“Sorn is the Alpha at Tearmann?” another director wanted clarified.
“Yes,” the Supervisor said with an annoyed sigh. “He is Panthera.”
“Asoon puksa?” Director Charles queried.
“For the love of Alel!” the Supervisor snapped. “The creature has the upper body of a giant and the lower body of a bird of prey! It devours large animals and the occasional human. Satisfied? Now stop interrupting me!” He swiveled his eyes around the table. “All of you!”
“Our apologies,” Director Charles mumbled.
“We need to find this balgair,” the Supervisor stated. “We need to find him and question him. On the surface it looks as though he is fighting for our side but he may have some nefarious agenda of his own.”
“In other words we need to know if he’s a good witch or a bad witch,” Director Nealson quipped.
“Or just a flying monkey,” Director Charles said with a chuckle.
“Are you finished being stupid?” the Supervisor bellowed.
Chastened, the two men looked down at the table with their lips tightly compressed.
“Sorn told his Supervisor the man is very powerful. If he can shut out a Prime Reaper as commanding as that Alpha, he is a force with which to reckon,” the Supervisor turned his attention to Taylor. “I know you don’t want to go back into the field again but I need to send Albright.”
Taylor’s forehead creased. “We no longer have a psychic link available to us,” he said, glancing quickly at his mate. “I don’t know how effective we would be together.”
“You wouldn’t be going,” the Supervisor told him.
“You want to send me alone?” Laci asked.
“Hell no!” Taylor snapped. “She isn’t going on any missions without a backup!”
“Then send Darkyn with me,” she suggested.
“That’s not going to happen, either!” Taylor said. “He’s not mated.”
“No, but I am,” she reminded him.
Her mate snorted. “Apparently not at the moment.”
“I am mated,” she said firmly. “To you.”
“The balgair has already had a run-in with Darkyn,” the Supervisor said. “He managed to hide from our man so sending Tearmann’s Alpha is out of the question. Apparently he had no trouble homing in on a fellow Reaper but he won’t sense you coming, Albright. You aren’t hosting a hellion so he won’t be able to scent you in that way. All we need to find out is if he’s what he seems or if he’s got something evil in mind.”
“Will she be able to discern that?” Director Charles asked.
“She’s a very talented cognitive empath,” the Supervisor said. “Of course she will.”
“What makes you think he won’t recognize her for what she is?” Director Hallicun inquired.
“There are psychics of myriad varieties all over the world. I’m sure he recognizes each of them when he comes into contact with them. He won’t be expecting one to be more interested in him than any of the others who sense he is one of them.”
“If he is as powerful as Darkyn says, wouldn’t he shut down the psi signals he’s giving off in order to hide from those able to sense him?” Taylor asked.
“He can’t keep powers that intense hidden all the time,” the Supervisor said.
“And especially not when he’s going after a target,” Laci put in.
“Precisely,” the Supervisor said. “I understand you are concerned for her safety, Reynaud but we don’t need Albright to interact with him. We just need her to evaluate him from a distance. If she believes he’s on the up and up, then she can safely approach him and let him know we want to speak with him.”
“What if he tells us to go screw ourselves?” Taylor asked.
“We have a large network of people at our command,” the Supervisor reminded him. “We have facilities all over the world. We have tons of data on terrorists and criminals intent on setting this world on fire. Considering what he is doing out there, it seems he wants to eliminate such threats. Surely he would want to work with us to have our vast resources at his disposal. Right now he’s a one-man army. Joining with us would be to his advantage.”
“And ours,” Laci said.
“Yes,” the Supervisor agreed. “And ours. There is also an advantage to bringing him here to work with us.”
“What advantage?” Director Charles questioned.
“Since Reynaud has resigned as the Alpha, we need someone to replace him,” the Supervisor replied. “If this man is one of the good guys and is willing, we could turn him into the next Viraiden Cree.”
“That’s a scary thought,” Director Nealson said. “One of Cree is more than enough.”
“This man could be an invaluable asset to the Exchange,” Laci said. “We won’t know though until we talk to him. I believe it’s worth a try.”
Taylor turned his full attention on his mate. “Are you sure about this, chere? Do you think you can handle the situation?”
“I will be careful,” she told him.
“I don’t like it,” he said. “Not one damn bit.”
“I will be careful,” she repeated then reached over to lay her hand on his arm. “You know I’ll have people watching my back.”
“She will be safe,” the Supervisor said. “No Reaper would hurt a woman. You know that.”
“No, but he’s a balgair,” Taylor said. “They’ve been known to kill women.”
“There have been women at the camps and installations he’s attacked. He’s made sure they weren’t hurt but he did put them out of commission,” the Supervisor told him.
“How?”
The Supervisor glanced at Laci then back to Taylor. “He wiped their minds. In some cases all the way back to childhood. Their minds are clean slates upon which the evil they were taught can be overwritten.”
Taylor’s eyes widened. “And you want me to permit my woman to come up against a man who can do that?”
“Those women didn’t have psi abilities, Tay,” Laci said.
