Madison

“So we’re the rescue team?” Mila asked, leaning back in the chair, testing the old welds on the metal frame as she stretched her back over the top of it.

The gray-and-red-painted seat creaked and wobbled unsteadily, but it didn’t give way. Unlike the one Kean had accidentally destroyed when he first sat down. Maddy’s face turned up slightly in humor as she relived the memory from the day before when they’d come for dinner.

After eating—and apologizing profusely for breaking the chair—the shifter had sucked up his pride and used the restaurant’s phone to call the cabin and notify the others of what they needed. She was still fascinated by his reluctance to interact with technology. He knew how to do it…for the most part, the “smart” part of modern cell phones was still mostly beyond him, but he just simply avoided it at all costs.

“Yes,” she said belatedly as Mila leaned back in, giving her a questioning look.

“You all right?”

“Fine,” Madison said, waving off the concern. “Just distracted.”

Stop letting your mind wander. Stay on task.

“Well, as long as you put whatever is distracting you aside when we actually do this,” Mila said.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Madison assured her. “Now, where were we?”

“You just told me that they’re going to do what they do best, destroy things and make a lot of noise doing it, while you and I sneak in to get your agent.”

“Yeah. Right. Okay, so, the layout of the place is fairly confusing. There are a number of buildings there, and I have no idea what half of them are for. Unfortunately the electric binoculars I had were lost during our escape, so what I can recall is cobbled together from Kean’s memory.”

She reached forward and began to tear up a napkin into various roughly equal-sized rectangular pieces and then laid them out on the table.

“So, as best we can recall, the major buildings in the facility are laid out along a horseshoe-shaped road like this. It’s built on a hill, however, so the top of the horseshoe is also the highest point of the hill as well. The main road itself never touches. There is a distinct entry and exit point, separated by nearly two hundred feet.”

Mila frowned. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

“I know. It makes things easy for any sort of vehicular assault, which leads Kean and me to believe that they have hidden defenses there, making it appear vulnerable when it actually isn’t.”

Mila nodded. “We’re not going in through the front door.”

“No,” she agreed. “I think that would be slaughter. But Kean pointed out that this building here,” she pointed to one approximately halfway up the horseshoe from the exit side, “actually extends dangerously close to their perimeter fence.”

“Really,” Mila said, leaning forward, a smile appearing on her face.

“Exactly. We’re not sure why, though perhaps the section that extends out toward the edge is an extension added at a later date. Either way, I think it makes for our best entry point.”

“Gotcha. So the boys draw off all the guards from there, you and I sneak in. You talk us through any situations, if that fails I shoot our way out of trouble. We get Raven, head back out the way we came, and run for it.”

“Exactly. It’s not pretty, there’s a thousand ways it could fail, but it’s our only chance. The longer they have him, the less valuable he becomes I’m sure. The Institute won’t hesitate to kill, I know that.”

Mila nodded in understanding. “I’m in.”

“Thank you. Kean said you would be.”

The brunette looked up at her from where she leaned forward on the battered silver-coated tabletop, resting on her elbows.

“What?” Madison asked defensively.

Mila grinned. “You’re sweet on him.”

“On Raven?” she asked in disbelief. “Not at all, what makes you think that?”

“No, not him,” Mila laughed. “On Kean! Come on, don’t act like I’m dumb.”

Madison’s mouth clamped shut, her cheeks beginning to warm, letting her know she was blushing and giving it away.

“Oh my goodness,” Mila exclaimed, still laughing. “You are!” She leaned in eagerly. “Have you guys banged yet?”

“Excuse me?” Madison asked, shocked at Mila’s blunt, and almost vulgar question.

“Have. You. Banged. Yet?” Mila pressed. “It’s a simple question. Have you bumped uglies? Swapped spit and rubbed pissers? Done the dirty? Humped each other dry?”

“You have some sort of mouth on you,” Madison replied slowly, though she couldn’t quite keep herself from smiling. “Swap spit and rub pissers? That’s a new one. Dirty, but kinda hilariously accurate.”

