by Paige Tyler
More silence followed and Harley wished she’d never asked Sawyer anything like this.
“Everything is sort of a blur after that,” he added. “I remember getting the one on the walkway with the machine gun who’d shot me at the start of the ambush—it was Yegor’s brother, Illya—then kept going until I took out all of them.”
Harley held her breath, hoping the story had a good ending buried in there somewhere.
Sawyer speared another piece of steak. “Well, Yegor ended up surviving, at least long enough to get shipped off to a Turkish prison. The rest of them, including Illya, all died.”
“And you became a werewolf.”
He nodded. “I didn’t know that at the time, of course. I laid there on the ground, trying to figure out how the hell I was still alive after all that. It wasn’t until about a month or so later when I started going crazy with the change that I realized what had happened. But you know all about that part of it.”
Yeah, Harley definitely remembered that part. Remembered how her body seemed constantly out of control, claws and fangs showing up at random times, anger bubbling out of control, senses going haywire. At the time, she’d been sure she was going insane, that she was hallucinating everything. And that was without having to deal with the trauma of getting shot like Sawyer had.
“How did you keep everything secret from your team and the rest of MI6?” she asked, forcing herself to go back to eating, trying to catch up to Sawyer, who was almost finished. “I mean, aren’t spies supposed to be suspicious by nature? Didn’t anyone think it was strange you survived getting shot that many times? Not to mention running around fighting in that condition?”
He gave her a small smile. “In the bedlam of the ambush, no one noticed how badly I’d been shot. They knew I’d been hit, but they were too busy trying to stay alive themselves to look too closely.”
She was about to ask how that was even possible but stopped at the look on his face. He was lost in his memories of those moments once again.
“Silas Thompson was the one who picked me up and got me to the nearest hospital,” he said slowly, his tone anguished. “He didn’t want to leave me there on my own, but he didn’t have a choice. It’s MI6 protocol in a situation like that. Less chance of the team being compromised if they scatter. I stayed there while Weatherford got the rest of the team out of the country, so none of them were there to see all the damage when the doctors got around to stripping my clothes off.”
Harley couldn’t imagine what that must have been like for him. To go through something like that alone was beyond awful.
“I still can’t believe they left you,” she said.
If something like that happened to her or anyone else in STAT, there was no way she or her teammates would ever bail on each other. But maybe that was because they were more than a team. They were a pack. And that included the humans.
“It’s not that they wanted to,” he said. “But if they’d stayed, there’s a good chance local law enforcement—or worse, some foreign covert organization—would have picked them up. It was safer for me to be a John Doe than to have my teammates hanging around.”
Harley wasn’t sure she believed that. She’d want to be with her teammate if one of them was badly hurt. “Didn’t the doctors realize there was something strange going on once they saw how badly you’d been wounded? The extent of the injuries and the amount of blood you lost must have made it into your medical records.”
He shrugged. “I suppose so. When the extraction team came a few days later to get me, they snagged my medical records too, and by then, my injuries didn’t look nearly as bad. I was still beat up when I got back to London, but it wasn’t bad enough to suggest how close I’d come to dying. And it wasn’t like I was going to bring it up. MI6 put me on six weeks of medical leave to heal up, so there wasn’t anyone around to see me going through the worst of the change. By the time I went back to work, I was in control of my abilities. I almost died ten times over and got turned into a werewolf because I have the gene and no one even noticed.”
She frowned at that. “No one on your team noticed you saved their lives in Odessa?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said with a soft laugh. Harley was amazed at how the sound lightened the weight that had been bearing down on her chest. “In between ducking and diving, they noticed my heroics. By the time I got back from medical leave, I had a reputation of sorts thanks to the stories Erin, Rory, and Elliott told. According to them, I was fearless, driven, selfless, etc. Most of it was complete rubbish, but Weatherford insisted the entire team would have been wiped out if not for me. It ended his field career but got me noticed by upper levels of management. They offered me my own team and anyone in MI6 I wanted. Silas was senior enough to get his own team, and Sarah Parker and Cedric Abbot got out of MI6. I heard though the grapevine that they’d ended up with new identities and got married. The rest, as they say, is history.” His mouth curved into a sexy smile. “And now here I am having dinner with a beautiful werewolf in Paris and waiting to hear her story.”
Harley was saved from having to reply right away by their server’s arrival once again. This time, he had their crème brûlée and coffee. She immediately dug into the rich custard with its expertly caramelized top, thinking about what Sawyer had told her. The events that had led to his change had been drastically different than her own, but what struck her the most was how different his life had been after going through the change compared to hers. Other than the fact that he had to hide his werewolf identity from his teammates, he’d clearly embraced his animal nature. Harley couldn’t help but compare that to her own situation. While she didn’t have to hide what she was from her team, she didn’t feel comfortable embracing her talents at all.
Harley could feel Sawyer’s gaze on her as they ate dessert and she knew he was giving her time to tell her story. The only problem was, she didn’t have any idea how to start. While her change hadn’t been nearly as traumatic as Sawyer’s, it was still difficult to talk about it. Hell, thinking about it made her stomach churn. But when her spoon scrapped the bottom of the ramekin and she still didn’t know what to say, she accepted she was in trouble.
