by Tate James
“Who says you can't be those things too?” I whispered, and his head snapped up in surprise. Just as he opened his mouth to respond, shouting from somewhere in my house reached our ears.
“What's going on out there?” I asked him, tipping my head to where the sound was coming from.
“Oh, ah, we have some unexpected company.” Wesley tugged at his floppy blond hair in his signature nervous gesture. Unable to help myself, I snagged his hand in mine and linked our fingers together.
“Let's go see what's going on then,” I suggested, and he pulled me up to my feet. “Thank you for checking on me. I don't know what came over me; this didn't happen when I healed Vali…”
Wesley shrugged and dodged my gaze again but let me keep hold of his hand as we headed back out to the kitchen, which was where the shouting seemed to be coming from.
A familiar voice was yelling, “—don't have to explain anything to you, little brother! Just let me see her, or I swear to God I will—”
“Will what?” Cole's dangerous growl cut the words off, and I feared for the safety of whomever he was speaking to. Wait, did the other guy just say “brother”?
I frowned at Wesley, who just shrugged again and led me through the swinging door to the kitchen where five angry, brooding men stood in various states of defensive posturing.
“Vali?” I exclaimed, and all eyes swung to me. “What the fuck?”
“Eloquent,” Caleb snickered from where he was perched on the kitchen counter, “but sums up the question we were all just asking. What. The. Fuck?” He turned a sharp glare on the Romanian intruder, and Austin made a noise of support.
“Does someone want to catch me up here?” I asked, politely. It was a new thing I was trying out, not losing my temper so quickly.
No one spoke for a minute, and I used the pause to release Wesley's hand and step closer to Cole. I grabbed his chin in my hand and tilted it back towards me, away from Vali, whom he was glaring death and destruction at.
“Hey!” I snapped and captured his full attention. “Are you okay?” This question I asked in a softer tone, inspecting his unblemished skin where previously he’d had a gaping, bloody wound. With a shaking hand, I ran it across the skin, checking that it wasn't just my imagination.
“I'm good, Vixen,” he murmured in a quiet voice not meant for anyone but me. “You saved my life.” Taking my hand from his neck, he pressed a soft kiss into the center of my palm.
“Dragă.” Vali interrupted our private moment, and my attention was brought back to the larger room and all the questions within it. “Are you okay? This fucking dickhead wouldn't let me see you.” When I had entered the kitchen, he had been standing across the other side of the room from Cole but now was only a few steps away. Tension radiated from Cole's body as he swung his death stare back to the other man.
“I'm fine, I think. What are you doing here? I'm so fucking confused right now. Can someone please explain?” I frowned at the two of them standing on either side of me, both a similar height and build with almost identical gray eyes.
“Wait, did I just hear you call Cole your bother?” I blinked rapidly between them. Holy shitballs batman, how did I not notice the resemblance sooner?
“Yes, Cole is my little brother. Not that he would like anyone to know it.” Vali gritted the words out with another glare at Cole, and I could hear Cole grinding his teeth together, hard.
“I feel like my head just exploded,” I muttered, and Caleb hopped down from the counter, grabbing my hand and extracting me from between the furious brothers. Brothers! Fuck… me…
“Here,” Caleb said, pressing a glass into my hand. “This will help.”
“Thanks.” I took a long gulp of the water, only to choke and gag on it. “What the hell, Cal? This isn't water!”
He gave me a cheeky grin. “No shit; it's vodka. You couldn't smell that?”
“Clearly not!” I coughed, and he laughed as he reached to take it from me. “No, fuck you. I'm still going to drink it; you just should have warned me first.”
Winking at him to soften my words, I took another sip, slower this time, and let the burning alcohol warm my stomach before I turned back to the bigger issues at hand.
“If you're done teen-drinking, princess,” Austin drawled, “Fuckface here was just about to explain why he's here and how he found you. As far as I am aware, the Director doesn't have you guys listed in the open directory.”
