by Holley Trent
“What do you need to have done, precisely?” Soren asked. “Anything I can assist with?”
Bryan expelled a dry laugh.
“What?”
“They’re not gonna send you out with Marcella.”
“Oh, I see.” Soren rubbed his chin contemplatively. “Marcella’s going out, is she?”
“I don’t like your tone. That’s the same tone Tam uses when she’s plotting shit I’m not gonna go for.”
“Fortunately for me, then, this isn’t a matter left up to you to decide.”
“You’re right. It’s a matter left up to Dana, since she calls the Shrew shots, and Marcella. If she doesn’t want to work with you, back off.”
“She should want to work with me. I’m the best at what I do.”
“Peter would argue with you on that,” Drea said with her lips against her mug.
“I’m sure that bastard has plenty to say about which of us he believes to be more efficient at what we do, but I’ve got something he doesn’t.”
“Not sure I want to know, but what?” Bryan asked.
Soren grinned broadly. “A relative lack of conscience when I’m working.”
“That’s not a good thing, bro.”
Soren shrugged. “You might be surprised to hear that I actually inherited the trait from my mother.”
“Huh.” Bryan narrowed his eyes and shoved a hand through his black hair. “Don’t tell her I said so, but I can kinda see that. That glint she gets in her eyes sometimes…” He shuddered as Shrews piled into the hallway from the conference room.
Soren spotted Marcella easily enough over the sea of heads. They were all so short compared to most born-Bears.
He leaned against the front wall with his arms crossed and watched her pretend not to see him.
Ignore me now, pet. Just wait.
“What’d you figure out?” Bryan asked.
Dana nabbed a pastry from the box and plucked a napkin out of the bag. “Still working. Might send one or both of the Coyotes. Nate and Hardy are good, but I worry they don’t know Marcella well and they’ll end up getting in each other’s ways.”
Soren forced himself to stop digging painful runnels into his biceps.
Not those fucking Coyotes.
They were good guys. He’d worked with them a little and knew they didn’t mess around on the job, but they also had a knack for putting people at ease. Soren didn’t want Marcella at ease around them. They were a little too pretty for his liking, and maybe she liked her men pretty.
He couldn’t tell from her neutral expression what she thought about the nominations. Her blank-face was almost as good as his father’s.
She studied her nails and leaned against the bank of file cabinets behind Drea’s desk.
“What about Dustin?” Bryan asked. “He’s been nagging me to put his name under your noses for more fieldwork. Or even one of the Tolvaj brothers. They never say no to a gig.”
“Yeah, negative on Dustin,” Sarah said. “I think if we’re going to pair folks on these shifter jobs, we really need to send out born shifters, or at least shifters who have senses that rival them. We thought about Eric, but he’s busy with lodge renovations, and we promised Maria we’d leave him alone for a while.”
Eric would have been a good, safe male for Marcella to partner with, if Soren wasn’t the obvious choice. For one thing, he only had eyes for Maria. For another, he treated the rest of the Shrews—his sister, Astrid, notwithstanding—as little sisters, as well.
“And the Tolvajes?” Soren asked flatly.
“I forgot,” Tamara said. “Andarbek found a sweet Chechen girl to marry when he was in Europe looking for information about his family last year. He and his brother will be out of the country for three weeks.”
Soren hoped his smile wasn’t too predatory. He was a Bear. He didn’t see how his grin could be anything but untrustworthy, but still, he tried to look harmless. “I’m available.”
Marcella scoffed.
That scoff was starting to turn him on whenever he heard it, as if he were some lab animal being conditioned to respond to certain sounds. But he knew his brain wasn’t quite right. Too many warring compulsions. The man part of him was always at odds with the beast. They often collided and resolved their differences in ways that didn’t make sense.
“The last time you did a job for me,” Dana said, “I had to call in favors with the chief of the Myrtle Beach police to make the charges he had pending for you disappear.”
“That was because he didn’t understand the way I work and that I was doing him a favor.”
Letting her breath out in a sputter, the lead Shrew massaged her temples. “Yes, but I need you to do favors for people a little bit more discreetly. Our business thrives because we’re discreet. We don’t beat people up in broad daylight.”
“At least not in public,” Tamara said under her breath.
“I’ll behave,” Soren said.
“I believe you’ll try,” Dana said, “and I have no problem with giving you another shot, but it’s Marcella’s audition. She decides if you get to tag along.”
“I’ll be doing more than tagging along.”
“That’s what we’re worried about,” Tamara said.
He cut his little sister a quelling look, knowing full well she wasn’t one to be cowed by attitude from her brothers. He still needed to make sure she knew he objected.
“So, it’s him or no one?” Marcella asked.
“I wouldn’t go as far as to make that sweeping claim,” Dana said, “but the truth is…I don’t think there’s anyone better for the job who’s also available. Hell, even if our available slate of staff and associates were full right now, I’d probably still send him. Not sure what that says about me, seeing as how I know how he works.”
Soren wasn’t sure if he should thank the woman for the backhanded compliment, so he opted to keep his mouth shut for a change.
