by Crissy Smith
Cole followed her lead, exchanging introductions as the others came forward.
If she hadn’t studied the videos there wouldn’t have been any way that she would have remembered all their names. Mentally she matched up their names, faces and shifter animal.
The last agent she met was the male ATF coyote shifter. He was only a few inches taller than her so when they shook she met his gaze. He was a good-looking guy. He had dark hair and eyes along with a bronze completion.
“Hi,” she greeted.
“Luca Perez,” he replied. “I’m part of the ATF joint task force. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she said. Reluctantly she let go of his hand. She didn’t know why but there was something about him that she was drawn to more than anyone else in the room. She didn’t know much about natural coyote traits but she was pretty sure that they were a close relative of wolves. It made her wonder if he was as dominant as her partner.
“Let’s sit for a few minutes and discuss how we’d like to move forward,” Zak Lewis suggested.
Jade followed Luca back to the long conference table and sat beside him. She was interested in getting to know him better. Cole remained by her side and sat to her right. She glanced over at her partner and noticed him watching her.
She lifted an eyebrow but instead of answering her unspoken question he just shrugged. She’d have to get with him later and see what that look on his face was about.
“We’re already planning some training exercises to include you both in but we’ll wait until the other FBI agents arrive,” Zak told them.
“What other agents?” she asked. As far as she knew, only Cole and she had been given this task.
“There are two more feebies joining us. They won’t be here until tomorrow, though. They’re flying in from out east,” Jamie supplied.
Jade suspected that Jamie was purposely baiting her and Cole to see if they responded to the offensive term used for the FBI. She was certain there would be no reaction from Cole so she peered over at Jamie and smiled. “I wasn’t aware that four of us had been chosen.” In the memo she’d received from headquarters they’d asked for two agents to volunteer. Jade didn’t mind sharing the task force—well that wasn’t entirely true she wanted the experience, but if more agents would help get others at the FBI to accept shifters she wouldn’t complain. She glanced over at Cole but he only shrugged. Since Cole didn’t seem worried she’d try not to be either. “I thought it was just Cole and me.”
Jamie shrugged in response. “It’s not like our bosses tell us any more than I imagine you’re informed.”
“Hmm, okay. If we’re not going into any training today, maybe you can start off with some cases you’ve worked. I’d like to get an idea of how your organization operates,” she said.
“Sure,” Jamie agreed.
She leaned forward as he started to tell her about some cases the Coalition had worked in the last year. The unit under Cody Johnson concentrated on homicides either of shifters or committed by shifters.
“How does the local police department feel about you taking over their cases?” she asked.
“The same as when anyone else sticks their noses in,” Jamie replied. “We’ve become friends with a couple of the detectives. Cody even had them come on during his investigation to smooth over any hurt feelings.”
“Okay good. Please continue,” she requested. This was what she was looking for. She was busy taking notes as Jamie spoke. Hopefully later they would give her access to their files and she could dig deeper.
As she worked she was very aware of Luca by her side. He went back and forth between watching her and giving his attention to Jamie. A couple of times he moved his leg and it brushed up against her. The heat she felt from his body was distracting but she tried her best to push that aside. He was even more attractive than she’d assumed by watching him in action.
Considering her experience with shifters, she was shocked by how comfortable she was in the room with everyone. She relaxed as she continued to listen and learn all she could about the Coalition. Even Cole seemed to be more at ease than she’d seen him in a good while. She was so pleased with how the first hour had passed. Oh, she was sure they’d still be testing her and Cole, but Jade knew she was up for the challenge. This was going to rock.
* * * *
“Keep your head down and follow my lead,” Cole whispered to her.
Jade glanced over at him and caught his gaze before nodding. The exercise seemed pretty straightforward but after viewing what the task force was capable of during training she expected a few traps.
The wolf shifter unit—Mitch, Brady and Adam—would provide backup for them. Jade had been surprised when the wolves had been assigned to them but Cole had only nodded before taking the lead. According to Jamie the wolves were mainly used to assist all the other teams. They knew how the birds, felines and bears worked, so that intel would be a great help for them.
The two other FBI agents were sent to guard Luca. It had been Zak’s suggestion that the human feds stay with the majority of the Coalition for this mission. Since they hadn’t done the same homework as she and Cole had, the two special agents, Patrick Connelly and Sam Westby, lacked advantage of knowing what they were up against.
“Luca is explosives happy,” Mitch said from behind them.
Jade laughed. “I noticed that. So the house will probably be rigged?”
“Oh yeah,” Mitch agreed.
Jade liked the younger shifter. He was tall and broad-shouldered with an easy smile. He reminded her of her little brother Jules. She slowed down so that Mitch could join them. “What else?”
“Cody’s team will be lookout. They’ll be in their shifted form and will circle around the target,” Mitch provided.
They reached the van that they were to use. Cole yanked open the back door and motioned everyone forward. The small parking garage light washed over them as they gathered closer to Cole. There were five of them. Cole and Jade, and three shifters—Mitch, Brady and Adam. The other teams were guarding the location and the target, Luca.
