by Kian Rhodes
And I wanted to. I would, definitely, but first my wolf was through being denied.
“Shift!” I demanded as my own bones began to crack and reform, my wolf demanding his due as he fought his way free.
Still stunned, Colby followed suit and the instant the white wolf appeared, I was dragging my body over every inch of his, rubbing my scent into him as I bit down on his neck, reminding him that he belonged to me.
My Omega stood stock-still while I marked him and finally just shook his head. Then, Colby did something he’d never done before and rolled over onto his back, showing me his belly and offering me his throat.
With that act of total submission, I lost my grip on the tiny shred of sanity I had left and my breath escaped my chest in a howl. I grabbed the white wolf by the scruff of his neck, dragging him back to his feet so I could take everything I needed.
It could have been five minutes or five hours later that my satiated wolf relinquished his hold on our form and my human side came back out. Colby had already shifted back and remained snuggled up to my beast, snoring lightly.
I stretched carefully, trying not to wake him, but his eyes fluttered open anyway.
He gave me a satisfied smile and rolled over, planting a kiss on my lips. “What the fuck, Rafe?”
With the stress and anxiety of the last day banished, I dropped my head. “It’s a long story,” I sighed. “I’m so sorry that I blindsided you about the team assignments, that I didn’t include you, baby. Please forgive me.”
Colby raised a brow. “Okay, now you really need to explain what the hell is going on here.” He snickered, “I mean, I think fucking mauling me in the office makes us pretty even for the damned Wal-mart thing but still.”
I snorted. “Nope. Kian wasn’t here. Until I bend you over in front of a completely innocent third party, you won’t live that down.” I sighed and tried to stop my hands from stroking over his sweat-slick skin, still not convinced that everything was fine. “It’s going to take a minute to explain and I’d rather not do it here.” I shoved myself to my feet and offered him a hand up. Glancing down his deliciously naked body, I winced. “Sorry about your clothes.”
Colby just laughed. “I have a few things upstairs in the locker room.” He smirked at me. “Might even have enough to share.”
“I love you. You know that, right?”
My Omega cocked his head. “You’re starting to worry me, Rafe.”
“No need to,” I tried to reassure him. “Let’s just get out of here and then I’ll explain.”
“Okay.”
I started to head to the door, but Colby grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. “I do know you love me, Rafe,” he said firmly, his eyes boring into mine. “I love you, too.”
Those simple words spread through me, warm and soothing. It was exactly what I needed to hear.
An hour later, we were walking through the woods of a familiar rest stop off of I-80 as Colby listened intently, not even interrupting to question the details that made him scrunch his face up. When I finally finished, he stopped and leaned against a tree – our tree, the one I’d fucked him against the night I’d been poisoned and everything changed – and pulled his phone from his pocket, passing it to me without a word.
“What’s this for?”
Colby rolled his eyes. “The cloned text messages, Rafe.”
Oh.
Right.
I flipped to the text screen and clicked on the last message received before looking up, baffled.
“Really? This is what you’ve been doing?”
Colby shrugged and nodded. “It’s what I thought you wanted done.”
“Right.”
We stared at each other for a long minute, and then Colby shook his head. “You know what this means, right?”
“I think so,” I sighed. “Only someone who has worked closely with us would have known to use that text as a way to keep you out of the way.”
Colby nodded. “And only someone with security clearance would know that the RFID interference lining on the R and D lab would block cell phone signals and our mental links.”
“Which means the mole is someone with security clearance,” I finished. “Ralph is not going to like this.”
“Rafe?” Colby’s voice was quiet and uncertain. “I hate to ask this, but how do we know that Ralph isn’t the mole?” When I raised my brow, my Omega just shrugged. “I know you don’t want to think it, but it is pretty coincidental that he was able to just traipse out of a locked cell and off the mountain, isn’t it?”
I considered that and dismissed it.
“Not really,” I disagreed. “You know Ralph is a member of the ERG, right?”
“ERG?” Colby repeated with a frown. “The Emergency Response Guard?”
“Yep,” I confirmed. “Has been since he retired from the military and went civie. Every other weekend and four weeks every summer, he has emergency response and rescue training up there by the rehoming center. If anyone would know that area well enough to make his way out, it’s Ralph.” I snorted. “And Lachlan, of course.”
“Of course,” Colby agreed, rolling his eyes to tell me that he knew I was trying to change the subject. “If you trust him, so do I, Alpha,” Colby assured me, chewing on his bottom lip. “But, unfortunately, that doesn’t clear anything up. We still have a buttload of suspects.”
“True,” I agreed. “But we’re meeting with Ralph in a couple of hours and we can get his take on it then.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ralph
Cass was still snuggled against my chest, deep in sleep and snoring lightly when my cell phone chimed the alarm for the midnight meeting.
“Hey,” I murmured in my Omega’s ear, brushing my lips over his cheek on the way. “I need you to wake up, Cass.”
Cass groaned but opened his eyes. “Don’t wanna.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. He was just so darned cute. “I know, honey, but we have to go meet with the boys and it’s a long drive.”
Cass sighed, struggling against the covers as he sat up. When he winced, I frowned.
