Walk on the Striped Side (15 page)

Once done with his speech, the
dangerous Pack Master stood up from his chair and left the room. Much to
Elena’s surprise, Vera was right behind him. She’d never considered the fact
that shifters of different species intermingled relationship wise. Which was
ridiculous now that she thought about it. Why wouldn’t they? After all, they
spent most of their time as human. Their beasts didn’t entirely rule them. So
of course they might find someone on the other side of the fur fence to get
freaky with. It was the ultimate proof that dogs and cats really could get
along.

Speaking of getting along, why did
the Pack Master say that Gage was the one person who didn’t have a choice about
going? She didn’t think that one species of
Other
had any authority over another. So why would a wolf have the right to tell a
feline shifter that he had to go? Was Gage in some kind of trouble that she
didn’t know about?

A tug on the handcuff still
attached to her left wrist brought her attention over to Gage. “What are you
thinking about?” His low voice rumbled.

Turning her body in the chair to
face him, she crossed her legs and got comfortable. She didn’t want the pesky
cat to know that she was worried about him, so she’d have to give him something
else to talk about. It was fact finding time. “Who’s this Corvus guy and why
does some
Pack
of wolf shifters want to kill him?”

Gage leaned forward to rest his
arms on his knees and clasped his hands around the ankle Elena had dangling
from her knee in front of him. “Marcus Corvus is, or was, the Alpha of the very
Pack that holds him hostage. That they managed to subdue him at all is somewhat
amazing because he’s a very old, powerful shifter. We’re not quite sure what
exactly has happened, but we know that somehow, the wolves in his Pack have
turned into a bit of extremist group. A few months ago, a few of their Pack
came here and caused a lot of trouble. That’s how they came to be on our
radar.”

“What did they do here?” Elena
asked.

“Went into a high end restaurant
and held some Senators and their families’ hostage.” Nodding his head in the
direction of Jenna, and then across the table at pretty boy. “Jenna and her
partner Kent are on the Wilmington Police Department’s SWAT team. They were the
ones to go in after the first SWAT team failed. After Jenna and Kent’s team neutralized
the situation, Jenna told her Uncle, the Pack Master, about it. It’s unusual
for
Others
to do anything that would put the
public spotlight on us, but it seemed like these guys were doing it for the
attention. They claimed to the Police and the Press that they were doing it for
a ransom, but once we started investigating the situation, that didn’t seem
right. The Corvus Pack is loaded. Its members shouldn’t need to do anything
drastic like that for money.”

Elena threw her hand up in the
universal stop gesture, and then leaned closer to Gage to whisper. “Back that
truck up, did you just say Jenna’s uncle is the Pack Master? The same Pack
Master that just threatened her with his snarling, cranky rabies and fangs
impression?”

Gage leaned into her space to
whisper back. “Yes, that’s her Uncle. And I hope you know this whispering is
pointless because every person in this room just heard what you said.”

Elena tried really hard not to
blush in embarrassment as she looked up and found the room’s inhabitants
smiling at her. Looking over to Jenna, Elena apologized hesitantly. “
Ummm
… sorry?”

Jenna snorted in amusement before
looking at the red haired man who still held the back of her neck and was
basically invading the woman’s space in every way he could. “Do you think I
could get away with telling Uncle Owen I think he has rabies?”

The red haired man shook his head.
“Not if you want to keep breathing you won’t.”

CHAPTER-SIXTEEN

Gage

He watched as his mate turned her
back on the others as they joked and faced him again. His hands were still
holding the bare skin of her ankle. He couldn’t help himself. Both man and
beast were anxious to have some type of physical connection with her since
she’d yet to accept their matting. He started rubbing his thumbs in slow
circles on her baby soft skin and it took everything he had not to purr at the
contentment the action gave him.

Elena studied him for a few seconds
before she asked, “So you’re going on this mission to rescue this Alpha who’s
being kidnapped?”

Nodding his head, “Yeah. This is
important. We believe this Pack has terrorist type plans for the future. We
know that they have extreme prejudices against humans. We need to rescue the
Alpha because he can give us the information we need to shut whatever his Pack is
planning, and because he doesn’t deserve to die this way. The man’s a fucking
legend in our world. It wouldn’t be right to let some twisted, sadistic idiots
kill him.”

