Wildfire Griffin (Fire & Rescue Shifters: Wildfire Crew #1)(27)
Rory furrowed his brow. “Chief?”
Buck let out a heavy sigh. “The fire yesterday, the one at the lookout tower. You said on the phone you needed to talk to me about it in person.”
“Uh,” Rory said, thrown by the abrupt change of topic. “Yeah. There were things that I couldn’t put in the official report.”
Buck gave him a level look. “Like the fact that it was started by an invisible lightning-throwing monster?”
Rory stared at him.
“Thought so.” Buck pushed his chair back. “Guess it’s time we had a little chat about the real reason you’re here.”
He unlocked a desk drawer, extracting a thick manila folder. He flipped it open, paging through. Rory caught brief glimpses of printed-out news stories—MYSTERY FIRE CLAIMS THREE LIVES and INFERNO STILL RAGES—before Buck pulled out a map from amongst the clippings.
Buck unfolded the large sheet, spreading it across the desk. Upside-down, it took Rory a moment to recognize it as a detailed topology map of Montana, showing terrain and elevation. Colored blobs had been hand-drawn across the soft, well-worn paper.
Buck put a square, blunt finger on a blue splotch. “Ridge Fire, five years ago. Lightning strike. Jumped four attempts to contain it thanks to repeated thunderstorms.” His finger moved across a few inches, to a green blob. “Hook End Fire, following year. Blamed on dumb kids horsing around a campfire, but they swore on the witness stand that lightning came out of nowhere and hit their tents. No one believed them, of course. Blue Mile Fire, lightning. June Bug Fire, a damn nightmare of a blaze, same cause.”
“I remember it,” Rory said, staring down at the map. “That was my first year. We came in late on that one.”
“And I wish we hadn’t already been deployed in California when the call went out, because I would give my left nut to have had you on the scene at the start. Might have saved a hell of a lot of acres.” Buck leaned back, looking grim. “And lives.”
Rory counted blobs. “These are all lightning fires?”
“Yep.” Buck waved a hand across the map. “Either Montana has personally pissed off Thor… or something paranormal likes to keep its territory nice and toasty. Now, here’s the interesting bit. Red, yellow, and purple are the fires from the past three years. What do you notice?”
“There are fewer of them. They’re smaller.” Something else hit him as he studied the scrawled lines. “And most of them are well away from our base. You think that’s because I was here?”
“Exactly. Our firebug is scared of shifters. I’ve been tracking this creature for a decade, Rory. I was going motherloving bananas trying to work out why it had suddenly started tiptoeing around when it usually rampages across the state every summer. Once I found out what you were, it all clicked into place. And I realized that I finally had a way to put a stop to all this.”
Rory had been standing to attention for his dressing-down. Now he sank into a chair opposite Buck. The chief didn’t object, simply watching him without expression.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Rory asked.
“Because you’re pathologically protective with a hero complex,” Buck said calmly. “If I’d told you why I actually needed a shifter-only squad, you would never have recruited your friends for me.”
Rory clenched his hands on the edge of the desk. “You realize I’m going to tell them the truth.”
“Go ahead. Even if you use your power to force them to go home, they’re only going to turn around and come straight back the moment it wears off.” Buck shrugged. “After all, are you going to turn tail and run now that you know the real problem?”
Rory let out his breath, slowly. “No.”
“Exactly. You’re a firefighter. So are they. Nobody comes into this line of work unless they’re willing to lay down their life for the greater good.” Buck sighed, suddenly looking every one of his forty-five years. “Look, I’m not going to apologize for manipulating you. I’ll do what I have to do to get the job done. But I also won’t risk lives unnecessarily. A-squad is my secret weapon. Whenever I get even a sniff of this monster, I’m going to send you out, right into the heat. I need you to kill this thing. That’s why I can’t put an ordinary human on your squad.”
Our mate is not ordinary, Rory’s griffin said. And we need her at our side.
Rory leaned his elbows on the table, putting his head in his hands. I know we do. But it’s not safe. We have to send her away, for her own protection.
NO. His griffin’s denial was instantaneous, and so fierce that his skin prickled, threatening to erupt into fur and feathers. We have invited her into our nest, our pride. To throw her out now would break her heart. We cannot hurt her!
Rory remembered the hitch of old pain in Edith’s soft voice when she’d spoken of how her old crew had rejected her. It was clear how much she wanted to be a wildland firefighter. Ever since she’d agreed to join A-squad, she’d been walking around with a dazed, thunderstruck expression, like someone waiting to wake up from a dream. How could he snatch that away from her?
But if she stayed…she would be in danger.
If there is danger, that is all the more reason to keep her close, his griffin insisted. She will not want to leave us, any more than we would ever leave her in peril. We are mates. Our fates are bound together.