“You don’t know that!” he flung at her. “What if he gets control of your mind, Laci? What then? By the gods, no! No!” He shook his head vehemently. “I am not going to allow you to go!”
“Allow me?” she questioned, her eyes narrowing. “Allow me, Taylor?”
He raised his chin. “You heard me, woman.”
She stared at him for a long time as silence spun out in the room then she slowly nodded. “Screw you, Reynaud,” she said then turned to the Supervisor as she shot to her feet. “When do I leave?”
“I think you two should go to your room and discuss this,” the Supervisor ordered.
Laci shook her head. “I’ve no need to talk—”
“We’ll talk,” Taylor snapped and snaked out a hand to grab her arm. “Come on.”
“Now wait just a damn minute! I’m not your fucking bluetick coonhound,” she said but he was already pulling her toward the door even though she dug in her heels like a stubborn mule.
“Woman, do what I say!” he told her. “That’s a fucking order if I need to make it one!”
She looked helplessly to the Supervisor.
“He’s still your Extension and thus in control of you,” the Supervisor said with a hunch of his shoulders.
“Stop yanking on me!” she spat as he tugged her from the room.
He ignored her as he dragged her behind him. She clamped her mouth shut not wanting those they met in the corridor to be privy to their argument. They were getting curious looks that turned to heads being put together and whispers susurrating as they passed.
“You don’t have to hold my arm so tight,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You gonna try to run in the opposite direction?” he countered.
“No.”
He took her at her word and released her arm. She matched his long-legged stride until they reached the room they shared. He slapped his hand on the ID panel and the moment the door shushed open, he waved her in.
&nbs
p; “I am going,” she said as the door closed behind her.
“No you are not!”
She opened her mouth to argue with him but before she could he had her over his shoulder and was carrying her—kicking and beating the hell out of his back—into the bedroom, his every step jarring her belly. He tossed her onto the bed. She tried to scramble away but he snagged her ankle and jerked her back.
“Where you think you going, chere?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Fucking me isn’t going to change my mind!” she hissed.
“Maybe not but I guarantee you I’d be remiss for not trying!” he snapped. “I hope you ain’t all that fond of this blouse.”
She almost giggled for his Cajun accent had come out thick on the “gair-rohn-tee you” as it always did when he got good and riled, but the moment he grabbed the lapels of her blouse and rent it open, she lost all desire to laugh.
“Fuck you, Reynaud!” she shouted. “That cost me a month of credits!”
He didn’t answer for he was reaching for the waistband of her skirt. She batted at his hands but she knew—just as he did—that this wasn’t a fight she could win. He had superior strength and was quicker and was apparently madder than she was. It didn’t take him long to have her naked beneath him with his body pinning her down, both her wrists clamped in his left hand and his right hand cupping her sex.
“You wanna argue with me, chere?” he asked ominously. His hand tightened between her legs, his middle finger digging in.
“I am going,” she stated, chin up, eyes narrowed.
“And I say you ain’t.”
“It’s my job,” she said.
“It ain’t if I say it ain’t.”
She was going to play dirty and the moment she made the decision to do so her entire soul ached for it but it had to be done.
“You’re no longer a field agent. I still am and I have a job to do.”
The moment the words left her mouth he flinched and his face turned pale for a split second before high color invaded his cheeks. A muscle flared in his jaw and she could hear his teeth grinding. His eyes were fused with hers and the vein in his neck was pulsing rapidly. He didn’t say anything for a long time then he drew in a breath, let it out slowly.
“That was a low blow, chere,” he said softly, his voice filled with hurt.
“It’s the truth.”
“You gonna go whether I like it or not,” he said, taking his hand from her crotch and reaching instead for his zipper.
“I am,” she replied.
“Then you’re gonna go with me inside you,” he snarled. He released his cock and moved over her, brutally shoving her thighs apart.
It was rare for them to have gentle sex. She preferred it hot and heavy for he was her ragin’ Cajun but this was punishment sex.
And that was okay, she thought as he rammed his hard cock into her. She didn’t mind it at all. The force turned her on. He jacked his hand under her rump and lifted her with an ease that made her body quiver.
“He’ll smell me on you,” he said, thrusting hot and heavy into her. “He’ll know you’re mine!”
“Works for me,” she said. “Let go of my hands.”
He did and she arched her fingers into claws and jammed them into the muscles of his back. He shifted slightly against the sting then increased the speed of his thrusts. She raked her nails down his back—drawing blood—then dug them into his ass.
“You’re playing with fire, chere,” he cautioned.
“You want the honey, cher, you gotta endure the sting.”
He chuckled, pulled out and flipped her over in one fell swoop. Swiping his arm under her waist, he jerked her up, kneed her legs apart and entered her from behind.
“Let’s see how you like my stinger,” he countered a second before his head came down and he sank his fangs into her shoulder.
She cried out but he was already coming inside her the moment he drew his first taste of her blood. His cock thickened and hardened even more—filling her, stretching her to the point it almost hurt.
But it felt so good. So right. And when he snapped his hips forward one final time she came around him like moths to a flame.
