Without questioning, Riva follows me into the grove. Leaves rustle under our feet. The faint beams of dawn light seeping through the branches catch on her silvery hair.
I don’t want to do this where the other guys could see if they got up. They’d probably interrupt.
When the tree trunks block clear view of the shed and car, I stop and turn to fully face her. She stands stiff and ready, her chin raised.
Even that annoys me.
I let my gaze trail over her body with a detached expression. “It’s possible you led the guardians to us without even knowing.”
Riva knits her brow. “What do you mean?”
“There could be another tracker on you that we didn’t find.”
“But Zian scanned me—he would have—”
I shake my head. “Zian can onlysee. They could have implanted a device that would blend in with whatever it’s up against. But I can test you with my power, make sure nothing moves that shouldn’t or in ways it shouldn’t.”
It’s unlikely she has any kind of tracker on her, really. It wouldn’t have taken the guardians a week to find us on that campus if they’d had a signal pointing straight to us.
But it isn’t impossible. It could have been something that needed specific circumstances to activate.
It could be somethingsheneeded to activate and couldn’t right away. So even making the request is a test in itself.
Riva simply shrugs with no sign of concern. “Then you should definitely check. If there’s anything like that in me, I want it out right away.”
I fix her with a hard gaze so she knows I mean what I’m saying. “It’s going to hurt. Your joints and veins aren’t going to like me prodding them.”
Her jaw clenches slightly as if she’s bracing herself. “That’s fine.”
So fucking stoic. Part of me wants toadmireher response the way I used to get a rush of elation watching her race through a brutal training course, throwing herself over every obstacle, and then circling back to help Dominic or Griffin if they needed it.
The rest of me wants to strangle that first part.
“Good,” I say. “We’ll start at the bottom.”
I aim my attention at her feet, encased in the black sneakers we picked out for her. Reaching out with the force of my talent, I can trace the lines of bone and sinew, tendons and cartilage, all through those delicate appendages.
Then I start to twist them.
A little here and a little there. Nudging and tweaking every surface and strand of flesh. Watching for something that feels a little too hard or that shifts amid the rest in a way no part of the human body is supposed to.
Riva’s breath gives a slight hitch. That’s the only sign she reveals of her discomfort.
So far.
I work my way up, from her ankles to her calves to her knees. Her legs tremble, and I glance up at her face just for a second, taking in the flat line of her mouth with a jolt of satisfaction.
Griffin must have suffered so much—the agony when he realized she’d betrayed him, the blast of the gunshots ripping through him. She’s still only gotten a small taste of payback, but it’s a start.
“You could sit down if you want,” I say.
She squares her shoulders. “No. I can handle it.”
“If you insist.”
I continue my upward journey, clamping down on the flush of heat that ripples through me around her groin. I can’t ignore it, because if the guardians were going to trick us, that’s exactly the sort of tactic they’d use, but I move over it quickly and efficiently, no lingering.
This won’t be a very good test if it compromisesmetoo.