How long were these things meant to take? Maybe I should go down there… I clenched my jaw and gritted my teeth, knowing I couldn’t. Cole had already beaten me to it, the bastard.

Kit had looked really rough before she went down to the gym, and concern for her was clouding my brain to the point that I was barely hearing anything Wesley was saying. I knew she had needed to burn off her spiking adrenaline, but she had been down there for over an hour already. Surely that was enough time? I could only hope Cole was keeping a close eye on her and wouldn’t push her too hard right now.

“…assuming it was her first kill.” I turned back in to catch the last part of Caleb’s sentence and snapped back to reality.

“Repeat that,” I ordered, not willing to let my team know how badly I had been off in my own head when I should have been focusing on the mission debrief. Not that we could officially debrief without Cole—what was taking him so long?

“I said, Kit might be pretty shaken up at the moment; she shot one of the guards to save me. I doubt she has ever actually killed someone before; her Fox jobs sounded all pretty innocuous, so she might need a bit of time to wrap her head around this.” Caleb delivered this information with the calm detachment we had all adopted for discussions around fatalities, but there was a line creasing his forehead and the corners of his mouth looked tight.

“You’re worried about how she will be reacting.” I needed him to clarify. Despite my superior skill in reading subtle body language, my team was so highly trained in controlling their expressions that sometimes I found myself guessing incorrectly with them.

He hesitated for a moment, flicking a glance at his brother. “Yes.”

I nodded in understanding, watching Austin closely. He stared back at me, face carefully neutral, and I got nothing from him. He always had been the hardest to read, even harder than Cole, and ever since Kit had arrived into our lives, he’d seemed like more of a closed book than usual.

“Let her take your bed tonight. We shouldn’t take too long on this debrief, so you can have some time with her,” I told him, and his tight shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.

“What, you’re all taking turns now, are you?” Austin sneered with a disgusted twist to his mouth, but I caught the quick flicker of hurt in his eyes before he dropped eye contact with me.

“Austin,” I began, but Wesley, of all people, cut me off.

“You need to stop, Aus. She’s not fucking Peyton, so just calm the hell down.” He glanced up from his laptop and must have seen the three of us looking at him in surprise because he blushed and cleared his throat. “I’m just saying, Kit is a nice person and she should be allowed to do whatever she wants. It’s not hurting anyone, and God knows it wouldn’t be the first time you guys have shared a girl.”

“Caleb and I are twins, so it doesn’t count,” Austin muttered, but he was clearly backing down. It was so rare for Wesley to stand up to him that he, like the rest of us, generally dropped an argument when Wes got involved.

Good for him; I was wondering when that kid would speak up. Wesley was easily my easiest team member to read, having considerably less field experience than the rest of us, and for weeks now I’d watched as he’d grown more and more annoyed at Austin’s attitude towards Kit. I might even go so far as to say he had a little bit of a crush on her.

“Irrelevant. What Kit, or any of us, do behind closed doors is no concern of yours, Austin,” I told him, taking back control of the conversation. “Unless you’re also interested?” My suggestion hit the intended mark as his face flushed in outrage and he glared death at me. “No? Well then, you needn’t worry. Caleb and I have already discussed this in private and come to a gentleman’s agreement, so we shall leave it at that, yes?”

“How very fucking British of you,” Austin quipped, “Now can we get back on task, here? This isn’t a knitting group.”

I gave him a warning look, and he dipped his head in acknowledgement; he knew when he was pushing boundaries with me. “Caleb, please continue with what you were saying earlier regarding the patient you and Kit encountered.” I switched my attention to the other twin.

“Ugh, yeah, that was beyond weird. He literally punched his bare fist straight through a man’s chest. Like, completely through. In one side and out the other.” He shook his head as though he could hardly believe it himself. “Wes, did you see it on the cameras? It was… fucking nuts, and then he just thanked Kit and shook her hand like they had just met at a party or some shit. Told her he would ‘be seeing her’ and totally ignored me standing there, like I didn’t exist.”