“I'm not explaining shit to you lot,” Vali snarled, and I could see the beginnings of another fight about to break out.
“All right, enough!” River's voice bellowed across the room, saving me the bother of doing it myself. “All of you, just rein it in!”
No one responded. Even I shut my mouth, which wasn't hard considering I had no idea what to say next.
“Now first of all, Kitten, are you okay? You gave us all quite a scare when you fainted.” He looked at me with concern shining through his golden eyes, and a warmth flickered in my belly, totally separate from the vodka’s warmth.
“I'm fine. I don't know what that was all about, but I suppose we can't be all too surprised. Kind of in uncharted territory, right?” I smiled at him, shrugging off my own uneasiness about the fainting and subsequent vomiting. They didn't need all my extra paranoia.
“That is true,” River agreed. “This car bomb… we think it was a deliberate attack on you.”
Austin snorted, but shut up quickly when River flicked a warning glare at him.
“As much as I hate to ever agree with Austin, because he's a major dick, that does sort of seem obvious,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “But what makes you sound so certain of that?”
“Someone was watching it all play out,” Caleb interjected, taking over the explanation from River. “While you were healing Cole, someone was taking pictures from a window across the street. Also, it was a small bomb, designed to literally just explode the van carrying it and anyone standing within about a five-yard radius, which is why they got so close to you before it detonated.”
My eyebrows had shot up on hearing this new information, and I looked between River and Caleb, who had clearly been the ones to notice this fact.
“Do we know who?” I asked hopefully, and they shook their heads.
“Caleb took off to find them after you were carried inside but found no one.” River scowled at this frustrating information.
“Okay, let's marinate on that for a few minutes.” I took another sip of the burning alcohol. I wasn't usually one for straight spirits, but if there was ever a good time to start, this was it. Jesus fucking Christ someone just tried to kill me with a fucking car bomb!
River nodded sharply. “Okay, so then next we need to discuss our unexpected visitor.”
Vali grunted an angry noise. “I am standing right here.”
“Unfortunately,” Cole muttered, and I raised my brows at him in surprise. He wasn't usually one for petulance. There was definitely some serious family drama going on there.
“So you are, mate,” River remarked to Vali. “Would you care to explain why you are standing right there? Call us paranoid, but the idea that a known criminal is paying a house call to our Kit doesn't instill much confidence.”
Vali's jaw clenched, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. “Dragă, I would like to speak with you privately. Please.”
“Don't fucking call her that,” Cole said in a tone that promised pain if it was ignored, and his brother just raised an eyebrow at him, as though in challenge.
“Okay, back down boys. This is all getting to be a bit much for me right now.” I flapped my hands to get their attention once more and break their macho staredown. “Vali, I'm sure whatever you need to say can be said in front of everyone; we don't really have any secrets between us these days. Or rather, I don't. They haven't told me jack shit about themselves evidently, but that's an issue for another day.” I gave Cole a pointed look, and he had the grace to look a tiny bit remorseful for keeping his brother a secret from me.
<
br /> “No.” Vali lifted his chin with a stubborn look on his face. “What I have to tell you is for you only.”
My head was still hurting too much for these silly ego games, and I heaved a sigh, rubbing my temples to try and ease the ache.
“If you think for a second we will allow you alone with her, you're sorely mistaken, friend.” My head snapped up at the unexpected voice. Why the hell was Austin trying to protect me?
“I am not your friend,” Vali snarled at Austin, and I hopped off the counter to get between them.
“That's enough. The sheer level of testosterone in this room right now is suffocating me.” Caleb snickered a laugh, and I saw Wesley crack a grin of his own. “Vali, you want to talk? Talk. You've come here totally unannounced and clearly not on good terms with the guys, so you will have to understand that they're a bit leery of your intentions. Especially considering how we met.” I gave him a sharp look, and he met my stare unapologetically.
