by T. S. Joyce
“Stop it! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what is going on. I brought Aaron to you because it was safer than being out in the world alone, not knowing who to trust. And now you’re sending me to a stranger—”
“Not a stranger. He’s family.”
“I didn’t even know you had a half-brother, Cody! I’ve been left out of all of this, and for what? Why are you hiding from me?”
Cody shook his head and let off a snarl, then strode into the bathroom and pulled his shirt over his head. The man didn’t even wince at the deep slice in his arm, which gushed with his movement.
“Why?” She leaned on the frame and waited. “Why, Cody? I’m not going to quit asking until you give me a fucking answer. I’m not leaving for some safe house if that means we’re split up and you are at risk.”
“We’re all at risk, Rory. Every one of my Crew is in danger, and I can’t keep my head if you are here. If Aaron is here.”
“What am I running from? You owe me that much, at least. Give me anything, Cody. Give me something. Please.”
Cody closed his eyes against his reflection in the mirror. He cut her an anguished look and held it. “You’re too good for this. Too good for me. I’m dark inside, and I’ve done awful things. Things that will taint you and Aaron.”
“Tell me.” Her voice trembled like a branch in a storm, but fuck it all. Gritting her teeth, she tried again, louder and stronger. “Tell me, Cody. If you keep pushing me away, I definitely won’t stand for that shit. At least if you share your life with me, we have a shot at being okay. I’m not fragile, and your secrets won’t break me. I know you think you’re protecting me by throwing up walls I don’t have the tools to batter down, but you aren’t. You’re hurting me.”
Cody swallowed hard and crouched down, holding onto the sink as his long legs folded beneath him. An anguished sound wrenched from his throat. “You’ll leave me.”
“Cody, you are good. I can see it. You’re a good man who loves his family and protects his own. Spill whatever is hurting you, and let me share the burden. Let me in.”
“I killed them,” he said so softly, she almost missed it.
“What? Killed who?”
“My own kind. A dozen marks. They weren’t terrorists.”
Rory shook her head slowly as dread filled her stomach and made her limbs too heavy to move. Slowly, she fell to her knees beside him, the tile unforgiving against her shins.
“The government has an agency who handles my kind. Shifters. The International Exchange of Supernatural Affairs has a leader, a handler, and he’s the one who sanctioned my tours in the war.”
“I don’t understand. The government made you fight?”
Cody sat hard, resting his back against the bathtub, and drew his knee to his chest, as if it would protect him from the heartbreaking admissions coming from his lips. He reached deep in his pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag of what looked like electronic pieces that had been smashed to bits. “I found these in my bedroom and in the living room. They’re bugs. Sound only, but we’ve been monitored, and I have no idea when my handler, Krueger, had them placed. I do missions for him. Black ops terrorist sniper shit that he needs someone with my abilities to do. My brothers have been recruited, too, but the bulk of the marks are given to me. He told me my targets were terrorists, but tonight, Dade and I talked to the mark. He was a shifter, Rory. Another bear whose entire crew had been wiped out, and I almost pulled the trigger on him.”
“But you didn’t—”
“But I have! A dozen other times I killed shifters who didn’t deserve it. They just weren’t buying Krueger’s bullshit anymore, and he used me to end them. Their blood is on my hands.”
“Cody, how could you have known? How?”
“I shouldn’t have taken missions blind like I did. I trusted him too much and got desperate to save my own people. I didn’t ask enough questions.”
“What did he hold over you?”
“Exposure. Public registration for shifters. And lately he has been threatening my family’s safety. And then when you came along…” Cody swallowed hard and looked ill, shook his head slowly from side to side. “Krueger knows about you and Aaron.”
“What?” she whispered. Her face tingled as the blood drained from it.
“He knows Aaron is my kid.”
“Does he know he’s a bear shifter?”