Then her phone rang. She was so happy to be interrupted.
“It’s Jake,” her alpha said when she answered. “You and Sawyer need to get back to the hotel ASAP. We leave Paris in an hour.”
On the other side of the table, Sawyer caught the server’s attention and motioned for the check. Obviously, the British werewolf had easily heard what Jake said.
“Where are we going?” she asked Jake.
“Morocco. Our analysts spent the past few hours going over every second of Adriana’s captivity and believe there’s another holding cell in Casablanca. They aren’t sure if that’s where the auction is supposed to take place or if the kidnappers took the captives they were holding here in Paris, but it’s all we have right now.”
Sawyer was signing the bill as Harley hung up. A quick glance at the bottom line of the receipt showed her that dinner for the two of them had cost about as much as a week of groceries. Yikes!
“I hope you don’t think I’m letting you off the hook when it comes to telling me your story,” Sawyer said, coming over to slide her chair out. “You know that, right?”
Harley didn’t say anything at first, too floored by the gentlemanly gesture to get anything out. By the time she got her act together, they were already passing the hostess stand and heading for the door.
“Yeah, I know,” she said, her stomach clenching once again at the thought of spilling her secrets. “Maybe by the time we find a place where I can repay you for that delicious meal by buying you dinner, I’ll have gotten the courage.”
“Works for me.” Sawyer flashed her a devastating smile. “I’m a patient man.”
* * *
“So, are we really gonna do this?” Caleb asked, dropp
ing his overnight bag on the floor of Jake’s hotel room and flopping back on the couch.
Harley sighed as she set her bag down beside Caleb’s. She’d only finished packing a few minutes ago and had met up with him in the hall on the way to Jake’s room, so they could wait with the rest of her team for the van that would take them to the airport. It was a carbon copy of hers, right down to the huge bed, period furniture, and ornate crown molding.
She and Sawyer had to practically jog back to the hotel from the restaurant to make it in time. The moment they’d gotten there, she’d immediately run up to her room, where she’d packed in record time. Thanks to spending the past eight years constantly on the move, that wasn’t much of a problem. She’d learned long ago to travel light.
“Do what?” Jes asked from where she sat on the bed beside Jake.
Caleb scowled. “Work with MI6.”
No one said anything. While the atmosphere in the room wasn’t exactly tense, it wasn’t the usual chill feel she’d become used to. They might only have started working together a few months ago, but she and her teammates were already as close as family. Harley supposed almost dying on their first mission could do that. But now, McKay was shaking up the whole dynamic by having them work with Sawyer and his team. After hanging out with Sawyer for a few hours, she was okay with that—and not simply because he was devastatingly handsome and easy to talk to. But it was obvious the rest of her friends weren’t necessarily on board with the idea yet.
“It’s either that or end up working against them,” Jake said. “McKay feels these traffickers are a serious threat and wants us to stop them. And while I’m not crazy about working with people who don’t think much of werewolves, it’ll be easier if we team up with MI6 on this, since we’re both on the same side.”
“People who don’t think much of werewolves?” From where he sat at the small table with Misty, Forrest snorted in obvious disgust. “Their first instinct was to pull a gun on you guys the moment they saw you shift. I’m with Caleb. I’d rather go after the traffickers on our own than work with people we can’t trust to have our backs.”
“For what it’s worth, I had dinner with Sawyer after the briefing and I feel comfortable saying we can trust him,” Harley offered.
Caleb rested the edge of his boot on the coffee table. “That doesn’t make me feel all warm and fuzzy considering he doesn’t even trust his own team enough to tell them he’s a werewolf.”
“Can you blame him?” Harley countered. “Admitting you’re a werewolf isn’t easy, you know.”
Caleb only grunted.
“Hiding what he is from his teammates has to suck,” Misty said.
Jes looked thoughtful as she considered that. “How do you even hide something like that in our line of work and not slip up?”
Since Harley hadn’t ever been in this line of work before, she wasn’t sure how to answer that. Keeping her inner werewolf hidden had been challenging enough in the world she’d come from.
“I spent years as a cop in Santa Fe before joining STAT, and none of my beat partners ever had a clue.” Jake shrugged. “If you try hard, it can be easy to keep people in the dark. Especially when most of them will ignore what they see because it seems too crazy to believe. It’s easier to assume they didn’t see what they thought they did than entertain the possibility that the world is a lot more complicated than they realized.”
Or you simply did what Harley did. She didn’t bother to point out it was a lot easier to hide in plain sight if you never used any of your more obvious werewolf attributes.
“Well, if we’re going to work with MI6, I guess that means we’re going to have to keep Sawyer’s werewolf side a secret,” Forrest said. “Question is, do we tell McKay about him?”
Even though Harley had just met him, she felt an incredibly crazy urge to stand up for Sawyer. But before she could say anything, Jake spoke.
“We aren’t outing another werewolf. If Sawyer wants to keep his inner werewolf hidden, that’s his business, meaning we’re not mentioning it to McKay and I’m not putting it in any of the reports unless it becomes impossible to hide.”
