Chapter 13
Cricket
“Hey man. How’s the mission?” Wiley answers his phone on the third ring, the sound of forks and knives scraping against ceramic filling the background.
“Not good. Are you near Kade?”
“Actually, yes. Me, Geneva, Dinah, Kade, and Erick are having brunch at the diner. How’d you know that?”
I shake my head. “Grab Kade and excuse yourself. I need help.”
“Uh, hold one…” I listen as he tells the table, kisses Geneva, and walks out of the diner. Doors open and close, and I envision they are sitting in the parking lot in someone’s truck.
“What’s up?” he says as he puts the phone on speaker.
“Can anyone not read in hear us?” I ask, hoping they realize I’m talking about shifter shit, and not SpecOps security, although at this point it’s the same with my family.
“Just the four of us, man,” Erick says.
“I met my mate.” Ripping off the band-aid, I wait to hear their response.
“No shit?” Erick says.
“Who?” Kade asks.
“Congratulations, man!” Wiley chimes in.
“She’s an agent, working side-by-side with my dickhead brother, but that’s not why I’m calling.” I pace my tiny room as I talk, my cat prowling the same tight space inside of me.
“What’s up?” Kade asks.
“Have either of you spent one night away from your mate?”
“Uh, no,” They both answer.
“Do you think you could have prior to marking her? Do you think you could, now that you have marked her?”
They meet my questions with silence.
“Hello?” I ask in a panic. Fuck, I really am losing it.
Kade answers first. “I think, if I absolutely had to, I could go a night or two away from Dinah. The closest I’ve experienced so far was our one-month anniversary when we went to Fortune Falls and I spent eight hours with the pack.
But I was less than a mile from her, had marked her the night before, and could sense her through the trees. Wiley?”
“No,” he says resolutely. “Maybe after we’ve been together a while, and I’ve freshly marked her, but I don’t know, man. Even the thought sits like a lead weight in my gut. Why?”
“I shifted multiple times in my sleep last night and woke to my cat trying to escape our room to get to her.”
“Fuck me. Premature shifting?” Erick laughs and then quickly disguises it by clearing his throat. “Sorry.”
“What do you know about her? Have you spent time alone with her? Does she respond to your mating pheromones?” Both Wiley and Kade bombard me with questions that I assume they had to ask themselves at one time.
“Still learning about her. Yes, we spent some time together last night, and yes, she responds to my mating pheromones positively.”
“Thank Fates,” Kade says and Wiley agrees. “If she’s responding to your mating pheromones, make opportunities to get her alone. Get to know her. Let her get to know you. But do it quickly. It is a full fucking moon, after all.”
“I know it feels like a cheat code letting your cat push them out, but the alternative is him losing it and possibly hurting her. It’s time to become the smoothest motherfucker you’ve ever been,” Kade adds.
“Can you find time while on the mission?” Erick asks.
“That’s the biggest problem. I think Crash called Colonel Packard to get me sent home.” I glance down at the missed calls and text messages, unwilling to read them.
“Does he know she’s your fated mate?” Kade sounds appalled.
“Yes.”
“And that cockblocker would separate you from her? Does he understand what that means?” Wiley growls in anger like a real brother would.
“Considering he hates me? I’m guessing yes.”
“Holy shit.” Silence fills the truck cab again, and I envision them looking at each other, having a telepathic conversation.
“What do you need from us?” Kade asks finally. “We’ll come to where you are and kidnap both of you, throw you into a room until you claim your mate.”
“Or we could kill Crash,” Erick offers. “I mean, if you are twins, that would force Packard to put you in his place, and I wouldn’t mind sinking my teeth into the asshole.”
I chuckle while pulling on my hair. “I appreciate that, brother, but I have another idea. This mission, from our perspective, is about stolen shifter children—human trafficking shit. And after this conversation, I have to return Packard’s calls.
If he tells me to go home, I’m going to hit him with another plan, which might mean calling in a few of you.