Cody nodded but wouldn’t meet her eye. “It would’ve been safer for you and him if you had never come back.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because he wants him tagged, Rory! This,” he said, stretching his neck to expose a short, surgically straight scar that ran along the taut muscle, “is where my tracking device was placed. Gage, Dade, Boone, Leah, Ma…even the cubs have them, Rory. This is part of the control. This is our leash. When I had a meeting the other day, it was to get my instructions for this mission, and Krueger said he wanted me to bring Aaron in for his tag.”
“He calls it tagging?”
“Yeah. That’s what it is, right? I’m an animal who needs to be controlled in the unsuspecting public.” The words sounded bitter and filled with self-loathing.
“Fuck that, Cody. Krueger is the animal. Our son isn’t having some tracker put in him. Over my cold, rotting corpse will that ever happen.”
“Yeah, that’s what I told him, too. He’s not budging on it, though, and I wouldn’t put it past him to snatch you and Aaron when I’m not looking and force the tracker on him.” Cody pressed the heels of his palms against his closed eyes and muttered a curse. “Everything got so messed up, and just as you came into my life. It shouldn’t be like this.”
“No, Cody. Things were really messed up before we came. You just have more to protect now, so it feels bigger. What do we do?”
“We don’t do anything. You’ll go to Montana while I figure out a way to neutralize the threat.”
“I’m not leaving.”
Cody jerked his gaze to her and leveled her with a glare. “Yes, you will.”
“Sorry, sexy. Your dominant alpha shit isn’t going to work on me. I’m not a bear, remember? You want to boss people around, go push your super bear powers on the other shifters who feel a need to bow down to you. I’m not leaving you. Aaron and I are safest here, with you and the rest of the Breck Crew, as a family.”
Cody’s face went slack. His shocked expression would have been funny if not for the very un-hilarious situation they’d found themselves in. And if his eyes weren’t blazing like a demon’s.
She’d seen a ton of spy movies, and the reality of their situation was that a bag of real-life shattered bugs was sitting on the tile in front of her and her mate had been a working assassin for a government program that didn’t give a shit about his welfare or the welfare of shifters who wouldn’t do their bidding. The reality was that she’d stepped tits first into a secret government program that was taking advantage of a group of supernatural beings who were trying desperately to keep to the fringes of society. She could only imagine what humans would do if they ever found out shifters existed. She’d imagined a hundred horrifying scenarios in the years that she had raised Aaron alone.
But could she take Aaron and run from the man whom she felt safest with? From the father of her son and the one she’d given her heart to? Could she run from Aaron’s only shot at normalcy?
She’d be in the wind again, this time with strangers, and with the knowledge that the people she feared the most already knew about Aaron and what he was. They’d be hunted, always looking over their shoulders and always waiting for a phone call on Cody’s fate.
No, she was done running. Done hiding and fearing the life she’d been thrust into. She thought of Leah and Ma. Of the Keller brothers who’d accepted her completely as mate of their alpha. As family. She couldn’t turn her back on them and run, knowing it wasn’t any safer out there than right here with people who cared about she and Aaron’s welfare.
Half-brother or not, a str
anger wouldn’t have the instinct to protect Aaron. Not like Cody.
“I know you’ll drag the ghosts of your targets to the grave. It’s the way you are, Cody,” she whispered. “But I’m going to be here, fighting alongside you to avenge the people you were tricked into hurting.”
“Not hurting, Rory. Killing. I killed them. I put the scope to their heads, pulled a trigger, and left their bodies for a clean-up crew to take care of. It doesn’t matter that Krueger betrayed us. All that matters is that they are lying in a shallow grave or a lab somewhere because I wasn’t strong enough to tell Krueger to fuck off.”
“And if you had?”
“He would’ve killed my family.” Cody said it void of hesitation. “But what makes me or my people any more important than the ones Krueger ordered a hit on?”
Tears burned her eyes as she witnessed the pain that flashed across Cody’s face.
“As long as I live, I’ll be tainted. My bear has been damaged by years of war and violence, and I’ll never be a good mate for you or father for Aaron. How can I look my boy in the eye and try and teach him to be a good man when I’m a murderer?”
