Licensed To Thrill

by Gemma Brocato

  Licensed To Thril

  A Jayne Bond Paranormal Mystery

  Gemma Brocato

  Blurb

  Allow me to introduce myself: Bond. Jayne Bond. Master spy, loose cannon. Oh, and undead.

  As an operative for the secretive Vampire Intelligence Service saving the world is my job. And because I am secretly clinging to my soul, I’ve been known to go rogue to save random humans. When the leaders of the VIS learn of a conspiracy to take over the world, they saddle me with a bumbling rookie agent to track down the mastermind behind the plot.

  While investigating a deadly chemical spill I learn that all mortals are targets in the battle between good versus evil and my arch-nemesis is more determined than ever to see me dead. Matters go from bad to worse when I discover my trainee isn’t as inexperienced as I’ve been led to believe.

  If I disobey direct orders on this assignment, my secret will be out. But I’ll gladly break the rules to save my life, and those of all humans.

  Let’s stay in touch!

  Subscribe To Gemma’s Newsletter

  and receive early notice of new releases, sales and

  the trivial matters that catch her fancy.

  Click here:

  https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/t3x8l7

  Contents

  Read All Of Gemma Brocato's Books

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Licensed To Thrill Copyright © Gemma Brocato, 2019

  All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior written permission of the publisher

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are use facetiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead is coincidental.

  Brocato, Gemma

  Licensed To Thrill / Gemma Brocato

  1. Mystery, Thriller, Suspense. 2. Mystery Thriller, Suspense Paranormal. 3. Paranormal Mystery

  Read All Of Gemma Brocato's Books

  Jayne Bond Paranormal Mystery

  Licensed To Thrill

  For Your Fangs Only Coming Summer 2019

  A Main Avenue Romance

  The Wedding Gift

  Taking Chances

  Goddesses Of Delphi Series

  Tyranny

  Mayhem

  Greed

  Hunger

  Hate

  Goddesses of Delphi Boxset

  Five Senses Series

  Cooking Up Love

  Hearts In Harmony

  Exposed To Passion

  Bed Of Roses

  Five Senses Shorts

  A Winter Wedding

  A Spirited Love

  Playing With Fire

  Romancing The Vine Series

  Risking The Vine

  Hidden In The Vines

  Chaos Among The Vines

  Trusting The Vines

  Mission: Mistletoe

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  This story comes about because a year ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a book title in my head. Licensed To Thrill. Somehow, in my sleep, I’d reimagined the world of James Bond from the perspective of Jayne Bond. Then I decided it would be fun to make her a vampire because I love a challenge. Jayne was desperate to cling to the last shreds of her humanity as she worked as a super spy to save innocent people from power-mad villains. This book, and the ones to follow have been tremendous fun to write, and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  I chose the setting for this book, Pitcairn Island, because of the proximity of it to the wreck of the HMS Bounty. The crew of that ship famously mutinied, going rogue to find a better way of life. Jayne is a lot like those crew members, trying to find a better way of life for herself. So I took a bit of license when I created a luxury resort, a posh shopping district, and an airport on the island. In truth, only about fifty people live on the tiny island, many of them descendants of the original crew. I hope you will forgive my exaggerations.

  Happy reading,

  Gemma

  Prologue

  Overhead the stark fluorescent lighting flickered, flared brightly, then returned to normal. The deep, low rumble throughout the subterranean manufacturing facility stopped everyone in their tracks. The environment was treacherous enough from the dangerous chemicals they processed in the cave-like arena, but adding fault lines and volcanoes into the mix created a potentially lethal setting.

  The normal hive-like buzz vanished as workers awaited aftershocks. The depth of the lab within the earth meant the shift of the tectonic plates on the sea floor should be a non-event. However, even the tiniest movement resulted in dirt and pebbles dropping from the ceiling, littering the cleanroom floor, contaminating what should be a sanitary work environment. There’d been more and more of these incidents, all of which had been documented and entered in an event log. Seismic activity could be cataclysmic for the entire island.

  The supervisor stepped out from his glass-enclosed office, hands on the railing, gaze trained on the ceiling.

  Fifteen seconds passed. Thirty. By the time they hit the minute mark and there were no more aftershocks, a few of the jump-suited employees released nervous chuckles.

  “Another close one, huh?” The man in the supervisor’s green suit with the name Rayal embroidered on the chest clapped his hands. “Show’s over, folks. Get busy.” He lifted a small whiteboard hanging from a peg outside his office door and noted the time and intensity of the event.

  Ten lab employees exchanged nervous looks but got back to business.

  Minutes passed, and the work activity level almost returned to normal. One employee, using an air pallet, moved a fifty-five gallon drum of highly caustic chemical from one side of the room to the other. The barrel was open, its deadly contents exposed to the entire lab.

