by Amelia Jade
He paused, setting the celery down on the counter where it wouldn’t encounter the raw chicken. Then he resumed cutting, taking a deep breath in. The question he needed to ask wasn’t a big one, but he worried about the answer anyway.
“Just tell me already,” she said. “Did you want to stay, or go somewhere else?”
“I want you,” he said firmly. “Would you stay if I accepted the position?”
Willow was at his side in a heartbeat. “Of course I would stay! I thought I’d made that clear to you, Aiden. I’m in this with you now. It’s all your fault…you seduced me with your charming good looks.” She pinched his cheek.
He sighed.
“It sounds like you don’t want to do it though.”
“I…I don’t know. I mean, I liked Mack. I respect him big time. But I don’t know if I want to go back to being under him.”
She nodded. “I understand. So you want to leave town?”
“Not really. I like it here. I don’t know what to do.”
There was a long pause. Willow wrapped her arms around him from the side and rested her head on his shoulder. “I have an idea,” she said after a moment.
“You do?”
“Mm-hmm. If you’re up for it.”
He put the knife down and looked at her straight on. “I’m listening.”
She started to speak, and the more she talked, the larger his grin got.
Damn, this girl gets me perfectly.
Twenty-Three
Aiden
They waited for the metal gate to open and then he guided the truck up the driveway to a house that looked very familiar.
It should, considering he’d lived there for nine years until the past few weeks.
“You got this.”
He glanced over at Willow and flashed her a smile. She was right. He was ready for this. He’d been ready for it for a long, long time now. Until recently though, he hadn’t known it, hadn’t believed it. Nor had he had the person in his life to wake him up enough to make the changes necessary for him to be able to achieve it.
Now he had it all, and he couldn’t be happier. Even if Mack decided he didn’t like the idea, Aiden knew he had to make the attempt.
The white pickup courtesy of Stephen’s estate pulled to a halt and he emerged.
Mack was waiting for him.
“You’re cutting it close,” he remarked, glancing at his wrist. There was no watch there.
“I didn’t want to rush my decision,” he returned as Willow came around the front of the truck to stand at his side.
“So you’ve made one then?”
He nodded. “I have.”
“So, are you going to come rejoin the pack?”
Aiden steeled himself, taking in a breath, and shook his head. “No.”
Mack’s eyebrows lifted noticeably. He hadn’t been expecting that answer. “I see. So, you’re going to head out then?”
“Actually, I have another idea.”
Beside him Willow squeezed his hand and gave him a minute nod. It was all the support he needed.
“I want my own pack.”
Mack frowned. “You can’t. Not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because we already have enough packs in the city, Aiden. We don’t have room for ano—Oh.”
The sudden look of understanding that spread across Mack’s face was priceless. Aiden wished he had a recording of it. Birthday parties and regional meetings would never be the same again.
“You want Stephen’s territory.”
“Yes,” he said bluntly. “I can do it, and you need somebody there you can trust.”
“True,” Mack said slowly, his eyes looking away as he thought the idea over.
“I can do this, Mack. I can do it better than Stephen ever did, and bring unity to the city.”
“Where will you get your pack from?”
Aiden smiled. Mack had already moved past any issues he had with Aiden, and was checking to see if he’d thought everything through.
“Well, I happen to know where several dozen shifters are currently recovering after spending a long time drugged and drained of their blood. Once they recover, I suspect some of them will want to stick around and help make amends in the community. They weren’t responsible for the problems their blood caused with the humans, but that doesn’t mean they won’t help.”
“Interesting.”
“I’m going to show them that there is the possibility to change yourself. I’ll take them and any other castoffs. I’ll turn them into decent members, or I’ll deal with it as necessary.” Aiden’s voice grew harder, more confident as he spoke. “I’m living proof that you can overcome yourself, Mack. There are others out there who deserve that last chance as well. I want to provide it to them.”
Mack was looking at him intently as he made his impassioned speech. Nothing in his gaze gave away his feelings. Aiden began to grow nervous. He’d thought he had all the answers. Both he and Willow had spent the past eight hours planning everything out, trying to come up with any problems Mack might have with it and address that ahead of time.
“This was your idea, wasn’t it?”
Aiden opened his mouth to reply when he realized the question had been directed at Willow.
“Aiden isn’t meant to be a second, even to an Alpha like you, Mack. He’s an Alpha, and he deserves to have a pack. He saved me. Now let him do the same to some others.”
Mack’s gaze swung back over to Aiden. “That’s quite some high praise. Do you think you can live up to it?”
Aiden nodded. “Yes. And if I falter, she’ll be there to smack me around until I do. With her by my side, I can’t fail.”
