Betrayal - Book 3 of Guardians Saga - EDITED

CH 6.1 Natural

A/N Please listen to the music. It's eerily appropriate for a chapter I wrote years ago.

*****

Alex and the brothers sat at her battered kitchen table with mismatched chairs. For breakfast, Alex had popped refrigerated croissant dough into her oven and the boudin was hissing and crackling in the frying pan.

"It's good to be home," Gabe said. He had had a good night with Alex, alone, and was enjoying the after-effects.

Rile saw Alex's delight at that statement, so he replied, "This is home now?"

"You know what I mean," Gabe said, obvious that he didn't want Rile to ruin his good mood.

Rile intended exactly that.

"No, I don't know what you mean. But if we're making this home now, I want to know. I want to buy some things for the apartment, some big items since we won't be leaving them behind," Rile said.He could feel anger boiling up inside him and he enjoyed feeling the tension between them.

"Rile—"

"As Guardians, wherever we are on a mission is our home." Cale jumped in quickly, desperation cutting through his usually steady tone.

"Cale's got it right." Gabe leaned back at the rebuttal with an unearned sense of accomplishment written across his face.

Rile thought that Gabe was an idiot for thinking the matter was settled in his favor. Didn't he see the change in Alex from elated to crushed? Maybe Razz was right and the plan could still work. Maybe he could convince her to stop settling for scraps of attention from Gabe and accept whole-hearted love from himself.

"I'm off to work." Alex scrambled from her seat, quickly serving up the boudin that had been simmering in a cast iron skillet.

She grabbed a hot baking sheet filled with crisp croissants and deposited them on the table before slipping into the bedroom without another word.

Cale clacked his claws nervously like an anxious metronome, while his brothers dug into the food. Rile already knew that Alex was working the late shift, but Gabe hadn't been informed yet, which gave him another chance to needle his older brother when it was time to patrol that night.

***

The night went badly, Rile hadn't had a chance to implement Razz's plan, and the brothers were trapped in an alley by a group of Josef Hermann's men.

To add to the mess, they heard a screeching of tires and glimpsed headlights reflecting off the brick walls. Then a black sedan skidded to a stop at the end of the alley.

A man in dark clothing jumped out from behind the wheel and took aim at Herman's with a large semi-automatic handgun. His finger was on the trigger, but he called out confidently, "Stop boys, this is no tranquilizer gun."

Everyone froze, eyes locked on the glinting barrel facing them.

The man's voice was calm but resolute. He slowly scanned the alley, his gaze locking with each of their eyes for a moment before continuing. "Now you might be thinking: there are six of us and one of him: can he stop us all? But that would be the wrong question to ask. I can't stop all of you, but I can kill two, maybe three. Now, the right question is: who wants to die for your cause? Who wants to sacrifice his life for his friends and your cause?"

None of them moved or said a word. Tension filled the room like a tangible force as he brandished his weapon and waited. Finally, like a dam bursting, the collective held breath escaped in a hiss and the tranquilizer guns clattered to the ground.

A satisfied smirk tugged at his lips. "Good choice, now the humans need to run for it."

Rile, Gabe, and Cale watched but didn't move as Josef Hermann's men scrambled out of the alley.