“Okay…” I hedged.
“I’m Travin.” He paused his treadmill and stuck out his hand as I let out a small sigh, stopping mine as well. Last thing I needed was to reach over and fall on my face.
“Arabella.” I met his hand briefly before trying to retract mine, but unfortunately he gripped it harder, making me freeze up.
“I know who you are.” He chuckled and stepped forward. “I actually knew I would find you here.”
Oh… well, that was weird.
“Right.” I tugged my hand back, and he finally let go. I stepped back. “Well, it’s nice to meet you—”
“My team. We were hoping to work with you sometime. I know officially you are assigned to your A team, but we could use your advice on some of our missions,” he explained. “And honestly, you’re somewhat of a big name around here, so we have been wanting to spend time—”
“Get the fuck out of here.” Saint’s voice, suddenly appearing behind me, wasn’t that shocking. My chest squeezed with excitement. I could practically feel his hard muscles behind me as Travin’s eyes went wide. To his credit, he didn’t pale or shake like most of the Class B nightmares, but he still looked uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to start a problem,” Travin promised. “I just wanted her advice—”
“I don’t give a shit,” Saint snarled, his arm coming around my bare stomach. “She isn’t part of your team, nor will she ever be. She’s not yours. She’s ours. Now fuck off and get the hell out of here.”
Oh wow.
I looked up at him and saw something very dark in his gaze, any lightheartedness completely absent. His words were possessive and territorial, making me nearly turn around and attack him with the desire that slammed into me.
Travin made a noise that had me looking over at him, and as he looked at both of us, something that looked like realization hit his face.
“Totally get it,” Travin grunted. My eyes widened as Razar appeared behind the nightmare, a darkness flashing through his gaze that had me feeling nearly mesmerized. I wanted to hear what he said to the man, but Saint turned me into his chest and narrowed his eyes on the figure behind me, his firm grip causing my entire body to feel like it was combusting.
I didn’t even watch him walk out, burrowing further into Saint as he narrowed his eyes on the retreating figure. As a door shut, his face transformed, a smile filling it as if nothing had happened to begin with.
“What was that?” I breathed out.
“Just got rid of the pests.” He shrugged. “Come downstairs with me. I don’t want any more fuckers bothering you.”
I had followed him in a bit of a daze, I couldn’t lie. He had shocked me.
That had been one of the more civil times. Other times, there had been people that weren’t as polite as Travin, and those encounters had ended far more violently. Bad enough that Cy had literally picked me up and taken me back to the office, leaving Razar and Saint to have a ‘talk’ with the nightmare. To be fair, they were being a creep… but yeah, I’d never seen them again. I wasn’t complaining, but the more I thought about it, the more I started making a list of who was probably underneath my garden.
Should that bother me? No. Honestly, it would take a lot to bother me, and violence wasn’t one of them. Nightmares were just… different, and I loved that about them. Darkness and all.
I had eaten most of my food before a chill of apprehension ran up my spine, making me feel as though I was going to pass out momentarily. I froze as Razar stilled next to me, and Saint’s head snapped to the side, looking towards the window of the dining hall. The skies were darkening, the last bit of evening still hanging on in a hue of light purple, making the moment feel all the more eerie. I stood up, walking towards the window, looking across the institute grounds.
Something was wrong. I could feel it.
My gaze narrowed on the distance ahead where the gates were, the sensation growing in my chest. I spoke to Saint, who appeared behind me, sliding a hand over my hip and pulling me back against him. “Something is very wrong.”
Almost accenting my words, the alarms began going off right as a massive sound, almost like an explosion, rattled the windows, light sparking over the treetops past the security walls.
Shit. What the hell was going on right now? My lips pulled back in a snarl as Saint’s words confirmed my fears.
“The humans. They followed us back.”
15
Arabella
My concern hadn’t been unfounded.
That was the first thought that popped into my head as the alarms for the institute went off, everything inside of me seizing up. I swallowed, knowing instinctively that this was because of the mission they’d just come back from. My feelings, my paranoid fear, had not been imagined. I just would not have guessed that this would have been the result.
I still didn’t regret saving the little girl, even if it brought issues right to our goddamn doorstep. This was bad—really bad—but I knew we could handle it. My eyes moved up to where Saint was already staring at me, the rest of the room breaking into action as I tried to process what exactly we needed to fucking do.
This was far from the first time that we had been attacked, but something told me that this was not some rogue human trying to drive through the gate. No, this felt larger than that. I knew I wasn’t the only one who felt it either, because Saint looked extremely tense, his eyes turning more silver than anything else.
“We need to get you to the control room,” Razar demanded, appearing next to us. His eyes were black as his skin rippled with an attempt to control his nightmare form from slipping out. I knew he wouldn’t be able to do so for long with the apparent threat on our doorstep.
I nodded sharply and walked with the two of them towards the large dining hall door, the rest of our team following us, everyone more tense than normal. Anxiety and indignation ran through me at the notion that MAM would feel as though they could attack my home. Our home.
We were organized. We had this. I knew the Class B teams would already either be on their way out, stationed along the walls, or had already been posted there for security duty. Class C would stay here in the institute as a defensive measure while Class A went directly in to handle the problem. I would be with my father in the control room, and while that normally felt like more than enough, I found myself wanting more. I wanted to make them suffer for feeling as if they could attack our home.
“Why did they follow?” I demanded. They had never done so before.
Saint’s answer was instantaneous. “The girl. They recognize she’s of value.”
Yeah, humans were unfortunately fantastic at exploiting an individual’s value for their own use, so his words shouldn’t have surprised me.
We crossed through a heavy set of security doors and made our way towards the suite that held my father’s office and the conference room.
“Arabella.” My father stood at the door, the heavy metal entrance held open by him as the medical team carted a long bed into the space. I frowned, only to realize that it was the bed that contained the small girl from before.
“What’s wrong?” I tried to peek in as they pushed the bed into the conference room. “Obviously, outside of the attack.”