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Garen thrust his hands deep into his pockets to keep from pulling Miranda against him. He wanted to hold her and comfort her and tell her he was sorry, but there hadn’t been a better way to test both her and Ted at the same time. He’d given Ted an assignment, but the target had been bogus. He’d been nearly certain Ted would try to convince Miranda to provide the bite that would save his bacon at Rubicon International. He’d been equally certain Miranda wouldn’t rise to the bait.
She staggered from weariness as she walked out of his office. “You’re sure I can’t send a car and a driver to see you home?” he called after her.
“Nah.” She didn’t even turn around. “I’ll be fine.”
He sank into a soft chair and shut his eyes. He shouldn’t have shown himself as a wolf the previous night. He’d been banking on the muting that meant they didn’t reason well in their wolf forms.
Yeah, I tossed the dice and won, but I’m a fucking fool.
Not only had he trotted out of the woods, big as you please, he’d let his lust run wild and mated with her. All he’d meant to do was watch from a distance to make certain she was all right.
Even though it was obvious she had things under control, he couldn’t leave well enough alone. No, he had to march right up to her, lick her snout, and... Once he’d allowed her to see him, desperation took over. He wanted her more intensely than he’d ever wanted another lycan, but he also needed to divert her so she wouldn’t recognize his scent from their brief moments together as lycans in Index. The best diversion he knew met his other objective. He pumped out pheromones, obliterating every other scent in the air with his hunger for her.
A tongue of jealousy intruded. Miranda didn’t realize he and Lucifer were one and the same. She’d ceded to Lucifer’s lust without so much as an eye bat. “What the hell was she supposed to do?” he muttered. “Tell the lycan leader no?” Female wolves didn’t tell him no at gatherings. It had been one of the sideline benefits of being their alpha until he’d become so besotted with Miranda he didn’t want another female—human or shifter—within fifty paces of him.
He pushed out of the chair and settled at his desk. Maybe if he worked on details for San Ysidro, he’d be able to relegate Miranda to a back burner for a while. He was breaking yet another of rules and going with the team to the ISL compound. Normally, Garen stayed behind at headquarters. That way, he could deploy more troops or oversee extractions if things went to shit.
I don’t have to go.
Yes, I do. There’s no way I’m turning Miranda loose that far from me in a dangerous situation.
He stared at the monitor, seeing the intricate flow pattern of their attack, but unable to concentrate on it. Instead, he saw Miranda’s face, cheeks flushed with passion, eyes gleaming warmly at him in her high-cheekboned face.
I’ve got to talk with someone. I’m about as worthless as a caged monkey.
Garen tugged his cell phone out of a pocket and punched the series of numbers that would connect him to Lars, the only one who knew about his alter ego, Lucifer.
The phone only rang a couple of times. “Greetings, my friend. I did not expect to hear from you so soon.”
“Is your connection secure?”
“Of course.” Lars sounded hurt. “I am not into taking unnecessary chances. What do you need?”
“An ear.”
Lars’ breath whistled through the cellular system. “That bad, eh?”
“Worse.” Garen sketched out what had transpired since Lars left Index, omitting some of the gritty details of his inability to do anything but lust after Miranda. When he couldn’t think of any more to say, he fell silent.
“So.” The single word held a universe of meaning. “You have had sex with her in human form and shifted form. Have you truly forgotten the significance of that?”
Garen’s eyes widened, and the wind punched out of his lungs. Not only had he forgotten, it never crossed his mind when he’d taken the fateful step and sunk his wolf cock inside her wolf vulva. He opened his mouth to say something, but it was so dry words wouldn’t come. He took a sip of cold coffee, sloshed it around in his mouth before swallowing, and tried again.
“I, uh... Let’s just say it was far from front and center in my mind. The main thing I was worried about was her connecting Lucifer to my wolf that she’d already met in Index. Ach, Christ! I truly have screwed myself.”
Lars chuckled, but the sound lacked mirth. “Selfish to the core, as always. It is one of the reasons we get along so well. What about Miranda? She deserves to know. She will be experiencing the same longing and hopelessness since she does not expect the two of you will ever be a couple.”
“She’s right. We can’t be.”
“Why not?” Lars asked with characteristic Teutonic pragmatism.
“She works for Rubicon International.”
“Easily fixed. She could work for me at the European branch. Or she could not work at all. It is not as if you could not provide for her.”
“She’d never accede to being taken care of.”
“Old friend. If I were next to you, I would slap you. You have no idea what she will do with the information, but you must tell her. It is a breach in the covenant that governs our kind if you do not.”
Garen squeezed his eyes shut. He had to think about something else or his brain would explode. “Are you in the middle of something, or are you free to help with a project?”
Lars snorted. “What a rapid shift of topics. I might be able to provide assistance. It would depend when you needed me—and for what.”
“I will scramble the details and get them to you electronically. How soon could you get to southern California?”
Silence. Finally, he said, “Forty-eight hours. I believe I will fly commercial this time.”
