Undesirable Mate

by Oliver, Lisa

  “No. You’re right,” Pearson said. The Alpha was quiet for a moment and then said, “First order of business – we need to find out everything there is to know about Kellen Waite. Levi, Steel, I assume you can hack into his communications. I want to know who his contact is on the Council, everything about those two bodyguards of his and why the hell he came here in the first place.”

  “What about the ferret?” Levi asked.

  “Far be it for me to underestimate someone simply because they’re prey animals,” Pearson said. “Check him out too.”

  Steel and Levi nodded; Levi busy tapping on his phone screen. Steel helped him stand, and gently nudged him out of the office, presumably heading for the pack’s computer room.

  “Kyle.” Pearson wasn’t finished giving orders. “This situation has clusterfuck written all over it. I want you to post guards outside of Waite’s rooms. You’re not going to be able to use Roger, Ace or Phillip, so do some shifting around, call in Sebastian and Farren. I want someone on their door at all times, rotate them every two hours so they don’t get bored, but none of our visitors are to go anywhere in this club without an escort.”

  “Teric, can you contact someone on the Council? Find out if Waite is here on legitimate business. See if you can pick up a bit of insider information that could help us work out what the fuck the man is doing here.”

  “Will do,” Teric said as he stood and sauntered over to the office door. “Coming?” he said with an arched brow and a cocked hip. Phillip wanted to smirk at the heat that flooded Kyle’s face as the man stumbled and headed after his mate.

  “Keep your mind on the job,” Pearson yelled after them, just before the door closed.

  “Roger, Cam, Devin and Ace, I want to talk to Phillip. So the four of you should go and have a meal, Roger and Cam I’ll need you back here in two hours. Ace, it might be better if you and your mate stay at the club until we know more about what’s going on.”

  “Don’t I have a right to know what this Waite person is up to? You know I’ll follow your orders but this concerns me and my mate’s safety,” Devin asked.

  “I know and I agree,” Pearson replied, “but for now, I figure out of sight, out of mind. I don’t doubt you can handle yourself in a fight, you or Ace, but we don’t want dead Council troubleshooters littering the club floor, especially when he’s Phillip’s mate.”

  “I don’t plan on claiming him, or allowing him to claim me,” Phillip said hotly. He knew something like this would happen, which was why he didn’t want to say anything in the first place.

  “Your wolf would still pine if Kellen were dead, claimed or not,” Dante said. “We didn’t allow Kyle to kill Ace because of Devin. We didn’t allow Ace to kill Teric because of Kyle.” He stopped and grimaced. “Damn, aren’t we a happy family; but the fact still remains that claimed or not, your wolf will not handle anything happening to the man, even though he does have a ferret in his bed.”

  Phillip winced. He was doing his best not to think of Kellen and Tristan together, although his mind could be awfully imaginative at times. He covered it quickly, but everyone in the room had seen it.

  “I won’t kill him, Phillip,” Devin said. “I might frighten the crap out of him if he comes after me, but I won’t kill him. You have my word.”

  “If he means to do the pack harm, from the Council or not, killing him maybe the only option. Pack safety comes first, and that applies to all members.” Phillip was depressed enough without Kellen in the picture. Maybe it would be better if the man did die – especially if he was targeting the pack. Shit. Maybe he’d be better off dead too; at least then his mind wouldn’t be full of pornographic videos of his mate with another man. His body trembled and he fought to hide it, pulling on every ounce of military training he could muster.

  How fucked up is it that the thought of Kellen dead was better than visualizing him screwing that fucking ferret?

  /~/~/~/~/

  “What happened at the meeting, boss? Did everything go as planned?”

