She wondered which was worse. Bad people or no people.
“How did you… I mean—” She gestured at him. “Were you in the military?”
“I was.” But his tone said he wasn’t going to share much more than that.
That wasn’t good enough. He knew way too much about her and her family—and she didn’t know what kind of person he was, deep down inside. Like, if he would flip out under pressure.
And more than that—something inside her wanted to know him. All of him. The good parts and the bad parts. Were his insides as pretty as his outsides? Were blackmail and manipulation a normal part of his daily routine, or was it a desperation move on his part?
“Why did you leave?” she persisted.
His jaw clenched, and he stared straight ahead in silence. She settled back in her seat. She wasn’t saying a word until she got answers.
The road bounced them a little, but Blake seemed to be experienced at maneuvering around the larger holes. The silence was thick and uncomfortable, but she just sat there, staring at him, lips pressed together.
“I was discharged for disobeying orders,” he finally said.
“So, not a happy ending then.”
“Yes.” He clamped his lips shut and didn’t speak.
Wow. This was like pulling fangs. Was the entire visit going to be like this? “What orders did you disobey? Oh, pull over here.”
He didn’t answer as he pulled to a stop.
Krista undid her seatbelt and turned to him. “Look. I need to know who I’m riding with. I need to know if you’re the kind of guy who’s liable to just blow up for no reason, or… I just need to know what I’m working with.”
He released a growl but finally turned to face her. “I was ordered not to save my team.”
Her eyes widened in shock. When shifters joined the military, their team became like their pack. They formed fierce, close bonds, and asking him to betray that bond—it would be like ordering him to tear his own limb off.
That was morally wrong, on every level. Like telling a parent to abandon their cubs. “Why would anyone tell you not to save your team?”
“Because our C.O. sent us behind enemy lines even though we didn’t have authorization to be there. Any act or mission to rescue them would have been seen as an act of war.”
“Do you still keep in touch with them?”
“Sure, when they’re not overseas. They’re still in, I’m not. I took the fall. Somebody had to. Lots of them had family counting on their paychecks. I didn’t.” His tone grew terser with every word.
So, he was alone now. That must be hard. No pack, no family, no team. And he’d signed up to the military as soon as he turned 18, so that must have been a wrench. Wolves especially seemed to crave the pack structure. Her anger uncoiled a little, and sympathy seeped in.
She wanted to question him more, but they also needed to get a move on if they wanted time to talk to the Reeds before sunset. The cub came first.
“Here,” she said, and gestured at a fallen pine tree. “Okay. Crossing past that tree with the wrong intent could be seen as an act of war, too. So do me a favor, and when we go behindtheseenemy lines, let me do the talking because I know these people and I know their ways. And you don’t.”
He narrowed those blazing amber orbs of his and said nothing. She could feel him bristling. He wasn’t a guy who took orders easily it seemed, and she couldn’t blame him after what had happened. He was going to have to make an exception here, though.
It was night-time, but the midsummer sun hadn’t set yet. They still had maybe another hour of daylight.
They trekked a quarter mile up a gentle slope in silence until they finally made it to a cabin nestled on the hillside. This was the main Reed house, where they lived most of the time. It was big, six bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a broad front porch with rocking chairs and a white porch swing—all paid for by moonshine. It looked peaceful, with a bubbling brook nearby and a bunch of happy little trees dotting the landscape, but this wasn’t a Bob Ross painting. She scanned the area, trying to find any indication that Dawnie or any of her kids were even around. Dawnie was the holler’s matriarch in more ways than one, and she often took in waifs and strays—Krista should know since she’d once been one of them—so she wasn’t necessarily looking for a familiar face.
Her scent was all over the place, of course, and it smelled relatively fresh, but it could have been as old as a day. Krista couldn’t scent as well in human form as she could when she was shifted.
The front door banged open, and a large bear shifter in overalls with only one strap fastened stepped out onto the porch. His T-shirt was so grimy it was impossible to tell what color it should have been. He looked and smelled like he hadn’t bathed in a year, and knowing him, that guess probably wasn’t too far off.
Great. Of course, it would be Percy come to greet her.
Her heart sank. Of Dawnie’s two sons, Percy was the smarter—and that wasn’t a good thing. Gummi was bigger and dumber, but he was like a sweet, clumsy puppy. Percy was mean as a rattlesnake, and he had just enough smarts to make him dangerous. Not enough smarts to be left in charge of the operation, though.
