I’m finished with you, he’ll take you on as a trainee to be one of his soldiers.”
Skye’s eyes grew wide. “You’re kidding me.”
Alden let out a small laugh. He just couldn’t help himself. Skye’s reaction was so funny. “I don’t kid about stuff that important.”
Skye gave a little jump before he embraced Alden. It was a sweaty hug, but damn if Alden didn’t enjoy every second of it. All-too-soon Skye pulled away. “Oh my God, thank you so much! I can’t wait to tell Branson and Gage. They aren’t going to believe it. I’m not a fuckup anymore.”
“Hey, you were never a fuckup. You were just a little lost there for a moment.”
Alden hated it when Skye talked about himself that way. Sure, Skye might have had a few bumps…alright, a lot of bumps along the way, but he was working hard at cleaning up his act. What’s more, he had come there almost all on his own, so he deserved some credit.
“You’re the only one who has ever said that to me,” Skye said softly.
“I said it because it’s true,” Alden replied.
“Thank you. And I don’t just mean for the comment. I mean for everything.”
“Skye, you did it all on your own. You have no idea how amazing you are,” Alden said.
“No, Alden, you have no idea how amazing you are,” Skye returned.
Skye reached up and gently touched Alden’s cheeks. “You’re hurt. How did that happen?”
“I got taken down by a couple of Ravens. I’ll be okay.”
“You need to shift and make sure that you heal.”
A lump formed in Alden’s throat. Since he was an orphan because he’d lost all of his family in the mass Raven attack over twenty years ago, nobody had ever cared about his injuries before. It felt good to have somebody who gave a damn about him.
And it was at that moment that Alden realized that Logan was right, Skye was the one for him, and Alden wasn’t about to let him get away.
Chapter Five
Over the next couple of weeks, Skye worked hard with Alden to get ready to go into training to be a soldier. Since he lacked the most in hand-to-hand and small weapons fighting, that was what they worked the most at.
Most nights, Skye went home so tired that he could barely crawl into bed. He received texts from his old friends asking him to go out. Every time, Skye would respond the same way—that he was too tired to go out. Eventually, the texts died down, and they stopped bothering him. Skye realized that he had probably pissed them off, and they had ditched him as a friend. Instead of being upset about it, he felt a sense of relief. It was as if that old chapter of his life had finally closed and he could finally move on.
He no longer felt the urge to go out and party. He was set on his goal to become a coalition soldier. He wanted to make Branson proud of him. What’s more, he wanted to make Alden proud of him.
As Skye lay in his bed, all sore and tired from his latest day of work, his mind drifted to his trainer. While he knew it was wrong, he couldn’t help but think of Alden in a sexual way. What Skye would do just to get one piece of Alden. Oh, who was he kidding? He wanted the whole man, every from his toes to his scrumptious lips.
Gah! Just thinking about Alden made Skye hard. Palming his erection through his sweats, Skye thought about how sexy Alden looked. Even when he was all sweaty from working out, he managed to flip all of Skye’s buttons.
Skye moved his hand and threw it over his face. He might as well forget it. Even if he did clean up his act, there was no way there could be anything between the two of them. Not only was there no way that Alden would ever be interested in somebody who was as young as Skye, but Alden was some elite soldier. He was the best of the best. While Skye was some bumbling nobody. Why would he ever be interested in a nobody like Skye who was ten years younger than him?
Yet there had been times when Skye could have sworn that he saw a spark of interest in Alden’s eyes. Of