Mila grinned. “Thanks! Heard that one in a dive bar a few years back. Made me laugh so hard I never forgot it.” She shrugged. “Sorry, I didn’t think I was going to offend you by asking that way. I can ask if you two have had sex yet? Made love? Performed coitus on each other? Have you gotten a little something-something?”

Madison started laughing. “Okay, stop it! Please! If I tell you, do you promise to stop using all these ridiculous terms?”

“Probably.”

“I guess that’s probably as good as I’m going to get, isn’t it?” Madison said, sighing in defeat.

Mila grinned.

“First though, you have to tell me why you’re so eager to know.”

The smile faltered, and then disappeared quickly. Madison sat up straighter. Despite the jovial exterior, there was a serious reason behind her desire to know about her and Kean’s sex life. What could it be?

Mila looked away momentarily. “I…this is going to sound lame,” she said softly. “And selfish. Very selfish.”

“I understand. I won’t judge you, I promise. Whatever it is, it means a lot to you,” she reassured her.

“It’s just that, I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Mila said, wringing her hands nervously. “I love Pierce. It sounds crazy, I know. I’ve known him for two weeks. But there is something there. Something real and yet intangible. It exists between us in a way I could never explain. In a way I never felt with any other man in my life, even those who I have professed to love. This is different. It’s stronger, for starters. Scarily strong. Terrifying, to be fair. I have nightmares, sometimes, nightmares about how much I love him.” She shrugged, blinking back the sudden water in her eyes. “Kind of a silly thing to be scared of, isn’t it?”

“Love is a powerful emotion,” Madison agreed. “Feeling something so strongly, so deeply, that can scare you. Not because you feel it, though, but because you’re terrified that it isn’t real. Or even worse, that you might lose it. That you don’t deserve it, or that it will be taken from you somehow.”

Mila was looking at her wide-eyed. “You do understand,” she whispered. “I’m not the only one.”

Just like that, Madison suddenly understood exactly what Mila was so interested to know.

“You think you’re alone?” she asked, stunned at the revelation.

The other women smiled, the look tinged with a bit of sadness. “I’ve heard there are other humans, those who have fallen in love with shifters. Pierce has told me some stories about a few women like that he’d heard of who had become involved with some of those Green Bearets he and his brothers were training to be.”

Madison nodded. Kean had told her all about that and the war from his perspective the day before. She was glad he’d finally heard that the war itself was over, that Cadia had persevered over Fenris. Apparently it was the final battle that had drawn off enough shifters to make it feasible for Mila to make her assault on the shifter prison to rescue/kidnap him and his brothers from within.

“But until Pierce can return to Cadia, I’ll never have the chance to meet any of them,” Mila said regretfully, pushing one of the ripped pieces of napkin back and forth slowly as she spoke. “So it’s just me. It was just me. Then you came along. I didn’t think anything of it at first, but now that you two have been spending so much time together…” She trailed off, giving Madison a helpless shrug. “I couldn’t help but hope that you two might, you know, shack up together. Do the no-pants dance. Done the ol’ slap and tickle. Have a—”

“Stop!” Madison laughingly protested, holding up a hand. “Yes, okay? We’ve been...intimate.”

Mila perked up. “You have?”

“Mm-hmm. We’ve um, boinked. If that makes you understand it any better.” Madison felt silly using such terminology, but she was determined to play along, to prove she wasn’t a prude.

Besides, it had been damn good boinking, so shouldn’t she be proud of it?

“I knew it!” Mila exclaimed.

“Relax,” Madison said. “It’s just been sex so far. Nothing else. We’re still figuring things out. It could take some time.”

“Don’t wait to tell him how you feel just because you think you have to go a certain arbitrary timeframe first,” Mila urged. “If you care for him, if you’re crazy over him, tell him.” She pursed her lips, compressing them into a tight line. “These shifters, they know that we generally expect things like this to take months and years. They’re well aware of how scary it is for us.”

“They are?” Madison asked. This was the first she’d heard of anything like this.

“Yeah. Pierce told me one night when we were lying around after doing some naked tango.”

“How can you be so casual about talking about having sex like that?” she asked, switching subjects briefly.

