Hunter's Heart (Alpha Pack #4)(8)
"Are we taking a Huey?" Aric asked, gesturing to the big helicopter.
"Yes," Nick confirmed. "If we find the woman, we'll need to get her back here as fast as possible because she's gravely injured."
Aric frowned. "Why not just let the humans take her in? Ryon said it would take the rescue team too long to mobilize, but considering that they're already out there, wouldn't that make more sense?"
Ryon opened his mouth to protest, but Nick beat him to the punch. "Are you questioning my orders?"
The redhead blinked. "No, sir. Just asking."
"Good. Trust me when I say it has to happen this way."
"Yes, sir," he drawled. "You're the PreCog."
"Smart of you to remember. You'll pilot, take Micah and the medical team with you. There's a sufficient place to land about a mile from where Miss Bradford last made camp. The medical team will hike with us. You and Micah stay with the copter unless you hear different."
Aric didn't look pleased to be left out of the search, but he didn't argue. Maybe he figured he'd pushed Nick enough. "Will do."
The commander handed Aric the coordinates, then addressed the group. "Ryon, Jax, Kalen, A.J., Rowan, Hammer, and I will take the two new Range Rovers. We'll park as close as we can to the landing site and hike to her last camp, then go from there. Any questions?"
After so many years together, they knew the drill. Even the two relative newbies, Kalen, their Sorcerer/panther shifter, and A.J. Stone, a human who'd once been a police officer and was a damned fine sniper, pulled their weight as though they'd been with the Pack forever. They all moved like the proverbial well-oiled machine.
They loaded into the vehicles, Ryon behind the wheel of one of the Rovers. He watched as the blades of the Huey started to whirl, and the roof of the hangar began to slowly slide open to allow it to take off. When it lifted from the ground, the noise was deafening. The sight never failed to awe him. Aric could pilot almost anything with an engine and, being a Telekinetic, plenty of objects that didn't to boot.
After the copter cleared the building and swept away, the roof began to close. Ryon took the lead, driving out of the hangar and onto the private road leading from the compound. They'd have a couple of security gates to pass through, their property being restricted to outsiders, and then they'd take one of the main roads normally used only by park officials. Beside him, Nick punched the campsite's coordinates into the GPS.
The drive took almost half an hour. Too long. Inside him, his wolf paced anxiously, straining to get on with the hunt for the woman. Daria. With difficulty, he shut off the questions churning in his mind because the answers didn't matter right now.
"I wish Zan and Phoenix had been able to come along," Jax said from the back.
Ryon glanced at him in the rearview mirror. "Me, too. It sucks that they're out of commission."
"Yeah. But hopefully they'll be good as new when they get back from their vacations."
Zander Cole was a black wolf, the team's Healer, and also Jax's best friend. Zan was sorely missed as a friend, but more than that, his skills were often crucial in the field when they incurred severe injuries. But Zan had been badly hurt himself a few weeks ago, when the Unseelie king Malik had tried to destroy them all. Kalen had unleashed the full fury of his Sorcerer's power, killing Malik, but Zan sustained a head injury in the blast that had left him deaf and suffering from terrible headaches as a result.
After that horrible nightmare, Nick had granted them all well-earned vacation time and they'd spent the past few weeks rotating out so they weren't all absent at once. Soon, Zan and Phoenix would return and all would get back to normal-whatever normal meant to them.
Using the rangers' service road, Ryon managed to get them all the way to the flat clearing where the Huey rested. Once they'd parked a safe distance from the copter, they unloaded the backs of the Rovers and divided among themselves the packs that contained rescue equipment such as harnesses, ropes, pulleys, and a carrying basket for the injured party. There was a bunch of other stuff they might not need, but it was best to be prepared.
He saw Mac, Melina, and Noah jump from the copter and shoulder their backpacks filled with first-aid supplies. The trio joined them and waited for Nick's instructions.
"We'll stay together until we reach Miss Bradford's last camp. Then we'll fan out and do a sweep in the direction of her next site. She told Ryon she was pushed into a ravine, which means she went off the trail at some point. Stay sharp. You all know what signs to look for." He paused. "And one other thing-be alert for whoever, or whatever, attacked the victim. We don't want any more nasty surprises. Christ knows we've had enough of those," he muttered, gesturing for them to move out.
Ryon couldn't agree more. All of his senses were wide open as they walked, scanning the area for anything that didn't belong. Especially the damned ghosts, who never left him alone and yet were strangely absent today. Could be that no one had died in this area in the past few years, if ever, but that typically didn't make a difference. Spirits were drawn to him and would travel from far and wide to try to communicate with him.
He should be glad they were making themselves scarce, but he wasn't. There was a weird vibe in the air. A disturbance in the atmosphere that he couldn't pinpoint. It was a tangible feeling, not simply an intuition that something was wrong. He and Nick were in the lead, so he halted in his tracks and turned to the others. They stopped and waited in question.