Love in the Land of Fire, Brochu, Rebecca [best free novels .txt] 📗

kills. Every man and woman in the unit had adored Gar, but for all of his loyalty he’d always been standoffish and almost awkward around everyone. They’d all been surprised when he’d been the main driving force behind making sure that they stayed in contact once their unit had finally disbanded.

They’d all realized though that his desire to stay in contact was mainly due to the fact that Gar was utterly alone outside of the ties that bound them all together.

Josiah knows that if Gar has decided the situation warrants such an outright warning that things must be worse than he and Marcel have realized. He deletes the message, erasing any sign of it from his p.a.t.c.h out of respect for Gar’s own personal preferences before he refolds and docks the piece of tech. There’s no sense in sending a reply. Josiah knows that Gar doesn’t actually expect one and that more than likely he’ll have used a disposable unit anyways.

Gar’d always tried harder to be invisible than any of the rest of the unit and so far no one has ever been able to figure out exactly why.

Josiah wastes no time in heading to Eagan’s office, closing the door and asking the older man if the room is secure through a series of simple hand signs that are standard tools of communication in their job. When he receives the all clear signal he jumps right into explaining the new information he’s just been made privy to.

“I’ve just been informed that the danger to Rafe Zweil is far from over.”

Eagan stares at him for a moment, something like confusion swimming across his features before he snaps himself out of it and straightens from his relaxed slouch in his chair.

“What were you told and how reliable is the source?”

“It was more of a vague warning, but I’ll be receiving a packet of Intel soon. As for the source, Skirmisher initiated contact with me a moment ago.”

Josiah feels the tension in the room wrench itself up a few notches and knows that Eagan understands the implications of that statement. The other man, who as his new CO had been informed of some of the particulars of Josiah’s time in the Crimson Elite, is aware of Skirmisher’s reputation within their unit and the fact that his involvement spells trouble.

“Shit. Skirmisher’s presence just made this a lot more complicated. Here I was hoping that this whole situation would be resolved peacefully and then you have to tell me something like this.”

“Frisch has been almost suspiciously silent as of late. Marcel and I had hoped that he’d simply come to his senses and moved on, especially since my own contacts have mentioned nothing out of the ordinary. Then again Skirmisher was always better at maintaining a network than any of the rest of us besides Con our resident techie.”

Eagan scrubs a hand over his normally cheerful face and regards Josiah with a smile that falls just short of amused.

2“You’re going to kill him if he makes one wrong move towards Zweil, am I right? Nothing I can say or do is going to be able to stop that if Frisch gets to him before you manage to get to Frisch.”

Josiah doesn’t even bother to pretend otherwise. He just nods along with Eagan’s statement, knowing all the while that it’s completely true.

“It’s fairly obvious to everyone, except for Zweil, how you feel about him. We all know that you’d Claim him in an instance and probably Bond with him if given the opportunity.”

Josiah forces himself not to twitch under Eagan’s watchful eyes at that statement. He wants Rafe, wants him chained to his side and kneeling at his feet, wants to do anything and everything to him, with him, but he wasn’t aware that he’d been obvious about it. Besides around Marcel and Isaac, of course. Those two knew more than anyone. Plus the thought of Bonding with Rafe, of having him at his side for the rest of their existence, to become one with him and to forsake all others, the thought alone is enough to heat his blood.

Eagan chuckles then, actual amusement ringing in the sound.

“Give you a rapier and an electric pistol and you’re ready to storm a beach somewhere, but talk about you Bonding with that man of yours and you get as flustered as a school girl. This is something I’ll have to remember for the blessing speeches.”

“You’re a horrible bitch of a man, Eagan.” Josiah deadpans only to have Eagan break out into full-blown laughter, and Josiah cannot help the small answering twitch of his mouth at the sound of the other man’s glee.

The laughter doesn’t last long as the seriousness of the situation takes a hold of the atmosphere of the room once again.

“As of right now you’re being granted full leave to stay by Zweil’s side until this mess is completely resolved.”

Josiah can’t contain his faint frown of disbelief at Eagan’s statement even though the thought of having so much time with Rafe is a welcome one.

“Are you sure that you want to go that far? There are alternatives, ways that we normally handle cases similar to this one.”

“This is an unusual case, Josiah. We’ve never had a submissive that we have to protect from so many people at once. Zweil’s got a dominant with a claim and his Head of House after him so we’re going to have to try something a bit more unusual. I’ll not have the death or mistreatment of a submissive in our custody happen on my watch so I’d rather be overly cautious instead of getting caught off guard. You’ll need to provide regular reports, of course, both in person and over a secure channel. We’ll have extra security making sweeps in your area on a regular basis but for now the best thing to do is to keep Zweil off the streets