  Kellen looked across the table at Cain and Prism who were chowing down on inch-thick steaks and pasta side dishes. After refusing Tristan’s offer of comfort, the annoying little fucker stormed off; locking himself in the bathroom and Kellen was happy to leave him there. Cain and Prism had been escorted up to the suite by the big man who’d met them earlier, and a phone call and short wait later, food had been delivered. A quick glance out of the door while the waiter was putting the food on the table showed a guard posted, something Kellen had expected, given what had happened in the Alpha’s office. Kellen wasn’t sure exactly when things went wrong – his failure to realize the vampire was in the office was the first on the long list of mistakes he’d made.

  But all Kellen could think about was Phillip – at least he had a name to go with the delicious scent. His mate wasn’t as tall as the other enforcers, so Kellen guessed he must’ve had special training for such an important position. Phillip was well-built though; his blond hair was short with just enough on top to grab when he sucked his cock. The man had strong arms and as Kellen watched his mate stride ahead of him when escorting them to their room; he almost drooled at the muscular ass that flexed as Phillip moved. Although Kellen was sporting a hard on from hell by the time the door had been shut behind them; when Tristan had tried to take advantage of the situation, he’d been firmly put in his place. Now that he’d seen Phillip, the thought of anyone else touching him was enough to make Kellen cringe.

  “Boss. What the fuck, man? What’s the matter with you? Did you sort things out at the meeting? Is the Alpha on board with you killing the vampire?”

  Fuck. Kellen met Prism’s angry glare. “No, things did not go well at the fucking meeting, okay. That’s why we’re here, under guard with orders not to go into the club areas without a fucking escort. Because the info we’d been given was shit. The vampire was in the room, he’s part of the inner circle thanks to his mate. Which means a simple extraction or whack job is out of the fucking question.”

  “We can take out his mate, the guy would probably be grateful. Your notes said that Ace was a wolfist; it must be killing him to be mated to a vampire. We’ll just hasten the process.” Cain chewed his steak as though he relished the idea, and knowing Cain he probably did.

  “The notes also said that Ace was being hunted by this pack for threats against Teric. You want to tell me how come he and that vampire and the cat-shifting assassin were all in the same room playing happy families?” Kellen was furious. The information he’d been given, and assured accurate, was so wrong it wasn’t funny. He might’ve been sideswiped by his mate’s scent, but Pearson and Dante were a force to be reckoned with; Dante was not the weak link Kellen had been told he was. No matter what the files showed, Ace and Devin seemed pretty cozy, too, and the fact that Pearson was more than comfortable having that rabid vampire in his inner circle made Kellen wonder what else his informant had got wrong. Teric definitely shouldn’t have been anywhere in sight, but he’d been sitting in the Alpha’s office like he belonged there, and as for anyone being enthralled, that was laughable.

  “We got given bum info?” That seemed to have got Cain’s attention, and Prism’s. Both men put down their food and were staring at Kellen, waiting for answers.

  “We got given shit,” Kellen snarled. “There’s no threat in this fucking pack. Dante and Pearson are solid, no weak link there. Apparently the omega is happy, although I’ll find that out for myself this afternoon, because I’ve graciously been given permission to interview him. Ace and Devin are true mates, so no matter what the wolf was thinking before, the situation has fucking changed now, and there’s no way Teric would have been in the same room as Ace if they’d been any threat to him. So you tell me. What the fuck do you think’s going on?”

  Cain and Prism had one of their staring contests; at least that’s what Kellen called it. Personally, he thought his friends were mates, perhaps waiting for a third, but they’d never said anything and he d
idn’t pry. He’d been friends with the two men since they’d met up at the Council training grounds some twenty years before and although the two men didn’t have the stealth for troubleshooting, which was the Council’s euphemism for assassins, they had always been effective back up for Kellen on any of his jobs.

  “We’re being set up,” Prism said finally. He didn’t look happy about it. “Someone’s out to get us.”

  “Or,” Cain added, “Someone is looking at wiping out this pack and they’re using us as a distraction or a source of information.”

  Kellen growled. A threat to the pack was a threat to his mate, and while he hadn’t even had a chance to talk to the man yet, that idea did not sit well with him or his wolf.

