Chapter Seven #2
Taggart needed to get back to work unraveling the data in those eyes, but first, Arlo needed to ensure that there were no more near mishaps like the one this morning.
There was no telling what those devices had recorded, but the one thing Arlo knew was that it was nothing good.
The last thing he wanted was for Soren to see anything like what Arlo had seen in the caves where Romy and other shifters were held and experimented on.
It was a nightmare that still haunted him, the way he could tell something haunted Soren.
The last thing he would ever want was to add to whatever memories were already floating around in Soren’s mind.
It was bad enough that he’d exposed Taggart to some of those horrors, though he hoped to mitigate the damage by asking him to turn away and listen to his music while Arlo watched the recordings and looked at the images.
The data itself, any written entries or notes, would hopefully not be encrypted.
If they were, maybe Taggart had a software program that would handle any decryptions, again leaving Arlo to be the only one who had to read or look at any of the evidence.
As if Soren sensed his change in mood, he pressed in closer.
“Thank you for a wonderful first meal together,” Arlo said before pressing a kiss to Soren’s temple.
“You have work you both need to do,” Soren replied, curling against Arlo and nuzzling beneath his jaw to kiss the pulse point there.
“And I have sticky dishes to tend to, cupboards and a fridge to finish rummaging through, a grocery list to compile and my first menu to make, so go on now, both of you, so I can get my work done. I won’t cook in a dirty kitchen, and I made a little bit of a mess this morning. ”
“If you think this is a mess, you should see what happens when I try to make homemade pizza,” Taggart giggled, standing, then bent to help Soren up so he could hug him.
Arlo felt how happy it made Soren, and a smile tugged at his lips.
“We’ll make them together,” Soren said, nuzzling against Taggart’s neck, then kissing it the same way he had Arlo’s. “It might still be a little messy, but I guarantee it’ll be a lot more fun than doing it alone.”
“I hope so, the last time I tried to spin the pizza and toss it up the way they do in movies, I got one stuck to the ceiling.” Two heads tilted back, two pairs of eyes rolled up to stare at the ceiling as a round of giggles kicked off.
Taggart continued chuckling, naked as a jaybird, heading down the hall towards his office.
“He won’t want to break for lunch,” Arlo rumbled, keeping his voice low as he bent to speak to Soren. “Could you make a few of those sandwiches you mentioned before, and let me know when they’re ready, I’ll come get them.”
“There’s something in the office you don’t want me to see, isn’t there?” Soren questioned, poking a little at Arlo’s thoughts.
His bird was no dimwit, that was certain. Arlo stared down into eyes filled with compassion and concern.
“There is,” Arlo admitted. “Taggart is helping me unravel a few mysteries surrounding things that have been taking place within the shifter community, including some disappearances that have happened. We’re not trying to keep secrets from you. That’s not the way it should be between mates.”
“You’re just trying to keep me from seeing something terrible,” Soren murmured, wrapping his arms around Arlo’s middle to give him a squeeze. “Thank you. I’ll make sure to call for you when the food is ready, I won’t come into the office unless one of you tells me it’s okay.”
Arlo felt a surge of pride at finding himself so lucky. “Good, and I promise I will get him to come out for supper and some playtime, okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
He was beaming about the word all the way down the hall to the office, where he closed the door behind him after entering the room, just in case Soren got excited about something and forgot about his promise not to come down the hall.
Taggart already had everything booted back up and was sifting through layers of, well, something that looked like a lot of script and numbers.
“There are three main things we’re hoping to find, aside from video footage and photographs we intend to use to identify, hopefully the shifters whose lives they cut short,” Arlo explained what they were after, tapping into his enforcer side to steel himself against the things he didn’t want to see.
“Any blueprints of schematics of the cave system and any other facilities they might have hidden somewhere. Any sort of mission statement or prime directive programmed into the owls. If there were a series of goals to be met or targets to be acquired or dealt with, we need to know about them. If they had an endgame they were building towards, if there were any counter features programmed into their creations, like a self-destruct gene that causes their cells and organs to break down until they cease to function. The other thing we’re hoping to learn is whether there were others working with them.
Hopefully, we can extract some footage and learn the names of however many enemies we have left, so we can strike first this time instead of being on the defensive.
Those owls were able to get onto the crash land unnoticed.
We’re sure that they spied on our people before one attacked Bash and got killed for its trouble.
” Arlo instantly regretted what he’d shared when witnessing how Taggart winced.
But he regrouped and carried on. “We’re also uncertain if the ones who have been killed so far are the last threat we have to worry about from the owls.
It would be good to know if they were willing participants in the council’s schemes or if they were unwitting victims, too.
Right now, every shred of information we gather is worth more than gold, we’re that much in the dark about how deep this goes and who can truly be trusted. ”
“I hear you,” Taggart muttered, his fingers back to flying over the keys.