“The next briefing is at seventeen hundred hours later today. I’ll funnel you in via webcam.”
Lars rattled off an Internet address. Garen jotted it down and said, “Thank you,” only to find Lars had disconnected. It had been kind of him not to chastise Garen. As it was, his conscience writhed in agony—yet if he was honest, Garen knew he’d make the same choice again. Miranda was damn near irresistible. Even if she ran to the ends of the world to get away from him, he’d always cherish the little time they’d spent together.
He laid the phone aside, his mouth curving into a soft smile. By making love with Miranda in both their forms, he’d sealed the mate bond. She was his—and he was hers—forever. Normally shifters discussed these things before taking such a drastic step. Hundreds of years ago, before shifters had been driven underground, he’d taken care who he screwed to avoid making an ineradicable mistake. Beyond that, he’d been lucky. He’d known the odd lycan who’d been snared in a mate bond without their permission, which was why there were prohibitions against such things.
The repercussions of what he’d done sank in. Torn between delight he’d actually bound them together and fear she wouldn’t want either him or the bond, he recognized he had to talk with her—explain everything—and let the chips fall where they would. It was worse not to tell her than for her to know he was Lucifer.
His jaw clenched with tension; so did his gut. San Ysidro. Miranda had to have her wits about her to carry out her delicate part in the operation. In many ways, it was her undertaking. She’d unearthed the location and planned the maneuver to infiltrate it. She couldn’t be distracted by mate bonds and justifiable anger at him.
“I’ll tell her just as soon as it’s over with,” he muttered to his empty office. “I’ll make reservations out on one of the islands so we’ll have privacy, and I’ll fess up and take my lumps.”
He shut his eyes for a moment. If she rejected him—and she could easily be angry enough to do so—the mate bond would still be there. It would mean she could never love another. Neither could he.
I can’t believe I was that stupid. He clenched his hands into fists until his nails dug into his palms. Just because I was so taken with her, she was all I could think about, it was deucedly unfair of me not to tell her the truth and offer her a choice.
Yeah, right. How could I have done that? I didn’t even realize it myself until Lars threw it in my face.
He gritted his teeth together so hard he thought they might shatter. Love for Miranda coursed through him, along with a savage desire to protect her from the consequences of his poor choices.
He picked up the phone again and dialed an out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfast inn on Bainbridge Island. He’d stayed there before when he needed to get away from everything. The proprietors were shifters—retired RI agents—who knew how to keep their mouths shut. It was the perfect place to take Miranda—if she agreed to go. He glanced at a calendar. Ten days should just about wrap up San Ysidro.
“Belle Maison Inn. How may I help you?”
“Lore? Garen here. I’d like to make reservations for your honeymoon cabin starting...”
* * * *
Miranda glanced around the large oval conference room table at RI’s headquarters. She’d slept like a dead thing from mid-morning until her phone alarm woke her at three-thirty. Nine agents ranged around the table. Lars had joined them via web link. Garen sat at the head of the table. She made a concerted effort not to look at him. Though she’d struggled with her feelings for him before, those tussles were nothing compared with the drive she felt to jump from her chair and throw herself into his arms.
San Ysidro will be a good break. At least I’ll get away for a few days, and I can try to put everything into perspective.
“So.” Miranda stood, arms crossed over her chest, at the opposite end of the table from Garen. “Once I’m in, I’ll do what I can to marshal the women—and men, if there are any.”
An older agent named Jordan said, “There will be. ISL traffics in candy for the gay boys too. Be particularly careful. Watch out for Stockholm Syndrome. Some of those human slaves may well have bonded with their captors.” He pushed thick, gray hair back from his face. His brown eyes didn’t miss much.
“Yes,” Nadine seconded. She ran slender fingers through her close-cropped red hair and scowled. “They’d turn you into ISL’s thugs in a second if they saw you as a threat. No matter how bad things seem to you, the merchandise has adapted to it.”
Jordan grunted. “It’s human nature to cling to the status quo.”
“Good advice. Thanks.” Miranda tried to smile, but all she managed was a grimace. She’d pushed for this operation, but now that it was getting close, she was scared. “I’ll do what I can to disable the locks and alarms. Once that’s done, I’ll alert the team.”
“And we’ll storm the fortress.” Garen’s arms were crossed over his chest too.
“It will take me a few days. Maybe as much as a week,” Miranda said. “When I first get inside—assuming I’m successful—I’m going to aim for invisibility. The last thing I want to do is make waves so they’ll notice the new acquisition.”
“What will you do if the men want to fuck you?” Jordan asked bluntly.
“I thought I’d tell them I just finished treatment for gonorrhea. They’ll need to have a doctor clear me.”
“That won’t slow them down,” Garen muttered, looking like he wanted to kill something. “They’ll use condoms.”
“Maybe I can tell them I just had an abortion, and I can’t have sex for two weeks.”
“Better.” He nodded. Something intense flared behind his eyes, but he hooded them before she got a close enough look to identify it.
“Go over your story again,” Nadine prodded. “I want to look for holes.”
