“Sir.”
Mac raised an eyebrow.
Reynolds grinned and corrected himself. “Mac.”
Marcus leaned closer to Mac. “Still working on it.”
Reynolds laughed. “I leave next month.”
Mac studied him. “For Valker.”
Reynolds nodded.
The name still sounded strange spoken aloud, but it had begun to feel less like a secret and more like another layer of the world. The contractor Melvin worked for now, the one he’d joined after leaving the Army to put his languages to better use. Not military, not official, but close enough that their work sometimes intersected when things went sideways. The kind of problems no one wanted to put in a report.
Reynolds looked out over the meadow. “They’re setting up another team. Training, containment, coordination with the Council. Mostly overseas work.”
Marcus whistled softly. “Big league.”
Reynolds shrugged. “Someone has to do it.”
Mac clapped him lightly on the shoulder. “You’ll be good at it.”
Reynolds’ expression softened. “Wouldn’t be here without you two.”
Before Mac could answer, a low murmur rippled through the crowd.
He didn’t need heightened senses to know what caused it.
He turned.
Melvin was stepping out of the cabin at the far end of the meadow.
For a moment everything else faded. The suit fit him perfectly, dark and simple. His scar caught the sunlight just enough to draw the eye, but what struck Mac harder was the steadiness of him.
He looked like a man who knew exactly where he stood in the world.
Mac remembered the first moment he saw him stepping off the transport ramp in Iraq, ruck on his shoulders, eyes already scanning while everyone else tried to pretend they weren’t afraid. Even then there had been something steady about him.
Mac noticed it before he ever really knew Melvin.
Now he knew exactly what it was.
Beside him walked one more figure.
Mac’s former pack Alpha.
Tall, quiet, carrying the kind of presence people noticed without understanding why. He stopped beside Melvin, said something that made him laugh softly, then stepped aside.
Marcus leaned close again. “Still not nervous?”
Mac exhaled slowly. “Now I am.”
Marcus grinned. “Good.”
Music began somewhere behind the chairs, soft and uncomplicated.
Melvin started down the aisle.
