Free Amber Flame (The Flame Series Book 4) by Caris Roane Page B

tanks, mortars and grenades. There’s one stretch of well-kept suburbia, then next to it a hundred feet of torn up cement and asphalt with weeds growing through.
    I think you’ve described it exactly.
    He shifted direction slightly, easing more west than south. They’d soon reach Blackwater Bridge, one of the five main, tri-part bridges in their province, connecting the human part of Phoenix with both Revel Territory and Savage. Even at a distance of two miles, she could see the well-lit bridge and the searchlights indicating the border between the U.S. and Five Bridges.
    I love the view from here.
    Levitating is great, Fergus said. And I’m wondering if that’s something you’ll be able to do soon. Juliet can. She gained the ability when she’d been working with Brannick to get you out of Roche’s operation.
    Mary wondered the same thing. She and I had a discussion about it. Nothing had shocked Juliet more than finding out she could take to the air.
    Two juxtaposed emotions ran through Mary at the same time. The first was a desire to fly just like Fergus. But the other, which seemed more profound, was knowing what she’d lose by not being wrapped up in his arms.
    It was probably in this moment, more than at any other time in the past twenty-four hours, that she realized she was in trouble with Fergus. She felt a deep affection for the wolf and an accompanying desire to stick close to him despite the fact that he was an alter wolf living in a horribly violent territory.
    She didn’t respond to Fergus’s observation about the potential for flight. Instead, she gestured with her free hand to the southwest. I can see the tree-line of the Savage pine forest. The Gordion Compound is located the opposite direction, though, isn’t it?
    Yes, near the eastern edge. Like your home, some of my pack residences border the Graveyard. Though we’re not quite south enough to be close to Elegance Territory. Another pack rides the spellcaster border.
    She sensed the sudden tension in him. She knew why. Wolves really didn’t get along with witches or warlocks. The enmity ran deep.
    Early on in Five Bridges’s history, there’d been a series of wars between the two species that ended with mass casualties on both sides. These frequent, bloody conflicts had caused the U.S. Government to separate all five territories from each other with ditches and barbed wire. Some estimated the amount of wire used could stretch across the United States and back. She thought it was an exaggeration, though maybe not, because the province looked in many places like something from World War II newsreel footage.
    She knew they were heading to the portion of Savage allotted to the Caldion Pack, led by Warren. The only thing she knew about his compound, however, was that he’d built in the densest part of the pine forest. Half his pack lived in cottages around the compound but with underground living spaces called dens. The other half resided in the compound itself in dozens of apartments, also belowground level. The Gordion Pack’s compound had a similar set-up.
    In more recent years, Savage Territory had become a quieter part of Five Bridges. But she’d learned enough of the history of the province to know that early howling issues had created enormous tensions between Savage and the rest of the territories.
    Wolves howled.
    They yipped, growled, barked and made all kinds of resonant grunting sounds. The noise just dozens of wolves could make together was overwhelming. But thousands residing in Savage had create a cacophony that had incited more than one inter-species war.
    Mary had viewed several videos online featuring a multitude of howling wolves. She wasn’t surprised that the noise level had driven other alter species into a battling frenzy.
    Now Savage was quiet. Time and a lot of rules had established when, how and where wolves could let loose, mostly, underground.
    She experienced a sudden sinking of her spirit. She recalled what it had