“They expect a sneak attack,” Cole stated. “Luca isn’t allowed to fight back if we catch him. He has to come willingly. So we just have to catch the security teams off guard.”
“This is impossible,” Adam stated. “They work together too well. We’ll never get close to Luca.”
Jade shook her head. “No, because they still have to follow the rules. Only one team is allowed to remain with Luca in the house. The others have to play along as if they have other work to continue. I think they’ll break the teams up, though. For the first shift they’ll have a bird, bear and feline and keep rotating.”
“I agree,” Cole said. He glanced at his watch. “We have six minutes until the mission starts. We need to be ready to move quickly. We have the address they’ll be at so that’s the easiest part. He grabbed a long tube from the back of the vehicle. “Jade, you and Mitch look at the prints from the house. They are going to expect us to hit between one and three so that’s what we’re not going to do.”
“Why one and three?” Brady asked. Brady was the newest member of the Coalition, Jade had learned, only joining the wolves a month ago. He’d just gotten his criminal justice degree but didn’t have a lot of field experience. He was, however, very determined to prove himself. Jade had noticed that he stayed quiet when all the task force were together and hung back. He was an observer. She respected that trait and knew that it would come in handy.
“Because that’s normally when we would strike. The guards will be getting tired. That’s the shift they’ll give to Cody, Zak and Jamie. Those three will be tough to beat. They have the most training and have worked together for a long time. We want to avoid them if at all possible,” Cole said.
“You want to hit them right away,” Jade guessed.
“Yes,” Cole replied. “The problem with that is after we get Luca we’ll have to hide him. This exercise is to run until 0500 hours. If
we get Luca the others have a chance to retrieve him back. We don’t want that so we need a safe house.”
Jade bit her lip as she considered their options. Cole had a point that hitting the target house early would give them an advantage but there was no way that they could hide Luca for seven hours without a plan. “We could bring him back here,” she suggested as she waved to the Coalition office behind her.
“They’ll expect that. And they know the building better than we do,” Cole said.
“The FBI safe house?” Mitch suggested.
Cole nodded. “I thought about that but I think that would be their second choice. Sam and Patrick could easily find out where it was located. They have enough manpower to break up and hit both places.”
“They’ll also be able to access the FBI since they have two agents with them,” Jade stated.
“So we need a house?” Adam asked.
Jade glanced over at him. He was grinning with a little bit of an evil glint to his eye. “What?” she questioned, afraid of his answer.
“I have an idea,” he said before laughing. “But they’re gonna be pissed off.”
Cole grinned. “I like it already,” Cole told him. “Where?”
“Some place they’d never think to look but we know will be empty,” Adam said. “Zak’s house.”
“Are you crazy!” Mitch exclaimed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Brady agreed. “He’ll kill us for sure.”
“Think about it. Zak and Abilene are both on the mission. We’ve been to his house several times for cookouts and know the layout. The neighbors won’t think anything weird about government vehicles being around. It’s perfect.”
It really did seem like the best solution. She peered over at her partner, not surprised to see Cole’s gaze lit with excitement. Her partner hadn’t been butting heads with the tiger shifter but there was tension between the two with both being so dominant. Cole had assured her that it wouldn’t be a problem, but Jade could see that Cole loved the idea of hiding out at the man’s home.
Cole started to laugh. “Perfect.”
“Oh, this is so not a good idea,” Jade commented. Brady was nodding while Mitch and Adam continued to grin.
“We’ll go there first. Get the lay of the land and make sure it is empty. He could have friends over or something. But if the place is empty, I say we use it,” Cole said. He tossed the keys to Adam. “You drive.”
She climbed inside the back of the van in front of the rest of her team. Cole was the last inside. As soon as he had slammed the doors the vehicle took off.
She settled on the seat and made room for him. “You know this could blow up in our face,” she whispered.
He turned his head. “It’ll be fine. You’ve seen how close these guys are and they have a pretty good sense of humor. I think they’ll appreciate our genius.”
Jade drew back to really look Cole over. “You like them.” She couldn’t have been more shocked. Her partner hadn’t wanted to be part of this trial and had only agreed for her.
Cole leaned closer again. “Not as much as you,” he said.
“What?” Damn, that had come out as a squeak.
“Did you think I missed how you were eyeing Luca? Or that I don’t know when you find someone attractive?” Cole teased. He bumped her shoulder. “I know my partner.”
She ducked her head, sure that she was blushing. She hadn’t expected to be called on her fascination with Luca so soon. “I don’t know—”
Cole threw his arm over her shoulder. “It’s okay. I actually like him best myself. He’s smart, strong and a little crazy. A great match for you.”
She elbowed him. Cole’d never acted like this before. The teasing was completely new. In the last two days he’d opened up and played around, laughing and joking. She liked this new side of her partner. “Whatever,” she mumbled.
