At the mention of Duke Marlow, the man appeared in the doorway, his dark brown hair looking as if he hadn’t bothered to run a brush through it. Knowing Duke, he hadn’t. He nodded to Corbin. “The girls helped the analysts. They’ve got some more information on some of the women currently being held for auction. I put a call in to Casey, he and Weston are going to go check out one close to them, and I phoned the Immortal Ops. Another is closer to them than us. I hope you don’t mind. Eadan and Wilson said they’d go have a looksee.”
Corbin nodded. All of the I-Ops were either expecting babies very soon or had just had them. As much as Corbin wanted to allow the men family time, this was a matter that required all hands on deck—especially since they were operating on limited manpower as they’d not been able to successfully weed out the traitors in the PSI. He had a hunch not one man would turn down the task when they realized what was at stake. Women were to be protected and cherished. Not sold to the highest bidder.
“Thank you,” said Corbin. “I’d rather not waste time with normal protocol, and besides, we need to keep this as close to the vest as possible with what has been going on around here lately. Our circle of trust is limited.”
“Agree,” replied Duke. “Listen, one woman is supposedly not being held too far from here, but her location is a little bit of a mystery. The techs are coming back with six possible spots she might be right now. The information doesn’t make a ton of sense. We could all split up and do some recon. Call in the others if our location is it. I think we should head out tonight. After what we saw over there, I don’t even want to think of another woman spending any extra time at the hands of these sick fucks.”
Corbin grabbed his workout bag. “Splitting up works. We need to avoid wasting any time. We’ll stay in constant contact.” He was about to say more when he heard the distinct sound of his cell phone buzzing in his gym bag. He knew everyone else in the room heard it as well with as sensitive as their hearing was. Keeping things private in a room full of shifters was difficult if not impossible.
Duke grunted. “Going to run off and take the call in private again? You’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
Giving in, Corbin decided to take his lumps from his teammates like a man. He already knew who was calling him this time of night—his mother. The woman was centuries old and had never once troubled herself with learning the time zone differences between London and Corbin. With a deliberate slowness, he retrieved the phone, hoping his mother would give up before he answered. She didn’t. Not that he really thought she would. She was on a mission.
“Mother,” he said, giving all his teammates a hard look. His private calls as of late had hardly been nefarious, though with the increase in rogues in their rankings, the men were smart to question anything out of the ordinary.
Their eyes widened. They’d all met his mother and had a healthy understanding of why he would avoid the woman’s calls. She was scary when she wanted to be.
“Corbin, darling,” she said, her words drawn out. “Nice of you to answer. I was beginning to think America was without cell service. They are so backwards. It’s a wonder they have anything at all.”
She’d never been fond of his decision to move to America and she’d not been shy on saying as much. To his mother, America was home to the rebel rousers. Everyone was armed and everyone ate at least ten pounds of bacon daily. She’d never even once set foot upon its soil, but her preconceived notions had carried her this far. She’d not change her mind on the country anytime soon.
Corbin rubbed between his eyes, already tired of the conversation that had yet to start. They’d been having much the same one for weeks now. “Mother, its late here. I’m in bed.”
“Liar,” whispered Striker, sounding much like he was seven verses centuries old.
Boomer cast him a wide-eyed look. “If Colette hears you…”
Malik grimaced. “The skies may open and swallow us whole.”
“She’s stern, but sexy,” said Striker, this time considerably above a whisper. “I’d do her. You know, if she was nae already mated and all.”
“Dude, that’s his mother you’re talking about,” said Boomer, disgust in his voice.
“Aye, a MILF. That’s what she is, you know? Hot mom,” replied Striker.
Corbin shot him a hard look as his mother spoke, “Tell Dougal I think he’s passable for a Scot. And I see you are not in bed unless you have started bedding down with the likes of Dougal. Have you, darling? Is that why you are refusing to go on a dinner date with my friend’s daughter? You can tell me. I just need to know. Your father and I want to see you mated before we’re too old to know you’ve found happiness. And with the way you work nonstop, you will never find your mate. You need our help. Come home. I’m sure a beautiful woman is here just waiting for you to cross paths with her. Or man, if you prefer. Do you?”