Miranda nodded. “I’m going to make the rounds of the border strip clubs looking for work. Each place, I’ll tell anyone who seems even peripherally interested about my Mexican in-laws dumping their gringo daughter-in-law north of the border after they fleeced me for my car and bank account.” She sucked in a breath. “All I have left is my passport and driver’s license. I’m hungry, and I really need to work. My own family’s all dead.”
“Work on your language,” Garen snapped. “You won’t be using words like peripherally.”
“I know that.” Irritation scoured her nerves. She pressed her tongue against her teeth. “I’m gonna tell ’em I done dropped out of school in Tombstone. Needin’ to lay a bit by so’s I kin git back there.”
“If you do not talk very much, you can probably pull it off.” Lars, who’d been so silent she’d forgotten about him, spoke through the web link’s mic. “I am used to listening for subtle nuance in language. Your fake accent is broken, uneven, but it is unlikely any of the ISL people will have my level of sophistication.”
“Have you firmed up when you’ll arrive?” Garen turned toward the wall screen and faced Lars.
“Affirmative. Three a.m. Thursday morning. I leave immediately after this conference. I would already be en route, but I needed secure conference capabilities.”
“All right. We’ll move into position Thursday midday. Lars will meet us in San Ysidro. No point in him coming to Seattle first.”
“Are the rest of us still traveling by private jet?” one of the other agents asked.
Garen nodded. “We leave tomorrow at eleven hundred hours from Boeing field. I have agents packing the plane as we speak.” He nailed her with his intense blue gaze. “Miranda.”
“Sir.” She managed to look alert without exactly looking at him.
“The blood bond means you’ll be able to communicate telepathically over distances, not just if one of us is right next to you. It also means you’ll be able to use telepathy in your human form. We’re going to spend the next hour practicing, so you get to know what our mind voices sound like.”
Her eyes widened and darted from agent to agent. Right. All of them were some kind of shifter. She wanted to ask for more information, but long habit kept her lips sealed.
“I will sign off,” Lars said. “See you all soon. Here is to our success. The world will be a better place without Roulan and his filthy operation.” Lars’ handsome face broke into a grin on the video monitor. “Correction. It is already a better place without Roulan, thanks to Miranda. A preemptive strike, which further weakens his business, is a positive move. If we can cripple their income stream and free at least a few of the captives, we will truly celebrate.”
“I’ve always loved your optimism.” Garen smiled. “See you soon.” He swung his piercing gaze around the table. “Mind speech only.”
A blast of voices battered her. Miranda put her hands over her ears and then laughed at her gaffe. “One at a time, please. Let me get used to you one at a time.” She thought the words and pushed them, much as she did in her lycan form. Everyone must’ve heard her because the cacophony in her head died down.
She was tired by the time Garen dismissed them with instructions when to meet at Boeing field the next day. All of them but her. He’d requested that she remain. Miranda’s stomach twisted uncomfortably. What did he want now? Wasn’t it enough he was coming along on this venture—her project—to babysit her? At least she’d put some distance between them while she was in the ISL compound.
Gee. Since when does being scared half out of my wits and forced to be vigilant even when I’m sleeping look better than spending time with a man who shatters me every time he looks at me?
Since I’m out of control when I’m with him. All I want to do is cozy up in his arms and fuck him and let him take care of me. If I spend too much time with him, I’ll end up a weak, mewling hausfrau baking cakes and raising kids.
“Miss Miller?” Garen had an odd look on his face. She remembered the blood bond and wondered just how much of her mental process was available to him. Just to be safe, she shrouded her thoughts.
“Yes?”
He closed the distance between them and drew her into his arms. She tried to be wooden, to resist, but found herself leaning into his warmth and solidness. She tilted her face for a kiss, but he just looked at her with sad eyes. “Be careful. Do not take any untoward chances. If things seem to be going south—and you’ll know, you have good instincts—get the hell out of there. I don’t care if you have to crawl out a fucking drain pipe. Do not remain if there’s even a hint you’ve been compromised.”
“Okay. I understand.”
“Do you?” He tipped her chin and forced her to look right at him. “They’ll kill you without a second thought. These people are merciless.” He closed both arms around her again and held her close. His next words were whispered, and so low she had to strain to hear them. “I don’t particularly want to live in a world without you in it, Miranda. Be vigilant.”
He let her go. The places his body had pressed against hers felt cold and lonely. He turned away and gathered things into his briefcase. “Dismissed.”
“But—”
“Get out of here, Miranda, before I do something I promised I wouldn’t.”
She picked up her backpack, which doubled as a briefcase, and walked heavily from the room. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She wanted Garen. If things went to shit in San Ysidro and she died, she knew she’d regret not having shared one last night with him.
Miranda shook her head hard and activated the electronic keypad to let herself into the stairwell. “I do not need emotional complications.” She spoke aloud to reinforce her resolve. And then she repeated the words. By the time she got to street level and a taxi stand, she’d said them over at least twenty times, but she still wasn’t convinced.
