Chapter 24
Hazard returned to the 448 barracks after a lengthy morning meeting. Ortiz sat at the kitchen table, flipping through a folder and making notes on whatever was inside. Ice was working out, doing chin-ups on a bar he’d installed in his bedroom doorway.
“We’ve got a briefing on Cortez at thirteen-hundred,” Ortiz said.
Hazard groaned. “That’ll be nearly an entire day spent in meetings for me. All that listening and reading reports and sitting on my ass is no good for my psyche.”
Ortiz snorted a laugh. “If you can make it through torture resistance training, you can make it through a day of meetings.”
Ice dropped down from the bar and looked at his watch. “That’s in ten. I’ll head up now.”
“Let me put this stuff away and I’ll walk with you,” Hazard said.
He went into his room and filed the folder of documents he’d returned with away in his desk. When he came back out to the common area, Ice wasn’t there.
“Where’d the captain go?” he asked Ortiz.
“He left.”
“Okay. See you at HQ.” Assuming Ice was outside waiting for him, Hazard left the barracks. But Ice wasn’t waiting for him out front. He looked around but the captain was nowhere to be seen. Ice wouldn’t walk off and leave him. Maybe the alpha had been caught up in his thoughts and hadn’t heard him say he’d walk with him. Not too bothered, he set off for HQ on his own.
He expected to find Ice waiting in the briefing room. But when he arrived, there was no one there. Now Hazard wondered if Ice was avoiding him. Ice had been quiet since returning from his lunch with Major General Walsh yesterday. They’d barely spoken a work to each other. But quiet was the usual setting for the captain. There was no reason to assume Ice was avoiding him. He probably had something he had to attend to. Or he’d received news he needed to process.
Hazard leaned back in his chair. He relaxed, letting his eyes drift shut while he waited for the others to arrive. Jax and Ortiz showed up first. They sat down, looking no happier to be there than he was. A few seconds later, Ice came in and took his usual seat. He didn’t so much as look at Hazard when he did. Gibbs and his aide arrived last. Everyone stood at attention, retaking their seats once he gave them a wave of permission.
“We continue to receive intel on Cortez. And we’ve verified that Mr. Vaughn is a secret financial backer of Cortez, along with several others.”
“Are we going to bring Vaughn in for questioning?” Ortiz asked.
“Not yet. I don’t want to tip Cortez off that we know who is financing him.”
They all grumbled but understood Gibbs’s reasoning.
“So, we know his backers,” Jax said. “Does that also mean we finally have an idea on his plans to shake up shifter society?”
“Yes. Going by the organizations these backers belong to, I’ve parsed that Cortez is interested in a return to traditional shifter society.”
“And by that you mean...”
“Less involvement in our world. The human world.” He corrected himself since he was a human but the members of the 448 were not. “Stricter borders between the major packs. And rolling back some of the rights gained by omegas.”
Hazard, the only omega in the room, leaned back in his chair and groaned. “How original. Traditional groups have been trying to take back omega rights since the moment we won ‘em.”
“Any information on his current location?” Ortiz asked.
“Not quite. He hasn’t gone far from his home ground in Arizona. We’ve been tracking him into Colorado. He’s smart enough not to use credit cards and he’s staying in out of the way places. But we’ll find him.”
“Hopefully soon,” Hazard said. “Captain Anderson and I are extremely excited to chat with him, seeing as how he nearly roasted us alive.”
Gibbs laughed. “I’m sure you are.”
Hazard looked at Ice, expecting him to chime in or at least look his way. He did neither. Hazard frowned. Maybe he had done something to make the captain avoid him.
As soon as Gibbs concluded the meeting Hazard was up, moving around the table. Ice was up too, and was out the door before Hazard made it to his side. “Captain!” he called out.
Ice stopped and turned around, waiting until he reached him. They moved off to the side of the hallway so they didn’t block the flow of people going about their business.
“Yes, Corporal Mitchell?”
“Do you have a minute?”
“No. I’ve got paperwork to complete and submit.”
