7. Chance
Chance
Gripping Rena’s hips, I pressed her backward until my knuckles brushed the wall.
I needed the solid surface under my palms in order to keep my balance.
Kissing her was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
It was like skydiving the moment before your chute opened and the first snow of the season combined.
I never wanted to be anywhere else. I never wanted to taste anything else. I wanted to live there, with her, in that dark hallway.
“You could definitely do this at home,” my brother Beau said from the living room. “Let’s go.”
I knew he was right, but it still took me a few more moments before I could make myself pull away.
“Where are you going?” Rena asked huskily, blinking up at me.
“We have to get back to the house,” I reminded her.
The dazed look in her eyes disappeared instantly. Our moment was over.
The trip back to my place was mercifully uneventful. Rena used the time to type frantically on her phone, probably letting her clients know about the family emergency she and Reese discussed. My attention was split between watching her and keeping a close eye on our surroundings.
We didn’t have any indication that anyone was watching our house or was paying any attention to us at all, but I had a hard time trusting that.
After they’d lost so many men by trying to kidnap our mates, I couldn’t believe that they’d forget about us entirely.
We had to be careful until we could be sure that we’d crippled their operation for good.
If it were up to me, we’d eliminate anyone and everyone connected who had ever heard our names. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the decisions.
“Dalton is here,” Beau announced as we pulled into the circular driveway. “You recognize the other car?”
I leaned forward to look through the windshield. “Nope.”
“Great,” he muttered as he threw the SUV into park.
I held Rena’s hand and the suitcase as we made our way into the house.
Normally, even if everyone was home, you had to actually look for members of the family if you wanted to see them.
The house was built in such a way that if we wanted time to ourselves, it was easily accessible even when we had guests.
So it was a little startling when we walked inside and multiple heads turned to look at us.
“Oh, great,” I said, looking around. “A party. Who brought the booze?”
Rena let out a choked laugh as I scanned through the familiar faces until I found the one that didn’t belong.
A large Vampire in canvas work pants and a quilted flannel stared back at me.
The woman beside him must’ve been his mate.
His hand was on her shoulder, and even though they weren’t touching beyond that, her body seemed to arc in his direction like a sapling toward the sun.
I’d seen the same thing before in couples long mated.
It was as if they were pulled together by an invisible magnetic force.
“Chance, Beau,” my father called.
Setting the suitcase down in the entryway, I tugged Rena along with me as I crossed the room.
“This is Christopher and Maria Sutton,” my father introduced.
I reached out and shook the Vampire’s hand and nodded hello to his wife.
“These are my sons, Chance and Beau,” my father continued.
He didn’t introduce Reese or Rena.
“After I spoke to the Suttons, they came right over,” my mother explained. Rena’s fingers tightened in mine. “Their son was held in the same place as Zeke.”
“We only live about thirty minutes from here,” Christopher said gruffly. “You’re the only ones who’ve acknowledged what happened to Carl. Command just yammers on about how he was lost on a mission, but it wasn’t some accident. Our boy was captured.”
“Command is a joke,” I replied flatly. I’d never work for them again. “I’m sorry about your son.”
“We are too,” Christopher replied.
My father nodded to us and then pulled the couple’s attention away so that we could make our escape. Rena was silent as I grabbed her suitcase and led her up to our rooms.
I’d forgotten the mess I’d left and cursed when I saw it.
“Thanks for taking me to get my stuff,” Rena said as I set her suitcase on the floor. She rolled it toward the bedroom.
“No problem,” I said, looking at the shit all over the floor. I was going to have to pick through it to decide what was salvageable and what needed to be thrown out. I was glad it could wait because I wasn’t looking forward to it.
Impatience thrummed through me as I kicked some cords to the side and followed Rena into the bedroom.
Every minute we waited to act was another minute that Vampires and their mates were going through hell.
I hated that everything took so long to coordinate.
I wanted to be on the ground, getting my hands dirty.
It was past time that we ended the reign of terror the humans under Hermann had perpetuated.
“You look like someone just stole your lunch money,” Rena said as she pulled a multicolored blanket out of her bag.
“Steal a lot of lunch money as a kid?” I asked, moving closer.
“Had to get it somewhere,” she replied. “My foster parents sure weren’t providing it.”
“How many homes did you live in?”
