The Trials of Gregg (4 page)

He had at least a week with Gregg, too, which would be plenty of time to woo him. That was provided Gregg was gay. Going by the way Gregg kept glancing over and giving John longing gazes, he was. Either that or he was very interested in John’s uniform, but John was willing to bet it was the former and not the latter.

“So is there some place where you guys train?” John asked.

“Why do you want to know? Are you thinking of joining our ranks?” Gregg asked.

John gave a shrug. “I’ve been a soldier for so many years. Why change now?”

Gregg smiled. “Cool, follow me, and I’ll show you the training facilities.”

John walked with Gregg, purposely staying a step behind so he could check out Gregg’s ass. Damn it, but it should be a sin to have an ass that fine. It made John want to take a great big bite out of it.

After several turns and the length of several hallways…damn but the place was huge…they finally made it to the training facility. When John got a gander of the setup and all the equipment at their disposal, it was all he could do not to drool. The felines had everything a soldier in training could want and then some.

One corner was set off for sparring, there were blades and a plethora of other weapons strapped to the wall. Another side of the gym had a huge obstacle course. It looked harder than hell, but John still couldn’t wait to tackle it, even as he watched a soldier fall off and take a hard hit to the noggin.

Gregg motioned with his hand toward a doorway. “The shooting range is this way.”

A shooting range! Now they were really talking. If John were just a tad dorkier, he would be jumping in excitement. One of his favorite activities of all time was firing a gun. The bigger, the better. And no, it wasn’t because he had a little dick complex, thank you very much.

They walked inside, and John’s mouth parted in shock when he saw how large it was. There were several shooting stalls. What got him the most of all was that the targets were all in the shapes of birds.

“Doesn’t that bother you?” John asked.

Gregg’s brows furrowed. “What?”

“Well, you’re a Hawk, and everybody is shooting at birds,” John said, thinking it was pretty obvious.

Gregg gave a half-shrug. “I guess it did at first, but since it’s supposed to be Ravens, I got over it quickly. After all, I hate Ravens just as much as the next guy and would like to see the world wiped free of them. That is, except for Dulla and Chance, they’re the only Ravens I’ve met that were actually decent. They even live at the coalition with us and fight for our side.”

John held up a hand, it was all too much to take in at once. “Can we take a break from the tour and do some shooting? My brain is going into overload.”

Gregg nipped at his bottom lip for a moment, before he nodded. “I don’t think Mitchell will mind. He didn’t say anything about not allowing you to handle firearms, so it should be okay. Let’s go to the armory and pick our weapons.”

They each grabbed a
Glock
and some protective gear, then found an empty stall.

“Since you’re the newcomer, I’ll let you go first,” Gregg said as he put on his orange-tinted glasses.

John donned his gear and then took aim at the target. Squeezing off several shots, he was pleased with himself when he saw nearly every one had hit the target. Already, he could feel some of the tension leaving his body. There was nothing like having a gun in his hand and firing it off to make him feel like he had some control back in his life.

Gregg gave a little smirk. “That’s not too bad.”

John gaped at him. “What do you mean? I hit nearly every target dead-on. If you think you can do better, prove it.”

Gregg traded places with John and assumed a shooting stance. Then without even taking a breath, Gregg quickly let out a volley of shots. As the smoke cleared, John was stunned to see that Gregg had hit every single target dead center.

A good-looking guy who could shoot and had a smartass mouth—John was getting hard on the spot. He’d never been so turned on in his entire life. All he wanted to do was pin Gregg down, rub himself all over the Hawk, then screw him senseless. Afterward, John wanted to take Gregg and hide away from the rest of the world. That way nobody but John could ever touch him again.

Now where had that thought come from? John hadn’t exactly been a whore, but all he’d ever been interested in before were quick hookups. He was lucky if they even exchanged names, let alone phone numbers. It was so much easier that way. Nobody got too attached or hurt. So what was it about this Hawk that was so different?

“How did you learn to shoot like that?” John asked, in awe.