“No, I didn’t see any of that, sorry. Lucy had your camera views at that point, and she mentioned seeing you guys speaking to someone, but he was standing directly below the camera so she couldn’t get a picture of him,” Wesley responded, much to my disappointment.

That interaction, the way Caleb described it, was leaving a sick, churning feeling in my gut. It was more than simply knowing there was someone else with enhanced strength, it was the interest he seemed to show in our girl afterwards. The wild, primal part of me that I kept tightly caged was raging, screaming for this stranger’s blood. I took a deep, calming breath and tightened the cage. I am in control, not my emotions. It was a mantra I had to repeat on a daily basis, sometimes several times daily.

My focus was broken by the sound of footsteps coming up from the basement gym, and my heart skipped like I was a bloody teenager with his first crush. Jesus man, get a grip.

I tried to tell myself I was just anxious to make sure Kit was recovering okay from her injuries and adrenaline spike, but that wild part of me felt like it was laughing at the half-assed lie.

“Cole. All okay?” I asked in a deliberately calm tone, maintaining my iron grip on my emotions, but my eyes darted behind the big man to look for Kit.

“Yep. She’s gone for a shower,” he replied, having caught my glance and raising an eyebrow. Shit, that bastard is too perceptive.

“How’s she doing?” Caleb asked, not even trying to hide his concern any more.

Cole didn’t respond for a minute while he poured himself a glass of water in the kitchen then came back to join us, flopping himself down into an empty armchair. “Good.”

“Good work out?” I inquired, dreading his response as I took in his lack of shirt and the sheen of sweat coating his illustrated chest.

“Great work out,” he smirked back at me, with so much more amusement than I had seen from my best mate in years.

“Bugger,” I cursed. The bastard. I knew I should have gone down to check on her instead of him. Still, I could never be jealous of Cole’s happiness, and for some reason I genuinely didn’t feel threatened by whatever had just gone on in the gym. I was confident in the connection I had with my Kitten.

“Looks like you might need to discuss that gentleman’s agreement with Cole too, Alpha.” Austin snickered, clearly enjoying the extra drama despite his insistence that this wasn’t a knitting circle. I ground my teeth together to stop from snapping at him for calling me by my call-sign. I hated those stupid call-signs, but they were assigned by the director of Omega Group himself and we were not permitted to change them.

I suspected the main reason I disliked mine, Alpha, was that the wild part of me responded to it so much, and it made me feel out of control. Not that I would admit that to my team, though. They all didn’t seem to mind their own, and not long after we had formed as a team, we had all incorporated them into tattoos.

Cole seemed to be watching me as I thought about it. The huge black and green dragon curled over his shoulder and onto his chest represented his call-sign, Drake. Caleb, the Viper, had a black and gray, deadly-looking snake curled around his calf from ankle to knee. Austin’s Bengal was hiding between his other ink on his back; even Wesley had his Crow inked on his side. My own wolf, my Alpha, was thankfully on my back, so I didn’t need to constantly see it. I desperately wished I had used a less talented artist because fuck if those eyes didn’t look real.

I sighed heavily and rubbed a hand across my tired eyes. The lids were beginning to feel like sandpaper because I kept putting myself on night shifts for our investigation with the human trafficking ring. It was a reckless move, and not one I would allow any of my team to make. Too little sleep can lead to stupid mistakes, so I enforced a strict schedule to avoid them pulling too many nights in a row. A rule I found myself breaking far too often lately. I knew why too; it was the lure of coming home knowing Kit had been in my bed all night.

Fuck, I’m in trouble; what is this girl doing to me?

“All right. Let’s debrief the mission quickly, and then Cole and I can speak about the personal developments of the night. I have no doubt Caleb is eager to get to bed.” I gave him a knowing look, and he winked back at me. Cheeky bugger.

“Hang on, I just need my phone charger.” Austin hopped to his feet. “If I see the princess, I will tell her about the new room assignment.”

“Be nice!” I yelled after him then turned to deal with Cole. “Mate, not now. We can discuss it later.”