Khaki gave him another kiss that made him consider asking her to stay and jump in the hospital bed with him, but he caught himself. Khaki needed to get some sleep. And to be truthful, he did too. He was getting stronger by the minute, but when Gage showed up, Xander wanted to face him on his feet, not lying in this bed.
* * *
Khaki found Mac and the guys from her squad, along with Mike and a good portion of his guys waiting in the outer lobby. Thankfully, Sergeant Dixon wasn’t with them. Xander needed rest and he wasn’t going to get it with their boss around.
“How is he?” Mac asked.
Mac had been a rock for her over the last two days. Not only had she gone to Khaki’s apartment and gotten clean clothes for her, but she’d brought her something to eat and big cups of coffee around the clock. Mac had also been keeping Gage away from her, something Khaki was extremely grateful for.
Khaki smiled. “He’s awake, and he’s going to be fine.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and Khaki could feel the tension drain from the room. The guys had said all the right things, that Xander was a werewolf and that werewolves could recover from any injury that didn’t kill them. But none of them had ever heard of a werewolf going in for open-heart surgery and being unconscious for two days either.
Mac pulled her in for a hug. “Thank God. I’ve been so worried.”
“Me too,” Khaki admitted. “But he’s okay. He sent me home to get some sleep.”
“Did you tell him that Gage knows about the two of you?” Cooper asked. “And that he probably isn’t going to let you stay on the squad?”
Khaki nodded. “He knows, but it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?” Mike echoed. “I don’t have a problem with you on my squad, but I find it hard to believe Xander is going to be okay with that.”
Khaki almost laughed. No, Xander definitely wasn’t okay with that. “I appreciate the offer, Mike, but Xander wouldn’t be able to handle it, and honestly, I doubt I would be able to either. We’ve decided the best thing would be for both of us to transfer out of SWAT.”
While it was painful as hell to say the words, she knew it was the right thing to do.
“But you’re not leaving the Pack, right?” Alex asked.
“I can’t see how we have a choice,” she said. “How can we be part of the Pack, but not in SWAT when they’re one and the same? Even if we could, it would be too hard for everyone involved.”
The mood in the waiting room, which had been so high just a few moments ago, turned dismal. Mac was on the verge of tears while Mike and some of the other guys stared down at the floor. The others just look pissed. Especially Cooper.
Khaki didn’t want that. She and Xander had known what they were getting into when they started sleeping with each other. It wasn’t Sergeant Dixon’s fault, and she didn’t want the guys trying to take this out on him. It wouldn’t solve anything and would likely only make matters worse.
She cleared her throat. “So, Mike, did you and your squad find out anything on the shooter?”
Mike looked surprised by her question. She didn’t blame him. How could he know how many hours over the last couple of days she’d spent imagining all the things she was going to do to the person who’d shot Xander? And now that Xander was out of the woods, those thoughts were back. She wasn’t the kind of person who believed in retribution, but that was before she’d held Xander in her arms while he’d fought for his life. Maybe it was her werewolf nature, but she wanted the person who’d hurt him to pay.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Mike admitted. “We’ve been working on the theory that the sniper was backup for the bank crew, but we’ve found absolutely nothing to support that. Most of the crew have lawyered up and the ones that haven’t claim they don’t know anything about the sniper. Even the girlfriend, Shelly, swears we have all of them accounted for. Diego and Zane are down in lockup trying to get anything they can from the guys we arrested, but I don’t think they’re going to. Gage has the DA’s office going through their old cases to see if someone Xander put away has recently gotten out of prison. But that’s going to be a long list. He’s responsible for locking up a lot of criminals.”
“Crap,” Khaki muttered. If anyone could get anything out of the guys they arrested, it would be SWAT’s two hostage negotiators, Diego Martinez and Zane Kendrick, but like Mike, she didn’t hold out much hope. Maybe the DA’s office would have better luck.
Khaki ran her hand through her hair. She didn’t want to go back to Xander’s apartment for a nap. She wanted to track down the shooter and tear him to shreds. Even standing here in the waiting room, she could feel the tingles at the tips of her fingers that meant her claws wanted to come out. She tried to use the calming techniques that Xander had taught her. Having her claws make an appearance in front of the guys probably wasn’t a good idea, not if she hoped to have a chance to go after the shooter, whoever he was.
“What about the crime scene? Did you find anything there that might give us a clue who this sniper is?” she asked.
Mike shook his head. “We found which building the guy was on when he shot Xander, and while he left a good scent trail behind, that was all he left. No shell casings, no DNA, no fingerprints on the doors, nothing. The guy is a pro.”
“You didn’t recognize his scent?” she asked.
“No.” Mike smiled wryly. “Maybe if any of us had your memory for scents it’d be possible. But to all of us, he just smelled like a guy.”
She smiled back at Mike. He gave her an idea. “Maybe I should run out there and sniff around a little, see if I recognize the scent?”
“I thought you were going home to get some sleep?” Mac reminded her with a frown.
She was, but the chance to get a sniff of the guy who’d shot Xander before the scent faded away completely was too good to pass up. “I’ll just run over and take a quick look around. I promise I’ll take a nap after that.”
