by B N Miles
Meta Marshal Service
An Urban Fantasy Harem Adventure
BN Miles
Copyright © 2020 by BN Miles
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
About BN Miles
1
Jared watched the rolling, rocky landscape flash past the glass windows of the prisoner transport and let out a breath. The hum of the engine made his eyes droop, but the rough, worn seat kept him from falling asleep. The floor was a matte gunmetal gray and the walls themselves were reinforced steel broken up by rivets at even intervals. He glanced over and watched the driver frown at the road in front of them as the transport wound up a steep, rocky climb.
Jared had been reading for the past four hours, and although he loved a good thriller, keeping his nose buried in a book for another four while this over-enchanted armored bus rolled along made him want to puke.
But that was the job. He lifted the book and stared at the words for another moment before closing his eyes.
He could feel them back there in the cargo hold.
Two prisoners, both chained and cuffed. Wards damped their access to the priori but that didn’t stop their pulsing auras from touching his senses.
The one was red hot fire, like lava on his skin. But instead of burning, it felt almost cool, almost sensual. He shivered at the feel before the other aura pressed it back and washed over him.
Harsh and stinging, a jungle covered in rain.
He pushed both auras away and tried to keep focused.
Only four more hours until they reached Lake Eerie and the Meta Max Prison. Then these two wouldn’t be his problem anymore.
Jared lifted the book again.
Routine prisoner transport was boring. Most of his job was boring. He came into the office, did paperwork, made coffee, and clocked out by five. Sometimes he went out into the field, like today, but mostly he rode his desk like a fine stallion—and he loved every minute of it.
No magic, no auras grating at his skin. Just quiet office work. People smiled, said good morning, asked if he was ready for the weekend. That sort of stuff.
Not many people joined the Meta Marshal Service for the peace and quiet. Lots of young men like him joined up to catch bad guys and to be great heroes.
Those types didn’t last long.
Jared appreciated bureaucracy. That was necessary for any government gig, including the Meta services.
As he scanned the book again, easing back into the narrative, he felt something strange. At first, he thought the two prisoners were flexing their auras again, just to be assholes, but that wasn’t it. These were just pinpricks on his senses, pinpricks that shouldn’t exist. They were out in the middle of nowhere, riding the turnpike through the mountain near Pittsburgh. There were a few other cars around, but…
There it was again. Another prick, but stronger this time. Closer.
Jared sat up straight. He felt the auras growing, and whoever projected them wasn’t trying to hide.
He cursed as he stood up. The driver looked bored and had his ear buds in, which was the dumbest thing he could do, but this was just a routine transport. Nothing special, nothing risky. The guy had done a thousand of these before.
“Hey!” Jared said, taking a step toward him. “Hey, we should—”
The transport rocked to the side.
“Shit!” the driver screamed as the bus went up on two wheels. The tires screeched and Jared was thrown to the side. Something hit them again, and this time the world exploded into ash and torn metal.
Jared’s body hit the other side of the bus and before he could stop himself, his mind formed a memgram. He felt the priori burst through him as the image ripped through his mind and body, coming unbidden by instinct.
Glass shards on a deep, inky black background, glittering in crystal white moonlight. The shards lift, diaphanous and gentle, swaying in a breeze, until they come together in a sudden, wind-shaking reverse shattering, forming a diamond deeper and harder than any rock could be.
The transport hit the ground and skidded. He heard a scream that was cut off as the wall across from him was ripped into pieces. Jared was thrown around before he wedged against one seat. He grabbed onto the cushion and held as tight as he could as the transport continued sliding across the road. Steel screamed and tore into shreds and smoke billowed from the engine, cascading into the sky, filling the space with a thick black plume.
Everything stopped when the transport slammed into the far side of the road, smashing against the cliff face. Jared rammed against the seat, then fell to the floor and lay there groaning.
He should have been dead.
Except the air around his body was diamond-hard, like a suit of armor. He still felt like he’d been beaten with a bunch of old, rusty pipes, but he was alive at least. He got to his knees, keeping the hardened air around him. There was a silence that was so thick that he thought he was in a dream.
But it was real. He coughed as the smoke began to dissipate. The transport was a wrecked, twisted lump. Tools, seat sections, and broken glass littered what was left of the front section. Jared got up and moved to the driver, picking his way through smashed glass and steel. He reached the place where the driver should have been and found only a mangled, smeared splotch of red and gristle, crushed between the steering wheel and a long strip of metal.
