Chapter 15 Wyatt #2
My dad pouted. Pouted. “Fine. For Avery’s privacy, of course.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Avery had sunk lower and lower into her chair as this went on. She looked more like a sulking kid than the polished professional soldier she’d been when this meeting began.
It was so fucking cute.
“Now, Avery,” Dad went on, dispensing with proud dad and back to stern commander.
“I understand your concerns, and I don’t want you to think I’m not hearing you or that I don’t care about your feelings.
It appears these boys hurt you deeply and have some things to fix.
But this doesn’t change my mind. I’m assigning you to the Blackwell Quad’s Guardian Unit—”
She sat up straight. “But—”
“—because you all perform at a truly elite level when you’re together, and it appears there is a divine reason for that.
But I need you to understand that this is for purposes of the Guardian Unit only.
This assignment does not make you their central or otherwise a member of their quad.
” He fixed the rest of us with a steely glare.
“That part you all will have to work out on your own, preferably with less damage to my campgrounds and my campers. Am I clear?”
Heath nodded, his wolf thrumming with restless, excited energy. “Crystal. You won’t regret this, Ward.” He looked at Avery, drinking in her sullen face with the look of a victorious predator. “You, either, Killer. We were made to fight alongside each other. You know it as well as we do.”
Dad coughed into his fist. “Quit while you’re ahead, boy.”
Avery stood up and shrugged her swords back onto her back. She moved like she was sore but not in serious pain.
Good.
“I understand,” she said to my dad. “I won’t waste any more time arguing with you. I just hope that as my commanding officer, you’ll be open to reconsidering this assignment at the end of the summer if things don’t go as you envision.”
“Fair enough,” Dad replied diplomatically. “You’re dismissed back to class. All of you.”
Avery marched out of the office. The rest of us stood up and gathered our various weapons and notebooks.
I checked the time on my phone. We still had about thirty minutes left in our classroom session, which would be thirty minutes I got to sit in the back of the class and soak in the curve of my mate’s neck and daydream about wrapping her ponytail around my fist.
“Wyatt, hang back,” Dad said, snatching that kernel of joy from me. “I’d like a word.”
Heath and I exchanged a look. I shrugged, he grunted, and then he followed Elijah and Aiden into the hall.
Dad shoved his giant body out from behind his desk and came around to the front. He jerked his head toward the door. “Walk with me, son.”
I followed him out of the building, and then we began a slow stroll down the path toward the lake. He was contemplative as we walked.
When we reached the lakeshore, he stopped and sat down on a bench.
I joined him, taking a moment to stare out across the water.
It was a dark, moody blue under the cloudy sky, and I contemplated throwing myself into it and sinking deep enough to hide from the shame of how I’d treated the girl I wanted more than I wanted to breathe air.
“Sounds like you boys fucked up pretty badly,” he said eventually. “Your mate is not happy with you.”
“Was it that obvious?” I said, my words dripping with sarcasm.
“You shunned her publicly as part of your decision to pursue a bonding?” It was a simple question, with only the slightest bit of censure in his tone.
He didn’t seem mad or ashamed that I might have done something to hurt my mate.
His bear exuded a quiet energy that felt like cautious excitement mixed with sadness at the state of things.
“She was under my skin, Dad. We all thought we were doing what had to be done.”
“And does Avery know about Clara?”
I explained that she knew about the plan to force the bonding generally but not the expedited timeline we’d been operating under since spring break.
“And why not tell her?” Dad asked. “She might understand your rush to find what you thought was a suitable bond before you all knew you had a Fated match in Avery.”
“Trust me, we wanted to—at first.” I raked a hand through my hair, still a little damp from my shower after lunch.
I itched to be back in closer proximity to my girl, but it was also…
nice to have a conversation with my dad about the most important thing in my life.
“But she refused to talk to us, and the longer we sat with it, the more we couldn’t figure out how to tell her about the ticking clock over Heath’s head without it seeming… manipulative.”
“Ah.” Dad stroked his beard again, lost in thought.
“That is a level of maturity that frankly surprises me from unbonded shifter males of your age, especially with respect to being separated from a Fated bondmate. In hindsight, it’s a minor miracle you haven’t caused more damage to this camp or killed anyone. ”
“It’s been fucking close,” I muttered even as my bear puffed up in my chest at my dad’s praise.
“And I appreciate that, Dad, but the situation is not good. She’s the best thing that could’ve ever happened to us, and we fucked it up worse than you can imagine.
We’re lucky she hasn’t stabbed one of us yet. ”
That only made him grin. “Yeah. The Moon saw fit to give you a real spitfire of a mate. The best dual-blade wielder this program has probably ever seen.”
“I’m glad you’re amused by this,” I said wryly. “I don’t think Avery was expecting you to be so thrilled about it.”
“No, I don’t think she was,” he replied, chuckling, and then he sobered. “She was expecting me to display at least some shade of disappointment that my son’s potential future mate has a beast, wasn’t she?”
“Would you have been? If I’d have come to you before the whole Fated thing and said, ‘This is the girl I want to bond’?”
He sighed, taking a moment to study the lake’s glassy surface.
“I don’t know, son. I’d like to think I would’ve been just as pleased, especially since I’m lucky enough to know Avery.
She’s such an impressive female.” His expression darkened.
“But I might’ve worried, just as I’m sure you all did, about what it might mean for Heath if he still planned to challenge his father.
Holden Blackwell is vicious, powerful, and quite possibly a sociopath.
We only know what we’ve experienced for generations, and that is that the bonds created with latent females from Prime lines are the source of incredible strength for a quad. ”
“But that doesn’t concern you now?” I asked. It didn’t concern me, or Heath, or the others in my quad, but we’d felt the divine connection snap into place.
It was easy for us to have no doubts.
Dad’s smile was in danger of breaking his face in half. “Not even a little bit. You’ve been given a sacred gift, Wyatt. There is not a chance your bond with Avery will be weak or unstable.”
This was nice, actually. My dad was not only on my team but also genuinely excited at the prospect of Avery as my bondmate, despite her beast. I was happy, at least momentarily, and it was a relief to feel something other than my bear’s rage or the claws of desperation that had been raking away at my insides since the moment I locked eyes with that beautiful, bleeding tiger in the woods.
My girl would sink her little teeth into me if I tried to pull her into a dark corner to thank her for spilling the beans, and the thought made my mouth water and my dick ache.
Dad clapped a hand on my shoulder. “A word to the wise, son. Avery was handed a loss today, at least in her mind, so you boys should employ some restraint in the wake of this small victory. Give her some space and do not push her. You’ve got a long summer ahead of you.”
I shook my head even though he was absolutely right. “We’ll see.”