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Noah gave me a tight little smile, looking almost sheepish. It was so adorable, I could squeeze him. “I really love you guys. I’m glad you’re my family.”
“We love you so much, too,” I told him. “And I’m glad that you’re my family.”
He nodded and picked up one of the color swatches I’d thrown in the cart. “I like this blue. Can we paint my room this color?” he asked.
“Ooh, maybe! Why don’t we pick a few you like and ask your dad?” I suggested.
“Okay!” he said excitedly.
Chapter 3
Cole
I already had a pounding headache by the time I arrived back at headquarters. I was either going to be walking into a fight with Travis or breaking one up alongside him. I couldn’t decide which one I wanted less. Both options sounded like a migraine waiting to happen.
I stepped through the front doors and into the unfinished foyer to find Travis almost nose-to-nose with one of the shifters we’d brought into the fold after we were all liberated from the cannery. His name was Ashton, and he’d proven to be hot-blooded in the weeks we’d known him. The only reason we’d not turned him out yet was because when he was dealing with either myself or one of the other natural-born shifters, he was a cheerful and pleasant guy.
If only we could train the weird hang-up he had about humans and post-transition shifters out of him.
“If I tell you to stand down, you fucking stand down,” Travis snarled into Ashton’s face. “If I tell you to clean the kitchen, you clean the fucking kitchen. If I tell you to jump, you fucking ask me how high.”
“Or what, half-breed? You going to try to take me down with that pitiful excuse for a lycan form? You can’t even fully shift—”
“Neither can you!” snapped Travis. “Do you fucking hear yourself? Sorry to break it to you, pal, but you’re just as crippled as I am.”
“Don’t you dare compare what I went through to what you went through. It’s nowhere near the same. You were there for one measly fucking week; I was there for four fucking months. You were still stumbling around on borrowed paws, and I—”
“That’s enough!” I called out from across the room, my voice echoing against the walls and the high ceilings. “What did I say about talking like that, Ash?”
Ashton stiffened, his brown eyes meeting mine. “You need to get these frauds out of your chain of command,” he snarled at me. “They know jack-shit about what it means to be a shifter.”
As I drew closer, I could see the faint sheen of sweat beading on his olive-skinned brow. His breaths were coming and going in hurried gusts as he continued to square off with Travis.
“It sounds like you’re trying to tell me how to run my pack,” I said, my voice low. “I’ve told you over and over again that we don’t fuck with blood hierarchies here. It doesn’t even make any sense to do so, considering we know how shifter genetics work these days.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ashton said defiantly. “They have no idea what the lived experience of a born shifter is like. They put on wolf skin and try to act like they know what’s what. They don’t know…they have no idea what it’s like to be shat on and ridiculed.”
“Oh my god, here we fucking go again with the social justice,” Travis griped.
“Travis,” I warned. “Cool it.”
“Bro, I’ve been your friend since we were fucking kids,” Travis spat. “You really don’t think I have any idea what you go through? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Travis, take a fucking walk,” I finally snapped, pointing toward the door. “You’re not fucking helping right now.”
Travis looked genuinely hurt by my command. “Cole. I have been with you through all of it. I’ve been with you through all of it.”
“I know, but right now, I’m trying to de-escalate before someone loses their shit, alright?”
“No. No, it’s not fucking alright. You always do this—you come in and undermine me, and then you somehow expect me to keep shitty pups like this in line,” Travis growled, his own temper starting to flare red-hot.
“What the fuck did you call me?” Ashton demanded.
“A fucking pup,” Travis said, squaring up with him again.
“Call me a pup one more time, you fucking lycanphobic piece of shit,” Ashton threatened.
“That’s enough,” I barked. “Stop this right now. That’s an order.”