“Did I hurt you?”
Even though he was still half asleep, Cass snickered. “Repeatedly but only in a good way.”
Whew.
“You’d tell me otherwise, right?” I pressed him. “I probably should have given you a safe word. I was feeling a little, ah, pushy.”
At that, Cass snorted. “If that’s your idea of a little pushy, I’m scared to know what you’re like when you’re feeling dominant.”
I shrugged. He had me there.
Cass climbed out of the bed and stretched. “Do I have time for a shower?”
“Of course.” I pointed to a small bag I’d filled at a mall on the way to pick him up. “I grabbed a few things you might be more comfortable in.”
Cass glanced curiously at the bag. “What’s in it?”
“Why don’t you look?” I suggested. “While you shower, I’ll run down to the corner and pick up some coffee and a snack for the drive. Then I can shower when I get back.”
“Or you could join me,” Cass suggested with a sly smile. “And we could stop on the way out?”
Tempting as the thought of soaping my Omega up was, I knew we didn’t have time. “Not this time.” I leaned forward and kissed the small of his back, giving silent thanks for the blanket that was hiding my response to his naked body. If he’d touched me, I was pretty sure I would have decided to blow off my responsibilities in town. “Go on, Cass. Clean up.”
His disappointed sigh as he walked toward the bathroom door made me grin. With a little bit of luck, we could wrap up the meeting in record time and I’d have him back in bed before he knew it.
~*~
“There’s something I don’t understand,” Cass said softly as I steered the jeep down the mountain path.
He’d seemed deep in thought for almost half an hour after I’d finished filling him in on the happenings in the time we’d been apart.<
br />
“What’s that?”
“If you know that you’ve got a spy in your division, why are you risking having the meeting in the building? I mean, couldn’t they have the rooms bugged?”
That was an excellent point.
Really.
Crap.
Fishing in my pocket for my cell phone, I passed it to Cass. “You mind sending a text for me?”
“Um, of course not,” Cass agreed, studying the screen until he found the icon he was looking for. “Who to?”
“Colby,” I said confidently. “We don’t have any reason to think that our mole has compromised his phone. Rafe’s would have been the obvious choice, if they were trying to keep tabs on the case.”
“Okay,” Cass scrolled through the contact list until he found Colby’s name. “What do you want it to say?”
“I decided to go fishing tonight,” I dictated. “Y’all are welcome to join me.”
“Y’all? Really?” Cass snort-laughed.
I side-eyed him. “You got a problem with country boys?”
That made him laugh out loud. “Hmm, I’m not entirely sure that I believe you qualify.”
“Oh, ye of little faith,” I teased him. “When this case is over, I’m going to haul you out into the middle of nowhere and treat you to the full-on country experience.”
Cass’s response was interrupted by an alert from my phone.
“We’ll be there,” Cass read to me. “And we have plenty of bait.”
Well, now. That was promising.
“What do you think that means?” Cass asked, his brow creasing.
“If I was going to guess,” I said. “It would be that they think they know how to smoke out our mole.” I accepted the phone that Cass was handing back to me and slipped it into my pocket again before laying my hand on my Omega’s knee. “I wasn’t kidding about the country experience,” I said, glancing at him. “If you’re interested.”
Cass laughed. “I don’t know. I’m pretty much a city boy, but you might be able to talk me into it.”
“That’s good enough for me.” I lifted his hand and kissed the knuckles. “Let’s get this show on the road so I can get to work convincing you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Casen
When Ralph parked the jeep in the garage of his fishing cabin extraordinaire, there was already a light visible through the kitchen window. Ralph handed me his cell phone and reached across my body, pulling a gleaming black gun from the glove box.
“I’m sure it’s just Rafe and Colby,” he said calmly, “but better safe than sorry.” My Alpha kissed my cheek. “Stay behind me, Cass.”
“Yes, sir.” I huffed at my automatic submission. Damned but something about the man just made me desperate to please him.
“Have I mentioned that I love it when you do that?” Ralph teased me with a wink as he stepped out of the jeep and began to walk toward the house, the gun pointed at the ground and held flat against his thigh. “Come on, Cass, and remember, stay back.”
When we reached the house, the back door was cracked open and Colby and Rafe were visible through the window, sitting at the kitchen table with their hands flat on the top and a stack of what looked like file folders in the center.
As odd as it looked to me, it seemed to relax the Alpha in front of me. Still, Ralph kept the gun in place as he pushed the door open. I trailed behind him and watched with interest as he ignored the men at the table and proceeded from room to room, opening doors and checking in closets before returning from the bedroom without the gun.
“That’s a relief.” Ralph held his hand out to me and I took it without thinking about it, letting him lead me back to the kitchen where he pulled out a seat for me. After I sat, he crossed to the window and twitched the cheerful curtains closed. “That’s better.”
When he sat in the empty chair beside me, Rafe and Colby visibly relaxed.
“You’re okay?” Ralph addressed Colby, who nodded with a small smile.
“Yeah, thanks, Boss. Sorry for the drama,” Colby said with a sheepish shrug.
“You’re apologizing for being kidnapped?” Ralph asked, raising his brow.
