by Ava Mason
Easton cut in. “The fact that he’s even here says a lot.” He looked into my eyes. “I’m pretty sure that has to do with you, Lizzy.”
I puffed a breath of air through my teeth, snorting derivatively. “Are you kidding? He was a big flirt at first but ever since my challenge for Alpha, he’s done everything possible to avoid me. He won’t even look at me anymore.” Even now, his eyes glazed over the pool, but they didn’t land on me. “With the exception to yell at me during our morning workouts.”
Easton pulled me out of Hunter’s arms to hold me close. He looked into my eyes earnestly. “Believe me, Lizzy. He may be acting like an ass right now. But if he didn’t want to be with you, he wouldn’t be here.” His lips brushed mine. “He wants you, just like we all want you. And all you would need to do is make it official. He’d step up.”
I stared into Easton’s eyes, loving that he’d grown so open with me. “But what if it’s not what I want? What if everyone in the clan doesn’t agree?” I pointedly looked at Hunter.
Easton shrugged. “You’re the Alpha. You could bring him in, whether or not we wanted it. Even if it was only to be part of the team.” He nuzzled my cheek. “Of course, it would be better if we got everything worked out first.”
I stood on my toes to kiss him. He ran his hand up my back to claim the spot behind my neck as his soft tongue brushed over mine. When I pulled back, he growled and nipped my lip. I saw James watching us out of the corner of my eye. I suddenly remembered that James had once asked me to join us, now fully realizing what a big deal that may have been. Maybe Easton was right.
I reached out, grabbing Hunter’s arm and pulled him to us. “I would never bring him in if I knew that you guys weren’t going to be happy. The team comes first, always.”
Hunter clutched my side and, even though he didn’t say it, I felt his relief. Easton, however, didn’t seem to mind either way, as long as everyone felt taken care of.
Speaking of, I had to get my things worked out with Avery before we left. We’d done a lot together these past few weeks, and I felt his impatience to go further in the relationship. But I held off, still uncertain that he was ready to go further. Or, to put my heart out there for him, even if he thought differently.
I glanced at the clock. We had to get going if we were going to make it to the parachuting training on time. I gave Hunter and Easton a kiss, then called out for everyone to get ready.
It was just going to be Avery, Christian, Hunter, and me. Easton wasn’t going with us; he had work to do for Edward. Plus, he hated flying. He’d made it very clear that he’d already had all the training he needed.
Which was true, we were mostly doing this for me.
Okay. We were doing all this entirely for me. It was possible that we’d have to parachute into Tennessee and I needed some experience with it before we went in.
So while we focused on getting me up to speed with what the guys already knew, Easton was putting together a file on everything he could find out from back home.
I grabbed Avery’s and Christian’s hand, kissing each of them softly, and we all headed out of the pool. James stood up, moving a little reluctantly towards the back door to the house. I hadn’t invited him to train with us, since I was informed that as a formality he’d gone through all that.
I knew for sure that he was going with us; Aria pretty much commanded it.
As far as everything else, I had no clue what was going to happen. Or even what was supposed to happen. I felt this building pressure to make a decision about him; like both him and Aria were waiting for me to say something. What it was, I wasn’t even sure.
James said goodbye to the guys, including giving Hunter a snarky grin, then walked off without saying anything to me.
And that was part of the problem. We hadn’t talked about the fact that he’d given me information that could essentially kill his worst enemy. I’d promised him I would. And then I didn’t.
Yeah, that doesn’t make things awkward between friends, or anything.
I’d take his brush-off personally if I didn’t blame him for hating me. If someone had killed my sister, I’d have wanted them dead, too.
In fact, I did know what it felt like.
If James had had the opportunity to take out Garrett, I’d be pretty pissed if he didn’t take it.
At this point, I was glad that he was only here to coach us in the morning, and not spend his days, or nights, with us. Not yet, anyway.
Sighing, I brushed off my musings. We all walked into the house, and I turned around, heading backwards towards my room. “Hunter? You need a shower?” I wiggled my eyebrows suggestively.
Hunter seemed to need special attention any time James was around.
His eyes darkened as they moved over my body, then he slapped Easton on the back as he ran towards me. He grabbed me then threw me over his shoulder as we headed towards my shower. Easton gave me a happy look as I disappeared around the corner.
After I got dressed, I went to the kitchen; I was starving. Hunter was making everyone a protein smoothie and Avery was just finishing up last night’s dishes. I went to go help him.
“Hey, Dumbledore.” I smiled, eyeing his sexy beard. He’d trimmed it today, but it’d been growing long. Thus, the nickname.
He didn’t have a shirt on yet, and the combination of his beard with his tats was some definite eye candy.
His eyes lit up when he saw me. “Hey, Lizzy.” He was leaning over the dishwasher, a dish in his hand. He stood up and I gave him a kiss, running my fingers over his sexy face.
“Let me help you.”
He shrugged. “Fine with me.” He handed me the dish and I put it in the dishwasher. Then I realized that that was the last one.
“Oh.”
