by Ava Benton
“You don’t know that,” I muttered, even though it was true. I would’ve done whatever it took to keep my friends safe.
“Oh, and he looks at you like he wants to take your clothes off with his teeth,” Layla shrugged.
This time, all three of us laughed.
“How’s Alice?” Daniela asked when we settled down.
“Good. She’s getting along well with the other girls. It’s good for her to have other humans around.”
“It’s weird—I know we shouldn’t feel separate from them, but I can’t help it,” Layla admitted in a hushed voice. “I’m not trying to drive a wedge or start trouble where there isn’t any, but it’s something that’s been on my mind.”
“Oh, God, I’m glad one of us got up the courage to admit it,” Daniela whispered.
I looked at the two of them in surprise, then remembered feeling pretty much the same way before I met them. A lot of that had been based in jealousy, though, and it was all centered around Drew.
What was their excuse? Did they honestly feel like the girls were that different from them?
“You should hang out with the girls some time,” I suggested. When they both looked skeptical, I added, “Really. They’re great. Maggie worked in Disney World and Hope, like, made herself disappear in the middle of Manhattan after she witnessed a murder. They both have a lot of stories, and they’re really friendly.”
“Is it important to you that we make friends with them?” Daniela asked, glancing at Layla.
The exchanged a look I couldn’t read.
“Honestly, yes. I would like if you guys and they could be friends, so I wouldn’t feel like I’m splitting myself between two sides. I love you guys, and I like them—and I feel like they’ll be a bigger part of my life if things work out with Drew—so it would make life better if you all got along.” I hoped I didn’t sound like a total idiot.
Was this who I had become? The girl who asked her friends to make friends with her boyfriend’s clique?
“You really want to be with him, don’t you?” There was no smile in Layla’s voice. She wasn’t teasing.
It was a heavy question, too, not the sort of thing I could answer off-the-cuff. Granted, I could have tossed out some quick reply that we all laughed at and life would’ve gone on. But that wouldn’t have been real.
I was tired of hiding the way I felt from the people who mattered most.
Being honest didn’t mean being weak, and it didn’t make me any less of a leader.
It still wasn’t easy for me to admit, but, “Yeah. I guess I do.”
12
Nia
The door to the cabin was open when I left the tent, and my heart jumped. I smiled to myself.
Drew was back. I wanted to see him. I wanted to be with him. My feet carried me down the path before I even knew what I was doing.
He was in there, walking back and forth with his arms folded. Staring at the floor.
I cleared my throat when he didn’t notice me standing in the doorway, and the look on his face made me take a step back.
His eyes were narrow, his teeth clenched. His nostrils flared like a bull’s.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said, feeling around an inch tall.
He shook his head, and his expression cleared up a little. “No, it’s okay. I mean, what could you be interrupting right now?”
I shrugged. “You looked preoccupied is all I’m saying.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I guess I am. But that’s not your fault. Come in.”
I took a few slow, tentative steps into the cabin and closed the door behind me.
“I was just thinking about you,” he said when the door was shut.
“Oh?” I was about to ask him to explain when he rushed me, pinning me to the door so fast I didn’t have time to react.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” he growled in my ear as he moved his hips close to me.
I felt him growing against my thigh and barely bit back a growl of my own. His hands closed around my wrists and lifted them, pinning them over my head.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
His breath was hot against my neck as his mouth skimmed the surface—barely kissing me, barely touching me at all, but enough to set me on fire.
My nerves jumped and danced and screamed for more, but he wanted to tease me. I writhed against him—my nipples brushed against his chest and hardened on contact, even through our clothes.
“What does it feel like I’m doing?” he asked in a low snarl, still pressing his body to mine.
He took my wrists in one hand, using the other one to slide down my side.
I shivered, closing my eyes, absorbing the sensations he sent shooting through me.
When he reached my waist, he dipped under my t-shirt and moved back up until he cupped one of my breasts.
“Hmm… already excited,” he groaned as he flicked my hard nipple, making me whimper weakly as a rush of warmth spread in my core, between my thighs.
He slid his leg between them, opening them, turning the warmth to toe-curling heat.
One more squeeze of my breast before placing his big, rough hand on my thigh and moving up under my skirt. I squirmed and wriggled the further he went, while his lips went from skimming my throat to sucking it. I tilted my head back against the door, helpless in his grip, lost in bliss by the time his fingers danced along the hem of my panties. I was already aching for him, wet and hot and ready for him to take me as hard and as long as he wanted.
“So wet,” he gasped when he found my pussy, and the way he groaned when his fingers sank into my sheath made me tighten around him.
I rode his fingers, bucking my hips back and forth, rubbing against the straining bulge in his pants and imagining I was fucking that instead.
He panted like an animal, faster and faster in time with my gasps and groans, and it all pushed me closer to the edge. When his thumb circled my throbbing clit, I lost it.