“I dunno. It’s just…different around them. Everything is far more out in the open. It seems natural not to be ashamed or even private about our sex life. Though,” she added, “it was interesting before we got a second cabin.”

Madison shook her head. “I don’t want to know about that, thanks.”

“Sure,” Mila shrugged, uncaring. “But seriously, Maddy, tell him. Don’t wait for him to come to you. He’ll be too scared.”

“Kean, scared?” She laughed at the idea.

The other woman looked serious. “Scared of losing you, of pushing you away by moving too fast, yes. Absolutely terrified.”

Madison abruptly stopped laughing. She thought about it some more.

“He’s not that serious about me,” she said after a bit, her old doubts and demons rising to the surface.

“What do you mean?” Mila asked, frowning. “How can you tell?”

“Because,” she said. “He falls in love with everyone. I heard his brothers tease him about it the night of the bonfire. You were nearby, didn’t you hear it? They were all making fun of him, telling him not to fall in love with me like the others. That they were tired of hearing about it.”

Mila looked at her, her eyebrows wrinkling her forehead, her jaw hanging open. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Madison replied, misunderstanding the question. “I heard it all. Kean does this regularly.”

“Not that,” the other woman replied from across the table, slapping her hand down on it. “I mean, seriously you heard all that, but you didn’t hear Kean’s response?”

She shook her head. “No. I stopped listening, to be honest. It was a little hurtful. I hadn’t realized I was actually interested in him until I realized he wasn’t truly into me.”

“You’re an idiot,” Mila replied calmly.

“Excuse me?” Madison felt her hackles rise at the verbal slap in the face.

“You listened to his brothers, his brothers, talk shit about him, but you didn’t give Kean a chance to defend himself? From family? Seriously?”

Madison stumbled over the answer. She’d never thought about it like that. They had just all seemed so sure of themselves as they joked around, as if this was a common thing with Kean. With such certainty, what more was there to be said? Certainly his brothers would know him best.

And they’d also make fun of him for the slightest thing.

She wilted as she realized Mila was right. By not listening to the rest of the conversation, she’d done Kean a major disservice. She’d allowed herself to believe what his brothers had said about him, and not what he might have had to say about himself.

“I fucked up,” she said aloud.

“Yeah, you did,” Mila agreed. “You didn’t hear Kean almost start a fight with them over it.”

“He said he did love me?” she asked, perking up a little at the idea, scary though it might be.

“No,” Mila replied.

“Oh.”

“He said he wasn’t sure if he loved you. And that’s what made you different. That whatever was going on between you and him was different than anything he’d experienced before.”

Madison sat back heavily, the chair bending precariously. “He said that? About me?”

Mila nodded.

For several long moments Maddy sat there unspeaking. Then she abruptly rose from the table.

“Where are you going?” Mila asked, jumping up and hurrying to keep up with her as Madison’s taller legs carried her quickly toward the door.

“I need to go to him. To tell him how I feel,” she said quickly. “He needs to know that.” She rushed to the SUV, fumbling for the keys.

“He knows, Maddy,” Mila said, slamming her hand into the door.

“But I need to tell him,” she babbled. “He needs to hear it from me.”

Although smaller, Mila was rather strong for her size, and she resisted Madison’s attempts to push her aside. “You can’t. Not now.”

“Why not?” She already knew the answer, but Maddy wasn’t ready to just give up yet.

“Because we don’t have time. You know that. We have less than thirty minutes before we have to be nearing the perimeter. You can’t reach him in time.”

Right. The mission. They were going to rescue Raven.

Madison shook her head violently to try and clear it. Then she stood up straight with her eyes closed, rolled her shoulders several times, and took five slow, deep breaths.

“Better?” Mila asked when she opened her eyes again.

“Much,” she replied, her tone calm, cool, and collected.

Madison was back on track. Accomplish the mission. Rescue Raven. Then tell Kean how she felt about him.

“He’ll either be there after, or he won’t,” Mila said calmly.

“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll be there,” Madison replied.

The two women laughed.

“Let’s go,” Mila suggested.

Nodding, Madison unlocked the vehicle.

It was time.