“I get it Rambo, you need to save
the world. What I don’t understand is why the Pack Master said that you were
the only one here that he could make go on the mission.”

Gage shrugged his shoulders. “The
Spec Ops group you saw me working with in the Army does more than military
missions. Part of the reason we exist is to help keep the
Other
Community
in check. The heads of the world’s government organizations agree that the
world isn’t ready to know about us. So if we hear about something that could
potentially out us to the humans, it’s our job to go investigate and shut it
down if need be.”

“Wait a second. I thought humans
didn’t know about you period, point blank, end of the damn story. You’re
telling me that the government knows?”

Gage shot her an amused grin.
Sometimes her naivety was just so damn cute.

“Do you honestly think that in
thousands of years no government official has figured out what we are?”

Completely flabbergasted, Elena’s
mouth opened and shut a few times before she said “How can that be? In my
entire life, I’ve never heard a serious rumor about vampires, werewolves or
demons! So how can you sit there and tell me that some of the human population
knows? Certainly something would have leaked out by now?”

Gage shook his head. “You’re
thinking the wrong way baby. I never said human, I said government official.”

He watched as the light went off in
her head. “So there are
Others
who are in
government?”

“Exactly. We need them there. We
have to know what’s going on. You’d be surprised how man demons and shifters
are in government positions.”

“No vampires?” She asked curiously.

Gage shrugged. “A few. It’s harder
with their severe allergic reactions to the sun.”

She giggled at his lame joke and he
felt his chest squeeze at the sound. He’d do almost anything to hear that sound
from her every day for the rest of her life.

Squeezing her ankle to get her
attention he murmured, “I have to call my team now. It won’t take but a
minute.”

Whipping his cellphone out, he
dialed Tyson who picked up on the first ring. Relaying the essential info, he
promised to debrief him further once the man arrived in Wilmington. The Lion
was going to have to get their unit ready for action and there was no time to
delay. As he hung up the phone, Gage was already running a mental list in his
head of what equipment he was going to have to grab from his house. Tyson would
have the plane so transportation for the group wouldn’t be an
issu
-.

“So Mr. Puss
In
Boots, you’ve got an interesting conundrum on your hands.” Elena suddenly
announced.

Gage cocked an eyebrow in question
and waited for her to continue. She looked all too smug at the moment in his
opinion, which meant he wasn’t going to like whatever it was that was about to
come out of her mouth.

One side of her mouth ticked up in
a smirk. “Are you going to take me on the mission with you…
”
She raised her handcuffed hand, which of course raised his own hand, and held
them in the air in front of him. “Or are you going to
uncuff
me now?”

He narrowed his eyes at Elena. The
scheming little shit. She was just a little too smug about something.

Alec scoffed “Of course he’s not
taking you. I don’t care if you are an Amazon, you’re still a vulnerable human.
That would be like leading the lamb to the wolf buffet.”

Elena lost her smug look to shoot
an incredulous glare at his brother. “The wolf buffet?”

“Would you prefer it if I had said
that it would be like leading little Red Riding Hood to her Grandma’s House of
Doom?”

“I’m not completely helpless you
know!” She snapped back.

“Sure, that’s why you’re handcuffed
to my brother, because you’re not helpless.”

Elena’s face turned red in anger.
“I was in the Army jackass! You don’t think they taught me a thing or two while
I was in?”

Alec rolled his eyes. “Like I was
saying, a piggy to the slaughterhouse.” He let out an oink sound. “Here comes
the bacon.”

“The phrase is ‘a lamb to the
slaughter’ you imbecile!”

Gage watched their spat with little
interest. Instead, his attention was focused on his mate’s face and her devious
little plan. A plan that he was pretty sure had just backfired on her, but she
hadn’t quite figured it out yet. Without having to pry it out of her, Gage was
pretty damn sure that Elena had thought that Gage wouldn’t take her on the
mission. She’d probably assumed that he would think it would be too dangerous
for her. And if he couldn’t take her, then he’d have to
uncuff
her and let her go. At least that’s what she thought.

