CHAPTER 6

ANTON

It had taken three days to ensure that all was set up for Zane before we’d left. We’d taken two of the Land Cruisers, Luca would drive one and I would drive the other. The human Miah was in the vehicle with Hannah and me, as she was the most comfortable around him.

The two wolves, Drake and Sam, were in the vehicle with Luca. The plan was to drive the four hours into the nearest town and catch up with Ava and Marie to check out their new nightclub, and I wanted to buy Hannah some clothes. She didn’t have much and what she did have was either from Julie or my shirts.

I’d made a bed for her on the back seat as I knew she’d not be able to stay awake for long. She’d smiled when she’d seen the nest of pillows and blankets that I’d heaped onto the seat and had quickly got in and wasted no time in snuggling down into them and closing her eyes, her chest rumbling with a deep purr, making me smile, yeah, her tiger wasn’t completely gone. We hadn’t left our farm before I could tell by the sound of her breathing that she was asleep.

Miah didn’t say much, but he kept glancing over his shoulder as if to make sure she was still breathing. I caught nothing from him but concern for an injured female.

He started when he caught me watching him, as he glanced back at my mate yet again. There were plenty of males out there that would have struck first and asked questions later, and I could see he knew that when he immediately held up his hands and said softly, “I’m not casing your mate, Anton. I’ve been friends with shifters long enough to know not to do that.”

“Okay,” I replied just as softly, before continuing. “Then tell me, what has you so fascinated by my mate?”

“Not fascinated, just trying to understand why someone would do what was done to her. And it’s not that I don’t understand the depravity of humans because I’ve seen some of the worst cases of abuse that you can during my time in the military. I just don’t understand how family could do that to her. All for money. I guess that’s what I’m struggling with. Money that wasn’t even theirs is what made them do this to her and now she suffers, even with them gone.”

I was silent for a bit, trying to think of how to answer him, but to be honest, I didn’t get it either. Even with the Moores and their father, it wasn’t until recently that he’d changed so much as to start lashing out physically, and it wasn’t for money. He was just a mean old bastard.

“I don’t know, Miah. Like you, I’ve seen some horrors, you don’t live where we live and not see it. I don’t get how family turns on family.

“We, the four families, are not related by blood and in the animal kingdom there is no way that leopards, wild dogs, hyenas, gorillas, and tigers would ever live in harmony. But we are a family and any of us would lay our lives down for each other. I think some beings are just fundamentally broken, whether they are human or not.”

We drove on for a while in silence, each in our own thoughts before I asked, already knowing the answer, having got most of their background checks back, but I wanted to hear it from him. I wanted to hear how he spoke and felt about his family, “Do you have family?”

His face lit up in a grin, “Yeah, I have a sister. She’s younger than me by five years. She married a fireman in our hometown and is happy there. She keeps an eye on our parents and runs roughshod over her two boys.”

My mind eased, and I smiled at the love in his voice that he had for his family and wondered how a human had ended up in an all-shifter group, so I asked him, “How did you end up in the group you did?”

Miah chuckled, “Purely by accident. They were meant to have another shifter join them. We had exactly the same first and last names. The only difference was I have a middle name and he didn’t. Anyway, the shock on their faces when this full human walked up, ready to join their team, was hilarious. They didn’t really know what to do.

“The general tried to get the orders overturned but it was too late. They tried to keep things under cover for a while, but it wasn’t long before I figured there was something weird going on with them. They were fast, faster than anyone I’d ever trained with; they seemed to know exactly when someone was tracking us and boy could they fight, even the women.

“I once saw Cass knock someone out with one punch. It all came to a head about two months after I’d joined them. I woke up needing to take a leak, and when I stood up, there was Drake mid-shift. Well, needless to say, that was an interesting night. After many threats about nobody ever finding my body if I let it out, which was fucking hilarious as we were the team that was sent out to find the bodies.

“Eventually, I got them all to calm down. I wasn’t going to make waves, I liked them as a crew, and it was an interesting gig. We’d been together five years when the General decided to retire. They’re my family, I wouldn’t know what to do without them.”

I gave a little snicker at his recounting of finding Drake mid-shift. I gave him props for not freaking out, thinking it was the next werewolf out to eat him. That started me laughing at the visual. Miah looked at me with a side eye as if I was nuts before asking, “What’s so funny?”

I gasped as I tried to get my laughter under control, “I’m sorry, but all I’ve got in my head is every horror werewolf come to life and you standing there with a deer in the headlights look. I know it didn’t happen like that, but I can’t shake the image.” I started laughing again, and before long, Miah joined me.

From the back seat I heard the beautiful sound of my mate’s laughter join us as she snorted out giggling, “You’re both idiots, but now I feel like I need to make Drake and Sam sit through every werewolf movie out there.”

Looking in the rearview mirror, I looked straight into my mate’s gorgeous green eyes, sparkling with her laughter.

“How much farther to go?” Hannah asked.

I looked around at where we were; I’d been mindlessly driving as there was little to no traffic on this road.

“About another hour,” I answered.

“Okay. Scoot over, Miah, no manspreading, I’m coming in,” Hannah said, then suddenly there was a long leg being thrown over the seat, and before long, she was sitting on the front seat between us. I smiled at her sassiness that was slowly returning. I had a feeling that before my girl had been beaten down, she had been a little feisty.

“Manspreading, pshaw, little girl,” Miah teased playfully, tapping her knee. Hannah tensed a little but then relaxed further into me as if she realised that with me here there was no danger to her. I wrapped my hand around her thigh and smiled at the little purr that left her, not that she seemed to notice her involuntary reaction. Miah did and smiled before he was gently teasing her again, making her laugh at him.

The human was fast becoming one of my favourites. If he continued to make my mate smile like he was, I’d be happy to have him in my family.