His former Alpha started to chuckle. “You know what, that might be the most convincing thing you’ve said. Okay Aiden, with the powers granted to me as the residing regional Alpha, it’s yours. I’ll have all of Stephens assets transferred over to you. With the rest of them in jail for a rather lengthy stay, they won’t need any of it, even if they hadn’t forfeited it all with their actions. Stay here for the night, and we’ll take care of the paperwork in the morning.”
“We haven’t eaten yet,” he began. They’d never intended to stay, regardless of the decision. Now though, it appeared they were going to eat with Mack and his pack tonight.
“Good. Dinner should be just about ready. Chicken and scalloped potatoes tonight. Sound okay?”
“Sounds heavenly,” he replied, sighing in relief that there was no mention of vegetables.
An elbow hit him in the ribs.
“Is anyone making any vegetables? I think we should have a salad or something with dinner. I could go grab a bunch of kale if you’d like?”
Both Mack and Aiden groaned good-naturedly.
“She’s going to get along with Maggie better than I think I’m comfortable with,” Mack complained as they headed inside.
Willow looked back and forth between them. “Who’s Maggie?”
“His mate,” Aiden replied. “She’s always harping on him to eat more vegetables.”
“Ooh, I like her already!” Willow said, clapping her hands together.
Aiden and Mack spoke together. “I was afraid of that.”
********
********
This concludes Furred Lines. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
Sentinel:
Bravo Bear
Book 1 of The Agency
By Amelia Jade
Sentinel: Bravo Bear
Copyright @ 2016 by Amelia Jade
First Electronic Publication: July 2016
Amelia Jade
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or pr
int, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
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Sentinel: Bravo Bear
Chapter One
Connor
“Sound off.”
That was his cue.
“Bravo, check,” he said, his voice barely audible. He didn’t whisper. Whispers were harsh and could carry farther. Instead he spoke with the utmost control and lowest volume possible.
To a human, they wouldn’t have heard a noise. But then again, he thought, none of them were human. His team leader’s supernatural hearing would pick up his affirmative without problem. He waited silently in his crouch, hidden amongst the shadows of the alleyway as the other members of his team sounded their ready statuses.
Connor’s nose twitched.
The upside of being a shifter was that he had many abilities a human did not. The downside was, he had many abilities a human did not. Such as the capability to smell each and every bit of rotting garbage wafting up from the rancid dumpster next to him.
It annoyed him. He was a professional. Trained for years in various forms of combat, infiltration, and insurgency tactics. He was the literal supersoldier of movie lore.
And yet a little bit of rotting chicken made his stomach heave. It seriously undermined his whole tough-guy image. Forcing the bile back into his stomach, he concentrated on the mission.
“Acknowledged, Bravo. Delta, you’re up.”
Connor was on his feet and moving before the team leader had finished speaking. Two quick strides down the alleyway and he reached a ladder that stopped a good ten feet from the ground. Muscular legs tensed and he leapt into the air, snagging the third rung from the bottom.
Arms flexed and he pulled himself up in near total silence. Even his grunts were inaudible. The only sound a passerby might have noticed was the squeaking of metal under his weight. That, unfortunately, could not be helped. Despite his stealthy abilities, Connor was still a giant, and with that, came weight that made the metal creak.
Fortunately for him, they were now more interested in quiet speed. The period of extreme stealth was over. They were moving.
“Report.” The voice came through his ear clearly, as if the speaker were right next to him.
Connor rolled his eyes. What did Alpha think he was, a bird?
“Still climbing,” he replied. “It is ten floors up you know.”
“Faster,” Alpha urged.
I’m going. He was. Connor had reached the landing above and was now racing up the stairs, taking them four at a time as he gunned for his objective.
A minute later he crouched quietly outside of the window on the tenth floor. “Bravo, in position,” he said.
“Delta, door is clear.”
His partner had it easy, taking the stairs inside.
Ignoring his chosen lot, Connor flicked out his knife and easily slid it through the top of the two panes of glass, easing the simple locking mechanism open. Sheathing his weapon, he lifted the window open and slipped inside.
The lights were off, but that didn’t matter. Between the moonlight and the ambient light of the city, it was practically daylight for him. The bedroom door was closed, but not completely shut. There was perhaps an inch of space.
He crept across the intervening distance, and after taking a breath, eased it open.
A deep rumble came from inside the room.
Shit.
“Friend!” he shouted, backing away as a giant bear came charging at him. “Underground!” he said, though he didn’t shout this one.
The bear stopped, looking at him oddly.
