Undercover Wolf Page 16

  She’d expected everything to boil over at some point, but she’d been hoping everyone would wait until after breakfast. Or brunch, she supposed, considering it had already been after eight in the morning by the time they’d all arrived at the safe house the support team had set up for them on the southern outskirts of Athens. But apparently, that was too much to ask.

  As she walked down the hall to the kitchen, Harley wondered if there was any chance they could put their differences aside and focus on the reason STAT and MI6 were still in Greece this morning instead of on a flight back to their respective homes. Namely, Yegor Shevchenko and the millions upon millions of euros he’d gotten away with from the auction. Both STAT and MI6 wanted to know where the man and his millions had gone, as well as what he planned to do with all that money. Actually, MI6 wanted to know a whole lot more than that. Like how the hell the man had gotten out of that prison cell in Turkey without them knowing about it. Unfortunately, while all those issues were definitely important to management, there were a few other problems that were pretty high up on the priority list for each team as well. Problems they were going to have to deal with before doing anything else.

  It was hard to figure out which one of those concerns would be the most contentious this morning—that Sawyer was a werewolf, that Adriana’s boyfriend was actually one of the traffickers, or that Rory had been the one feeding Yegor information since the morning after what happened in Paris.

  Harley hoped it was the latter. She and everyone else had been stunned when they’d found Rory fifteen minutes after the fight was over, holding a young girl who’d been…tortured…for lack of a better word. The girl was Rory’s younger sister, Tilly. His supernatural younger sister. Rory hadn’t been too forthcoming, but from what he’d been willing to tell them last night, they’d learned Yegor had been holding the girl and using threats of violence against her to force Rory to keep him informed on STAT/MI6’s plans.

  Maybe the most shocking part of that particular confession was when Sawyer, Erin, and Elliott had decided to keep the information from Weatherford. At least for now. Maybe that meant everything else would work out okay, too.

  That hope was dashed when Harley stepped into the immense white kitchen with its stucco walls and blue accents and picked up on the tangible tension in the room. She noticed she was the last one down. Well, except for Adriana, who was nowhere in sight. Then again, Adriana was almost certainly still with Kristoff. He was being held on the far side of the city at an abandoned clinic the support team had set up to serve as a makeshift hospital/jail. Not only had they needed a place to keep all the supernaturals until they could get them home, but they also needed somewhere to hold the bad guys they’d arrested. Harley had no idea how she and her teammates would have managed without the combined support teams’ help.

  When Jake called McKay to give him a report, they’d fully expected to have to deal with everyone themselves until the support teams could get there from Morocco, which was nearly a full day away by plane. Luckily, McKay knew better than to listen to them, because he and Weatherford had already moved both backup teams to the airport in Albania, where they’d been waiting on a plane that was fueled up and ready to fly. Two hours later, the support teams showed up to handle transportation and accommodations for everyone on the mountain, including one very happy mermaid in a seriously heavy water-filled tank.

  And since they now knew where the information leak had come from, living without backup was no longer a requirement.

  Harley glanced around as she moved over to the granite island that separated the kitchen from the adjoining living/dining area. As she filled a plate with scrambled eggs, a custard-filled pastry, cheese, yogurt, toast slathered in orange marmalade, and fresh fruits, she noticed her STAT teammates had chosen to grab seats on the far side of the living room while the MI6 agents were at the dining room table on the other side of the room, with Rory sitting at the far end away from the others. Yeah, that particular dynamic was going to take a while to work out. Almost as long as it’d take for them to reconcile with the fact that Sawyer was a werewolf.

  She looked over at Sawyer, noting that he’d moved a chair closer to the coffee table, sitting halfway between the two teams while he ate. He met her gaze, his blue eyes full of hurt, but also resolve. Like he already knew his teammates had rejected him. From the way they were acting, maybe he was right.

