“Camdidn’t wake me up,” I grumbled, moving out of his hold as I headed to the bathroom.
“So not fair,” Theo muttered.
I smiled as Ben and Theo argued indignantly, sounding just as whiny as I had a few minutes ago. I pulled on leggings and a sweatshirt and put my hair up in a couple of messy space buns. Hopefully, this was acceptable shooting attire.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked Ben as I exited the bathroom. He was curled up under the blankets again, his arms wrapped around my pillow.
“Definitely not,” he said.
I growled at the injustice, hating how much I sounded like a kitten. Why couldn’t I have a fierce alpha growl that shot fear into the heart of my enemies, or in this instance, my overbearing alphas?
Theo put his arm around my shoulders and walked me downstairs, where Cam sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee.
“Gimme,” I said, holding my hands out for his cup.
“We’re out of creamer,” he said, holding out the cup of black coffee.
“Are you two trying to kill me?” I whined, putting my head down on the kitchen counter in despair.
Cam came up behind me and massaged my shoulders before planting soft kisses on the back of my neck. “We’re going to stop by a coffee shop and get you a fancy latte with a shit-ton of sugar, okay, baby girl?”
I grunted, unwilling to forgive the early morning wake-up quite so easily.
As promised, we went through the drive-through of the cutest little cafe that was, for some reason, open at this ungodly hour. If Ben and I opened a bakery, it would have to be the mid-day variety because neither of us would be waking up early.
I sipped on my pumpkin spice latte, finally starting to wake up. Theo’s hand was firmly planted on my thigh as he drove us through town. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but his hand seemed to be creeping almost imperceptibly higher and higher the longer we drove. His earlier promise to make up for waking me flitted through my head.
“You still mad at me?” Theo asked, glancing over right as I stuffed the last of my almond croissant in my face.Attractive.
I forced myself to chew and swallow before answering. “This makes up for it a tiny bit,” I said, waving the latte. “Now that I’m sort of awake, why are we going to the gun range?”
“We want you to be able to defend yourself,” Cam said, leaning over the center console from his spot in the back. “Hopefully, you’ll never have to use a gun for that reason, but just humor us, okay?”
I nodded. Guns kind of freaked me out, but I also didn’t hate the idea of learning to use one. Maybe it would make me feel powerful, and I appreciated that my alphas wanted me to be able to protect myself.
“I’ll probably be a total badass at it,” I said confidently.
* * *
Turns out, I was not, in fact, a badass at shooting. My alphas assured me it wascompletely normalthat I somehow missed the paper target every single shot, but I caught them cringing when they thought I wasn’t looking. The gun felt all wrong in my hands. It was heavy and cold, and the shooting range smelled like antiseptic and rubber, a combination that put me on edge.
We had pulled up to a massive warehouse on the edge of town. It was empty except for the owner, a bulky beta male of few words. He’d gone over a brief set of rules before setting us loose. Cam had started by explaining all the parts of the gun, how to enable and disable the safety, and several other instructions that were lost on me.
Theo helped me with my stance, his hands softly grazing my hips maybe a bit more than strictly necessary. That was my favorite part of the outing so far. Cam tenderly placed ear protection on my head, kissing my cheek before urging me to take my first shot. I waited for some instinctual badassery to come over me, but instead, I just felt shaky. My palms were sweaty, and I couldn’t hold the gun steady or figure out how to visualize my shot.
When Cam pressed the button to retrieve the target paper, I expected to see the paper riddled with holes and that some of them would have landed within the human outline. But there were no holes on the paper at all.
“Are you sure this is loaded?” I asked, gesturing at the gun.
“It’s okay, love. No one’s good at this on their first try.” Theo said, taking the handgun from me. “Maybe we need to start with the paper a bit closer.”
I crinkled my nose. The paper was already nowhere near the end of the range.
“We probably just need to buy you a lower-caliber gun. This is one of mine and it’s too big for your hands,” Cam said, his brow furrowed.
The idea of getting my own gun caused anxiety to creep up my chest. I didn’t want to think about having the power to hurt… orkill… someone, but then, was I just being weak? I shifted back and forth, trying to calm down, but I knew the guys could tell how on edge I was by my scent.
Cam pulled me into his chest and lowered his lips to my ear. “You should have seen Theo on the first day of basic training. Absolutely pathetic,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.
