Images of shifter children in various situations, all of them horrific, left him cold to the bone. He didn’t stop, he couldn’t, image after image filtered over the screen as he categorized them quickly and efficiently. They deserved nothing but Taggart’s best. He gave it to them even when it hollowed out his insides with the travesty at operating tables holding dead shifters, that the written reports detailed every heinous thing their scientists had done.
The cruelty ingrained itself inside Taggart in ways it would be impossible to remove, yet he continued on, his hands flying over the keys as his eyes never left the multiple screens as he moved the data into files for Arlo to give to whoever was going to use this to make the animals pay.
He swiped the back of his hand over his nose, not noticing it was wet or the tears plopping down onto the keyboard, even when his eyes blurred and he blinked furiously. His throat was tight, his temples throbbed, while his eyes ached, and on he went, diving deeper until all there was were the horrors.
Chapter Ten
Taggart
No.
No.
No.
He lost his battle when his head hurt so bad it made everything feel woozy and the nausea caused his chest to burn. His hands trembled as he balled them above his keyboard, then flexed them as the cramping feeling took hold. Unable to focus on the screens with the white dots floating in front of his vision, heshut his aching, sticky eyes. The images remained and somehow made it worse when they stabbed at his brain with the truth.
Everything his mate had talked about the day before somehow laid itself out in the imagery he’d uncovered minutes before. While Soren had talked about what had happened, Taggart’s computers had sorted through the data. It looked as if it had heard the conversation and pulled together the horrors to confirm the truth.
The stark reality of the massacre the owls had inflicted on Soren’s family was much worse than Taggart could have imagined. And he’d imagined some nasty shit, but not the actual brutality of the slaughter and witnessing something burning homes and bodies with what Taggart couldn’t see. The angle was all wrong, and some cameras had stopped recording mid massacre and he couldn’t figure out why. Imagining how his mate had escaped left Taggart with a clusterfuck of a migraine. The pain ate at his brain. Sucked hard on his eyes, as if trying to force them out the back of his skull. It was merciless and left him defenseless to the attack when he’d ignored the signs it was coming as he’d continued on, driven to find the answers once he realized what he had found. There, hidden, was the seedy world that so many didn’t know existed before the exposure of the wrongdoings. Only this was so much worse than what the news reporters had blasted over the TV. So much worse. The ruthless killing of families, from small children to the oldest in the flock. They’d torn them apart as if they were scraps to be fought over. They’d eaten some of the younger ones or burned them haphazardly, as if they were nothing but food.
Taggart heaved, his stomach rebelling, forcing him to push back from the desk and shove his head between his legs, hoping to regain his equilibrium. He dragged in greedy breaths as he kept his damp eyes closed.
Once there, he didn’t have the strength to do more than endure the pain, somehow feeling it was his burden to carry because he could not prevent the decimation of Soren’s family. The images long before the attack hurt more. Those families, smiling, unsuspecting of what was coming, would be what lived with Taggart. Because there in the crowd had been Soren, his eyes dancing with amusement at something a woman had said to him. Taggart hadn’t seen him during the massacre, and he took some solace from that, though it was little consolation right then.
His tears plopped down as he sobbed uncontrollably, grateful neither mate could see him like this when he didn’t want to explain the reasons why. He couldn’t stop the gulping sobs.
Warmth came from the arms that lifted him effortlessly, Arlo’s scent surrounded him as he found himself cradled against Arlo’s massive chest. “I’ve got you. That’s it, let it out, Daddy’s here for you,” he soothed, all the while he stroked a hand up and down his trembling back. “We’ll fix it, sweet boy. Daddy swears it to you.”
On and on he made promises and Taggart finally, exhausted, let sleep claim him when his mind didn’t want to think anymore about what he’d shared of his distress—to not only Arlo—to Soren when his mate had suffered enough.
Arlo
As heart-breaking as it was to discover Taggart sobbing his eyes out, it was doubly gut-wrenching to know that he couldn’t ask Taggart to stop mining out the information they needed. He was remarkable at what he did and passionate about it too, but there had to be a way to impose some mental health breaks sothat his boy didn’t get endlessly bombarded by the atrocities he must have uncovered.
He checked the time and slid from the bed where he’d been watching over Taggart and Soren sleep, after he’d tucked Taggart back in between them. The moment he had, Soren had sighed contentedly, and wiggled into Taggart’s arms until his nose became pressed to Taggart’s neck and one arm draped over his body.
Arlo tucked the blankets beneath his back, kissed the top of his head, then went around to do the same on the other side for Soren until they looked like a burrito on the bed.
“Keep him here in bed if you can,” Arlo whispered in Soren’s ear before pressing a kiss to his head, too.
His mate didn’t wake, but Arlo saw the blanket move, and the outline of Soren’s leg traveling over Taggart’s hip, as he wrapped around him like a spider monkey. Grinning in the room's dimness, Arlo tucked the blanket tight around him again, and whispered a soft thank you as he pressed another kiss to Soren’s head.
Their tiny mate, who’d been so afraid that he’d have nothing to contribute, was already giving the greatest gift of all.
His love.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, Arlo took a moment to settle his nerves, glad he’d sent Bash a message—after finding Taggart and his screen full of images he never wanted his mate to go through—to hold off on coming over for a few hours. He’d also suggested Romy's visiting wasn’t something for today after the exhaustion Soren felt after the revelation he had shared the previous day. As nice as it would be to set up a playdate, his boys needed rest more than they needed fun with them both emotionally drained.
He got a pot of coffee started and headed for the shower, taking a quick one and hastily pulling on clothes. He was sittingon the front stoop with a half-finished coffee cup in his hands when Bash pulled up with the crew and immediately put a finger to his lips to shush them, despite it being nearly noon.
Nodding, Bash spoke to the guys in a hushed tone, informing them they wanted three-hundred-sixty-degree surveillance, including the roof. It meant overlapping camera angles, to make certain that every bit of the property had protection.
“Be diligent and thorough. Be as quiet as you can.”
Nodding, they all started to move like the well-oiled machine they were, while Bash remained with Arlo, who was grateful to have his closest friend by his side.
“Is everything okay, your message said little?” Bash murmured softly.
