by Jessie Lane
With a smirk, Captain Nelson barks from the front passenger seat, “Keep it down, kids. Our ETA is three minutes, so let’s go over the basics one last time.” As the Captain rattles off the same information on the suspect that Jenna has just been going over in her head, she takes the opportunity to get a subtle whiff with her nose, testing the air. The inside of the van smells like sweat, leather, gun oil and anticipation. No one smells scared, just a little anxious. Good. No one here is a threat that is going to freak out and freeze in a dangerous situation. Having a super sniffer of a nose sometimes comes in handy. If one of these jerks starts leaking sweat out of his pores as if he’s trying to help keep up with the water supply at Niagara Falls, she’ll have to worry about him accidentally shooting her in the back. That would make it hard to concentrate on the mission. Luckily, this isn’t the case.
The van rounds a corner quickly as Captain Nelson wraps up the specifics. “O’Conner, you’ll be right behind Kent; so, third through the door. The entrance is a kill box due to the enclosed space so we have to break the door down quickly and catch the bastard before he does something stupid. After O’Conner, it’s the usual line up. Everybody ready?”
The team nod their heads in consent as the van jerks to a stop in front of the target’s temporary residence. As one, they fly out of the van and race towards the front door. A few seconds later, a group of bodies are piled up with Captain Nelson at the front, Kent behind him, and Jenna third in line with the rest of the team at her back. Less than ten seconds later, the Captain kicks down the door while screaming, “Police!” Moving quickly through the entrance hall, she uses her nose to smell the air again. There’s a whiff of something out of the norm. Two distinctly different male scents that fill her nose and she is positive neither of them are human.
Moving quickly through the house, the SWAT team starts clearing rooms as they spread out through the small ranch home. She follows where her nose happens to lead her, with Kent behind her, towards the back of the house where the scents become stronger. Three doors are ahead of them and she can hear sounds of a struggle coming from behind the closed door at the end of the hall. Pushing forward with Kent at her back, she kicks a foot out, knocking the door halfway off of its hinges, and barks, “POLICE! FREEZE!”
Before her stands a massive guy who has mussed auburn hair that’s sticking up in almost every direction and rippling back muscles. The blond hair, blue eyed suspect is positioned across the room from all three of them, facing Mr. Messy Head, with a gun pointed at his head. In the split second that Mr. Messy Head is distracted, the suspect takes the opportunity to tighten his finger on the trigger. He’s seconds from sending a bullet into his rather large opponent who still remains between them.
Dropping the aim of her rifle from the suspect’s head to his hand, Jenna squeezes off a round just as his finger starts to compress the trigger of his pistol. Mr. Messy Head jerks his body to the side, avoiding the bullet by a hairsbreadth, before an explosive spray of red mists the air where half of the man’s left hand used to be. A cry of pain fills the room as the gun thuds to the carpet. The suspect stares at his remaining thumb and trigger finger connected to the remnants of jagged bones and uneven, ripped flesh that is bleeding profusely. At this point the stranger shoots into action, leaping to tackle the suspect to the floor. In less than a minute, he has their man belly down to the ground, with his hands bound behind his back using flexi cuffs, while she and Kent stand, blocking the door, with their guns aimed at the pair.
Kent yells, “Freeze! Hands in the air, now!”
Hands slowly lift into the air as the red-head looks up at them. Bright amber eyes bore into Jenna’s as she looks down the barrel of her gun at him. Caught slightly off guard by his startling, strong, handsome face she drags in a subtle breath, but what she finds there makes her nervous. It’s a smell she hasn’t experienced in a very long time. A smell that she has been taught most of her life to avoid at all costs. It’s the clean, fresh scent of the outdoors that is unique to shifters alone with an underlying spice that could only be singular to Mr. Messy Head. It isn’t the latter of those scents that bothers her. It’s the other smell that means trouble. This guy on his knees, holding his hands calmly in the air in front of her, isn’t human. He spends his spare time in some kind of fur, whether its cat, bear, or wolf, she isn’t sure. He is Other. Whatever it is, though, isn’t beneficial for her to be around too long. So she needs to get this guy away from her, pronto.
