Page 21 of Were-Geeks Save a Kitten

“That Marsha would face increasingly hard monsters until she admitted to Coffee that he was cute.”

Yordan groaned. “She’d never say that.”

“Exactly. She bet him that he didn’t have the strength of will to make a curse stick. Which we now know he did because Coffee was backed by fairy magic.”

“So, Marsha’s taken a bunch of puppies up north to fight—”

“The Torch Lake monster.”

“Do we know which monster it is?”

“Nope.” The Torch Lake monster had two manifestations—a huge, slimy, lizard dragon or a huge, slimy, panther dragon. The difference was in the face and sometimes in how the creature attacked. The lizard spewed scalding water out of its mouth. The panther used claws to trap before biting off the victim’s head. It was all part of the fun of monster manifestations.

Yordan’s fingers tapped nervously on his thigh. He was either thinking hard or a nervous flyer. Or both.

“How good are the puppies?”

Kit shot a look of mea culpa at Yordan. “They’re new geeks. This was supposed to be their one and only mission before setting up in research and development.”

Yordan took a moment to absorb that, but far from the fury or condemnation Kit expected, he flashed an excited grin.

“I loved my Torch Lake mission. Glad I get to go back.”

And wasn’t that Yordan to a T? No condemnation. No worry. Simple process of the basics. Here’s the problem; let’s go fix it. If Kit weren’t already half in love with Yordan, this would have tipped him straight over the edge.

Kit might be a flexible thinker, but that meant he often got lost in the weeds. He might see all the possibilities, but he quickly got overwhelmed by the magnitude of all the variables. Then he castigated himself for not being able to focus.

Yordan didn’t waste time on blame. He attacked the problem head on without emotions, and that was a godsend right now. Kit wanted to say something mushy then. Something that was grateful and hinted at deeper feelings.

But now wasn’t the time. Especially since he had a confession to make and it was better done not watching Yordan’s reaction. So he focused on flying as he oh-so casually mentioned his personal problem.

“So, um, I’ve got to warn you. I’ll be using a gun in this fight. I’m a pretty good shot—”

“A gun?” Yordan snapped. “With puppies around? Unless you’re a dead shot, that’s fucking stupid.”

“I won’t be much use otherwise—”

“Bullshit. I don’t care if you’re frightened. Don’t care if your blood runs cold at the sight of big fangs. Whatever the problem is, these puppies are your responsibility. What the hell happened to you? You used to be one of the badass fighters. Whatever made you go bureaucrat, get over it. We don’t have the time for it.”

Kit felt his gut twist. He knew there were rumors about why he’d suddenly been thrown into a noncombat position. Most people thought he’d gotten an injury—which was close to the truth—but without a visible limp or missing limb, people thought he was off in the head. Apparently, Yordan thought he’d turned coward, and that hurt.

“Shut up and listen. I can’t shift like normal, so I’ll be using a gun.”

Yordan stared at him, and Kit returned the glare. A moment later, Yordan flushed and looked away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t judge. I don’t know—”

“You’re damn right you don’t know. You think I wanted to leave my pack?”

“I thought you asked for the transfer.”

“I did.” Damn the guy for being so well-informed, but not well-informed enough. “Because I wasn’t going to endanger anyone else.”

Yordan nodded. “So you’ll use a gun.”

“Yes.”

“It better be a goddamned missile launcher, then,” Yordan said as he pointed outside. While they’d been talking, the campground had come into view. Kit hadn’t seen it at first. He’d been busy flying the helo while trying not to throttle Yordan. But now that he banked around, he finally got a good look at the campground.

Holy shit. They were so screwed.