"Oh my Gods!" Beth's eyes widened.
Meryn turned to her. "Exactly!"
Aiden rested his head on the table. "I never understand you," his voice was muffled by the table.
"Understand me? Understand me!" Meryn yelled jumping to her feet again.
She turned to Rheia. "You said your brothers are part of this Vanguard squad?" she asked.
Rheia nodded. "Yes."
"You say they're all across the country?" Meryn prompted.
"Yes, I've heard them talk about many different cities."
"So like, maybe, I don't know, five or ten squads?" Meryn asked.
Rheia shook her head. "More than that, at least one per state, for sure."
"Aiden!" Meryn turned back to Aiden and picked up a fork. "I'm going to fucking stab you!"
Aiden jumped back as Ryuu brought his arms up under Meryn to keep her from stabbing her mate.
"Meryn, you need to calm down and tell us why you're so upset!" Aiden said, concern etched over every inch of his face.
"You all can't be that thick?" Beth demanded, turning an angry look to her mate.
Gavriel shook his head. "We would never knowingly upset either of you my love."
"Let me stab him. Just once!" Meryn yelled. "Just four tiny holes!"
"Can someone please explain?" Aiden boomed.
"You want an explanation? Fine! How about this for an explanation? Lycaonia is slowly being invaded by ferals; we've been attacked not once, but twice. Manpower is so scarce I had to restructure your entire training system just to get rookie trainees distributed to speed up the training process and you mean to tell me you have hundreds, fucking hundreds of trained unit warriors around the country that you haven't told me about?" Meryn gasped for air. She glared at him for two seconds before bursting into tears.
Aiden moved forward, waving his hands around his mate, not knowing what to do. "Baby, please calm down, you'll make yourself sick." Ryuu released her and Meryn collapsed into Aiden's arms. "I didn't deliberately keep it from you, to be honest I forgot all about them. The Vanguard project was never sanctioned by the council, so it was all volunteer based. Instead of cycling from active duty to retirement, we had unit warriors establish identities outside of Lycaonia to provide quicker assistance to families living outside the four pillar cities. Instead of retiring, they were put in an inactive state until they returned. They aren't even on our rosters anymore. For all intents and purposes they are doing this on their own time."
"Please tell me you have a list somewhere. Please tell me you've been keeping track of their names and locations," Beth pleaded.
Aiden looked to Colton and Gavriel. Both men shook their heads.
"Unbelievable." Beth closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.
Aiden pulled Meryn into his lap; she had calmed down enough that she was just sniffling. "You have to keep in mind, this project was never approved and it technically doesn't exist. As one warrior would return, another one would go out. If a warrior wanted rest and relaxation, he would put out feelers in a low-crime area. If they wanted sunny weather and the beach, he would check with coastal squads to see if they had an opening. These men go into an inactive status when they leave. They pretty much run things themselves with Radek being point of contact to me for all the squads. He might have more information, but then again, he lives outside of Lycaonia and doesn't have to worry about paperwork being found in an audit."
"Don't blow smoke, Aiden." Beth said, her eyes opening. A small grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I saw the state of your office before we redecorated, you weren't worried about an audit."
Aiden had the decency to blush.
Colton leaned back in his chair and threaded his fingers behind his head. "Radek is still with Vanguard huh? That sneaky bastard, he owes me five bucks."
Everyone turned to face him. Rheia knew that his offhanded comment made it seem like the missing five dollars was Colton's only concern, but she saw it for what it was, comic relief. Sure enough, when she looked around everyone was smiling.
"I can call him for you. I'm sure he'd be very interested to hear you're my mate." Rheia teased.
Colton's chair landed on all fours and he looked at her not blinking. "Fuck! I've mated Radek Carson's little sister."
"Actually, he calls me his baby sister. That probably doesn't make a difference though." Rheia laughed at Colton's morose expression, it tickled her.
"You talk about him like you know him," Beth said.
The men all nodded.
"He's good enough to be in Alpha, he could have had my position if he had wanted it. But the idea of leaving Lycaonia was too tempting," Colton explained.
"We need an accurate count of all Vanguard warriors and their locations. Then we need to be able to get in contact with them and mobilize them if need be. Then we have to make sure that they are either up to speed on current human technology or get a sixth man out to them to run their command centers." Meryn began listing everything that needed to be done.
Beth stood. "First things first, your wellness checkup. I'm sure that Rheia would love to see our recently renovated clinic."
Meryn stood, her eyes and nose red. "Okay." All the spunk seemed to have been drained from her during her outburst.
"I'm sorry, baby, if I had remembered I would have told you sooner." Aiden nuzzled her cheek gently.