Chapter One
HORVAN KOJIK was going to kill Brick.
Then he reasoned he wouldn’t need to. Brick was probably going to end up dead very soon if he kept taking chances the way he’d been doing lately.
And then what will his mates do?
Horvan didn’t want to contemplate how it would feel to lose a mate. What that loss would do to him. Or them, if the worst happened.
The raid had been textbook. Two teams had shown up at almost midnight on a moonless night—his own and one led by one of Aelryn’s commanders—and as one they’d surged forward into yet another camp, meeting enemy fire with their own. Horvan had admired Aelryn from the moment they met, not to mention the awe he felt every time he was in Aelryn’s presence. Aelryn was a Fridan blue blood, a direct descendant of one of the brothers who’d been the cause of the rift between shifters back when the earth was cooling.
Okay, maybe not that long—Vic Ryder would probably know exactly how long ago that was—but there was no denying Aelryn was Someone. His forces were easily the equal of Horvan’s, and it was refreshing to work side by side with military people who didn’t curl up their lip at the mere thought of collaborating with humans. The raids were well planned and precise but were always bloody: Ansger’s spear was still wielded with abandon by his descendants. Those enemy fighters who didn’t flee were taken into custody by Aelryn’s people, and Horvan knew they’d be treated with more consideration than the Gerans had shown toward their prisoners.
This last raid had gone like clockwork—until Brick happened.
He can’t go on like this.
Brick out of combat was bad enough. He had a wicked temper, and it was all his mate Aric could do to keep that rage below the boiling point. But on the battlefield?
Gloves came off, he shifted, and then teeth and claws got bloody.
Way too bloody, too often.
Horvan knew he should make Brick sit these missions out. His friend was becoming more and more erratic, refusing to obey orders, violently taking down anyone who dared to challenge him. But damn it, they needed him. They’d only located and raided two camps in the two months since they’d liberated the one in Bozeman, and also closed down another shifter school, this time in Croatia, and yet it still felt as though the bad guys were creeping across the globe like kudzu, swallowing up shifters left and right. Making any real headway was harder than hell.
It would be even more difficult without Brick. A Brick who had crawled back to their own camp and stumbled into the main tent, his maw and claws bloodied.
What worried Horvan was the sight of blood from Brick’s wounds, marring his pristine white fur. He’d collapsed on the ground, his chest heaving, in the worst state Horvan had ever seen him.
One day Brick might not be able to tell the difference between allies and enemies.
Aric was there in a heartbeat, kneeling beside him on the hard ground. He stroked a hand over Brick, heedless of the blood matting his fur.
“Brick, shift for me so we can tend to your wounds.”
The bustle and noise of fighters returning from the routed enemy camp—dirty, bruised, yet with their backs straight and their heads held high, clearly content to have been part of the mission—continued around them.
Horvan could sense no such emotion emanating from Brick. Under Aric’s careful hands, the polar bear let out an anguished roar, and Horvan knew what lay at the heart of his distress.
There’d been no sign of their mate, Seth. Or Jake Carson, Dellan’s and Seth’s father. Or Dellan’s half brother, Jamie Matheson.
“Please?” Aric crooned softly. “For me?”
Horvan could understand Brick’s anguish. He’d followed Seth’s and Aric’s voices, which had called to him over miles and miles, only to find one of them had been taken before Brick had had the chance to lay eyes on him. And each raid brought with it the prospect of another chance to find Seth and the others.
Praying they were okay.
Such mental pain would fray anyone’s mind.
Aric was suffering too. Being parted from Seth had left him forlorn and withdrawn; he seemed to curl in on himself. The only time he emerged from his protective cocoon was when Brick was around.
God knows what he went through in that camp.
Horvan crouched beside Brick and glared at him. “Come on, Brick. Don’t be such a stubborn fucker. Shift, for God’s sake.”
Brick’s body shimmered, becoming smaller but still huge by human standards. When he did, Horvan gasped. Brick was riddled with wounds, mostly from bullets, he guessed.
Horvan clicked his mic. “A medic to the main tent, ASAP. And that means now .” He leaned in close, noting the number and severity of the wounds. It was a good thing Brick’s bear was so big, because that had likely saved his life.
There was another possibility. Maybe Brick refused to be extinguished until his mate was back where he belonged.
“You’d better not die,” Horvan grumbled as a medic hurried over to them and began tending Brick’s wounds.
“You’re only… saying that because… you wanna do the job yourself,” Brick wheezed.
“You got that right.” He started to rise, but Brick grabbed his arm. Even as hurt as he was, Brick was stronger than Horvan.