“Stop it,” she ground out, dashing moisture from her eyes with her fingertips. “Stop talking like that. You didn’t know. You were used and threatened, and you didn’t know. All you can do now is avenge them.”
“And I will.” He hooked his hands around his knee and leaned back. “The Breck Crew is about to go to war with a man who has never lost a battle against us. And when I think of anything happening to you or to Aaron…” His voice cracked on his son’s name. He shook his head and dropped his gaze. “I never wanted any of this.”
Swallowing down her heartache at seeing what Krueger had leached from the man she loved, Rory stood and busied herself with warming tap water in the sink, then moistening a dark washrag she dug from the linen closet. Straddling his lap, she kissed the short stubble on his cheek, then began to wash away the blood on his arm. The cut looked deep, but already the layers of muscle were sealing together, leaving a slightly raised scar under the skin that had been laid open. Aaron could heal from a scraped knee in minutes, but the ability shifters had to recover never ceased to amaze her.
Cody’s face never changed. He never winced away from her touch. He only stared at the wall beside him and held perfectly still. His nostrils flared. He angled his face, then lifted his supernatural gaze to hers. “You’re afraid of me now. I can smell it.”
“You smell fear, but it isn’t for you. I’m scared of what will happen now. I’m scared you’ll be hurt, that Aaron will be tagged, and that I won’t be able to save either of you.”
“It’s not your responsibility to save us.”
“Why not? You’re my mate. I love you.”
Cody gripped her hand, stilling the gentle washing motion against his arm. “Say that again.”
“I’ve always loved you, and even after what you told me, I love you still. You are the father of my child, and how could I not feel a bone-deep devotion to you? Even when I didn’t know you, my heart was yours. And now that I do, my soul is yours, too.”
“You’d give your soul to a man like me?”
“Yes,” she said on a sigh. Resting her forehead against his, she murmured, “To a good man like you. The targets you were forced into… I know what that will do to you. I can see it, but I’ll be here, carrying those scars with you. Just don’t shut me out anymore. I’m not running, Cody. I’m part of this crew, too. I’ll be there when the pain of what you’ve done buckles you, and I’ll be standing quietly behind you when you exact your revenge on Krueger in the name of all of those people and families he has hurt.”
“It’s not just Krueger, though. He’ll be a cockroach. Kill one, and there will be another just like him to take his place. If I do this, we’re going to war with the IESA.”
Rory was scared. Dear Lord, those words terrified her worse than she’d ever been before. But if anyone was strong enough to put an end to Krueger’s cruelty, it was her mate. Cody was capable and protective with a hard-wired moral compass with an arrow stuck on doing what was right over doing what was easy.
She huffed a sigh and leaned against his chest, folding her arms in between them until he surrounded her with his strong embrace like a cocoon. Whatever was coming their way, she was in this now, like it or not.
Under her, Cody’s muscles twitched and shook. His erection had grown hard and long, pressing against the material of his black cargo pants until she could see the perfect outline.
“I need…” His breath came out in pants, and the room began to smell like animal fur.
“Shh. It’s okay,” she whispered against his ear, fighting the fear of being too near when he was this close to a Change.
He wouldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t.
Slowly, she rolled her hips against his lap and sucked gently on his ear. A long, low growl resonated from his chest. Trailing kisses down his neck, she ran her fingernails down his chest as his breath sped up. His hands grasped her hips and dragged her against his erection as a low groan escaped his lips, interrupting the rumbling sound in his throat.
Her stomach dipped as he pulled her upward and covered her mouth with his own. If his injury hurt, he didn’t show it as he lifted her off the ground and squeezed her to his chest. Walking slowly, he backed her into his room toward the bed. Rotating her, he lay down, propped against the headboard. He pulled her knees on the soft comforter on either side of his waist. She pushed her tongue past his lips and tasted him.
“Fffuck,” he murmured as she eased away, thrusting his hips against her like he couldn’t help himself.