The truth was a different matter.
Gage knew all too well just how capable his ornery little mate was. He’d
checked her service records after he’d fucked her for the first time. He should
feel bad for intruding on her privacy like that, but the fact was that he
didn’t. A man had to know whether he’d just stuck his dick in crazy. Because
crazy women were the ones that tried to sneak in your room and cut off your
cojones while you were sleeping in retaliation for you ending things.

What he’d found while snooping
through her record at the time had surprised him. Not only was it exemplary,
but Elena had achieved expert status with her weapon’s qualifications and had
also exceled in her hand to hand combat training. If she had been a man, they
would have asked her to join one of Special Forces teams. Looking back now, her
service record should have tipped him off that she was more than the average
human woman. But he’d ignored all of those seemingly important signs to focus
on one thing and one thing only, she wasn’t crazy. Therefore, he could keep
sticking his dick in her without fear of losing it. What a fucking idiot he’d
been.

So now here he sat with a conniving
mate who had thought to outmaneuver him. Only, she ended up being manipulated
around to Gage’s intentions of taking her on the mission with him, but by Alec
instead of himself. A couple of insinuations from his brother about it being
too dangerous for her to go, and now she was spitting mad. Because Elena was
more than capable of going on this mission and protecting herself. Even against
shifters. All Gage had to do was put the right weapons in her very capable
hands and turn her loose on those poor mangy bastards in Germany. They would
never know what hit them.

“You’re not really thinking about
taking her, are you bro?” Now Alec sounded worried.

Gage pulled his eyes off the very
angry face of the woman he loved and glanced over to his brother. He loved that
idiot, but if his sibling didn’t learn quickly to watch what he said around
Elena, there would be no way Gage would be able to save Alec from her wrath.

Grabbing Elena’s handcuffed hand in
his own, he placed them on the table in view of everyone to make a statement.
He
would not be separated from his mate for any reason
. He rubbed his thumb in
soothing circles over her baby soft skin of her hand and thanked God for what
was probably the thousandth time that he was able to do such a simple act again
as touching her.

“She’s going.”

“Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Alec shouted. “You’re going to get her killed!”

Gage growled at his brother. Not
liking the man’s insinuation that he would ever do anything that would or could
harm his mate. Alec leaned forward and lowered his voice.

“Think about this brother, and
think hard. You and I both know you wouldn’t make it if anything happened to
her.”

He felt Elena’s body stiffen next
to him. It wasn’t hard to figure out that she was probably a little shocked or
confused at Alec’s statement. She still hadn’t figured out that Gage had pushed
her away because he would probably die of grief whenever she died because of
her humanity. This was a grim reminder of exactly why he needed to keep Elena
with him at all times. He needed every second he could get to work his way into
the stubborn Amazon’s heart. Make her love him so much that she couldn’t bear
to leave him when she figured it all out.

Gage gave her hand a gentle squeeze
for comfort and then resumed his slow circles on her skin. He didn’t have time
to wallow on this matter. He had to get things taken care of so he could
concentrate on Elena. First, they had to get to Germany and rescue Alpha
Corvus. Second, they had to come back and clear Lulu of her murder charges with
the Ninth Circle Council. Then finally he could have some time with his mate.
No interruptions. No worries other than their relationship.

Turning his attention away from his
internal thoughts and back to his brother, he smiled. He could tell from the
varying facial expressions of everyone in the room that they all thought he was
out of his mind to consider taking Elena with him. The only person who might
understand how he felt at the moment seemed to be Adam, who was looking at him
with resignation. When you loved a woman who had the heart of a warrior, you
couldn’t try to wrap her in bubble wrap and put her on a shelf. You had to let
her be who she was or you’d end up suffocating her fiery spirit. Gage refused
to do that to his mate. Besides, he had ways to protect her from the potential
dangers.

“Don’t worry about Elena. By the
time I’m done outfitting her with weapons, she’s going to be a one woman army.
If I were you though brother, I’d stay away from her after she has fire power.
I can’t guarantee she won’t shoot your annoying ass.”