Bear My Baby (Shifter Squad Six 1) (13 page)

“Okay, your turn. I think our questions game got sidetracked last time. Whatever I can tell you, I will,” he promised, coaxing her out of the shell he saw her trying to retreat into.

It was crucial to get her talking. His mission was supposed to start in two days. He was running out of time, and fast. There weren’t a lot of things that would make him send his crew into battle without him, but making sure his woman and his baby were okay and on the same page as he was would definitely be one of them. All the boys would understand, too. But that only worked if she wanted him there.

“Why did you join the military?”

“You want the patriotic version or the honest one?” She gave him a look that told him in grand details how little she was interested in the less truthful version.

Honesty only with her. Got it.

“I joined because I was tired of chasing my tail.”

He shrugged, whiffing the air instinctively. There was that cold, creeping feeling again that he’d been getting for the last few days. He wrote it off as his nerves fucking with him, but that didn’t stop him from glancing around a few times to see if there was anyone else with them at the beach. No one. Odd.

“I was twenty and I’d tried about twelve different jobs at that point. Nothing stuck. I’d get lazy, I’d start goofing off, and I’d get fired. Or worse, I would pick a fight and cave someone’s face in who wasn’t ready to fight a hormone-laden werebear who happened to be a star wrestler. My clan didn’t need me. My father’s still around and ruling the McLaughlin kin with an iron fist. So I didn’t have anything to do at home either. One day, I saw a recruitment poster and went in on a whim and they practically tried to cart me off right then and there.”

He chuckled, basking in the memories of boot camp and how he tried his old methods on his drill sergeant. He’d finished with a face full of mud before he could get through swinging his fist for the first time. It had been a harsh and necessary lesson on humility and picking one’s enemies.

“And why did you leave?” Cassie queried, arching her brows and giving him a little smile over the strawberry she was biting on.

He had half a mind to steal the other half of the berry with a kiss. His cock was throbbing at the thought of it, willing to jump her right there. But that probably wouldn’t have gone over well with their current attempts at bolstering a
reasonable
relationship built on mutual respect. Oh, how he wished the relationship could be based on mutual fucking as well.

Patience.

“I didn’t so much leave as I got told very nicely to get the fuck out or they’d throw me overboard in the middle of the Atlantic,” he confessed. Cassie looked surprised. “I… sort of lost it at one point.”

Her expression grew cloudy and he jumped to explain himself. “I didn’t do anything wrong, per se. But I didn’t do it right either. There was… a girl. Let me explain, Cassie!” he grumbled, seeing the delicate roll of her eyes and the knowing smirk she got. “I thought she was the one, okay? You know how shifters are with their fated mates, right?”

“One person out there for you and one person only?” she recited.

“Yes. With some exemptions. But that is pretty much it. I thought she was the one. Evita. I lived for her. I tried to crawl out of my skin for her. She’d say something and I would jump to try and make it better. But I was young and far dumber than I am now and what I thought was love pretty much pared down to lust. When she dumped me, I flew off the handle.

“On one mission, when we were supposed to clean out a camp of about a dozen rebel fighters, I didn’t wait for my squad. I went in on my own, with just a knife and a whole lot of anger. I went through a few of them with my bare hands and that knife and when I got shot three times, I shifted. I killed the rest of them in my bear form. I couldn’t stop myself. I took out the guy we were supposed to bring in for questioning, too. It wasn’t pretty.”

Cassie had clapped her hand over her mouth and Connor could see the twist of emotions in her eyes. It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. But he had to tell her everything. Only that way could he hope that she would ever trust him. Lies just led to more trouble and he wanted everything to be clean and honest with Cassie.

“So I got kicked out. Honorary discharge, but there was nothing honorable about it. I was in one of the first shifter squads ever in the SEALs and they didn’t want to admit that they might have underestimated the effects that certain things could have on shifters.”

“Like unrequited love?”

“Yup,” he said, chuckling. “They’ve tightened up their regime now and guys like me, near the point where they could break, get put on temporary leave and given some assistance. Whether it’s in the form of time off, counseling, or something different entirely, it’s decided on a case-to-case basis.”

