“I umm…”
“Ramon,” Saffy hissed, glaring up at her mate. “That was rude.”
Hawk simply shrugged and continued to hold Wyatt’s gaze.
Wyatt shook his head at the man’s audacity, but for the first time in as long as he could remember, a genuine smile slid across Wyatt’s lips.
“Stop giving me shit,” he chastised. “We both know I’m socially inept.”
“I call bullshit. Why don’t you let me get Saffy set you up on a date with one of her girlfriends?”
She nodded enthusiastically.
“You don’t want to be doing that,” Wyatt said, watching his teammate closely.
Hawk frowned. “Why not?”
“Because I imagine you like your front teeth just fine where they are.”
Hawk coughed out a laugh. “Fair enough. No dates. But it wouldn’t kill you to get laid once in a while.”
Saffy slapped Ramon on the chest.
“Hey!” she said with another glare. “You say one more word and I’ll kick your ass.”
Hawk looked suitably chastised and another genuine smile graced Wyatt’s lips.
He let out a throaty chuckle. “And on that note…”
He winked at Saffy, gave Hawk a chin lift then hightailed it to the door, slipping outside before he could get waylaid by anyone else on his team. He breathed in the moist evening air as he started the short walk home. He hadn’t bothered to bring his truck, not because of alcohol in his system because shifters burned that off pretty quickly. It was just that, even though it was unfashionable to walk these days, Wyatt still preferred it—as long as he didn’t have too far to go, and the roads allowed it. It wasn’t his favorite method of getting around, but it was a close second.
He heaved a sigh as he loped along the sidewalk. He knew his teammates meant well, but sometimes he just wished they’d leave him alone.
Wyatt was tired of everyone trying to meddle in his business. He didn’t want to hang out at parties, and he most definitely didn’t want to be set up on any dates. There wouldn’t be any point to them. His species lived for hundreds of years so he would outlive any human he entered into a relationship with five times over, and if he got involved with a shifter who had a much longer lifespan, they’d only end up leaving his sorry ass as soon as they met their true mate. And it wasn’t as if Wyatt would ever meethismate, that path had been cut off for him on night fifty years ago.
Dammit. He ground his teeth together. So much for not dwelling. Truth was, it got harder every day. The whole of his team was mated now, and he was happy for them—of course, they were his team, his family—but it just made the yearning keener.
His kind…well, they didn’t mate with other types of shifter. It just didn’t work that way. And the chances of him just running into his mate this far away from Antarctica? Exactly zero. There was a greater chance of him being hit by lightning. And wasn’t that a depressing thought. No, it was better this way. He just wanted to do his job then go home, rinse and repeat. He didn’t want his teammates getting stupid ideas about his lack of a significant other. No good could come from it.
He took in his surroundings as he ambled along the sidewalk, drinking in all the sights and smells. Flint had lived in Miami for decades now, and he loved it, although he did sometimes miss the cold of Antarctica. The fresh nip of icy wind playing across his skin, the bright but subtle sun shining down… It really was the only place on earth like that. The sun was one of his favorite things about this place. It was hot, so hot, but he could tolerate heat as well as he tolerated the cold. Better, perhaps, though it had been alien to him. But it had the same brightness. It reminded him of home.
Or the place that had been home, once.
When he first left there, he thought about moving to Alaska or to one of the colder countries in northern Europe, but he figured being someplace like that would only have made him feel lonelier and more homesick. So he headed for the big cities instead. He spent time in London, in Paris, and then finally in New York. It was there that he met Landon, a shifter who worked at the same docks as Wyatt, unloading the fishing boats when they came in with their daily catch, and he told Wyatt about the many shifter communities in Miami.
Landon told Wyatt that Miami was a good place to go to fit in—a place he could get everything he needed to survive, and live as full a life as any human, or shifter who had grown up in a pack or pride. He’d told him that he could get hold of things like the falsified papers he would need to get a job and not just then when he was young, but again later on, on account of how slowly he aged.
So, he’d upped sticks and he’d moved one last time, and it had been the best decision he’d ever made. He got his papers then worked for a few years in a couple of different places before he finally managed to land himself a job in law enforcement and from there he’d been recruited by the FBI. The rest, as people said, was history. He might not call life good now, and he couldn’t rightly say that he was happy, but he was comfortable. He had a good job, a nice house, and work colleagues, who, although they tried to meddle in his business, were good people who meant well and cared about him. He couldn’t have asked for much more than that.
It was better than he’d dared to hope life could be, after that one night in Antarctica. After his clan had banished him.
As Wyatt crossed the street, a scuffle to his left caught his attention and as he turned to see what it was, he caught sight of two men dragging a woman down an alleyway behind a row of low-rise buildings. In the glow from the overhead streetlight, he caught the flash of a knife in the right hand of one of the men. The fact that a special agent was technically always on call wasn’t even a factor in Wyatt breaking out into a run to go to the woman’s aid. He would have helped her regardless.
Although Wyatt had never been a saint and had done things in his life that he regretted desperately, hehatedmen who preyed on women.
And unlike the events of that night, this was something hecouldchange.