Colby rolled his eyes. “If all it takes to kidnap me is a text message telling me to go to the basement for a secret assignment and stay there, I’m pretty sure you should take my badge and gun.”
Rafe snorted, but Ralph laughed out loud. “Well, why don’t we wait until we clear this case and then we’ll re-evaluate.” With a pointed look at the pile of folders on the table, he cleared his throat. “As long as we’re on that topic, why don’t you tell me the whole story?”
Colby glanced at Rafe and he nodded.
“After Lachlan and Connor left you at the rehoming center, they came back to report in,” Colby began. “At the end of the meeting, Rafe told me that it was time for me to join the other Omegas at the Coruscation place.”
I had to swallow a laugh at the disgusted look that Colby threw his Alpha, making no bones about how he felt about that decision. Rafe just smirked and Colby flipped him off before continuing.
“As soon as I left the room, I got a text from Rafe telling me that he actually wanted me to camp out in the R&D lab in the basement until he came for me.” Colby slid his phone across the table to Ralph. “While I was there, I was supposed to be working on a plan to infiltrate the rehoming center.”
“Interesting,” Ralph murmured, scrolling through the lines on the small screen before looking up at Rafe. “This was sent by someone who knows you both and is familiar with your dynamic.”
The Blood Valley Alpha nodded. “We noticed that, also.”
“It’s not only someone who knows us, it’s someone who has security clearance,” Colby added.
“Why do you say that?” Ralph frowned.
“The experimental RFID lining in the lab walls,” Colby explained with a grimace. “It blocked our cell phones and our pack link. That had to be the reason that they chose to send me there. It’s not a place I would normally work on a clandestine assignment, so that suggests they knew about the lining and that’s still on a need-to-know basis.”
I wasn’t quite sure what Colby was talking about, but Ralph nodded, seeming deep in thought. His lips pursed in a frown before he spoke again. “Unless they hacked the computer system.”
Colby and Rafe exchanged a look and Rafe turned back to Ralph. “We need to check the system history files.”
“Soon,” Ralph agreed, gesturing to the folders. “Why does it look like you removed files from the office without approval?”
“Because we did,” Colby said with another shrug. “We were going to bring the laptop, instead, but anyone with access would be able to track our research through the system notes.” He shook his head. “No digital trail with paper.”
“Good call,” Ralph agreed approvingly.
Even though I’d know Rafe and Colby for a while and I knew that theirs was an, ahem, unusual dynamic, it still surprised me that Rafe was sitting back and letting his Omega lead the conversation with their superior. Even more, though, I was surprised at the respect and deference that Ralph was showing the Omega. As much as I liked Colby, I’d always assumed that his place with the COPSD was more a favor to Rafe so he could keep an eye on his husband, but, from the way Ralph was addressing Colby, I was starting to suspect that that wasn’t the case.
Rafe leaned forward, rejoining the conversation. “Does anything strike you as odd about the assignment Colby was given through the fake text?”
Ralph raised a brow. “You mean like it being intended to infiltrate the only crime scene related to this case that hasn’t been destroyed in the past forty-eight hours?”
Rafe nodded. “Had to be a trap.”
“More than that,” Ralph agreed with a scowl. “They were killing two birds with one stone. Maybe even three.”
When Colby cocked his head, Ralph explained, “Everyone knows that you two are inseparable and Rafe wouldn’t shove your disappear
ance aside to continue working on the case. It’s also very well known that you’re one of our top agents in logistics and planning.” Ralph began to tick his points off on his fingers. “First, by separating you, they were able to distract Rafe and slow the investigation down. Second, by cloning Rafe’s phone they kept you unaware that there was a problem, so you were compliant and occupied. Third, by having you prepare an agency response report to a hypothetical hostage situation at the rehoming center, they would get the information that they need to set a trap we wouldn’t know to defeat.”
“Fuck,” Colby groaned as Rafe slumped back in his seat.
“Not a word I’m fond of,” Ralph sighed, “but extremely appropriate to our current situation, I’m afraid.” He reached for the first folder on the stack. “Now, let’s see what we can learn from some good old-fashioned detective work.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rafe
“Can I help with something?”
Casen had been sitting so quietly that I’d almost forgotten he was there as I divided the stack of folders into three piles, kept one for myself and handed one to Ralph and the third to Colby.
“Oh, yeah,” I stumbled a bit as I added a notepad and pen to each stack. “Thanks, but, well, these are classified.” I cast a sideways glance at Ralph to gauge his reaction. After all, he and Casen seemed, well, much closer than I would have expected if Ralph was just protecting him. Ralph frowned, but it didn’t seem to be directed at me.
Standing up, he walked over to pull Casen’s chair out. “Come with me?”
“Of course.” Casen rose immediately and Colby’s startled gaze met mine. For an Omega that we’d known as independent to the point of hostile at times, he couldn’t seem to comply with Ralph’s request fast enough.
Ralph led Casen to the back of the house and we heard a door close.
“What the hell was that?” Colby asked under his breath.
“Got me,” I murmured back. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say they’re smitten.”
Colby snorted. “Ralph?” He whispered disbelievingly. “Mister I don’t need a personal life?”