Marcella stuffed her hands into the pockets of her gauzy olive-green harem pants and stared at the floor.
Civilizations could have risen and fallen in the time it took her to look up and into his eyes, but she relented. She looked at him. For the way his heart pounded and skin flushed, the simple action may as well have been an overt provocation.
“I need room to work,” she said.
Ah!
A tacit yes was still a yes, and Soren wasn’t going to let that one escape. He turned to Dana. “When should we leave?”
“Depends on how long Drea needs to pull research and book accommodations.”
“And also get in touch with local agencies down there, so they don’t tread all over what we’re trying to do,” Drea said. “We’ve never worked with those folks in Georgia before. Maybe I’ll be done tonight. Tomorrow morning, at the latest.”
“How exciting,” Maria said in her typically droll way, giving her sister a half smile. “There’s nothing quite like waiting around on intel so you know precisely how deep in the murk you’re going to be.”
“You never seem to demonstrate any anxiety about the murk one way or another,” Astrid said to her former roommate.
Maria shrugged in her deadly hippie kind of way. “Suppressing emotions is easy. Letting them out is the hard part. Eric helps. He’s got a way of—”
“Nope. Nuh-uh.” Astrid closed her eyes and put up her hands. “Spare me the details about what my brother does, because I suspect they’re not entirely of the Rated-G variety.”
“Suit yourself,” Maria said blandly and nibbled at one of her cuticles.
Soren kind of wanted to hear about Eric’s Shrew magic trick, but he could always ask the Bear later when there weren’t so many feminine ears around.
The space around Drea’s desk cleared. Ladies disappeared back down the hall, and some, including Drea with her coffee and the office dog, out the front door.
Marcella lingered for a while, staring in Soren’s general direction, but not quite at him.
Then she scoffed, tu
rned on her heel, and followed her sister down the hall.
“Okay.” Soren drummed his fingertips against the wall for about a minute, grabbed a donut, and figured he should go pack a bag. He didn’t have clean laundry, but Peter probably did. Since Peter wasn’t at home, he wouldn’t know his clothes were missing.
Soren liked having a brother sometimes.
CHAPTER FOUR
Marcella appreciated that Drea had covered every travel contingency…or had at least tried. She’d booked Marcella and Soren seats on opposite ends of the plane for their short flight, booked them in motels across the street from each other and had even set them up in two separate rental cars.
The problem with the flight was that the guy in the seat next to her took up more space than even tall, broad Soren would have, and he kept elbowing her. Her anxiety had been cranked up to eleven for the entire duration, made worse by the fact that he wouldn’t stop talking.
She hated when people talked too much. She hated when people touched her without her preparing first.
When the plane landed in Atlanta, Marcella bolted off the aircraft, shaking out her hands and arms, and trying to rid herself of the contamination to her aura.
Soren stood in the gangway tossing his phone from hand to hand and giving her a crooked grin. “Can’t remember the last time I flew with an empty seat beside me.”
“You had an empty—ugh.” She stormed past him, turning on her phone as she went and scanning the terminal’s signs for baggage claim. They hadn’t brought much, which was apparently atypical for Shrew missions. The ladies normally traveled with a treasure trove of weapons that could have made a mobster weep, but that wasn’t an option when flying commercial. Drea was going to have some “essentials” couriered down the next day, supposedly.
“Not my favorite airline.” Soren kept an easy pace beside her with his long stride. “Low-frills. No legroom. They’re usually on time, though. That matters more.”
“I would have rather been a little late and had a bigger seat.” She shuddered again and shook out her hands once more. She couldn’t blame Drea. Drea couldn’t accommodate what she didn’t know about.
“I’ve got tens of thousands of frequent flyer miles. Could probably fly first-class on a couple of different carriers for no added cost.”
“Did you inform Drea of that?” Marcella stepped around an oblivious clump of assholes who apparently weren’t going to disperse in time for a pair of people to get around them.
So much for Southern hospitality.
“I don’t expect special treatment,” he said.
“Right. I’m sure you’ve programmed yourself quite well with some of that mind over matter garbage to get yourself through some very tough jobs.”
“A necessity in my line of work.”
“Also in mine, but if I had my druthers I’d drive, not fly. I don’t like having to sit so close to people.”
“They all bother you?”
She wasn’t surprised by the query. He would have probably known such a question was safe to ask a woman like her. After all, he’d spent nearly a lifetime negotiating Tamara’s moods, and then came to work with the Shrews who were, by their own admissions, poor at socializing.
“No,” Marcella said. “Some people trigger my discomfort more than others. Usually, I do fine if people’s energy is neutral enough, but there’s very little I can do if they’re in my bubble.”
“What happens if they get in your bubble?”
Marcella sped up, not that the pace did her a damn bit of good. Soren could probably run a half marathon without breaking a sweat.
She darted onto the tram seconds before the door closed with him right on her heels.
Shit. So crowded.
