Chapter Twenty-Nine – Hunter

 

“Three days to save the world?” I whispered as we locked the door up behind Imogen. “Isn’t that cutting it a little close?”

“Better than two,” Kris said, her voice a rasping growl low enough that hopefully the shifters denned in the office didn’t hear her. She glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand, which Imogen had passed over when she left. It was our next point of contact, where we’d be able to get loaded out. From the sound of it, whoever was there was going to aid us in our insertion effort, too.

“Touché.”

I turned back from the lobby door as Imogen waited for the elevator to arrive, coming to a stop at what I saw.

“Kris?”

“What?” she asked, turning around, crumpling the paper in her hands. “Oh.”

Arms crossed, they were staring at us with dour looks painting their faces. All four of them. A wolf, a panther, a bear, and a lion, all in their much more convenient human forms.

“Hey guys,” Kris said. “”Why the sour puss looks?”

No response.

She cleared her throat as she glanced to me. “I’m thinking Tabitha told you about my leaving?”

Luke, on the far right, nodded. “Yep. She did.” He paused, glanced to his comrades-in-arms. “So, were you what? Just gonna ditch out on us without even saying goodbye? Just not show up tomorrow?”

She laughed, shrugging. “Well, if I knew I was going to get ambushed in the halls over it, I would’ve made a more formal announcement.” If this was tearing her up inside, she didn’t show it. But, in my extensive experience, that was part of being a leader. You accepted what life threw at you, and you never let your men see you break beneath the weight of it.

“What about you, Hunter?” Carter Grant asked as he nodded to me. Heavy eyebrows were raised nearly to the top of his forehead, it seemed, as he peered down at me from his more than respectable height. “You leaving us high and dry, too?”

“Well…”

A hand suddenly threaded itself into mine, callused fingers locking tightly between my digits in a natural fit.

Despite the warmth that seemed to spread from her hand into mine, a trembling shiver traveled up my legs and to my spine, up nearly through the roots of my hair. “We’re going together,” I said, picking up on the cue as Kris pressed her body more closely to me.

You could have heard a pin drop. On the carpet.

The four shifters exchanged looks. “Whoa.”

“Come on, guys,” she said with a little chuckle. “Three months of both of us gone? What’d you think was happening?”

Fitzgerald snorted as he looked back and forth between the two of us. “Well, sure as shit not that! Figured it was some kinda super secret squirrel mission, or something!”

The other three laughed and nodded.

“What are y’all two planning on doing, then?” Ryder asked.

I released Kris’s hand and put my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer to me as we both exchanged a sideways look. She melted into my side, and I could have sworn I saw a shadow of a genuine smile dancing in her eyes as we locked gazes.

When we spoke, it was at the same time.

“Paris.”

“Honolulu.”

“Really?” I asked, hands on her hips, pulling her closer as I gazed into her eyes. “There’s no culture there!”

“There’s no beaches in Paris!” she said, face upturned to mine.

“Have you never heard of the goddamn Riviera? It’s just a hop and a skip away!”

“But surfing!” she said, shaking her head. “And parasailing! And volcanoes!”

“Volcanoes?” I tightened my grip on her sides, but by this time we were grinning, really getting into our roles. “My dear, we breathe fire! Besides, why do I need to see a cratered mountain to appreciate the beauty of nature, when I have you right here?”

Her eyes lit up, and she smiled genuinely, her lips curving up gorgeously at the sides.

And, for just a moment, I realized how much that smile made me happy.

“Okay, okay,” Sam said, “we got it. You guys are still figuring things out.”

“Worse than you and Faith, man,” Oldham said, biffing him in the shoulder.

“What’re you talking about?” Sam said, grinning despite the fierce rubbing he was giving his wounded arm. “You and Molly just got together. Give it another few months, then see if you can agree on Honolulu or Paris next week.”

“Well, are we going to do drinks, or what?” Ryder said, his voice little more than a growl. “Seven of us served together long enough, might as well send you both out with a bang.”

Kris frowned, mirroring my own. I thought I saw a light shake to her head as she separated herself from my embrace, leaving a certain aching loneliness in my arms behind as she did. “I don’t know about that. Won’t your mates get upset?”

“Our mates?” Luke asked with a raised eyebrow. “Nah, it’s a work thing.”

“Hell, Lucy’d be pissed she didn’t get to see you off,” Carter Grant said. “You’ve been good to her while she’s been here. You gonna leave me to deal with that all on my own?”

One hand was still on her hip, and I could feel her tight jeans shift as she sighed deeply. I realized, too, that my thumb had begun to move back and forth over the bottom hem of her top, accidentally sliding over her skin when the fabric rode up a little high.

She took a little step closer to me, put an arm around my waist, and leaned into me again.

