Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
GARRETT
“You still not talking?” Frank tosses me my shirt, jeans, and boots from the cache outside our pack’s main compound.
Hard to talk when your damn wolf’s been biting you for the past day. I shove my legs into the jeans and freeze up before yanking on the boots. Getting dressed, returning to the safety of the pack… wrong. Very wrong.
“I need to go back.”
Hayden’s head pops through the neck of a thick wool sweater. “We were looking for the facility where they’re holding the shifters. I didn’t expect we’d find the honey trap. Dealing with her is an entirely different mission.”
I stare at the boots, debating if I should shift to my wolf form and take off.
Going against orders, not having backup on an op…
that’s not me either. And yet I can’t get Angelina’s image out of my head, especially the moment her lips trembled and opened, as if she wanted to say more but couldn’t. “We need to save her.”
“Not sure what we’ll do about the woman. That’s Damien’s call.”
“She has a name. Angelina.”
“Testy, testy,” Frank clicks his tongue. “All over a traitor.”
“If I recall, you blood-bonded a murderer, and Callen’s mated to a white wolf. Fuck, Hayden is a white wolf. If ever there was a traitor—”
Frank slams me into a tree. “You’re still hurting, and I get that, but I’m only gonna say this once. Hayden’s proved his loyalty to this pack time and time again. He’s pack, as much as you. Get your shit together.”
“He shouldn’t have had to prove anything,” I agree. “He was a victim. Just like that woman back there.”
Hayden walks away, as if we’re not talking about him, and heads straight to his very pregnant mate.
Her long dark hair falls forward as he lifts her, swings her around, then gently sets her down again and curves his hand over her swollen belly.
It’s the only time I see Hayden smile. When he’s with her.
Callen clamps a hand down on my shoulder. “Debriefing’s in an hour. Argue about it then.”
They don’t need me for the debriefing. There’s nothing I could add, especially since Damien will make his decisions without any input from me. I should head to my cabin, where I won’t have to deal with him or anyone. Except then there’ll be no one to stand up for Angelina.
“I’ll be there.”
Kate jumps into Callen’s embrace. There’s something about her that makes me smile. Maybe it’s how she’s one of the few who doesn’t listen to orders around here. Maybe that’s the white wolf in her.
My eyes dart from Callen and Kate, past the shifters setting bins of decorations beneath the huge tree at the other end of the compound, to Hayden talking with Damien. The alpha and his second are staring at me.
“You don’t fault Kate for her Novak heritage, then why fault Hayden?” Frank asks.
He doesn’t get it. None of them do. I haven’t been myself for quite some time. “Kate wasn’t responsible for what happened to Marla.”
“Neither was Hayden.”
“He was there.”
“A lot of us were.”
“He was in charge.”
“Marla shouldn’t have been there.”
I slam the boots I’m holding into Frank’s chest. “But she was.” I shift, surrendering full control to my wolf.
The wind rips through my fur as my paws strike the cold, wet earth. Letting my wolf race from camp and through the woods with total recklessness is utterly freeing. Until a larger wolf slams into me and pins me.
Blue eyes glare at me, but there’s no display of teeth or even a growl.
I shift to human form and shove at Damien’s wolf. “Get off!”
Damien shifts as he backs off me. “What am I going to do about you, Garrett? You’re talking back to Hayden, provoking Frank… fuck, even Callen, who has to be the easiest going shifter I know.”
“He’s your fucking enforcer.”
“Would you rather I assign someone who’s unstable to the position?”
“I don’t fucking care what you do, Damien. I’m going back for Angelina.”
“The traitor Hayden told me about?”
In three strides, I’m right up in his face. “You know nothing about her.”
“Neither do you, cousin.”
“Don’t cousin me.”
He pins me with a glare. “You’re not going anywhere, Garrett. And that’s an order. Debriefing’s in one hour. Don’t make me send Frank after you.”
“Wouldn’t want that.” Fuck the briefing. I’m going after Angelina.
As if he read my thoughts, he whirls around, eyes narrowed. “On second thought, you’re coming with me. Now.”
Fuck this. Fuck my alpha. Fuck this whole damn pack.
Before I can shift, Damien’s hand clamps down at the back of my neck and he essentially drags me to his house like I’m a wayward teen. As if it’s not embarrassing enough to be led by the scruff of my neck, he takes the long way to the where his house is, at the center of the compound.
“Hey, Garrett,” Sadie Lynn calls out to me from where she’s sorting through the Christmas decorations. “You okay?”
“Peachy.” My wolf bites me because I’m being an ass. Can’t disagree. I meet Sadie Lynn’s eyes, trying to avoid looking at the still-bare Christmas tree. “I’m hanging in there, Sadie Lynn. Thanks for asking.”
