But, putting the profiling of young women who were just trying to make their way in the world aside, Marcus, Shawn, and Trip all reunited in the bushes, seeming to resign themselves to an uneven trek as the three of them eyed the now further away walls and seemed to regard the scraps of wetlands in front of them with no small amount of trepidation.“We have to stay in our human form for now,” Shawn apologized.Communicating cross-species wasn’t exactly easy, and as he was new to the whole shifting thing, the other men had to be patient with him.
Even though he was notably wearing the sort of stuff that you would take on a hike, the other men were wearing designer jeans and far too nice shirts.Marcus and Trip both made no comment, instead following the grizzly veteran with no small amount of respect as they paid close attention to their surroundings, not wanting to let anything pass them by.The last thing they wanted to do was give the security detail any reason to know that it was them walking through the brush that day, and therefore, they both made an effort to keep their arms and limbs as close to themselves as possible as they traveled further and further through the undergrowth, to the point where the mansion that they had all been solemnly eyeing earlier had disappeared from view and the three of them were left fighting through the woods, trusting Shawn’s instincts to lead them.
Marcus wasn't even sure that he would trust him at this point as the three of them seemed to move comically further away from the estate, but then he reminded himself that as Shawn had dedicated the majority of his life to protecting their mate, it was very unlikely that he would turn against them.Especially after he had been gifted with the level of devotion that came with being in one-on-one mateship with another panther.Marcus had heard about the Panteras and their partnerships, how being mated changed them and made them concerned mainly with one person.It was probably part of the reason why they were such an individualistic society.He took that as all the evidence that he needed to trust in his brother and allowed Shawn to guide him until there was a break in the trees and a dip in the earth.
It was hard for one to realize from the outside, but many housing developments like the one that El’s parents lived in often stood on the edge of fields.It was the only way that they could get the large expanses of land that multi-millionaires often craved.Therefore, Marcus knew that it shouldn't have been a surprise to him, not in the end, that the three of them walked up towards a large trench, one that stood on the barrier of the back wall of the Drew estate’s fence.
If he had to guess, this was probably the only portion of the property that looked even halfway worn, and a part of him wondered how someone like Annabel could sleep at night knowing that this existed.The woman had made it very clear from the few times that he'd seen her that she was a perfectionist, but he supposed that when you were as rich as they were, all that mattered was how things appeared on the surface.They didn't need to have security cameras at the back of their property in this one location because there were miles and miles of fencing going either way, and it wasn't likely that anyone who didn't know what they were looking for would ever see this one worn bit of brick wall.
But Shawn, who had been trained in recognizing whenever there was a gap in security and therefore knew exactly what said wall signified, had noticed it.Not only had he noticed it, but if you listened to him long enough, you realized that he had complained about it multiple times to the family.Only for his complaints to fall on deaf ears.
And now he was going to take everything that he had warned them about several times and turn it against them.“Remind me not to mess with you ever,” Trip murmured as he realized the reality of the situation at the same time as Marcus, very obviously coming to the conclusion that Shawn had probably categorized the weaknesses of every building he entered and every person he encountered.
“Don’t piss off El, and we won’t have a problem,” Shawn murmured, His tone far from playful as he said it.He had never made any effort to hide the fact that, at the end of the day, his allegiance was to his mate and only his mate.Everyone else was just a side note.
And if they were ever to hurt her, then he was the one who would have the skills to make them pay, considering the way that he looked up at the wall, and for a moment, Marcus almost felt like he could scale it himself by hand.But then, almost as natural as walking came to most adults, Shawn sprung at the wall, suddenly changing from man to panther with little to no difficulty and scaling it with ease.
“Someone's been practicing,” Trip noted beside Marcus, his eyes watching as the big cat leaped over the side of the wall, landing on the grass on the other side with a soft thud that was barely audible to the untrained ear.Marcus had to admit that he was right.The ease with which the man shifted indicated that he had been working hard on it, very obviously feeling like he had decades of time to make up for.
“Well, let’s not disappoint him,” Marcus stated as he shoved Trip aside, rearing back with a shake of his head before sprinting forward and bursting into his lion form, much to Trip’s irritation.
“Hey,” Trip remarked, very obviously irritated by the fact that he was being left behind.Marcus ignored him as he landed on top of the wall, taking only the slightest glimpse before springing back down to the ground and morphing into his human form at the same time.His lever loafers hit the grass, and he looked up to see Shawn stretching beside him, very obviously not being trained enough as a shifter to land as himself.
A moment later, another form landed beside the two of them, hitting the earth with a thump and turning to Marcus with accusation in his big lion eyes.
