10. CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 9
Curled around his mate, Baz felt completely at peace. All the anguish of trying to find Channing had been worth it for this moment. Don’t get him wrong, he would have preferred Channing had been safe at home instead of being taken prisoner, forced to mine uranium, and be left adrift at sea, but now that he was in Baz’s arms, he wasn’t about to complain.
Mostly. Sort of. Okay, technically he still wanted nothing more than for those son of a bitch humans to pay as painfully as possibly. Yeah, he knew they had as he’d been part of the group to kill them, but it wasn’t just the group who had taken Channing who needed to pay.
They still had no idea who was responsible for the rash of shifters being taken in the last couple of years. They’d managed to catch, and kill, some of the humans who’d both taken shifters captive, as well as many of those who had bought them to become either slaves or lab rats. Still, they didn’t know who had been behind the whole thing, especially as there had been rumblings about more shifters disappearing.
“Is something wrong?” Channing’s voice sounded timid and uncertain.
Mentally kicking himself for letting himself think about those he wanted to kill right after claiming his mate, Baz turned onto his side to face Channing. “I’m sorry, my sweet. I was just thinking about how much peace I feel with you in my arms, but still hating what you went through. Then I started thinking about slowly killing everyone involved.”
His mate stared into his eyes for several long moments as if trying to tell if Baz were being honest. Channing must have decided he was because his gaze softened, and he leaned closer. “I love that you want to avenge me, but I thought Braydon said they’d already been killed.”
Pressing a kiss to those lush lips, Baz wished like hell he hadn’t let his thoughts go where they had. This wasn’t something they should discuss after claiming each other. He should be whispering sweet nothings in Channing’s ear.
“That’s true, but there have been more shifters who’d been taken and sold for labor or, in some cases, used as guinea pigs for experiments.” They’d been lucky to rescue as many as they had, but they’d all known there were more still in captivity that they couldn’t find. “Someone is behind it, and we have no clue who.”
His mate’s eyes widened as he bolted into a sitting position. “What?” Channing shook as his eyes darted around as if there might be someone in the room who was about to kidnap him.
Before Baz could take him in his arms and reassure him they were safe on Salvation, Channing rolled from the bed, grabbed his clothes, and started yanking them on. “I have to get to Saleh.” Accusing eyes landed on his for a moment. “You never should have allowed her out of my sight.”
My sight . Not their sight. That stung more than it probably should have, considering they’d only just found each other. “Channing, I swear, we’re safe here. Salvation is one of the most secure places on earth.”
He put a hand on his chest to stop the ache he felt there when he saw the doubt in his mate’s expression. Had he’d made a mistake claiming Channing if the man clearly didn’t trust him? Baz and his octopus had nearly gone crazy being apart from his mate after just scenting him. What would happen if Channing decided to leave him after they’d mated?
He honestly didn’t think he’d survive.
Heartbroken, he slowly got up from the bed after watching Channing rush out of the room. A part of him wanted to do nothing more than curl up into a ball and cry but his mate didn’t know where Braydon and Karim lived. Despite the fact that Channing had just figuratively kicked him in the balls, Baz couldn’t allow his mate to suffer by not knowing where Saleh was.
Shoving back on the pair of pants he’d been wearing, he slipped on his shoes, grabbed his shirt, and trailed after Channing until he caught up with him outside. Not saying a word, he gestured for his mate to follow him.
It only took a few minutes to get to where Saleh was outside playing with Braydon’s nieces and nephew. He smiled briefly at the adorable sight, but it didn’t last as Channing didn’t even acknowledge him before racing over to scoop Saleh up into his arms, holding her tightly to him as he looked around as if an army were attacking the island.
Despondent when his mate once more narrowed his eyes accusingly at him, as if he somehow blamed Baz for creating the mess the humans were responsible for. Unable to stay there when Channing clearly hated him, Baz turned on his heel and headed back to the manor. He had no clue what Yosi and Saber had wanted, nor was entirely certain he cared, but Baz figured it was better to distract himself than to wallow in misery.
