Page 65 of The Alpha’s Heir

I had a moment of blind panic when I realized he’d seen me staring at his daughter, but I fixed the focus of my gaze without letting on how much Meg affected me.

Marcus coughed into his fist again.

“The wedding might not happen, though,” Meg told her father.

“Really?” His grunt didn’t seem that disappointed.

“Yeah. It’s complicated.” She blew out a long breath. “The humans are… strange. No offense, guys.”

“None taken,” we all muttered.

“I know you did your best. We’ll figure the rest out as a family,” Maddock said. “It’s good you came home. I hated you being there.”

Meg patted her dad’s arm affectionately, and you could hear the pride in his voice when he spoke of her. Memories of my own dad drifted through my mind as I drove.

Would he have been proud that I joined the military? I thought so. His favorite stories were always the ones where the hero went on grand adventures. That’s why he favored the stories of the gods, I think. Anything with a good journey and high stakes.

“This is us,” Meg said, directing me to turn down the dirt road, away from the small story-book town that lay up ahead.

Two quaint cabins sat tucked back into the valley with a creek cutting through a field of grass and the sun sinking over the mountains beyond. My eyes were blurry after driving the past few hours, making the whole scene hazy like some setting in a story my dad would tell.

I blinked to clear them.

Parking the Jeep, I scanned the horizon, cataloguing the unfamiliar terrain. Our intelligence on the Cerberus Territory was spot on so far and that made the mission of protecting Rabbit that much easier.

Though I had to wonder if this might be the end of my career. There was only so much I could perform for the councilwoman before the colonel found a way to get me removed from this position. I looked at Marcus, vowing that I’d do everything in my power to protect him from the coming fallout.

I needed to focus on keeping Justus alive and getting him to that wedding, wherever or whenever it was now planned. We just had to wait for word from Helen to see when it was best to return.

“Make sure we can get in touch with headquarters all the way out here,” I told Marcus. “If not, we’ll need to set up closer to town.”

“Roger that, LT.” He got to work on the equipment as I moved to the back of the vehicle to unload the bags.

I closed the trunk tailgate, coming face to face with a growling Maddock who tore Meg’s bag from my hand. If the purists got hold of this image—the beastly male with a bare chest covered in silver and brown hair that matched his bushy beard—they’d have all the propaganda they needed to confirm the mutant monster theory.

His nostrils flared and he seemed to be… sniffing me. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sniffed him in return.

Science, the air out here is fresh.

It smelled of earth and pine and freedom. No wonder Meg smelled so good. This was where she belonged.

Though I was still struggling to see the resemblance between her and her father.

“We’re over there.” Meg pointed to the smaller cabin, breaking the strange standoff between Maddock and me.

“It’s a dead zone here, LT,” Marcus said as he worked the antenna. “I’m going to drive back to the top of the road to set up camp for the night if I can get signal there.”

“Stay within sight,” I told him, anxious about separating our little party until I got a better lay of the land.

“Aye, Lieutenant.” Marcus gave me a frustrated half-salute as I carried Justus’s suitcases and my own backpack over to the cabin.

“You’ll stay with us in the big house,” Maddock told his daughter.

Meg’s cheeks flushed as she stared at him.

He stared back, unblinking.

The two of them stood there for an uncomfortably long minute.