Roi shifted in his seat somewhat and Eadan knew the guy was refusing to turn to look back at him. Eadan felt like he was in high school again with the way the men carried on. He’d gotten used to being called blondie. He couldn’t blame them. He did have long, blond hair. And as Roi liked to point out, it was very pretty. He snorted. “The maturity in this SUV is awe-inspiring.”
“Hey, I’m nearly as old as time,” Lukian said from the front.
“Old timer,” Eadan shot back, making Lukian laugh. “How many centuries have you been alive?”
“We’ll get him a walker for his next birthday,” Roi said with a grin. He more than likely would, just to get Lukian going. “He can use when he stands before the masses to talk to his minions.”
By minions, Roi meant the rest of the lycans. Lukian was the natural-born king of them. Never acted like royalty though. And Eadan knew royalty because of his family and their connections within the Fae community.
Jon mumbled something and returned to looking out the window, seeming very uninterested in the current conversation. Eadan couldn’t blame him. The talk would no doubt spin back around to kids and babies. It seemed to do that all the time anymore. Sure, it was nice most of the team was mated and with families, but none of that changed the fact they still did a dangerous job and their full attention was required for it.
Wilson glanced at Eadan. “Colonel Brooks said you’re being pulled for a PSI mission after this. That true?”
Eadan nodded, unsure how he felt about returning to his actual job with Paranormal Security and Intelligence even if just for a short period of time, even if PSI was in desperate need of his services. He’d been with the Immortal Ops longer than anyone had thought he would be. There had been an unspoken “never the two shall meet” rule before Eadan coming aboard. He didn’t understand why everything had to be so secretive, but that was the government for you, creating super soldiers when they could, bringing in existing supernaturals and using them all to do their dirty work—missions that didn’t exist done by men who didn’t exist.
Bet they’re shitting themselves now that we’re technically intermingling.
Funny how he’d been so upset about being “saddled” with them when he was first assigned to the unit nearly seven months back, but they’d become a family of sorts to him—they were his brothers now. He couldn’t imagine going back to solo operative work. Sure, he had close friends within PSI, but Eadan wasn’t ever paired with them. And PSI was in the process of doing some major housecleaning since it had become evident not long ago that they had traitors in their midst.
“They get their shit sorted out?” asked Roi, ever the user of great prose.
Jon glanced in Eadan’s direction. “Any more rogues turn up?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but I haven’t been in the loop in a few months now,” he admitted. It wasn’t that long ago they had all been forced to watch as Missy took on a group of rogue agents. She’d weeded them out and then kicked the ever-loving shit out of them.
Missy-Bean would do no less.
He snorted. She was tenacious.
Wilson tipped his head. “Sounded like the trouble ran deep over there.”
“Yeah.”
“Brooks also mentioned it could be a long assignment,” Lukian said, worry in his gaze, reflected in the rearview mirror. “You need me to talk with him? I think we should be there to back you on this.”
“No,” replied Eadan. He appreciated the offer. “It’s my job. I’m a PSI agent and a handler. Solo work sort of comes with the territory.”
“You’re one of us now, brother,” Jon corrected, coming out of his daze. His amber eyes held concern. “And if I was you, I wouldn’t want any one of those assholes over there to have my back. I wouldn’t trust them.”
Roi mumbled something derogatory under his breath. Lukian cleared his throat and Roi pressed a smile to his face and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, one of us.”
Eadan stared at Jon. “I’ll be fine. And there are some I trust with my life. They’re not all bad. Just a few rotten apples got into the bunch.”
Jon didn’t appear to believe him. Eadan already knew the guy was afraid of losing another team member. And Eadan knew how dangerous his job within PSI was. It had already nearly cost him his life once.
“The women will miss you,” Green said over the comms unit. Eadan understood he was voicing the men’s feelings as well in a way that deflected from them.
Roi grumbled more. “Yeah, cryin’ fucking buckets here.”
The other men laughed.
Wilson bumped the back of Roi’s seat. “What? Afraid your woman will miss him too much?”
“I know mine will,” Green said, reminding them of the fact his wife was Eadan’s sister. “If you’d return her calls, you’d hear all about the dream she keeps having. It involves you finding your mate.”
“I’ll be fine,” Eadan managed. He didn’t want to talk to Melanie about his possible mate. His sister meant well, but Eadan had no desire to get into the discussion with her—again. “I swear. I’ll check in when I’m able. Ops-honor.”
Lukian touched his comms unit. “Green, what is our ETA to base?”
“Six minutes, Captain.”
Eadan soaked in the knowledge that in six minutes he’d technically be done with this mission and then back to what he knew best. Or what he used to know best, anyways.
*
Jon Reynell glared out the window, his unlit cigarette perched on the edge of his lips, wanting to voice more outrage over Eadan being yanked from their team but holding his tongue. Fucking higher-ups always thought they knew best. The higher-ups didn’t know shit. Their cluelessness had cost Lance his life and almost cost Wilson his as well. How many of their team members did they need to bury before they understood that, while hard to kill, the I-Ops weren’t impervious to death?
