by Ellie J Duck
While I scarf down the food, Greg turns back to Tobias and warns him quietly; “This better not happen again!”
Chapter Seven
Iwake up in my bed alone and unsure of how I got here, what day it is, and how long I’ve been out. I suspect from the stiffness in my limbs and the fact that my stomach is gurgling with hunger that it’s been a little longer than a short nap. Rolling out of it I glance down at myself and see that I’m in the clothes I wore to bed the night the team all intruded on me and kept me awake into the early hours of the morning watching movies after my fight with Tara.
I also notice when I bring the fabric to my nose that it smells positively foul, no doubt thanks to the long hours I spent on the treadmill. Stripping quickly, I head for my shower, grateful for the feel of the scalding water sliding down my back and bringing me to full consciousness despite the lack of caffeine currently in my system. Leaning my forehead against the shower wall and reveling in the feel of the cool tiles, I try very hard to think about how I got to bed and what day it might be. I suspect it’s not the same day as the morning I ran so far on the treadmill.
When I’m done in the shower, I dress in a dark grey v-cut t-shirt and cargo pants and leave my room, pulling my long blonde hair up into a high ponytail as I exit my bedroom and make a beeline for the coffee pot in the kitchen. No sound comes from anywhere in the house and a glance out the window tells me it is late afternoon. Frowning, I glance at the watch on my arm, seeing that’s it’s almost 1800 hours. Where is everyone?
Normally by now the team would be finishing their afternoon training session and traipsing into the kitchen looking for dinner. At least, that’s what I picked up in the two nights I spent here. Tonight, however, they’re nowhere to be seen. When the coffee is brewed I pour myself a cup before I go searching for anyone. The training room, gym, coms room and their bedrooms are all empty.
Frowning now in concern, I search harder, in the places they are less likely to be and eventually I stumble upon Greg inside a basement storeroom, which I assume must be a cache for all the cases they’ve done as a team.
“I wondered when you’d wake up,” he says with a smile of greeting when he spots me.
“How long was I out?” I ask, concerned now.
“You’ve been asleep for almost seventy-two hours,” he tells me, putting down the file he was reading and getting to his feet.
“Shoot,” I curse, “I don’t even remember going to bed.”
“That would be because you didn’t put yourself to bed. Brody cooked you breakfast, and you scarfed it down like you were starving before you literally dropped into what I feared was a coma, right there on the kitchen counter. Mitch had to catch you before you could slump to the floor. He carried you to bed and you’ve been out since.”
“What’d I miss?” I ask, “Where is everyone?”
“You missed a hunt. We got a report over the coms that there was another vampire attack in town. Seven dead this time, and one that we suspect was taken and turned,” Greg tells me. “We only managed to catch up with one of the vamps, but even Mitch couldn’t torture the information as to the whereabouts of the coven’s hideout from the wretched vamp before we expired him.”
“You could’ve woken me,” I grumble, crossing my arms in annoyance to know I’d missed out on a hunt.
“We tried. You were like the dead. Nothing woke you, so we left you here and went after the vampires. It was best that you stayed anyway, as Tara heard one of them cursing about not being able to lure you away from us before it teleported away from the scene. Besides, you needed the rest. You slept hard, Cane,” Summers says, leading me back through the base to the kitchen where he begins making dinner, although I notice there is only enough for the two of us. “You’ve had a rough few days and you almost killed yourself running the way you did.”
“Where’s the rest of the team?” I ask, not wanting to discuss the latent frustration about Tobias that drove me to run so hard.
“It’s the full moon,” he tells me as he fries up some chicken stir-fry. “They’re all in their enclosures where they can’t escape. They’ll be there for the next three nights, so it’s just us in the base. They’re not even human to hear what we discuss.”
“You say that with an expression that suggests you’re going to try and do a psych evaluation on me,” I warn, crossing my arms over my chest in annoyance at that idea too.