His stomach flexed, mounds of muscle growing tight with every breath he drew. He pulled her shirt over her head and his skin crashed against hers. His hands were everywhere, running the length of her back, around the curve of her ass, down the back of her thighs to the crease behind her knees where he pulled her closer still. She pressed her hands on his abs that hardened with every powerful thrust of his hips against her.
The thin material of her panties was soaking now. She directed his hand against the moisture there.
Cody angled his face and kissed her deeply, his jaw working with each stroke of his tongue against hers. His hips moved rhythmically against her, the pressure building from his stony shaft that pressed against her clit.
“I’m coming,” she whispered, arching her back as a deep pulsing orgasm rocketed through her.
Cody’s teeth grazed her neck as a ripping sound filled the air. He tossed her panties away, and his finger sank into her in time to feel the aftershocks while she rubbed against his touch. Before she was recovered, she pulled at the button of his pants and unzipped him, then shimmed the dirt-stained material from his legs. He lay there, pliable under her touch, black briefs clinging to his powerful thighs, stomach flexing as he stared at her breasts with the neediest expression she’d ever seen.
“You want to taste?” she asked, her voice husky.
He nodded, pupils dilated so that only a thin ring of gold shone from his eyes in the dim light from the bathroom.
“Me first.” She pulled at the elastic of his briefs and unsheathed the swollen head of his cock. Then she pulled the material down his legs and tossed it in a pile on the floor. She lapped up the drop of creamy moisture that sat at the tip of his shaft. Cody gave a sharp inhalation of breath and leaned his shoulder blades back against the headboard. Winding his fingers in her hair, he guided her back to him and spread his legs, allowing her into the space between. Back arched, she took him in her mouth and circled his head with her tongue, then released him.
“Rory,” he pleaded in a strained whisper.
With a smile at how empowered she felt at getting a dominant apex predator alpha like Cody to beg, she gripped the base of his shaft and took him into her mouth again deeper. He was trying to keep his hands gentle in her hair, she could tell, but he was losing control as she dragged it out, stroking him slowly.
&nbs
p; “Ass in the air for me, love,” he said, and she obliged, knees spread wide on the bed.
He was groaning now, a soft little noise every time she lowered her mouth over him. God, she loved when he was like this. On the edge of his control, trying to be gentle, allowing her to lead.
He’d witnessed horrors and been forced to do unimaginable things, but here, for a little while, she could make him forget. She could give his heart a rest from carrying the burdens of his position in the crew.
He was bucking into her mouth faster now, fingers tightening in her hair, a soft rumbling sound emanating from his chest. “Stop,” he demanded in a gravelly voice. “I want to finish in you.”
With a smile, she turned away from him. Over her shoulder, she watched his look of absolute focus as she offered him her body. On her hands and knees, she panted in anticipation as he stroked his long, thick shaft with his hand. Gracefully, he splayed his knees behind her and pulled his hand between her legs, brushing her from quivering belly to wet seam. He pressed two fingers deep inside of her, and his breath caught there in the quiet room.
“You’re always so wet when I need you to be,” he said, and she smiled at the praise.
He pulled his hand away and pushed the head of his cock inside her. She arched her back and rolled her eyes closed at how good he felt inside. Propping herself on one arm, she pressed her fingers on either side of her entrance and felt him slide into her again. He went deeper this time, and she moaned his name as she touched her clit.
Cody leaned on one arm, his bicep bulging beside her as he reached under her and kneaded her breast. He kissed her shoulder blade as he pushed into her again, then pulled out. She backed up against him the next time, taking all of him, and his control faltered. His strokes filled her faster and faster until his slick cock rubbed constantly between her fingers. She was gone now, off in space somewhere as another orgasm crashed through her. Cody slammed into her, a snarl rattling his chest as his powerful hips hit her backside over and over again. She spread her knees wider to feel more of him, and Cody froze, then thrust again hard. Wetness shot into her and trickled down her thighs as Cody swelled and released into her.
