Chapter 66
Chapter Sixty-Six
Gillian
Ken had been back from the UK for three days when Badger came and got Gillian that afternoon. “How about ye leave the baby with Dewi and come help me wi’ somethin’?”
She eyed him. “Whhyyy?”
When he arched an eyebrow at her, she realized she would not learn why unless she did as he asked. “Why can’t we bring the baby with us?”
He waited.
“What about my armed babysitters?” she snarked.
“Just us.”
Finally, she gathered things Dewi would need and carried Adair out to the cabin. “Sorry,” she said when Dewi opened the door, “but I guess Badger’s abducting me.”
Ken, standing behind Dewi, laughed and helped take the other things so Dewi could take the baby. “How long?” he asked.
They all looked at Badger, who smiled. “Eh, prob’bly late. Well after dark.”
Gillian stared at Badger but knew he wouldn’t break. “Okay, fine.” She kissed the baby and followed him around the house to—
“Why are we taking Peyton’s truck?” she asked when she realized Badger had the keys.
“Ye gonna stand there, or come wi’ me?”
“Goddammit,” she softly growled, climbing into the passenger side. She was unable to stop herself from taking several long, deep breaths with her eyes closed, smelling Peyton’s scent.
If Badger wasn’t already sitting in the driver’s seat she’d likely have her face pressed to it.
“Where are we going, Badger?” she asked after he cranked the engine.
“Eh, it’s P—”
“If you say ‘Pack Alpha business,’ so help me, I will punch you.”
He cackled. “All right, then. Have it yer way. I won’t tell ye that.”
They drove through the main part of the pack compound, where most of the residences were located.
Then deeper still, where she hadn’t ventured lately.
Past where anyone lived, past the campgrounds, headed northeast. They drove for over thirty minutes, until the fire road was little more than two hints of ruts and it looked like no one had ventured there in weeks, or longer, from how the grass lay undisturbed.
And still, Badger drove.
Gillian didn’t want to get her hopes up, but as they drew closer to the eastern pack compound boundary where it butted up against the national forest proper, something told her she would’ve greatly regretted punching Badger.
When they parked and he shut off the truck, she stared around. “Why are we here?” she softly asked.
He chuckled, pointing. “Mebbe get out, shift, and let yer snoot tell ye. I’ll be back about an hour after dark to get ye.”
She flung herself out of the truck, running in the direction he’d indicated and shedding clothes along the way. When she shifted, she streaked east, pulling up short when she smelled him.
A fresh scent, too.
She threw her head back to let out a how—
“No need to shout, baby. I’m right here.”
Peyton stood there, smiling, leaning against a tree, his arms nonchalantly crossed over his chest as if he were awaiting a bus.
She was back on two legs by the time she leapt into his arms, kissing him.
“Now that’s a way to greet your mate,” he teased as she devoured him with kisses.
Behind them, she was aware of Badger starting the truck and driving off, but she didn’t care.
Peyton was here, in her arms, and he wasn’t a mirage or a dream or a nightmare in a casket in the cargo hold of an airplane.
“I love you,” she whispered against his lips.
“I love you, too, baby.” He slanted his lips over hers again, his energy matching hers, eager, starving.
Hers.
“Why aren’t you fucking naked?” she mentally growled. And yay, fast shifter healing, meaning she was totally in the mood for being fucked right now.
He laughed. “Because someone jumped into my arms. At least there aren’t any dumpsters here.”
That made her laugh. She laughed until she realized she was sobbing and they were sitting on the ground, his back against the tree and with her cradled in his arms.
She had no idea when that happened.
He kept her head tucked under his chin and gently rocked her. “I’m so sorry, baby,” he whispered, over and over, interspersed with, “I love you so much.”
Gillian finally wiped her eyes and tipped her head back so she could look at him. “Why didn’t you come home? Why meet here?”
“Everyone needs to believe I’m still missing. We can’t risk my scent showing up fresh in the compound. Before Badger takes you home, you’ll stop at the little campground and shower. He said no one’s staying there right now.”
“Why? If we’re in your—oh.” Now she understood why Badger insisted on driving Peyton’s truck.
He smirked. “My scent on your clothes can be explained by the truck. Smelling freshly fucked by me cannot.”
“How long are you here?”
“Badger will pick you up, take you home, then come back and get me. We’ll exit through the national forest entrance. I fly out of Seattle in the morning. Oh, and Duncan’s leaving tonight, too. He’s flying to Florida for a quick errand. Then he’ll be back.”
