Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

R oss took one look at the dark marks under Niles's eyes and handed him a large cup of coffee. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Niles grunted his thanks. "None. Where's your mate?"

"In the shower. Did something happen? You look like death."

"Not unless you call listening to Eli and Milo fuck like bunnies all night," Niles said sourly. "Milo came home frisky, and I forgot my headphones."

Ross tried to hold back a grin but from Niles's disgusted expression he wasn't very successful. He vanished into the office and returned with headphones he'd discovered in one of the drawers the day before.

"Thanks, but I plan to find a hotel room tonight." Niles put them in his messenger bag anyway.

"Stay with the pack," Ross advised. "It's not safe to be away from us right now."

"I'm not a member of the pack, remember?"

"Yeah, you are. You proved that yesterday. Do you want to sleep in the bedroom? The bedding is clean."

Niles sighed as if that was all he wanted but he said, "Let's talk sleeping arrangements later. We must establish what happened to Dylan after he went dark. Owen sends his apologies, but he's tied up with Wild Creek pack issues."

"I thought he'd been exiled."

"He has. It's a pack thing. They're trying to keep his skinny ass alive. I decided to keep my human nose out of it. Let's talk about your assignment."

"I had no luck yesterday as you know. If Dylan was in or around San Antonio, he didn't stay there."

"That fits with my intel," Niles agreed and took another swallow of coffee.

Ross fixed him with a steely gaze. "Am I wasting my time? Did Eli just send us here to get us out of the way?"

"No and yes."

Ross blinked. "Say that again."

"Yes, Eli wants Dylan away from the ranch. You know that. But my intel was following Dylan from his assignment. He was away from the city when he went dark."

‘You've got more than one operative working for the hunters."

"We have, but not with the Streersons. Another shady organization working with them."

The Streerson family who'd overseen the human hunters chasing shifters in this part of the country were either dead or behind bars thanks to Sapphire Ranch and the Cavalry. But that didn't mean to say the danger was over. The hunter network was international.

"So, Dylan worked undercover for an adjacent set of assholes and went missing."

"Yeah."

"When?"

"We're not sure of the exact date," Niles admitted. "It could be two months, it could be longer. It was before Owen's abduction. Our operatives didn't check in every day. It was too dangerous to do that. Eyes were on them all the time."

"And you had no idea what happened to me between then and two days ago." Dylan stood in the doorway, his face pinched.

"No. But our intel was looking for you."

"Eli said??—"

Niles waved his hand. "Eli doesn't have time to scratch his butt. He would have searched for you personally if he hadn't been trying to save the world. But I manage the intel department, and you were under my purview."

"But you didn't find me," Dylan said pointedly.

"No." Niles put his cup on the counter. "From your last check-in until the day you walked into the ranch house, we couldn't find a trace of you."

"And I don't have any idea where I was."

"You were exhausted, but not skinny and malnourished like Owen," Ross said.

Niles nodded. "Which means wherever you were, you were being looked after."

"Someone could have been taking care of you," Ross agreed. He held out his hand, relieved as Dylan left the doorway, willing to be taken into his arms.

"If the hunters or whoever had known I was a shifter and a spy, they would have killed me."

"Yeah, they killed Jake without hesitation," Niles said.

There was silence for a moment. None of them had been there when Jake was killed, but Owen had, and his description of Jake's death was the stuff of nightmares.

Ross coughed. "So whoever was taking care of you didn't want to kill you."

"Why didn't they report me as a missing person?" Dylan asked.

Another silence. So many questions, no fucking answers.

"You mentioned breakfast?" Niles asked hopefully. "Because I missed out on Cal's cooking."

Ross chuckled and headed into the kitchen. His cooking skills were limited but one thing he could put together was a breakfast for two hungry humans and an even hungrier wolf.

Over steak and eggs, Niles laid out as much as he could of the operation Dylan had been involved in. Which turned out to be a "sweet heap of nothing," as Dylan grumbled.

"Why can't you tell us?" Ross demanded.

"Because they're about to do something very stupid and we have to wait for them to do it."

"And you don't want to risk me telling anyone," Dylan said. "But you put in a new operative when I went missing."

"We already had another operative in there. You were both working independently of each other."

This was way above Ross's paygrade. He had a feeling he was going to be thinking that a lot. He glanced at Dylan who seemed to be deep in thought.

"Was he a shifter too?" he asked.

"No, a human. This was a human firm."

"And he wasn't targeted."

"No. He's still there and his cover is working."

Ross furrowed his brows. "Isn't that suspicious?"

"We thought so at the time, but we couldn't pin it down to Anderson's cover being blown."

"Despite the fact I went missing," Dylan said pointedly.

Niles grunted.

"Do you trust the other operative?" Ross asked.

"We checked him out. He's clean."

"So was Jake."

Niles scowled at him. "We've changed since then."

Ross returned his scowl with interest.

Dylan sighed and stood. "Coffee?"

Ross nodded, as did Niles.

"Look," Dylan said when he returned to the table. "It's not that I don't trust you." His tone made it clear he didn't trust them at all.

Ross cheered across the link. Get the barb in first.

"But a human hasn't got the senses a shifter has."

"Before we knew shifters existed, we managed perfectly well," Niles said, just as pointedly. "And our targets are humans, not shifters."

