Page 27 of Chasing Dawn

He gave a little sniff. “That’s good. The wound almost looks healed, and there’s no sign of infection. Any pain?”

I shook my head. “None.”

“Can I ask what happened? If it had been anyone else, anyone more average, you would have been dead twice over.”

I patted the old man’s hand. “Best you don’t ask, Doc, but I promise it’ll never happen again. Vance will make sure of it.”

He gave me a tight nod and stepped back. “Good. Well, I think your recovery has been miraculous.” He raised an eyebrow at the word, and I laughed softly. “You’re welcome to come see me if you have any problems. I might not be all that” —he waved a hand toward the waiting room and Vance— “but if you’re in trouble, I’ll do my best to help.”

Brave old man. “Thank you. I know Vance really appreciates your help and your discretion. It can’t be easy knowledge to carry.”

He nodded and opened the door. “Come back if you have any concerns or it starts to get red or swollen.”

“Will do, Doc.” I walked into the waiting room, and Vance was holding a coffee cup and chatting with Janine. Doc didn’t know, but I did, that Vance would have heard our whole conversation. Shifter senses were no joke.

He drained his mug and placed it gently on the desk in front of Janine. “Thanks for the coffee, Janine.” He bowed his head low. “Thank you, Doc.”

Doc waved a hand. “Anytime. Stay out of trouble, and tell that to your two buddies as well. Franklin still holds the record for the most amount of X-rays in town.”

I laughed softly, and Vance shook his head. “I make no promises for those two.”

Vance opened the door, and we walked down to his truck. He held the passenger door open and lifted me gently, even though I was healed enough to climb in myself. “Everything’s good?” he asked, probably trying to convince me he wasn’t listening to every word.

“Everything is perfect.”

He closed my door and walked to the other side. “Marla gave me a list of things she wants me to pick up, so how do you feel about grocery shopping, and then we’ll get hotdogs and ice cream on the way home?”

It was so… normal. “I’d love that.”

I rested my head on his shoulder and hoped this was what every day of my forever looked like.

CHAPTER 18

TALBOT

There was a fine line to conducting missions. Rush in, and you ran the risk of botching the whole project. Wait too long, and the trail could run cold, or worse, intel could leak. While I trusted Vance and Franklin as much as I trusted myself, the rest of the mercs we worked with were an unknown factor.

The team started to arrive slowly under Alexander’s orders, and while they were all shifters I’d worked with before and respected, my bear didn’t like them this close to the dens. Neither did the lions, if the rate at which my phone was blowing up was any indication.

I hated the idea that Dawn would have to meet them. My bear rumbled low in my chest. I couldn’t keep her secluded up here in the dens, otherwise I was no better than her old pack. Dawn deserved to live, which meant letting her make her own decisions, and she’d been adamant that she wanted to be involved in the execution of her former Alpha.

My lead on the pups had fizzled. Deep in the forums on the dark web, I was reading threads of the usual bullshit. I was focusing my search for Dawn’s cousins on the West Coast, from Canada down to Mexico, but nothing was popping. Dawn had said that one of the pups had been an Omega, and normally that would cause a little chatter, but nothing was coming up.

I was hitting dead end after dead end, and I growled in frustration. Dawn deserved closure, and more than that, those pups deserved to know someone was looking for them, and that someone cared.

There was a knock on the door, and I knew who it was. My soul would know hers no matter where we were, even with all my senses dulled. “Come in,” I called softly, spinning in my chair as Dawn entered. She smiled shyly at me. “You never have to knock.”

She frowned incredulously. “What if you want privacy?”

“There’s nothing I could be doing in here that you couldn’t see. Showering? Join me. Sleeping? Join me. Jerking off? Join me, please,” I teased. I held my arms out to her, and she wandered into them like it was the most natural thing in the world.

It felt like it was. I dragged her into my lap and nuzzled her throat. She bared it for me, and the trust she showed us was a heady thing. She smelled so fucking good. I kissed the sharp point of her jaw, and then the hollow beneath her ear, and she sighed happily.

My dick was achingly hard.

“What are you doing in here?” she asked.

I held her more tightly to my chest. “Looking for the missing pups,” I told her softly. I didn’t want to lie to her. I wanted her to trust every single word that came out of my mouth as truth. That was the only way I wanted to live with my soulmate. We might not be fated mates like she was with Vance, but she’d been it for me since she smiled at me at that first gathering, her soft hair shining beneath the bright morning sun, looking angelic.