Jonas remained silent. Camellia was confident she would receive help from the plants. They were her army. She had talked about weapons she’d developed. He should have asked more questions. He’d been thrown by the idea of floras as intelligent beings capable of protecting themselves. He hadn’t conceived that a plant might be just as capable of feeling emotions such as rage at betrayal or feeling loyalty, which Red clearly had in abundance for Camellia.
Camellia leaned her body into his, lifting her face toward him. He didn’t hesitate. Jonas took her mouth, his tongue tasting hers and then pushing deep, looking for the fire between them. It rose fast and hot, a scorching burn that refused to smolder but leapt into flames immediately. Both let go of the branch they held and wrapped their arms around each other. Jonas pulled her in tight against his body while he kissed her.
She fit so easily with him. He inhaled, drawing her into his lungs as he lifted his head. He found it so interesting that the majority of the time, it was impossible to catch her scent, especially since he had such an acute sense of smell. She sometimes exuded a subtle fragrance, but not when she was about to go into the field. When it was time for battle, her scent completely disappeared, just like now.
I can’t find your scent at all. Is that Red protecting you?
She nodded slowly, her blue eyes looking up at him. That’s one of the many things that help us disappear. You can’t be tracked through scent either. Haven’t you noticed?
He had been told by his team that even those with acute senses of smell couldn’t detect him at times. Yeah, he’d wondered, but he certainly hadn’t suspected a plant protecting him.
The four of them left the garden together. As they did, Jonas made certain to remove all traces that might lead Abrams’s scouts to Camellia’s garden. As he did so, grass and dirt pushed up behind where they walked. Little tendrils of fog began to rise along the trail and snake among the trees.
A wolf howled, this one sounding a little closer than before. Somewhere in the distance, another answered the call and then a third. A good minute passed. A fourth howled. Once they got on the main trail, Camellia and the three GhostWalkers began to run in single file, Jonas in front, Jeff bringing up the rear. The four waited nearly five minutes as they ran just in case the sentries had more information to deliver.
You’ll want to let Logan’s men know that there are four scouts heading their way. Three coming together although spread out. The fourth is hanging back, Camellia reported to the others. They’re running. We’re running. They’re about an hour from us.
That puts them about two hours from Logan’s men, Jeff calculated.
Jonas was well aware they only had an hour before they would be sneaking past the enemy scouts. He tried not to notice that the fog was nowhere near what it needed to be. Darkness had fallen, but there was enough of a moon to reveal any tracks on the ground to an enhanced scout. It was only a matter of time before they could see things the teams didn’t want them seeing. Jonas wasn’t worried for Kyle, Jeff, Camellia or himself, but he didn’t know the capabilities of the two men Team Two had sent to keep the enemy’s forward scouts from reaching the compound.
He had met the two men, of course. Antonio Martinez was a man who tended to stay in the shadows, much like Jonas did. You rarely noticed him, if ever. No one spoke of him or drew attention to him.
Wait. Who? Camellia’s voice was pure accusation. Her running faltered and she stepped off the trail, halting, both hands on her thighs, head down. Antonio Martinez?
The moment she stopped moving, they all froze. Jonas couldn’t help the flash of hurt at her first feeling of betrayal. He stopped himself from reacting. Of course her mind would go there first. Antonio had been a guard at one of the laboratories she had been imprisoned in. He’d been there with Kane Cannon, a member of Team Three. Both men had been assigned when Whitney was still in good standing with a number of power brokers in Washington.
“You know him?” Kyle asked.
“He was a guard at one of the facilities where I was a prisoner.” Camellia kept her head down as if she were trying to catch her breath from running.
Jonas knew she wasn’t having any trouble breathing. She was clearing her mind, pushing aside the first conclusion her brain had instinctively jumped to, which was that Jonas had betrayed her and was possibly selling her out to Whitney or to the government. She knew him. Believed in him. She was in his mind. Jonas kept his mouth shut and his thoughts ruthlessly corralled. He had to let her work it out, even if the time it took her to do it felt slow to him. She struggled with trust. He couldn’t blame her for that.