A Guardians Passion (35 page)

“Ready to get to work?” Geraldine asked.

Freya wasn’t, but she knew that she needed to be.

* * * *

On the screen before Freya was a happy female, her brown eyes filled with tears of joy. Her roommate back at the retreat and the mother of stolen twin cubs had just received the best news of her life, it seemed, glistening water upon peanut-brown cheeks.

“We got ’em. Both of them,” Freya announced over her mic.

Shaking with relief, Melissa replied over the webcam. “Thank the moon! Thank the moon, Freya.” Having been just liberated herself, Melissa was still wild with anxiety. They had pulled her from a coven in Cuba, the extraction team a small pack of mercenary wolves from Vieques, Puerto Rico, leading the swift attack. As Freya watched, the warrior-wolves had hammered the villa in their search. Yet once freed, it was Melissa who hunted down the vampire responsible for purchasing her. Vampiric ash still covered Melissa’s hands, arms, and chest, undoubtedly the remnants of tearing him apart.

Although she was viewing the matron over a satellite feed, Freya couldn’t have seen the murderous glee in the female’s eyes with any more clarity.

Freya had been elated that they had found the cubs, Bryant and Ryant, nearly two hours prior, but had been worried about their mother until now. “They’re en route with a team of guards, flying in from Seattle.”

“My cubs…were in Seattle,” Melissa replied rhetorically.

Freya could almost sense the other female’s need to kick more ass. “We got ’em back, girl. That’s all that matters. They’ll be with you soon.”

“Right. Thank you. I am so grateful.” Melissa sighed. She shook bared arms corded with muscles that she probably used a great deal back in her days as a prizefighter. “If ever I wanted to hunt, to go on the warpath and tear out a few throats—”

Speaking against the microphone, Freya distanced herself from the moment, the task, and her own struggles. “Look. I know exactly what you’re talking about. Trust and believe that. But we have our own jobs to do. We have cubs that need us. We do have mates. That’s what they are for.”

“Yeah, you sound hella convincing,” Melissa responded sarcastically.

She was doing her best. Her mother and Cole had seen to it that Freya had barely a moment to be alone after Rayne and Fenris departed with Dona. There was no time or privacy for her to lament the fact that she was left behind, that she wouldn’t be able to join in the battle. There had been logistics to coordinate, locations to be handed out to assembled teams, calls to make, and surveillance to monitor. The hours had flown by, and nightfall was swiftly approaching. Soon, she knew, the vampires would be awake, and they would begin squawking. Some would start shoring up their defenses while others fled for stronger shelter. The retrieval progress would slow, and rather than assaults, there would be sieges. “Trust me when I tell you that the vamps are catching the business at the moment. But night is coming fast.”

“They’ll realize that we’re on to them?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you need anything from me?” Melissa inquired a little too eagerly.

“Yeah. Gonna need you to holler at your mate. He’s been blowing up the Sohon telephone lines. He needs to know that you and the cubs are all right. Can you do that?”

Melissa hung her head for a moment and then blew out a steadying breath. “Yeah. I should do that.”

Freya ended the conference call, not overly enthusiastic about having gazed into a mirror. There was still work that needed to be done. Melissa’s anxiousness had been a reflection of hers. Fighting was so much easier than planning, watching, and waiting.

Looking across the table, she saw Gaea pacing the floor with her own headset on and Cole typing furiously at one of the consoles with François advising at his side. Vaegar was watching an incursion on one of the recently wall-mounted screens while enjoying what looked and smelled like bison. Geraldine was working along with Vaegar’s men to inspect the weaponry that had recently arrived in crates—blades, guns, and several explosive devices that would be needed if Di’Amanda attempted to reclaim her mansion.

Going back to the workstation that had been arranged for her, Freya cued up the multifaceted display of two ongoing assaults. While a great deal had been done during the day, it was the teams on the other side of the world that everyone else was monitoring. The prayer was that those who knew about the werewolves’ retaliations would be dead before the sun went down on one half of the globe and rose on the other. That the near entirety of the vampire race would eventually rise up in outrage was inevitable, as was the case that one of their key adversaries, Di’Amanda, was still on the loose.

