Jonah watched Lyla from across the table. He had been just an arm’s length away from her all day. It was surprisingly difficult for him to stay hidden when all he wanted to do was go to her. Somehow, she always managed to make him want to be near her; to bask under the radiance of her smiling eyes and just be.
That was alarming. Never in his life had he wanted to stay still. He had always been the type to go, go, go. Betsy was the one who liked to stay in one place and keep the home a home. Being around Lyla was dangerous. She almost made him wish he wouldn’t have joined an organization that kept him roaming the world in search of the next most dangerous thing he could possibly get himself into. Still, he wouldn’t trade his job for anything.
“So what were you up to all day, Jonah?” Betsy asked as she began to serve dinner.
Jonah was caught off guard. He hadn’t come up with a reason he had been gone. In fact, all he could think about was Lyla.
“I thought I’d just…walk around. See the sights. It’s been a while, you know.”
It was vague enough that Betsy accepted it. It hadn’t been a lie. He had been walking around. And god was Lyla a sight to see.
“Everybody was asking for you at the office,” Betsy said. “I think you’ve single-handedly improved Shifters United by showing up.”
“Oh please, this place is just a big rumor mill. Everyone just wants the gossip,” Jonah said. “It would have been the same way if you had gotten Old Sal to do the speech.”
“Fat chance getting him out of his house,” Lyla muttered.
Jonah grinned and Betsy laughed. “That may just be true.”
The phone rang again and the smile immediately left Betsy’s face. “Excuse me,” she said, running back up the stairs to answer the phone.
Jonah and Lyla exchanged looks.
“She’s acting weird,” Lyla said.
Jonah nodded. In all of his days, he had never seen his sister get up from the dinner table to answer the phone. She was an old fashioned sort of girl who believed in eating at the same time every day, and that family should be the center of the conversation. Their father had refused to answer phones or even doorbells during the dinner hour. And Betsy had supported him one hundred percent.
“I have half a mind to listen in on the conversation,” Jonah said, though he knew he wouldn’t. He respected his sister more than he could ever say. He would give her the privacy she so obviously desired, no matter how confounding it happened to be to him. At least it gave him a few precious moments alone with Lyla. He wouldn’t be able to justify having many more of these. Not when he had a job to do.
“I wonder who it could be,” Lyla asked, shaking her head slowly. But Jonah didn’t have an answer. He had barely spoken with his sister in three whole years. It could be anyone talking to her about anything.
“If it’s important enough, she’ll tell us,” Jonah said decidedly. He couldn’t afford to worry about anything else right now. At the moment, Nichols and the mission that Gregors had sent him on was on his mind. Jonah wouldn’t know how it had gone until that night, when he was going to call Nichols to make sure nothing had gone wrong. If he couldn’t get in touch with him, it would mean backup was needed.
“I’m back,” Betsy said, her voice a surprising sing-song.
Jonah watched his sister as she walked cheerfully through the dining room and took her place, her head clearly a million miles away. It was strange. It really was. But somehow, he knew better than to stick his nose in where it didn’t belong. If she wanted him included, she would include him.
“Shall we eat?” Betsy asked, as if confused by Lyla and Jonah’s silence.
Lyla and Jonah exchanged a privately amused look, and Lyla’s heart-stopping smile shone out over the dinner table.
“Let’s,” she said, her radiant voice electrifying Jonah. The wolf wanted her. But more alarming was the fact that he wanted her too.
Jonah sighed inwardly. No matter what happened, he was going to have to stay focused. Falling for the first pretty girl he saw after deployment was absolutely not the way to do that.
As if on cue, his phone rang and Jonah’s heart lurched.
“Excuse me, Bets,” Jonah said, ignoring Lyla’s concerned eyes as they followed him from the room. He knew Betsy wouldn’t act on the disapproval she was so obviously feeling about Jonah leaving the dinner table, but considering she had done the same herself, he was able to get out of the house without any questions.
“What’s going on?” Jonah asked when he answered the phone.
“Lucas, we need some backup down here,” Nichols said. He was out of breath, and in the background he could hear shouting and the deep growls of angry bear shifters.
“I’m on my way,” Jonah said. Gregors had been doing his best to make sure Jonah had enough time with his family to convince them nothing was going on, but it would do nobody any good if he lost any members of his team.
