Page 7 of Chased

Matéo, who’d been unusually silent during the ride back, broke into a grin. “Thanks, Cookie Babe.”

“Yeah,” Sanchez added. Thanking people didn’t come easily to him, but he liked Breanna. She’d always been nice to him, for some reason. Even though he and the guys hadn’t treated her that well when she first came.

She said to him, “And just so you know, that mold creature growing in your fridge is one power surge away from coming to life and devouring you in your sleep. If I were you, I’d stock up on grenades and flame throwers.”

He couldn’t resist the urge to mess with her. “So come in and clean it. Isn’t that what girls do? Clean things?”

“Fuck that,” she said amiably. “No wonder you’re still single, with that attitude.”

He smirked at her. “That’s only the tip of the iceberg, babe. Even my porn-film dick and the things I can do with my tongue don’t make up for all the shit that comes with this package.”

That made her laugh. “Then it’s a good thing you have me to make you cookies.”

They took the last Jeep down the mountain to the main compound so they could drop their combat packs and ordinance, and Cisco could get his bullet hole checked out. The med center sat in a cluster of buildings in a bowl-shaped valley at the mountain’s foot—most of them currently under construction. Not that they hadn’t needed the upgrades, but it made the place chaotic as fuck in the daytime. Sanchez’s wolf didn’t like it.

Cisco’s wound was a through-and-through, already healing up, so the medic slapped a clean bandage on it and called it good.

They hiked back up the mountain to their cabin, like they always did. Usually the quiet and the smell of the forest calmed Sanchez’s wolf after a mission, but tonight he still felt somehow exhausted and antsy at the same time.

Everything was changing, and it went deeper than the construction projects. Outlaw Ridge was turning from a secret unsanctioned black-ops team into a legit security company—at least, the part that outsiders could see.

Which in itself was a change. A year ago, except for the people living in the little town down the mountain, outsiders hadn’t even known they existed.

Even worse, they weren’t just soldiers anymore. It used to be that women weren’t allowed at the Ridge, because too many of the wolves were fucked-up burned-out operatives with hair triggers, and it wasn’t safe.

Plus the dude who chose and funded their missions—and owned the whole damn mountain—was a shadowy barely-seen creature of the night who hated women, and the pack’s previous alpha had also been opposed to boobs and pussies.

At least, they’d both been opposed to having them at the Ridge. But their new alpha, Gunn Jorgenson, had Michelangela Connors as his mate, and now Switch had Breanna, who wasn’t even a shifter.

The rules had changed.

Sanchez didn’t like that either. Too many of the guys—like him—really were too fucked up to handle relationships. But seeing other people having them made their wolves want things they couldn’t have.

It was a fucking distraction, and it would lead to nothing but trouble.

Up at the cabin, they dumped their personal gear in the middle of the floor with the rest of their crap, and headed for the food. Breanna had done good—piles of barbecue. Their wolves always craved meat after a mission, to make up for the energy they’d burned.

“Damn,” Cisco said, after they’d chowed down the meat and followed it with Breanna’s cookies—Matéo’s frozen, Cisco’s microwaved until the chocolate chips were gooey, and Sanchez’s dipped in bourbon. “This is awesome. We need to get us some mates, to bring us food after a mission.”

“Yeah,” Sanchez said. “Like that’s what women are looking for. The opportunity to spend all day in our crusty kitchen trying to keep your bottomless gut filled. Good luck with that.”

Matéo said nothing. Something was up with him, though damned if Sanchez knew what it was.

“We could clean the kitchen,” Cisco said dubiously.

“What’s the point?” Sanchez said.

“Yeah,” Matéo said, real low. “You might be dead tomorrow, right?”

He shoved back his chair and walked out, into the shed-like room built onto the back of the kitchen. A second later they heard the sound of a knife being thrown into the wooden wall. More than once.

Sanchez looked at Cisco, who’d stopped eating and was looking towards the door to the shed.

Sanchez said, “What’s wrong with him?” Cisco and Matéo were brothers, both younger than him, and they understood each other better than Sanchez did.

Cisco opened his mouth, and shut it again. “Better ask him.”

Fuck.