by Anya Nowlan
“Must be fourteen hours now,” Dice said with a shrug, followed by a wince that he almost managed to conceal from Meredith.
“How bad is it?” she asked, switching into caretaker mode in an instant.
Dice chuckled, leaning forward and over Dean to kiss her on the lips. It was a light brush, but that little kiss alone seemed to spark her with more energy than a dozen strong espressos could barely match.
“I’m fine. A medic looked me over, I’ll be good as new in about a week. They didn’t even need to take the bullet out, it should come out on its own during the healing process.”
Dice rubbed his side absently. By the sound of his breathing, his lung had to be better now as well. Shifters made for excellent patients in that sense – if they survived the initial impact then odds were good that they’d come through whatever injuries.
Especially with a little help.
Meredith caught herself staring lovingly at Dean again, his cherubic face blissfully smiling in his sleep. This was probably the longest stretch she’d gotten to spend with her baby boy past the initial two months that they’d been together after he was born. She had so much catching up to do with him but every minute together reinforced that everything she’d done had been for the right reasons.
“Is Price okay? Did he make it?” she asked, realizing that she’d forgotten all about the rest of the world at the sight of her own happiness.
Dice nodded and it was like a stone was being lifted from Meredith’s chest.
“We got him back in time, yeah. The medics said that your wonder drug was what did it. He wouldn’t have made it on the chopper alive otherwise. Prowler gave a ton of blood for him and now they’re both recuperating. It’ll be a few days before he wakes up and the running theory is that his voice will never be the same after having a bullet go through his windpipe. But he’s a tough dog, he’ll fly another day.”
“I’m so relieved to hear that,” Meredith said with a sigh. “I was worried about him.”
“Me too,” Dice admitted quietly, frowning slightly at that.
“You seem surprised by that,” she said, maneuvering herself on the hard cot which had seemed like the softest, most luxurious bed when she’d put her head on the pillow all those hours ago.
Meredith sat on the edge of the bed and her hand slipped into Dice’s big palm easily. His gaze was set on Dean and his expression was stony, creases of uncertainty marring his forehead and cheeks. There were deep pockets underneath his eyes and it was evident that Dice had not slept a wink yet.
“I am. These men. They’ve surprised me. Gone above and beyond and I don’t know what to make of that. Not with them.”
“I thought that was what SEALs did. They fought for one another,” Meredith said, squeezing his hand.
They were close enough so that their knees touched one another, Dice sitting on a stool by the bed. He had changed out of his tactical gear, now in a pair of simple dark gray sweatpants and a shirt with the squad’s logo on it. He’d never looked more handsome to Meredith than now, grizzled and battle worn, but safe and by her side.
“They do. But these guys? They’re… They’re animals.”
“You say that like you think you’re not one of them,” Meredith said.
Dice looked up, his gray and hazel eyes betraying some of the depth of his thoughts, though Meredith could read him well enough even without those gorgeous eyes of his telling her half the story.
“I guess that’s what I’m afraid of. I’m exactly like them. But I judged them for what they are, for what they’ve become to survive. I don’t know their stories, Meredith. I don’t know why they are what they are, but they helped me, helped us and I’ve come to see that I’m no better or worse than any of them. I don’t think any of them acted any crazier than I did during all of this.”
“Just goes to show that it takes the ‘right’ kind of circumstances to bring out the insanity in all of us,” Meredith said with a smile. “I’m glad you’ve come to grips with your team, Dice.”
He chuckled and it was a weary, humorless sound.
“I think it’ll take more for us to really become a team that way, but yeah. I can see what we’re fighting for now and they deserve my loyalty and my trust. They gave me theirs, for spirits know what reasons.”
His gaze flicked down to the gray, concrete floor at his feet and Meredith couldn’t help herself. She leaned over, cupping his face in her hands, and made him look up at her. His eyes were muddled with pain and a modicum of shame, an emotion clearly targeted at himself for having been as combative and untrusting of his men as he had been. There was a lot of healing to be done in the squad but they’d made a start.
“You’re the kind of leader they need, Dice. Someone who has seen the darkness, fought it and come out on the other side as a better man. They’ve shown you that they can grow and be the kind of shifters and the kind of soldiers you need by your side and that’s all you can ask for, I think. They’ll forgive if you learn to forgive them for what they are as well.”
He smiled softly and in an instant, Meredith found herself being cradled in his lap, pulled to sit on one of his wide, strong thighs.
“How have I managed to survive without your smart little mouth telling me everything I needed to know for all these years, baby?” he asked playfully, pecking her on the tip of her nose.
She grinned and threw her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek in return.
“I’m not sure, Dice, but I’m glad you have. I think we can both promise to make sure that we’d never let that happen again.”
“You can say that again,” Dice said, looking at Dean and making Meredith direct her gaze to him as well. “It’s not about just us anymore. It’s about our family.”
