2. The Dogs of War
The Dogs of War
Rowan
The erratic thumping of suitcases being loaded onto the carousel by airport staff easily filters through the heavy vinyl strips that slap and scrape over one another as the conveyer turns.
Overexcitable children test the patience of overtired parents, young professionals publicly broadcast their meetings despite the in-ear headphones they wear, and perched on a rack of luggage trolleys as he pretends to fiddle with his watch while he waits for his case, is Tuesday.
Lieutenant Jack Carter—to our superiors—has travelled further than all of us, and his cases are already stacked beneath his dirt-caked boots.
Despite his preoccupation with it, the watch is a ruse.
His flight time from Melbourne meant that he landed in Virginia three-and-a-half hours ahead of those of us travelling in from Europe, more than enough time for him to have rigged this whole hall with covert tech.
Likely, he watched me step off my plane through it.
Most definitely, he’s currently tracking Bear as he navigates to baggage claim.
I uncross my arms and shove my hands in my pockets in an attempt to blend in—to look more civilian.
At six feet five inches with a regulation crew cut, that’s a challenge in most environments, but airports are like human aquariums, and in a place where everyone’s watching everyone else, it’s nigh on impossible to avoid unwanted attention.
Like from that TSA agent who thinks he’s been covertly stalking me since the flight attendant flagged me as suspicious.
She should travel to Scotland someday; grumpy redheads are ten a penny there.
But it’s not unusual that I draw this kind of attention, and they’ve no idea why my expression is so grave—nor why I’m so far from home. They don’t know that my entire unit is at readiness level two, or that if there was a genuine threat to airport security, they’d be damn lucky to have us.
Turning bodily to look behind me, I give the covert agent a little smile. My leave might have been cancelled for an emergency recall of personnel, but I’m not an animal. Well… mostly.
My wolf flashes Tuesday a look—game time’s over, and he needs to reclaim his gadgets.
Grabbing my cases, I extend their handles, and without any further acknowledgment that we know each other, I stride towards the exit.
If he’s got eyes on Bear, and I already clocked Thriller and Delilah at security, then there’s only one other member of the Dogs of War unaccounted for.
Pack. Find. Assemble.
Major Ghalen Selassie—Guardian to my unit—was already Stateside when we were issued our destination, so it was his job to secure and prep the safehouse and our vehicle, as well as sort our armoury.
I check my watch as I exit Richmond airport, seven minutes early. Still, Guardian’s efficient, and if I know my second-in-command like I think I do, then…
There, pulled up in the taxicab bay, pissing everyone off while not giving a single fuck, is Guardian. Despite being the only non-wolf in my pack, he’s built like a brick shithouse.
Leaning casually against the driver’s side of our GMC Yukon XL, the only truck America manufactures big enough for the Dogs to travel together, Guardian emits an air of fuck around and find out.
Which is likely the main reason none of the other cab drivers are out of their vehicles mouthing off at him.
I don’t call out as I approach, Guardian will have seen me the moment I strode out through the glass doors.
My wolf and I assess him, though, keen to know he’s okay.
His military hairstyle, recently cut back in with a high fade, exposes the cool tones in his umber skin.
When we shake hands, his Ethiopian-American heritage gives a vibrant contrast to my pale skin, further highlighted by the Scottish-flag blue of my veins.
“The others?” He up-nods as I load my cases into the trunk.
“Tuesday’s playin’ go-go-gadget spyware in a hoodie that reads ‘probably needed a hug,’” I deadpan.
Guardian arches an eyebrow, although not in surprise.
“Thriller’s on your six,” he informs me, before then pulling open the rear passenger door to usher him straight inside.
Turning, I catch sight of the tense set of Lieutenant Rhydian Powell’s jaw.
His tight shoulders, as well as the bright flash of emerald in his usually sage-green eyes communicates more than any words ever could.
Thriller’s alpha wolf has a dopamine deficiency and needs a neurotransmitter boost at least every four hours, so with the travel time from his mountain home in the Welsh Valleys being over fifteen hours, he’s already been confined with human civilians for far too long.