“You mean when I saved you from the Onyx Auction?” He arched an eyebrow over one of his bottomless gray eyes, and I mentally kicked myself again that I hadn't seen the family resemblance.
“Guys, this is fun and all,” Wesley spoke up for the first time since entering the kitchen with me, “but I get the feeling this Mexican standoff could go on for ages, and I really feel like it's time we just don't have.”
“Wes is right,” River said, his tightly folded arms across his chest the only indication of how tense he was. “Someone tried to have you blown up, then watched and took pictures while you healed both yourself and Cole from wounds that should have killed you. It's not safe for you to stay here anymore.”
“You have a point.” I nodded, and everyone gave me varying versions of their surprised faces.
“What?” I snapped, a little too aggressively. “I can be reasonable when I need to be.”
“Sure you can, princess.” Austin muttered under his breath but was standing close enough that I still heard him.
“So where do we go next?” I raised my eyebrows at River, our leader.
“We know of somewhere.” The reply came from Cole, and River gave him a barely there head nod. “But Dragomir isn't invited.”
“Well then, we have a problem because I go wherever dragă goes.” Vali folded his impressive arms across his chest. He was wearing casual clothes, jeans and a tight, wool-knit long sleeve top, and holy hot damn he made them look good.
Before another argument could start, the sound of sirens infiltrated the room and snapped us all back to the urgency of the situation at hand.
Caleb checked his watch. “Seventeen minutes for them to respond? Someone must have interfered with the emergency calls. There were too many bystanders there for someone not to have called sooner.”
“Cole, Dragomir, you can fight later. Right now we need to move before we get tied down in weeks of official investigation for that mess outside.” River's tone brokered no arguments. “Let's move out.”
Everyone jumped to follow his direction. Vali hovered near my shoulder while I led the way to our back entrance so we could avoid being spotted by the police, who were practically on top of us if the sirens were any indication.
“I wish everyone would stop calling me Dragomir,” he muttered, and I snorted a laugh.
26
Once we’d made it clear of the emergency services swarming the bomb site, I was able to relax a little. Of course Jonathan could have made the questions go away, but the fact that someone had set the whole thing up made me incredibly nervous. How would we even know if they were real policemen or not? They could be in Mr. Grey's employment or something else entirely.
We needed to get to this contact in Alaska and get more information. It was like we were fighting a war but with no idea what was at stake, which only put us at a disadvantage.
“Guys, I think we need to get a better handle on what we're up against,” I said, breaking the tense silence in the car. On leaving the townhouse, we had split up between two cars, and I had ended up in the back of River's Aston Martin. Squashed uncomfortably between the two biggest men that could have possibly fit in the cramped backseat, I was perched forward slightly to avoid being crushed to death by muscular shoulders. When we had reached the cars, I had worried I might be torn in two between Cole and Vali so had offered to sit in the middle. A suggestion I was now regretting as I shifted to get comfortable.
“I agree,” Wesley commented from his position of luxury in the passenger seat. “It might be worth heading up to that village in Alaska anyway. Maybe one of this guy's neighbors can tell us something about where he is or how to get in contact with him.”
“That's a good idea, Wes,” River agreed, tapping the steering wheel thoughtfully as he drove.
Vali snorted a chuckle, and I turned to look at him. “What?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at the small smirk on his face.
“Nothing,” he grinned, like a big old liar.
“It's clearly something,” Cole snapped from my other side, and I sighed. “Why don't you share with everyone what's so funny?”
Vali met my eyes and raised his eyebrow as if to ask if I really wanted to know, then when I just shrugged, he gave me a wink. “I was just thinking about that dream you had back at my place, dragă,” he smirked, and my eyes widened. Shit.
“You know the one,” he continued, totally ignoring my shut-the-fuck-up look. “The one about… Wes… while you were in the bathtub…”
Oh dear God, no. I felt my face flame bright red, and I carefully kept cheek turned so I didn't have to see Wesley's expression.
