Page 24 of The Accidental Assassin's Mate

The lion met my stare and nodded. “I would never leave anyone’s omega to die, Sutton. You’re one of us now, and so is he. I’m no grudge holder. It may take a while before we trust him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hang him out to dry. Trust me?”

“Yeah. I do. Okay. Let’s lay out the plan.”

While we were talking through everything, going over maps and drone footage, I pulled Raven into my lap and wrapped my arms around him. I was sure he wanted to do this to prove his loyalty to the team and maybe as his own kind of apology, but there were so many little things that could go wrong.

I would just have to make sure they didn’t.

We talked about the layout. Tyrus and I had gathered intel on the houses. Where the alphas would be. Where the omegas were being held. Ways to get out if things went south. Every detail was discussed at length.

By the end of the meeting, I had more surety in the mission and my mate’s safety, but my worries lingered.

“Sutton,” Pop-Tart called out as Raven and I left the building hand in hand. If we were going to do this, then I wanted to spend the night soaking up my mate’s presence. Tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed for any of us.

“Yeah?” I called instinctively putting Raven behind me.

“I mean no harm,” he said, palms out. “Everyone wanted me to remind you and your mate that tonight is the bonfire. We’re going to cook hot dogs and have s’mores for the kids. We wanted to make sure you knew you were invited. Both of you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

We went back to our cabin and hung out for the rest of the day. We took long walks, and I completely ignored any trainingor classes I had that day. I simply texted Tyrus and said I was spending the day with my omega.

His reply?Sounds good.

When we returned from our walk, some of the team were placing pieces of wood into a teepee formation. Others set up tables and chairs around the fire.

“Do you want to go?” I asked, tugging on our joined hands.

“Yes.” His answer surprised me. They had excluded him. They didn’t look at the reasons, only saw what he did. Sure, I could see myself acting in the same manner if someone kidnapped my mate, but we knew it wasn’t his fault. He had to do as he was told.

“Are you sure?”

He pushed in closer and wrapped one arm around my waist. “Am I sure about sitting with my alpha under the stars with the warmth of a fire? Yes.”

That night, we shared a camping chair. I cuddled him on my lap. We didn’t say a lot, only observed. All the kids were having an amazing time. Laughter enveloped us. Some of the team came up and talked to us but others didn’t. Accepting us would take time, and I was fine with it. More time with my mate.

Raven turned in my arms as the fire dwindled down. The kids had gone to bed and most of the omegas as well. “There’s something I need to tell you before tomorrow,” he said.

“You can tell me anything. You know that.”

He placed his warm hands on my face. “I love you. It’s not the bond or the fact that you saved my life. You are strong and honest and you’ve treated me better than I ever thought an alpha would. I love you, Sutton.”

I pulled him down and kissed him. We got some whistles and calls from the others to get a room, but I didn’t expect any less from those animals.

“I love you, Raven. For who you are today. None of the rest matters to me.”

Chapter Seventeen

Raven

My dad had a saying about plans being what you make while life falls out from underneath you. It had been accurate for my entire life, but I really hoped it wouldn’t be this time. Hope didn’t get me far.

The team and I had come up with a solid plan. I was going to go in and help extract some of the omegas, if not all of them. I would be the one to get the details, to infiltrate. Everything would go easy peasy. Fine. I never for a second believed that, but it would work. It had to. The team would never say I needed to make up for my old life, but I did. Not for them, but for me.

And then Tyrus discovered something. Something big. Something bad. Something that made our plan useless.

We already knew they were taking omegas from other shifter packs for power and that they were getting others in an apparently random way and selling them. But, until Tyrus found the app, we didn’t realize how they were getting those “random” shifters. There wasn’t a single thing random about it. They were using what looked like a dating app to anyone who stumbled upon it.

Tyrus and Sutton dug deeper to find it was even worse than we originally thought. Over the past few years, there had been different versions of the app, targeting different interests and locations. From what they could piece together, as soon as they got a group of omegas, they’d shut one version down and launch another. It was vile. Disgusting. Terrifying. The stuff of nightmares.

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