Replica(60)

“And you think I can’t get close without being caught? That I’m too much of a dumb mutt to manage even this small task?” he snapped at me, a low growl following his words.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Rachel suck in a sharp breath. “So I make nice with dickhead here, and you go and piss off the werewolf?”

Ivan spun and was gone in a spray of sand and snarls.

“You can’t just let him go like that.” Rachel grabbed my arm, but I shrugged her off.

“I can’t stop him, Rachel. As you pointed out, he’s a werewolf. The fact that he’s played nice for this long is a fucking miracle.”

Her blue eyes narrowed. “Because he’s got it bad for you. What the hell did you say to him?”

Antonio laughed softly and we turned to him in unison. “We’re thinking about breaking into a facility filled with monsters that could tear us apart in a matter of seconds and you’re worried about the love life of a werewolf and a vampire?”

Rachel snarled as if she were a wolf herself. “Ivan is more a part of this team than you are, and if he gets killed, we are down a man.”

“He’s doing it on purpose, Rachel. Some boys only know how to seek attention by hurting the one they desire.” I pulled her back until she stood beside me. “He’ll figure out how stupid that is one day, but by then, we’ll be gone from his life and he’ll have lost his chance.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him, wondering if he got the double meaning. Not only his chance at Rachel, but his shot at taking my heart.

His dark eyes glittered in the dusky light and his chest rose and fell as he struggled to collect himself. “How long do we wait for the dog—wolf—to come back?”

Trainable. That was a good thing if he could keep it up, but I doubted this was anything more than a bid to keep Rachel and me happy.

“We give him an hour,” I said, my eyes drifting in the direction Ivan had gone as I sniffed his scent on the breeze. “Then I will go after him.”

“Now, wait a minute—” Rachel spluttered.

I held up a hand. “I will not go into the facility without you. If Ivan is retrievable, I will bring him back. If he’s been taken, I won’t go after him. Either way, I will come back for you.”

And so the waiting began.

Antonio went through the boxes in the back of the truck systematically, laying the weapons out, side by side. I knew the exact moment he found the box of silver stakes.

A long, low chuckle rumbled from him. “Rachel, I like your style more and more.” He held up two stakes, tucked one into the back of his pants and swirled the other around in a circle on his palm.

Rachel looked up from where she sat, surprise in her eyes. “I didn’t ask Baran for those.”

Well, damn.

“Then who put them in there?” Antonio asked the question before I could.

My eyes shot to Rachel’s. “There is only one person it could be, and he’s been leading you on from the beginning.”

“Hades.” She breathed his name. “But that means he knows we’re already in Iraq...oh fuck. Ivan.”

I pointed at her. “I won’t be long.” I glanced at Antonio. “If I don’t come back—”

“In this we are in agreement, vampire. Rachel comes first.” When our eyes met, he nodded, and Rachel let out a pissed-off squawk not unlike that of a cat I’d seen dunked into a pond once.

“You two fuckers can’t just order me around. I’m coming with you, Lea. I’ll follow you if you make me.”

I paused, thinking about how much more dangerous that would be for her. Because I didn’t doubt her—she’d find a way around the Cazador to come after me. “You’re right, you have a stake in this. So let’s make our lives count for something.”

I strode to the back of the truck and opened one of the last boxes of weaponry. I stuffed several of the explosives into a bag I slung over my shoulder, then took a good length of rope and looped it around my waist. Back in the bunker in New York, there had been more than one moment when a bit of rope would have come in handy.

“If it goes badly, you’ll know. I’ll make a big bang to draw them to the far side of the facility. That will allow you time to get in, set the rest of the explosives and get out. Do you understand? We can’t do this together, not if we all want a chance to survive. If it’s quiet, that means I’m coming back to you and we can try another route in.”

I already knew it wouldn’t go easy. Hades knew we were here, and it didn’t look like he was on our side. At least not in the way he’d led us to believe.