Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(64)

Chapter 31





They weren’t going fast enough.

Edith dug and scraped at the back of the squad, her worry growing as the sun arced through the sky. She knew from her years as a fire watcher exactly how fast a blaze would spread in these conditions. As they cut line, she kept a running mental map in her head, comparing their progress to the rate that the fire was advancing.

They weren’t going to make it.

Ironically, the squad was working too hard. They were cutting too wide. And they weren’t pacing themselves properly, either. They were clearing too much. At her position right at the back, behind Wystan, she barely had anything to do, the line already scraped to bare earth by the superhuman efforts of the shifters ahead of her.

Seth and C-squad, following along a few hundred feet behind them, were completely redundant. She was amazed he hadn’t caught up with them yet, or at least sent a runner ahead to demand to know why they weren’t leaving any work for his squad. Then again, it was Seth. He was probably dawdling deliberately, enjoying getting paid for doing nothing.

She’d always had an intuitive grasp of numbers and equations. She modeled variations in her mind like a computer simulation—a line four inches narrower would still hold back the fire, and would let them advance that critical bit faster.

She bit her lip, fighting the urge to say something. People hated being told that they were doing things wrong. It was one of the first social rules she’d learned, painfully.

Rory had to know what he was doing. He was a veteran hotshot. It wasn’t her place to criticize his leadership, even if she was his mate. She was the newest on the squad, a rookie, and only human to boot.

He’d taken lead, as he always did. Normally he handled his chainsaw with ease, but today his cuts were rushed, sloppy. He was trying to do too much at once—watch the sky, judge the line, monitor the fire, check in with Buck on the radio, supervise the squad.

And still, every few minutes, he looked round at her. As though she was his most pressing concern.

It was sweet. And also stupid.

He wasn’t the only one who was distracted. Callum was nowhere near his usual precise self. His head snapped round at every noise. At one point, he’d been so busy staring into the forest, he’d embedded his Pulaski deep into a stump. It had taken three of them to get it free again.

She edged closer to Wystan, who was just ahead of her in the line. He’d fallen a little bit behind the others, battling a stubborn tree root.

“I think you should check on Cal,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m worried he might still have a concussion. He’s not acting himself.”

“He’s fine. Just preoccupied.” Wystan didn’t pause chopping at the root. “Rory has him constantly monitoring the position of every animal bigger than a beetle for a two mile radius.”

“He’s doing what?”

“It’s his special power. Most mythic shifters have one. He’s watching out for our mysterious lightning-throwing friend, and also making sure no surprise bears or hares or anything else decide to make our day even more interesting.”

“Oh. Um.” The way he was bashing at the root was setting her teeth on edge. She had to say something. “Wystan, you want to leave this one to me?”

His Pulaski whistled through the air with inhuman strength, finally cleaving through the gnarled wood. “I can handle it.”

“I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t. But it’ll go faster if we share out the work.”

“I may not have any useful powers, but I’m still a shifter,” Wystan snapped. “I am considerably stronger than you. And don’t stand so close to me.”

His unexpected attack made her blink. It was so out of character for him that she was more startled than hurt.

Before she could come up with a response, he sighed, letting his tool drop. “My sincere apologies, Edith. I’m appallingly cranky. It’s something of a strain for me to be around people who have recently been…” He cleared his throat. “Er, intimate. It’s a unicorn thing.”

“Oh! Like in the legends, where unicorns can only be approached by virgins?”

A blush crept up his pale features. “I’m not that badly affected. My father used to be crippled by migraines in this sort of situation. I just get a bit irritable. Normally I’d manage it better, but I’m not my best self today. I didn’t get much sleep. Joe is not the most restful person with whom to share a cabin.”

Edith glanced over at Joe, who was working with Fenrir to drag cut branches safely away from the fireline. The sea dragon also wasn’t his usual self, going about his tasks without a word of complaint or a single terrible joke. She’d thought he was just focusing on the job, but now she realized his dark skin was ashen with more than just fallout from the wildfire.

“He doesn’t look like he slept well either,” she said.

“Nightmares, I believe. Though about what, I don’t know. Whatever he was yelling was in sea dragon language.” Wystan rubbed his forehead. “I suppose the attack last night has put us all on edge.”

He was right. The whole squad was acting strange. Fenrir was trotting around with his usual alert energy, but his tail was low and wary rather than waving like a flag. The fur on his neck bristled under his harness. And as for Blaise…