With a shove in the direction of his house, Damien finally releases me. Probably because I’m talking to a female, something I typically avoid. I’m not mating material. Not anymore.
“You can come by and visit. I moved in with Hazel and Piper.”
“Thanks. Maybe I will.”
“You won’t,” Damien whispers, because he knows me too well. “But at least you’re being civil now.”
When we step inside his house, I immediately catch Tess’s scent. It’s everywhere. Suffocating. Not because I have anything against her. She’s smart when it comes to people. More importantly, she can keep Damien in line. Despite her trouble shifting, she’s a strong shifter…
And a reminder of what I lost.
“Here.” Damien shoves a pair of sweatpants at me, since I shredded the jeans in the woods when I shifted without undressing first. He reaches into the bin of clothes he keeps at the door and retrieves a pair of jeans and top for himself. “Hayden gave me the basics. I want to hear your side.”
“I know he’s no traitor. The words just came out.”
“Seriously? You called Hayden a traitor?” Damien scrubs his face. “Fuck, Garrett, I don’t need this trouble right now. Neither does Hayden.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Damien shakes his head. “You really don’t know him. Maybe you should give him a chance. Better yet, give yourself a chance. We all know you’re hurting.”
“What the fuck do you know? Tess is alive. Hayden’s about to have a kid. Kate practically jumped Callen’s bones in the center of camp when we returned, and Frank—”
“Jealous we all have mates, Garrett? And here I thought you were grieving.”
“I am. And you fucking well know Marla turned me down.”
“Then what’s eating at you? The fact that she’s gone or that you never mated her?”
“This has nothing to do with Marla. We just walked away from a female who needs our help.”
“This has everything to do with Marla. Your entire fucking attitude, disobeying orders, lashing out at Hayden, me… anyone who dares talk to you is all about your fucking guilt over Marla. Maybe you should have blood-bonded her and then she—”
“What? Wouldn’t have gone out there, against orders? You blaming this on me?”
“No, you’re doing that well enough all on your own. I was going to say blood-bonding might have… settled her.”
I swallow. Marla and I had been best friends since we were teens. I’d brought up the idea of blood-bonding her, but that conversation had grown awkward real fast. She didn’t want it. Neither of us did. “Just because I didn’t blood-bond her doesn’t mean I didn’t care for her.”
“Odd, how you didn’t say love.”
“Love isn’t necessary for blood-bonding.”
“Don’t let Tess hear you say that. Or any of the women around here. They’ll hang you up by your paws.”
The image makes me laugh, but only for a moment. I can’t get those blue eyes out of my mind, or that pleading look on Angelina’s face. “We have to go back for Angelina.”
“I thought we were talking about your behavior.” He sighs. “Fine, let’s discuss the honey trap.”
I punch the wall to the right of the door, leaving a sizeable dent in the drywall. “She’s not a honey trap.”
He raises a brow, but says nothing.
“Fuck, Damien, I don’t know why she was there. Maybe it was to lure lone shifters like Carter, maybe there was another reason. We didn’t see any signs of humans or scent any nearby. But she was practically begging for us to leave. That’s not the action of a honey trap.”
“She wanted you gone because she was hiding something. Probably the humans. Hayden said she reeked of fear.”
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that bitterness that threatened to wash out her lilac scent. It had fouled the air soon after Hayden and the others appeared behind me.
“I think it was because we outnumbered her. Four males. One female.”
“Could be.”
“I want to go back.”
“You’re asking instead of demanding? That’s an improvement.”
“He can’t go back,” Hayden says as he enters.
“What the fuck do you have against me?”
“Nothing, normally. You’re the best retrieval expert we have. But you’re also not in the right mindset. It’s dangerous engaging with the enemy when you can’t think clearly. And you, Garrett, are not thinking clearly. If you were, you never would have swung at me.”
“I didn’t swing at you?” Did I? Fuck, maybe I did.
Hayden rubs his jaw. “You pack a powerful punch.”
I sink to the sofa, reaching down to my wolf, to see what he thinks. Silence greets me, as it usually does. He blames me for Marla’s death, even though I wasn’t there. I should have been there. Which is why I can’t ignore Angelina. I won’t let another female die because of me.
“You’re not his only victim today.” Damien says to Hayden, pointing to the hole I left in his wall. “By the way, you’re fixing that, Garrett.”
Fingers snap in front of me, yanking me out of that black hole that gets stronger every time I go near it. When my eyes finally focus, Hayden pulls his hands back. He and Damien trade glances.
“I’m not leaving her there.”
“You’re off the rescue detail.”