Cassie gave him a look that he could decipher as an inkling of compassion and understanding. He could breathe easier after that. It made his chest constrict, thinking about that night that he couldn’t see anything but red, when he took all his anger out on the world around him. He’d promised he’d never be like that again, but some things were easier said than done.

It was that fire in him that made him a great leader. The kind of man others want to follow—the first in, the last out, always at the forefront of everything and doing his best to make sure that every single one of his squad got out in one piece. But that didn’t make the darkness in his past any less smothering if he looked back on it.

“And why the… organization?” she asked, furrowing her brows.

“I’ve been with them for five years now, I think. All of my team members are rejects like me. But we get each other. We’re a brotherhood. When it came down to it, that was the one place I could go. Where I could be useful and do something I was good at. I started out as a regular soldier in the ranks and I’ve moved up. It’s not glamorous work and we don’t always get to pick our sides, but it pays the bills. And I’d like to think that we do more good than bad.”

It wasn’t called the “organization,” of course. Connor knew it as The Firm, and he knew others knew it by other names. To Connor, The Firm was what it wanted to be. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. As long as it did right by him and his men and didn’t hurt the ones Connor loved, he was okay with it having as many identities as it wanted to have.

Cassie gave him an unreadable look, as if judging him for his worth. Then she got up abruptly and for a moment, Connor thought she would take Monroe and walk out of that campsite, leaving him behind. She picked up the baby and returned, plucking a sandwich and a bottle of water from the bounty laid out on the table.

“You want to go on a walk, Connor?” she asked, giving in an inviting smile.

His heart leapt. Fuck yeah he did! He was on his feet almost immediately and took the baby from Cassie’s arms, swinging him up so he was sitting on Connor’s wide shoulders. Monroe gasped and squealed with joy, holding on tight to his teddy so it flopped partially on Connor’s face. He didn’t mind. Not one bit.

“Lead the way, honey,” he said, letting that southern twang sneak into his voice again.

They headed off down the beach and the breeze felt cool on Connor’s skin. So cool that he must not have noticed the very real feeling of being watched.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Cassie

“You know, I could come in. I make a mean Bolognese,” Connor said, leaning casually on the door frame of her front door.

He gave her that look up and down and his tongue slipped over his lips in the most maddening way. She knew exactly what he was thinking. Hell, she was thinking it too. How good it would feel to let him spend the night, to have dinner, to tuck Monroe into bed and then… the grin he wore told her that he knew what the thoughts that were making rounds in her head were. Yeah, she wasn’t good at hiding that stuff.

“You could, but then you’d be very forward Mr. McLaughlin, and completely straying from our agreement to take things slow.”

“You’re the one with the dirty mind here, honey, not me,” he said, chuckling.

“Right. Goodbye, Connor,” she muttered, smiling.

“I’ll be here at noon tomorrow, sharp. Don’t forget about that.”

“I won’t.”

Connor leaned in and kissed Monroe on the cheek, who was sleeping in Cassie’s arms. Then, he kissed her on the cheek as well, lingering there for a second too long. The heat ran through her body like an electric shock. She barely swallowed the moan that she felt choking her throat. Fuck, he felt good.

He pulled back and she was closing the door when he stopped for a moment, breathing in deeply and frowning.

“Did you get a dog or something?” he asked, frowning.

“No. Now stop making excuses and go! It’s dark out already and I need my beauty sleep, okay!” she protested, pushing the door closed in front of him with a grin.

God, what wouldn’t he do to get invited in? She didn’t mind though. If anything, she loved that he was so adamant about being around them. That he’d been patient and kind and honest with her. It gave her pause and hope that maybe things could work out.

Methodically, she locked the door and then carried Monroe to the living room. She gently placed him on the couch, where he immediately curled up around his teddy, sleeping soundly. The brown box was still unopened next to her laptop. There was something peculiar in the air and a chill ran down Cassie’s spine. Looking around the room, she wasn’t sure what it was. When she noticed the window was slightly ajar, she cursed under her breath. She was
never
that careless.