“Where’s Channing?” Saber asked when Baz walked into the operations room on one of the subfloors that would protect them if there was ever an attack from the sky. Not that Yosi didn’t have many other defenses against such a thing, but if they for some unknown reason couldn’t stop a threat, there were the underground levels that were protected by bedrock as well as reinforced titanium.
“With his daughter.” There was no point in claiming her as his since his mate had made it more than obvious Baz would never earn that role. “Do you need something or were you just wanting to get to know him?”
“Trouble in paradise already,” Chadwick said sarcastically as he tossed one of his knives in the air and caught it effortlessly. It was like a nervous tick the man had. That or he was insane as who would toss a knife and catch it repeatedly for fun?
“Kitten,” Saber warned, even going so far as to frown at his mate. “Be nice or leave. Those are your only options.”
Baz swore his jaw hit the floor. Saber may often try to tame his mate, but never once had he ever heard the Alpha kick Chadwick out of the room.
Chadwick just lifted a brow at his mate, as if daring him to try. But he did stay silent, which most likely meant he wasn’t willing to test Saber’s resolve.
Yosi, being one of his best friends as he’d been working for the man for decades, asked, “Is everything okay?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to lie, yet when he opened his mouth, the truth spilled out. “No. Channing blames me for the threat the human hunters pose to us.” Having mostly been out of the loop on what the Council had discovered about who is behind the many groups capturing shifters around the world, he asked, “Have we made any progress?”
“If by progress, you mean find out anything about them, then no,” Chadwick quipped. “But we have killed anyone we find. At the rate they’re dying in another ten to twenty years, there should be no humans left to hunt us.”
Saber shrugged at his mate’s comment as if that was possible. “So far we’ve only managed to interrogate low level hunters who were too terrified to speak, even when we showed our claws and teeth.”
That usually had most humans peeing in their pants. He couldn’t imagine them keeping silent when faced with a tortuous death. Something he damn well knew Saber and the others would have made certain to draw out after what had been done to their kind.
“Is there a plan, or do we not know enough to have gotten that far?” He wasn’t blaming them for the slow progress. Considering pretty much the entire shifter population in Eastern Africa had been taken the last time, as well as how long it had taken to get a majority of them back, it wasn’t as if they’d had a lot of time to strategize.
Hell, there were still teams out searching for those that hadn’t been found, along with trying to locate those who had been taken since. Then there had been an attack on Salvation itself, which they’d defended but it had taken a toll on the effort to discover whoever was behind everything.
Baz hadn’t been around for more than a year in order to search for his mate. He’d never regret it, but he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Channing had a point. Maybe he and Saleh would have been safer on that remote island with a tribe that didn’t have ties to the outside world.
“No,” Yosi admitted. “I’ve hacked into every government database, and I still can’t find a trail back to whoever’s behind this despite the fact that many governments had bought shifters to use as lab rats.”
That wasn’t a good sign. Yosi was the best hacker in the world. There was no system he couldn’t get into. Which left them where? “Are we certain the governments themselves were in on it, or just certain people who work in the government pretending they are doing it with the blessing of everyone?”
“No clue.” Yosi wrote something on the tablet he always had with him while he worked. “But it is a good question.”
“In the meantime, we have another rescue mission being planned.” Saber’s grin promised death. “We’ve found five work camps and we’re going to shut them down.” Then he glanced at his mate. “And I plan to let kitten here interrogate the hunters we capture.”
If that doesn’t scare the fuck out of the hunters, nothing would. “I want to be in on that.” No way was he going to stand by and let those assholes remain silent. Channing was terrified and if he had to rip them apart piece by piece to make his mate feel safe again, then that was what he was going to do.
“You just mated,” Saber cautioned. “There’s no way you’re going to be able to leave your mate this quickly.”
Considering Channing didn’t want anything to do with him, Baz didn’t think it would be a problem. “Better to be out there eliminating the dangers to my mate and his daughter than here being ignored.”
He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but since it was the truth, he figured there was no point in hiding it either.