She is praying that Mr. Messy Head hasn’t caught any of her scent. She’s been told by one of her Uncles once that it is remarkably light and hard to define, but to an experienced shifter, it can be figured out. Observing his sudden, subtle flaring of nostrils she’s guessing that he’s trying to do just that. Damn.
Booted feet pound the hall behind them as a few of the other officers pour into the room to apprehend the two men in front of her. After Mr. Messy Head has been cuffed and pulled to his feet, along with the suspect, she slips out of the room and follows Captain Nelson to the back of the van. Jenna’s keen senses are telling her that Kent is following directly behind.
Watching as two patrol cars pull up on the street behind their van, the Captain runs his hand through his hair. “What happened, O’Conner?”
Giving him a quick debriefing of the incident, he watches Jenna with amusement, and a little bit of surprise, on his face. After ending her spiel with the arrival of the rest of the team into the occupied room, Kent pipes in behind her. “You’re one hell of a shot, O’Conner. That was impressive… makes me grateful that you’re on my side.”
Shooting him a smile over her shoulder, she takes in the respectful gleam in his eyes. He means what he says. This is a decent start to being accepted by her new squad.
The Captain claps her on the shoulder. “Nice work, O’Conner. Your Uncle said you were good, but damn, that was something else. Taking out his gun hand on the fly so that he was immobile long enough not to shoot anyone was quick thinking. Nice job, indeed. Beer is on me tonight. The boys will want to go out and celebrate after our shift. You’re coming, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Captain.”
“Good. You guys might as well stay here for a minute. I’ll go check on the suspect, figure out who the mystery guy is, then we can load up and head out.” He claps her on the shoulder again before heading to the two patrol cars behind them. Looking back, she sees that the suspect is sitting in the back of the first patrol car while the red-head with his unusual amber eyes holds something out for Captain Nelson to inspect. The rest of the team starts clambering around in the back of the van so she can’t hear what is being said to the Captain. As much as she is curious, though, Jenna is even more anxious to put some much needed distance between herself and the tasty looking stranger whose hair resembles a red porcupine.
Taking a second, she runs her eyes from his booted feet back to his piercing gaze. He is just over six-feet tall and probably about two hundred and twenty pounds. His fitted gray t-shirt is pulled tight across his chest and well-worn denim hugs his thick thighs. He is pretty hulking, carrying more muscle in his arms and chest than most guys have in their entire body, followed by a trim waist. He cuts a memorable picture, it’s a shame she isn’t the type to do a little flirting; he looks like a prime piece of virile male.
The Captain is handing the guy’s identification back to him while explaining something. They shake hands and then the Captain walks away from him, heading back towards the van. The stranger looks directly at Jenna and cocks an eyebrow as he crosses his arms over his chest. His stare is penetrating and demanding. It sends shivers down her spine and a rush of heat that spreads though her entire body.
The instincts she’s come to rely on all her life are running amok, telling her that instead of body burning arousal, she should be feeling fear instead. She recognizes the mannerisms of an Alpha exuding his dominance. It’s a damn good thing her logic is kicking her body’s reactions in the metaphorical head be
cause she is barely restraining the need to close the distance between the two of them and cover his body with her own. Or worse, bare her neck to him in submission.
Jenna snorts. They’ll be serving popsicles in hell before she bares her throat to anyone.
A memory of Jenna’s only paternal family member, her Uncle Owen, flashes through her mind; them sitting on a fallen log, surrounded by the woods behind her mama’s house, patiently explaining the hierarchy of shifters. The expectations of their pack mentality.
Ole’ Alpha boy here wants Jenna to drop her eyes and look away if she won’t bare her vulnerable neck to him; that way she acknowledges who and what he is while giving him the assurance that she understands who is in charge. Instead, Jenna continues to stare back at him coolly. Silently telling him where he can take his dominance and shove it.
She has to admit, though, that it takes every fiber of her being to fight her natural instinct to look down and away from his piercing gaze.