He removed his arm but the heat around her neck remained. She felt good knowing that Cole really did like her. She’d tried so hard to be an equal and always have his back. It hadn’t been easy when they’d been at the office since Cole was always suspicious of the agents around them. Here at the Coalition it seemed as though he didn’t have to hide and could let his true self out. More and more, she hoped that this joint task force would work and that they’d be picked to join it permanently.
“Almost there,” Adam called out from the front.
Jade found herself getting more excited. This was a crazy plan but it just might work. There was no way that Zak would ever expect them to hide out in his house.
“Park in the drive,” Cole ordered. “You and I will get out and walk right up to the front and knock. If any of his neighbors are around they won’t find that suspicious.”
“He’s got to have an alarm,” she warned them.
Mitch nodded. “Yes, but we have Brady.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“Brady knows the code,” Mitch supplied.
“What?” she and Cole both said.
“I had to pick up his bag after a job one time. If he hasn’t changed it, I should be able to get us in,” Brady said quietly.
“Oh, this is perfect,” Cole stated as he rubbed his hands together in glee. “Okay, Brady, you’re with me and Adam. Mitch and Jade, stay in the van in case someone is there.”
The vehicle slowed so she turned to look out of the dark window. They were in a very nice neighborhood with clean streets, green lawns and very little activity. Halfway down the block, Adam pulled into a short drive.
She was a little surprised at how beautiful the outside was. For some reason she hadn’t seen the huge tiger shifter doing yard work and maintaining a house on the weekends. “I love the landscape. I’ll have to ask him who he uses.”
“Zak did most of the work himself. He’s still playing around a little but he has put a lot of work into his home. Even more so when he started up with Abilene,” Brady told them.
Jade was impressed. Her own small house needed lots of work but she’d only been there for six months and hadn’t decided what she wanted to do yet. She planned to stay in Lake Worth, that was for sure, and whether it was with the FBI or the Coalition, she wanted to put down some roots.
“Okay, we do this quickly but quietly. We need to secure the property and see if it’ll work to bring Luca back,” Cole stated. “Let’s do this.”
Cole and Brady opened the back door as Adam climbed out of the front. With the doors closed, Jade could only watch as the three men made their way up the sidewalk. It was times like these that she wished she had Cole’s hearing.
“Do you hear anything?” she asked Mitch.
Mitch shook his head. “No, it’s quiet.”
A comfortable silence settled in the van as they waited to find out if this would be a successful stop or not. The longer the three shifters were gone, the more nervous she grew.
“So how’d you end up getting partnered with Cole?” Mitch broke the quiet.
She glanced over at him. He leaned forward with his forearms braced on his knees, watching her. She shrugged. “I transferred here about six months ago. Cole didn’t have a partner so I took the position,” she answered. Of course, she left out all the shit that Cole had had to deal with. His old partner refusing to work with a shifter. No one else willing to take his place.
“Did you know right away what he is?” Mitch questioned.
“Sure,” she said. “I knew some people had issues but I had already started my research on comparing the shifter traits opposed to fully human ones. I wanted to find out how we can use the shifter gene in the field and hopefully keep agents safer.”
“Cole was research? I bet he loved that.”
“No,” she laughed. “He wouldn’t have allowed that. My research showed that I accepted the shifter agents and the agency wanted to partner up a shifter with a human.”
“I bet that went over well,” Mitch stated sarcastically.
“Yeah, I lost a lot of frie
nds with that, but it’s true. I’ve learned more from Cole than any other agent. He has no problem with humans or shifters. If they are decent to him, he respects them. It’s the humans in charge that are causing the problems we’re having. When the boss isn’t supporting the shifter agents, the field agents know they can get away with it too. It’s wrong and I want to help people see that,” she explained.
“Why? Most of the human agents wouldn’t bother,” Mitch pointed out.
“I know. I had a shifter save my life once. It was before I was here but still… I just feel like I should help others like him,” she said. Jade didn’t really want to get into her past and how she’d first learned about the ability of some humans to transform. It was still painful. “I joined the FBI to help others. Now I find myself having to explain why we should work together.”
“I haven’t heard very good things about the FBI and how they treat their shifter agents. I was surprised when they asked to join the task force,” Mitch told her.
“I was too,” she admitted. “I put Cole’s and my name down before even asking him. I think it’s a great idea.”
“They’re coming back,” he said.
She turned her head and saw that Mitch was right. Cole led Adam and Brady toward the van. She waited until they were all settled back inside. “Well?”
“This is going to be awesome,” Cole told her.
“We’re really going to do this?” she questioned. “I mean really?”
“Oh yeah,” Adam said from the front.
Even Brady was nodding. “This is gonna work. They’ll never expect it.”
“Fine, but remember I’m human, so you’d better keep me from getting mauled,” she told them.
Everyone laughed. Jade could admit that she really thought the plan was smart. She would never have thought of going to one of the agents’ houses to hide out. She wouldn’t have had the balls to suggest it. But there was no way that the ATF and Coalition agents would expect this move. Now came the hard part, though. They had to get Luca away from the others.
