CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - HOG #3
I wash up in the bathroom while Colt sets out the food.
I can hear him chatting about what makes the perfect burger, and for once, I’m grateful for his chaotic personality.
He can be as annoying as fuck, but his quirky sense of humor seems to amuse our omega, and I can feel a throb of victory through his bond every time he draws a smile out of her.
Dinner doesn’t take long, given we’re three alphas with large appetites, and I’m packing up the trash when Birdie wipes her hands and perches on the edge of the bed.
She catches my eye and I set the grease-streaked sacks down, my chest tightening at the anxious thread in her scent.
“I knew Razor – Peak - from the compound,” she says slowly.
“He visited a few times, and I think he was sympathetic to their ‘true pack’ bullshit.” She pulls a face and drops her gaze to her hands, which are clenching and unclenching in her lap.
“He told me there was a tracker in the speech inhibitor. Said I was in trouble for running away.”
“In trouble with who?” Axel asks. “General Booth?”
“He didn’t say, but I met with the general before he sent me to your cabin. I think he saw me as a way to heal some of your grief from Charlie.” She stares down at her boots, then says in a quiet voice, “He seemed pretty invested in getting you mission ready.”
I exchange a grim look with Axel. Would Booth really try to manipulate us like that? Based on the throb of anger down Axel’s bond, he’s nearly as pissed as I am. “You didn’t know Peak was a soldier?”
“I never saw him in uniform.”
“Why do you call him Razor?” Colt makes a disgusted sound. “I’m guessing it’s not because of his clean shave, is it?”
Birdie grimaces. “It’s because he carried razors in the left-hand pocket on his vest.”
And how would she know that? I think of the thin cuts on her arms and shoulders.
Motherfucker.
Axel leans forward, his dominance rolling across the room like a black wave. “Does the general know he hurt you?”
Birdie shrinks back, her gaze snapping to me. “Do we have to do this right now? My head is throbbing and I need to get some sleep.”
I can feel Axel’s impatience through the bond, but there’s an equal amount of concern, and I’m not surprised when he sits back with a look of regret. “Yeah, of course,” he says. “We’ll bunk in here, but if you want to lock the door between us, that’s fine. Get a good night’s sleep, Birdie.”
Birdie locks the door.
As soon as the light goes out in her room, we move as a group towards the bathroom. It’s the furthest point in the room from where she’s sleeping, but Axel still lowers his voice to avoid being overheard. “We’ll take her to the coast, at least for the next few days. Any objections?”
It makes sense, so I shake my head. Axel’s grandfather lived there with his pack after they retired from the Corps, and as far as we know, the general is unaware of its existence.
Axel goes out there every few months to check on the upkeep, but since Charlie preferred our apartment in San Jose, we never lived there as a pack.
“I’ll swap out the truck,” he goes on. “There should be something we can grab from the long-term parking at the airport.”
Colt widens his eyes at him. “GTA, boss?”
“It’s not theft if it’s borrowing.”
“I should do it,” I tell him, holding my hand out for the keys. “It’s my body to bury.”
“It’s my pack to protect,” he says, giving me one of his hardass looks. “Besides, I know a guy who’ll make him disappear, no shovel required.”
I raise my brows at him, but I’m not really surprised. Axel has friends everywhere, and he’s amassed a lot of favors. It comes with the territory of being the kind of guy who always watches your six.
“It’s okay, Haven,” he says, reaching out to grip my shoulder. “We clean up, then we do some digging. Find out exactly what Peak was up to and how much Booth knows about it.”
I grimace, because if the general is tangled up in this, Birdie is going to have a damn big target on her back. “She’s still spooked,” I say, nodding back at the locked door. “If it’s not Peak or those militia nutjobs, then who?”
None of us can answer that, so we don’t try. One thing we’ve learned in the field is to avoid getting bogged down in theories and what ifs. Until we have more information, we’re flying blind, so it’s best to just assume everyone outside the pack is a threat.
Axel leaves to dispose of the evidence, and Colt gets ready for bed, but I keep my boots on. Colt watches me head towards the door as he tucks himself beneath the covers. “You’re not gonna come cuddle, big guy?”
I roll my eyes at his shit-eating grin. “I’m walking the perimeter. Keep your weapon close, Colt.”
“Not a problem,” he says, taking a magazine from his bag and flipping it open. I’m not surprised to see it’s a copy of Omega Allure, since we’ve all started treating the publication like it’s a field manual. “I’m too buzzed to sleep, anyway.”
I nod and exit the room, and for a while I slip between shadows and silence, looking for the glint of eyes or steel in the dark.
Everything is quiet, but that’s not reassuring.
If Booth really is involved, he could send anyone after us, and I wouldn’t know until I smelled their gun oil on the wind.
I’m thinking over those implications when a scream rips through the air and my heart drops into my boots.
My omega.