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Max nods, his jaw clenched. “We’ve been given the authorization to move in on our own, but that’s it. But if I were to guess, they’ll have men at the ready to handle the clean up, to ensure the Blood Mages don’t escape.”
My heart sinks. The many implications are bare for all to see. The Enforcers haven’t exactly shown caution throughout their history. Which means this particular case is especially risky. They don’t believe rolling into town with what equates to a small army would result in success, but they’re fine if we make our own play? If they can pull this mission off with all their resources, with all their agents, do they really think a four-person team can manage it?
The math doesn’t add up.
Unless I factor in a cold indifference to our fate. Then it all makes perfect sense. If the Enforcers don’t care about us or my Blood Pack, then it makes all the sense in the world why they’ve left the final battle for us to fight alone.
“Why have they moved into the area, then?” questions Orson.
“They intend to perform cleanup once everything is over,” I say.
The assholes will sit back while we all battle it out, then kill any opponents that survive. Whether we make it or not is unimportant to them. They just want us to take down as many of the Blood Mages as we can before we go.
What assholes.
Hell, it may even be their way of getting rid of me, their little problem. It’s a win-win for them.
Orson shakes his head. Perhaps for the first time, I sense a note of anger in the ordinarily carefree blond. “No help. We’re all alone on this one.” He raises his eyes to Max. “It’s a suicide mission, then?”
A telling silence falls over us. I look over at the bodies and think grimly, Quiet as the grave.
SEVEN
Max
Miles from the murder scene, the night is quiet and serene. Rather than hang around for the cleanup, I took our team to a motel for the night. After the discussion about the Enforcers’ apathy, I didn’t think it necessary to spend all night in their presence. Salt in the wound.
I get them situated in the motel, then come outside for a little fresh air and to clear my head. Part of me was itching to be on the scene with the Enforcers, to see if there was anything we missed, but a more powerful part of me knew my team needed to be here.
Asha’s struggling. I’m typically a man who likes to identify a problem and solve it, but I’m realizing that’s not how things have to be handled with Asha. Her trauma, her fears, her triggers, they all need to be approached with care. I’m just lucky Braxton has more experience with them.
Did I think it’d be hard to share her just a short time ago? It seems crazy. Three men feel like the perfect number to fulfill all Asha’s wants and needs, and I don’t resent that she needs more than me.
And when things settle, she can continue healing. With us. No matter how long it takes.
A red neon vacancy sign buzzes overhead, broadcasting the motel’s desperation in a town seldom visited. A gas station across the street is a bright disruption to the otherwise uniformly dark environment. Forest shadows blend with the black void of space outside of the bubbles of light. I stand in the middle of the scene, leaning against a rusted pillar upholding the walkway’s overhang, eyes trained on the dark. My mind casts its thoughts against it like a projector screen. Faces of my teammates—my packmates—flicker against the silhouettes of trees.
I have a responsibility to them. Their safety is my charge. I could never let anything happen to them. It goes beyond duty.
I…love them.
The admission lifts a weight from my chest. Despite our tight bonds, I’d been holding something back. The leader in me holding himself at a distance. But it’s foolish. I can’t pretend any longer. They’re my family.
And you can’t abandon family.
That’s why Asha needs to see this through, and why I need to be there by her side. The Blood Pack contains the remnants of her family, and her brother’s ghost must be put to rest. She needs to handle this head on, but not alone.
It’s strange. This fucked up situation. I actually think it’s good for Braxton and Orson too. Braxton has struggled with things I never imagined, in ways I never imagined. Helping Asha deal with her own trauma is helping him deal with his own too, I can feel it.
And I doubt Orson ever told anyone what really happened with his mom and dad, but he told us. Displaying his soul for all to see had an effect on all of us, especially Braxton and I. It’s like he showed us his throat, and we didn’t feel the need to bite. If he could share that kind of darkness, that kind of pain, with the three of us, then he saw us as close.
Orson trusts us. He’s smart. He’s good to Asha. And I can’t detect a bad bone in his body. No wonder Asha was drawn to him. Mates have a way of finding each other, and she’d found her mates in an unlikely bunch.
Now, we just have to survive. My wolf growls within me, and I have to bite down to keep the growl from exploding from my lips as my hands curl into fists. A phone call echoes from the previous day, a chat between my boss Carl and myself.
“From what intel we have gathered, it doesn’t look good,” he reported.
“How ‘not good,’ Carl?”