“I’m here,” Horvan said in a softer voice.
Tortured brown eyes met his.
“I need him, H. I can hear him in my head, pleading with me to find him. To save him. We’ve never met, but I’m in love with him already. You gotta understand.”
Horvan understood all right.
This was a fight they couldn’t afford to lose.
“You still having dreams about Seth?”
Brick managed a nod. “He’s screaming, H. They’re torturing him. And you wanna know the worst part?” He shuddered. “I can hear those screams even when I’m awake.”
Horvan wanted to tell him it wasn’t real, but Aric had told him and Brick that Seth was psychic, able to project his thoughts to them. Aric had also confided that when he and Seth connected, what made his heart sink was the fear that laced those thoughts. Fear of being alone. Of being unable to find his way home. Horvan knew what that meant.
Home was Aric and Brick.
Aric stared at Brick with undisguised dismay. “You never told me that. How come I didn’t know?”
“Because I locked you out.” Brick’s eyes glistened. “I didn’t want you to be upset.”
Aric’s eyes bulged. “Upset? You hide something like that from me again, and you’ll soon learn what upset looks like.” He glared. “I’ll shift and let my kitty shit in your boots.”
There was silence for a moment before Brick laughed, even though it obviously hurt him to do so. Aric stared at him, and then he too was laughing.
Horvan snickered as he stood. “I’ve got this sudden urge to go hide all my footwear.” He gazed down at Brick. “When they’ve finished patching you up? My tent. We need to talk.”
Horvan’s plate was overflowing right then, bringing the fight to the Gerans, who believed shifters should rule the world. They seemed to be hiding in every corner, under every rock, behind every tree—under every bed.
But if he could stop Brick from doing what amounted to self-harm, he’d consider that a win.
WHEN HORVAN’S done with him, it’s my turn.
Aric had done his best to remain calm while the medics patched Brick up, but the effort had taken a lot out of him. He’d watched as Brick made his way slowly to Horvan’s tent, the flap closing after him. Aric had no idea what Horvan had said to Brick, but whatever it was, the conversation had lasted only minutes before Saul Emory arrived and the team leaders were called into Horvan’s tent to be debriefed by the two men. Aric had lingered outside, listening to the deep rumble of Saul’s voice. He didn’t shout as much as Horvan. But then again, he didn’t need to. One hard stare from Saul was enough to have most people quaking.
A man who’d endured what he had at the hands of the enemy was owed respect.
There was another side to Saul, a rarely seen side that Aric had encountered the first time he’d shifted in Saul’s presence.
The man loved kitties.
Aric couldn’t be scared of a guy who stroked him the way Saul did.
One by one, the team leaders began to file out of Horvan’s tent, and when Aric couldn’t wait a second longer, he went against the tide of bodies and hurried inside.
Only three men remained in the tent. Brick was in a chair next to Horvan’s bed, his head in his hands, dressings everywhere. Saul and Horvan were deep in conversation, and from the look of it, whatever was being discussed was a bone of contention.
Aric coughed.
“Horvan? Saul? Can I be alone with Brick for a few minutes?”
Horvan blinked. “Sure. We’ll get out of your hair.”
Saul raised his eyebrows but said nothing as he followed Horvan through the tent flap. Aric waited until he knew they were far enough away, then whirled around to face Brick, his hands clenched at his sides.
Don’t lose your cool. Stay focused.
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
He glared at Brick. “You don’t give a damn about me, do you?”
Brick widened his eyes. “What? Where did that come from?”
“Another raid and here you are again. In as big a mess as you were after the last one.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Brick lurched to his feet, wincing as he did do. “I’m doing this for you.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re doing it for you . I don’t know if it’s some misplaced sense of guilt that you weren’t there to protect us—which you couldn’t have been, by the way, since you didn’t even know we existed—but whatever the reason, I am sick to death of seeing you come crawling back on the verge of death.”
“It’s not as bad as—”
Aric narrowed his eyes. “Don’t lie to me, Brick. When I’m near you, I can feel your pain. Do you think I don’t share it? He’s my mate too, damn you. You’ve been cutting me out, running off and doing stupid things like this and—”
Brick grabbed him, and Aric felt his flash of pain. “You don’t yell at me,” Brick growled. “You never yell at me.”
“Well, someone has to,” he cried out. “You need to stop being so… so selfish.”
Brick froze. “Define selfish. ’Cause I’m in the dark here.”