“I promise,” he said, spreading his hands wide, then slowly reaching up to his face, where he pulled the balaclava up, to reveal himself.
The door to the hallway banged open.
“Hold!” Connor shouted at Delta as his partner readied himself. “Just a case of surprise, I think. Isn’t that right?”
The bear crouched warily, looking back and forth between the two of them. It continued to growl, though perhaps not as loudly as it had the first time.
“I’m Bravo, this is Delta,” he said, motioning to the other man now in the apartment. “We’re Team One, from the Underground. We sent you a letter. Most of it was typed. At the bottom was the written passphrase of Thunder, with a return call sign.”
He waited expectantly. He was fairly positive this was their man. He was in the right apartment, and his bear had the same gray streak down the right side that their objective did in human form. But that could be false.
The bear growled once more, pawed at the ground, and then stood up. As it did, it changed. The once mostly black fur seemed to simply retract into the skin. Limbs shrank and the elongated snout of the bear was suddenly part of a fairly flat face. Paws became hands and feet, and a moment later their target stood in front of them.
“Lightning,” he said simply.
Connor nodded, relieved to have that over with. This was their man.
“Okay, you got our letter then. Are you ready?”
“One moment,” the man said, disappearing into the bedroom. He reappeared with a sack on his shoulder.
It was the ready bag that the note from Connor’s team had said to prepare, just in case something came up.
Unfortunately, something had come up. Most of the time their letters were ignored. Connor was happy to see that this time, it hadn’t been.
“Notice anyone on your way up, Delta?” he asked as they waited for the man to put his shoes on before heading into the stairwell.
“Nothing.”
They always referred to themselves by their team name when on a mission. It made them much harder to track. That’s why they wore the masks as well. They didn’t want their enemies to know what they looked like. So far, it seemed to be working, but Connor knew that luck wasn’t going to last.
A door clanged open somewhere below them, the noise echoing up the concrete stairwell with ease. Booted feet entered and began pounding on the stairwell.
“Just some kids out late, right?” Delta asked sarcastically.
“They could have come in at a different level. I mean, they have eight options that aren’t this floor or the ground floor,” Connor replied.
Neither of them believed it.
“Shit, window it is,” they said practically in unison, ushering their charge back into the hallway and then into his room.
Delta lead the way. He opened the window and kept it propped while the other two followed him, before leading the way down. Connor was in the rear. They flew down the stairs, taking full advantage of the fact that all of them were shifters. Less than thirty seconds later, he leapt the full fifteen feet from the last landing to the ground, joining the others.
Feet pounded down the stairs above them.
“Those are human,” Connor said as they listened for a half second.
“Gentlemen?” their charge asked.
Connor didn’t know his name, and didn’t want to know his name. That wasn’t part of the mission. He was their target, and the objective was to get him to safety at the train yard. That was the entire focus of his world just then.
“Yes?” he said as they hurried him through the alley, leaping fallen garbage cans and piles of other r
efuse that hadn’t yet been picked up for the week.
Connor did not envy the city’s garbage men. Now there was a shitty job.
“Who, exactly, are we running from?”
He contemplated not answering.
Fuck it. Telling him the little they knew wouldn’t hurt anyone.
“We call them the Agency. They’re out to distill our abilities into drugs that they can give anyone, and eliminate us from the genepool.”
There was no question who the “us” was. He was referring to all shifters.
The reply seemed to spur their charge to greater speed, much to Connor’s relief. They were still moving at what felt like a snail’s pace, but in reality they were leaving their enemies far behind. The alleyway ended up ahead. Alpha and Charlie had been waiting in their getaway vehicle out in front of the apartment building, but the instant the Agency team had entered the stairwell Connor had known they would be at the backup location. That was at the end of another alleyway just across the upcoming street.
“Almost there!” Delta hissed.
Figures suddenly appeared around the corners from the street.
“Down!” Connor shouted, abandoning any pretext of stealth, if any had remained after their flight.
He dove for the ground, yanking the shifter down with him. He didn’t expect him to have the reflexes to automatically react. Their charge wasn’t trained like he and Delta were.
Things whizzed by overhead, striking the metal containers and brick walls with very unscary plinks.
“I’m no expert, but those don’t sound like bullets,” the man between him and Delta said.
“They aren’t. They’re tranquilizer darts,” Connor replied. “Now just hold tight.”
“For what? Them to come to us? What about those ones back there?” He pointed behind them.
“We’re not alone,” Connor explained, just as light exploded from the alleyway in front of them.
Screams followed, echoing crazily off the walls in the dark, a cacophony of sound that assaulted his enhanced senses. It was so loud that Connor almost missed it.