As Green had pointed out more than once in the past, a head or heart shot would indeed take them down in a way they wouldn’t get back up from. Still, the men who pulled the strings kept doing stupid shit.
Like breaking up the band, even if just temporarily.
They were a well-oiled unit. You didn’t mess with that. You didn’t touch it. You let it be.
But not them. Whoever they were.
In all the years Jon had been part of the I-Ops, he’d only known a handful of point people—those who handed them their missions, had them report back and pretended to have some semblance of control over them, all the while keeping the people in power a secret. Colonel Brooks was the most recent. Seemed nice enough, but he was kept in the dark on things too. Jon suspected the man was more than met the eye—more than human.
Just like the I-Ops.
There was something about him that Jon couldn’t put his finger on. If he was shifter then he’d learned to mask his scent like the I-Ops had decades ago, and if he was a magik he kept that shielded somehow too. All Jon knew was the man had been the same age, appearance-wise, for the past three decades. That wasn’t something that happened in nature.
Colonel Brooks had been surprised by the news of a second Immortal Ops Team. And from what Jon could gather, the colonel had been startled by the number of hybrid super soldiers who had attempted an attack upon the I-Ops facility.
Jon shuddered to think what Roi must have gone through when his mate had been the target of their attacks. Finding out they were fighting hybrids who were part-vampire, part-were, part-whatever-the-fuck someone decided to put in the test tubes had set them all on edge.
The hybrids had failed.
Of course.
When they’d all learned of the second I-Ops team, they began to speculate there might be more teams. Jon couldn’t imagine more men being subjected to what they’d all gone through, and how many good men had been lost along the way? They’d been trying to locate them, but so far hadn’t had too much free time with as busy as Gisbert Krauss and his army of mutants had been keeping them. Mad scientists were a given in
what they did. Jon knew that. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if there was any type of mental screening the government did on scientists they recruited. Looked like they kept picking the nut jobs.
The last few months had taught Jon one thing. The people in power had lost control a long time ago. Maybe they never even had it. He could still vividly remember the fear in the eyes of the scientists who had helped to make him what he was now.
A killing machine.
Half-man, half-tiger. All killer.
Lukian’s mate, Peren, was the daughter of one of the men who had taken over the experiments. He’d not been the founder of it, but had been who helped to perfect the creation of the team. He didn’t fear them. But others who worked on the project before him did. They’d seen the horrors of it. They’d seen men who had volunteered to be all they could be die horrible deaths. Setting aside Lukian, they’d all been humans with supernatural traits somewhere in their family ancestry. Most were so faint it was barely there but it had been enough. Enough for the scientists to be able to try to build from. But it hadn’t worked as planned. Some took to it. Some they watched go mad. And they watched others become hardened killers.
Jon remained silent in the SUV, wanting to encourage his brothers to simply break away, go it on their own from here on out. They never would. They were that loyal to their country. Problem was, their country wasn’t in any way loyal to them.
Case in point, they were breaking up the team, even temporarily, and possibly sending another I-Op to his death. It was hard not to be bitter. Hard not to let it all get to him. He knew his emotions were all over the place and, as of late, finding a dark place to reside. He worried that he was like Parker—one of the broken test subjects.
All Jon had holding him together was his teammates. He knew that. He just wished the higher-ups did too.
“Hey, you still with us?” asked Eadan, bringing Jon’s attention to him.
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Daydreaming about hot chicks?” Wilson questioned, grinning like a fool.
Jon’s lips twitched as he tried not to laugh. “And then some.”
Wilson batted his lashes in an over-the-top manner. “Describe them to us. We’re all mated and aren’t allowed to daydream about any women other than our wives.”
Eadan shook his head. “Don’t count me in that mix. I’m single.”
“For now,” warned Wilson. “You heard Green. Your sister keeps talking like it won’t be much longer before you meet your mate.”
Green laughed over their comms. “Mel is convinced it’s going to happen very soon.”
Jon just hoped when it came to his fate Melanie kept her faerie future-reading powers to herself. He looked to Eadan. “Try not to leak anything on me, okay?”
Eadan laughed. “I’ll do my best.”
Chapter Two
Eadan sat in one of the back rooms at Paranormal Security and Intelligence Headquarters, reading through the briefing files on the table before him. PSI was flashier than the I-Ops Headquarters, which was hardly shabby. But PSI was nearly three times the size and seemed to like everything looking sleek and modern. Since he’d been a member, they’d redone the place several times. He never asked who was paying the bills.
He probably didn’t want to know.
He’d been reluctant at first when the director of PSI had insisted he be loaned out to the Immortal Ops Team. He’d known little of them prior to being thrust among their ranks, and he had to admit his first impression of them wasn’t good.
Roi, in particular, had rubbed him the wrong way. Didn’t help that the guy was mated to Eadan’s ex-wife. His strong dislike of Roi had changed during his time with them. They’d forged a bond—they were brothers, even if not by blood. And he was happy Missy found happiness. He and Missy weren’t mates. He understood that.