“Like I said, I have a personal vendetta against the Ravens, so I want to make sure I can take out as many as possible.”

The words sounded so bitter to John he actually took a step back. But then again, after what Gregg had told him about the Ravens and their actions against his family, he guessed the guy was due some hate. While John had never seen one of these Ravens for himself, they seemed like something from nightmares. That didn’t stop John from giving Gregg a bit of advice, though.

“You let that hate keep building up like that, it will eat you up inside,” he said.

Gregg gave him a sideways glance. “You know what I was doing yesterday?”

“No.”

“I was at a feline home, helping clean up dead bodies. The Ravens had gone in and slaughtered the whole family. That family hadn’t done anything to the Ravens. Their only sin was that they were felines. It’s hard to let go of hate when the Ravens keep throwing gasoline on the fire.”

John let out a sigh. He hated to admit it, but Gregg did have a point there. Even while living as a human, he’d heard the horror stories of what the Ravens were capable of. That’s why the human population hated all shifters in general. They didn’t take the time to differentiate one breed from another. If you could change into an animal, then you were bad and that was final, no questions asked. While it might sound ignorant, and it really was, that was the way people worked. If there was something new or different, they instantly feared it. It had always been that way, and it was never going to change.

“Just make sure that you don’t let the hate change who you are,” John warned.

Gregg gave him a stony-eyed stare. “It’s too late for that. I was changed the day they murdered my family and cast right in front of me. I’ve never been the same since.”

At that moment, John would have done anything to take even a little bit of the pain away from Gregg. For even though they had just met, he already found himself drawn to the Hawk shifter. It killed John to see Gregg hurting so much.

“Even if you murdered every Raven in the world, it wouldn’t bring back those you lost,” John pointed out.

Gregg gave a brittle smile. “Maybe not, but then maybe I would be able to sleep at night without the bad dreams waking me up.”

That made John think of the night terrors he used to have. Well, to be totally honest, he still did have them from time to time, although they were very rare now. He just wished he could remember what they were about. Part of him felt like they were important, like a key to his past. If he could only recall them, then maybe he would finally know for sure who he really was.

They kept shooting for a while, each trying to outdo each other. John always ended up coming short, which was annoying as hell since he’d been the top shooter back in his old life. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t beat Gregg.

Finally, Gregg called a halt to their activity. “I think it’s time for lunch, so why don’t I give you a tour of the cafeteria?”

John hadn’t realized until then that he hadn’t eaten anything since the day before. They had brought him breakfast that morning to his cell, but he’d been too nervous to eat. Now, he was suddenly ravenous.

Putting a hand to his stomach, John said, “That sounds like a great idea to me. Is the food here any good?”

“It’s awesome. Especially considering they have to cook for so many people at once. The Hawks have their own cafeteria, but I usually eat with the felines, because that’s who I hang out with more.”

“Why?” John asked.

He would have thought Gregg would be more comfortable among his own kind. That’s how it usually worked in the human world.

Gregg hedged a bit before saying, “The felines are more laid back and easygoing. So, I get along with them better. Plus my best friend is mated to one of them.”

John shrugged. Okay, it made sense to him, and who was he to judge? “Okay, let’s go.”

They turned in their guns and gear, then Gregg led John to the center of the large building. John was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to figure the layout to the place or if he was going to forever be getting lost. At the moment, the place seemed like one giant maze to him. All that was missing was the cheese at the end.

Gregg handed John a tray. “Everything here is free, so you don’t have to worry about paying. Grab whatever you want.”

Free? John could live with that. Especially with his big appetite. He immediately began to load up his tray. They had so many options available he was setting himself up for quite a binge.

Once they were finished, Gregg waved to a nearby table that had a small group of men sitting at it. “Those are my friends. Let’s go over, and I’ll introduce you to them all.”

John tried hard not to cringe. Just what he didn’t want. To have to play nice and be social while eating. Was he ever going to get a break?

