Page 12 of Mates & Mercenaries

“Oh right, yeah.” She sits up and swings her legs over the side of the bed, then stares up at me through her long eyelashes. “Sorry about that. I take it this is the safe house? It’s nice. And it seems to be in the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh, yeah, there isn’t anyone for miles. I’ve been around and checked, and we are very much all alone out here, so you don’t need to worry.”

“I…” She swallows hard before she continues. “I’m scared. I think it’s only just hit me how terrifying all of this is. It’s really shaken me to the core.”

Uh-oh, is this it? The breakdown? I’m glad I’m here now so I can support her. What I’m not expecting is for her to leap up from the bed and fly across the room to me. I don’t know what to do when she flings her arms around me to sob against my chest.

“It’s okay, don’t worry.” I hold her closer. “You don’t have to be strong about this all the time, it isn’t a normal situation. But we’re here and we’re going to protect you. We’re going to make sure that you’re safe. You honestly don’t need to worry when we’re around.”

She glances up at me with tears in her eyes. “Yeah, I do know that. I think it’s just shocked me a little. It’s finally hitting me now what happened. It’s been one hell of a night.”

I hug her for a little while longer while she lets it all out. I hope this is cathartic for her, because I would also like her to enjoy her time here as much as she can.

Once she’s feeling a little bit better, she asks for my help unpacking her belongings. Of course I comply, because it gives me a little longer with Skylar, which is really nice.

She definitely seems a little bit happier when we head downstairs to join Creed, and Rex and Sam who have returned.

“It’s time to make a plan,” Creed declares in his typical alpha tone. “Obviously, we’ll get something to eat first because I’m sure everyone must be hungry.” We all nod in instant agreement. “Then I think we need to schedule who will take which shift when. Routine patrol, you know how it goes.”

Rex heads into the kitchen to cook for us all, and Skylar follows to help out. It’s hard for me to think about security when she’s right over there, just out of reach. It’s good that she’s laughing with Rex and seemingly having a nice time, but I would much rather she be by my side.

God damn it, I shouldn’t feel so possessive over Skylar, I know that, but I can’t seem to help myself. I crave the feeling of having her standing right next to me.

“So, you and Sam are good for the daytime?” Creed asks, bringing me back to the present moment. “You can keep an eye on the perimeter then.”

“Sounds good to me. We can do that, can’t we, Sam?”

Sam smiles happily. “Sure can.”

“Make sure there isn’tanyonearound,” Creed warns. He leans in a little closer, trying to make sure that only we hear what he’s about to say. “Because this is our best chance to impress Santorini. I want to make sure Evan starts to take us seriously.”

Sam and I exchange a look. What the hell is going on here? Why is he so obsessed with impressing Evan Santorini all of a sudden? I know we got paid well for working with him, but this seems to be on another level.

“Oh, right.” He shakes his head at our confused looks. “It was Rex I talked to about this. I’m seeing all of this as a chance to get up there with those guys. You know, Evan Santorini, Mason Thorne, and Griffin Hanwell.”

“The crime bosses?” I furrow my eyebrows in shock. “You want to be up therewith the mob?”

He offers me a one-shouldered shrug. “It’s the only way to get respect in Chicago, isn’t it? I don’t want us to just be military vets. Not when we have so much more to give.”

It’s a path I’m sure other ex-military members have gone down, but I thought we were more focused on trying to do something legit. I assumed that was the plan with the security details business. For him to just turn everything on its head like that is stunning.

I know that we’re supposed to blindly follow him, what with him being our alpha and everything, but that doesn’t mean I will always agree with what he says. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, and I don’t know if I want to have any involvement with the criminal world. Especially not after seeing what it’s done to Skylar and her family.

But I can feel Sam’s eyes on me, warning me to keep my mouth closed. I purse my lips tightly together and don’t say anything. I guess this is something we’re going to tackle later on. I’m hoping this is just a silly rash plan that Creed has come up with in the heat of the moment, and he doesn’t really mean it. I don’t know how we will be able to talk him out of it if this is something he has been thinking about for a while.

“Okay, well, we will go now.” Sam grabs my arm and tugs me backwards. “We’ll take a look around the perimeter and see what we can find. Hopefully nothing.”

He shoots me another warning look as we slip outside, mouthing at me to keep quiet. I must have been much closer to saying something than I thought if Sam can see it all over me. Shit, I need to get a bit better at keeping it all inside. I need a poker face.

“We’ll deal with that. But not yet. I think that’s something we need to do when Creed has calmed down,” Sam tells me before we shift into wolves.

I don’t much like that, but fine. Sam is level headed, more so than me, so if he thinks we need to focus on Skylar for the time being and ignore Creed’s big crime dreams, then so be it.

I just hope he’s right.

* * *

We don’t shiftout of our wolf forms until it gets much darker. Both Sam and I take it very seriously, constantly checking the area, even though there isn’t any sign of anyone nearby. I would like to let our guard down and relax a little, but with us just arriving, we do have to be extra careful. Although I really don’t think that we were followed.

---