Aric forced himself to take deep breaths. “I’ve already lost Seth. So right now you’re the only thing holding me together. If I lost you, I would die. And that’s not me exaggerating, okay?” He gazed up into Brick’s eyes. “I can’t live without my mate. If you get your stupid ass killed, my mind, my heart, and my body will all simply shut down, and I’ll die .”
“Aric, you—”
“ Die , Brick. I’m telling you, I will. A heartbroken cat can lose its will to live. And right now the only thing keeping me going is you.” He nudged Brick’s chin with his head. “Please, you have to stay safe—for both of us.” Tremors rippled through Brick’s massive frame, but Aric didn’t move.
Finally, Brick sighed, stirring Aric’s hair.
“I’ll try, but you have to understand. Seth is in my head, begging me to help him. When I hear his voice, I lose all sense of control. All I know is that somewhere out there, my other mate is suffering.”
“Then why can’t I hear him?” Aric whined. Damn it, I saw him first. Doesn’t that count for something ?
Then he realized how dumb that sounded, and he was thankful he’d kept it to himself.
Brick’s hand was gentle on Aric’s head. “Maybe he’s protecting you? He knows you better than me. Would he want you to know he’s in pain?”
Aric wanted to say Seth wouldn’t care, but that wasn’t true. “He would do everything in his power to keep me safe.” His sigh was the equal of Brick’s. “Like he always does. If I’m honest, I think he’s waiting for you so he can stop worrying so much about me. Once I’m your problem, he’ll be a lot happier.”
Brick wrapped his hand around the back of Aric’s neck and pulled him in. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.” His gruff voice sent a delicious shiver through Aric, but he pushed down hard on the thoughts that followed it.
Down boy. Uh-uh.
“You said he loves you,” Brick continued, “so no way will he dump you on me. He’s going to be with us for a very long time.”
“Not if you don’t stop doing stupid shit.” Brick’s embrace had had one positive effect; calm had finally returned. He stood on his toes and kissed Brick’s cheek. “Look at it this way. If you die, he does too, because no one will find him. So by being this stubborn ass, you could be killing all three of us.” He gave Brick a hopeful glance. “I’m not saying don’t go out searching for him, okay? But please be smart about it. For all our sakes.”
Strong arms enfolded him, and Aric breathed him in. There was the coppery odor of blood, the medicinal tinge of the dressings, but under it all was Brick’s scent, warm and earthy and—
Dammit, Aric wanted to be naked so badly right then. With Seth and Brick. Learning to pleasure them, cataloging what drove each of them wild. He desperately wanted the chance to be with his mates.
And soon.
“I’ll be smart,” Brick promised. “Well, as smart as I can be, which probably isn’t saying a lot.” He kissed Aric’s hair. “Now go pack our stuff. We’re leaving in about fifteen minutes.”
“And you were going to share this information when ?” Aric scuttled out of the tent.
Another raid over, and hopefully, a lesson learned.
He wasn’t thinking about the Gerans.
brICK ACHED like a son of a bitch. Everywhere hurt.
And for what?
Sure, they’d freed countless shifters and annihilated countless bad guys, but for fuck’s sake, how many more of these camps could there be?
He tried to get comfortable, except he knew that was a nonstarter. Transport planes weren’t put together for comfort. He glanced at the faces of those around him, seeing his own emotions reflected there.
There aren’t enough of us to even make a dent in the enemy’s forces.
Maybe someone needed to say that out loud, especially when H and Saul were in earshot.
Someone like Brick, who was long past giving a shit.
“Hey, H?”
Across from him, Horvan raised his head. “You’re awake. How’s the pain level?”
“Bearable.” He managed a smile. “See what I did there?”
Horvan didn’t need to see how bad Brick was really feeling. No one got to see that, not even Aric.
Horvan groaned. “That was bad, even for you.”
“When is Duke gonna find us more men?”
An eerie silence fell as heads turned in their direction.
Apparently Brick wasn’t the only one who wanted to know.
Saul glanced at Horvan, who nodded. “We’ve already started recruiting more bodies,” Saul told him.
“More mercs? Vets?” Horvan’s business partner, Duke, seemed to have a never-ending supply of those.
“Not exactly.” Saul cleared his throat. “We’re getting a lot of interest from an unexpected source.”
When nothing else was forthcoming, Brick glared at him. “Well, don’t stop there, Mr. Joint Team Leader. Spit it out.”
“When we closed down the school in Massachusetts, I think it shook up a lot of shifters. The fact that the Gerans up and abandoned more than nine hundred kids without hesitation…. Word got around. That was maybe a step too far for some folks. And when the same thing happened in Croatia, it created even more waves.”