Gregg walked over and sat down. John was left with no other choice but to take the seat next to him. Of course, as soon as he planted his ass down, every gaze honed in on him.

“Everybody, this is John. He’s one of the lost shifters and has just come back to the coalition. Mitchell assigned me to be his mentor,” Gregg said. “John, this is Baxley, Tatum, Drake, Kallen, Ash, and Doc Featherstone.”

John nodded, thinking to himself that there was no way in hell he was going to remember all those names. One of the guys, a smaller one who was dressed in a slightly Goth nature must have realized John’s plight, because he said in a teasing manner, “That’s okay if it takes you a while to remember who is who. I’m sure it’s a bit overwhelming right now.”

The man who was sitting next to the Goth said, “Yeah, if you want, we’ll even wear those Hello-my-name-is tags for you.”

John laughed. “That won’t be necessary. I pick up on things pretty quickly. Just give me a couple of days, and I should have everybody’s name down.”

Another guy came over to their table. He was smaller in stature, but all of John’s warning signals went off. His gut told him that this newcomer was dangerous, and John’s gut had never let him down yet. The stranger had light brown hair, big doe eyes, and the face of pure innocence, yet John knew that was just a façade and underneath it all lay one dangerous person.

The newcomer wore black from head to toe, but his uniform varied from the others at the coalition. His arms and legs were padded, and he wore a large cloak that had a hood on it. This guy was also armed to the teeth. He had weapons strapped to every place imaginable, and John was willing to bet the man had just as many that were hidden away.

The newcomer sat down in one of the empty chairs and let out a sigh. “Tell me why I do this job again?”

“Because you’re a Leopard, and you love to kill?” Gregg said.

The Leopard tilted his head to the side. “Oh yeah, I guess you do have a point there.”

Gregg turned to John. “This is Shane. Shane, this is John, he’s one of the lost shifters that was just recently found. I’m his mentor for at least the next week. So be nice to him.”

Shane made a grunting noise. “When am I not nice?”

That question brought out a barrage of examples from the group of men, all of them having a story that was worse than the last one. Although John had to admit some of them were kind of funny. Especially the one where Shane had left a Horse shifter’s head in Ash’s bed, ala
Godfather
style and all because Ash had the gall to call him cray-cray.

“To be fair, that Horse shifter had it coming to him. He was dealing in slave trading, and there were kids involved,” Shane pointed out.

“But did you have to leave the head in my bed?” Ash asked.

“Yes, I’m full-blown crazy, not cray-cray. Next time get it right.”

John couldn’t help it, but as loony as this Shane guy was, John was really beginning to like him. Then he looked over at Gregg who was laughing at one of the jokes somebody made. The smile of Gregg’s face seemed to lighten up the whole room. It made John think that maybe, just maybe, being a shifter wouldn’t turn out to be such a bad thing after all.

After lunch, Gregg took John back to Mitchell’s office. If John wanted to be a soldier like he claimed, then the sooner they told the coalition leader, the better. A huge part of Gregg couldn’t help but hope John would be assigned to his team. That way, even after the mentorship was over, they would be spending a lot of time together.

It had been a long time since a man had sparked such an interest from Gregg. And it wasn’t just because John was fresh meat, either. There was something about John that was special. In the few short hours they’d spent together, Gregg already knew he wanted to get closer to John. Or at the very least have some down and dirty fun with him.

This time when they went to Mitchell’s office, the leader was alone. He acted a bit surprised to see the pair of them, but he recovered quickly.

“Everything is going okay, I hope?” Mitchell asked.

“Great, Gregg has been doing a fantastic job of showing me around. He just thought it would be best if I came to you now and told you that I wanted to serve in your ranks. That way, you can start working out where I would be and such,” John said.

Mitchell smiled. “I can’t say that I’m upset to hear that. The general had only great things to say about your combat skills. Plus, I heard about the little show you and Gregg put on at the shooting range. There aren’t that many who could keep up with him like that. I was hoping you would decide to join our ranks.”