Cats Got Your Tongue (Shifter Squad Six) (22 page)

Spade’s arms were crossed over his chest and it was the closest Grim had ever seen the man look really fucking angry. His face was a barely concealed mask of fury, the muscles in his cheeks twitching and his brow furrowed. Grim couldn’t help but grin. He loved pissing that guy off. It seemed to be a bit of a sport with the men of Shifter Squad Six.

“Are we crashing a party?” Grim asked, sincerely hoping they were.

Kelis closed the door behind them. From the look Spade gave her, Grim and Grant were damn near close enough to making the ground beneath their feet open up and gobble them up.

Fuck this guy.

“We were just discussing whether or not I should have all of you shot now or in a few days,” Spade said, the faintest waver in his voice. “You know, to give you a bit of time to think about what you’ve done.”

“No, man, you must have gotten hit in the head with something in Arizona. That’s the only reason that I can see why you’d want to get rid of your best squad,” Grim snorted with a smirk, walking over to Thatch and bumping fists with him. The werewolf looked as pissed off about Spade’s presence as the rest of them, even if he was hopped up on meds and probably missing half a rib from that point-blank range shot he’d taken to the chest.

“Yeah, Spade? Regale us with your tales. What
have
we done other than take out another terrorist cell and ridding the world of some insanity?” Dutch asked, quirking a brow, his lips pressed thin.

“I don’t think you jarheads understand what the fuck you’ve done,” Spade said, seething. “That research was priceless. Not only to The Arctics, but to us.”

Grim glanced at Grant, who was breathing in slow and hard, obviously willing himself to be calm and not rip Spade’s throat out where he stood.

“We have one jarhead here,” Grant said, glancing at Kelis. “But the rest of us are SEALs and you should address us as such, spook.”

“Watch it, Aldroch,” Spade growled, evidently either not caring or not realizing that he was staring down six shifters with more reasons to hate his guts than there were days in a year.

“No.
You
fucking watch it. You know why I blew that lab up? Because they had a room of fucking
dead babies
in there. A room of dead babies that was only going to get bigger because of the shit they were doing,” Tex hissed, hands rolled into fists.

“Whatever that shit was and whatever it was going to do for shifters, the good doesn’t outweigh the bad,” Grant said solemnly. “No way in hell.”

“Don’t think that we didn’t realize what was going on the moment your fucking convoy showed up, Spade. You knew
exactly
what we were doing there. You had eyes on us, or that place. Or both. No fucking way you would have been that fast otherwise,” Tex said, eyes narrowed, his arms crossed over his wide chest.

“What the fuck were you going to do with that shit, Spade? Build your own fucking super soldiers? That’s what you were trying to do with Dylan and Dante, wasn’t it, you sick fuck?” Grim asked, feeling irritation blooming in his chest.

Spade’s eyes flashed gold and that quieted the whole room. Through all the years they’d known the guy, fought with him and against him, none of them had ever seen him shift or even come so close to revealing what the hell he was to begin with. He was always cool, centered, unflappable. And now he was finally showing them that he
was
in fact something other than a man in an expensive suit.

The moment passed as quickly as it had been offered to them, and a second later, Spade had smoothed his expression to that of indifferent disgust directed at each and every one of them equally.

“The Firm’s higher goals are of no concern to you. I do not have to explain myself to you, but you most certainly have to explain yourself to me, and Hemingway. I trust you’ve been enjoying your stay in the Crypts, because I get the feeling you’re going to be spending a lot more time down there. I’m sure your wives and children will enjoy the breather from you,” the tall man said, his voice bland, dead, lifeless.

Before Grim knew what he was doing, he was launching himself toward Spade, fists ready to pound his face in. The bastard didn’t move an inch or do a single thing to protect himself, and about two feet before Grim reached him, Dutch collided into him like a fucking tank. Grim sucked in a breath as his friend averted his course, two arms on his shoulders, spinning him away from the dangerous intel officer.

Grant was by his side a second later, giving a look of unfiltered hate at the serene façade of the man who’d come to plague the existence of every single person in the room.

“He’s not fucking worth it, Grim,” Dutch hissed. “I know. Your kids need you and he’s not above leaving you in those Crypts. Think about Dylan and Dante.”

Grant clapped his hand on Grim’s shoulder and between the two of them, Grim relaxed only slightly, but enough for his brother and friend to let go. His chest was heaving up and down, honest anger coiled so tight he didn’t know what to do with it. Dutch Henley should have been the first guy in the room pounding Spade into the dirt, but if he could control himself, could Grim be any worse?

It was at that moment that Connor peeled himself away from the wall he’d been leaning on. It dawned on Grim that their squad commander and lieutenant hadn’t said a word during the whole exchange. So when he strode up to Spade, stopping right in front of him, all eyes were on the two great men.

“What do you want, Lieutenant McLaughlin?” Spade asked, his voice icy cold.

Connor grinned, a vicious looking smile that tugged the corners of his mouth up. When he punched Spade square in the face, making the man stumble back and clutch his jaw with one hand, the room went so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. Blood dripped from Spade’s split lip and mouth, painting his teeth crimson red. But his eyes didn’t flash gold again and he straightened himself up, not even moving to wipe the blood away as it dribbled down his chin.

He stepped up to Connor again and every member of Connor’s squad, Grim most of all, was waiting for a signal to allow them to beat the spook to a bloody pulp on the floor.

