Page 1 of Creed (Rock Hard Mountain Men #3)

Creed

I awoke in a panic. Sweat dripped over my heated skin, quickly cooling in the night air and summoning goosebumps from my flesh. It felt like every hair on my body was standing on end.

Someone was watching me.

Grabbing the knife hidden under my pillow, I threw it with all the force I could muster while sitting up in bed.

The knife cut the air with an audible whistle. Even without seeing it, I could tell it was a good throw.

However, instead of the damp sound of metal piercing flesh that I expected, there was a sharp crack of something breaking instead.

Reaching out blindly in the dark, I groped for the light sitting by the bed. Everything in the room was new and unfamiliar, and I knocked the shade clear off the lamp before I managed to turn it on.

The glow of the now bare bulb illuminated the walls of Brody’s guest room around me. It was small but neatly furnished. He’d put a lot of care into designing everything, just like he had the rest of the house he’d built for himself.

A mirror hung on the wall across from me. The once spotless surface was now marred with spiderweb cracks, spreading out from my knife that pierced it right through the center.

Right between the reflection of my own eyes.

“Damn,” I muttered as I ran a hand through my short hair, wincing at how sweaty it felt. “Not again.”

I’d hung that mirror there to hide yesterday’s knife mark, which I’d left after the previous night’s bad dream. If this kept up, I was going to have to explain to Brody why I kept making holes in his house.

He’d understand. Brody, Magnus, and I had all fought on the frontlines together. We all understood the nightmares that came with such experiences.

Still, I’d prefer to avoid the conversation entirely.

Sighing again when I realized it wasn’t just my hair that was sweaty, but my whole body as well, I rose from the bed to take a shower.

Brody had done a good job designing the place. Even the guest bathroom had ample space. My elbows didn’t even touch the walls of the shower no matter how I moved. It was practically five-star luxury after the Spartan military life I’d been living.

Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it.

After my shower, I checked the clock. It was only a few hours until dawn.

Certain that I wasn’t going to get any more sleep, I went downstairs to make myself a cup of coffee.

That alone took a half hour of my time as I struggled to figure out Brody’s fancy coffee machine.

I could bushwack my way through wild terrain, and fly a chopper through hostile airspace, but figuring out the exact sequence of buttons and levers had had to push just to make myself a drink was worse than diffusing a bomb.

Which I’d also done before. Only once, but once was enough.

I sat on the couch by the window without turning on any lights, content to watch the night sky.

The sound of footsteps in the dark put me on edge.

My hand drifted to the knife on my belt, which never left my side.

However, a moment later, instead of the attacker I expected, I was instead greeted with the sight of a dog approaching me.

Brody and Magnus had told me about the dogs they adopted, and I’d seen them a few times through videocalls, but never met the creatures in person until a few days ago.

Luckily, those videocalls were enough for them to recognize my voice, so the dogs accepted me into their territory easily.

I would have hated to be at odds with Brody and Magnus’s new pets.

The Pitbull that approached me now, which I thought was named Indigo, hopped up onto the couch next to me and laid down with a great sigh, as if it had just run a marathon. Its wide head pressed right against my leg, so close that I could feel every movement when it breathed.

Nothing happened for a moment, but then the dog huffed and shifted position to put its head right in my lap. Large eyes stared up at me with a look that I swore seemed like it was scolding me for something.

I met the creature’s gaze, not sure what to do. I’d never really been an animal person. The only pet I’d ever had was the cat my family had when I was a kid. The little beast hadn’t liked me and clawed at me whenever I came near it.

The dog let out another huff, then butted my hand with its head.

Finally picking up the cue, I started stroking its head. The fur was very short, but also softer than expected. Its silver-blue fur had an almost metallic sheen, but the texture made me think of velvet rather than steel.

I’d heard that dogs were therapeutic. It had never made much sense to me before.

What therapy could a creature that couldn’t even talk really offer?

Now, however, I started to understand. There was a comfort to be found in the presence of a dog that a human couldn’t provide.

