Page 52 of Renegade Kings

“Sorry to interrupt.” Ryder all but laughed, clearly proving that he was anything but. “We started without you. I hope that’s okay.”

Dean grumbled something about him wanting to start something else, and I sniggered at his growing annoyance. He gave me a look that clearly said I was going to pay for it later, and I kissed the end of his nose. “I look forward to it,” I whispered so only he would hear.

The crooked smile on his face said he knew exactly what I was talking about.

Damn, bonding with this many alphas might not have been the best idea. But call me cursed if you wanted to. This girl was going to die with a smile on her face, at least.

“We’re here now. No need to get your knickers in a twist, Rhidian,” I quipped as I slipped between my mates, much to their annoyance.

I could see the confusion on Rhidian’s face and it just made me smile even more. Maybe if we decided we could actually trust Rhidian, I could have some fun confusing him with human sayings. A girl had to find her fun wherever she could in a place like this and I couldn’t be confined to the bedroom and random hallway walls all the time.

“Shall we see what you’ve got going on, then?” I asked.

Rhidian scowled at me again and then turned back to his usual self in a way that only made him seem suspicious, judging by the grumbles coming from behind me. This was how he’d always been, though, shrugging off whatever was bothering him in a moment. If anything, it was the first glimpse I’d had of the Rhidian I’d known so long ago.

“Currently, we have training limited to groups of twenty. I’ve cut us down to ten this morning to give us some more room until we can assess what level you’re at. Overall, we have nearly two hundred fighters that are training on a rotation basis because we’re severely limited on space. We were kind of hoping when you arrived that you might be able to solve that problem.”

Rhidian had clearly been thinking about his sales patter for a while and continued to chatter on about the resources they’d collected and what supply routes they’d been able to secure.

All I could concentrate on was two hundred.

In fact, it wasn’t even two hundred, he’d said nearly.

It wasn’t enough.

There was no way it would ever be enough, not for what Rhidian had planned.

As we came to a stop at the edge of the fighting rings, which were currently in use, it became apparent that I wasn’t the only one thinking about it.

“Just to be clear, you’re intending on going up against Arik’s army and The Endless with less than two hundred fighters?” Maddox asked.

I could tell he was trying to keep the shock out of his voice, unfortunately he failed.

Rhidian’s spine steeled as he turned to look at us and I could see the telltale clench of his jaw that showed how much the question had pissed him off, even if he wasn’t planning on showing it.

“I know you’ve been here fighting this fight for longer than we have,” I started, trying to diffuse the situation before we got sidetracked from what we were here to do. “But with a force this small, a full frontal attack like you’re talking about would be suicide.”

Okay, maybe I wasn’t good at the whole diffusing tense situations thing. Definitely not going to rock the whole political side of this queen business if we lived through this.

“Let me rephrase that,” I blurted out as I could see Rhidian winding up for either a lecture or a tantrum. I couldn’t really tell. “We need to start thinking small-scale guerrilla tactics here.”

Rhidian looked confused again, but then Maddox and Ryder ducked into the conversation.

“You could actually be on to something there,” Ryder confirmed. “You have spies keeping watch on Arik’s movements, so you must know his supply routes, patrol movements, things like that.”

“Right,” Maddox interrupted excitedly. “If we could organise a series of precision strikes targeted at disrupting his forces and drawing their attention to multiple locations, theoretically, a smaller force could slip through his lines and do some actual damage at a strategic location while they’re distracted. It would lower our risk and increase our chances of success.”

“It won’t work more than a few times at most,” Dean added. “We’d need to make sure we struck them where it hurt enough to weaken his forces to the greatest degree, increase our chances of overall success enough for one final strike at his collective force.”

The guys were seeing a path forward and from how Rhidian was nodding in agreement, I could tell they were about to do some kind of collective male war bonding.

Not wanting to really get into all the bro time, I drifted off to the side. The fighters on the sands were still training, and I was interested in seeing what they had. I was happy to see that while Rhidian might have been overly optimistic in terms of his numbers; he wasn’t in his confidence in his fighters. They had skills.

“They have heart,” Fizzle said from beside me.

And now it was time for me to do something, too.

“They’ll need it for what they’re going up against.”