"But—"

Ross nudged Dylan's foot. He knew Niles well enough to know he didn't appreciate being challenged. Dylan had made his point. It was time to move on.

I'm right, you know I am.

I know, Ross soothed. But we need at least one of them on our side.

Dylan huffed across the link.

"I know this is difficult," Niles said.

"That's the understatement of the year," Dylan agreed.

"But you're both Cavalry operatives. We have faith in you." He pulled out a piece of paper. "This is your last known location."

Ross leaned over and looked at it. "Nowhere near San Antonio," he said dryly. Wasn't that a surprise.

Niles ignored him. "You took an SUV out of the city. You said your team was heading out, but you didn't know where. We're not sure if you returned, but as this is the last day you made contact with us, we assume not."

"Did the SUV return?" Dylan asked.

"No."

"Did the rest of his team return?" Ross asked.

Niles pressed his lips together. "No."

The color drained from Dylan's face. "My entire team went missing, including me?"

Ross turned on Niles. "Were they all shifters?"

"At least two were shifters. Dylan and a cat shifter. I don't know about the others."

"But you can guess."

"Our other operative said the shifters he knew vanished overnight."

Ross tentatively probed his link with Dylan but it was slammed shut again. "Niles, fuck the rules. Give me the license plate and tags of the SUV. I'll see if Milo can trace it. Then Dylan and I are going on a road trip…alone," he added when it looked as if Niles would protest.

Niles hesitated, then pulled a photo out of his messenger bag. He pushed aside his plate and placed the photo on the table. "This is the SUV. And there's Dylan."

Ross and Dylan leaned in to have a look. It was undoubtedly Dylan in the driver's seat. "This is an old SUV. It hasn't got tinted windows. If you were trying to take people—shifters—away, wouldn't you try to hide them?"

"Not if they didn't expect us to return," Dylan said. "They didn't care if we were tracked."

Niles gave a grim nod as he pushed the photo to them. "They expected you to be dead. They could easily make up bullshit if anyone queried it."

"But who would query it because then the humans would have to admit the existence of shifters," Dylan pointed out. "You didn't."

"Well no, for obvious reasons."

"I was undercover. I was expendable." The twist of Dylan's lips was painful to watch.

"Our operatives are never expendable," Niles insisted. "But it's harder to find an undercover operative without blowing the cover of others in the field. You knew this."

You're not expendable to me, Ross said across their link. He didn't know what else to say to soothe the pain coming from his mate.

I know. Dylan's sigh was long and painful. And he's right. As an undercover agent I would know the risks. It doesn't make it any easier to hear.

"I hate the long pauses," Niles muttered. "I know you're talking to each other."

"Mate business," Ross said brusquely. "Just wait until it's your turn."

"Never gonna happen," Niles insisted. "So what are you going to do now?"

"As I said, we're going to Milo to see if he can trace the SUV and then we're going on a road trip."

Dylan nodded. "It's not just what happened to me. What about all the other shifters? Their families need to know what happened to them. They need to return their spirits to the ancestors."

"Is there a ceremony?" Ross asked.

"Uh…" Dylan stared at him, then tapped his forehead. "Yes, I think so."

"You should talk to the other wolves before we leave. This is something we need to know."

"How are you going to finance the trip?" Niles asked.

Ross fixed him with a fierce scowl. "The Cavalry is paying for it. I'm Cavalry. Dylan was one of us too."

Niles raised an eyebrow. "You resigned, remember?"

"You didn't accept my resignation, remember ? We're going to find all the shifters in that vehicle, dead or alive."

"You must be careful," Niles said, his expression serious. "If the hunters find you, the Cavalry might not be able to extract you."

"I know."

"Do you? This isn't security duty, Ross. This is going into the lion's den."

Ross glowered at him. "Since I set foot on Sapphire Ranch, I've been part of the pack. I've been shot at, protected shifters, been hit and T-boned by a car and left for dead. I've been part of a damned good protection detail. I'm not an undercover agent, but Dylan is, and I think he'll remember his training."

Dylan nodded. "We'll do what we have to do because of who we are…even if one of us doesn't remember a thing about it."

Niles's broad smile took Ross by surprise. He also didn't trust it for a second.

"I told Eli you'd say this."

"You did, did you?" Ross asked sourly.

Niles nodded. "You'll have a Cavalry team ready to evac you and any shifters you find."

"You have this all planned."

"It's my job," Niles pointed out. "You're not stepping a foot away from the ranch without my permission."

Ross grunted. He could argue but why the hell would he do that? He felt safer with the weight of the Cavalry behind him. From Dylan's troubled expression, he didn't feel the same.

I'll protect you, Dylan.

Dylan forced a smile. I know you will.

"And Dylan isn't going anywhere until the shifter doc has seen him. We're not taking any chances with him," Niles said.

Dylan's expression eased a fraction. "Thanks."

Niles shrugged. "That's what I'm here for. And by the way, Milo's already gotten a copy of the photo."

"When were you going to tell me this?" Ross demanded.

"Now." Niles smirked at him. "I wanted to see if you'd think of it yourself."

Ross stared down into his cup. He was really looking forward to the road trip with just him and Dylan.