by RJ Blain
“I am, and it’s wonderful,” Jake’s mother replied.
“So why’d you call him back to the States?”
“The pack’s whining.”
Jake growled, his body going tense. “Let them whine over there.”
Pauline chuckled. “We’re going, so don’t bother trying to fight it. Just admit you’re worried they’ll make moves on your mate.”
“They’ll try.”
“Jake, you’re an idiot,” his father said, grabbing hold of our blanket and yanking it off us. “They’re just eager to see you and make certain you’re okay. They’re also excited to meet your mate since you’ve been driving them away ever since the day you partnered with her. Now, get up. We’re going home, and we’re going home now.”
Considering there wasn’t a stitch of clothes between us, I thought my shriek was justified. Jake, however, had different thoughts on the matter, and he clapped his hand over my mouth to muffle me. “Fine, we’re getting up, we’re getting up.”
“Good. There’s coffee in the car, so get in gear.”
Jake’s parents left, and I snapped my teeth in my effort to free myself. Jake growled at me, soft and sensual, trapping me against him with his arm over my stomach and his hand covering my lips while he pressed his mouth to the side of my neck.
Maybe I was dense, but I didn’t need a map to know exactly where we were headed, and I had no intention of resisting him—much.
The door of our room cracked open. “That’s not getting ready to leave for the airport,” Jake’s father chided. “Move it, you two. We don’t have all morning. Maybe if you hadn’t tried to purchase half of London, thus giving us far too much luggage to pack, you’d have more time for recreation. We’re leaving!”
Jake grabbed my pillow from under my head, sat up, and flung it at the door with a wordless snarl. It thumped against the wall and fell to the floor.
“You missed.”
“I hate you, Dad,” Jake growled.
“Hate me all you want, just get your scrawny ass out of bed before we miss our flight.”
The dress slacks, clean white blouse, and jacket warned me of trouble. Jake ended up in a suit, too, which didn’t comfort me in the slightest.
After a fifteen hour flight, the last thing I wanted was to deal with anything official. If my other clothes hadn’t been spirited away by Jake’s parents, I would have changed.
“Get used to it,” Jake advised me. I turned my nastiest silent glare on him. The second-to-last thing I wanted was to lower myself to accepting bullying from my unwanted in-laws—or have them pick my clothes for me.
As though sensing he was on thin ice, my partner lifted his hand in surrender. “I’m just saying they’re obnoxious, stubborn, and too clever for their own good. I’ve been trying to thwart them since I was a kid. No success yet.”
“They could have given us ten minutes,” I complained, stomping around the room to do the last check. All things considered, I was a lot less sore than I had any right to be after the previous day. “Ten minutes.”
“Do you really think ten minutes would be long enough?”
I glared at Jake, who leered at me before a sly smile curved his mouth. When I didn’t reply, he laughed. I flipped him my middle finger and stalked my way out of the room to discover his mother waiting.
“He’s right, you know. Ten minutes is not long enough.”
Why had someone decided killing in-laws wasn’t legal? I glared at her, too, and like her son, she laughed.
“You really need coffee. It’s in the car. It might still be warm.”
The car was an SUV, and Agent Miller leaned against the vehicle, waving at me as I approached. “Good morning. Looking forward to going home?”
“Coffee. I need coffee.”
Agent Will Dillan poked his head out the driver’s window. A moment later, he held out a Thermos. “An offering.”
I grabbed it, opened the top, and breathed in deep.
“I hope you have three or four more of those,” Jake teased, coming up behind me to massage my shoulders. “How’re you feeling?”
“Like I haven’t had coffee yet.”
“If we take the middle seats, neither asshole can sit with us,” Jake commented, opening the SUV’s back door.
“Sold.” I climbed in, set the Thermos between my feet long enough to buckle up, and began my long-neglected morning ritual of getting coffee into me as fast as I could without doing lasting damage to myself.
Why did people have to put too-hot coffee in the Thermos? What was the point of having coffee too scalding to drink? With the choice of no coffee or dealing with a burned mouth, I opted for the pain.
“I thought you two were supposed to protect me,” I complained.
“Are you in trouble?” Agent Miller asked, sliding into the front passenger seat beside his partner.
“It’s too early to go anywhere, especially an airport. I’m going to have to give you a failing grade.”
He laughed hard enough I kneed the back of his seat. “I need my beauty sleep.”
“You’re plenty beautiful,” my partner said, grinning at me.
“Not without enough sleep I’m not. I probably have raccoon eyes.”
“Not once have I seen you with black rings around your eyes, which is a good thing, because you’d look like a domestic violence victim with your porcelain skin.”
Jake either had a death wish or no fear, and I was sorely tempted to dump my coffee over his head. “You’re being an asshole.”
“Stop taunting your wife,” Jake’s father ordered, sliding by his son to get into the back seat. “I’d like to make it to the airport without having to explain to the British authorities why my son was brutally murdered.”
“Unlike you, Mr. Thomas, I require him for certain activities,” I reminded Jake’s father. I jammed my knee against the back of Miller’s seat. “You’ll help me hide the body, right?”
“My job is to serve and protect you,” he agreed. “No one told me I had to protect anyone other than you and your partner. I suppose helping you hide the evidence of murder fits my current job description.”
“She’s mean, son,” Mr. Thomas, Deputy Chief of Staff of CARD, complained.
“Sorry, Dad. I like her just as she is. You’re going to have to live with it. Now, why are we going back to the States? I thought we’d have more time here.”
“Someone sold us out, and we’ve been tasked with finding them and dealing with them. Specifically, former Agent Johnson, now Agent Thomas, has been tasked with locating and eliminating them.”