“You think we shouldn’t discuss how you’re dealing with everything?” he asks me seriously. “Because it’s obvious that you’re not handling it as well as you’d like to have us all believe if you can run twenty-eight miles, effectively running yourself into exhaustion and nearly killing yourself.”
“Must we?” I demand. “I already told you I was fine. I can handle being on the hit list of every supernatural out there.”
“You’re not invincible, Anna,” he warns me, crossing his own arms and looking very much like a soccer coach about to lecture me on my game. “You’ve gone from being alpha dog in a human game to being a rather breakable ‘puppy’ in a supernatural world. One where you’re already a target of both the Vampires and the Shifters simply because you’re human. It would be understandable for you to feel afraid and for you to be having trouble adjusting.”
“You better never call me fragile again, Summers,” I warn him in a low voice. “I don’t care what you are, how you outrank me or how you might be friends with my dad: I’m not some pathetic little girl who cries at the first sight of trouble. Yes, it’s inconvenient that Shifters and Vampires want me dead and it will make my life harder and more complicated. Yes, it pisses me off and does disturb me to know that they are much stronger, faster and smarter than me. Not to mention that half of them want to feast on my blood and the other half want to transform into animals and probably tear me apart. But that does not mean I am afraid of them, or that I can’t do my job, or that I don’t belong on this team. There is no going back, and I will not just lie down and let any of them mess with me all because I happened to be born human.”
“So then why did you run on that treadmill like you were running for your life?” Summers demands. “Brody told me he found you on that thing sprinting. Not just jogging along, which would have been impressive enough, but full-out sprinting like the hounds of hell nipped at your heels.”
“What does it matter?” I ask, not at all willing to admit my interest in Tobias to my supervisor, no matter how much of a trustworthy, soccer-dad type he might appear to be.
“It matters because for one, it should’ve been physically impossible for you to maintain that speed for more than a few minutes, let alone for several hours, and two, if I don’t know what’s going on with my team I can’t be on top of every possible situation.” Summers argues with me, beginning to look pissed now that I’m not cooperating.
“Maybe I was simply trying to run off my frustration,” I tell him grudgingly.
“With the team?” he asks, frowning now.
“No, Greg, with the tiny men dancing on red spotted toadstools inside my head,” I retort sarcastically. “Of course, with the sodding team!”
“I didn’t know you were upset with them…” he says, looking mildly concerned.
“I’m not upset with them. I like them and given that I’ve never said that about anyone who isn’t my Dad in literally my entire life, it’s a big deal. But liking them means I’m going to wind up caring for them. And caring for them means that they’re a weakness. One I can’t afford with two races of beings out for my blood, literally in the vampire case. Liking them means I might do something crazy to save them if they get captured or hurt. It means that they’re a liability to me, and that I’m a huge liability to them since, excluding Tobias, they seem to like me back.” I tell him this, growing frustrated that while I started out this argument with the intention of simply keeping Greg from learning that I have the hots for a man who will never even view me as an equal, let alone as a potential partner, I actually do feel this way.
“Caring about people is not the end of the world, Anna,” Summers tells me looking even more concerned now.
“It is when it might get them and me killed. Don’t you get that Summers?” I demand. “I’ve lived my whole life working as hard as I can to be as good, as fast, as strong and as smart as I possibly can be to keep from being the liability that gets my Dad killed. Now I’m a liability to your team, to you, and to my Dad. I don’t know how to deal with that! I don’t know how to survive this whole situation without winding up on the wrong side of a lot of people, and I don’t know how to do it without somehow getting someone I care about killed!”
“That’s why you’re here, Anna,” Summers interrupts my tirade quietly. “I brought you into this team because you’re good and because you’d be at risk from all of your Dad’s enemies if you were out there alone.”
“Hilton told me,” I reply sipping my coffee bitterly.