Malik did his best to hide his laughter, obviously hearing everything Corbin’s mother had said. Striker didn’t bother. He bent, laughing hard and loud. “Och, prefer men. Dyin’ here. Wait, I’m nae yer boyfriend, Brit. Tell her as much. Yer nae my type. I like redheads and tits. I love tits.”
Boomer cast Corbin a sympathetic look. He’d spent nearly a year living with Corbin’s parents in the past and knew just how pushy Colette could be when she set her mind to something.
“Mother, I explained something came up with work. I had to leave the country. I didn’t get a choice. I left her a message telling her as much and I left you a message too. I only just got back stateside the other day and I haven’t had a chance to call and set up anything more.”
“Darling, you tend to lie to me to avoid dealing with me. How am I to know when you are and are not really able to make a date? Ellen is traveling. Last I heard she and her husband are in some chalet on a mountainside in France. They don’t have to worry about their daughter like I do my son. You are hopeless. You really should have spoken to her in person, Corbin. Communication in this day and age is so impersonal. It is amazing that women today allow men anywhere near them. They should demand more. Don’t you think?” she asked, her tone accusatory. “And really, Corbin, the lengths I go to in order to help you find your mate. One would think a son would be more appreciative of his mother.”
“Thank you for thinking of me,” he choked out. “The team is getting ready to head out right now on a mission. I’ll ring you when we’re done. We can find a time that is agreeable to both the young lady and myself.”
“Do you mean it?” she asked, her tone brighter.
“Yes, Mother. I mean it.”
“Oh, brilliant. You’ll adore her daughter, Corbin. I just know it. Do you still have her contact information?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t sure he still had it, but he wanted off the phone. Besides, he’d been unable to get the woman in the yellow dress out of his head. For two weeks she’d haunted his sleep—what little he’d managed to get. He had no interest in Ellen’s daughter Mae. He wanted the other woman.
“Corbin Amias Herman Jones, do not lie to me. A mother knows when her son is lying to her,” she said succinctly. He’d had enemy combatants shout, scream, threaten every degree of pain and suffering this side of death, yet none struck fear and dread in him like his mother when her voice simply raised one octave.
“Please give me her information again, Mother.” The zen feeling of the training room did nothing to calm his nerves. Not when his mother was involved.
“Mae Bertelot. As I told you before, she is smart. Bit younger than I’d have liked, but talented so I’ll overlook it. She’s studying art. She painted me the most beautiful picture. It’s in the billiard room. You would know if you ever came home to visit. You’ll like her.” She rattled off a contact number and even a home address for the woman. “Leaving her a message? Honestly, Corbin, you were raised better.”
“Yes, Mother,” he said.
“Repeat her contact information back to me so I know you have it.”
With a sigh, Corbin
repeated the information. “I’ll ring her the second we’re back from our mission. I’ll make the date up to her. You’ve my word, Mother.” He hung up and glanced around the room. “She is on another of her matchmaking kicks. Be warned, she knows which of you are still single. Don’t think for a moment you’re safe from her help.”
“Does yer mother have any hot single friends?” asked Striker, licking his lower lip. “Make sure they’re her age too. Women her age know how to please a man.”
“I would really like to kill him,” breathed Corbin, his patience with the man wearing thin.
Malik offered a sympathetic look. “Sorry that she’s on another kick again. Remember the woman who was allergic to cats and spent the date sneezing because you’re a cat shifter?”
“Sadly, that was one of the better fix ups,” offered Corbin. Every so many decades his mother tried, rather unsuccessfully, to help him cross paths with his true mate. Mostly, he ended up taking women, he had no interest in and nothing in common with, out for a fancy dinner and then he took them home, never to speak to them again. He’d get through his newest fix-up and then his mother would give him a decade or so before she pushed hard again.