He smiled, pulling me into his arms and I looked into his eyes. “You going to wear a chute today?” Since Avery was the only one out of the four that could shift just his wings, he often jumped without a chute.
“Nah. I’ll just jump without a shirt on.”
“It doesn’t hurt you, somehow?”
“Not really. It actually feels pretty good.”
“Just keep your pants on this time.” Christian walked up, chuckling. Last time they’d trained on this together, Avery accidentally shifted too much and ended up shredding his pants. They landed on Christian’s head on their way down.
“Shut up.” Avery punched Christian’s shoulder.
Without blinking, Christian leaned over and I kissed him.
“Hey, Pinky. Looking good this morning. I saw that you beat Hunter, that must be a record.”
I frowned, growling playfully. “Actually, that’s twice now.” I counted every single one.
He touched my chin. “Oh, I know. We’re all keeping track of how many times you beat him. Besides,” he grinned, “you never let us forget it.”
“Damn straight.”
It was true, and also a big deal. No one beat Hunter, except Avery while they were running. But I was catching up to him. “I think today he just wanted to check out my ass.”
“Hell yeah.” Hunter handed me and Avery our shakes, winking at me. Then he grabbed two more and handed one to Christian.
As we chugged them down, Easton joined us, holding a stack of papers. “Got one for me?”
Hunter pointed to the counter and Easton grabbed his.
I finished mine: blueberry and chocolate, delicious. Then I rinsed out my cup and began to clean out the blender. By the time I was done, the cups were piled on the counter. The guys started out the door, except for Christian, who helped me rinse the cups and start the dishwasher. Then he led me outside and I saw Edward talking to the rest of the guys.
I looked at Easton. “Is he here for you?”
Edward looked at me. “Actually, I’m here for you.”
Edward led me to his car, an antique black Chevy Impala, and opened the door for me. “Can I drive you to the landing strip?”
“Sure,” I got in and he started up
the Impala; it roared in response. As we drove, he lay his head on the headrest casually, asking me about our preparations to leave. He’d always acted super comfortable with me, probably because my dad had shared way too much information about my upbringing. He knew plenty of embarrassing stories about me that he didn’t mind talking about in front of the guys.
Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
After about fifteen minutes, he began to fidget on the wheel and I thought he might be getting to the point real soon. I decided to try to help him out. “So, have you and Easton found anything interesting yet? About Garrett and the new wolf?”
He nodded. “Actually, that’s one reason why I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?” My stomach started to churn. This was probably something bad.
“Yeah.” He looked ahead, slowing down to turn onto a dirt road. In the distance, I could see a lone utilitarian building with a large bay. This must be where the planes were docked.
“Easton found out that Garrett sold the house he was living in. About a month after you came to us.”
“He did?”
Edward nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. “Garrett built a new house. Actually, he’d already started construction on it before you came to us. Did you know about this?”
I shook my head. I’d had no idea. “When?”
He was silent for a moment before he answered. “He signed the contract to begin construction two weeks after your birthday. But… not your last birthday, the one before that.”
I bit my lip, thinking about what he was implying. “So he’d been planning his takeover for a while then.”
Edward nodded, and his confirmation brought on a tightness in my chest.
“Bastard.” So he had been planning to kill my dad for a whole year. I remembered now that that’s when he’d gotten more vocal about challenging my position as Fated Alpha.
That asshole. I was going to go in and take everything from him, just like what he’d done to me.
I took in a deep breath. I just had to be patient, for just a little bit longer.
Edward continued. “His new place is really large. At least twenty-thousand square feet.”
“What the hell?” My parents’ house had been about eight thousand, and it had been large enough to house any wolves that needed a place to spend a night or two, and more.
“He’s hired a lot of security for the place, and the land around the house extends out pretty large. We don’t know what he’s doing with something that big.”
I was quiet, my mind churning, trying to decide what the hell he needed something that big for. “So it looks like we’re going to go in clandestine.” I was glad we’d waited now. Everything had changed; I couldn’t trust anything from my past.
Edward nodded. “Yes. There’s also another large property next to it. Built at the same time, but the owner is a shell company. We suspect this may be the black wolf you told us about.”
“Alright.” I took in a deep breath, steeling myself for what we might find when we got there. “Sounds like a plan, then.”
We pulled up to the building, and Edward parked the car. “Easton and I thought that you shouldn’t call Shayne before you guys go in. Just in case.”
I nodded. “I agree.”
He nodded in return. “Good.”
I put my hand on the door handle, but he put his hand on my arm. “Also…”
I took my hand off the handle to let him continue.
“We’re having a hard time getting one of Ember’s guys to talk. In difficult situations like this, Christian’s powers can be useful. I wanted to make sure it was okay with you first.”
“Why?” It was weird that he was asking me, seeing as he hadn’t asked my permission before. That was Christian’s job. There must be something different about this one.
“Well,” he tapped the steering wheel, “it looks like someone might have messed with his mind. If Christian goes inside, it could be dangerous.”
“How so?”
“When Christian connects with another person’s mind, it’s almost like a computer. Something could pass from their mind to his.”
I stared at a black plane that was just taking off. It looked like a small cargo plane.