I’ll suggest Erick and Sly, so Kade and Wiley don’t have to leave their mates. ”
“Yeah—” Erick responds quickly “—whatever you and the mission need.”
“If you need me or Wiley, we’ll figure it out with our mates,” Kade adds.
“Thanks.” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, a slight weight lifting from my shoulders. “Seriously, thanks for having my back.”
We hang up, and I read the text messages from Packard.
What the fuck, Cricket?
Call me back.
Now, Sergeant!
I’m not a Sergeant, not anymore, but I guess “Now asshole!” doesn’t have the same impact.
Begrudgingly, I call him back.
He answers on the first ring. “Do you want to explain yourself?”
“Which part?” I retort with zero respect in my voice.
He growls. “Lieutenant Pumarston reports that you revealed your cougar to the traders, directed Private Baerhn to reveal his bear to the traders, attacked said traders, directed Private Baerhn to join the meet and greet without coordinating with his superior officer, conducted an unsanctioned mission on the supposed auction site, and took the HSI agent with you on a ride along.”
“Is that all?”
Packard slams his fist down on something. “I have never known you to be so willfully disrespectful, Cricket. He wants you sent home, and right now I agree with him. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Clenching my jaw, I narrow my eyes on the wall, very interested in connecting my fist with Crash’s eye socket again.
“Did Crash also tell you that Doralee Baker is my fated mate? That he’s so jealous of me he’d rather condemn me or my cougar to death than allow me near her?
Or that she and I gathered excellent intel on our unsanctioned mission last night, learning they are trucking the trafficking victims in and out—most likely keeping them on the move?
We think we’re looking for a convoy, and I have a plan that I think works best for our mission, which is locating and saving shifter children. ”
Packard says nothing for a minute, and I wish I could see the look on his face.
He’s approaching fifty without a fated mate, and it’s impressive that he didn’t lose his shit twenty years ago.
They say the biological and animalistic need to find our mate grows the older we get, making our animals feral.
I have never seen Packard shift. Did he give up his animal years ago?
No, he couldn’t have, or else he couldn’t speak telepathically with us.
Or could he?
“Agent Baker is your fated mate?” he says carefully.
“Yes.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. So now you understand the actual source of Crash’s outrage.”
“No, not really. You two make no sense.” He pauses. “Are you sure about Doralee?”
I chuckle, but there is no humor in it. “Yeah—real fucking sure.”
“Shit.”
“You already said that, Colonel,” I sigh. “Obviously, I’m not going anywhere, but I have an idea that will finish at least part of this mission quickly.”
“Let me hear it.” His voice muffles and I imagine he’s running his hand down his face.
“I’m going back to the auction location tonight to tag those semi-trucks.
If they head south like we expect them to, they’ll roll right past MirMax, where we will intercept them the way only we can.
We’ll hijack the trucks, eliminate any escort security, and save all the trafficking victims, human and shifter alike.
Once we reroute them onto our compound, no one will find them until we want them to. ”
“Fuck,” Packard grumbles. “Continue.”
“Yes, this might fuck the FBI, ATF, and DEA objectives, but fuck them. At least a few of them are dirty, anyway.”
“Crash mentioned his suspicions as shared by Agent Baker.”
I roll my eyes, because of course Crash left my opinions and expertise out of his report.
“Let’s get all hands on deck at MirMax, and I’ll lead them right to you. I’ve already got Erick and Sly on standby, and Kade and Wiley if need be.”
“You’ve read them into this mission?” He sounds surprised, but I don’t know why. Normally, we’re all read into the same shit and are interchangeable for every mission, except this one because of my twin.
“Of course I did.”
“Fine. We’ll try this. Fuck the other agencies.”
“Are you relieving Lieutenant Pumarston of his minuscule command?”
“No. He’s still my XO, Cricket. Report to the SpecOps office, and I’ll schedule a secure call. How many days are we talking?”
I quickly count the hours. “If the auction is tomorrow night, then I suspect they’ll be on the road by the next morning. If we’re ahead of them, we’re talking less than forty-eight hours from now.”
