Page 20 of War Games

“Is he okay? I haven’t seen him this morning or heard from him. I… I noticed Landon wasn’t around.”

“Landon is Heath’s problem and still at home,” I answered. “Dirk was tired when he stopped by to pick up Carey earlier. Not too tired, but tired. We think they might have argued.”

“Ah…” Niko nodded then he cursed softly. He leaned back on the door frame as a sardonic smile appeared on his face. “Allow me to give my apologies.”

“For what?”

“You have to tell Landon that Dirk is joining you to visit witches who may be active enemies of the Moon Cursed.” Heslapped the doorframe and left, half running out of my house, leaving me with that troubling knowledge. It wasn’t until he was minutes away in his car that I dared open my mouth.

“Fuck.”

8

CHAPTER EIGHT

DIRK

Dirk silently supervised Carey as she showed her knowledge of how to maintain the small sidearm, taking it apart and cleaning it.

He was still awkward around her, and he wasn’t sure how to fix that. Carey was a kid. Well, she wasn’t as much of a kid anymore, but she was still absolutely a kid.

Except it’s not her age that always made me feel weird around her. It’s the fact that I don’t like seeing my own childhood play out in front of me. Always changing how I had to do things so other people wouldn’t think of me as my father’s weakness…

“How was that?” she asked, showing the cleaned parts.

He did his inspection, making sure she had fully cleaned everything properly. It was effective, which made him wonder about some things he was going to ask her about when they were leaving.

“Good. Put it back together,” he said, waving at it. People at the gun range were watching them and had been since it was officially open. They weren’t doing a good job keeping to themselves. He moved slightly, pretending to get a better angleof how she was doing, and she was reassembling it rather quickly. The movement blocked another person staring, too curious for their own good.

“People staring again?” she asked.

“They never stopped,” he answered, keeping his voice as low as hers. “Don’t worry. I got you.”

“I know. You’re like Landon but less overbearing and controlling.”

Dirk winced at the words, and Carey noticed that, looking up with a frown as she put the correctly reassembled sidearm back into its case.

“He’s been an asshole, yeah?” Carey patted his shoulder. “It’s because he loves you.”

“He loves his father but isn’t an asshole to him,” Dirk muttered. He’d been intentionally ignoring the mate bond all morning, not wanting to deal with the man on the other end of it. There were feelings from it, but Dirk knew how to neatly push the mate bond away far enough that they didn’t color his own mood and became easier to ignore. It wasn’t always negative. It was almost never negative; it was mostly an issue about focusing on work when he needed to.

Carey laughed, shaking her head.

“Sure he is! He just doesn’t do it that much in front of the other werewolves. The only person he loved but was never an asshole to was Richard,” she said, patting Dirk’s arm. She picked up the case and pointed at the two others sitting at his feet. “I can carry one of those if we want to head out now.”

“I got them,” he said, reaching out. As they walked out, he took note of everyone who stared at them, particularly those who turned and whispered to others. He didn’t grow up with much of this energy outside the house unless he was in a known supernatural area, like a business that catered to vampires, which he had avoided being human. It was the one way Careywas a lot tougher than most people gave her credit for. He knew she could see and hear them, but she held her chin up and walked out without so much as giving them a single glance.

“I hope y’all enjoyed today!” the owner called out, waving as Dirk put the cases in the back of his truck.

“Yeah, thanks for opening early for us,” Dirk said, smiling back at the human owner, Brock. He’d brought other werewolves here multiple times, and he was familiar with Brock. Brock probably would have hated Dirk if they had met after he’d been Changed, but Dirk had actually come here a few times before his Change, and the owner didn’t even notice. Dirk finally let him in on it, explaining how it happened without too many details. In the end, it was Brock who figured out werewolves weren’t so bad instead of losing the easy business he had thanks to the werewolves now around, including Dirk, the “weird German guy,” as he had once been called.

“Thank you, Brock!” Carey called out, waving as well before she jumped into his truck.

Once they were out of the gravel lot used for parking, Carey sighed heavily.

“I don’t know how my dad does it, keeping that energy for people all day, every day.”

“Really? It seems like it comes easy for you,” Dirk said, chuckling. “You are way less awkward than I ever was when someone knew who my father was.”

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