  “I need to talk to Pearson again, alone this time,” he said, getting up and heading for the phone. “I’m not letting anything happen to this pack.”

  “Kellen. What are you doing? You didn’t tell me there was food; Gosh, you haven’t been nice to me at all. I don’t know why I put up with your moods. If you’re not careful mister, you’re going to find yourself sleeping on the couch.”

  Tristan, of course; picking the perfect moment to make a grand entrance from the bathroom, and now playing the martyr. Kellen turned, and fixed the man with a glare.

  “You can get packed, and Prism will arrange a car for you back to New York. You have no business being here.”

  Tristan’s sullen pout dropped and face crumpled. Kellen thought the man was going to cry. “You’re making me leave? Why? I didn’t mean it about the couch. You know I was just teasing you.”

  “Your leaving,” Kellen said firmly. “Your leaving because, among everything else that’s happened on this clusterfuck of a day, I met my mate. Yes, friends,” Kellen swung his arms wide to include Cain and Prism. “My mate. He’s an enforcer here. He was in the fucking meeting. You’re a shifter, Tristan, you know what that means. So pack up and go home where you belong.”

  “But, you haven’t talked to him; you haven’t claimed him, why should I leave? You might not even like him and I was in your bed first.” Tristan had moved closer, and while Kellen could admit the man had a sexy grace about him, his cock stayed dormant in his pants. He stepped back.

  “You were also in a dozen other beds, something that didn’t bother me then and doesn’t bother me now. What we had was convenient, nothing more,” Kellen said harshly, too wound up to say anything nice. “We’re finished, done. A true mate trumps everything, you know that. Now pack your bags and go home. Cain, see that he does. I’ve got to talk to the Alpha.”

  “Happy to, boss,” Cain said with a grin as he shepherded Tristan into the bedroom. However, the look that Tristan gave him as he shut the door made Kellen shiver.

  “If looks could kill, man, you’d be six foot under,” Prism said with a laugh.

  Yep. Like Kellen didn’t already have enough on his plate.

  Chapter Five

  “I need to be one hundred percent honest with you,” Kellen said bluntly when he was finally admitted into Pearson’s office. This time, instead of having enforcers around, Pearson and Dante were on their own, a silent united front against someone they perceived as a threat. For all his faults, Kellen was a decent wolf shifter, and while he hadn’t lived in a pack for years, he totally understood the Alpha’s need to protect those wolves…paranormals…that called Washington home. He was grateful that Pearson had agreed to the meeting, leaving his enforcers outside of the door.

  “It’s about time,” Pearson said smoothly. “I have to tell you I am not impressed the way you saunter in here, insult one of my pack members and then try and lie about the reasons behind it. I’ve already been informed you’re not here under any Council directive.”

  “Hey, what?” Kellen was shocked and he didn’t even try to hide it. “I don’t go anywhere without Council orders. Surely Teric would’ve told you how troubleshooters operate. You think I would come in here and stir shit because of my own agenda? I don’t even know you people. I didn’t even know this pack existed until I was given my orders.”

  “He’s made a good point, and he’s not lying,” Dante said softly to Pearson. “He doesn’t know he’s being played.”

  “You’d better sit down and tell me what the fuck you thought you were doing coming to this pack,” Pearson said firmly enough to annoy Kellen’s wolf. But he sat quickly, his mind racing.

  “My orders were to come in here and see to it that the omega was in a secure and stable environment, where he wasn’t being coerced. The Council’s always cautious about omega safety.”

  “That’s not a job for an assassin,” Pearson said bluntly.

  “I was also told to investigate rumors that you have a vampire living in the pack. I was informed he’s originally from the New York coven, where Mr. Slater’s abuser lived. The New York coven is stirring up shit with wolves in the surrounding areas – turning up at shifter bars, trying to entice shifters to mate with them. I got told the Council’s concerned that vampires are trying to take over packs and when they heard that one was here, living in the same pack as a previously abused Omega, they wanted him taken out.”