“What does he say?”
“I haven’t said anything to him about it. I wanted to talk to you first. If I have a difficult case that I want to bring to any of your guys, I go through their leader first.”
If he was coming to me, he must really have a reason. And I understood what he meant. This was my team, and I needed to protect him. Strategically speaking, anything bad that happened to Christian would weaken the team. But my heart was also fiercely protective of him. Just talking about it made me want to put a magical bubble wrap around him and force him to walk around with it everywhere.
“Has he done it before?”
Edward shrugged. “Sure. Of course.”
“But this one is different?”
Nodding, Edward met my eyes, and I could see the apprehension in them.
“Is there any way I could help? Maybe protect him somehow?”
Edward’s eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t think about that. I’m sure we could figure out something.”
I nodded. “Alright. Let’s do it.”
“Good.”
I turned to get out, but he touched my arm. “There’s one more thing.”
“Oh, okay.” I turned to face him.
“Lizzy, I, uh…” Suddenly he seemed nervous again. “I know I’m not your dad. And no one could ever replace him.” I bit my lip, holding back the rush of emotions that seemed to come every time someone mentioned my parents. “But I do know dragons, and I thought that I could give you a bit of advice.”
I nodded my head. “Please do. I would love it.” I forced a smile.
“I know that you had… a love interest back home.”
I froze. “Whatever could you mean?” Whenever I was caught in something, my southern accent always came out. Something Hunter had picked up on pretty quickly.
Without warning, he laughed, and I blushed, not understanding why he was laughing.
“Sorry.” He took in a deep breath and put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. Your face just looked so much like your dad whenever he got in trouble, I couldn’t help but think of him.”
“Oh, I…” I didn’t know what to say.
He chuckled, then kept talking. “You know your dad knew about Aaron, didn’t you?”
I was shocked. I really thought we’d kept it from him. Why didn’t he ever say anything? And how in the hell did I not get into trouble? He was such a stickler for the rules. I was amazed he didn’t put me in a chastity belt the minute he found out.
“I honestly had no friggin idea.”
He nodded. “Yeah, he knew. I think it had been going on a while by the time he found out, but yeah, he’d known for a while.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?”
He shrugged. “I guess he was young once. He remembered what that was like.”
I let out a breath, still surprised. “Well, I never…”
He rubbed my arm. “Of course, he didn’t want Garrett to know. But he liked Aaron, and hoped that once you came into your powers, that it would work out. Despite Garrett.” He paused again. “But the thing is, I don’t know how you left things with him, with Aaron.”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t even really know how things were with him myself. Was he married? Or not? And if he wasn’t, did I still have the same feelings for him? I wasn’t sure. But Edward was looking at me, still expecting an answer, so I realized that I had to come up with something.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.” Good one, Lizzy. Fucking eloquent and to the point. “I mean. He tried to help me escape, and he stood up to the pack for me.”
“Do you know if he’s still alive?”
I froze, the thought not even occurring to me before now, and all the blood drained from my face.
He rushed to co
mfort me. “If he was alive before you escaped, then I’m sure he’s still alive now. I just wasn’t sure with everything that happened…”
I shook my head, starting to worry now. “No, he was alive.”
“Were you still together?”
I shrugged, trying to brush off my panic. “Things were waning. But yeah, we were definitely still together. The night before, we had sehhh…” I cut off, not wanting to get into too many details with him but he nodded, like he understood.
“I thought so.” His hand tightened on my arm in a gentle squeeze, then he released it. “One thing I’ve come to understand about wolves is that they see relationships differently than us dragons. I take it you took a while to understand the whole sharing concept.”
“Kinda. I mean, I know wolves have done it in the past, but that was a long time ago. So I could understand the why. It took me a bit to accept that it would happen to me though.” I looked away, thinking about it. Honestly, just like Easton had told me, once we got it out in the open, and worked through our issues, it worked out fine. There was a little jealousy, but it was only when someone was feeling particularly vulnerable. And that just let me know that I needed to spend more time with them, to help them feel more secure between the two of us. It didn’t happen often though. “So what does Aaron have to do with this. I mean,” I realized that what I’d just said sounded stupid, so I tried to clarify, “how would the guys see it?”
“Dragons understand that they’ll have to share. Especially in the past couple of decades, with our reproduction problems and all that. That makes it sound so clinical, but the truth is, it’s actually really complicated. Sometimes the woman loves one guy more than the rest. Or maybe, she doesn’t love any of them. Every situation causes different complications. And even though they’re used to it, that doesn’t mean that it’s easy for them. There are no set rules, and everyone has to work out what’s best for the group.” He paused. “I suppose you know about Sophia?”
I nodded.
“When they put that team together, everyone knew that the purpose going in was somewhat of an experiment. Love wasn’t a factor. It was presented almost clinical. And I think, in a way, this brought them closer together outside of Sophia. No one was expected to have feelings for each other. And, of course, they aren’t robots, emotions were involved, but it was just a lot more simple. But with you, Lizzy, it’s different. I can tell that they all care for you. Feelings are involved this time. And they’ll see Aaron as an outsider.”