Jake straightened and twisted around to stare at his father, his expression turning frigid in its neutrality. “Explain.”
“Someone in the system used Karma’s phone to track her movements. The London shooting was an inside job. We’re to hunt them down, and we’re to make them disappear—permanently.”
My eyes widened, and the memory of my kidnapper’s single question slammed into me, and my breath left my lungs in a rush. “They asked me who had tipped me off—who had warned me Annabelle would be kidnapped.”
Jake jerked in my direction. “Do you remember anything else?”
“I wanted to kill them for hurting you.”
Will leaned between the front seats, stared me in the eyes, and said, “You did, and don’t you doubt it for a second. Each and every one of those bastards deserved it, too. My only regret is the fact I didn’t get to help.”
Jake’s mother crawled over her son to join his father in the back. “You’ll have your chance. We have our orders, and we have been authorized to use lethal force using any means necessary. When we arrive in the States, we are scheduled for our briefing.”
Sucking in a breath, Jake gaped at his mother. “Our briefing?”
Things weren’t adding up, and I couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t you supposed to be in Human Resources?”
“I’m a lot of things, Karma. Officially, I’m upper management in the FBI’s Hum
an Resources department. However, someone has to teach you the ropes. I was selected for the privilege. Of course, I may have threatened to start ripping off arms if I didn’t have my way, but that’s another matter entirely.”
Someone else knew exactly what Jake’s mother was, and I wondered who else knew I wasn’t the well-adjusted, perfect princess my adoptive parents had worked so hard to raise.
Pauline drew a deep breath, held it, and let it out in a slow sigh. “They tried to kill you. They tried to kill my son, too. They’ll try again. This time, however, we’ll be ready for them. We have a license to kill, and we’re going to put it to good use. We’re to track down those responsible for the Greenwich case, those involved in the Henry case, and those behind the London shooting, and we’re to rid the Earth of them.” Jake’s mother smiled, and it was the most frightening expression I had ever seen on someone’s face in my life.
I had no idea what was waiting for us in the United States, but I was certain of one thing: Jake’s mother was a woman on a mission, and I had the feeling I was about to find out just how far a Fenerec would go to protect her puppy and pack.
Afterword
I am often asked about how the Witch & Wolf world relates to our own. In many ways, the Earth from the Witch & Wolf novels is very much like our own. However, it is not Earth, not exactly.
While some of the events in the Witch & Wolf world overlap with our version of Earth, they are not the same. While certain events still happened, rather like fixed points in time from a certain time-traveling series, the specifics are often altered. The years and exact dates may not be the same. Some technologies have developed later—or sooner—than in our Earth.
Motivations and the execution of certain events, including terrorist attacks, have been changed. The inclusion of the supernatural would alter a great many things, including how wars are waged.
As such, there are discrepancies between the Witch & Wolf world and our Earth. No matter how hard the supernatural community tries to hide their presence, they have the power to change the world—and they do.
As always, all errors are my own, but some of those errors with history aren’t actually errors at all—they are deliberate alterations to Earth’s history to better fit with the inclusion of witches, werewolves, and the other supernatural.
Thanks for reading!
About the Author
RJ Blain suffers from a Moleskine journal obsession, a pen fixation, and a terrible tendency to pun without warning.
When she isn't playing pretend, she likes to think she's a cartographer and a sumi-e painter.
In her spare time, she daydreams about being a spy. Should that fail, her contingency plan involves tying her best of enemies to spinning wheels and quoting James Bond villains until she is satisfied.
RJ also writes as Susan Copperfield and Trillian Anderson.
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RJBlain.com
Magical Romantic Comedies (with a body count)
Playing with Fire
Hoofin’ It (2017)
Hearth, Home, and Havoc (Novella, Dec 2017)
Whatever for Hire (Dec 2017)
Serial Killer Princess (Jan 2018)
From Witch & Wolf World
Series: Witch & Wolf
Inquisitor
Winter Wolf
Blood Diamond
Silver Bullet (December 2017)
* * *
Series: Wolf Hunt
Wolf Hunt (2018)
* * *
Series: Nature of the Beast
Pack Justice
Dual Nature (TBD)
* * *
Series: Balancing the Scales
Karma
License to Kill (TBD)
* * *
Standalones
Beneath a Blood Moon
Shadowed Flame
* * *
Tales of the Winter Wolf
(Short Story/Novella Collections)
* * *
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Volume Four
Volume Five
Volume Six (Aftermath to Winter Wolf.)
* * *
Omnibus - Volumes One-Five
Other Stories by RJ Blain
Jesse Alexander Novels
Water Viper
Steel Heart (TBD)
* * *
Requiem for the Rift King (Epic Fantasy)
Storm Without End
Storm Surge
The Tides of War (TBD)
Witch & Wolf World Reading Order
The Witch & Wolf world is all over the place. I’m sorry about that—really. I’m worse than a gnat sometimes, flitting from project to project, excited to write my next story. Here’s my preferred reading order of these books. While I wrote Inquisitor first, it actually happens after Winter Wolf.
Note: You can jump in on any series with the exception of Blood Diamond, Silver Bullet, and later volumes—they are dependent on events that happen prior in the series.
Winter Wolf (W&W #2)
Tales of the Winter Wolf Vol. 6
Tales of the Winter Wolf Vol. 1-5
Inquisitor (W&W #1)
Beneath a Blood Moon (Standalone)
Blood Diamond (W&W #3)
Silver Bullet (W&W #4)
Wolf Hunt (WH #1, W&W #5)
* * *
The following books can be read at any time:
Nature of the Beast
Pack Justice
Dual Nature (TBD)
Balancing the Scales
Karma
License to Kill (TBD)
Standalone
Shadowed Flame
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