“Okay, we can have a drink. But I don’t want to do anything too crazy tonight. We still need to get to packing in the morning.”

“Scout’s honor,” Carter said, holding up three fingers pressed together.

“What?” Luke asked, pulling a face. “You weren’t a scout.”

“I was, too.”

“You were a damn Webelo, and that was it. You told me that one night in Baghdad.”

“I don’t remember telling you that!”

“You were drunk on that weird hooch we got out of Greece when we were tracking down that centaur.”

“Okay, guys,” Kris said, stepping forward from my side, “that’s enough.” The guys stopped bickering back and forth long enough to part, shocked looks on their faces, so Kris and I could get by. “Hunter and I still have a few things to take care of before we call it our last day, so if you’ll excuse us, we need to get to them.”

We threaded our way through the hall, heading back to my workshop.

“No quickies in my new office!” Ryder called to our backs.

“Your new office?” Carter growled.

“What, think we were going to give it to the bear?”

“Figured we’d give it to me. I’m the king of the jungle, after all. Why not the office?”

“You know, there’s a moon in the name of the agency. Always kinda figured a wolf should be at the head.”

“Oh, shut up, Sam. Ain’t no way you’re signing my paychecks.”

They continued their tit-for-tat back and forth like that as Kris and I came to a stop in front of our office. It was then that Kris looked down and realized we were still holding hands.

“Um, sorry,” she said, letting go of me.

“Yes, of course,” I said, withdrawing my hand to my pocket. Her warmth continued to engulf it in a pleasant tingle, like a lover’s kiss upon my lips even as I buried it out of sight. “Quick thinking back there.”

“Yeah,” she said, nodding as she crossed her arms in front of her. “You too.”

We spoke again at the same time.

“Honolulu?” I asked.

“Paris?” she asked.

“Really?”

We both laughed, shaking our heads as we leaned against the wall outside my workshop. “You know,” I mused as I looked down at her, “we could always do both.”

“In your dreams, Hunter,” she said, her smile turning up again. We both stood there in silence for a long moment before she spoke again. “About the file, Hunter…”

I sighed, shook my head. “Kris, please. I almost understand why you kept it for a little longer than you should have. It was curiosity, wasn’t it?”

She shrugged. “I really wanted to read about what you’d done.”

“Read tales of my exploits?”

“More like a laundry list of your sins against humanity,” she said, smiling a little.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily fair.”

“No, it’s not. That’s why I’m joking. You see, I noticed a common thread going through your file.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “You never steal from the poor. I even looked into some of the people you ripped off. Not all of them, of course, since there’s so damn many. But, still. Hedge fund managers who were later found to be stealing from their clients? People who stole from pension funds, embezzled from nonprofits?”

Blushing a little, I looked down at my feet. “Yes, well…”

“And you’re much less wealthy than you lead others to believe, too,” she said.

I cleared my throat.

“You donate a lot of it, don’t you?” she asked, her voice more quiet than before.

“I’ve always despised that word.”

“Donate?”

“No. A lot. Such an imprecise word.”

“Shit. You donate all of it, don’t you?”

I frowned, shrugged. “I’m four centuries old, Kris, and most of that wealth was in gold. Do you know what the interest rate is on a dragon hoard?”

“Why’d you steal it, then?”

I grinned. “Because those people were dicks.”

She laughed, that sweet smile not leaving her lips this time around.

“You said so yourself,” I said. “They were all rotten individuals. Either thieves in their own right, heirs of robber barons and such, or people who worked with the Nazis. They didn’t deserve any of that, any more than the poor deserved their own lot.” I shrugged. “So I fixed it.”

Grinning, she nodded. “Uh-huh, Mr. Hood.”

I shook my head. “Not quite an apt comparison. After all, I was only donating my portion of the heists. He had a band of merry men willing to go full bore on his little scheme. Unfortunately, I had only myself.”

“Well. Good to know.” She pushed herself upright from the wall and spun on her heel. She walked away, saying, “We’re going to close down the office early so we can get our celebration out of the way. Right after, you and I are going to the address, and we’re getting out of here. Understood?”

Eyes following the sway of her hips, I didn’t respond.

“Hey!” she barked back over her shoulder, that little smile of hers still playing at the corner of her lips. “Jackson! Is that understood?”

I rolled my eyes as I brought them up to hers, smiling a crooked smile as I snapped off a poor imitation of a salute. “Yes, ma’am. Understood.”

She nodded smartly. “Good. But your salute needs some work.” And then she was gone, down the hallway back to her office.

I tore my eyes from her before she caught me again, and let myself back into my workshop.

We were heading out in just a few hours to a hostile environment with only what we could carry on our backs. I needed to prepare as best I could.