On the Edge (The Edge #1)(68)
Author: Ilona Andrews

A light sparked in his eyes. "I’ll have to postpone my dying then."

"You do that," she told him. "I don’t know what will become of this thing between you and me, but no brainsick blueblood crackpot is going to take away my chance to find out."

"Have you made up your mind, then?" he asked.

"About what? About surrendering to your manly charms?"

"Yes."

"Not yet," she said. "I’m still thinking about it."

"Is there anything I can do to persuade you?" He leaned forward, a dangerously focused expression on his face. His green eyes turned warm and wicked, and she froze, snared in his stare.

"I can’t think of anything," she murmured.

He was close, entirely too close, only a couple of inches away. She saw his lips, curving in a sly smile, a network of thin scars by his left eye, his long eyelashes . . .

"Are you sure, Miss Drayton?" he asked, his voice low and husky.

"I’m sure," she whispered, and then he closed the distance between them.

His hand cupped the back of her head, and he kissed her. She opened her mouth, tasted iced tea and Declan. He smelled of sweat, mixed with light sandalwood musk and sun-kissed skin. She would recognize his scent anywhere, just as she would recognize the strength in the arms around her. He held her as if daring the world to come over and make an issue of it. She let herself sink into that embrace, sliding her hands up the hard muscles of his chest to his neck and to his short hair. He pulled her closer, kissing harder, hungrier, and she licked the inside of his mouth and molded herself to him. Declan growled, a very male possessive sound that sent a thrill from her neck down her spine.

The floor behind them creaked. They broke apart a fraction of a second before the door swung open. Rose stared straight ahead, trying to catch her breath.

"Well, it took some doing, but they decided to help you," Grandma’s voice said behind her. "We have a plan, or some semblance of one. Tom’s coming out to explain it to you. He’s all excited at playing soldier again. What exactly happened to the two of you? You look like you got into my pantry and ate all of my jam."

"We’re fine," Rose managed, stealing a glance at Declan. He looked halfway between shell-shocked and frustrated.

"All right then." ElEonore’s tone plainly said she wasn’t sure what they were selling, but she sure as hell wasn’t buying it. She lingered for another long breath, shook her head, and went inside.

"We need a barn," Declan said.

"What?"

"A barn," he said, with the gravity of a commander planning an attack. "We need a barn or one of those storage areas for the Broken vehicles."

"A garage?"

He gave her a short nod. "A private, relatively remote location, with thick walls to dampen the sound and preferably a sturdy door I could bolt from the inside, keeping your grandmother, your brothers, and all other painfully annoying spectators out . . ."

Rose began to laugh. A make-out bunker . . .

"I’m glad you find our dilemma hilarious," he said dryly.

Tom Buckwell emerged onto the porch then and squeezed his giant body between the two of them. "Here’s the deal. Attacking Casshorn head-on is straight out, because he’s got too many hounds with him, right?"

"Right," Rose said.

"To get to Casshorn, you need to nuke the hounds. To nuke the hounds, you have to separate them from Casshorn or attack him at his lair. This is what guys in the Broken call a catch-22. Here’s how I’m going to make your day . . . you do have ranks in the Weird, don’t you?"

"We do," Declan said.

"What was yours?"

"Legionnaire First Class."

"What is that? Is that like an officer?"

"No," Declan said.

"An NCO, then." Tom grinned. "I was a Staff Sergeant myself. Suppose I call you ‘Sergeant,’ would you go with that?"

"That will be fine," Declan said.

"Good then, Sahgent."

Rose rolled her eyes. Funny how "sergeant" became "sahgent" all of a sudden, and Tom had morphed from a surly bear into Declan’s best buddy, all smiles and camaraderie. It was a classic Edge tactic. She’d seen it employed with outsiders before. The six elders didn’t know Declan, they had no way of verifying the information he’d given them, and they were afraid of him. So Tom Buckwell had chosen to play a "friend," hoping to establish common ground, get into Declan’s confidence, and stab him in the back if necessary. With some men, it might have worked, but Declan had good instincts and Buckwell was laying the none-too-bright we’re-all-just-army-buddies on too thick.

"Casshorn might be a goner, but he was human to begin with, so he’s still vulnerable there. We build a trap, and the elders will curse his arse into sleep. No matter how inhuman he is, the six of us aren’t without skill. We’ll hold him at least for a few hours. Meanwhile you and Rose here lead the hounds into the trap, kill them off, and then go after Casshorn. Good plan, yeah?"

"Great plan," Declan said. "What kind of a trap?"

"Haven’t thought that far yet," Tom said.

"How are you going to curse him?" Rose asked. Sleep would be the obvious choice: unlike pain curses, it was subtle. Casshorn wouldn’t even know anything was wrong. He’d simply get tired and fall asleep. "To cast sleep, we need a thing of his. Hair. Piece of clothing."

"Haven’t thought that far yet," Tom said.

Some plan. Rose sighed. Over half a millennium of experience between the six of them, and this was what they came up with.

"Trap first," Declan said. "Without the trap, we have no plan. Bullets don’t work against the hounds. They go straight through their bodies. Dismemberment works. Flash does, too, but we have only two flashers. Fire, but they know to steer clear of it."

"So it has to be something subtle. Can we poison them?" Tom asked.

Declan shook his head. "I doubt it. I know that the first time it was found, they had tried hemlock and arsenic on hounds with no result. Ideally, we need a slow-acting trap, something that would kill them slowly or in a gradual fashion so as not to alarm Casshorn out of his sleep."

"Like drowning?" Tom asked. "Lure the hounds out into a lake and drown them one by one?"

"Possibly. Unfortunately, they can hold their breath for a long time, and they’re good swimmers."

Silence fell. Leanne wandered over and came to sit in a rocking chair.

"Too bad we couldn’t electrocute the hound like that troll," Declan said.