Rena shrugged. “Too many. Never the right one.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? It’s over.” She placed the folded blanket on the bed and then zipped her suitcase. “I was lucky. I had my mom until I was ten. That’s a pretty solid foundation. A lot of the other kids had been shipped around since birth. It was traumatic as fuck.”
“I can’t imagine losing my parents.”
“You never have to,” Rena replied. “Lucky bastard.”
“Our kids won’t ever be without resources either,” I said, dropping onto the bed. “If something happened to us, they’d have uncles and aunts who would take them in without question.”
“You’re lucky you have such a big family,” Reese said, climbing onto the bed beside me with a groan. “I’ve always known that my children would go to Reese if something happened. She’d never let them go into the system. Damn, I never realize how tired I am until I lie down.”
“You have time to get some rest,” I assured her, picking up the blanket she’d brought so I could drape it over her. I lay down with my head on my arm and looked into her drowsy eyes. “You’re saying if something happens to us, Beau will raise my children?”
“Afraid so.”
“But Beau’s an asshole.”
“Pot, meet kettle,” she said dryly.
“Danny would be better,” I said, watching as her eyes drifted shut. “He’s got that whole emotional regulation thing down. Plus, Rosemary is a fighter.”
“Trust me,” Rena said with a yawn. “Reese is a fighter, too.”
“Yeah, that’s fair. Have you seen her shoot?”
Rena’s eyes popped open. “No, have you?”
“Well, not firsthand,” I admitted. “But I’ve seen the aftermath.”
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“You know about the attack on this place, right?” I asked slowly. From what I understood, Reese and Rena talked about everything.
“She told me about it yesterday,” Rena replied, propping her head on her hand. “But it sounds like she left some shit out.”
“An old teammate of Zeke’s showed up and asked for our help,” I said, refusing to say the Vampire’s name. He was dead to me, and if I ever came across him again, he’d be dead to everyone. “So we used Charlie as bait?—”
“You didn’t,” Rena said, glaring.
“Yeah, Lucy had the same reaction. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, all right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“My father went with him, and it all went exactly how we’d thought it would. Dad went down, they took Charlie, we followed.”
“Jesus wept,” Rena said, in either shock or disgust. I couldn’t tell.
“It was all going according to plan, but when we got to the garage where they were planning on holding Charlie, we didn’t find the missing mate. We found Rosemary. The mate had never been there to begin with.”
“Where was she?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. Zeke’s old teammate disappeared. We thought we were helping him, but they were playing us. They got us out of the house so they could come here.”
“Oh my god,” Rena replied, eyes wide.
“Didn’t Reese tell you any of this?”
“She said you’d been attacked once already, but she didn’t go into details,” she replied. “But to be fair, it was a lot of information at once, and most of the time she was trying to talk you up.”
“I knew I liked her.”
Rena scoffed.
“When they attacked the house, Reese posted up in the windows up here with a rifle,” I explained. “She picked them off when they got close to the house.”
“Reese?”
I nodded in confirmation. “Your bestie is hell with a rifle in her hands.”
“I knew she was good,” Rena said. “She was in a home for a while where they were really into hunting. The man was getting old, and he needed the help.”
“Well, it worked in her favor. She did a lot of damage holding them off.”
“Did she keep them out of the house?”
“No,” I said, the memory of the carnage we’d found fresh in my mind.
“But my mom and Lucy were waiting in the living room. They did their fair share. By the time we got here, both of them were down. Mom’s wounds were more severe, but Lucy’s immortality hadn’t kicked in yet, so she was the one we were worried about. ”
“She obviously lived,” Rena said.
“She did. And Uncle Sven almost lost his head. Alice patched him up, but he slept for weeks afterward. We weren’t sure if he’d pull through.”
“That’s why you were pissed when I said something about it,” Rena said with a frown.
“Frustrated,” I corrected. “These men are not going to stop, and the longer they’re around, the more men who will join them. We need to end this now, in a way that means a new faction won’t pop up in a few years.”
“I understand that,” she said thoughtfully. “Still pretty hard to get my head around the whole fighting and killing thing.”
“Until you’ve been in it,” I told her, playing with a curl that had fallen over her shoulder. “There’s no way to fully understand it. As long as they’re alive and operational, you’ll never be safe, and neither will our children.”