Harley sagged in relief. STAT and MI6 were only working together on this one mission, and then they’d probably never come across each other again, but at least Sawyer’s secret would be safe.
Jake’s phone dinged and he pulled it from his pocket. “Our ride to the airport is downstairs. The MI6 team is already in the van waiting for us.”
As everyone grabbed their bags and headed for the door, Caleb caught Harley’s arm, motioning for her to wait.
“I know you said you trust Sawyer and that’s your call,” he said softly after their teammates had moved down the hallway. “But this is me reminding you to be careful.”
She barely had a chance to look baffled before Caleb continued.
“Look, I’m not trying to say there’s some reason to distrust the guy. It’s just that I don’t want you, or any of our pack, getting hurt because Sawyer is more worried about protecting his secret than watching our backs. Okay?”
Caleb was out the door before she could say anything, calling for the others to hold the elevator and leaving Harley with no choice but to hitch her bag higher over her shoulder and hurry after him.
Was Caleb right? If push came to shove, would Sawyer go that extra step to protect Harley and her teammates even if it meant revealing he was a werewolf? She wanted to believe he would, but could she honestly say she knew him well enough to know the answer to that question?
Chapter 5
Morocco
“I couldn’t help but notice you and that female werewolf seem to have gotten pretty chummy,” Erin said from behind Sawyer, the barest hint of something suspicious and disapproving in the words.
Sawyer looked up from the photos he’d been scanning on and off for the past two days. They were shots taken from all over the city of buildings, vehicles, and people he and everyone else had pored over with agonizing intensity in the hopes of finding anything that might tip them off to the location of the supernatural trafficking ring in Casablanca. It was mind-numbing work, but it had to be done. Adriana had led them there. It was up to the joint MI6/STAT team to do the rest.
He swiveled his chair around to see Erin standing less than a meter away with her arms folded, even though she didn’t need to be that close. The ground floor of the office space the MI6 and STAT operation had taken over was big enough to easily hold all the field agents and their combined support teams. Yet here was Erin, standing in his personal space with an accusing look in her eyes because she thought he’d betrayed her and the team somehow by hanging out with Harley.
On the far side of the room, Rory and Elliott were going through the motions of looking at computer screens where they were supposed to be combing through the manifests of all flights coming into both of the city’s airports, looking for known traffickers. In reality, they were much more interested in eavesdropping on the conversation Erin apparently wanted to have with him. The support personnel were all out scouring the city for leads along with Harley and the other STAT agents, so there wasn’t anyone else in the room right now. Which was probably why Erin had chosen this particular moment to confront him.
“Well?” she prompted when he didn’t answer fast enough for her taste. “Nothing to say, or is it that you don’t want to admit you’ve developed a taste for walking on the wild side?”
Sawyer’s fingertips and gums started to tingle, a growl building in the back of his throat. He fought to gain control of his inner wolf at the same time he pushed back against the urge to tell Erin to mind her own sodding business. This crap had been coming to a head since the two teams had left Paris and Sawyer had spent the whole flight talking to Harley. He’d picked up on his teammates’ confusion and anger almost immediately, the former coming mostly from Rory and Elliott, the latter from Erin. Since then, it had only got
ten worse. His teammates didn’t approve, and they’d apparently decided it was time for an intervention.
Sawyer never was the kind to appreciate an intervention.
“You’re right,” he said softly, eyes locking on Erin’s, his voice sounding a whole hell of a lot calmer than he felt. “I don’t have anything to say. Not if you’re going to accuse me of doing something wrong when all I’m doing is talking to an agent from the other intel organization we’re working with.”
“An agent?” Erin cursed. “Are you bloody kidding me? She’s not even human. She’s a sodding monster, Sawyer.”
And there it was. What Erin—and probably Rory and Elliott, too—really thought about Harley and the other STAT werewolves.
His gut twisted, thinking of all the times he’d come close to confessing his secret to his teammates, believing they’d gotten close enough to accept it. Now, he was glad he’d never worked up the courage to do it. He wasn’t sure he could handle them looking at him the way they eyed Harley, Caleb, and Jake. The distrust didn’t end there, either. They regarded the rest of the STAT team like there was something wrong with them for willingly working with what they considered monsters.
Sawyer stood up fast enough to send his chair sliding backward across the floor. Erin definitely hadn’t seen it coming, and there was some part of him—his inner wolf maybe—that took a perverse pleasure in seeing her eyes widen in alarm. But at the same time, there was a larger part that couldn’t help but wonder how she’d react if his fangs and claws were out.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rory and Elliott slowly get up and move closer, their hearts beating a little faster. Like they’d picked up on the fact that the team dynamic had shifted drastically. He wasn’t sure what, but he needed to say something because there was no way he was going to let things devolve into an us versus them game. There was too much at stake.
“Grow the hell up, Erin,” he said, a little surprised when the hint of a growl slipped out along with the words. While it wasn’t animalistic enough to make her jump to any conclusions, it was still out of character for him. But the idea of her calling Harley a monster bothered the hell out of him more than if she’d called him that.