“Oh, God!” I screamed, clenching around his fingers.
I would’ve sunk to the floor on weak legs if he wasn’t still holding me up by my wrists. I leaned against him when he let go and was only dimly aware of his frenzied grunts as he freed his cock.
He pushed the skirt around my hips and pulled my panties aside before impaling me on his rigid length.
“Yes…!” I gasped, another orgasm already building as he stretched and filled me.
He lifted me in his strong arms and I wrapped my legs around him, then my arms, and held on as tight as I could with my back pressed against the door.
I heard the wood creak with every strong thrust, faster and faster. I clawed at him, biting his shoulder, pulling at his clothes until I touched bare skin. So hot, so smooth, already slick with sweat.
“Yes, Drew… yes…” I breathed into his ear another orgasm swept over me.
My legs tightened around his hips, and my nails dug into his shoulders as pleasure hit me from all sides and left me gasping, shaking, quivering around his dick as he kept moving in and out.
His rhythm failed—he started humping wildly, slapping his balls against me as he lost control.
I closed my eyes and smiled when he came, taking, even more, pleasure in knowing what I drove him to.
“I guess Dad will want to take some of us with him.” Drew was staring up at the ceiling, thinking out loud.
I watched and listened as he worked things out.
“I mean, he would want to take me and the guys, naturally, but some of your group will probably come along, too. The more, the better.”
He sighed, then looked down at me.
I was resting with my head on his shoulder, sprawled out next to him in bed. “What?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
“I’ll feel a lot better about leaving you if I know there’s extra security here. I don’t know how many of us will finally leave. I don’t like not knowing, especially when you’re involved.”
“I’m not exactly a shrinking violet, yo
u know.” I flexed one of my biceps, then kissed it.
He laughed, and my heart swelled. It was good to hear him let go like that. I wanted to hear more of that laugh.
He kissed my bicep, too, and ruffled my hair. “Even so, I want somebody around to protect you. Not that I don’t think you could tear a grown man apart if you weren’t outnumbered, but the odds are against you never being outnumbered. Once whoever’s in charge finds out two of their guys went missing, they won’t send just two next time.”
I sighed, flopping on my back. “Yeah, I know.”
“Don’t get pissy.”
“I’m not!”
He rolled onto his side.
I felt his eyes on me, but I was too busy staring holes into the ceiling to acknowledge him. “You can’t take this personally.”
“It’s not even that,” I sneered. “I’m not some over-emotional girl you have to coddle, okay? Let’s get that out of the way right now.”
“Consider it out of the way,” he murmured.
I searched myself to put into words what was bothering me. “I’m not good at explaining how I feel,” I said as I continued to stare at the ceiling. “Talking out our feelings—it wasn’t something my grandparents were into. They were a different generation.”
“Of course. Stoic. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get on with life.”
“Wow. Did you know them?” We both chuckled. “So, yeah, this is still tough for me.”
“I get it. Take your time—because I do want to know how you feel. It’s important to me.” He took my chin in two fingers and turned my head ever so slightly, enough that we were eye-to-eye. “I’ll never dismiss your feelings, and I’ll never make a decision and expect you to blindly follow along because my word is law. I’m not a Neanderthal. I want you to know that.”
Something stirred in my heart.
The way he made it sound, he was talking about forever. How did I feel about that?
Forever.
It was a big, scary, heart-thumping word.
I swallowed over the lump in my throat and pushed back all the conflicting emotions. “Thank you.”
He nodded and let go of my chin.
I took a deep breath. “It’s not that I take what you’re saying personally. I know this has nothing to do with how strong you think I am or how capable I am or anything like that. I know you’re worried, and that’s actually sort of nice. Nobody’s ever been worried about me before.”
“I doubt that.”
“It’s true,” I insisted, eyes wide. “Nobody cared about me the way you do before now. Yeah, I guess my grandparents loved me—maybe, or maybe I was just something that got dropped on their doorstep, and they took care of me because I was blood. I don’t know. And Jordan cares about me because I’m in his charge. He wants to make sure nothing bad happens to me, but not because of me. Does that make sense?” It barely made sense to me, and I was the one speaking, but Drew nodded anyway. “As I said, it doesn’t have to do with me being insulted or whatever. It’s more like I’m worried about you, and I hate not being there with you to see with my own eyes that you’re okay. I’ll sit around, eating my heart out, worrying like crazy.”
“You will?”
I was all set to roll my eyes and tell him to stop fishing for compliments when I sat how serious he was. And how touched.
I stroked his cheek and told myself to remember that moment. I wanted to hold it close to my heart for the rest of my life. “Of course. I’ll worry myself sick.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “It’s my turn to tell you that nobody’s ever cared that much about me before.”
“And it’s my turn to act skeptical,” I murmured.
“It’s true. Just believe it’s true.” He wound his arms so tight around me, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to breathe.
But I didn’t ask him to loosen his grip.
