He chuckled. “Yeah, they keep me busy. But I’m here now. How are you?”
Milos peered at him with his one good green eye. The other eye was missing and covered in scar tissue. “I’m well as can be. Would you like to come in and have a coffee?”
“Sure.” He followed Milos into the cabin. It was large and clean and had all the basics. He noticed the half-empty pizza box on the kitchen table. “Was Petros just here?”
“Yes.” Milos went to the counter and poured out coffee into two mugs. “But he had to leave because he was bringing his mate and child to some Winter Carnival.”
Right. That was tonight. “Why didn’t you join him?”
He shrugged as he put the mug on the table. “Would you go to such a thing?”
Damon winced. He supposed he deserved that; though he had never shared what happened to him with Milos, it was obvious that his wolf had sensed the same thing from Damon’s bear—a brokenness that ran deep.
Milos had come to Blackstone about a year ago to seek revenge on his former friend and packmate, Petros Thalassa, a recent transplant to town from Greece who had mated with a local female wolf. Damon didn’t have the details, but Milos had blamed Petros because he’d been captured by a nefarious anti-shifter organization who had tortured and performed experiments on him. Although he’d been caught and subdued, Petros had begged Matthew Lennox to spare Milos and that instead of sending him to shifter prison or back to their former pack, allow him to stay in Blackstone and get help. The Blackstone Dragon allowed him to stay deep in the mountains, as long as he didn’t harm anyone.
Damon didn’t know if Milos had pieced his life back together, even with his friend’s help, but he had seen improvements over the last year. The wolf shifter had been quiet and sullen when he first came here, but after some time, he began to talk. Part of Damon’s job in the rangers before he became chief was to bring Milos supplies, and they would always make small talk while having coffee.
“How is everything?” Damon asked as he took a sip of the coffee. “Were you okay during the blizzard?”
“Yes, do not worry about me. I may be from the islands, but the snow did not bother me.” Milos frowned. “Our friend, though …” He looked outside the window, deep into the thick line of trees. “I have not heard from him in a while.”
Guilt poured through him at the reminder that there was one other person living in these parts, even more isolated than Milos. “Is Krieger … all right?”
“Maybe you should check for yourself. I have not seen him since before the blizzard.”
Damon knew he should go. He owed it to Krieger. Things had been busy the past six months that he hadn’t even had the time to see his former squad mate since his promotion.
At least, that’s what he told himself. It was easier to ignore the guilt. As much as the incident had messed him up, it had nearly destroyed Krieger. And it had all been Damon’s fault.
“Maybe I should.” But some other time, when he wasn’t in a tizzy up like this. Krieger tended to be sensitive about the moods of people, which was why he lived all the way up here. He abhorred company even more than Damon or Milos, though he and the wolf shifter seemed to get along well enough. Again, he knew it was because broken animals could sense each other.
They talked for a few more minutes before Damon said goodbye, and promised to have more supplies sent over the next week, including Milos’s favorite donuts from the local bakery.
The trudge back to HQ took another hour, and it was already so late, that he expected the station to be nearly empty. So the sight of Gabriel, waiting for him by the door, took him completely by surprise. They hadn’t spoken since their blowup, and they had mostly avoided each other during the party. Perhaps it was a good thing, since now Damon realized he had been acting like an asshole.
“Hey,” Gabriel greeted.
“Hey.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “Why are you up here on a Saturday night?”
“Why are you?” Gabriel asked. “Even you don’t work on weekends.”
“I had a lot of stuff to do, plus I wanted to go see Milos.”
“Oh. Is he all right?”
He nodded.
“And Krieger?”
“I didn’t get the chance to check on him.” Another awkward silence stretched between them, so he decided to just take the bull by the horns. “Gabriel, you were right. About last week.”
“I was?”
“Yeah. About Anna Victoria. Last Friday, what I said to her was personal, and I should never have said them. And what I said to you, too, that was way out of line.”
A myriad of emotions passed over the lion shifter’s face. “I don’t want her in that way. Anna Victoria is a sweet girl, and all J.D. and I wanted to do was help out someone in need. But,” he scratched his chin, “what is it about her that’s got you all up in knots? Do you really despise her that much? What did she do to you?”
Damon considered his options. He could lie to his friend, but the thought turned his stomach sour. He and Gabriel had always been open with each other, and there was no one he trusted more. So, he decided on the truth. “Anna Victoria is my mate.”
“Excuse me?” Gabriel’s jaw dropped down, then closed again. “Your mate? As in, your mate, mate?”
He nodded.
Gabriel looked truly shocked. “I mean, from the beginning with the way you acted around her … I thought maybe you finally found someone who caught your eye, but I never thought you guys would be mates.”
“Don’t lions believe in mates?”
“It’s uh, a little more