Geraldine and Vaegar were wise to shore up the defenses of the mansion, Freya thought. Everyone seemed to be on edge as if they knew how ugly the situation could truly get and were ready for it. Any other time, Freya would have been just like them. She would have been focused, cool, and anxious. Yet all she could think of was having her mates back at her side. Looking at the time display at the corner of her computer, she realized that nearly the entire day had passed.

Freya cursed herself for not having asked Dona for a time frame as she closed her eyes and tried to calm nerves on fire. They would not fail a second time, certainly not with the aid of Rayne’s wytchen father. She simply needed to be patient and have faith in those she had mated to, her brute and her beta.

She smelled the familiar scent of an omega and opened her eyes just as Ezra set a large, steaming mug on the table in front of her. “What the—”

“Rayne told me that it would calm you.” Ezra frowned with worry. “Warm soy milk with a little bit of molasses? He said you liked it.”

She eyed the mixture before her and wondered what other instructions might have been given.

“You do like it, don’t you?”

Freya blinked back her ponderings and took hold of the mug. She drew upon the creamy mixture with a long, slow pull. She savored the sweetness and knew that Bun was as well. “Yeah, I do.”

Ezra’s mood lightened at once, his white teeth gleaming in the frame of his smile. He slid down to the floor, where he could grab hold of the boot she wore. He unfastened the strings to remove it before pulling down her sock and tending to her foot. “Good. They wanted me to make sure that you were well taken care of.”

Her lips still pressed to the rim of the mug, Freya wasn’t about to deny the omega his orders. A good foot massage had never killed anyone, and Ezra did give great ones. He was proving to be a good fit and a perfect distraction. With the absence of her mates, she was glad to have him. “My boys like you.”

“I like them too. You are very lucky. As are they.”

“That would make you lucky too if you hung with us.”

Pushing up the hem of the maxidress that Freya wore, Ezra rubbed his cheek against Freya’s calf. He sighed, betraying a hint of anxiety. While he might have claimed that his interest started with her, it had a great deal to do with her beta, she was certain.

“I would gladly hang,” he said, “with yours and alpha Fenris’s permission and beta Rayne’s, of course.”

“Too good to be true is what you are.” Freya sipped more of her milk and then smirked when cinnamon-brown eyes looked up to her expectantly. She swore that she could see sparks of red within the irises, like rubies dancing within brown fire. She wondered why she had never noticed it before. “What are you?”

“A wolf.”

Wolves’ eyes glowed, reflected light at angles, but colors did not dance within the irises like hypnotic beacons eagerly soothing her right down to the bones. There was something in his blood, she suspected. “What else?”

“I’m an omega.”

He grinned wickedly, tongue worrying the round curve of her calf muscle as his fingers kneaded her skin. The fucking cherub was cranking his wiles up to the max. “Don’t make me kick you.” Freya gave a hollow threat. The last thing that she wanted was to push him away, full-blooded or no. “You have a touch of fae in you?”

“Only a quarter.”

“That’s enough. That explains a shitload.”

Ezra nodded, fingers cool and firm against her skin. He became serious. “Being wanted is one thing,” he said. “Being useful is another. That’s the omega part of me. You and yours…you need. You’re all so strong, yet still you need—”

“To calm the fuck down sometimes,” Freya offered, anticipating his words.

“Yeah, exactly.”

Freya grinned, unable to find fault. She had known of other packs with omegas in their ranks, pampered but shy creatures always willing to submit, but there were none in her family. It wasn’t that she hadn’t known or understood their purpose, but lately she could declare she knew why they were so prized. Ezra gave off warmth, and yes, he relaxed her. Whether that had anything to do with him being fae or not, she wasn’t sure, but she was thankful for it.

She reached out and cupped his cheek. She stroked the soft yet firm flesh with her thumb. She was about to lean down and kiss him when a familiar voice sounded.

“That’s a pretty little piece you got there,” said Geraldine, staring at Freya with pruned lips, crossed arms, and a look of irritation. “You want to get back to work, or did you want to head upstairs for the full massage? Not trying to inconvenience ya or anything. Just asking.”

Freya had no reply, tensing up with the urge to tell her mother to mind her business. Remembering what common sense was, she ground her teeth and kept silent instead.