Cassie walked to the window and started to push it closed, and right then she heard the heavy thud of footsteps. She whipped around quickly and was met with the form of her nightmare come to life. A man clad in black, with cold, ruthless eyes barged toward her, intent in every step. And he wasn’t alone. She let out a blood-curdling scream, trying to duck out of his grasp and going left around him. Her vision blurred as adrenaline rushed into her bloodstream, making everything seem like it was almost in slow-motion.

Oh please, no. No, no, no! Not this!

She wasn’t faster than him. No way. But maybe she could get to Monroe? The baby was still sleeping, completely unaware of what was going on around him because of how exhausted he was. But when the nameless man grabbed Cassie by the hip and sent her flying into the couch, crashing down right next to Monroe, he woke up with a start too.

“Monroe!” Cassie screamed, her lungs already growing hoarse. “Let go of him!”

The man in black wasn’t alone. Another figure appeared above her. The baby cried as hard as his little lungs could, reaching out for his teddy bear left on the couch as Cassie wrestled to keep hold of him. The man managed to pry him out of her grip, though Cassie was kicking and punching at them on her back on her peach-colored couch.

When Monroe had been snatched from her, she heard a noise like a train crashing through the building. One thud, then one more, and the front door burst open, revealing Connor.

“Get your fucking hands off of them,” he roared, barging forward.

The man who had grabbed Monroe snarled and took off running. He turned his shoulder in front of him and crashed through the glass of one of her high windows, sending glass shards falling everywhere. The other assailant wasn’t as fast, still trying to get Cassie off the couch as well and on her feet. She punched him in the nose and he winced in pain for a moment, long enough for Connor to slam into him from the side, taking him down to the ground.

They wrestled for what seemed like an eternity but was only a second or two, while Connor glanced toward the window that Monroe had been taken through. That almost cost him his life as the man in black pulled a knife out of his boot and thrust it forward. Only Cassie’s shriek of warning made Connor react in time, twisting the knife away from him.

Both men growled like caged beasts and Cassie saw the knife hovering precariously between their bodies until Connor could angle it downward. He put his whole weight on it and a moment later, the attacker was sprawled out, lifeless. Connor jumped up immediately and ran to the window, with Cassie trailing him now that she had a path to it. She stepped over the dead man bleeding on her floor like he wasn’t there at all, leaving a deep crimson puddle on her cream carpet like the man she had once known and held dear had.

She was shaking all over. Not like the leaf she had been that night on the rooftop, but like an angry, enraged mama bear driven to hysteria. Cassie could vaguely tell that there were glass shards digging into her bare feet as she stared out of the window, or what had once been a window and was now just a hole in the wall, looking into the yard. It was dark outside and she couldn’t see a thing.

Connor was already climbing over the windowsill, his nostrils flared and the veins on his neck bulging, face red. She grabbed his arm, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Where are you going?" she asked, gritting her teeth.

She felt so completely helpless, just standing there and wishing that she could do something, anything. They'd taken her baby and she was just... useless.

"I'm going to track those motherfuckers down, Cassie. Go to your friend's. Go to Adelaide's. Text me the address. I'll find Monroe or I'll find out how to find him, okay?" he said, the same level of stress in his voice as there was in hers.

He was crouched on the windowsill, his arms bloody and sweat shining on his forehead. It looked so ridiculous, him in the bright lights of her living room, against the black backdrop of oncoming night, the warm air wafting in. 

"Bring my baby back," she whispered, very aware of the fact that tears were running down her cheeks in streams that she couldn't stop. 

"I promise," he growled, leaping off the windowsill.

Right before her very eyes, his body morphed and changed, enlarging. His smooth skin tufted with hair and his arms and legs grew thicker and wider. He fell from two legs to four and his handsome face warped into the fearsome maw of a large grizzly bear. Connor didn't stop to huff in the air. He simply jumped over her fence and headed left, like he had no doubt that that was the exact direction they had gone.