  Erin looked so angry she seemed like she might burst into flames—or shoot someone. Elliott kept his eyes on his plate the whole time, even though it was empty, refusing to acknowledge anyone. Rory appeared to be lost in thought for the most part, ignoring his plate of food. No doubt, he was thinking about his sister. Or maybe how the hell he was going to salvage what was left of his career. Assuming MI6 didn’t simply fire him on the spot when they found out.

  Harley’s STAT teammates weren’t quite as tense. As they sipped their coffee, Jes and Forrest darted curious glances back and forth between Sawyer and his friends like they were wondering when someone would light the first match and blow this whole thing to pieces. Jake ate in silence, maybe willing to simply let the MI6 team tear themselves apart if that’s what they wanted to do. Caleb was too busy making roll-ups from cold cuts and cheese and eating them like Twizzlers to pay attention to what anyone else was doing. And Misty looked too exhausted to care about any of this crap. Harley didn’t blame her. Misty had only come out of her coma an hour before sunrise—the coma Yegor had put her in when he’d found her buried in one of his iPads and forcibly ripped her out. To say that yanking Misty out of a network connection was brutal on her consciousness was putting it mildly. Harley and everyone else in STAT worried that one of these days, they’d lose Misty forever.

  Plate in one hand and mug of coffee in the other, Harley moved a kitchen chair over to sit beside Sawyer. That earned her a self-satisfied snort from Erin, as if where she sat confirmed something she already knew, although Harley wasn’t sure what.

  “How’s your chest feeling this morning?” Harley asked, resting her plate on her lap and loading her fork with scrambled eggs. They were mixed with spinach, tomatoes, and feta cheese and simply delicious. She could kiss every member of the support teams for getting all this food delivered.

  Sawyer lifted his hand, his fingers lightly grazing his chest through the button-down he wore, wincing a little. “It’s healed for the most part but still a little tender to the touch and hurts when I cough. Your medics confirmed there weren’t any metal fragments in there, so it should be completely good to go by tonight.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Harley used a slice of cantaloupe to scoop up some of the yogurt, chewing slowly. Werewolves could heal quickly from nearly any wound as long as there wasn’t any foreign debris in it. When Seamus had stabbed Sawyer, that had been the least of her worries. She’d been sure the blade had gone right through his heart, a wound that would kill even a werewolf.

  At that moment, Harley had thought Sawyer was going to die right in front of her and it had been the most horrible moment of her life. Worse than getting hit by that avalanche. Worse than getting buried alive in freezing snow. Worse even than when her family had looked at her like she was a monster and turned their backs on her. At that moment, her chest had constricted so tightly that breathing was impossible and she knew she was going to die right along with him.

  But then she’d pulled out the knife, Sawyer hadn’t died, Adriana had thrown herself on top of her criminal boyfriend, and Erin had lost her ever-loving mind. Somewhere buried in the middle of all that drama, Harley’s heart had started to beat again. With it, came a serious realization that the British MI6 agent meant more to her than she could ever have possibly imagined.

  “You bit him, didn’t you?” Erin demanded, yanking Harley out of the confusing thoughts swirling around in her head. “You turned him into a bloody werewolf!”

  Harley looked up to see Erin, glaring at her and
Sawyer. Well, actually, glaring mostly at her. On the other hand, Elliott was staring straight at Sawyer. But his expression involved less anger and a lot more pity. Maybe he felt badly Sawyer had been turned into a monster by another monster.

  Rory glanced up for a second, his face harder to read, but he didn’t seem nearly as upset as the other two. That was probably because he had a lot more experience with the supernatural world than his teammates. Unlike them, he didn’t look mad or even filled with pity. It was more like he was disappointed in some way.

  “It doesn’t work that way, Erin,” Harley said, nibbling on the sweet custard pastry, hoping the other woman would listen to reason. “People can’t be turned into a werewolf from a bite.”