“Thank Fates most of my guys are in garrison right now. I’ll call in a few more, just in case.” He grumbles under his breath. “What about the shifters that have already been sold?”
I shake my head. “I’m staunchly against using any of the children we rescue as bait, and I’m confident no other operators will be cool with it either.
My advice, sir, is to get these kids home, account for our missing, use our intel connections, and find them.
I’ll go wherever in the fucking world I have to go to rescue these kids—for free. That’s a promise.”
He snorts. “Sir and free. I guess you feel strongly about this.”
“I really do.”
“Okay. Be in the SpecOps office in twenty. I need to make some calls. Are we in-briefing Agent Baker?”
“No, sir. We’ll bring her in after everyone is secured.”
“Doing shit behind your mate’s back already, Cricket? That’s not a great start to a relationship.”
I sigh. He’s absolutely right, but what other choice do I have? “If she knew about shifters, sir, she’d be by my side. But I haven’t figured out that part yet.”
“Yeah, I suppose not. Twenty minutes.” He hangs up and I glance around for my clothes from last night, adding a lightweight black motorcycle jacket over my tank top.
A quick trip to the bathroom to brush my teeth, as well as a stop by the commissary for food, and I’m walking through the manufactured hallways of the airplane hangar.
A door slams shut, and I sense her before I see her.
She stomps around the corner, stopping abruptly in front of me with wide eyes.
“Doralee.” I whisper her name like a prayer, and it takes everything within me not to pull her into my arms and inhale her scent.
“Cricket.” She licks her lips and tries to walk around me, but I can’t let her.
Grabbing her arm, I drag her down a few rows toward a dark corner far away from the office containers in use.
She yanks her arm out of my hand and opens her mouth to give me a piece of her mind, but before she can get a word out, I’m holding her face and claiming her lips in a punishing kiss filled with desperation.
It takes a few seconds for her to melt, my cougar wailing to claim and mark her while pumping out my mating pheromone, but once she does, she’s fisting the lapels of my jacket and rubbing her body against mine.
I let go of her face and grab her ass, hoisting her up and pinning her back against the corrugated metal.
“Fuck, I missed you last night,” I hiss and pull back to trail kisses over her neck.
“I thought you changed your mind and regretted last night,” she gasps as I thrust my hips forward and grind my jean-clad cock against her pussy, hidden by the cotton blend fabric of her suit slacks.
“Never. I will never change my mind about you, Doralee.”
“I tossed and turned last night, dreaming about you. It took everything within me to not tiptoe across the warehouse and knock on your door.”
“Fuck, I wish you had.” I reach between us and unfasten my cargo pants, my animal instincts in full control of my body as I prepare to fuck my mate in broad daylight within earshot of every human male in this place.
It’s those human voices that stop me as I pull cock free from my boxers. Their mundane conversation pulls me out of my lust filled haze to remember the mission at hand. Save the victims. Then Doralee and I will have time to get to know each other.
She must hear them too, because her body grows rigid and eyes wide, and she holds her breath. I let her down soundlessly and tuck my cock back into my pants, but she notices—the realization of what we were so close to doing hitting her fully.
We say nothing, staring at each other with the same crushing need.
I fasten my pants and press a kiss to her forehead, waiting until the male voices leave the building to speak.
“I’ve got a meeting. Can we have lunch today?”
She shakes her head. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“Please, Doralee. I want to spend time with you.”
“Crash said you were going home today.” She raises her brow.
Narrowing my eyes, I shake my head. “No. I’m here until we free those people.”
She smiles. “I knew you cared about the mission more than anything else.”
“That’s not true.” I cup her face and slide my thumb over her bottom lip. “I care about you more than anything else.”
Her mouth falls open, but she says nothing.
My phone chirps, and I’m betting it’s a notice from Packard telling me I’m late for the call. “I’ve got to go. Lunch?”
She nods. “I’ll wait for you in the common area outside of the commissary.”
“Be there in an hour.”