Page 91 of The Wild Charge

“Fuck,” she said, flat and shocked. Then, with more feeling, “Fuckme, you idiots.”

“We’rethe idiots?” Tenny snarled, low and rumbling; Fox could see the way the words, and his tone, sent a quiet, quick shock through everyone else. He set his glass down with a sharp clink and braced his hand on the island, leaning forward like a leopard, half-across Reese and teeth bared at Raven. “You knew what was happening here, what we were up against, and you decided inserting two civilians – one of them a teenager – into this clusterfuck was the best idea? You stupid–”

“Hey!” Emmie clapped her hands together, a sharp crack, her tone like the snap of a whip. It was the tone she used on misbehaving horses. “Knock it off!”

Tenny drew back up to his full height, chest heaving on a gasped breath. “Why the fuck did you come here? So you can be collateral damage?”

Emmie’s eyes flashed, but Fox sent her a look. Raven could handle herself.

And she did so, meeting Tenny’s glare unflinching, her gaze bright and hard, that same cut-crystal blue they all shared. “I am not,” she bit off each word with a snap of teeth, “acivilian. I’ve been neck-deep in this Dog shit long before you came along, you cheeky upstartbastard.”

The sound that built in Tenny’s throat was barely human. “If you’re so fucking afraid, why didn’t you take your sister and run off to Portugal, or somewhere? Why did you comecloser?”

“Because there’s no one I trust more than my family. Which, by the way, Cassie isyoursister, too.”

Tenny growled again–

And Reese’s hand gripped the back of his cut. “Tenny,” he said, softly. Not a warning, but a plea.

Tenny stilled – and then, lips pressing tight, broke away and stormed out of the room, boots clomping loud and purposeful over the tile.

When Reese moved to follow, Fox stayed him with a hand. “Give him a minute.”

Reese still didn’t look quite right, still dazed like he’d been punched one too many times, but the spark of concern in his eyes was reassuring. He’d be alright – he’d just gotten a little stuck in a musty, cobwebby back corner of his mind.

Tenny needed him – but, Fox knew that his brother, like himself, needed to cool off first.

~*~

Tenny wanted to go outside and feel the cool rush of wind on his face, but they were probably about to have the door kicked in and rushed by stormtroopers, so…inside it was. He stalked down the hallway, looking for a room in which to stew, and settled on an office: big, dark, masculine. With a row of vodka bottles on the sideboard. Perfect.

He cracked the top off one and took a generous pull, wincing at its warmth. Ugh. Didn’t matter.

He drank, and he paced, and though he was loath to acknowledge it, his anger wasn’t really directed at Raven. Nor even Cassandra, stupid jealousy aside.

Even worse: it wasn’t even anger. It was fear.

He took another long, ill-advised pull off the bottle and stopped in the middle of the rug, gaze snagging on a framed photo on the wall: Walsh and Emmie, little Violet on Walsh’s hip; Emmie smiling broadly, Walsh with reserve, but with a light in his eyes that spoke of all the feeling he kept close to the vest. That was his brother, he thought, a little stupidly. The knowledge slapped him in the face sometimes. One of his brothers.

In a sudden hurry, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed before he could think better of it.

Kristin answered uncertainly on the second ring. “Hello?”

Tenny’s jaw wouldn’t work.

“Tenny?” she asked, her voice even softer over the phone than in person. “Reese programmed your number into my phone. You okay?”

His training told him what to say; how to handle this – how to handle her. She was sensitive, like Reese, but in such a different way. He could deal with sensitive, had countless times in his career.

But his training had abandoned him, tonight. He was just…just him. As awful as that was.

“Reese’s old handler,” he gritted out. “His trainer.”

She made a soft, shocked sound on the other end of the line.

“Do you know his name?”

She let out a deep breath. Didn’t ask why he wanted to know; didn’t press for details. “Yeah,” she said. “He never told Reese, but he kept me apart. I was – I was just leverage. His name’s Marshall Hunter.”

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