“And that’s how it’s done,” he said, laying the side of his face on her back.
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You gonna help me pack?”
* * * * *
The Supervisor sat with his hands folded, staring down the long table at Taylor. “I understand your worry,” he said.
“Do you?” Taylor asked. He was pissed that he had been ordered to stay behind after the others had been dismissed. He sat slumped in his chair, glaring at the man he held responsible for Laci’s mutiny.
“You are having trouble sensing her, aren’t you, son?” the Supervisor asked in a fatherly voice that surprised the Reaper.
“Aye.”
“And that disturbs you.”
“It scares the fucking shit out of me!” Taylor said and watched the Supervisor’s brows lift.
“Enough that you use vulgarities I have rarely heard you use,” the older man stated.
Taylor ducked his head. “I apologize, sir,” he said then raked a hand through his hair. “This whole situation has left me confused and angry and…”
“Worried,” the Supervisor finished for me. “I get that, but you must realize Albright has a job to do for the Exchange. That was her mission in life long before she was teamed with you. As much as she loves you, respects you, she knows she has obligations that come before anything else. She dedicated her life to her country when she was no more than a young girl and her commitment to the ideals and beliefs she has are as important to her as the air she breathes.”
“I know that,” Taylor said. “But it doesn’t make this any easier for me.” He sat up straight in the chair and leaned forward, bracing his arms on the table in a mirror image of the Supervisor’s pose. “I am her Extension. I am a part of her as she is a part of me. We are bonded. To know I can’t help her, can’t be there for her, and can’t protect her is driving me crazy!”
“Understandable. You feel as any Reaper does about his mate and you fear this bizarre situation between you and her and Keenan McCullough is a permanent thing.”
“I am not mated to Keenan and despite what the hellion whispered to me while it was still inside me, I have absolutely no desire for the woman.”
“Which is a good thing since Fallon at this point would attempt to rip your throat out if you so much as smiled at her,” the Supervisor said drily.
“I thought I proved to Fallon after his queen was removed that I had no interest in his mate nor she in me when we stood in the same room together. She had no pull toward me nor me toward her. His hellion queen is out of me so I don’t understand how this new one could still be telling me I have another mate!”
“That is puzzling. The fledgling we gave you belonged to a Reaper whose mate was tragically killed before he could make her a Lady-Reaper. Unlike Fallon when Fallon thought Keenan was dead, that Reaper ended his own life. I believe the only reason Fallon didn’t follow suit is because his hellion wouldn’t let him. It knew their mate was still alive.”
“Fallon thinks that too,” Taylor said.
“At least he is capable of thought,” the Supervisor mumbled. “There was a time I questioned that aptitude in him.”
Taylor smiled despite the foreboding pushing at his mind and the ache in his heart for the woman who—at that very moment—was getting ready to board the Gulfstream for the flight to Africa. Something occurred to him and he looked up from the table.
“Do you know if he’s still in Somalia?” he asked.
“Sorn can sense him there yet has not been able to locate him. That is suspicious. I suspect this balgair may be something more than that. A common Rogue does not have the abilities this one seems to possess.”
“You mean a hybrid?”
The Supervisor nodded. “Which begs the question—how is that possible?”
“Balgairs are made, are they not?” Taylor asked. “They aren’t born to Terran women as Sorn, Fallon and the rest of us were. Well, with the exception of Viraiden Cree who crash landed here. How does Sorn know the man isn’t full-blooded Reaper?”
“He smelled entirely human according to Sorn. You’re Panthera too. Would you not be able to tell the dissimilarity between Reaper born males and human males who have been given hellions?”
“Yes,” Taylor said. “There is a different scent.”
“What concerns me are these powers Sorn is sensing. Greater psychic abilities and being able to shield himself from a Prime Reaper is both mystifying and unsettling.”
“And potentially a major problem should he prove to be a villain,” Taylor said.
Sighing deeply, the Supervisor stood and went to the bank of bulletproof windows that looked out across the rooftop of the exchange to the helo pad. “If you are going to bid her a safe mission, now would be the time to do it. She’s on her way out to the helicopter.”
“I’ll pass,” Taylor said. “If I went out there I’d be tempted to fling her over my shoulder and take her back to our quarters again.”
The older man turned to him. “Are you sure? She’s looking this way.”
“Yeah, well…” Taylor said. He rested his forehead on his crossed arms. “It’s best I stay here.”
“Probably so,” the Supervisor agreed, faced the window again and gave the signal to the pilot to take off. His eyes met Laci’s and even from that distance he could see the tears reflected in her eyes.
* * * * *
Laci fastened the seatbelt then laid her head on the backrest and closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she had expected Taylor to see her off. She knew he wasn’t happy she was leaving without him. What upset her the most was the look of fear that had shifted through his eyes when the Supervisor told them there was a situation. She had seen his hand tremble though she doubted anyone else had. It was the PTSD that had settled over him like an oily sludge. The stalwart, fearless Reaper who had been her partner, her Extension, was now a man plagued by demons that lurked deep in his subconscious.
A Reaper's Love (WindWorld) Page 9
