Flint Strike

Chapter Seventeen

Roike paced slightly at the edge of the dirt road as he checked his watch. His contact told him their average mission was usually about three hours and they were pushing nearly four now. He was getting antsy and a bit worked up the longer the mission seemed to drag on. He adjusted his sleeves and tugged on the button up. He had wanted to put on his WC windbreaker but his contact had thrown him a look when he asked and told him that they weren't out of danger yet and they needed to wait for the mission to end.

He glanced over at her and she was typing rapidly on her laptop, her eyes narrowed slightly. She had been pissed at him since they had left Sleepy Burrow and he couldn't honestly understand it. He knew she was angry with him, the hostility fairly radiated off of her but he couldn't figure out why for the life of him. He was half parts wary and aroused, which honestly didn't help his mental state any.

He couldn't lie, he was partially antsy because being around her was getting underneath his skin. She was the most attractive female he had ever set his eyes on and her authoritative side pushed all sorts of new buttons he was finding he really liked. And he was stuck with her until the mission was over. He cracked his knuckles as he looked over at the edge of the woods, hoping to see some sign of her team.

"Are you sure you-"

"There is no contacting them while they are in extraction." The words came out clipped and Roike rolled his head on his shoulders before shoving a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands. "They will get here when they get here." She did very little to hide her irritation and Roike glanced at her but she was still intent on the laptop, typing quickly, the keys making little muted clicks.

He turned away and moved ten paces away from her and them moving ten back. He repeated the pattern, watching the moonlit ground intently. He wanted out of there, he really did. Life was far simpler before this mission. He wanted Anders rescued, without a doubt he did, but he did not like the mission. His attraction to his contact was a distraction he could have lived without and then running into Flint and realizing what crowd he had fallen into had been a blow to the head.

He could only imagine what Brutus would think about what Flint had gotten himself into. Roike shook his head as he continued to pace. He wasn't going to tell Brutus anything, he didn't like going back to the small town they had all grown up in, not since he had become an agent for the WC. It felt wrong with Flint gone and he had been using the WC to lowkey look for him, now that he knew exactly where he was he felt utterly crushed. Flint had been a noble male, always holding the new traditions strong, and seeing him like that... it hurt.

There was a sort of pain that came from watching a friend slide so far that they became the opposite of who they had been. Roike didn't like it and the guilt he felt was enormous. He might not have made the decision to banish Flint, it might have been Brutus' decision but he had been the one they came to to do the dirty work of it. He could never forget that night, watching Flint walk away from his only home and his clan.

Now he was a grifter who conned people out of money and was stuck in deep with the old traditions trying to resurrect the old gods. It made him want to throw up. He had done that. He had done that to his best fucking friend. He hated himself for that.

"Look alive!" The strained voice was faint but it had Roike freezing. He glanced over at his contact and she was already slamming her laptop shut and getting to her feet. His heart thumped hard in his chest as he watched the tree line. He tried to pinpoint sounds of someone moving through the trees but he couldn't, not with his heart pounding like it was. "Get the SUV open, we have casualties!" A smaller vampire burst through the tree line, a limp figure over her shoulders in a fireman hold.

"How bad?" His contact was already yanking open the SUV's back hatch. The female vampire ran over the gravel towards the SUV. Roike couldn't place her as anyone he had seen before. She was wearing tactical gear, a long case on her back included.