Brick did the math. “Are you saying we’ve got people wanting to join us who were on the other side ? Seriously?”
Saul nodded. “We’re gonna vet them all rigorously.”
Brick blinked. “Oh, I’m so happy to hear that. I thought you were all set to give ’em the keys to the armory.”
Horvan snickered. “Get you with the sarcasm.”
“I’ll be helping with the interviews,” Hashtag piped up.
Brick snorted. “Great. Now I’m really worried.”
Hashtag gave him the finger.
Next to Saul, Crank narrowed his gaze. “You’re not dissing my mate’s leadership abilities, are you, Brick?”
Roadkill cackled. “Now there are words I never thought I’d hear.”
“All you need to know is that we’re intending to double our numbers,” Saul concluded. He aimed a sideways glance at Crank. “That was sweet, by the way. Not to mention hot.”
A chorus of groans filled the air.
“Get a room.”
“Anyone got noise-canceling headphones with them?”
“H, can’t you put something in their coffee to cool their jets?”
Horvan laughed. “Hey, if you wanna try that, go for it. Personally, I think Saul and Crank would make mincemeat of you. And God help you if Vic found out, but you’re welcome to try.”
“Something else we need to discuss.” Brick was on a roll. “We have to discover where their main camp is.”
Especially if that was where they were holding Seth, Jake, and Jamie. Brick still got the guilts every time he recalled his part in Jamie’s disappearance, not to mention Saul’s capture.
Thank God Crank and Vic didn’t bear him a grudge.
“You got any suggestions as to where we should be searching?” Saul asked. “We’re always open to suggestions.”
“Yeah, I heard that about you and your mates,” Roadkill quipped.
The main camp was never far from Brick’s mind. “It has to be somewhere inhospitable. Somewhere it’s nearly impossible to get out of.”
That might account for the absence of escapees.
“Like Chicago?” Crank asked. When the rest of the team fired bemused glances at him, he snorted. “What? Ever tried to drive there? It’s the very definition of impossible.”
“Let’s talk about this when we get back to Homer Glen,” Horvan suggested.
One of the team cackled. “Yeah, it’s times like these I’m really glad to be living in the new barracks. I’d hate to be in the same house as you guys.”
“You wanna know what’s a really great invention?” Hashtag grinned. “Earplugs.”
Brick was more than happy to change the subject now that he’d brought it out into the open. Beside him, Aric stirred from his sleep, and Brick chuckled.
“I can’t get over what a deep sleeper you are. Must be a cat thing.” He put his arm around Aric and pulled him close, breathing in the scent that went straight to his dick, the way it did every single fucking time. Brick leaned in and brushed his lips over Aric’s ear.
Aric shivered. “Please, don’t do that.”
Brick froze. “Why not?”
Aric glared at him. “Because it turns me on,” he said in an urgent whisper.
He grinned. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“But we can’t do anything, remember? We’ve talked about this.”
It had been one of their first conversations, and Brick could recite it word for word.
“We… we can’t have sex. I mean, not with each other,” Aric blurted.
“Why not?” Brick stroked Aric’s chest, heading lower. “Your equipment works, doesn’t it? I mean, you don’t have a kitty-sized dick. And while I haven’t ever been with a guy, I’m a fast learner.”
All his senses were telling him it wasn’t going to be a problem.
“Seth said we need our third—you—to be complete.”
“So you and he never—”
“We cuddled, but without you, neither of us could get hard.” Aric bit his lip. “Well, we could , but it never stayed around long enough to do much with it.”
Was it wrong that the statement made Brick feel ten feet tall? Probably.
It didn’t stop his chest from swelling, though.
He cupped Aric’s cheek. “We’ll find Seth, I swear to you. If I have to raid every fucking camp, I will.” Brick kissed Aric’s forehead. “So what’s Seth like?”
“He’s a sweet, gentle soul, a pacifist. He’d be a vegan except he needs meat to keep his cat healthy.” Aric sighed. “He saw you in his visions. He told me you would protect us. You would be the glue that held us together.” He looked Brick in the eye. “Without you, there is no us.”
Without you, there is no us. Brick could wait.
Besides, he couldn’t help but get excited at the thought of the three of them finally meeting—all of them new to each other, two of them virgins, one of them experienced but a total newbie when it came to gay sex.
Then a rush of cold flooded through him.
How can you even think about sex? When Seth is God knows where, having God knows what done to him?
Yeah, Brick didn’t like himself very much right then.