Psy & Changelings 11 - Tangle of Need

your intel?”
    “High.” No hesitation.
    “I’ll call you back.”
    “Trust me, Riaz. You want to hear what I have to say.” Bowen signed off with those portentous words.
    Waiting until the screen was clear, Adria said, “Why didn’t you confirm a trip?” He was right about the timing, but it was doable, wouldn’t affect the strength of their defenses.
    “If he’s on the mark about the comm being monitored,” Riaz said, blue-blackstrands of hair falling across his forehead, “it’s no use tipping off any listeners to the fact we’ll be in the area.”
    Her pulse spiked. “We?”
    “I’m going to need backup.” Riaz saw Adria’s eyes widen. “Situation like this, I’d usually ask my man already in the area, but he’s got something else on his plate, and you speak fluent Italian.” He knew it was the right decision, that her linguistic skill and status as an experienced soldier made her the perfect choice. He also knew he was treading a dangerous line.
    But Adria, when she rose to her feet, showed no indications of having read more into his suggestion than he meant. “How do you know that? The fact I speak Italian?”
    “It’s my job,” he said. “I keep track of anyone in the pack who has a skill that might come in useful internationally.” Adria’s CV had passed across his desk when she transferred. “What I can’t understand is why you chose to learn Italian when Spanish would’ve been more useful in the region.”
    She didn’t answer, her next words telling him her mind was on something else altogether. “I don’t want to disrupt things so early on with my trainees.”
    “It should only be a day or two.” He knew how heavily the juveniles relied on their assigned supervisors.
    A slow nod. “That’s manageable. I was planning to ask Riley to put me on a high-perimeter shift anyway.” Catching his questioning look, she said, “They might be submissives, but constant oversight isn’t good for any wolf’s development.”
    “We’ll leave early morning tomorrow,” he said, wondering how a tough senior soldier understood SnowDancer’s submissives so well. “That give you enough time to organize cover for your duties?”
    “No problem.” Then to his surprise, she did a funny little dance around her chair, singing, “I’m going to Venice. I’m going to Venice.”
    It startled laughter out of him, his wolf standing up in fascination at the unexpected and sweetly charming crack in Adria’s sober facade. “If you’re really good,” he said when she stopped dancing to grin at him, “I’ll take you on a gondola ride through the canals.” Delight, bright and dangerous, cascaded through his veins.

Chapter 37
    HAVING COMPLETED HIS research, Vasquez located the first three addresses fast enough, but it took hours of hacking through Net firewalls to unearth the second three, and four days to complete the list. Psychically exhausted, he considered sending the one he served an e-mail with the update, but they had agreed on electronic and psychic silence.
Nothing
of their plan was going to leak and jeopardize everything they had set so meticulously in place.
    Conscious that tiredness could lead to mistakes, Vasquez slept long enough to become functional, then made his way to the compound hidden deep in a rural sector of Ireland. “I have the coordinates and necessary images of the first set of targets.”
    “When can we move?” The voice was a rasp, a broken saw, issuing from a throat that had suffered second-degree burns when Henry Scott screamed as his legs were turned to ash, one of his arms sliced below the elbow by a whip of cold fire.
    The medics had been working to repair the damage, but it was severe. Sienna Lauren’s X-fire had cauterized the wounds, so they’d needed to be cut open vein by vein to allow for the regeneration aids to work. However, the worst damage had been done when a Pure Psy operative shoved his body over Henry’s in an effort to protect him. That operative’s weapon had melted into the former Councilor’s flesh.
    It was proving near impossible to excise the plas from his body, some of it appearing to have integrated into his organs. As a result, Henry remained hooked up to multiple devices, his body supine on a hospitalbed inside a large chamber of sterile glass, his ruined voice issuing via a speaker. However, the fire had done nothing to his mind, and they were Psy. The mind was all that mattered.
    “Are we in a position to