“Oh, there’s plenty of that, too.” He swiped a hand across a sensor, and the doors rose. “Your carriage awaits.”
“Shame my prince doesn’t,” I muttered. Not that there were any real princes left these days, as the royal family had been decimated in the earliest years of the war. I slung my rifles and backpack onto the rear seat, then climbed in.
He raised an eyebrow as he got in beside me and closed the doors. “You do not look the type to be searching for a prince.”
“I’m not. It was just a random comment.” I did, however, love stories about them, both real and fictional. I might not have had anyone read me such things growing up, but in the years since the war I’d had enough time to read whatever I liked—and I certainly hadn’t just read technical manuals. I added, “What did you do to my follower?”
“Nothing. She’d disappeared by the time I got down there.” He started up the ATV and the big engine’s roar shattered the silence.
“Yeah,” I commented, voice dry. “We’re really going to be unnoticed in this thing.”
He flashed me an all-too-quick smile as he typed our destination into the GPS, then switched to autopilot mode. “Once we near the Broken Mountains, I’ll throw her into stealth mode. At the moment it doesn’t really matter.”
I guess. I waited until the ATV had cleared the trees and reached the main artery away from Central, then said, “Did you try to track her?”
He nodded. “Her scent led to the market, but I lost it in the myriad of other smells.”
Which had no doubt been intentional. I had no idea who this woman might be, but if she now shared Sal’s DNA and some of his memories, she’d have an idea of how to lose any possible tail.
I was silent for a few minutes, watching the roadside gradually become a blur as the ATV picked up speed, then twisted in the seat and studied Jonas. “How did you and Nuri meet?”
He crossed his arms, his expression enigmatic. “Why?”
“Because you just seem an odd combination.”
“That’s true enough.” He shrugged. “We were thrown together by circumstances beyond our control.”
“When?”
“More than a few years ago.” He glanced at me. “If you’re going to ply me with questions, expect the same in return.”
“You and Nuri have done nothing but question me,” I replied evenly. “And you certainly don’t believe me.”
“That’s because you’re not telling the truth.”
“Says who?”
Another of those cool smiles touched his lips. “Nuri.”
Her seeker skills were a whole lot sharper than mine if she was pulling that sort of information from me without intimacy. “It’s rather unusual for a human witch and a shifter to be capable of linking telepathically, isn’t it?”
“It is, but Nuri is an unusual woman.”
That certainly wasn’t a statement I could argue with. “I have a suspicion the same could be said of you, ranger.”
He shrugged and didn’t answer. No surprise there.
“Are you lovers?”
He blinked, then laughed, the sound short, sharp, containing little in the way of humor. “No, we are not.”
“But you’re obviously close.”
“That we are.”
I was beginning to think it’d be easier to get water from a stone than information from this man. “And the others?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What about them?”