“What he didn’t tell you, because he doesn’t know it, is that I brought you onto this team because being here will make you work harder, make you be better, make you even stronger than you could ever get joining the regular old army. You’re a human with a few supernatural perks going for you in a very supernatural world. You needed to be made aware of the danger you were in and I’m going to make sure you’re not a liability to anybody.”
“How?” I ask, eyeing him now.
“By training you. You’re already skilled with weapons against humans, and you did far better than anyone expected when you fought Tara the other day. And so, you’re going to work with me and with the team. You’re going to get faster, so you can block any attack that comes your way, even when the blows might be strong enough to break bones. You’re going to learn how to move with such stealth even the most attuned supernatural ears won’t hear your approach. And you’re going to start as soon as we’re done eating.”
“You want me to start tonight?” I ask, surprised.
“Yes. You began the other day by running yourself into a three-day slumber. Tonight, you’ll do a weights training rotation until by tomorrow, you can barely get out of bed for all the pulled muscles in your body. I don’t care what it takes, I’ll make sure you’re safe, Anna. I know already that you can look out for yourself, but more training won’t hurt,” Greg tells me before sliding a chicken dish in front of me and handing me some cutlery.
∞ ∞ ∞
True to his word, Greg puts me through the paces with such intensity that by the time the three days of the full moon are done I am more of a walking bruise than a person. Dragging myself out of bed is hard, and climbing the stairs is torture. So much so that by the third morning when my alarm goes off at the crack of dawn I slide down the bannister rather than taking each step. Although, I regret it when I reach the bottom and have to catch myself, my quads screaming out a protest before refusing to hold my weight and causing me to roll into a landing tumble that almost has me colliding with the couches.
Groaning, I don’t even bother getting back to my feet, choosing instead to crawl across the kitchen to turn on the coffee pot, using the kitchen bench to pull myself to my feet so I can ingest some much-needed caffeine. Greg is nowhere in sight just yet, no doubt still showering if the sound of the water in the pipes is any indication. In my pained state I almost forget that the team is due to be changing back to their human selves today.
At least, that is, until I’m leaning against the bench with my coffee mug to my lips and Tobias Hilton comes striding into the kitchen butt naked. I’m ashamed to say that the sight literally made me drool coffee all over myself.
Seeing Mitch and Brody follow him in, also butt-naked, does dangerous things to my sanity and the sight of the three of them all naked and scuffed with dirt from the three days they’ve spent in the woods has my whole body flushing with heat. I am hardly able to drag my eyes away from every ripped inch of a naked Tobias and my hands shake around my mug with the urge to touch so much perfect man-flesh. How is this even remotely fair?
When Tara stalks into the kitchen after them, just as naked as the rest of them I sigh in defeat.
“Y’all are giving me a complex!” I announce by way of greeting, ‘though they are all unusually quiet this morning.
“What?” Mitch asks, looking as though he’s struggling to comprehend my words.
“I said y’all are giving me a complex,” I grin at him when I notice he’s got twigs and dirt in his precious mane, “It’s hardly right that you all look this good naked.”
“Sweet talker,” Brody rumbles at me and I see a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth when I move over to make them all coffee since they’re all far too grimy for my standard to have them near the coffee pot.
I wave Mitch away when he growls half-heartedly at me for pulling the pot out of his grip, before pouring him a mug and adding a generous helping of cream to it. I push the mug into his hands and wave him toward the table. Brody’s coffee takes longer since I must dump half a bottle of honey into the oversized mug he uses. It is made harder when he gets snarly over me not letting him have the whole bottle. Tara takes her coffee with more cream than caffeine and she smiles when I hand her a mug of what is basically warm, coffee flavored milk.
Tobias proves the most difficult and bares his teeth at me like the animal he is when I snatch his cup out of his hands and fix his coffee too, black with three sugars and a splash of hazelnut syrup. Returning the mug to him is even harder because it leaves my hands free, and the urge to run them over the rippled washboard of his abs is hard to repress.