He’s just that damn dominant; which is kind of scary since she’s never felt the urge to show submission to anyone before.
Kent’s hand lands on her shoulder from behind. “Come on, O’Conner. Get your Annie Oakley wannabe ass in here so we can go. We’ve all got paperwork to go back and fill out now.”
With no choice left, she breaks eye contact and climbs in the van, closing the door behind herself to cut off any view of the stranger. If she has any good luck left, this will be the last she sees of him. If only crossing her fingers would help those chances, she would do it. Jenna doesn’t think the guy has figured out what she is, or isn’t, for that matter. Her family has tried their best to hide her and has taught her to avoid all other shifters; she silently prays their attempts will not be in vain just because this guy got curious. Her mama has always told her that if certain shifters ever find out who or what she is, she’s as good as dead.
Here’s to hoping she hasn’t just stumbled on to the beginning of her funeral.
***
Adam watches as the black police van pulls away from the curb and speeds down the street with its mysterious occupant inside. He’s come here to track down his cousin’s killer and drag him back to his turf for some pack style justice, but instead, ends up having his prey snatched right out of his hands. That does not make him a happy predator. In fact, it makes him kind of snarly.
Sure, the asshole will be tried and convicted for his cousin’s wife’s murder, but Adam had been looking forward to the creep facing claws instead of steel bars. The douche bag is going to get off easy in the joke that’s the human justice system. It isn’t fair. Adam stifles the growl that churns in his throat.
That is okay, though, because he just had something else drop into his lap. That little cop with midnight black hair, bright, arctic blue eyes that remind him of an Alaskan husky, and luscious, little curves, has snagged his interest. From the moment she kicked down the door, Adam caught the almost hidden scent of something Other in her and after the way she just stared him down, he’s all but itching to find out what she is. No one ever stares down an Alpha without ending up in a lot of bodily harm. Yet she hadn’t even smelled afraid of him while she’d been doing it.
Adam is betting a shit ton of money that she knows exactly what he is. So the fact that she openly stared down an Alpha has his blood heating in preparation for the chase. Right now, he can’t decide if he wants to catch her to punish her, or to pin her underneath him. Either way, he will be catching her. Maybe he can do both. Light up her pretty little ass to a nice shade of red with a well-deserved spanking and then pin her down underneath him. He kind of likes that idea.
Adam’s phone rings from his pocket. Digging it out to look at the screen, he sees that it’s his Beta and best friend, Clay, the second in command of his pack. “What’s up?”
“Did you get him?”
He breathes out a frustrated sigh. “Almost. I had him cornered in a room at the address you gave me, but before I could cuff and drag him off, the cops busted in. They just hauled him away in a patrol car.”
Clay’s growl rumbles over the line. “At least there will be some punishment for Ellie’s death. I just would have preferred it to have been us ripping him apart instead of the tiny cage he’ll have to live in from now on. Will you be heading home now? Perhaps I could arrange a hunt for us to burn off some of our frustration?”
Adam thinks about heading home. As excellent as hunting sounds at the moment, all he can see are a pair of chilly blue eyes staring him down with a fierceness that can’t be found in any of the members from his pack. “I’ve got a hunt of a different kind to do tonight. Tell me, Clay, do you know of any blue-eyed, black-haired females of the Other variety in Wilmington?”
Clay snorts in amusement. “So, it’s that kind of hunt, is it? I gotcha. I don’t know of any females fitting that description, though. Are you sure she’s not human?”
“I’ve got no doubt she’s something, Clay, but it’s definitely not human. I just don’t know what she is. Definitely not a vampire because it’s daylight out, but her scent smells off and I’m having a hard time figuring out what she is. I want to say she might be some kind of shifter, but if she is, she’s masking her scent somehow. I think I might follow her tonight and try to figure it out. Do we have anyone we know at the Wilmington Police Department?”
“A cop, huh? Kinky. Are you going to ask her to cuff you? That would be cool, but you might want to have her leave the night stick at home. I don’t think you’d like what she could do with that. At least, not without a lot of lube.”
