Page 29 of A Beta Protects

“So Shawn’s lie didn’t convince him.” Galen slows to a crawl down main street.

As always, the streets are quiet, the traffic on the road limited to people coming and going from Lacey’s Lemon Bar. But calling the five trucks parked outside traffic is being generous.

“Or Bryce knows Kira is here some other way.” I sweep my eyes over the streets, rolling the window down so I can use my biggest advantage: my nose.

I might not remember his scent, but I can sure as hell pick out any unfamiliar scents that would stir my wolf’s instincts.

I’m not getting that.

It’s the ordinary sights, scents, and sounds of Main Street.

Lemon, sweets, and baking from Lacey’s. Mint and chocolate from the ice cream parlor. One sniff and I always know which flavor is the popular flavor that day. As usual, it's mint-choc chip. Nothing that makes me think an out of towner is here to cause trouble.

Galen turns at the end of Main Street and snakes through the residential side roads. There aren’t many. Not with sub ten thousand inhabitants to the city, so this won’t take long.

Nothing.

“We could park up and take a walk, see if he takes a potshot at us?” Galen suggests.

I look at him. “Sometimes, I wonder about you.”

He snorts a laugh. “I didn’t say it was a good idea. Just an idea.”

Sierra did the same thing, playing bait to lure out enforcers from his old pack who abducted him from outside the jewelers, and nearly killed him. I’d ask him if he stole the idea from Sierra, but it’s probably Galen’s. Neither one of them ever hesitates to put themselves in the line of fire for the people they care about.

I shake my head and resume scanning the buildings we pass. All the townhouses and apartment blocks are quiet. No sign of any trouble down here. “He might have taken off after he fired the shot. If he was close enough to wound me, he was close enough to recognize me.”

“Ah, so he’ll have remembered you were a Marine, the past life you have still yet to share with your alpha.” Galen pulls back off the side street.

Nothing has changed on Main Street as we wound through the quiet residential streets.

“That was a hint,” he says, dryly. “In case you missed it. A big hint to tell me about this secret past as a Marine you have told none of us about.”

“It was a long time ago.”

Rain lashes me, mud tugs so hard on my boots, it nearly wrenches them off. The coppery scent of blood is rich in the air, and in the distance, the rat-a-tat of bullets tearing into people and trees surrounds me on all sides.

I meet Aaron’s blue eyes as he lies nearly neck deep in mud. Like the rest of us, he’s as miserable and exhausted from the relentless pace of the days, weeks, and months of our trek through this miserable jungle. But the end is finally in sight.

We just have to push through this last ambush, and we’re home free.

“How is it?” I yell to be heard over a bomb falling somewhere on my left.

His teeth flash white from a face smeared with dark green and black camouflage paint, but he never takes his finger off his rifle trigger when he yells back, “Outstanding!”

Because no matter the weather, the exhaustion, or if someone just shot you in the ass and you don’t know how you’ll sit until it heals over, it is always outstanding.

Even on the day you and half your platoon get bombed out and you fight tooth and nail to save them, but you can’t save them all. So only you and two others live through it. And when you go home, you’ll see your mate crying because you couldn’t save her brother.

“Hey!” Galen’s words return me to the present.

He’s pulled over feet from the ice cream parlor's front doors. Not far from where I just took a bullet.

I meet his gaze, expression blank. “Please tell me you’re not going ahead with this walk around and wait for someone to take potshots at us idea?”

His green stare is probing. “You know you can talk to me about shit, right? Fuck knows I talked your ear off about Sierra and my growling habit. According to my beta, I have a fondness for growling that only one woman can tolerate without wanting to leave me. I’m proud to say I’ve reduced it by approximately fifty percent.”

“Fifty percent is generous.”

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