Dice’s words were quiet and low, as much of a promise as they were a statement of the obvious. Both of them were willing to go to any lengths for their child and Meredith’s heart blossomed at the knowledge that she’d never have to fight anything alone again. Big or small, Dice would be there.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, simply enjoying one another’s company. Only when Dean stretched out his chubby little arms and legs and blinked open his eyes did either of them really move again, happily transfixed by watching their baby boy rest.
Meredith picked Dean up in her arms and he yawned as she settled him on her knee. He rubbed his eyes and Dice ran his hand through the boy’s dark auburn hair, just like his daddy’s.
“Your grandfather would have loved to meet you, Dean,” he said, his tone solemn.
The boy looked at him, his eyes wide with the same recognition Meredith had seen in them during the chopper ride as well, when he’d sat on Dice’s lap the whole entire time. Even without having spent time together, both the father and the son seemed to know exactly who they were to one another and what kind of a bond tied them to one another.
It was magical in a way and something that Meredith was excited to explore further. It was one thing to have a baby, but a whole other world to raise a shifter boy who had a father like Dice Alderson to look up to.
I am a lucky woman, she thought, and the thought made her giggle.
“What is it?” Dice asked with a smile, Dean joining in with a tiny laugh of his own, his eyes sparkling.
“I was just thinking about how lucky I am to have both of you with me now. I don’t remember when I last thought I was lucky in any way.”
“I’ll make sure you can feel like that for the rest of your days,” Dice promised, pulling them both into a hug.
It felt safe, warm and secure. Everything like it should and her heart beat in her chest with twice the strength as it had before.
Meredith was about to reply to him when a quick, raspy knock sounded at the door. Dice sighed audibly, checking the watch on his wrist with a look of pure annoyance.
“We’re going to have to continue this later, baby,” he told her softly, to which Meredith replied. “Coming!” he then yelled as a response to whoever was at the door.
“What’s going on?”
“We get to go through the less fun bit of this day,” Dice said with a grumble, helping Meredith up on her feet.
He took Dean into his arms, the boy perfectly happy with it, and then Meredith took Dice’s hand again as he led both of them out of the windowless room.
Ironically enough, now the dark and dreary surroundings didn’t bother her at all. She could make her own sunshine with Dice and Dean by her side.
Twenty-Four
Dice
Even with Dean and Meredith with him, Dice was on edge.
There were too many unanswered questions, too many problems to solve or find out the solution for.
Thor had appeared as a ghost in the night at the compound. His timing had been perfect but his reasoning for it still eluded Dice. The sniper hadn’t said a word edgewise to explain himself and Dice figured the man preferred it that way. There was no doubt that Dice and the rest of the squad owed their lives to Thor – he and The Firm operatives he had brought had cleared out the upper levels of the compound where The Arctics’ guards had been regrouping to strike in a unified force and wipe out the crippled Shifter Squad Nine.
It was obvious that with Price almost dead, Rio and Dice injured and with a group of civilian scientists to take care of, the squad would not have been any match against a controlled assault.
Now, Dice was walking through the spacious bunker to the central room, where he knew he would have the great joy of ‘facing the music’ as it were. He hadn’t pressed the topic of how Thor had gotten the equipment and the two squads worth of men he had brought with him, but it didn’t take a damn genius to figure out how he’d made it happen.
Spade.
The name carried equal measures of disdain and relief in it as Dice stepped into the room, his hand instinctively tightening around Meredith’s. Spade’s cool, cold gaze rippled over him like the icy waves of Nordic seas, chilling him to the bone, yet doing nothing to put out the flame of anger in his chest.
Spade had been his friend and a man that he owed his life to. But he was also the same man who had known for years where Meredith was and he’d done nothing to help her or even notify Dice of it. Furthermore, Spade had concealed Dean from Dice, an action that Dice could never see himself forgiving the man for.
“I see we’re in high spirits,” Spade said lightly, leaning against the back wall of the room.
He had two men with him, built like brick walls and looking in front of them stonily. Neither one of them was as tall as the towering intel operative, but then again it was difficult to look as petrifying as the black-clad ghost did. Spade flashed a grin at Dice and it took all he had to keep from giving Dean to Meredith, crossing the room and kicking his ass again.
Or at least attempting to kick his ass.
One look around the room told Dice that he’d have at least three of his squad joining in. Price was there in spirit, he imagined. It was only Thor who stood by passively, looking as if he was observing a great play of some sort. The amusement was etched on his expression far too clearly.
“What do you want, Spade?” Dice asked, exhaling deeply and forcing some calm upon himself.
It was damn difficult to do.
“I came here to be briefed, of course,” Spade started mildly, shrugging his shoulders as he looked from one agent to the next. “I hear that Shifter Squad Nine almost brought down Etihad Tower number one. That’s some kind of covert work there, boys.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Rio said, sounding convinced and adamant as he glanced to Dice. “Dice’s woman was in danger.”
“I didn’t recall that your mission statements included anything about wayward mates or saving them from peril,” Spade said.
He sounded like he was already entirely bored by the conversation.
“I wouldn’t have left her in danger, Spade. You know that,” Dice said, his tone grim.
“I have to imagine there would have been more elegant solutions than stealing an assault helicopter and bringing the whole nation to turmoil.”