Sweat coats his fair skin, and his unease promotes a yellowed pallor. If we don’t help him regulate soon, he’s liable to start a fight with every person in a quarter-mile radius—win or lose—and we need him on an even keel a while longer yet.
Guardian climbs into the rear of the truck with him, and I close the door on the pair.
Tuesday, I direct into the middle seats with a tilt of my head. He peers in through privacy-tinted windows and smirks, but Tuesday is not who Thriller needs. As a guardian angel, only Ghalen can help him through the rest of this journey to the safehouse.
When Tuesday passes me into climb in the truck, I hold out my hand. He looks at my upturned palm, then at my face, his grey-blue eyes feigning innocence from under a mess of blond hair. My wolf flashes forward at his bullshit.
“Righto,” he beams. “No dramas.”
The four tiny cameras he’d planted in each of our jet bridges are deposited into my hand with a wink.
Before the truck door closes behind him, Bear’s slender-but-lethal fingers catch it.
Captain Leo Orsini di Anguillara—codename Bear, for obvious reasons—is the only omega in the unit.
He’s also the one most likely to stab us all in our sleep.
Military royalty he may be, but delicate he is not.
As an omega, his father constantly stood him down despite his glaring aptitude and savage capability.
I was more than happy to take his son off his hands.
“Buongiorno, bello,” I greet, purposefully pushing to see what level he’s at. Bear doesn’t take leave well because any time with daddy dearest exacerbates his more sociopathic tendencies.
As if a rod of steel just inserted itself down the full length of his spine, the diminutive wolf bares his teeth in a full snarl in public.
His bleach-blond buzzcut hardens his features, yet still those cheekbones could see him on the catwalks of Milan.
“Chiamami ancora bello e uso la tua pelle come vestito.”
I laugh. Loudly. “Of that I’ve no doubt, but my skin’d be a bit big on ye. And a wee bit orange.” I dip my chin so the bright rays from the security lights reflect from my red hair. “Glad to be back at it, aye?”
Bear visibly deflates. “Sì, Ranger. Always.”
I nod, dismissing him, and he follows into the truck to sit beside Tuesday, then shuts the door.
Last but not least, Delilah exits the automatic glass doors wearing an entirely different outfit than the one I last saw him in at security.
Dressed in combat-ready attire, Lieutenant Alfie Beckett is the only member of the Dogs of War who looks remotely like the highly trained military specialists we are, and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
“Did you know,” he begins. “That after a nine hour flight, human skin is coated with a significant layer of contaminants and suffers extreme dehydration due to the low humidity in the cabin environment? Often under twenty percent, which is dryer than most deserts.” He holds out a small bottle of hand sanitiser.
“Ye might have mentioned that before, Delilah, aye.”
Into my hand that doesn’t hold Tuesday’s spy cams, I allow him to squirt the most potent germ-killer known to man.
Delilah won’t share the front with me if I don’t use it, neither will he travel in the back with the rabble in the heightened state they’re in—and my wolf demands that we always travel together. As a pack.
He pockets the sanitiser, then informs me that, “It’s a little over three hours to destination.
I checked the route and the all the roads are clear.
” Settling into the front passenger seat, he produces his laptop.
“Plenty of time for you to explain—in detail—why I was recalled midway through a fifty-thousand-pound Blackjack payout at the Grosvenor.”
“Fifty thousand?” I let out a low whistle. “Sorry ’bout that, Delilah.”
Shutting the truck door cuts off the rest of his words. The sooner we get on the road the sooner I can give him the mission briefing, and that’s the only thing that’ll sort out his attitude.
One last check of our immediate surroundings satisfies my wolf that none of my men are under surveillance from anyone. Well, with one exception.
I salute the TSA agent pretending to stock the information leaflets in the airport’s entrance, and rap my knuckles on the lid of the engine on the way around to the driver’s side for good luck.
My unit doesn’t know it yet, but there’s a credible threat against General Romulus—the origin of one half of all werewolf kind—and the decision to recall us from leave didn’t come from General Headquarters, but the General’s Office itself.
Whatever this is, it’s serious. And as the military’s only black-ops team, the Dogs of War are the first on the ground.
Our mission orders are to meet with an informant: a witch, based here in Roanoke, Virginia.
Operation Magpie is on.