Chapter 28 Hospitality

ZOE POV "Holy shit, Rika. Are you sure those coordinates are right?" I ask my partner even as I touch our plane down on the landing strip outside a picturesque mountain lodge. Perched on the peak of one of the Montana Rockies, its log walls feature immense crystalline windows that must offer breathtaking views of the surrounding landscape. Despite its rustic charm, the lodge and its surroundings seem to sparkle in the midmorning sun—no doubt an effect of melting frost. "They d better be. Regional Commander Baryshnikov sent them to me himself," Rika grumbles from behind me, where she s changing the dressing on Sasha s burns. Sasha used a ton of energy on her fight with Svartheron; normally shifting back to her human form from the feline one would have healed most of her injuries, but she barely had the energy to make the shift, once the fight with the dragon was over and a team of support operatives, led by Regional Commander Baryshnikov himself, arrived on the