Chapter 5 Darla
Darla
“Newbie!”
“Yes ma’am,” Cassie and I responded in unison.
We’d both been working at Sapphic Security for six months now, but our boss Lois still didn’t know our names.
My sister Bella told me when I first started that when Lois bothered to learn your name you knew you were off probation and officially part of the team.
The newbie thing would probably be less annoying if Cassie and I could tell which one of us she was talking to.
“You.”
Lois pointed one stubby finger at me. It was a cold and rainy winter morning in Seattle, but my boss was in her usual attire: black tactical pants, black boots, and a tight white tank top.
She was a stone butch, tough as nails, and an alpha wolf shifter who commanded her mostly vampire team with an iron fist. The only softness I’d ever seen from her in the six months I’d worked here was when her mate came to visit.
“Me?” I asked, embarrassed by how my voice squeaked. I’d faced down the toughest generals when I was in the military, but none of them intimidated me as much as Lois did.
“Yeah, Darla right?”
It was a power move on Lois’s part. She only had twenty-five employees, it wasn’t like she couldn’t remember my name.
“Yes ma’am. Darla.”
“Are you ready for a solo job?”
Sensing my sister nearby, I looked over my shoulder to see Bella and our coworker Martha walking up behind us. Bella gave me an encouraging smile.
My older sister had been the one to help me get this job at Sapphic Security. She’d worked here for a few years now. It was a dream job for supernaturals like us who’d spent their entire adult life in the military and didn’t have a lot of transferable job skills.
The Seattle branch of Sapphic Security had been open for about ten years.
It was part of a much larger company that was founded by a group of lesbians who’d been looking for a new career after retiring from the military.
Not everyone who worked here identified as sapphic, but most of the team fell somewhere on the sapphic or non-binary spectrum.
We were all supernaturals though. Shifters, vampires, fae, and other supes worked at offices around the world, doing both private security and contract work for the government.
“Solo job? Sure.” Finally, this was my chance to prove to Lois that I could be a valuable member of the team.
“Come with me then,” Lois said, stomping towards the conference room. “The rest of you too.”
Cassie, Bella, and Martha followed me, taking seats at the table as Lois opened a folder, scanning its contents. Our boss was maddeningly old school, refusing to use computers unless she absolutely had to. She made a couple of notes on a post-it note before turning her attention back to me.
“You were a medic in the Army, correct?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“My former commanding officer, General O’Brian, has a daughter who’s a doctor here in Seattle, name of Kathryn. She stumbled onto something she shouldn’t have, something big, and the General figures his daughter might be a target. Given what she found, I tend to think he’s right.”
“Are the cops putting her into WITSEC?” Bella asked.
Lois shook her head. “No. After she told the General what she discovered, he told her to come to us instead. The cops can’t help with this, and those incompetent assholes in Witness Security are not effective in these kinds of situations. Or any situation, arrogant assholes.”
Lois hated traditional law enforcement. Depending on the department, they were either too corrupt or too rule-bound for her taste. It was only from sheer necessity that she’d developed cooperative agreements with the cops here in Seattle.
“What is the situation?” Cassie asked impatiently, trying to get the boss back on track.
Lois gave her a glare that would make a grown man pee himself.
“I’m getting’ there, newbie,” she growled, a hint of wolf in her voice that made my muscles tighten.
“A doctor is running some unsanctioned human experiments at the hospital. General O’Brian thinks one of the secret government agencies is involved, or possibly a foreign agent. He wants us to keep an eye on his daughter until we know what’s going on.”
I bit my lip to keep from asking what kind of experiments. Lois would get there in due time.
“Looks like they’re tryin’ to turn humans into shifters.”
We all stilled. Humans and the supernatural population had long had an alliance.
Most humans pretended they didn’t know we existed, and the supes all minded our own business and avoided doing anything to freak out the humans, like shifting in public.
It worked for us. But this – turning humans into shifters – not only was it dangerous, it had the potential to disturb the delicate balance between our worlds. It could lead to all-out war.
When the silence stretched I asked, “What’s my assignment, boss?”
“You’re going undercover in the hospital as Dr. O’Brian’s medical assistant.
Your focus will be on keeping her safe. Martha will be placed in a temp admin job in the Emergency Department so we’ve got eyes on the ground.
Meanwhile Wanda will be doing her magic computer shit to get the information we need to stop this before things get out of hand. ”
By ‘magic computer shit’ Lois meant hacking into the hospital systems and security cameras.
“What about me?” Cassie asked.
“You’re on comms with Bella,” Lois told her. “You two will need to be available for relief shifts.”
I could tell Cassie was disappointed to be tied to a desk, but she was wise enough to keep quiet about it.
“One more thing, Pavlovski,” Lois said, looking me in the eye.
I resisted the instinctive urge to lower my gaze in submission. “Yes ma’am?”
“No dating the client. Or anyone else at that hospital. I’m sick to death of all you idiots falling in love on the job. I want your focus completely on your assignment, do you understand? None of this ‘I found my fated mate’ bullshit.”
I resisted the urge to point out that several of my coworkers finding their fated mates while on a job was one hundred percent out of their control.
I also didn’t comment on the fact that Lois herself had met her fated mate while working.
I valued being alive, and there was no way I was going to upset my boss.
She wouldn’t hesitate to wolf out and tear out my throat if she thought I was maligning her mate.
Besides, she didn’t need to worry. Fated mates were rare. Sure, my sister had found hers, and a bunch of my coworkers, but that didn’t mean I would too. I wouldn’t be that lucky. I was always the overlooked one.
We all paused as we heard a knock on the door.
“The client’s here, boss,” Wanda announced.
She walked in with a woman who immediately caught my attention.
The client was thin but curvy, with generous breasts and a trim waist -- strong but womanly looking.
Her curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail, highlighting her sharp cheekbones and bow-shaped mouth.
But it was her eyes that caught my attention – brown, curious looking, and fixed right on me.
She looked familiar, even though I’d never met her.
As our eyes connected, I knew why. I leapt out of my chair, knocking it over with a clatter.
My heart was pounding a mile a minute, and my fangs were lengthening, pressing against my lips as a single word roared through my body with a force that made my breath stutter.
Mine!
“Damn it! What did I just tell you, Pavlovski?”
Not even Lois’s annoyed yell could draw my attention away from the woman I now knew was my mate. My fated mate. I felt it in every cell of my body. Keeping my eyes fixed on her, I approached the woman, buzzing with a sense of excitement.
“Are you Kathryn?” I asked.
She was human, but she felt something too, I could tell by the dazed expression on her face. Mine! the voice sounded in my head again.
“Yes. I’m Dr. Kathryn O’Brian.”
Her voice was sweet but no-nonsense. It did funny things to my belly.
I reached out my hand, and when she took it, I curled my fingers around hers, feeling the electricity flowing between us.
“I’m Darla Pavlovski. I’ll be your bodyguard. I promise that I will keep you safe.”
Kathryn nodded as I released her hand. She shook herself a little, like she was coming out of a trance, then looked around as if she’d just realized other people were in the room besides us.
“It’s nice to meet you, Darla,” she said absently. “My father said y’all would have a plan for whatever is going on at the hospital?”
“Dr. O’Brian, please have a seat,” Lois said in her working-with-clients voice. It was only slightly less terrifying than her talking-to-staff voice. “We have some questions for you.”