Duke stepped into the training room more. “What did you just say?”
“She’s on a matchmaking kick…again.”
He shook his head. “No, the girl’s name. The one she’s fixing you up with. What name did you say her name was?”
“Mae Bertelot.” Corbin eyed his longtime friend, and when he saw Duke’s expression fall, a sinking feeling started in the pit of his stomach. A strange knowing settled over him and fear ebbed through him. “She’s on the list, isn’t she? She’s one of the women being held for auction.”
Duke nodded. “And if what the girls cracked is right, the Corporation is in a bidding war over her. The girls have pictures of Mae in there, being held, and it’s not pretty. She’s the one close to us—at least we think. Techs are giving us six possible holding places.”
“We grabbed that intel over three days ago,” Corbin said, the panic continuing to hold him in its ironclad grasp. The same fear he’d felt just over twenty years ago. “She’s been with them for three days?”
“Longer,” said Duke, his expression hard. “From what Laney and Mercy uncovered, they grabbed Mae two weeks back. They’re taking bids on her from all over the world. Her final sale date is nearly here. And, Corbin, in the write-up online for her, for those bidding, it boasts that she was the product of a supernatural breeding facility.”
Corbin’s blood went cold. Thoughts of Jane and her unborn child hit him hard, and he swayed. For a split second he feared he’d go down. Somehow, he stayed upright. The woman in the yellow dress flashed in his mind, and try as he might to get her out of his head, he couldn’t. Images of her and then Jane continued to assail him.
Striker grabbed Corbin’s bag from him, shaking him from his state of alarm. “Go and change. We’ll ready the SUVs. We’ll get the girl you stood up back. Then she can slap you across the face for standin’ her up to start with and then hug you for savin’ her.”
When Striker was panicked, the shit was bad. Corbin thought harder on the dates Duke had mentioned and then paled. “She was taken around the time I was supposed to be on a date with her. I could have stopped it. I could have protected her. I could have been there to prevent anything from happening to her.”
Duke held the folder out to Corbin and with a heavy heart, Corbin opened it. He froze, his entire body tensing, breath no longer coming as he stared down at photos of a woman he’d seen before. It was the woman in the yellow dress. In the picture she was still in it, though it was ripped, tattered and torn, her brown eyes wide with fright, a handprint bruise covering her right cheek and her lip swollen and bloody. There were no glasses on her now. She only wore fear.
“It’s her,” he managed, his finger running over the edge of a photo.
“Yes, Mae,” said Duke.
Mae was the woman in the yellow dress? The one whose very scent had called his lion forth? The one his dick had been hard over for weeks? The one he’d jerked off to thoughts of in a fucking parking lot and then again nightly since seeing her? The one he’d stood up?
The one you left to be taken by mad men, he reminded himself.
He shut off, the fierce need to get to her and protect her was all consuming. His lion side pushed through, the beast wanting to seek out those who had Mae and destroy them. Vaguely, he heard shouting and felt heavier—as if his feet were weighted as he made his way in the direction of the exit. He had to get to her. She needed him.
“Bring it down a notch, asshole!” shouted Duke, his voice piercing the confusion filling Corbin.
It took Corbin a minute to realize he was being held back by several of his men. As he lifted his arms, he saw that they were partially shifted, tan fur coating them. Claws had emerged from his fingertips and he realized then that his mouth was misshaped—as was the case when he did a partial shift. Disoriented, he shook his head, gaining something close to control once more. His arms and body returned to normal. “What happened?”
“You lost your shit,” said Boomer in a deadpan voice. “Seriously, lost your shit, dude. Not like you at all, boss.”
Malik released him and nodded. “You looked at the file on the young woman and then you started to shift as you went for the door. For a moment we all feared we’d have to hunt a lion through the city. What set you off?”
