Administrative Control

by Mandy M. Roth

  When Aneta learned Asher was in need of information, she’d artfully managed to get her client to spill the beans and provide her access to the intel Jinx now had.

  Jinx picked up her phone and considered dialing a man she knew would drop everything and come. She knew when he’d asked for help that he’d been simply fishing for possible leads. This wouldn’t be what he expected either.

  He was a good man. A man who liked to stay hidden from others. A man who controlled an awful lot in the supernatural community, but who managed to keep most from knowing who he was.

  One of the men behind the curtains.

  She dialed and waited with bated breath for the line to connect. Each ring tightened her chest more and more. She was about to hang up when a deep voice on the other end came through.

  “Jinx,” he said, the timbre of his voice moving her, the tiniest hints of an accent showing. It was barely there, but Jinx knew the man’s history so she knew to listen for it. She possessed a similar accent that she too had worked hard to cover over the centuries.

  “Brooks,” she returned.

  He gave a ragged sighed. “Asher. Call me Asher. I’ve told you that already at least a hundred times.”

  She smiled against the phone. He had always insisted she call him by his first name, something she knew others weren’t permitted to do. “I have intel on what you asked me to keep an ear open for.”

  He was quiet. “That was fast.”

  She nodded. “My people have a way of gathering information that others don’t.”

  He laughed softly. “I’d say so.”

  “Asher, this isn’t anything you’ll want me to send to you. I think you should be given this in person.”

  “Shit. Its that bad?”

  “Yes,” she said in a hushed tone.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice deep and entirely too masculine and sexy.

  Jinx wasn’t all right, so there was no use lying to him. She’d upset Helmuth by helping the Ops teams, and word had reached her that soon enough Helmuth would retaliate. “I don’t think it’s wise I come there. Not with everything that has been going on out here. I need to stay in Seattle, close to my people right now. How soon can you come?”

  “I can be there within the hour,” he returned.

  Confused, she cocked her head to one side. “Asher, the flight here from Virginia is longer than that. I realize you have a great deal of pull and I know what you’re capable of, but even you need more time than an hour to reach me.”

  “I’m in Seattle,” he replied, surprising her. “I’m down at the pier near the warehouse.”

  She knew exactly where he spoke of, as only days prior it had been the site of one of Helmuth’s many underground fight clubs. Though this one had ended in more bloodshed than anyone had ever thought possible. She’d heard about the mess down there and knew full well the I-Ops and PSI hadn’t caused it all. “Be careful down there, Asher. Helmuth is up to something.”

  “I’ll be fine,” he returned. That was his way. Overconfident. “I’m worried about you.”

  “I’m good,” she managed, but it was shaky at best. Lying to him was something she couldn’t ever seem to do with ease. If her informant was right, Helmuth’s men would pay her a visit before the night was out. It was for the best if Asher wasn’t around. The last time he had helped her out of a bad situation there had been a lot of dead bodies, an inquiry, several years on the run and he’d not spoken to her for nearly a century following. That was some thousands years plus ago. Still, she doubted the man had changed much from old. If she could head off the problems with Helmuth on her own, that would be for the best. “I just need to talk to you. Take your time there. How about we meet tomorrow? Will you still be in town then?”

  “I will,” he said softly. “But I could come tonight.”

  “No,” she said, a little faster than she should. “Not tonight. Tomorrow. I’ll see you then.”

  She needed to get the remainder of her people out of the club for the rest of the night. She’d already sent away her male employees, including her private security staff, and most of her female employees—though some had refused to leave, as if they too knew what was coming and didn’t want her facing it alone.

  The minute she hung up the phone, her office door burst open. A scream ripped free from her as men poured in, some dragging her girls along with them, each looking like they were there to cause problems.

  Right away she recognized Jasper, one of Helmuth’s men, and unease settled over her. Jasper was far from stable and she knew of Helmuth’s issues in the past with controlling the man.

  She eyed the phone, wondering if she’d done the right thing in keeping Asher away. He didn’t need to get mixed up in this mess she’d gotten herself into any more than he already was. Drawing him into this wasn’t going to make that right. It would only make it worse.

  It was better this way.

  At least that was what she tried to tell herself as Jasper seized hold of her and pulled her from her office, down the hall and into the main club area.

  “Bitch, you’ve been a bad, bad girl,” he hissed.

  Chapter Two

  Colonel Asher Brooks stood in the shadows near the old warehouse on the pier. He tucked his phone back into his jacket pocket and patted it gently. He smiled despite himself. He lived for any moment he could speak with Jinx. The redheaded vixen held him enthralled when, in truth, she’d never used her succubus powers on him. He was powerful enough to have sensed it. No. Her lure was natural and his obsession with her was anything but. Asher had no intention of waiting until morning to see her. He’d pay her a visit as soon as he wrapped up matters on the dock.

  Salty sea air and the odor of fish did not mask the smell of death that still coated the area. The warehouse had played host to an underground paranormal fighting ring backed by Walter Helmuth—a bigwig who controlled most of the paranormal underground in the Seattle area. Helmuth was a bottom feeder who had made it big. The man had been causing problems steadily for months.