The gesture did not go unnoticed, as her mother cocked her head quizzically. “What? You ain’t delicate in any way, and I ain’t gonna treat you like you are. You’d be tensing up the second I did. Gritting and scowling worse than you are. Now get back to monitoring.”

Freya took a small breath that seemed to take forever to release. She gestured for Ezra to put her sock and boot back on her foot as her mother returned to the weapons check. Freya finished her mug of milk just as Ezra rose to his feet beside her. She handed him the empty container and confirmed his assumptions. “Yeah. I’m gonna
need
the fuck outta you.”

Ezra chuckled as he tapped the porcelain cup on the side. “I’ll bring you another.”

Chapter Twenty

It didn’t really matter which mountain range they were traipsing through or how deep they were beneath the earth. There were insects that Rayne had never seen in any journal or tome. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught an albino cross between a mole and a sea urchin scurry into a hole in the wall. It piqued his curiosity but didn’t slow his gait. The earth held many secrets—beasts that were supposed to mythical but weren’t, and creatures that should have been fantasy but obviously weren’t.

Fenris led the way, insisting, after Dona’s first-class travel arrangements. From the mansion to the mountain, it had seemed as if they had taken forever moving through a tunnel of fog. Rayne knew it was out of anxiousness that Fenris wanted to walk point. His alpha hadn’t bothered to disguise his hatred for the method of travel and made it clear that he wanted to take his frustration out on something.

Rayne shared Fenris’s dislike of teleporting. It made him nauseated, but he swiftly overcame it and kept pace with Fenris’s long strides. He was just as intent on getting his claws into tough asprega flesh, his fangs into Birathan, and securing Freya’s confidence.

First Birathan would pay, and then Rayne would deal with the vamp and whoever else dared threaten the future of his race; half-breed or no, wolves were his kind. The insult done to werewolf mothers was beyond foul, and Rayne wanted vengeance. He didn’t have to ask Fenris if he felt the same. He was certain of it, having known how to gauge his alpha’s moods ever since they were boys.

Rayne could still recall the first discussion that they had regarding their dark goddess, about how taming her would be so exhilarating and wild. Fenris grinned madly whenever he mentioned to Rayne how she was a warrior worthy of their desire even before the pageant.

Warriors were fine. His alpha was among the finest. They needed thrill, danger, and challenges, but Rayne could only tolerate so much risk. Would only tolerate so much.

They walked briskly, silent for a length of time while Rayne contemplated how he would explain his absence to Freya and Fenris. Neither would berate him openly. They would both throw up shields of strength. They would try to get him to reconsider. Fenris would become stern, and Freya would be sullen and swearing, but Rayne had no choice. He had to go.

“You two are mighty quiet,” pondered Dona from behind them. “Tails hanging between your legs due to your recent failures perhaps?”

Rayne looked over his shoulder with an insult at the ready, but Fenris spoke first. “I wonder if I would fail at attempting to shorten your life.”

Dona moved forward, keeping stride with Rayne. He didn’t seem humbled at all by the threat. “Possibly not, but then I am technically family, and perhaps my grandchild will need me.”

Rayne glared at his father. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that his father had a propensity for callousness, but for the wytchen to flirt so readily with disaster was unexpected. Fenris was not in the best of moods. And while it might have been an inconvenience to return to Freya on foot, it certainly wouldn’t be impossible.

“What?” Dona balked. “Here and now is the perfect time for you two to hash things out, provide a united front for what is to come.”

“And that would be?”

“Your woman and your cub. Future cubs,” Dona replied to Fenris. “While the eggs of humans and most mammals only allow the entry of one sperm, wytchen are quite different. I imagine that chimeras must be different too, because the babe Freya carries radiates the strength of both of you.”

Rayne’s pulse raced, mainly because he yearned to strangle his father. He had wanted to give Fenris the right of the first cub, had tried everything he knew to ensure that his sperm would fail to reach her womb. But then, Rayne hadn’t been certain of skills outside of healing, he knew Dona would say.
“A small-tooth cub with a whale carcass,”
his father had accused him of being when he was young.
“So much potential and not a fucking clue how to wield it,”
Dona had lamented over a son who had just healed a dog that had been hit by a car but still refused to have anything to do with him.