He turned away and let out a breath.
“What the fuck just happened?” he asked the surrounding silence.
He let the magic drop from his skin. He groaned as he grabbed onto a seat cushion to steady himself. A flood of desire washed over him, rushing in to fill the gaps where the priori had just been. He wanted to reach out and touch it again, wanted to touch it so fucking badly. He had to clench his jaw and breathe deep. He closed his eyes and pushed the desire away, picturing the black blank, breathing hard, forcing himself to focus.
The desire abated, but didn’t leave.
It wouldn’t for a while. He’d have urges for days, and that was just one spell, one minor fucking spell. His fingers dug into the seat cushion as he stood up straight and checked his service weapon. It had survived the wreck, and he took it from its holster, checking the clip and chambering a round.
He picked his way toward the back of the transport.
The whole bus was ravaged. He had no clue what had done this, but he knew it wasn’t natural. Meta
transports were littered with wards, rippling with the stuff. It was a magical tank, and any kind of Meta attack should have been useless. His fingers touched black soot, and he wondered if it hadn’t been a magical attack after all.
The back portion of the bus was bent and twisted, but the door was still intact. The transport consisted of a front section for the staff to ride in, and a back portion, which was armored all the way around, with no windows and accessible through a single door. He kicked at it, but nothing happened. He punched in the release code and almost laughed when the thing beeped then clicked.
Good old-fashioned technology. Sure as hell beat magic every time. At least it could be counted on.
He grabbed the handle and heaved, pulling as hard as he could.
The prisoners were a mystery to Jared. He’d been given files on them both, but they contained almost nothing. He knew one was a Dryad and the other was some type of Shifter, although he wasn’t sure what kind. The Dryad was in for theft, and the Shifter was in for… something worse, probably. Her file was almost completely blanked out and redacted. When he asked his boss about it, Wyatt just shrugged.
“Over my pay grade,” he said, and Jared let it drop there.
Now though, he wondered about that Shifter. His heart was beating a fast but steady rhythm and he fought to keep himself calm. The Need was there, gnawing at him, pushing him to touch the piori again. He had to force it away. Any Metas in a mile radius would feel him touch the priori, and he’d done it once already. No use letting them know he’d survived.
The door creaked forward. He pushed a boot against the wall and yanked as hard as he could.
There was just enough space for him to kneel down and look inside. He propped it open with a chunk of what was once the back of a seat and peered into the space. Light filtered in through a jagged hole in the side of the wall and illuminated nothing.
“Hey!” he called out. “Hey, you two alive in there?”
No response. He stared into the space. There’s no way they’d gotten away. Even if the enchantments on the transport had broken, which was unlikely, the enchantments on their containment wouldn’t. Then there were the cuffs they wore, made of an ore that damped magic itself. There was no way either of them would be dangerous, and yet…
He felt an aura surge at him.
The red poured over his skin.
“Cut that out,” he growled. “Come into the light where I can see you.” He held his service weapon at a forty-five degree angle, pointing away from his prisoner, but ready.
A form moved in the gloom. Jared watched, sweat prickling, head back. He wasn’t sure if the anxiety was from the Need or from the uncertainty.
The person slipped into the light.
And she smiled at him.
“Hi there,” she said. “The other guy’s gone.”
Jared stared at her in shock.
2
The girl kneeling in the light beam was beautiful. Jared couldn’t think of any other way to describe her. Despite the baggy, formless brown jumpsuit all prisoners wore, she still somehow made his pulse race. Maybe it was the Need again, forcing his desire into overdrive.
That was another side effect of touching the priori. His Need could be sated through magic use… or it could be dampened through other means.
Drugs were popular. Sex was more effective.
He took calming breaths.
She had long, thick red hair that had been pulled up into a bun before, but was now half-fallen. Her sensual, pouty lips smirked at him, and he couldn’t help but notice her curves under the browns. Her eyes glowed green.
“The other guy’s gone,” she said again.
“Wait, what?” Jared forced himself into the moment again. “What do you mean, gone?”
She shrugged and nodded at the hole in the transport’s wall. “Gone. Up there.”
“You mean he’s running?”
“I don’t know. It happened really fast.” She moved toward him again. The chains that held her to the wall had broken in the crash, but her cuffs were still in place, keeping her wrists in front of her. “Listen, could you help me out here? Maybe take these cuffs off, please?” She batted her eyelashes at him. “You seem like a handsome, competent—”
“Enough,” Jared said through a clenched jaw. “I need to find him. Stay here.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go out there, if I were you.” She glanced up at the hole again with a frown.