She palmed his cheeks. “How long will you be gone?”
“I don’t know, baby. We need to get Ray Dorland here. If he thinks I’m still alive, he’ll go to ground.”
“I can’t do this without you, Peyton.”
He captured her hands and kissed them. “You aren’t doing it without me, baby.
But if we don’t end this now, it’ll drag on.
Possibly for years. I want Adair to grow up safe.
We have to find and destroy that lab, and it can’t be done piecemeal.
They’ll shut down and set up somewhere else if they know we’re on to them. We can’t fuck around with this.”
“You’re going to personally go do that, aren’t you?” His grim expression was too much of an answer for her. “Why, Peyton? Why do we have a stable full of Enforcers if we’re not using them?”
“We will be using them. But I can’t ask members from other shifter packs and even other shifter races to help while I stay behind. We’ll need Primes.”
“Will I see you again before that?”
“I hope so. But we’ll have to move quickly once we have confirmation from Ray Dorland.”
“And if he’s not involved?”
Peyton grimaced. “Then I return to Idaho, and we keep it as quiet as possible while we regroup and start from scratch.”
She studied his face. “Promise?”
He nodded.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He tucked her hair behind her ears the way she loved. “It’s possible Jake’s wife and Ken’s maternal grandparents were—or are—being held in the lab.”
Gillian stared at him, certain he was pulling her leg. “What?”
“That’s not for public consumption, either. We don’t know for sure, and we don’t want to start rumors.”
“But… How do you know that?”
“We don’t,” he said. “Ken made an educated guess based on building out a timeframe of missing shifters we know about, and where they disappeared from. There is enough overlap to believe Faegan and Dorland are working with whoever’s behind the lab.
And Dorland’s Russian connections put him at the top of the suspect list.”
“Then why even have Ray Dorland come here?”
“Because we want him in our territory. If we have to hunt him down in Australia, we’ll never find him. And it risks the people running the lab closing it and moving, and then we are fucked. That’s why people need to believe I’m still missing.”
“Do we dare risk him coming here?”
“Well, I made Ken a promise.”
“What promise?”
“You, Dewi, Asia, and Tam will go to Florida, with the babies and Asia’s kids. We’ll have armed Enforcers on you 24/7 until this is settled. Including Jake, who is now an Enforcer.”
“But this is my home! You had no right to promise him that!”
“I would have done it even if I hadn’t promised him. I do not want you all here when Ray Dorland and his people are.”
“For how long, Peyton?”
“If Dorland isn’t involved, we’ll bring you back immediately. If he is, you’ll stay there until we take down the lab.”
“How are we safer in Florida than in the compound here?”
“Because you’ll be with Dewi. And we’re going to let Dorland think Dewi is in Idaho and will be meeting with him. If he has any ideas of trying to snatch her, she won’t be here, and neither will you or Asia or Tam.”
“Leaving the rest of the compound’s residents vulnerable?”
He grimly shook his head. “No. We’ll enact the emergency evacuation plan. Right before his plane’s due to land.”
She gasped. “That’s insane!”
“All of this is insane, G. If he’s guilty, and we find out there was a plan for them to abduct anyone from the compound, we crush it and then bring everyone back.
If Dorland’s innocent, or there wasn’t a plan to abduct anyone, then we bring everybody back and call it a false alarm.
If he’s guilty, he doesn’t leave the compound alive.
If he’s not, we Prime him and his guys that they think had meetings, and they go home none the wiser. ”
“The chances of that happening?”
“Probably close to zero. The more we learn, the guiltier he looks.”
“Wait, what the hell am I doing?” She grabbed his head and kissed him, started fumbling with his shirt buttons, trying to get him naked as quickly as possible.
It didn’t take but a few seconds before he had her on her back, shouldered her thighs apart, and buried his face there. And as she fisted handfuls of his hair he quickly made her climax but refused to stop even when she patted him on the head.
Laughing, she tried to get him to sit up, but he growled and redoubled his efforts and she found herself helpless to refuse.
Not because of his Prime—because he was just always that damned good with his tongue.
Peyton
The least he could do after what she’d been through was to make sure he left her barely able to walk from pleasuring her.
And while he might be a fuckup in other areas of his life, at least he knew, in this way, he was good.
They’d spent countless hours together in those early days, when she wasn’t studying or in class, learning each other’s bodies, loving each other.