13
Drew
I was running down a long, dark hallway with a faint light at the end of it. I had to make it to the light. The light meant safety. It meant my mission was complete and I could go home. I wanted to go home. Why did I ever sign on for this? It was insanity.
My lungs were about to burst, but I forced my feet to move faster, faster, knowing I had the information I was tasked with finding in my inside pocket, close to my chest. There were dead bodies back there, three of them, and I was the one who made them that way. I had to run. I was so tired, but I had to run.
Bangbangbang!
“Drew… wake up…” Somebody was shaking me back and forth.
I jumped back, eyes flying open wide.
“What?” I almost shouted. Where the fuck was I?
Nia shrank back as she pulled the blanket around her chest. “Somebody’s at the door.”
Another series of knocks.
That had been what I heard.
I shook my head and rubbed my fists over my eyes.
“Sorry. Bad dream,” I muttered as I slid out of bed, then called out, “Who is it?”
“Roan.”
I opened the door a crack.
He looked me up and down but didn’t comment on the fact that I was in my underwear—in fact, it looked like he had expected it, since he was standing away from the door with his hands clasped behind his back.
I knew him.
He would’ve barged right in if he thought I was alone.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Mary’s on the line.”
That was all I needed to hear. I held up a finger and spun away from the door.
Nia was already holding my clothes out to me—I took them with a smile and had them on in no time. Shoes would take too much time, so I ran out without them.
By that time, Roan was already halfway to Carter and Alice’s cabin.
I closed the door behind me when I saw that everybody else was waiting.
“Nice of you to join us, Drew,” Mary smiled, looking at me in that way she had that made a full-grown man who could shift into a dire wolf whenever he wanted to feel like a first grader who forgot to get his homework signed.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“You didn’t really,” Dad said, then turned his attention to Mary. “So? What do you have for us?”
“Confirmation,” she said, grinning.
She felt pretty good about herself and her team, I thought. They must have come through.
Dad leaned closer to the screen. “Where are they?”
“Washington, just like we had first guessed,” she said. “Well, not guessed, I mean the judgment was based on information…”
Dad waved an impatient hand.
It wasn’t like Mary to keep talking that way. She had to be exhausted to babble like that. I almost felt bad for the nap I just took.
“Send us the coordinates,” he ordered.
“Not so fast.” Her expression hardened, and she became the Mary we all knew and loved. “It isn’t as easy as sending you coordinates and wishing you luck.”
“Isn’t it?” Dad asked with a snarl.
“Jonathan, we can’t do it that way. And you know it. There has to be a little more finesse put into a mission of this magnitude.”
He bristled. “Please. Call me Jordan.”
I glanced at Lance and saw confusion all over his face.
“Jonathan, Jordan, it doesn’t matter. I’m speaking to a man who should know better than to march on a compound like this one without a hell of a tight plan in place and plenty of fire power to back himself up.”
He stared. She stared.
I met Carter’s eyes, and he winced.
I nodded.
“What do you suggest?” Dad spat through clenched teeth.
“I suggest you allow my team to meet you there. We have the firepower you need. While I understand how strong all of you are, it won’t hurt to have backup. My team can help ensure the area is secure before you go in.”
“That makes it sound like we’re the ba
ckup,” he pointed out.
“It’s all semantics, for God’s sake.” She bolted upright. “The important thing is putting these contractors out of commission before they put you out of commission. Is your pride bigger than that? Because if it is, I need to know now. We’ll go in without you.”
There was a tense, heavy moment after that. Neither of them spoke. Roan took a step forward, like he wanted to clear things up, but Slate threw out an arm to block him and shook his head. It had to be fixed between Mary and Dad, whatever was happening.
When neither of them backed down, I cleared my throat. “You mentioned your team a few times,” I said, looking at Mary. “What are we talking about? I didn’t know you had a team.”
“Yeah, I would like to know that, too,” Carter added, throwing me a grateful look. “What team is this?”
“And who are you, anyway?” I figured I had nothing to lose, and it was something that had been on my mind ever since Mary “found” us and sheltered us—that curiosity had only grown when she started assigning us missions.
She froze for a second before chuckling. “I guess you’ve been asking yourself that question for a long time.”
The four of us nodded.
She sighed, taking off her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “Let’s put it this way: there are a lot of people just like you—well, maybe not just like your particular situation, but those who have in one way or another been betrayed by the people they put their faith in. People who sacrificed for years, who put their family and personal lives on the back burner because they felt a sense of duty. Like the four of you were hung out to dry because of the decisions of others, so were they. What we have as a result is a bunch of people with very specific skill sets who want to do all they can to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else. Of course, it’s happening all the time—there are too many holes in the bucket for us to plug them all—but we do what we can.”
A bunch of people like us. Not shifters, but people who ended up out in the cold when all they had ever done was follow orders. I wondered how many there were, and how many were out there who nobody had ever heard of.