Hazard was taken aback at Ice’s cooly impersonal tone. Something was wrong. “Do you want some company while you work?” He had his own reports to fill out and they’d worked together in companiable silence a few times before. And maybe if they spent some time together, Ice would ‘fess up to whatever was bothering him.
“I don’t.”
Hazard blinked. The rejection stung. It stung enough that this time when Ice walked away, Hazard didn’t try to follow after him.
* * *
Over the next few days, Ice’s attitude toward Hazard continued on in the same dismissive vein. The man barely spoke to him. When he did, he no longer called him Hazard. Ice addressed him only as Corporal Mitchell in the coldest, most aloof tone he’d ever heard from the man. Invitations to work out together were rejected and if he even attempted to flirt, he was met with a glare so cold it was a wonder he wasn’t flash frozen where he stood.
Hazard was hurt and confused by the change. Patience wasn’t one of his strong suits, so he decided he wasn’t going to waste time trying to figure out Ice’s mood or wait for the alpha to tell him what was wrong. He would ask him directly when neither of them was busy.
Thursday afternoon, Hazard walked out of the gym. Across the way, he saw Ice going for a jog down the runner’s path. This could be the perfect opportunity for a private talk. His calves and quads were tired from a leg day workout, but he sprinted to catch up with Ice, splashing through puddles from a recent rain as he ran.
He fell in to step next to the alpha, having to jog a little faster than his usual pace to keep up with Ice’s long strides. The sky was a foreboding gun metal gray, hinting at more rain to come, and Hazard’s ears tingled from the cold, rushing wind. At first he was quiet and Ice didn’t speak either. They ran next to each other in silence, passing beneath wet, leafless tree branches for a quarter mile before Hazard spoke.
“Did something happen, Captain?”
“No.”
“Did I do something that I need to apologize for?”
“No.”
“Then what’s up with you?”
“Nothing.”
Hazard clenched his teeth together to hold back a frustrated growl. “I swear to Mother Wolf if you give me another one word answer I’m going to get violent.”
Ice slowed to a stop but continued to stare straight ahead. Hazard stopped too, choosing to face Ice as they stood in the middle of the path.
“What do you want me to say?” Ice asked.
“I want you to tell me why you’ve reverted to your ice-cold persona. I thought we were past that.”
“This isn’t a persona. It’s who I am.”
Hazard shook his head. “Maybe with strangers. But you’d warmed up to me. I thought...” He didn’t want to sound desperate, but his Instinct was frantically urging him to find a way to close the distance that had sprung up between them. “I thought we were friends. And maybe...more.”
Moving stiffly, Ice turned to face him. His brown eyes were hard, just as they had been when Hazard had first joined the 448.
“You’ve got a crush,” he said dismissively. “It happens. People see the mask, hear about my rep, and want to try and get close. You’ll get over it and move on once the novelty wears off.”
Angry heat flamed to life on Hazard’s wind-chapped cheeks. “Get over my crush? I wasn’t kissing myself in that fucking alley.”
“And that was a mistake. But like I said, it won’t happen again.”
The bottom dropped out of Hazard’s stomach at the note of finality in Ice’s voice. He really meant it. Ice didn’t want anything more with him. It hurt, but there was nothing he could do but respect Ice’s wishes.
“Fine. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be friendly as pack mates.” Hazard didn’t want to completely lose the rapport they’d established.
Ice’s shoulders pulled back and he looked down at Hazard with disdain. “We’re not a pack . We’re a team . And it’s not necessary for us to be friends on a team. We work, we get shit done, and that’s it. If you need more than that, find it somewhere else. Understood, Corporal Mitchell?”
Hazard’s back went ramrod straight when Ice pulled rank. “Understood,” he answered tightly.
“Good. You’re dismissed.”
Ice turned and continued on his run.
Hazard stayed where he was. As he watched Ice disappear down the path, he wondered what the fuck had happened to make the alpha suddenly reject the bonds he’d been building with him and the rest of the 448. It wasn’t hard to guess that something had gone down during his lunch with the general. But he didn’t have a clue as to what that something could be. Regardless, Ice had made his wishes clear. Their friendship was over. And so was anything more that might have been between them.