Though Roi was still a dick. Didn’t help he was a werewolf. Tended to make his mood volatile on a good day. Eadan spent enough time around shifters to learn the differences in how they reacted, how they fought and how they calmed down. Werewolves were often the worst to bring back from the brink of rage. Although it often took the most to get them into a blood rage. That, at least, was something.
As he leafed through the files about the Asia Project, he pulled focus, concentrating on what was before him. Some of the intel regarding the project was fuzzy at best. From what Intel had been able to gather over twenty years ago, DNA splicing and manipulation techniques were done to babies in utero. Their mothers were never seen or heard from again. The children of this horrendous project had been gathered by the masterminds and placed in various orphanages around the world. Try as they might, those seeking to help the children were unable to track them. All they knew was they were out there, aging, coming into their supernatural gifts and going through only the goddess knew what.
PSI was in possession of two lists of names taken from the enemy. From what they could gather, the names on the list he was currently reading belonged to those who had been subjected to testing during the Asia Project.
He’d been given a brief glimpse of the lists when they’d first come to light, but this was the first time he’d been granted unlimited access to it all. He’d understood the lists were long, but he’d not realized that behind each name were directives. Some said to retrieve. Others said retrieve or eliminate. A rare few simply said eliminate.
“Even after everything these people have lived through, it comes to this?” he asked. He read onward and his stomach dropped. “Wait, Intel is now telling us the Asia Project never stopped? Are they certain?”
“Yes. What are your thoughts?” asked General Jack C. Newman, the director of PSI, as he entered the room. The werelion had been Eadan’s father-in-law at one point. Now he was just his boss and friend.
“My thoughts are I’m about to be sick,” he replied and he was. He knew the I-Ops weren’t exactly created by way of cute kittens and fluffy bunnies, but the shit he’d read about the Asia Project nearly cost him his lunch. The things they did to those children, those babies. Only the sickest monsters in the world could behave in such a way.
The general nodded. “I had the same reaction.”
Jack pushed the second list in Eadan’s direction and Eadan felt as if something else took hold of him, demanding he snatch the list from the director. He did. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, he just knew he had to look. He read down the list of names and stopped on the name Inara Nash. His forefinger stroked the name without him meaning to.
It suddenly felt hot in the briefing room.
Eadan grabbed the pitcher of water on the table and poured himself a glass. He gulped it down, his gaze never leaving the list with the name Inara Nash upon it. Drops of perspiration made their way down his back. Why was it so damn hot in the room all of a sudden?
Jack watched his actions carefully.
Eadan stared up at the man. “You wanted me to see that list. Why?”
“Any name in particular stick out to you?” asked Jack nonchalantly.
“No games,” Eadan said sternly. “There are lives at stake.”
“Inara Nash,” Jack said. “Next to her name, what does it say?”
Eadan referred to the list again. To the right of her name was retrieve or eliminate. The entire list had sickened him. Seeing this name in particular made his insides twist into knots, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know her. Yet it bothered him more than if he had spotted his own name on there.
“Who is she?” he asked, utterly still. He clamped his teeth, his jaw tight, tension filling his body. He knew the answer to his own question. It was there, just out of his mind’s reach.
So close.
But untouchable to him just yet.
Jack held another file out for him. “This is some of the information Missy collected. What she’d hidden on a microchip until she could find the I-Ops.”
Eadan remembered what had happened. He also knew the intel nearly cost Missy her life. He took the file and
opened it. Pictures fell out onto the tabletop. His chest tightened to the point of near bursting. He couldn’t draw in air as he looked at the surveillance shots of Inara.
She was stunning. Her long dark hair was silky and hung almost to her waist. Several of the pictures were in full color, and when he looked into her brilliantly green eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from touching the photograph. He knew his behavior wasn’t normal. He couldn’t stop himself. Worse yet, his cock took an interest in the woman as well. It hardened, pulling at the confines of his jeans, wanting free.
More to the point, it wanted in Inara.
The pictures showed her in various locations, mostly all outside in large cities. She also looked younger than the file claimed she was. He nearly breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she was, in fact, legal. “She’s twenty-three?”
The general nodded. “According to the records we were able to find.”
With a frustrated grunt, Eadan moved around the shockingly small amount of paperwork on her. “Not much then, I see.”
He wanted details. Lots of them. The files before him provided little.
“No. She’s managed to stay under the radar for the last six years. At least until recently.” Jack touched the recent photos of her, and Eadan held back the urge to smack the photo from his grip. No one was to touch her. No one but him. “Hard to believe she’s one of the children from the Asia Project, isn’t it? Seems like it happened only yesterday.”
Eadan didn’t remind him that his own adoptive daughter had been part of that very project and was now someone’s wife and a soon-to-be mother of twins. “Yeah. I’m curious, how did you piece it together?”
“She was caught on a surveillance camera, and was clearly more than human. A team was sent to gather more information about her but she managed to lose them.”
That caught his attention. Losing a PSI team wasn’t easy to do. It took more than luck. It took skill and training. Training only a fellow operative could provide.
Tactical Magik Page 2