  Rayal tossed aside his clipboard and yelled in heavily accented words. “Tomas! You fucking idiot! No! You’ve been told to seal that shit up before moving it. Do you want to kill us all?” He glared at the hapless worker as he stalked down the steps.

  The banks of lights flared again, slowing Rayal’s step. He directed a wary gaze to the ceiling and hunched his shoulders. A frightening hiss rent the air, growing in volume and intensity until it became a terrifying screech.

  Overhead, shiny silver ventilation shafts rattled and danced on the suspension wires. A fissure like jagged lightning split the rocky ceiling. One rivet holding the steel anchoring strap to the ceiling popped free, landing on the ground with a distinctive ping. Three of the six banks of industrial lights exploded as steam escaped the grates, jetting forth in a superheated nimbus. More rivets popped, now careening around the lab like fiery projectiles.

  “The earthquake must have started a lava flow. The steam vents are releasing,” Rayal screamed over the blaring fire claxons. “Take cover.”

  One missile-like bolt ricochet
ed off the rocky ceiling and hit a man in the neck, hissing as it fused to his flesh. He screamed as his cleanroom suit burst into flames at the collar, fire licking down his back. His hair caught, and soon he was ablaze like a roman candle, the stench of burning flesh and molten brimstone corrupting the air.

  Workers scrambled in all directions, taking cover wherever they could—under lab tables, behind banks of servers and monitors.

  Lava began dripping from the crack in the ceiling. One of the vent shafts, now freed from its mooring, crashed to the ground. Steam and flames erupted, spewing toward Tomas, who frantically steered the air pallet of chemicals out of the path of the fire. The mixture wasn’t flammable, but if mixed with heat, the product would vaporize and kill every single person in the room.

  As Tomas struggled to close the barrel, a pneumatic hose broke free and danced around like a bionic snake. The nozzle plowed into Tomas’s back, knocking him and the lid forward a half dozen feet. A jet of air from the hose blew a dusty white cloud of death out of the barrel. Tomas inhaled a large gulp of the poison. He coughed and spat, but there was no way he could eliminate the toxin now coating his lungs and shutting down his ability to absorb the smallest speck of oxygen. His face rapidly became beet-red before changing to dusky purple. Around him, the particulates floated in the air, a lethal fog infecting every other worker in the lab.

  The fire suppressant system finally kicked in, sucking all oxygen from the area. Slowly, it suffocated any humans who still drew labored breaths.

  1

  Assignment Meeting

  VIS London Headquarters

  “Is she in?”

  Fresh off my latest suspension, I breezed into the executive suite for an assignment meeting with my employer of the past one hundred years, the Vampire Intelligence Service. Preternatural protector of humans. Champions of the underdog. Our secret operations, equivalent to the British government’s Secret Intelligence Service, had been saving the world for centuries from evil villains they had no idea existed. I’d been reactivated by our fearsome leader, Truly Solani, or T as she preferred to be called. And who wouldn’t with a name like Truly? Sounded more like a greeting card than the given name of a high-powered Director of Covert Operations for the Vampire Intelligence Service.

  My own name was far less pretentious.

  Bond. Jayne Bond.

  T was all business. No time for pleasantries. We weren’t friends, probably never would be. Being friends required a smidgeon of humanity, something T had lost back when Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Vampires who clung to their humanity never had the detachment necessary to do their jobs. Cold acceptance of the fate of mortals was the only way, according to the leaders of our kind. We were meant to shed our humanity like snakeskin, and that shift was supposed to happen within one hundred years of being turned.

  Not me. I clung to the last shreds of my humanity like a nurse shark protecting her young—tenaciously. I could never turn my back on a mortal who required assistance. There were too many monsters roaming the planet to leave the weak humans to fend for themselves. My refusal to relinquish the last vestiges of my mortality resulted in frequent reprimands and an occasional suspension, usually delivered with stinging aplomb by my cold, brittle superior. Her admonitions that the last dregs of my soul would keep me from becoming Director of Operations had happened with startling regularity.

  I didn’t care. I’d never really aspired to management. And I didn’t need friends. So my affiliation with T was strictly business, even though I was aware of the one great sadness of her life, but I doubted she knew. Or would care that I knew. We understood each other, and that was what made our relationship work.

  “She’s just getting off the phone with the Prime Minister at the moment, Solo. If you’ll just have a seat.” Pennington Monay, T’s personal assistant, said my code name with a caress in his voice. He nodded to the chairs lining the wall opposite his ornate desk and then pressed a button on his phone. His sotto voce announced, “Jayne Bond is here to see you.”