“Come on, you should have realized what we were up to,” Marcus snorted, shaking his head at Trip as Trip scowled and turned back into his human form, having to stretch out more than a few of his muscles to make up for the way that he landed.
“Typically, in situations like this, people have a go-word, and then someone doesn't get left behind,” Trip pointedly explained to his brothers, making a point of cracking each and every one of his joints back into place as he seemed to shake off the shock of such a high landing.
“No,” Shawn corrected, “normally, in shitty action movies, people have a go word.In real life, in real missions, very rarely do people waste energy.A good soldier can take note of the situation and knows when to move to accommodate it.”Shawn evidently knew a lot about being a good soldier, and Marcus made a note to himself to someday ask him about his time as a veteran.
Neither Marcus nor Trip had ever bothered to enter any form of military.They were part of the faction of shifters who often thought wars as being human business, not something that they should concern themselves with.Obviously, seeing as how he was a vet, Shawn disagreed.
And, perhaps more obviously, seeing how he had previously worked at the house, Shawn took the lead, hardly wanting to further discuss their landing with his two brothers as he led them up the yard, his eyes on alert and the expression on the man's face making it clear that he had no intention of wasting any time.Marcus was pretty sure that he heard Trip grumble at the back of the pack, but he didn't blame the man.
Whereas Trip was warm and easygoing, Shawn could probably be described as the exact opposite of that.Marcus would never tell Trip that, but he found it a little reassuring; sometimes, it felt awkward to be the only one amongst the bunch who could manage to act mature all of the time.While he wanted to pretend that Ryan was as levelheaded as he was, it was evident that the man was ruled by his testosterone more often than not.
And to be honest, Marcus felt a sort of confidence in Shawn the further that the bunch went, noting the way that the other man didn't seem to second guess any of his decisions as he led them towards the house, his eyes beginning to study in one direction as it became apparent that his superior hearing was at play.
“The dogs are out,” Shawn warned, recognizing the sound of them from afar.“Do your best to look in the opposite direction,” he encouraged, gesturing with a nod of his head where they should be looking.“They’re trained to bite the moment that you make the mistake of making eye contact,” he informed them, and a part of Marcus almost wanted to ask if he had been a part of the training of said dogs long ago.
Actually, part of Marcus wanted to ask him a lot of questions regarding his past, as in the back of his mind, he slowly turned over all the information that Shawn had had regarding the hunters and wondered how someone could have such in-depth knowledge of such an obscure group that most shifters didn't even know still existed.
But, at the moment, he tried to focus on keeping his footwork as light and quick moving as possible, following Shawn’s directions and looking the opposite way as the trio crept closer and closer to the house, the large Olympic-sized swimming pool that the main house on the property sported coming into view along with the cabana as Marcus silently wondered if Annabel would dare to have a pool party on this of all days.
No, El likely wouldn’t come if that was the case, but…
“Look pretty,” Shawn instructed the men behind him as they neared the pool, his eyes obviously landing on the same thing that Marcus did.
At the corner of the pool, with headphones popped into his ear and a large net placed in his hands, sat a teenage boy.One of the ones that were infamously employed solely for pool boy purposes.If Marcus had to guess, he would note that Annabel was likely a little bit of a cougar and had probably found the boy at one of the local colleges, considering the glistening sweat that trailed down his multiple muscles, but deep down inside, Marcus knew that the boy wasn't any sort of threat to the three men who are currently sneaking across the Drew lawn.More, if he had to guess, Shawn didn’t want to have to be a threat to him, especially when it was so obvious that the man's head was pretty much empty and that the poor boy wanted nothing more than to collect a paycheck.
But still, whether or not he collected a paycheck, he was employed by Annabel and, therefore, a fringe of some sort.Marcus felt stiffened as the pool boy looked in their general direction, his eyes scanning across the three of them and taking in their various states of dress.For a moment, Marcus thought that the boy might find it odd that men who were dressed in such a way, one of them in a well-tailored business suit, another one in what might be considered boot camp uniform and another one in clear active leisure clothing were walking across the lawn.But it seemed that this poor boy had seen far stranger things in his time being employed by Annabel.
For a moment, Marcus almost couldn't make out what the boy had said the moment that he looked up to see the three of them.But after a second, he finally processed it, realizing that the words that resided on the boy's lips were three this time.
“Annabel likes her pretty men,” Shawn explained with a roll of his eyes as he placed his hands in his pockets, seeming to put a little more effort into looking normal even as the pool boy sought to dismiss the men.“I'm pretty sure she's been cheating on her husband from the moment that she married him.Most housewives in this area are,” Shawn said with a sort of authority.“Therefore, most servants know better than to say anything.”
“Which means that for the time being, we’re in the clear,” Trip said with a grin.