  Erin stood so fast she nearly flipped over her chair. “Yeah right! You expect us to believe it’s a coincidence that within a few days of running into a team with three werewolves, Sawyer became one by accident? If you didn’t bite him, it’s only because the werewolf curse is sexually transmitted.”

  Caleb snorted so hard Harley was shocked he didn’t choke on his food. When he fixed Erin with a hard look, Harley could tell he definitely wasn’t amused.

  “I thought you were smarter than this,” he scoffed. “If becoming a werewolf was as simple as having sex with one, don’t you think we’d be up to our ears in them by now? Even if it were a bite, there’d still be thousands of us by now. Instead, you’re sitting in the room with the only five werewolves you’re probably ever going to see for the rest of your life.”

  Erin shook her head, her expression making it obvious she was ready to deny everything Caleb said, but Sawyer cut her off.

  “Erin, stop,” he said, his voice firm and impossible to ignore. “Harley didn’t turn me. I was a werewolf long before we ever ran into STAT.”

  Erin and Elliot looked stunned, like they’d been punched in the gut. Rory still seemed more hurt than anything else. Was he more upset Sawyer was a werewolf or that he hadn’t told them?

  “That’s pure rubbish,” Erin insisted. “We’re your teammates. I’d think we’d know if you were a sodding monster.”

  Sawyer went completely still, and for a moment, Harley wasn’t sure if he’d get up and walk out. She wouldn’t blame him if he did.

  “I’ve been a werewolf for more than four years,” he finally said, his voice so soft even Harley had to strain to hear it. “I turned during the shootout in Odessa. After the rest of you dumped me in that hospital and bailed, I coded out three times on the operating room table. I would have died if I hadn’t gone through the change. Being a werewolf was in my blood all along, simply waiting for the right event to bring it out.”

  Harley hated that Sawyer’s teammates were forcing him to admit all of this. But even more, she hated that he had to relive the pain of that night all over again. It was clear now he’d been lying when he said being left behind by his teammates hadn’t bothered him. The agony in his eyes made her want to cry—or tear something apart.

  “What do you mean, it was in your blood?” Erin asked.

  “We call it the werewolf gene,” Harley said, trying to keep her voice calm as she filled the silence. “If we go through something painful and traumatic, we turn. It doesn’t have anything to do with getting bitten or being a monster. It’s genetic.”

  Elliott frowned. “None of that explains why you never told us. You should have come to us and explained what happened.”

  It was Sawyer’s turn to let out a snort. “I tend to remember someone drawing a weapon on the first werewolf she ever met.” He pinned Erin with a look. “And based on how you’ve treated me since last night, it doesn’t seem like my greeting has been that much different. You can’t even stand to be within ten feet of me. So, you tell me, why would I have told you anything? Why would I open myself up to your rejection when I knew that’s all I’d get?”

  Erin crossed her arms over her chest, mouth tight. “We wouldn’t have acted that way if you would have come out and told us right after it happened, instead of waiting to spring it on us like this.”

  Beside her, Harley could see how hard Sawyer was fighting back the hurt and disappointment.

  “Right.” Sawyer got to his feet, facing off against teammates. “You expect me to believe that any of you would have reacted better four years ago if I’d told you I was a werewolf? That I was waking up in the middle of the night with a mouth full of fangs and thought I was going mad most of the time? Please. You think I’m a monster now even after all the time we’ve spent together, the parties we’ve had, holidays we’ve spent together, all the times I’ve saved your lives. If I came to you back then, can any of you look me in the eye and honestly say you wouldn’t have turned your back on me? Or would you have simply turned me over to MI6 headquarters and let them deal with me?”

  Elliott had the decency to look at least somewhat chagrined at Sawyer’s words, but Erin didn’t seem fazed at all.

  “I guess you’ll never know how we would have reacted,” she snapped. “You never gave us the chance to show you one way or the other. Instead, you decided not to trust us. You lied to us!”

