13. CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 13
It wasn’t actually possible to do, but Cayman was grinning at his mate’s penguin. Yeah, yeah, he knew. Manta rays didn’t smile. But the sensation of it still filled him with happiness.
Damn, Glyn was so fucking adorable as he waddled to the cove. Then to see him dive in when he was in deep enough water was like paradise. He was so graceful and fluid as he glided over the sandy bottom.
Not all of the cove was sandy. Parts of it were rocky, but his manta ray preferred the sand, which was why they entered where they had. Where they always did.
They’d been home for three blissful weeks and Cayman hoped like hell to spend every day of his life just like this. Not necessarily shifted because then they couldn’t make love. But he loved whether they were in human or animal form, and they sought out to prove just how much they loved each other.
Even now, his mate’s penguin turned and swam up to him to rub against his pectoral fins. It was…amazing…sweet… perfection. Even as he thought that, he knew it wasn’t going to last.
The shadow that formed over them proved that.
He glanced up to find Yosi and his mate, Kylo, standing on the shore, looking directly at him. Fuck.
He already knew, without speaking with them, he was needed on another mission. Yet…how? How could he leave his mate? They hadn’t had enough time together. Not that there would ever be enough time…But still.
Mentally, he sighed. But when Glyn noticed them and he physically backed away, almost as if he wanted to distance himself from Cayman, he was pissed. Not at his mate, but at anyone trying to take him away from the most important person in the world to him.
He just couldn’t. Right?
Yet…even as he thought that, he knew, especially being recently mated, they wouldn’t ask if there was anyone else who could do it. Which either meant, they were strapped, because there were too many shifters being taken, or it was extremely dangerous.
Either way, it meant leaving the man he loved more than life. The thing was, Cayman just wasn’t certain he could do that.
Swimming to the shore, he shifted. His mate right behind him. They pulled on their sweats and instantly gravitated together until they were pressed hip to hip with an arm around each other.
“I can’t do it,” he blurted out before he had to listen to whatever horrible situation they needed him to enter. “I can’t leave my mate.” Even as he said it, he knew it would always be the way he felt, but also damn well knew he would have to do. “Not yet.”
Both Yosi and Kylo eyes were filled with remorse. Kylo’s was mixed with pity, but it was the determination in Yosi’s that put him on alert. He wasn’t going to be given a choice. Which meant another hell like North Korea.
Fuck!
“I need you to come to the situation room,” Yosi told him, not asked him.
“You can’t ask this of him,” Glyn tried to insist. “He barely just got back from the last mission you sent him on.”
Admittedly, three weeks wasn’t a long time to decompress; it wasn’t exactly unusual for him to be sent out again that soon either. But he was now mated. He had someone else to think about.
“Saber is waiting.” Yosi’s words struck hard. This wasn’t something he could turn down.
Grabbing their shirts off the ground, he handed Glyn his and said, “Fine. My mate comes too.” Not on the mission, because…fuck no. But if Saber was going to send him away from Glyn, his mate deserved to hear the reason why. Not to mention, there was a chance – not a good one – that Saber would remember he was newly mated and needed time to bond with Glyn.
Yosi dipped his head once. “Agreed.”
He and Kylo led the way as they walked around the cove to the manor where Yosi and Kylo lived as well as where the entire operations of Yosi’s enterprise was. His boss was one of the best hackers/tech gurus in the world. He hired anyone who managed to hack into his systems, although there weren’t many.
It was one of the reasons he’d bought Salvation Island. There had been too many countries after him for his ability to infiltrate their systems as well as to harness his intellect. Because of that, their island was well protected, both by technology and some of the fiercest water shifters in the world.
“Cayman, Glyn, good to see you again, although I wish it were under different circumstances.” Saber’s voice had both Cayman and his mate tensing.
“We just mated.” Glyn’s arms were crossed over his chest as he glared at the image on the screen. “You can’t possibly think to send him already.”
Chadwick, who was next to Saber and flipping his usual knives in the air like a juggler, chuckled. “I did try to tell you,” he told his mate.
Saber scowled for a second, but when he looked over at his mate, he was smiling affectionately. “And we both know Cayman is probably the only one who has a chance of succeeding.”
Chadwick rolled his eyes. Glyn, on the other hand, was incensed. “Why don’t you go? Oh, wait…I know, because you don’t want to leave your mate , right?”
Technically, he wasn’t wrong. Yet, as great as Saber was in battle and as a leader, infiltrating a secured location without a war…? Yeah, not so much.
“Babe…” he started but Saber cut him off.
“I get this is a huge request, but I wouldn’t make it if there was another option.” His tone was hard, unforgiving and more importantly, determined. Never a good sign. “If I had the skillset of Cayman, I would do it myself, but I don’t. If I did it would start an actual all out war with the humans, which none of us want. That’s why I’m sending Cayman.”
He hated the way his mate sagged and leaned into him in defeat. It killed him to have to leave him, but he also knew Saber was right. They either declared war on the humans, something that would end up in utter chaos since many shifters lived side by side with them, or they found a way to free those in captivity.
It was that reason, and that reason only, that he squared his shoulders as he looked at the Council Chief and asked, “Where do you want me?”
And damn if it wasn’t exactly the last place he’d expected. “North Korea. But this time, we need you to destroy that fucking facility so they can’t bring more of our kind there.”
Fuck him.
“Are you out of your damn mind?” he blurted out without thinking. Mainly because going back in would definitely get him killed.
Saber winced. Something Cayman doubted he rarely did. “As much as I wish to God I didn’t have to admit, we fucked up by not destroying that place the first time. You getting everyone out of there only disrupted their operation for three damn days. That’s it. By then they had brought in enough shifters and, from what our satellites show, three times the amount of guards, to have it completely operational.”
“No.” Glyn’s voice was hard and resolute. “I’m sorry for those that are there. I am. But I know what they are capable of. The only reason Cayman got in there the first time was because they hadn’t expected him to get in the way he had. They will be now. There is no way to do it again. Just destroy the facility.”
There was sorrow in Saber’s eyes as he looked at them. “Unfortunately, I know that. I’m not sending him in to extract those imprisoned.” Cayman’s heart dropped knowing what he was going to say. “I’m sending him in to destroy everything.”
He just…Fuck.
“Are you seriously asking me to kill shifters?” Because he couldn’t. Right?
The word wasn’t needed. He could see it in Saber’s expression, but their leader wasn’t one to shy away from the hard shit. “Yes.”
Well…just damn it all to hell.