Jonah didn’t think twice about leaving; he just found himself running full speed in his wolf form until he caught the scent of Nichols and his boys. He found himself in a dimly lit cave that smelled strongly of fresh earth and bear. A roar echoed throughout the cave and Jonah’s hackles rose. It was unmistakably Nichols’ voice.
Jonah bounded into the dark, and arrived just in time for a bear’s limp body to narrowly miss slamming into him. Nichols met his eye and glanced to the left, where one last bear was striding toward them. Jonah scanned the area until he spotted Nichols’ partner, a wolf shifter named Erik. He looked mildly injured, but was starting to get to his feet.
Wordlessly, he signaled to Nichols, and a pleased gleam in his eye signaled to Jonah that he was ready.
On three, the three men charged the bear that was still standing, tearing into him until he was forced back into his human form.
“Don’t kill!” Jonah commanded, shifting back into his human form as well. Nichols and Erik followed Jonah’s lead, and soon, they were all standing over the man, who was shuddering in fear, blood pouring out of his body.
“Let me go!” the man shouted. “Please! I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“You don’t think mining on our turf counts as wrong?” Jonah growled.
The bear shifter winced, cowering away from Jonah’s powerful form. “What are you doing here? And if I were you, I would be as specific as possible.”
The man hesitated, but Nichols began to growl and shift back into his bear form.
“All right! We’re just digging, man.”
“Digging?” Jonah laughed. “This looks a little elaborate for ‘just digging’. And you’re forgetting the most important part. This is our territory.”
“Well, you know…” the shifter said uncomfortably. “It’s just what Thames is telling us to do.”
“Thames?”
Jonah exchanged a look with Nichols. They were familiar with Thames. He was one of the most dangerous bear shifters in the world. And he had taken quite a shining to Stonybrooke.
“Yeah. He told us we had to dig this big hole or he’d kill our families and make us watch,” the man said, his tone almost bored as he recited what he’d been told. “So we’re digging.”
Jonah looked to Nichols. He was the one he always looked to when dealing with the bear shifters. He could tell if another bear shifter was lying or if they were telling the truth. Nichols nodded and Jonah sighed.
“What do you know about the hybrids?”
“Heh,” the man said, an unkind glint in his eye. “They think they’re the cock’s walk, but they’re not that much stronger than bears. They’re just for covert missions. We managed to use the stone’s power to breed them a while back.”
“How did you manage that?” Jonah asked, confused. “It’s been in Stonybrooke for decades.”
“Trade secret,” the man said smugly.
Nichols and Erik started for the man and Jonah held his hand up.
“Stand down,” he muttered, letting the injured bear shifter get to his feet. “Where is Thames now?”
“Well, I think he figured to use the mine as a distraction, because he took off with the stone.”
“What?!”
Jonah’s growling voice startled everyone in the mine as it echoed around them, and the bear shifter tsked and shook his head.
“Take it easy, man. You think it’s safe being in a giant-ass hole like this?” he asked. “You want the place to cave in?!”
Jonah sighed. “Where did Thames take off to?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Nichols?” Jonah growled.
Nichols sighed, back in his human form again now that he knew the man posed no threat.
“He doesn’t know shit,” Nichols said. “He’s totally useless.”
“Hey!” the other bear said, incensed.
“We should finish him off,” Erik said from behind the man. “He almost killed me. And he’d do it again.”
“Yeah,” Nichols agreed. “He’s obviously just a mindless puppet. Thames will be able to use him again if he gets the chance.”
Jonah sighed and turned his back on the men.
“You guys do what you need to do. I’ve got to get back.”
“Right,” Nichols said, though Jonah could tell he was surprised. Frankly, Jonah rarely left before everything was all said and done. And normally he wouldn’t, except that he had left right in the middle of dinner. He couldn’t imagine how Betsy must feel. And Lyla…
Jonah groaned inwardly as he shifted back into his wolf form. The idea of disappointing Lyla made him feel awful, and he hated himself more and more for letting her interfere with his work. But she was something special. The night they had spent together had been hot on his mind, making it nearly impossible for him to think about anything else. They clearly couldn’t do anything like that again. Not with the mission so damn urgent. He would get home and give Gregors a call. And then, he vowed, he would go about his life doing his best to ignore Lyla and his feelings for her.