She’d healed his heart in a way he never believed possible after the murder of his parents, and then trying to run the pack and take care of Dewi.
He couldn’t have asked for a better mate.
Finally, after the third orgasm, he let her pull him up and he easily slid inside her.
Holding still, he kissed her, savoring this, and her. No telling how long it might be until he came back.
He refused to think the word “if.”
As in, “if” he came back.
Their survival was at stake, and he was done being a modern Pack Alpha, trying to get along and make deals.
It was time to show teeth and rip open bellies, and that’s what he’d do. And he’d happily leave bodies in his wake if it meant ending this existential threat to them for good.
“Fuck me, Peyton. I want to feel it for a week.”
Growling, he pulled out, flipped her over, and plunged into her. “Then you’d better shift, mate.”
They both did, and she let out a satisfied howl as he started pounding her.
They rarely got to fuck like this, because it was rare they could both get away long enough to the woods to do it without worrying about being disturbed.
And they’d tried fucking shifted inside a few times, but neither of them could explain why it felt… weird.
It only felt right fucking like this outside, deep in the forest, with no one to interrupt them. With only the stars above to watch them.
And when his knot started forming, he hooked his front legs around her waist and refused to let go, driving himself deep inside her. “That what you needed, mate?”
“Fuck yes!”
And when he started coming, he threw back his head and howled, the joy, the pleasure threatening to rip him apart from the inside out if he didn’t. She joined him, and they finally collapsed on their sides, panting, waiting.
It was nearly thirty minutes later when they were snuggled again in the pine needles, arms and legs wrapped around each other, that he realized something.
That despite how recently she gave birth…
“Um, honey?”
“Yes,” she said, but it wasn’t a question. “I am.”
He blinked, stunned. “You…knew?”
“I hoped. I wasn’t sure, since it’s been so soon.” She tipped her head back, but her sweetly sated smile vanished. “I waited long enough for pups. What if I never see you again?” She cupped his cheek. “FYI, Dewi is, too.”
“Is what?”
“Pregnant.”
He sat up. “Holy shit! I’ve only been gone two weeks, what the hell? Ken literally just got back!”
She sat up with him. “She doesn’t know I know,” she told him. “But she was definitely glowing when I dropped the baby off with her and Ken. And he looked like he could take on the world single-handedly. If she’s not, then my senses are totally fucked up.”
He laid his hand on her stomach. “Holy crap.” Terror filled him now.
Failure already wasn’t an option, but this just cranked the stakes up to 11.
She laid her hand over his, playfully smirking. “Guess you’d better get shit done and get your ass back here fast before people think something ‘untoward’ happened, huh?”
He pulled her in for another kiss. “God, I love you so much.”
She tipped her forehead against his. “I love you, too. And I’m chaining you to this goddamned compound once this bullshit is over. I might think about letting you leave when they’re in their 20s or something.”
He laughed, pulling her into his arms. “Believe it or not? In that case, I might be more than happy to let you.”
They made love twice more and were both dressed when Badger returned. They were sitting against the base of the same tree, his back against it and her in his lap.
Badger got out and walked over. “Eh, still has his entrails, looks like.”
“I didn’t castrate him, either.” She reached up and stroked his chin. “But I gave him another reason to get shit done sooner.”
When she started to stand, Badger reached out to help her up. His gaze went wide with shock when his hand grasped hers. “Bloody hell, Peyton!”
He smirked. “Yeah, I know. I didn’t think about it until it was too late.” He stood and pulled her into his arms, kissing her. “Sneaky mate.”
She smiled. “Your sneaky mate.”
“Damned right.”
“Not to be rude,” Badger said, “but we should get goin’. And can we please tell Beck that yer okay? He’s takin’ it damned hard.”
Peyton sighed. “Send him and Nami home. Tell him whatever excuse you want. Drive them to the airport and break the news to them on the way. Prime them both that they cannot tell anyone. And tell them about Jake, too. But absolutely do not tell Joaquin. If all our Enforcers suddenly seem to be acting relieved, Prime orders or not, it’ll fuck the plan. ”
“Will do.”
He kissed her one last time. “Love you, baby.”
She nuzzled his nose. “Love you, too. Come back to us.”
He nodded. “That is my plan.”
He watched them leave, the taillights fading into the dark, cursing himself for not noticing she was fertile before going to town with their reunion.
Goddammit.
Just what he needed—to be more vulnerable.
Fuck. Me.