Free Call of the Wild by Lucy Kelly Page B

She needed to make sure he was flirting because of interest, and not just because she had been giving him a hard time. Challenge flirting or interested flirting, time would tell.
    After all the food was eaten and each of them had taken a break to stretch their legs, they all got back to work. No one wanted to stop at midday, which had been the original idea. Because Aaron’s strategy and ideas were so good, they didn’t need the extra thinking time. Instead, they wanted to use every available minute to refine. Then they could begin training the various teams.
    “Well, we have a very workable plan,” said Alexander, at the end of a long day. “You’ll all have tonight to be with your families. Beginning tomorrow, all operational personnel will need to stay here in the Compound. Laura and Marsha will break you into our five main offensive groups. You can expect a text sometime tonight. I want to thank you all for participating today. As you know, this is just the first of many such meetings. As more of Laura’s intelligence is analyzed, there will be a need for others. This mission will be a wake-up call to both The Society and the Shayatin. It’s possible there will be an escalation of hostilities. We need to prepare for a backlash.”
    “Do you feel we should step up the removal of our children to safety?” asked a voice from the end of the table. Aaron thought his name was Joseph.
    “I don’t think we should vary from our current plan. If we’re seen to be making too many moves, our enemies will be alerted. They may change their timetable or attack in a different location altogether. We’ll coordinate an evacuation of children nationally, the same day we implement our counter-offensive in Marlinton,” Alexander proclaimed.
    “I’m just glad it is summer, and they’re all out of school,” said another person.
    The meeting broke up, and the room emptied quickly. As well appointed and comfortable as the room was, it had now been nearly ten hours. Sitting in chairs that long took a toll. Aaron stood and stretched out his back.
    “I could use a run and then a steam. How about you?” he asked Marsha. She had finished her mini conference with Laura about the teams and was gathering her things.
    “Yeah, I could use a run. I do my running shifted, though, so you’re on your own. Later!” she called out over her shoulder as she sailed out of the room.
    Yeah, he was probably her mate. Still, he was human, so she decided to go after him the human way. He was going to have to chase her. Oh, wait, that was the shifter way. He was going to have to woo her. She wasn’t falling into bed with him right away either, no matter how much her body craved his touch. Thump, thump, thump! Damn it!
    She hurried down the hall to be out of sight when he came through the door. Yeah, she was ditching the hot guy. It was her first step in her master plan to catch him. Laura or someone else in the room must have waylaid him, because she made it to the stairwell before the door could open behind her.
    Marsha dumped her notebook on her desk and then took off all of her clothes, dumping them in the laundry hamper. Opening the door to her closet, she pulled out a robe and put it on as she stepped into some generic flip-flops.
    The Barbegazi family had dug a tunnel almost all the way through the mountain. They were mostly hibernating now, since they preferred cold, snowy weather. She reached the central hub and went into the shift chamber. After hanging up her robe and kicking off her flip-flops with all of the others, she called her shift. Within moments, a golden mountain lion stood where the curvy woman had been. It took her another twenty minutes to get through the long tunnel to the entrance they affectionately called the back door. The entrance was in the back of a natural cave, and was hidden from view. Still, they kept sentries on duty as all entrances needed to be guarded.
    Of course, there were also fiber-optic cables strung up