Page 170 of Specter Bred

Sammy glanced over his shoulder. “You could still change your mind about this part, sir.”

“No.”

“Worth a shot.”

Nolan’s hand settled firmly against his opposite shoulder, steadying him. There was nothing hesitant about the gesture, but nothing sexual either. This was different from the way Nolan had marked me.

This was a commander claiming one of his own.

“Ready, Hayes?”

Sammy looked down at me, then back at Nolan.

“Do it.”

Nolan bit down on his shoulder.

Sammy tensed hard between us, but I kept him distracted until gradually, the tension began to leave his body. Nolan held the mark for several long seconds before releasing him, leaving a second set of punctures behind.

When Sammy finally looked down at the mark on his hip before reaching up to touch the one on his shoulder, something in his expression changed.

The three of us had started this as a female alpha, a beta, and an instructor who had spent months trying to prove neither of us belonged. Now there was physical proof that not only did we belong, we belonged together.

“You know you can return them,” I told him.

For a beta, the gesture would be mostly ceremonial. He didn’t have the same biological drive behind a claiming bite that Nolan and I did, but that didn’t make the choice meaningless.

“Both of them.”

Sammy looked at the mark on my chest, then at Nolan’s neck.

His nose wrinkled.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m discovering I don’t share the alpha compulsion to sink my teeth into people I care about.”

Nolan snorted.

“You sure?” I teased. “Could be fun.”

“I’m good.” Sammy rubbed his sore shoulder. “I think I bring enough to this relationship without developing a taste for human flesh.”

“Coward," Graves teased.

“Beta,” he corrected. “Apparently we’re the civilized ones.”

◆◆◆

Command wasted no time putting our new unit into the field. They stationed us along the Helix border in housing that was surprisingly cushy by military standards, though we rarely spent enough time there to enjoy it.

The intelligence we’d pulled from Mathias Claybourne had allowed Command to intercept a planned Helix attack on Arca’s southernmost training installation before the militants ever reached the perimeter. This information enabled the Arca’s forces to seize weapons shipments, dismantle cells, and let thousands of soldiers unaware of being targeted carry on with their lives.

More importantly, stopping the attack gave Command something it hadn’t had before: a trail to follow.

The captured weapons had originated from a concealed arms depot several miles inside Helix territory. We hit it three nights later and recovered shipping manifests, coded communications, and enough explosives to level half a city block. The records pointed us toward a militant desert outpost being run by a high-ranking Helix commander.

Getting our hands on him took another two weeks of surveillance and one particularly ugly extraction, but eventually we dragged him back across the border alive.

Getting him to talk was another matter.