He’d left her half-asleep in bed after he kissed her and he did this with her thinking what he’d told her the day before: that he was training with all the men somewhere on the property and he wouldn’t be back until noon.

Delilah wasn’t big on early mornings, and seeing as he left their bed before four, this meant she didn’t haul her ass out to watch him train. She also didn’t ask what was up and why the training had changed.

She trusted him.

Completely.

Which was part of the reason why he felt shit.

But he’d been feeling shit for a while, the entire lead-up to having to tell the lie, knowing he’d eventually have to do it.

So he felt more shit now having done it.

The only good thing that came from the last four days of planning this mission was Abel coming to the understanding that Lucien and Callum knew their shit.

With Callum, this wasn’t a surprise.

With nothing to do but fuck, train, and sit around chatting, Callum and Lucien had explained a great deal of supernatural history to him. And although vampires kept a choke hold on their kind after the last insurrection burned down half of London, wolves didn’t. Seeing as Callum explained wolves were passionate, lusty, and prone to quick tempers, this meant they skirmished often.

And that meant Callum had experience, including experience with the rebel wolves who wanted world dominance for supernaturals. The good news with that was he’d been successful in bringing them low during a recent battle.

The results of this were that even Gregor’s intelligence reported that the wolf part of the current rebel faction was few. This was because Callum and his army had recently kicked their asses in a way that any who might be leaning toward that would think twice. Losing a brother and his father to it, not to mention Sonia being targeted by the rebels, it wasn’t surprising he didn’t leave a lot of them breathing.

Lucien’s last experience was five hundred years ago as a general in the last vampire-on-vampire war, but he’d not grown rusty.

Abel had none of their strategic or battle experience, but even so, they were cool with him, explaining everything, sharing it all, asking for his input and opinions.

He didn’t have much to give them, and although it sucked not having anything to offer, so they’d get on with shit, Abel made it clear he was down with that. He wasn’t happy to be a soldier in this mess, but he’d do anything to ensure his future with Delilah, his mate, the one he’d waited lifetimes for, the only human who would be at his side for eternity.

So they had it all covered, including letting Gregor in on what they were planning and utilizing his resources.