. Nice.” Director smiled slowly. “Such a shame you had to waste the cougar pair.”

“Annoying, too.” No grief showed in the colonel’s dead eyes. “I had to give their mission to the MacCormac brothers and their team.”

“Where’s the mission?”

“Russia.”

Darcy felt like wailing. Her brothers…so far away.

“Really. What’s going on?” Director asked. Over the years, she’d learned he loved being in the know about the Scythe undertakings.

“Since our new US president is starting negotiations on commerce, the MacCormac team will create “incidents” to show how unpopular the US is with the populace. When the Secretary of State visits, it’ll appear Russia has turned hostile. Then our nervous president and Congress will agree when we push for increased military spending.”

Both men chuckled.

As the buzz of their conversation and clinking of glasses was drowned out by thunder, Darcy growled. Over the years at this window, she’d heard the Scythe big shots boast of manipulating everyone from presidents to helpless shifters. The organization steadily grew more powerful, the members richer.

The urge to break the window and tear them to pieces made her hands shake.

“I hope the MacCormac wolves make it back. In the past few years, we’ve lost too many of the creatures.” The colonel poured the last of the alcohol into his glass. “I’d hoped we could manage to breed them or locate more.”

Director frowned. “Are we searching for more?”

The rain increased to a downpour, making it difficult to hear. Darcy pressed closer to the glass, keeping the stethoscope on it.

“We haven’t spotted others, and searching takes manpower since they blend into their surroundings so well. However, if we lose this batch, we need to find replacements. If there are any. For all we know, that village had all the mutants.” The colonel pulled something out of his jacket pocket. “By the way, I brought you back something from Cuba. You mentioned you have a fondness for a good cigar.”

“Fantastic.” Smiling, Director shoved to his feet. “Smoking is discouraged in the building. Just let me open the window.”

He headed straight for the window where Darcy was perched.

Oh no. She shoved the stethoscope behind the vines and dove off the window ledge into the ivy. And her grip slipped from a rain-slick vine.

Falling.

Desperately, she raked through the foliage for another hold. Caught one. The smaller vine tore loose from the wall. The next one did, too.

She dropped several feet—and a thicker trunk scraped her fingers. She caught it and jolted to a stop, gasping for air. Rain pattered around her on the leaves.

Shouting came from above her. Director had poked his head out the window and spotted her. “Guards!” he bellowed. “Guards. A freak is loose! On the house wall!”

Heart hammering, she half-swung, half-fell to the ground. A strident alarm blared over and over.

Guards charged out of their quarters in Z Hall and into the rainy dark.

Panting, Darcy dove into the narrow gap between the building’s wall and the four-foot privet hedge. She crouched there, trying to think. Her skin was clammy with fear, her mouth dry.

Have to move. The lava rock mulch around the bushes crunched as she crawled along the side toward the back. She reached the rear and turned the corner. The jagged lava rocks ripped her leggings—then her knees.

Thunder echoed off the stone fence and brick walls as she wiggled into a hollow under a big bush.

What now?

Turn herself in? They’d suspect she’d heard about the GPS devices. But if they killed her while Fell and Patrin were in Russia on that mission, her brothers would break free. The Scythe couldn’t risk that. No, the bastards would take her alive and cage her in the basement where she couldn’t tell anyone about the second tracker.

She stared up at the third floor windows where the other shifters were. They needed to know what she’d discovered. Over her head, window after window came alight. The staff must be checking and securing the rooms.

A guard rounded the corner, and Darcy tried to press herself lower.