Page 4 of The Alpha King's Mate
Next door to the mom who played tennis and had a man come to the house when her husband left in the morning. Across the street from the two dads with cute little twin daughters—one who played soccer and the other who loved ballet.
You found out a lot about people from simply watching.
Of course, my job used to belong to Aziz. He was the stalker, the investigator. I was the exterminator.
My phone buzzed in the console to my right, and I answered it immediately. “What?” I barked out. We didn’t add contacts to the phones we took off the property. If I was caught or killed, I didn’t want them tracing my people.
“King, my man. What’s up?” Tyrus laughed. That bear was always jolly lately. Being mated and having a baby was good for him. Sloan was good for him. Tempered that bear quite well.
“Staking this place out.”
“Any news?”
I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “Not really. How about you? You don’t know when this shit is going down yet?”
“No. I’m watching all the channels waiting for the truck. At some point, I want to get ahead of these things. Prevent them from buying any more properties somehow, but they use so many aliases it’s nearly impossible to find them all. I’d like to rip them out from the roots, you know?”
I picked up my night-vision binoculars. Although I had shifter sight, they helped me see those who moved in the shadows. “I do. The sooner the better if you ask me.”
“Should I hang up? I don’t want to distract you, man.”
“No, it’s okay. I need some company. Anything new at the warehouse?”
He grunted, and I heard his chair squeak as it did when he leaned back. “Not here, but at the other house. Sloan went over there to help with the kids a bit, and he came back saying he was concerned about Ryan.”
I dropped the binoculars and almost the phone.
“What about Ryan?” My beast spoke through me, a first. Tyrus was talking about our mate. Mate bond or not, he wasmine. Even if we never fulfilled the mating, which we wouldn’t, there would always be a piece of me who looked out for him.
Goddess, I was a goner already.
“I don’t know. Sloan said he was low energy. He has doubled his counseling sessions. He is running more and more as his animal. The kids say he’s sad, but no one knows why.”
“Didn’t anyone ask him?” I said with a little more force than necessary.
“No. Ryan is great and good with the kids, but he keeps to himself about the shit he went through. Sloan chalks it up to past trauma. That shit can hit you out of left field. You can be okay for months, even years and then bam, some shit triggers it and you’re back in the thick of all that pain and anguish.”
“Can you bring him to the warehouse? Give him some time with Sloan and Grey and the others? He’s older than the other kids. Maybe he could use someone to talk to besides the counselor.”
“Maybe. I’ll talk to Sloan about it.” My friend didn’t have a clue that I was the one who wanted the best for Ryan. To him, I was spewing random opinions and guesses. “Speaking of the other building, we need to expand it already. Each time we intercept a truck or a kidnapping, we have less space in there. Bigger kitchen too.”
“After I’m done with this one, I can come back and help you handle that.”
Tyrus blew out a long breath. “What if you ended this mission early?”
I had to admit, wrapping this up and getting back into the vicinity of my mate sounded like music to my lion’s ears. A fucking symphony.
“What did you have in mind, brother?”
“Well, if the alphas in there are gone and the house is burned to the ground, there’s nowhere to bring a shipment to. You feel me?”
My lion roared. The bear had a good point. A damned good point.
“You’re sure there are no omegas in there? You know my beast. Once he gets on a rampage, there’s no stopping him. He’s particularly restless lately.” Understatement of the fucking year.
“I wonder what’s going on with that? Ryan’s restless. You’re restless. Weird. Maybe we should get our water system checked.”
I scrubbed my free hand down my face and almost laughed. The water. I had an inkling as to what was going on with Ryan or even myself but was sure he would get over it. Ryan. He was young and beautiful. One day, a strong alpha would sweep him off his feet and, if he even realized that I was his mate, he would get over the notion quickly.