The Guardian Chronicles 1: Rise of the Phoenix by Matthew Burkey

rules.”
    Ryan simply shrugged as climbed off the ski.
    “You are so not going to let me live this down, are you?” Tony asked.
    “Probably not,” Gabriel answered, shrugging again. “Unless you shut up about the incident in Cairo, then I might think about letting this slide, after a few weeks that is.”
    Ryan made a fire while Everett worked on starting up the grill that they brought with them, it had long ago been decided that after the incident with the spiced chicken, Everett was the only one that was allowed to cook.
    After eating they sat around the fire, swapping stories about the last few months.
    “I really want to know,” Gabriel said, poking at the fire with a stick. “What all the fuss is about this hot tub incident you keep mentioning is. Just when someone looks like they are about to tell the story, Ryan threatens their lives and everyone clams up about it.”
    “With good reason,” Cody grumbled. “You’ve seen what he looks like when he gets mad.”
    Ryan shot Cody an annoyed look, which appeared to be enough to silence the archer on the matter.
    “We are not going to go through that again,” Ryan said, his warning glare falling on everyone but Gabriel. “Besides, we could always tell him about that Succubus incident.”
    Tony’s eyes widened.
    “Oh,” Gabriel said, his brows rising. “Now that sounds just as interesting as the whole hot tub story.”
    “It’s quite the interesting affair,” Elise said, with a smile. “You see Tony here, who in case you haven’t figured out by now, is somewhat of a Don Juan, had the dubious task of infiltrating a den of Succubi. Now, that would have been all well and good except for the fact that Tony caught the eye of...what was her name again?”
    “Delilah,” Tony said, with a heavy sigh. “And she was gorgeous, even for a Succubus.”
    “You say that about all your bloody girls,” Cody grumbled, rolling his eyes skyward.
    “Anyway,” Elise continued. “Tony cozies up to Delilah and even gets her to admit, on tape that she has been kidnapping young men around town to feed on. So, we go in with the assault team and try to apprehend them and when we got upstairs to Delilah’s room we found...”
    “In nothing but his undies tied to her bed,” Cody interrupted, a rather large grin crossing face.
    “Undies?” Tony asked, arching an eyebrow. “Really, what are you eight?”
    Cody scowled at his teammate.
    “And besides it was necessary,” Tony said with a shrug. “I had to play the part make it look real. Nothing ever really happened between us.”
    Gabriel couldn’t help but let out a snort of laughter.
    “Why didn’t Ethan come out with us?” Gabriel asked. He hoped the inquiry sounded innocent enough, although he was pretty sure that everyone on the team knew about his crush on their team leader. Well, everyone except maybe Cody. The archer seemed pretty clueless about things of that nature.
    “Ethan likes his alone time,” Elise offered, prodding the fire. “He’s probably still upset that they took us off active duty for a few days.”
    “They didn’t really have choice,” Marissa offered. “Aadesh was right, we were all pretty overworked. Even Ethan can’t keep up this pace without a few night’s rest.”
    “Don’t tell him that,” Ryan grunted. “Otherwise we might have to endure another one of his speeches about his sheer awesomeness.”
    “He makes speeches about his sheer awesomeness?” Gabriel asked. “Actually, that really doesn’t surprise me that much.”
    “It shouldn’t,” Tony grumbled.
    “And like you’re one to talk?” Ryan asked. “You’ve given your fair share of speeches about how epic and awesome you are too. Both on the battlefield and behind closed doors.”
    “Alright,” Marissa said, standing up and halting the conversation. “I think we can all agree that’s all that we need to hear about that. I’m going to turn in, hopefully without visions of naked Tony in my