  As point person for the I-Ops team members, Asher was required to step in when called for, and the massive amount of bloodshed on the pier meant his presence was certainly called for. He already had the higher-ups breathing down his neck about it all, trying to say his men and the PSI boys were out of control and needed to be leashed.

  To that, Asher had responded with a giant fuck you.

  Lukian Vlakhusha, the captain of the I-Ops team, ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark brown, wavy hair and let out a long breath as he took in the scene around him.

  “Eadan and Duke did this?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

  Eadan Daly, another I-Ops team member, stepped forward, shaking his head. “Not all of this. We did our fair share of damage, don’t get me wrong. But not to this extent. Nowhere near this.”

  “You sure your faerie dust didn’t go bad and make everyone go nuts?” Roi Majors asked of Eadan as he pulled another t-shirt on. This made his third.

  Asher gave him a questioning look.

  Roi shrugged as if he wore three shirts daily. “Seattle is fucking cold.”

  “You’re a shifter and your core body temperature runs hot. How can you possibly be cold?” asked Lukian, voicing what the others were thinking.

  “Apparently, I need a thicker winter coat.” Roi flashed a wide smile, letting hair sprout up and over his forearms. Hair coated his face suddenly as well. He looked like a deranged teddy bear in his current state. “And no one told me to pack a jacket or even a long-sleeved shirt.”

  “Seattle is northern. It’s colder the more north you go,” said Asher.

  “Geography isn’t his strong suit,” mocked Eadan from the sidelines. His attention went to Roi. “How about I sprinkle some of my faerie dust on you, dickhead?”

  “Don’t make me cut your hair,” snapped Roi, motioning to Eadan’s long blond hair.

  “Do it. It just grows back by the next morning,” returned Eadan
. He blew Roi a kiss and then gave him the finger when Roi growled at him.

  “If pretty boy taunts me one more time, I’m gonna eat him,” warned Roi.

  Taking the I-Ops anywhere was a lot like taking a preschool on a field trip. Though Asher thought the preschoolers would probably listen better.

  Lukian nudged Asher. “They’ll be at it for hours. What have we learned about what went down here?”

  Asher motioned to Eadan. “He was held captive here on a docked cargo ship. Duke was en route to help but was given a bogus location. Let the record state Duke is still pissed he had to fly as much as he did. He’s not a fan.”

  “He doesn’t like anything,” murmured Eadan from his spot before he shoved Roi.

  Growling, Lukian stared around, his eyes shifting to a brighter blue. “Do we know who steered Duke wrong? And do we know who the hell tipped off Helmuth and his men that Eadan would even be in this area to start with?”

  “Rogues in PSI is my best guess,” responded Asher. Paranormal Security and Intelligence Agency had been hit with the same problems the I-Ops side of things had—traitors. Rumors had been spreading that more than one I-Ops team existed and Asher had his suspicions there was even more the higher-ups were keeping from them all. That was why he’d enlisted Jinx’s help. She had a way of getting information that others simply did not.

  “Shit.” Lukian lowered his gaze. “Not another Parker.”

  Benjamin Parker was the man Roi had replaced on the I-Ops team. They’d thought him dead and gone and had even mourned his passing. When he’d surfaced out of the blue and off his damn rocker, they’d realized he had gone rogue, letting his hurt and anger over having been a test subject loose on the men he’d once called brothers. His revenge and rage cost Lance, a team member, his life. He nearly cost Lukian’s mate’s life as well.

  Having a traitor in your ranks wasn’t taken lightly.

  “I’m guessing there is more than one,” Asher said. “And I think Parker isn’t our only blast from the past either.”

  Lukian’s expression was guarded. “More Outcasts?”

  The creation of the I-Ops team was still a controversial subject. The government had started working on them in the early 1900s—though Asher wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that too was a lie and that they’d actually started earlier. Eugenics wasn’t something any nation was proud of. The fact that America was steeped in various attempts with it seemed to get buried fairly easy in the history books as did so much of the country’s sordid background. It was that way just about anywhere, though. There was history, and history according to the guy telling it. Often they didn’t match.

  America wasn’t the only country guilty of trying to make human-hybrids. Asher could still remember IIya Ivanov’s ape-army. The public had been told it was a failure. That was a lie. The sick bastard had succeeded to a degree. There had been more attempts by others, more commonly referred to as Nazi’s Eugenics.

  The world was full of some fucked-up people.

  From what Asher had been told, as he’d not been part of the organization at the time, the majority of the first attempts at creating super soldiers had failed miserably. Somehow the government managed to talk more young men into donating their bodies to science in the hopes of making a brighter future.

  Politicians were devils in suits.

  Always had been.

  Always would be.

  Some of the politicians were honest-to-god demons. Asher knew a few. Those guys were actually the better of the crop.

  Go figure.

  Asher knew Lukian had stepped in at some point in the program’s history to help try to minimize the deaths. As a full-blooded, born shifter who by rights was the King of the Lycans in the United States, his DNA was what was needed to help sort things out. Unfortunately, not all the test subjects took to the introduced DNA cocktails. Some died. Some went mad. Others had been left at the point they’d wished they were dead.