“Seriously, you guys,” I complain when none of them make any moves to dress themselves, “how am I supposed to feel comfortable taking my clothes off with the four of you around when I know you all look this way?”
“You’ll survive,” Hilton mutters under his breath, although I hear him since he’s not moved away from me after I gave him his coffee. This makes it infinitely harder for me to concentrate on anything other than every naked inch of him. I hope they are all a little too out of it to notice when I drool a second time, wiping at it hastily.
“I need you to move,” I tell Hilton, dragging my eyes up over his abs and chest to investigate his face. He has dirt smudged on his face and is frowning a little, his eyes distant as though he can’t even tell I’m inches in front of him. When he blinks and focuses on my face, I sincerely hope that none of them can pick up on the desire I don’t doubt is rolling off me in tsunami waves.
“What?” he asks me, his voice low and gruff. I pretend it doesn’t make heat gather in the secret place beneath my abdomen and smile just a little realizing how out of it they all are.
“I said I need you to move. You’re blocking the way to the fridge, which is making it hard for me to cook some breakfast,” I tell him. When he just blinks at me again as though my words are confusing, I realize it must take them longer to readjust to being human than I thought it would.
Using that fact to my advantage, I take hold of his biceps and pull him forwards away from the fridge he’s leaning against. He eyes me curiously and I try to ignore the way touching him makes it feel like a jolt of hot electricity is shooting through my hands, up my arms and settling in my chest. Using my grip on him, I turn him toward the table, pressing my hands against his back and trying very hard not to smooth them down to his fine ass. Shoving him slowly out of the kitchen is harder than it should be.
“Need more coffee,” I hear Brody mutter, noticing him eyeing his empty cup as though unsure why it’s empty even as I steer Tobias over to the table and push him down into a seat. I pause on my way to collect Brody’s cup to run my hand through Mitch’s wild blonde hair, untangling a handful of leaves and causing him to purr where he sits.
I take Brody’s cup out of his hand, finding that I rather like this feeling of taking care of them when they seem so out of it. It feels like turnabout after they did the same for me the other day.
Brody looks bewildered when I take his cup away and he rumbles a
sound of protest in his chest that I’ve heard many times before, realizing suddenly why I find the goofy bear so endearing. Being a were-bear like my dad is winning him a place in my affection pool. Especially when he makes a pathetic grope to get the mug back.
When I bring him a second cup laden with honey his protest rumble turns to a hum of contentment and Mitch tries to capture my hands to put them in his hair again. Tara sits with her eyes closed and I realize she’s almost asleep now that she’s had her milk. I bring her a second cup too, before topping up Tobias’s mug as well. They are all still like adorable zombies as I make enough breakfast to feed a small army, bringing huge plates of bacon and sausages and hash browns to them all.
When Tara doesn’t make a grab for the food like the boys do, I realize she’s fallen asleep with her chin resting in her hands, her elbows propped on the table. Smiling, I go to her, waking her gently by smoothing my hand over her long dark striped hair. I can’t help the swell of affection I feel when she begins to purr and blinks her eyes open slowly.
Caring for them is surprisingly easy and despite my argument with Greg about the team a few days ago, I find myself not only wanting to befriend them, but to care for them. To help them. To protect them. Even if it might someday bite me on the ass. Being around them has clearly changed me too, since I find myself unable to keep from touching them, not for any kind of perverted reason - except maybe where Tobias is concerned - but simply because touch is how they show affection and concern.
When Tara is awake and reaching for the food, I go back around the table, unable to resist trailing my hand across the top of Tobias’s shoulders and feeling that jolt of heat spark through me once more. I pause when he makes an odd noise at the touch despite being midway to stuffing his mouth with bacon. It’s a soft little sound akin to a sigh of contentment and I can’t keep my smile at bay, no matter how I purse my lips to hide it. Thankfully they are all too focused on the food to notice my reaction, or his, and he doesn’t make any move to acknowledge he is even aware of the sound.