“What do you want, Lieutenant McLaughlin?” Spade asked again.

“I just wanted to look you in the eye when I gave you a taste of what’s to come. You fuck with my crew, you get fucked with back. We’ve been putting up with your bullshit for too fucking long, Spade. One more thing and I won’t hesitate to track you down like the cockroach you are and exterminate you, just like we do with every fucking Arctic we meet.”

Connor’s tone was light, conversational even. One by one, the men in his squad smiled, snarling sneers that were expecting blood to spill. Grim kept his gaze firmly on Spade, waiting for a reaction, something to justify what he wanted to do. But the intel officer just smirked, looking every bit the bloodsucking fiend Grim thought him to be.

“Big words for a man looking forward to a few months of solitary confinement in the Crypts.”

“The darkness never bothered us,” Grant said, stepping forward. “If it did, we would have had to shoot you the first day we met you.”

Spade smiled at that, looking almost pleasant. He inclined his head, finally wiping his chin with the sleeve of his shirt, smearing the blood as much as he was wiping it away. Grim understood then that at that very moment, Spade looked like everything he’d always subconsciously thought him to be. And the urge to rid the world of him had never been greater.

“I’ll send my regards when you’re back in the Crypts. Enjoy the sunshine while you can,” Spade said, inclining his head toward the window and the blaze of light shining in from there.

Then he pushed away from Connor, pressing between Dutch, Grim, and Grant on his way out. Grim’s hands twitched to reach for his neck and snap it before he ever made it to the door, but his eyes met Kelis’s just in time. The look in them made him stop, made him gather himself.

He couldn’t leave that woman alone again. Not now, not ever.

“Does anyone want to tell me what happened now?” Kelis asked as the door had closed behind Spade and brooding silence had lingered over the room for a few seconds.

“What’s there to tell?” Thatch asked with a grimace. “We’re working for a bunch of assholes and said assholes delight in fucking us over.”

“I always thought it should be the other way around,” Grim said with an audible sigh.

“As in?” Thatch queried.

“Us fucking over the assholes, obviously,” Grant added dryly.

It was entirely stupid, but all seven of them started laughing. Loud, healthy sounds, a moment shared between people who could trust one another with everything, including their lives.

It was then that Grim thought that there was hope. That everything could turn out okay.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Grant

The situation in Arizona had been easy enough to explain. The moment Grim and Grant reported back with what they found, the plan had been forming in their heads, and by the time Kelis called in that there was a convoy nearing, everything had been set into motion. It was clear to all of them that evil like The Arctics could not be allowed to stay in the world and the lab would have to be destroyed.

None of them trusted The Firm enough to give them the power over what had been learned that day. Salvaging only as much or as little as they figured they needed for Dylan and Dante, Tex had been told to get rid of everything else. He’d done so with gusto. Apparently it only took a few well-placed charges around the humongous cooling vats to make for a rather spectacular light show.

The squad had made it out just in time, though every single one of them had still been subjected to an aerial flight of about thirty to fifty feet as the explosion picked them up and flung them like rag dolls. Grant had gotten lucky in that he’d shifted in time and when he was thrown on a collision course with a patch of trees, he’d managed to cling to one of the branches.

Tex had been the last one out and though he wasn’t showing it much, Grant knew that the tibia he had broken in the aftermath had to hurt like hell. Connor was unflappable as ever and Grant didn’t know how Grim did it, but the guy always seemed to haul himself out of the worst situations with barely a scratch.

After that, they’d all gotten picked up by The Firm, Spade at the helm as they’d suspected, and driven back to San Francisco without so much as a word of an explanation. Now, they’d been sitting in the Crypts for a few months, with Connor having one more to go and Thatch having gotten out a bit earlier on account of his injuries.

The Crypts were not a pleasant place. It was essentially a very small, cramped, private prison with no way of communicating, no light, and no noise. It would drive a weak man crazy within days and thoroughly strain a stronger one in a week. But Grant found himself living through it well enough, with thoughts of his beautiful mate, his kids, and his Alpha twin keeping him more than pleasantly occupied.

When the day came to be let out, Kelis was waiting for them at the exit, Grant being led through one door and Grim through another. When the light hit Grant’s eyes, he was entirely blinded, standing like a deer in headlights, blinking for a few moments. He still hadn’t regained his sight when he was already running toward Kelis, Dylan, and Dante, smelling them and sensing them with the precision of a predator who’d been forced to lie dormant for far too long.

Finally!

He reached them at the same time as Grim did and they were thrown into a pile of arms and legs and laughter. Kelis had both of the baby boys in her arms and Grant gasped as Dante’s strong hands gripped around his neck, holding himself up as they hugged. First, Grant kissed Dante on the forehead and as his vision cleared, he did so to Dylan and then finally to Kelis, who was then just only being released from Grim’s fevered embrace.

“I can’t believe you’re both here!” Kelis gushed, cheeks lit with a happy blush as Grant took one boy in his arms and Grim the other. “I thought you’d never get out!”

“You and us both,” Grim said with a chuckle, nuzzling his nose into Dylan’s hair.

“How about we get the fuck out of here, hmm?” Grant asked, motioning toward the car Kelis had come in.

It was a big Ford pickup, but with two safety seats for the kids. It was packed to the rafters when Grim and Grant hopped in as well.

“Tell us everything,” Grant said as he smoothed himself into the driver’s seat, not particularly caring where they were going, just wanting to put distance between himself and The Firm for now.