“I’ll make breakfast.”
“Thank you.” He pressed a quick kiss to Max’s lips before heading to his office. He sank into his chair with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, focusing on breathing through the panic and fear and anger trying to claw its way up his throat. He’d known this could happen the moment he decided to claim a newly Sparked mage, but he hadn’t expected what Max would come to mean to him or his pack. The three of them had worked well together from the beginning, shifters isolated or exiled from their original packs, grabbing on to the first life raft they could find.
Max was no different. Once he’d started to believe he was safe here, he’d drawn the rest of them even closer together. Knowing Max had finally brought Lukas and Quinn together was a miracle; Caius had started to despair they’d ever get their heads out of their asses.
He couldn’t let that all be in vain. Losing even one of them would tear his pack apart.
Lukas was alive. He was well trained, in his prime, healthy. If he survived the initial crash, there was a chance he’d survive until the coast guard or a rescue op found him.
He had to believe that.
With a deep breath, Caius pulled up a contact he never thought he’d use again. The name Charlie Savage flashed on his screen, the number ringing three times before a woman answered.
“Savage.”
“It’s Ward.”
A brief pause, then, “Calling for business or pleasure?”
“It’s personal. I need a favor.”
A low whistle followed that. “Five years and you call asking for a favor.”
He’d expected annoyance, but she sounded amused.
“Never did learn to pull your punches.”
“You never asked me to.”
Charlie snorted. “And you’re still a dick. What do you need, Cai?”
“I need to know about the plane that went down over the Pacific this morning.”
“What?” she snapped. There was a sound like her phone clattered to a table, and then the sound of furious typing.
“It should have left Buckley around one or two this morning.”
After a few tense moments, she hissed. “A fucking Nighthawk went down.” More typing. “Pilot Wren Taylor and Corporal Lukas Hunt. These boys yours?”
“Lukas is pack.”
She hummed but didn’t ask for details. “Doesn’t look like an attack…. There’s no mission file attached to this flight. Cai, what the fuck is this?”
“Fuck,” he breathed, pinching his nose again. “Can you see who authorized it?”
After another few moments, she swore. “General Graves.”
“Rhys Graves?” Caius had met the man only once, and that’d been more than enough. He couldn’t say exactly what about the man raised his hackles, but surely that didn’t mean Graves was willing to murder his own men. That was something the Order was rumored to do.
“It’s being listed as faulty wiring,” she said, incredulous.
“No chance of it being true?”
Charlie scoffed. “These new models are more secure than Air Force One. Even if it was the wiring, the spellwork should have kept it from crashing.”
“Sabotage?” Even as he asked, he knew it was true; he just hadn’t wanted to believe the Order could orchestrate something so far outside their jurisdiction. If one of their highest ranks was compromised, how far did the Order’s reach truly go?
“What the hell did you get caught up in, Caius?”