He paused once to put his headphones on and put the insanely loud music back on, then he dove right back in.
It left him with time on his hands, so Arlo pulled out his phone to make the call to his crash alpha, then he’d look for some stress-relieving toys for his boys, in both the adult and the little variety.
Either way, they’d be guaranteed some truly amazing nights in the future, and goddess willing, it would be a very long future indeed.
Taggart
He blocked out thoughts of what the rhino had done when it involved killing.
Taggart wasn’t silly. He understood what the enforcer had to do; he didn’t have to like it or think about it.
Part of his need to regress was to escape the cruelty that happened in the world.
What he did day-to-day meant he couldn’t escape reality.
So instead, he did what he always did, focused on the code and storing the information in megabytes into a storage center he could share.
The problem with that was he had to go in and make sure it was in a format that could be easily read.
After Arlo had made a call to someone, the visible difference in him was evident to Taggart, and though he didn’t hear the call, he suspected it had something to do with the thoughts he’d picked up on about changing roles on the crash lands. Not that Taggart could have heard him above the music.
He was more aware of him because usually no one came into his sacred space. It was a little unsettling at first, naked as he was with Arlo’s scent teasing his nose, his cock twitched constantly, making it take longer for him to sink into his work.
As time passed, and Arlo continued to sit, messing on his phone, Taggart relaxed. He hunched over his computer, scowling at the screen as it got more difficult the deeper he got in. They had a sick person encrypt the data; Taggart had to give the assholes that.
Curses flew from his mouth as he fought with the data in ways he hadn’t in a long time. Unaware of time—of anything—he shouted when he broke through into another layer of encryption.
A blast of cold air hit his bare skin and broke through his thoughts.
He spun in his chair at the feel, finding Arlo and Soren in the doorway of his office.
He blinked at the pair, trying to figure out what he was missing.
Arlo wore a look that said he was ready to go to war. Soren was brandishing a wooden spoon.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted, flicking a switch to block the screens, having picked up some of the conversation Arlo had with Soren about coming into his office. He’d definitely done something to bring Soren into the office, but when had Arlo left?
Arlo tapped a finger on his ear, and Taggart reached up and slipped his headphones around his neck, giving them both a sheepish smile. “What’s wrong?” he asked again.
“You shouted loudly,” Arlo muttered, “giving both me and Soren a heart attack.”
“Oops.” Taggart blushed, feeling silly.
“It’s alright,” Soren answered first, coming in after checking the screens were dark. “It’s dinnertime.”
“It is?” Taggart then noticed how empty he felt. How had he missed lunch? Crap, he’d also forgotten to go online and order a mini-fridge for his office.
“You were so deep into what you were doing, I was concerned about breaking your concentration,” Arlo explained, wearing a look that suggested Taggart could have caused an issue.
He wasn’t sure how their mind link worked, but he wasn’t getting a read off Arlo, whereas Soren was so open he got all his feelings now Taggart wasn’t thinking about work. “I’m sorry. I get lost, and it’s hard to break away when the code is being naughty, Daddy.” He gave his best pleading smile.
Soren came over and, without having to be asked, slipped onto Taggart’s lap, cuddling him.
The wooden spoon dug a little into his shoulder, but Taggart didn’t mind, not when Soren smelled of cookies and meatballs.
The weight when sitting on Taggart’s lap was perfect.
He snuggled right in, and immediately Taggart relaxed.
“I’ll try to remember not to shout out,” Taggart aimed at Arlo, who hadn’t moved and continued to wear a perplexed expression that hurt Taggart’s tummy.
“It’s not your fault you’ve lived alone for a long time?” Taggart nodded; he had. “It’s just going to take a little bit to adjust to each other.” Then Arlo came over to Taggart and cupped his cheeks, holding his stare. “But less shouting might be better for Daddy’s heart, okay?”
Taggart nodded as much as the hands would allow, then Arlo kissed him hard on the mouth.
The kiss was possessive and hot, making Taggart’s other head take notice when Soren fidgeted on his lap and groaned.
Next thing, Soren’s mouth was next to theirs, and he nibbled at the corners of Taggart and Arlo’s lips.
The kiss turned sloppy as tongues tangled and mouths sought to include each other. It was the hottest kiss Taggart had ever experienced. Soren ground his ass against Taggart, and he reached his hand between Soren’s legs, a little disappointed when he didn’t get to touch skin.
When Arlo finally eased back, Taggart was so aroused he begged, “Just one more kiss, Daddy, I’m so close.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I know, but you haven’t eaten since breakfast, and you were up early too. We can eat what Soren has cooked, have a shower, then if you’re still in the mood, we’ll have a snuggle pile in bed.”
Taggart was up, clutching a giggling Soren to his chest. “Let’s eat.”