“Damn it! Get your mind out of the constant gutter you wallow in. It’s not in our best interest to have some unknown Other roaming around so close to our land. In our territory. Especially, one we can’t identify.” His voice growls with irritation at his Beta and his tendency to harass Adam about his sex life. Or, his lack of lately, which is what is amusing to Clay.
Until recently, Adam had no qualms about indulging in the female flesh that makes itself so readily available to him all the time. Wolves are sensual creatures with an over active sex drive. It isn’t entirely uncommon to go to the Pack’s lodge and find a free-for-all in the middle of the night. However, for the last six months or so, no one has appealed to him. It’s like he had been doused with a cold shower one day and has yet to warm back up.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t get your fur in a bunch. We have someone at the Wilmington Police Department. Would you like me to call him or give you the number?”
“You call him. Her last name is O’Conner. Call me with whatever you find out.” Snapping his cell phone shut, Adam walks down the street and around the corner to where he parked his black custom Harley V-Rod motorcycle. The August heat is unbearable, causing small rivulets of sweat to run down the back of his neck and soak his shirt. The roar of the engine drowns out the sounds of major traffic flow as he leads his bike back to his house where he can take a cold shower. After that, he’ll do some research on his laptop to see if he can come up with anything on his own about the mysterious O’Conner.
The hunt is on.
Here I come, little rabbit.
Chapter Two
“Hey, O’Conner! Done with those reports, yet?”
Glancing up from her computer, Jenna smiles at Captain Nelson. She sees a strong resemblance of character there to her Uncle Rick. “They’re already on your desk, Sir.”
His lips twitch as if he wants to smile. “Good. Hit the locker room and change into your civilian clothes. It’s time to clock out and get hammered. I’ll meet you by your bike in thirty minutes so you can follow me to the bar since you’re new here.”
He turns and heads to his office. After shutting down her computer and locking her desk drawers, she makes her way down to the women’s locker room. The next shift has already started duty, so she’s by herself as she showers the sticky sweat off her body. Feeling fresh and clean again, she towels off before pulling clothes out of her duffel bag. Slipping into the most feminine thing
she indulges in, she pulls on her lacy red thong and matching convertible bra; the straps hiding perfectly underneath the red cotton racerback tank top. Then she pulls on her favorite boot cut jeans before stomping her feet into black, leather motorcycle boots. Her hair is still dripping wet, but that won’t matter for long. Soon, she’ll get on her bike where the wind will blow the long, straight layers dry. Lastly, she sweeps mascara across her lashes. It’s essentially the only make-up she ever panders to.
Draping her duffel bag across her body, she heads out to her Hyabusa motorcycle to wait for the Captain. She lovingly runs her hands over the red detailing that decorates the shiny black paint job. The bike had been a gift from her Uncle Owen who seemed to disappear right after her college graduation party. He never actually visited her all that much while she was growing up, but the man meant a hell of a lot to her because he was the only connection she had to her father’s side of the family. A father that had been murdered when she was young and who she never got the chance to meet because he, apparently, lived a very dangerous life. Since he’s very much dead, she is guessing the dangerous life bit was true. So, her mother and uncles had gone through hell and tidal-wave-sized-high-water to keep her safely hidden from the world of uglies that go bump in the night. The dangerous Other community that seems to thrive just below the surface of the human world is one she would not be welcome to, or so she’s been told. Today had been an alarming wake-up call as to how comfortably oblivious she has become to the threat of being discovered by that world.
Her mother still won’t tell her the complete truth as to why she has to stay hidden. The only explanation that she’s ever offered is that being of mixed races, most shifters will be extremely prejudiced against her. The majority of what she is had come from her father’s pureblooded shifter side. Which is surprising because, although the shifter’s genes are generally dominant, they mixed with something that has been long considered ‘unmixable’ in the history of all things Other, or inhuman. Her mother is a pureblood as well; however she’s not a shifter. Jenna has inherited some abilities from her mother’s supernatural side of the family, but nothing quite as significant as what is considered the norm of her mother’s capabilities.