  “Trust? Lies?” Harley was so frustrated on Sawyer’s behalf that her fangs started coming out. She stood and walked over to stand beside him, something insisting they present a united front as she glared at Erin. “Are you kidding me? How can you talk about any of that crap after Sawyer saved your butt last night? Hell, if it wasn’t for him, all three of you would have died in Odessa and probably a dozen times since. But all you can do is whine about the secrets he kept from you because he knew you’d never understand or accept him.”

  Harley braced herself for another cutting comment from Erin, but it was Rory who spoke.

  “Is that why you were willing to ditch us before the mission in Morocco?” he asked, eyeing Sawyer. “Because you’d already decided you’d rather work with a team that would be able to accept your secret than stay with us?”

  Harley looked sharply at Sawyer. She didn’t know what Rory was talking about, but it was obvious from the expression on his face that something had happened before they left Paris.

  Sawyer opened his mouth to answer, but Erin interrupted before he could.

  “Don’t bother,” she said, all her anger gone now to be replaced by what appeared to be resignation. “It’s clear you made your decision a long time ago. You trust your new team more than you trust us, and that’s fine. You do what you have to do and we’ll do the same.”

  Harley stared in shock as Erin and Elliott walked out of the room and up the stairs. She glanced at Sawyer to see the muscle in his jaw flex. She wanted to say something—anything—but she was too filled with anguish over what he must be feeling to come up with the words. Not that it mattered because anything she said would have gotten interrupted by Erin and Elliot stomping down the steps and out the front door, overnight bags slung over their shoulders.

  For a minute, Harley expected Sawyer to go after them, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there, face expressionless, and she couldn’t help but think about the day her family turned their backs on her and remember how much it had torn her insides out. She wished like anything he’d never had to experience that.

  Sawyer slanted Rory a look. “What about you? Are you walking out, too?”

  Rory gave him a rueful smile. “I think I should be the last person on the planet throwing around words like trust and lies. I don’t know where the hell I’m going to be tomorrow, but for now, until I figure out what I’m doing next, I’ll stay.”

  Harley suspected that had more to do with whether MI6 found out what Rory had done than if he hated the idea of Sawyer being a werewolf.

  Sawyer gave him a nod, then looked at Jake. “We should go talk to Brielle and Adriana’s boyfriend. See what they can tell us about Yegor.”

  Harley would have preferred to talk to Sawyer alone before they did anything, but one look at him tol
d her that wasn’t going to happen. He was in full-on alpha-male mode right now.

  Jake nodded. “Agreed. If we’re lucky, maybe they know where to find him.”

  “I’m in,” Caleb said. “But first we all need to finish breakfast. That fight last night took a lot out of all of us. And for heaven’s sake, Harley, could you skip the fruit and yogurt and eat some protein? You’re a werewolf, not a wererabbit.”

  Everyone laughed at that—even Sawyer—and for the first time, Harley realized Caleb was a lot more astute than she gave him credit for. As she and Sawyer headed into the kitchen to grab more food, a smile on her face, she turned and mouthed Thank you to her teammate for helping Sawyer forget people he thought were his friends had abandoned him.

  Caleb acted like he didn’t see it, but a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth all the same.

  Chapter 13

  “I didn’t even know Tilly was missing until I received a message at my hotel room in Paris,” Rory said softly, leaning against the doorjamb of his sister’s room, watching grimly as one of the medical support team members carefully tucked a blanket around the girl. “They sent me photos of Tilly in their captivity.” He swallowed hard, clearly reliving the memory. “I was just leaving the room to tell you about it when Yegor called my cell saying he had Tilly and that if I ever wanted to see her again, I had to do exactly as he instructed.” Rory gave Sawyer an apologetic look. “I didn’t want to betray you, but Yegor told me he’d kill Tilly if I didn’t. I couldn’t take the chance he was bluffing. Not when it came to my baby sister. I’d do anything in the world to keep her safe, no matter what. I hope you can understand that.”