“Maybe.”
That was all Dice really had to say about it. He didn’t regret anything that he’d done, nor the ways he had done them in. The ends justified the means.
“And then,” Spade continued after a pause. “Most of my elite team goes off on some fool’s errand to ransack the private property of one of the most influential billionaires in the world. Who thought that was a good idea?”
“Most of the team, obviously,” Ryker said with a chuckle, tucking a cigar in his mouth but not lighting it.
Dice was certain it was on account of Dean being in the room. For guys who seemed to have all the manners and breeding of wild beasts, they could really handle themselves around kids and women when necessary.
“I can’t say I was surprised to get the call from Thor that your asses needed saving,” Spade said.
“That’s not exactly how I phrased it,” Thor noted, though he didn’t seem too keen on contradicting Spade about his assessment.
“I appreciate the heads up,” Spade chuckled. “But I knew that you were going. Rowen’s private detail had been trying to empty out the compound all day and we figured there was something going on that was connected to you miscreants.”
“Wait. You knew where Meredith was being held? You knew where Dean was?!” Dice demanded, his voice rising in volume and pitch and only Meredith’s quick squeeze of his hand and Dean’s surprised look forced him to calm himself down slightly.
“I did,” Spade said with the simplest of nods. “You should know this by now. I know everything.”
The pause it brought in the room was thick with irritation. Dice got the very clear feeling that Spade had something on each and every man there and that was the only reason why they hadn’t joined forces to lop his head off yet.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Dice asked, his eyes flashing brown and his voice a low growl.
“It wasn’t time,” Spade responded, simple and straightforward as usual. “Her work wasn’t far enough advanced yet.”
“How do you know about my work?” Meredith asked, surprised.
Spade rolled his eyes.
“Nothing in this team happens without a reason, gentlemen. You may think it does and you may hope that you’re one step ahead of me, but you’re not. I urge you to try and be adults and at least attempt to warn me about your idiocy in advance so I may make this easier on all of us. Meredith’s work was important for us and I have little certainty that it would have come together quite so well without a little… push from The Arctics. But as you can see, we’re all together here now, one happy family.”
Spade spread his arms with a grin and this time it was Rio, snarling at him.
“You motherfucker. You almost got all of them killed. Those civilians, Dice’s girl, the kids…”
“Price,” Prowler added lowly, the usually upbeat and talkative hacker subdued that day on account of his blood loss and the obvious worry for his twin.
It was like a dark shadow was hanging over his shoulders.
“Every war has its consequences,” Spade said coolly. “I’ll see you gentlemen back stateside. Try not to blow up any skyscrapers between then and now, hmm?”
Hateful gazes followed Spade and his procession of spooks as they exited the central area, certain to go catch a helicopter and leave the bunker as fast as they could. Dice could only imagine that Julien Rowen was tied up and thrown in the back with them as well, as the squad had made a detour to pick him up after leaving the compound.
That, or he’s sitting pretty with Spade, drinking fucking champagne.
Both thoughts were equally as likely to be true. It made Dice’s blood boil.
When the door closed behind Spade, Dice could practically hear everyone letting out a collective breath. There was something about that goddamn guy that was so unsettling these days that his aura could command a room of men who weren’t afraid of the devil, but the intelligence operative cou
ld make them all stand a little bit straighter.
“Fuck, I hate that guy,” Rio exclaimed, shaking his head and wincing as a flash of pain must have shot through him.
“Do you want to tell us what happened, Thor?” Dice asked, ignoring the wish to join in with Rio about snarling about his former close friend turned frenemy.
All eyes turned on Thor and he smirked slightly before meeting Dice’s gaze.
“What’s there to say?”
“Why did you decide to come after us, for one thing,” Ryker interjected.
“Yeah. I thought you were too good for sideline missions,” Rio added.
“Guess I had my reasons.”
“Reasons that made you go to Spade?” Dice asked.
Thor snorted at that, straightening up. “I’m gonna tell you what he told you already. He knows everything. You and I both know that and if the rest of you don’t then it’s about time you get on the bandwagon. Whatever you think you’re managing to do behind his back, it’s not happening. He’s the one who gets us into these piles of shit, he’s the one who has to get us out.”
“Us?” Dice asked, catching Thor referring to the team in a manner which implied at least a passing interest in it.
“Whatever,” he said, shrugging.
Dice looked at Meredith and her lovely blue eyes softened slightly. Gently, she slipped her hand out of his and crossed through the room, Dice watching her with surprise. She walked up to the tall, deadly sniper, slouched against the wall in a defensive pose, and put her hands around him, hugging him.
“Thank you, Thor. I am grateful for your help.”
Dice couldn’t hide his smile as the man seemed to be paralyzed in place for a moment, before he gingerly returned the hug. It was awkward at best, with him patting her on the shoulder like he’d been caught unaware, but that didn’t seem to deter Meredith one bit. Her smile was genuine and warm and the affection and thanks that was evident on her expression sincerely heartfelt.
Dice shook his head as she went through the rest of the team the same way, smiling to himself.