  There was already another person waiting. A youngish man, I guessed him to be in his mid-twenties, with shaggy golden brown hair, freakishly wide shoulders. An abundance of freckles on his nose and cheeks made him look all of twelve. He nervously twiddled his thumbs over his palms. It took him a moment to realize I was pointedly staring at his fidgety fingers. His cheeks flushed a ruddy red. I didn’t need to be a master spy to peg him as human. Vampires didn’t blush.

  He shoved his hands under his thighs. The movement dislodged the leather-bound pad on his lap, sending it thudding to the polished marble floor. Papers fanned out across the Carrara I knew had been mined in Northern Italy six hundred years ago. His heart raced, a discordant thud in my ear. Mouthing sorry, he bent to pick it up.

  I arched a look at Penn and inclined my head toward the awkward young man. I lowered my voice. “Who the bloody hell is he?”

  An exaggerated roll of Penn’s brilliant blue eyes almost induced a chuckle on my part. Not that I was the type to laugh. I leaned one silk-clad hip on Penn’s desk and tucked my dark brown hair behind my ear. Of all the human employees in the VIS, Penn was my favorite Black Swan—a vampire familiar and a dedicated supporter of our cause. Oh, and incredibly handsome. Dark blond hair, a chiseled jaw, mile-wide shoulders. A man inclined to wear close-fitting trousers that outlined his lickable backside and powerful thighs. If he weren’t so damned good at his job, I’d wager T kept him around merely as eye candy. I’d actually considered indulging in an affair with him, but decided it was best not to cross that line.

  He flashed a vivid white grin. “That’s Baxter Tamsyn. He’s new.”

  My turn for a reckless eye roll. “I can see that.”

  The freckled human’s cheeks were still rosy, and he ducked his head as though he knew we were discussing him. I could smell humanity and a hint of sweat on the guy. Casually, I studied the man studying his shoes. With a shrug, I returned my attention to Penn.

  Jerking a thumb over my shoulder towards T’s office, I asked, “What’s the temperature like today?”

  “A tad chilly. Something’s afoot in the Pacific. Whatever it is has put T in a foul mood. I expect you’ll know soon enough.”

  The phone chirped an instant before T’s cultured tones floated from the device. “Is Solo still lingering at your desk?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll send her in, shall I?” He winked at me.

  T’s exasperated huff sounded like wind in trees. “Yes, Pennington, by all means, send them in. Don’t make any of us wait a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.” The line clattered as T obviously tossed the handset back in the cradle.

  “Why do you jerk her chain like that?” I straightened away from the desk and smoothed the wrinkles from my skirt.

  “Because I can, Solo. Because I can.” His eyes crinkled at the corner and his irises sparkled.

  Across the room, the newbie rose to his feet as well, clutching his portfolio to his chest. He moved toward T’s carved office door. Over my shoulder, I shot him a look designed to ask where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?

  Steps faltering, he lurched forward.

  My scowl should have stopped him in his tracks, but he straightened his spine and made his way across the gleaming floor. However stupid his actions might be, he scored points for bravery.

  Apparently, I needed to verbalize my pointed look. “Where do you think you’re going?” I lifted my hand, palm out.

  “I’m supposed to be in there with you.” His accent was more Bronx than Bath.

  Bloody American. “Sorry, yank. This meeting is closed.”

  “Uh…Jayne,” Penn interrupted. “Actually, Baxter is meant to be included today. You’re to be his mentor. T will explain it to you.”

  Mentor? As in answering inane questions and teaching a probie the spy game? Bollocks to that. “Oh, hell no!” I pointed to Baxter. “Stay.”

  Without waiting to see if he complied, I shoved into T’s off
ice. My superior vampire strength forced the heavy door to swing inward, then rebound back immediately. I stopped it right before it smacked me in the face. “What’s the meaning of this, T?”

  I turned to close the door and came face-to-face with the still advancing Baxter. “I believe I told you to stay.” The pictures on the wall rattled as I slammed shut the door.

  “Now, Solo…” T began.

  “Don’t you now Solo me. I work alone. Always have and always will. It’s better that way.” There was a reason my code-name was Solo. It had everything to do with an assignment so far in the past, most VIS employees wouldn’t remember. But I never forgot thanks to the scar on my body I confronted every day. My chest tightened, but I forced out a breath, breaking up the constriction.

  I stalked across the room and plopped onto the brown leather wingback chair flanking T’s sixteenth-century desk.

  T’s short, black hair, cut pageboy style, swung against her cheeks as she shook her head. She pointed a black-tipped finger at me. The nerve! “Bond, you’ve been briefed about the mentoring program. All senior agents are to be paired with a probationary agent.”

  “Not me. I’m exempt from that program.”