Corbin glanced down at the floor and saw the file was there, its contents scattered about. His gaze locked on the pictures of Mae, her bruises, her fear, the blood, and a sinking feeling settled over him. He thought about his reaction to her scent on the campus and how he’d been unable to stop thinking about her. About how he’d wanted to go to her, sink deep in her and lose himself.
He’d never reacted like that to anyone before.
The reality of it all hung in the air. Desperate for answers, he looked to James, knowing the good doctor would be the voice of reason. James’s face fell. He looked to the pictures and back to Corbin.
“Captain, is she your mate?” asked James, drawing a round of gasps from the men.
“She can’t be,” whispered Corbin, though he wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t look away from the pictures of her, captive, horrified. His lion beat at him, wanting out, wanting to go to her. It could help track her. It had her scent. He had to take another large breath to keep hold of it. “Can she?”
Duke grunted. “Let’s get her back, Captain. Just focus on that for now. We’ll ready the SUVs and call in some favors. Get yourself ready to go. Tut, can you assist him?”
“Of course,” said Malik.
Chapter Six
Striker waited until Malik had led Corbin from the training room before bending to retrieve the files on the floor. Duke did so as well, and Striker glanced over the information there. The sight of the woman and the condition she was in twisted his stomach. He eyed Duke. “If this ends poorly and she’s his mate…”
Duke sighed. “I know. I should have guessed something was going on. He’s been acting weird for a couple of weeks now.”
Striker nodded. Corbin had been off his game on the last mission and that wasn’t like the man. Corbin was always in control. Always ready to lead and he never struggled with his shifter side—unlike most of the men. Corbin rarely needed to join the men when they shifted forms and hunted on headquarter grounds. The woods outside of the facility were stocked with game for the men to hunt whenever their beasts needed to run free and be wild as intended by nature. If they didn’t hunt on a fairly regular basis they ran the risk of shifting and eating people.
It had happened before.
All the men on Striker’s team were natural born shifters, not bitten or genetically altered, as was the case with some PSI operatives. Natural borns had their own set of issues, like needing to shift and hunt animals every so often in order to stay in control of their beasts. Corbin’s willpower had always amazed Striker
. They’d been through some hairy situations in the past, but Corbin had always kept his beast in line. But not now. Not with this woman. There was little doubt in Striker’s mind as to what that meant.
The woman was Corbin’s mate and it would end very badly if anything happened to her.
“He willnae ever be the same,” said Striker, having known Corbin a long time. The man was honorable and always did the right thing. If his mate died at the hands of the enemy, he’d blame himself, and he’d never let it go. He’d forever think that by standing her up on a date, he was the reason she fell into enemy hands. Maybe he was.
“Yeah, I know,” said Duke, lifting a sheet of paper. “If it were Mercy, I’d lose control too. And there is no way I’d forgive myself.”
“We know. We’ve seen it happen. If you’ll recall, we had to chain yer sorry ass because you would nae listen to us.”
“I recall,” snapped Duke.
“You were bein’ a dick. Do nae give me that tone. What else were we to do? Kill you?”
Duke grunted in frustration. “No.”
“We chained you to protect you and others.”
“I know.”
“If this lass is hurt or dead, Corbin willnae bounce back.”
Duke’s entire body stiffened as he leafed through the papers. “We should send him to this spot. It’s the smallest of the possible locations and probably isn’t the one they’re holding such a hot commodity at. They won’t be able to secure the facility like they could with these others. We’ll all split up and take one of the bigger ones. We’ll switch to channel five to communicate, but don’t tell the captain. We can keep in contact with him via Laney here at headquarters.”
Striker took a deep breath. He didn’t have a mate that he was aware of, and he didn’t understand the pull to any one woman. He liked all women equally. Hell, he loved women. The idea of commitment set his teeth on edge, but he did know enough about shifter males to know that if they did happen across their mates, not even the fires of hell would stop them from getting to them. “He’ll never forgive us if somethin’ happens to her on our watch.”
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