“Why not? I need to bring him in. Shit, I need to call for backup.” Jared realized he was disoriented from the crash and from using magic for the first time in months. “Stay there.”
“Wait, please,” she said, her voice sounding more urgent. “Don’t leave me in here.”
But Jared was already crawling out. He went back up to the front of the transport and grabbed the driver’s radio. He ignored the bloody smear of a human and hit the call button. “This is Agent Jared Bechtel, requesting urgent backup. Prisoner transport Alpha One One Three was hit by… gods, something, I don’t know what. We’re down. One prisoner is missing. I need urgent backup.”
The radio crackled into silence. Jared wasn’t sure anyone heard.
“Agent Bechtel,” the voice said, a calm and reassuring woman. “This is Dispatcher Casey, what’s your location?”
“I think we’re about twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh on the turnpike,” he said. “The transport is a wreck. The driver is dead. I don’t know if our tracking beacon will work or not, but…” He trailed off.
“Okay, Agent. Stay calm. Your beacon is working, and we have a fix. Back up is on the way.”
He let out a relieved breath. “I’ll secure the other prisoner.” He dropped the radio as the response came back, but he didn’t hear it. He moved back through the wreckage and through the door again.
She was still sitting in the beam of light, but now she squirmed. “We should get moving,” she said.
“Moving where?” he pressed. “Get on your feet, prisoner.”
She frowned at him and got up. She was maybe five foot five, much smaller than his six feet. But her aura was sharp, and she wasn’t even trying to hold it back. It lapped against him like liquid smooth sandpaper. It was an odd and disorienting feeling.
“Could you please retract your aura?” he grunted as he took her arm.
She looked surprised. “Retract it? Really?”
“Please,” he said.
She laughed and tilted her head. “I thought you’d like it.”
He narrowed his eyes. “It’s distracting.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Is it really?” She laughed, but Jared felt the aura pull back from his skin. “How’s that, better?”
He mumbled a thanks and pulled her from the room. She stumbled after him and together they crawled back out into the major section of the transport. He led her down the twisted and broken seating section and paused as he kicked out the side door. They stumbled out onto the asphalt.
She looked around and seemed confused. Jared leaned against the transport, taking deep, calming breaths. His hands shook from the effort and his service weapon wobbled in his palms.
“Why didn’t you run?”
She looked back at him. “What?”
“You didn’t run. You could have gotten up through that hole and made a break for it.”
She smiled a little, but there was a strange emptiness to it. “I have nowhere to go,” she said.
He frowned at her. That was strange. Most Metas had some kind of family or coven or clan that they belonged to. Loners were rare in the Meta world, because they thrived better in groups. Safety in numbers, strength in groups, all that stuff. There were exceptions, but Shifters had a pack tendency. They weren’t like Weres, not exactly, but they still had that group instincts like the rest.
He was about to ask her what she meant when she took a few steps back. “Uh,” she said.
He tilted his head. “What?” But he felt it a moment later.
That pinprick
again. But this time, flaring around them.
Auras, deep and forest dark, straining at his skin.
“Get down!” she said, jumping at him.
As she pressed herself against his body, he heard gunfire explode around them.
3
Jared reached for the memgram just as his prisoner pressed herself against him. This time, the air crackled around both of them, forming a protective shield inches from their bodies.
Bullets ricocheted off the barrier. He strained at it, repairing the cracks as they formed, fighting the physical toll touching the priori took while still maintaining his concentration.
The memgram stayed in his mind. Glittering glass formed diamond-hard in pale moonlight. He focused on it, kept its shape. The gunfire rattled against their barrier and the transport. He felt the girl press herself tighter against him, and for a moment his concentration faltered.
But the gunfire stopped a moment later.
“Take off my cuffs,” she whispered.
“What?” he gasped, still holding on to the priori.
“Take them off,” she said. “I can help.”
“You… I can’t.”
“I didn’t run,” she said, her lips against Jared’s ear. “I won’t run again. Let me help. You can’t hold them off forever.”
He let out a deep, guttural, animal-like growl. Anger raged through him. He had more magic than this and he could touch it all, tear it up from the priori, from the darkest black depths that propped up reality around them. He could burn and melt and twist, and God it would feel so fucking good to release himself, release the energy he could feel crackling along his skin.
