The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9)

Twenty-Four

"You hired security?"

"Of course I did." Eden looked affronted. "They'll arrive in the morning to escort us to the private airfield."

"Private airfield?" Albie asked.

Raven huffed. "Are you just going to parrot everything I say, Albert? Honestly. Yes, I have security, and yes, they'll be escorting Cassandra and I to the private airfield, where we'll be taking a private jet to New York. Ian's taking us."

Walsh blinked. "Our Ian?"

"I said family – he's club family, is he not? Or has your trust in him waned?" She sent a challenging look around the island, daring them all to deny that Ian had, despite everything, become a valuable and trustworthy member of the extended Dogs family.

"It's not the worst idea," Fox said, finally, when it became apparent no one else would.

She nodded, and calmed a little. "I called him last week and sorted everything. I knew that all of you had too much to worry about already, and that Ian had plenty of money and resources at his disposal. It seemed like the perfect solution."

"Key word being seemed," Walsh said.

"Oh, what do you know?" she said. "You're drunk."

~*~

Tenny gave up on pacing, and took his bottle to sit in the plush leather chair behind the desk, elbows braced on the blotter. Hunter. The name scrolled through his brain like a newsfeed ticker. Breaking News: Your Boyfriend's Old Handler Might Be His Father.

Blame it on the alcohol in his system, but he needed to know if that was true or not. He needed to know when he killed this guy if he was Reese's blood father. Not that it would matter either way, but he craved the knowledge. It felt important, somehow.

What he did next could also be blamed on the alcohol. With far less hesitation than he would have had while sober, he dialed Ian.

"Shaman," he answered, crisp and efficient. A voice sounded in the background, indistinct; kitchen noises. Ian was at home.

Once again, Tenny found his throat tightening, speech oddly difficult. "Ian."

Immediately, Ian's voice shifted – became more real, but also uncertain. Questioning. Only a few people knew his real name, and Tenny's number wasn't one of the ones programmed into his phone. "Yes? Who is it?"

He swallowed. "It's Tennyson."

"Oh." A hand over the phone, hushed conversation, then footsteps. A door clicked, and then it was quiet. Ian said, "What do you need, darling?"

The word choice struck him as strange. What do you need? There was an assumption there that Tenny wouldn't have called to chat, that it was out of need. (Well, that wasn't untrue.) He supposed probably no one called Ian to chat. At least he had his husband...

Tenny dragged a hand down his face and said, "I need information. I'm looking for someone."

"Hm. And your club hacker can't find him?"

"I haven't asked him."

"Ah." A rustle, like he'd sat down. "Are you alright?"

Tenny ground his teeth. He didn't want...whatever Ian was trying to do. He wanted answers. He wanted to get off this bloody phone, pick himself up, and go make sure no one broke into this house tonight to kill them all.

"Tennyson," Ian prompted, patient, kind.

"We saw a man tonight," he found himself saying, without meaning to. Bloody vodka. "A man from Reese's past. Someone who–" How to explain this to a civilian, that was an issue. It was hard to swallow. "Who hurt him," he settled on, far less graceful and exact than he would have been sober.