Page 22 of War Games

Dirk narrowed his eyes on her and left it alone, deciding he was out of energy for Carey. He turned into the Kick Shot parking lot and went around the building and down the driveway. Heath was still training werewolves, but Landon wasn’t there.

“Wow, he really skipped the entire morning of training,” Carey said, as surprised as Dirk felt.

“He’s really never done that before, has he?”

“No…” Carey’s head shake flung blonde hair everywhere. “Oooh, Dad is going to bepissedwhen he sees Landon next. He hates when werewolves intentionally skip these sorts of things, and Landon is… Landon. It messes with the entire pack if Landon gets too much special treatment, so Dad is going to have to deal with him.”

“Has this ever happened before?” Dirk asked, frowning as he parked near the small security building where he did the most work.

“Not with Landon, but Richard tried a couple of things before… everything else that happened. Dad’s yelling could be heard from down the street. He sent me to hang out with Shamus and his kids, who were human at the time. He laid into Richard, and Richard wasn’t a high-ranking werewolf. Landon is Dad’s second.” Carey made a face. “Yikes. I’m going to go in and stay clear of that blast whenever it goes off.”

“Yeah? That scary?” He had seen Heath rightfully pissed before, but Carey must have seen those moments, too, growing up with the man as her father. Whatever Heath was going to do to Landon for skipping training was worse?

“Let’s just say there are some days I’m really glad I was born a human and not a werewolf. They aren’t often, but they do happen,” Carey said, shaking her head.

Dirk was left a bit scared and got out quickly, following her into Jacky’s house. Heath lived there, too, but even Heath made it clear it was Jacky’s home before anyone else’s.

“Hey, you two! Welcome home,” Jacky said as they entered the front door. “I was waiting on you two. Carey, I hate to ask this, but?—”

“We still need to put everything back in the gun safe,” Dirk said quickly, realizing that by following Carey, he had made his only real mistake of the day. He tapped Carey’s shoulder. “Come on. Don’t make me do this by myself. You need to learn this just like how we checked them out earlier.”

“All right.” She gave an exaggerated groan, but it held no real attitude.

Dirk dragged her back out as Jacky laughed. He had seen the pile of papers on the dining room table with her and knew it was going to be work for him. He just knew it. Since Oliver had stepped neatly out of the supernatural side of things, he had picked up everything else. He wasn’t just the head of security that Jacky really didn’t need any more, thanks to a pack of werewolves. He was her assistant.

He knew she had literally no idea just how much he managed for her—from keeping the grounds around her place cleaned up and clear to looking through her emails daily to make sure none of them were suspicious. He knew when all of her meetings were, one of the reasons he had decided to get Carey out of the house. He knew all her contacts for everyone in the BSA and had spoken to them himself to try to get them to stay away from her house.

It's a good job. She doesn’t bother me all that much. Neither does Heath.

He and Carey put the three firearms back in the safe, signing off that they were secured again. When they got back to the house, Carey hugged Jacky and looked at the stack of papers.

“Not for me to know about, right?”

“You can know, but you can’t be involved,” Jacky said, gesturing to a seat. “This is work for me and Dirk, though.”

“I knew it,” he mumbled with a chuckle.

Jacky pushed the stack to him as he and Carey sat down. She leaned over and pointed at the front page.

“Direct from the Tribunal,” she said with a grin, her wavy hair falling over her shoulder. “We can finally get to work and make sure the witches actually investigated these people well enough.”

She was his aunt, and he truly believed that even though there wasn’t a drop of blood shared between them, he wasn’t blind. Jacky didn’t look a day over the twenty-six years she had been the day she was Changed. She and Carey were beginning to look more like sisters than a young mom and her daughter or stepdaughter. Dirk agreed with Landon when he said it was a good thing that Jacky didn’t know that she was probably one of the most gorgeous women in the state of Texas. She looked great and the only reason someone would miss it was because she was so casual about everything.

Her wavy hair was always windblown and messy but not tangled, so it seemed like a choice and not her disregard for it. She didn’t wear makeup, and she certainly didn’t wear anything that was meant to make use of her natural curves. She existed in a pair of older jeans, always bootcut, and she was always wearing boots, with some obscure band t-shirt that was probably black and the same leather jacket she’d worn for years.

Dirk was amazed it didn’t have bullet holes in it or burned spots.

It was easy for her, and she had no idea.

“So… we’re going to fully redo their investigation,” he guessed. “I work with Davor to research them, and you’ll go talk to them?”

“Actually, Subira thinks we both need to go to visit these people. She said I should take a werewolf because Niko is going to be traveling for his assignment, looking outside of the local area where that family might have had friends. We’re looking at locals… or close to locals. We’ve got Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and such.” Jacky sighed. “Sorry… Niko volunteered you to join me, and since he’ll be out of town, we have to train each other instead of being trained by him.”

Dirk felt an itch in his head, the mate bond flaring back to full power as he considered what Jacky was saying. He was going to be leaving the territory, talking to witches with her. He was supposed to be her backup, ordered by Subira, her mother and his grandmother.

Landon’s frustration grew in his mind, not because he already knew but because Dirk knew he needed to face it.

“I will tell Landon,” Jacky said softly, touching his shoulder. “I will, or Heath can handle it, though he doesn’t know yet. They haven’t wrapped up for lunch yet, and without Landon, I certainly can’t interrupt today.”

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