  “You think what? That Devin’s compelled us, enthralled us in some way – is taking over the pack from the inside?” Pearson didn’t sound angry, but there was a definite edge to his voice.

  “He’s in your inner circle and our info suggests he hasn’t been here very long. You have to admit that’s unusual.” Kellen knew he was on shaky ground. He was coming dangerously close to insulting Pearson’s ability to rule his pack, and that would be a suicidal thing to do. However, spilling his guts to the Alpha, hearing his orders out loud, Kellen realized he’d been fucking set up all right. He just didn’t know why.

  “Devin was here before Cam came to us,” Pearson said firmly. “He was one of the men who went with us to rescue Cam from the BDSM club he’d been held in. That was the only time that Devin had even been to New York. When we sorted things with the coven, and got restitution for Cam from the same coven, the leader there, Stavia, asked us specifically not to encourage Devin to go to New York. Devin is older than the coven leader, a lot older and no one in New York wants anything to do with him.”

  “Why was I told Devin was from the New York coven?” Kellen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If Devin had arrived at the pack before the Washington pack even knew of the omega’s existence, then everything he’d been told was a lie.

  “I haven’t got a clue why you were given false information, but Devin doesn’t live in a coven, hasn’t done for decades. He’s a pack member because of his mating with Ace. He’s part of the inner circle because he’s got intelligence that comes with age. I would’ve made him and Teric both enforcers, but in this pack only wolves can hold that position. I surround myself with strength, Kellen, strength and intelligence, as would any other decent Alpha looking out for their pack.”

  Kellen wasn’t sure if he was angry or frustrated. Everything Pearson said made sense and there was no deceit coming from him at all. The thought that he’d been given orders to kill someone who was basically innocent of any wrong doing, purely because of his species, turned Kellen’s stomach. Although that may not be the worst thing in this mess. He’d been told to approach the Alpha. He’d been told to stay with the pack, ostensibly to gain more information about the impact Devin might have on other members. But if he’d gone against the vampire while staying on pack grounds – was it possible that someone was trying to have him killed, as Cain and Prism had suggested? A centuries old vampire would be more than capable of doing the job. It wasn’t as though Kellen had super powers.

  “Have you been in touch with the man who gave you your orders since your arrival?” Dante said after a long minute.

  “Yeah, well I tried to. Councilor Malcom’s phone went straight to voice mail, and it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to leave a message about,” Kellen said, still distracted by his own thoughts.

  “Councilor Malcom gave you your
orders? Personally?” Pearson’s voice was sharp.

  Shit. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned names. But then Kellen reminded himself that he was trying to protect his mate, and therefore his mate’s pack and any information would surely help solve the puzzle of why he’d been sent to Washington in the first place. Not that it was a bad thing, with Phillip in the equation, but Kellen never liked killing anybody unless they deserved it.

  “Yes. Top secret, hush-hush, all that stuff. Just like any of my other assignments. That’s why I didn’t really think about it too much. We’re never given assignments from the whole Council – it’s always been one member searching us out and giving us the gist of what’s needed. There was nothing that struck me as unusual with this particular job, except being ordered to stay with the pack; but Malcom said it was to ensure that the omega was as safe as you claimed,” Kellen said.

  “Malcom already knew that wasn’t a concern. I’m extremely protective of all omegas and would have offered Cam a place here, whether he was mated to one of my members or not.” That had come up in Pearson’s history, but Kellen, in his arrogance had ignored the warning bells that should have sounded as soon as that fact had come to light. Kellen mentally kicked his own ass – he’d taken his spot as the top troubleshooter, now Teric had left, for granted. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if someone was trying to remove him from his position.

  “Do you know Councilor Malcom?” He asked. It was equally possible someone was messing with the Washington pack.

  “We’ve crossed paths before,” Pearson said, but as Kellen waited the Alpha didn’t offer anything else.