She clutched the closest pole, teeth grating as bodies squeezed in around her. They were all so oblivious, going about their business with ordinary cares, and she stood paralyzed, fearing one touch that was too long or too rough would make her lose the always-tenuous hold she had on her body.
She couldn’t fall apart there. She could do that later in a bath. In fact, she was overdue for immersion.
A man, yammering away on his cell phone about stock prices bumped her as the tram took off with a jerk toward the next terminal, and she gasped.
Perhaps there’d been some note of distress on her face, or maybe he was pushing his luck in the way he always did, but Soren moved his big body between Marcella and the businessman and gripped the pole over her head.
“I can’t be worse than him,” he whispered.
He wasn’t.
He was…exactly what she needed.
She wanted so badly to press her face against his chest and take a few breaths to calm herself, but couldn’t—wouldn’t—lead him on that way.
“So you’re a buffer,” she muttered. “Big deal.”
“I’ll have you know I get paid good money to be a buffer sometimes. People don’t like scrawny bodyguards unless those scrawny bodyguards are Shrews.”
Marcella’s cheek twitched into something that threatened a smile. “Not that kind of buffer.”
“What, then?”
“Never mind.”
In spite of what she’d told him, his ability was actually a huge deal. She’d only ever encountered a few people who could so effectively block her from aura pollution, and they were all related to her.
She was about to get really pissy about the twitching originating from near his crotch and thrumming against her lower rib cage, but then she figured out that was his phone.
“Can you wriggle that out of my pocket?” He cut his gaze downward to the left, then right, indicating the people packed beside him. “Can’t move my arms.”
She scanned down his chest to the vibrating lump against his solid thigh. And then she spotted the other lump just to the left of his fly because her gaze was already in the vicinity and she was that sort of opportunist.
He was certainly an opportunity of sorts. One that might make her walk with a limp.
Her throat suddenly went very tight and very dry.
“Could be my mother,” he sang.
“Ugh.” Marcella squeezed her eyes closed tight and shuddered. Thinking about his cock and his mother in the same sentence made her feel the wrong kind of dirty. “You can call her back.”
“She worries if I don’t answer. Answer it.”
The phone stopped buzzing.
Marcella let out a breath.
Off the hook.
But then the buzz started up again.
“Damn it,” she spat.
“Grab and answer, please.”
“We’re about to stop. You can answer your own phone.”
He could grab his own phone from his pocket, and she wouldn’t have to risk nudging his other bulge.
“If I make her wait, she’ll be angry at me for making her fret. Would you do that to your mother?”
“My mother knows not to call me.”
The phone buzzed again and, frustrated at how much time she was spending staring at the two lumps in his pants, she dug her hand into his right pocket to root out the lump that wasn’t attached to him. “Hello, this is Soren’s phone. His hands are tied at the moment.”
“Literally? I shouldn’t be surprised with that one. What do you want, ransom? How much?”
Huh?
The woman had an accident much like Tamara’s when Tamara got tired, only thicker. That made immediately understanding her difficult.
“Um, no,” Marcella said after the words had disambiguated in her head. “We’re on a packed tram. He asked me to answer because he doesn’t have a full range of motion. We’re about to step off.”
“That is why he did not answer?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
Marcella sighed. “Who am I?”
The tram slowed to a crawl, approaching the terminal, and Marcella thought she could toss the phone at Soren and run, but Mrs. Ursu said, “Hello, are you there?”
; “Yes, sorry. We’re disembarking now. Have a good da—”
“I believed I asked you a question.”
Marcella didn’t quite manage to stifle her groan.
Soren chuckled and nudged her out of the tram through the throng of people. He could probably hear every word his mother was saying with his extra-receptive shapeshifter ears.
“Marcella Bailey. I’m on a job for Shrew & Company.”
“Oh. I see,” Mrs. Ursu said in an undertone.
Marcella could imagine her tapping her chin and wearing a squint of curiosity.
“I’ve never heard of you. I know all the girls.”
“I imagine you do. I’m new at the agency. I’m Maria’s half-sister.”
“I see.”
As Soren guided Marcella toward the baggage carousel, she mouthed, “What should I say?”
Soren shrugged.
Thanks a lot, jackass.
“Soren is on this job with you? He’s not working with Peter?” the lady asked.
Marcella settled right in front of the machine where the bags were spat out and scowled at Soren.
He smiled that sinful grin that made clear he was having a good time at her expense.
“The job is mine,” Marcella said into the phone. “Soren is your backup, or something.”
“What sort of job?”
She mouthed, “Take the phone.”
Soren put his booted foot up on the ledge of the conveyor, leaned his forearms onto his thigh, and watched the belt cycle past them.
She took that as a no.
“I don’t really know how much I can say,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’m sure you can understand why confidentiality would be necessary.”
“Is the job involving individuals who are supernatural in nature?”
“Yes.”
“Then say as much as you like. Dana won’t mind. My husband has been doing this work for longer than Soren has been alive.”
“And what kind of work is that?”
The first suitcase from the flight landed on the belt in front of Soren. Bright green with a plaid ribbon tied around the handle. Cute, but not Marcella’s.