my mind. I haven’t seen much of that smile in the last forty hours. A part of me wants to seize it and shove it in the pockets of my soul so I can pull it out whenever I need it and Knox isn’t feeling obliged to send a new one my way. Aydin pushes his chair back from the table and stands up, his eyes jumping to each of us briefly.
I don’t know what it is about Silva and this entire situation that has me feeling leery, but I can’t shake the feeling. I didn’t miss that he never answered my question about how he and Lachlan and Keegan ended up here, and I decide to see if I can find some answers for myself as soon as Silva, Aydin and Evrin leave. I debate for a moment about including the others in my hunt for clues, but with all the tension and bickering still going on, I decide it will just be easier if I check things out on my own first.
“If we need anything, we’ll call. If shit goes down, I’ll send a sign. If neither of those things happen, then we’ll see you soon.” Aydin laughs, and it’s joined by a couple chuckles here and there, but I’m not in a laughing mood. I don’t think that doing the very thing that got Lachlan and Keegan caught by the lamia is exactly the soundest of plans, but I doubt Silva would listen to anything I have to say about that. I keep my reservations to myself and my mouth shut as Evrin and Silva join Aydin in standing up. They all say a brief goodbye and then stalk out of the room.
I turn to Sabin and trace my finger over one of the trees tattooed on his arm to get his attention. His forest-green eyes meet mine, and his plump lips offer me a sweet smile.
“When everyone’s done eating, we need to continue training. I’ll meet you back there, but will you run them through the same exercises we were doing earlier?” I ask.
“Of course. You okay?” he queries, and I nod and give him a demure smile before pushing away from the table. A few of the guys watch me leave, but no one says anything, which I’m grateful for. It means I can save my diarrhea cover story for some other time. I sneak through the main house and out the back door with no one the wiser. I check out the back of the house to make sure no one is watching me, but the windows are empty, and the faint sound of the guys talking is still coming from the direction of the dining room.
I slink away from the white stucco walls, out toward the trees, moving in the direction of the roof that I saw earlier when Aydin pointed it out. It’s dark out again. Apparently, Belarus gets very little daylight in the fall and winter, and we’ve passed the three-hour window where the sun comes out just long enough to remind us of its existence before it flips us the bird and disappears once more. There are enough flood lights on the back of the property and around the house that training in the dark isn’t a problem, but as I move further into the trees, I become more aware of how foreign everything around me is. There’s an ominous feel to the forest here, and I don’t know if the trees themselves are radiating that or if it’s my mind and my suspicions getting the better of me.
The faintest sound of fabric scraping against wood reaches me in the dark, and I freeze. I call on the runes on the helix of my ear and focus past the sound of my own pounding pulse. I scan my surroundings, my knees bent and my body ready for anything that may come my way. But after what feels like forever just standing and listening, I don’t see or sense anything out there that poses any threat. I put one foot in front of the other again, and before I know it, I’m walking into a cleared area where an old barn stands.
I feel a magical barrier a few feet away, and I call my Defensive magic forward. I close my eyes, and when I open them, it’s with a sheen of magic filtering my view. A coral-colored dome protects the grumpy looking barn. I think back to everything that Becket and