It was pitch black now and he needed to stop for the night, because he ran the risk of missing their tracks now that he'd lost the light.The stink of fresh blood, however, was too obvious to ignore. That was the stink of fuck-up and failure, which meant he was going to be stopping for a little Q&A. And, of course, the bodies belonged to the first team of rogues he'd sent after Ria Morgan. If he'd gone with them in the first place, would the outcome have been different? Or would he be dead, too, his blood polka-dotting the clearing when his head parted company with his body? He wanted to believe he'd still be doing the inhale-exhale, but he hadn't achieved his current rank by closing his eyes to the truth, either.While he'd stayed behind to secure the crash site and wipe it clean—because the Fallen weren't getting that free investigative pass when they sent in their own team—someone had got the jump on him. Fuck. Calling his rogues a team was stretching it—his fighters would happily disembowel each other to keep the wings Hazor had bestowed on them—but the numbers still should have meant something.