  In the end, all the Outcasts, as the program heads had termed those unfortunates who couldn’t handle what the scientists put them through, were gathered and placed in holding facilities. Those in charge spoke of the places as if they were retirement communities. They were prisons, and more like insane asylums in their infancy stages than that of retirement homes.

  Asher had seen one for himself and knew the truth of the matter.

  He didn’t buy the fine excuses they’d all been handed decades ago—telling them the holding facilities had all burned to the ground on the same day.

  Convenient, as Asher had just finished demanding better living for the men in them.

  “I don’t buy the load of shit the guys in charge are trying to make us swallow over what happened to the Outcast Facilities. Do you?” asked Asher. “And I think we’re being lied to again. You think they’re on the level?”

  Shaking his head, Lukian pointed to the cleanup crew who were farther out in the distance on the dock. “From this mess, I’d say something is up. You think the rogues with PSI came in after Eadan, Jon and Duke left?” asked Lukian.

  At the mention of Jon’s name, Asher tensed. “Any word from him yet?”

  Asher had ordered Jon take leave. The man had gotten into his own head, and if he didn’t get himself sorted out and soon, he’d end up dead or he’d get someone else killed. Jon had been ordered to take a three-day leave and that was some six days prior. No one had spoken with him since then.

  Lukian shook his head. “No. Green is still looking for him. Inara is back home helping since the others are too close to their due dates to be running around.”

  “Are they checking the bars?” asked Asher without malice in this voice. Jon Reynell was in a low spot and had been since the tragic death of his teammate and best friend Lance. Didn’t matter what any of the men tried to do to help Jon come back from it, he just sank deeper and deeper. It didn’t help matters any that Jon was the last of the team members without a mate. The other men had beaten the odds and found their true mates.

  That was rare.

  They were now family men. All except Jon and him. But Asher kept himself removed from the men, never going on missions with them. It was the only way he knew to keep them from finding out what he really was.

  Lukian turned in a slow circle. Blood and guts were everywhere the eye could see and probably a lot of places it couldn’t. “What the hell happened here?”

  “I don’t know, but from what the cleanup crew has been able to determine, there are all kinds of different supernaturals in this.”

  “It’s a hot mess,” breathed Lukian.

  Asher agreed. It was. Whatever had happened on the pier after his men left had been rage-fueled. The more he looked around at the carnage, the more he became aware of having seen something similar in his past. “Bezerker of the shifter variety.”

  Lukian stilled. “I’d buy that if they weren’t myths. I’ve seen a lot in a hundred-plus years. Never ran into one of those.”

  Asher held his tongue. They existed and he was pretty sure more than one had a hand in what had gone down on the pier, though something was slightly off with it all. He met Lukian’s gaze. “Call Green and ask what the odds are of creating supernaturals who would end up in crazed bezerk-like states? And not just high energy, high violence—I mean all-out-gone killing rages.”

  “You don’t think Krauss and his people created something that could do this, do you?” asked Lukian, worry on his face.

  Asher stared out at the cleanup team, still working hard to remove any traces of what had gone down. “At this point, I’ll believe anything.”

  “I’ll get with Green and take Statler and Waldorf there with me,” added Lukian as he thumbed in the direction of Roi and Eadan. “Want to meet back at the plane?”

  “Yes. I’ll finish up here and then I have a stop to make,” said Asher.

  Lukian grinned. “This stop wouldn’t happen to have a sexy redheaded succubus at it, would it?”

  Asher had known Lukian a long ti
me. The man held Asher’s obsession close to the vest and that was appreciated. “She ended up involved in all of this, and I asked for her help on a matter. I just need to see that she’s all right.”

  “Of course,” said Lukian. He touched Asher’s shoulder. “You could always just claim her as yours, you know.”

  He snorted. “What makes you think I could?”

  Lukian eyed him. “The fact you haven’t aged in all the years I’ve known you. I’m guessing that means you’re fair game in the immortal mate market, and since I’ve known you, you’ve checked in on her a whole hell of a lot.”

  “Maybe I just like getting my rocks off at a brothel,” said Asher.

  Lukian laughed. “Oh yeah, sure. I believe that. I’ve seen you around her before. You’re not sleeping with her—yet.”

  Asher grinned despite himself. “Go do what I told you to. I’ll meet you at the plane.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Lukian, waggling his brows as he headed for Roi and Eadan. The two men were now taking turns pushing each other, much like small children would.

  Yep.

  Preschoolers.

  Asher stepped over something he was pretty sure used to be an arm. When the cleanup team had notified him of the extent of the carnage, he’d boarded a plane with half the I-Ops team and headed to Seattle at once to try to figure out what had happened.

  So far, it was a mystery to them all. Asher was sure of one thing—Walter Helmuth had something to do with it and he’d been rumored to be in bed with two genetic-altering bigwig bad guys—Krauss and Molyneux.

  That just screamed trouble.

  Men like Helmuth always seemed like scared little boys to Asher. So desperate were they to cling to power that they would do anything to hold on to it—even kill. The man had apparently aligned with the wrong people if this was the result, because a huge number of the identifiable bodies belonged to known Helmuth associates.