“Really?” River commented from the driver’s seat, and I reflexively looked up, meeting his amused gaze in the rearview mirror. “Isn't that interesting.”
Unable to help myself, my gaze darted to Wesley's in the mirror and found him staring back at me intently, his expression unreadable. To break a little tension, I cleared my throat and tried to sit back in my seat a little.
“So, um, where are we heading?” I asked in a blatant attempt to change the subject, and all four men in the car seemed to be fighting back grins at my expense.
“There's an Omega safe house not far outside the city,” River informed me, thankfully allowing my subject change. “We will head there until plans can be made to get us all up to Alaska. Wes, call the twins and let them know.”
Caleb and Austin had taken Austin's Challenger and were following behind us as River navigated his way out of the city and into the countryside.
“So how long do you intend to hang around?” Cole muttered to his brother over the top of me, and I lay a warning hand on his knee. He held Vali's gaze but picked my hand up in his own and threaded our fingers together tightly, possessively.
“As long as I damn well feel like it,” Vali replied in a tone that held no doubt he was trying to piss Cole off. Shifting his body, Vali slid an arm over my shoulders to rest on the side of my neck. He began slowly stroking his finger down my skin, and I suddenly felt like the last steak in a pack of hungry dogs.
“Uh, how far did you say the safe house was again?” My voice betrayed the tension I was feeling, trapped between these two gorgeous men who were currently fighting for dominance. Wesley turned in his seat to look back at me, then shook his head at Cole as if scolding his childish behavior.
“Here,” Wesley said, stretching out his hand for me to take. Not questioning why he wanted my hand, I reached forward and clasped his. The next thing I knew, I had vacated my awkward seat between the Romanian brothers and was sprawled inelegantly across Wesley's chest.
He gave me a cheeky smile. “Has to be more comfortable than caught in the cross fire back there.”
The two imposing men in the backseat were glaring death into the back of Wesley's head, and I laughed, rearranging myself into more of a comfortable position. Or trying to anyway.
Eventually Wesley must have grown frustrated with my wriggling because he picked me up and re-set me on his lap, bracing my back slightly against
the door with his arms around me.
“Better?” he murmured, his lips only inches from my ear, and I nodded silently.
“All right, can we all just keep it civil for the remainder of the drive?” River asked, using his in-charge voice.
“Yes, sir,” Cole and Wesley both replied, almost as a reflex, and River shot me a look.
“Yes, sir.” I grinned and saw a tiny smile pull at his lush lips. Vali made a noise, which had me looking back over at him, but I couldn't make out the expression on his face.
For a long time, no one spoke—I suspected because no one could think of anything to say that wouldn't spark another argument and River had given an order to keep things civil. Before long, I grew tired of the tense silence, so laid my head on Wesley's shoulder and closed my eyes. His fingers stroked soft lines down my arm, tingling my skin through the thin sweater I wore, and I relaxed into his embrace. I was beyond glad that things didn’t seem to be awkward between us. But if that dream really was a shared thing, then did that mean I hadn't imagined that sexy body under his oversized hoody?
Oh fuck, now I can't stop thinking about it.
My hand crept up from where it had been resting in my lap and slid across Wesley's chest, pausing near the zipper of his hoody.
“Sweetheart,” Wes whispered, “what are you doing?”
“Just curious,” I whispered back, not moving my head from his shoulder, but cracking my lids back open so I could see. My fingers teased the zipper down just a couple of inches, then snaked back up to the neckline of his shirt.
“Curious about what?” he murmured, not stopping me.
Rather than answering him, I slid a finger under his neckline and tugged the fabric down just enough that I could see the very top lines of his tattoo, confirming my theory. Satisfied, I released the fabric but kept my hand tucked inside the neck of his hoody.
“Just curious whether I had imagined that body or not.” Raising my head up a little, I whispered the words near his ear so the rest of the car wouldn't hear. A small groan slipped out of him, and he shifted a little under me in his seat.
