Since Harley hadn’t ever been in this line of work before, she wasn’t sure how to answer that. Keeping her inner werewolf hidden had been challenging enough in the world she’d come from.
“I spent years as a cop in Santa Fe before joining STAT, and none of my beat partners ever had a clue.” Jake shrugged. “If you try hard, it can be easy to keep people in the dark. Especially when most of them will ignore what they see because it seems too crazy to believe. It’s easier to assume they didn’t see what they thought they did than entertain the possibility that the world is a lot more complicated than they realized.”
Or you simply did what Harley did. She didn’t bother to point out it was a lot easier to hide in plain sight if you never used any of your more obvious werewolf attributes.
“Well, if we’re going to work with MI6, I guess that means we’re going to have to keep Sawyer’s werewolf side a secret,” Forrest said. “Question is, do we tell McKay about him?”
Even though Harley had just met him, she felt an incredibly crazy urge to stand up for Sawyer. But before she could say anything, Jake spoke.
“We aren’t outing another werewolf. If Sawyer wants to keep his inner werewolf hidden, that’s his business, meaning we’re not mentioning it to McKay and I’m not putting it in any of the reports unless it becomes impossible to hide.”
Harley sagged in relief. STAT and MI6 were only working together on this one mission, and then they’d probably never come across each other again, but at least Sawyer’s secret would be safe.
Jake’s phone dinged and he pulled it from his pocket. “Our ride to the airport is downstairs. The MI6 team is already in the van waiting for us.”
As everyone grabbed their bags and headed for the door, Caleb caught Harley’s arm, motioning for her to wait.
“I know you said you trust Sawyer and that’s your call,” he said softly after their teammates had moved down the hallway. “But this is me reminding you to be careful.”
She barely had a chance to look baffled before Caleb continued.
“Look, I’m not trying to say there’s some reason to distrust the guy. It’s just that I don’t want you, or any of our pack, getting hurt because Sawyer is more worried about protecting his secret than watching our backs. Okay?”
Caleb was out the door before she could say anything, calling for the others to hold the elevator and leaving Harley with no choice but to hitch her bag higher over her shoulder and hurry after him.
Was Caleb right? If push came to shove, would Sawyer go that extra step to protect Harley and her teammates even if it meant revealing he was a werewolf? She wanted to believe he would, but could she honestly say she knew him well enough to know the answer to that question?
Chapter 5
Morocco
“I couldn’t help but notice you and that female werewolf seem to have gotten pretty chummy,” Erin said from behind Sawyer, the barest hint of something suspicious and disapproving in the words.
Sawyer looked up from the photos he’d been scanning on and off for the past two days. They were shots taken from all over the city of buildings, vehicles, and people he and everyone else had pored over with agonizing intensity in the hopes of finding anything that might tip them off to the location of the supernatural trafficking ring in Casablanca. It was mind-numbing work, but it had to be done. Adriana had led them there. It was up to the joint MI6/STAT team to do the rest.
He swiveled his chair around to see Erin standing less than a meter away with her arms folded, even though she didn’t need to be that close. The ground floor of the office space the MI6 and STAT operation had taken over was big enough to easily hold all the field agents and their combined support teams. Yet here was Erin, standing in his personal space with an accusing look in her eyes because she thought he’d betrayed her and the team somehow by hanging out with Harley.
On the far side of the room, Rory and Elliott were going through the motions of looking at computer screens where they were supposed to be combing through the manifests of all flights coming into both of the city’s airports, looking for known traffickers. In reality, they were much more interested in eavesdropping on the conversation Erin apparently wanted to have with him. The support personnel were all out scouring the city for leads along with Harley and the other STAT agents, so there wasn’t anyone else in the room right now. Which was probably why Erin had chosen this particular moment to confront him.
“Well?” she prompted when he didn’t answer fast enough for her taste. “Nothing to say, or is it that you don’t want to admit you’ve developed a taste for walking on the wild side?”
Sawyer’s fingertips and gums started to tingle, a growl building in the back of his throat. He fought to gain control of his inner wolf at the same time he pushed back against the urge to tell Erin to mind her own sodding business. This crap had been coming to a head since the two teams had left Paris and Sawyer had spent the whole flight talking to Harley. He’d picked up on his teammates’ confusion and anger almost immediately, the former coming mostly from Rory and Elliott, the latter from Erin. Since then, it had only gotten worse. His teammates didn’t approve, and they’d apparently decided it was time for an intervention.
Sawyer never was the kind to appreciate an intervention.
“You’re right,” he said softly, eyes locking on Erin’s, his voice sounding a whole hell of a lot calmer than he felt. “I don’t have anything to say. Not if you’re going to accuse me of doing something wrong when all I’m doing is talking to an agent from the other intel organization we’re working with.”
“An agent?” Erin cursed. “Are you bloody kidding me? She’s not even human. She’s a sodding monster, Sawyer.”
And there it was. What Erin—and probably Rory and Elliott, too—really thought about Harley and the other STAT werewolves.
His gut twisted, thinking of all the times he’d come close to confessing his secret to his teammates, believing they’d gotten close enough to accept it. Now, he was glad he’d never worked up the courage to do it. He wasn’t sure he could handle them looking at him the way they eyed Harley, Caleb, and Jake. The distrust didn’t end there, either. They regarded the rest of the STAT team like there was something wrong with them for willingly working with what they considered monsters.
Sawyer stood up fast enough to send his chair sliding backward across the floor. Erin definitely hadn’t seen it coming, and there was some part of him—his inner wolf maybe—that took a perverse pleasure in seeing her eyes widen in alarm. But at the same time, there was a larger part that couldn’t help but wonder how she’d react if his fangs and claws were out.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rory and Elliott slowly get up and move closer, their hearts beating a little faster. Like they’d picked up on the fact that the team dynamic had shifted drastically. He wasn’t sure what, but he needed to say something because there was no way he was going to let things devolve into an us versus them game. There was too much at stake.