No matter how much I cared about Brody and Magnus, if they had been the ones to find me down here in the middle of the night, they would have had questions that I would have had to answer.

With a dog, no conversation was necessary.

I could just enjoy the presence of another living creature without having to explain the nightmares that kept me awake, or the multiple knife marks that littered my bedroom walls.

I wouldn’t have known how to explain even if the dog could ask.

The dawn eventually came, but still neither Brody nor Magnus appeared.

I didn’t see another living soul until nearly nine in the morning.

“Nice to see you among the living,” I said when Brody stepped downstairs.

His hair was still mussed from sleep, and his shirt wasn’t buttoned, so it hung open. Red marks covered his chest. They blended in with his equally red chest hair, so they were hard to see, but they definitely hadn’t been there the day before.

I turned my gaze away from the marks, trying to ignore where they must have come from.

Brody didn’t even hesitate as he made himself a drink from the coffee machine. “This is a perfectly normal time to wake up. Your perception is just skewed because you’re too used to military time.”

I pretended to take a sip from my empty coffee mug to make it look like I hadn’t been sitting there that long.

“It wasn’t that long ago that you were living on military time as well. It’s been less than a year since you retired. Do old habits really die so quickly?”

Brody raised an eyebrow at me over the rim of his mug as he took a sip of his own fresh coffee.

“Are you really judging me for living like a civilian?” he asked as he started preparing breakfast.

With a pang of guilt, I realized that was exactly what I was doing. Some part of me had expected everything to stay the same, even after we retired. Same morning routine, same division of labor, same strict schedule.

It was a foolish thought. I should have realized that leaving the military behind meant more than just a change of location.

My guilt intensified as I watched Brody cook. I’d already been awake for hours. I could have prepared food for everyone, but the thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.

There was no helping it now. I’d just have to find another way to make myself useful.

“What’s the plan for today?” I asked when it seemed like Brody was almost done cooking.

“There’s some things we need to take care of,” he said without looking away from whatever he was stirring in a skillet. “But let’s wait for the others to get here to discuss it.”

The fact that he’d said “others” instead of “Magnus” was just dawning on me when someone descended the stairs.

The man that stepped into view was a stranger.

Brody had introduced him to me. I knew his name was Ellis Beckham and that he apparently lived here now, but in my mind he was still just a stranger that I didn’t know.

At almost the same time, the front door opened, and Magnus entered the house with an enthusiastic greeting. Another stranger walked at his side as well. A man named Trent, who I didn’t know any more than I knew Ellis.

Right. Brody and Magnus had partners now.

That was... going to take some getting used to.

I’d always known that Brody and Magnus were gay. Technically, I was as well, but it was a fact that I’d never been comfortable enough to look at very closely.

‘Don’t ask, don’t tell’ may have ended years ago but I was quite comfortable keeping such things out of sight and out of mind. It was just one more complication that I didn’t need.

Now, however, reality was blatantly staring me in the face as I was invited to the breakfast table.

Conversation passed between the four of them easily. For Magnus and Brody this wasn’t surprising, but the new additions—Ellis and Trent—also joined in easily. They seemed as comfortable as if they were in their own home.

Because they were home.

Somehow, while being introduced to these other two men, I’d completely glossed over the fact that they lived here.

At least, I think that was the case. I remembered Magnus saying something about Trent having his own place in town, but that might have been a business and not a home. So much had been thrown at me at once when I arrived, I’d missed some of the explanation.

No matter what, even if this new pair didn’t truly live here, this place was definitely as comfortable to them as a home.

I’d helped buy the property, and owned a third of the land, but it wasn’t my home. I was the stranger here. The new arrival that didn’t fit.

“Hey, Creed. You okay?”

Magnus’s question snapped me out of the daze I’d fallen into.

I realized I’d been staring at my own plate for a while, not even seeing the food in front of me.

I hadn’t even picked up my fork to start eating, which must have looked odd when the others were at least halfway done with their own meals.

Clearing my throat, I reached for my coffee mug, which had been refilled at some point. “Yeah. I’m fine. Um... Brody, didn’t you say there was something we needed to talk about?”