Chapter 9
Darla
The mate bond between me and Kathryn hadn’t formed yet – it wouldn’t until we officially mated and I bit her – but I didn’t need to have the bond in place to feel the shock and pain radiating from the back seat.
“They blew up my condo?” she repeated incredulously. “How can that be? Was anyone hurt?”
Lois continued in her no-nonsense voice.
“It was a remote detonation with several small explosives that went off around four a.m. It blew out the windows and anything close by with enough force to start several fast moving fires that took out everything else. It also damaged the neighboring unit, but I understand that condo is currently vacant. The sprinkler system engaged, so the two floors below you got wet and had some smoke damage, but there was no structural damage to their units. Fortunately, no one was injured in the blast.”
Kathryn would have been though, if she’d been home. “Thank God for that,” Kathryn said quietly.
“Your place is a total loss though,” Lois added.
“Yeah, I figured,” my mate said wryly.
“You know what this means?” I asked Kathryn. “They think you know something, or at least they don’t want to take a chance that you saw something when you were in the lab. You really should take a leave of absence from…”
“No! I’m not going to be scared away from the job I love,” she snapped.
I huffed in frustration. She’d lost her entire condo and would have been killed if she was home last night. Surely her life was more important than her job?
“I’m going to see if any of the bears are available as back-up,” Lois said. “If you insist on going to work, it’ll be good to have another set of eyes on that ER.”
“Boris and Elana are on a babymoon,” Martha said.
“What the fuck is a babymoon?” Lois bellowed.
“It’s a vacation a couple takes before their baby is born.”
“Christ on a cracker, that’s ridiculous. Fucking Millennials. Okay I’ll see if Alexei or Yuri can tap in,” Lois said. “It doesn’t take more than one of them to run the restaurant.”
The bears, as we called them, were three bear shifter brothers from Belarus.
They’d worked in the Belarusian military on covert assignments before being recruited to work for the CIA here in the U.S.
They’d retired in Seattle, opening a restaurant up the street from Angie’s mate Suzie’s bakery, but they still took contract work for various government agencies.
We’d worked with them on several cases, including the undercover gig at an elementary school where my sister met her mate.
The oldest brother, Boris, found his mate on that same job and now he and Elana were starting a family.
“Put them in maintenance or janitorial if you can,” I suggested. “That way they’ll have access to all the secured spaces in the hospital.”
“Thanks for telling me how to do my job, newbie,” Lois said impatiently. “Now do you have anything actually helpful to say or can I get back to work?”
“No ma’am,” I said contritely. As much as it irked my vamp to submit to a damned wolf, it was instinctive for us to do so. Lois was just that dominant.
My boss disconnected the call without another word.
“Is she always like that?” Kathryn asked.
“No, sometimes she’s in a bad mood,” Martha said dryly.
We drove in silence for a few minutes, but when traffic came to a stop, I turned around to meet my mate’s gaze.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “It’s just stuff. I can always get new stuff. But if they were hoping to scare me, they failed. This just makes me want to find out what’s going on even more. I owe it to Seth to try to bring these people to justice.”
“Just be careful,” I responded. “Don’t do anything without one of us nearby. I mean it, don’t even grab a coffee or go to the bathroom unless a team member is with you, do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
She made a strange face.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“I’m even more pissed now that you made me eat that toast. I feel like I’m going to puke.”
“It’s good to start your morning with healthy carbs and protein,” I said. “Didn’t they teach you that in med school?”
She stared at me for a long moment before shaking her head ruefully. “You’re something else, Darla.”
“Just try to not throw up,” I called as I returned my attention to the road. “Lois hates it when she has to pay to get the cars detailed.”
The Emergency Department was buzzing when we got there.
Martha went right over to the desk in the area they called The Fishbowl while Kathryn and I headed for the locker room, quickly changing into scrubs.
Taking the locker right next to her, I did my best not to watch Kathryn while she changed, not wanting to be some kind of a weirdo.
But I couldn’t help getting a glimpse of one long, muscular leg, all silky and white.
It made my fangs hurt and my nipples harden.
When we were finished putting on our scrubs I looked around to double check that we were alone, then touched her shoulder.
I’d been careful not to touch her before now, not wanting to torture myself.
My hands buzzed where we connected, even through the fabric of her scrubs.
Judging by the way her heart was pounding, Kathryn felt it too.
“Everything will be okay,” I promised.
She nodded, her face turning vulnerable for the blink of an eye before her professional mask came back.
“I know.”
We had a busy morning, then we had a strange lull during which several of us went together to the cafeteria to grab lunch.
Kathryn explained that whenever there was a quiet period, people popped out to take a break, unsure when they’d get another one.
As we settled at a table in the center of the cafeteria, I let the conversation roll over me while I scanned the space looking for anything suspicious.
“So what’s your story, Darla?” a pretty nurse named Stacy asked.
I’d noticed that she and my mate had a good rapport. Yesterday they’d referenced a shared happy hour they’d attended with the male who’d gotten murdered, Seth.
“Story?” I asked, reminding myself to look friendly.
“Yeah, where were you before this?”
“I was a medic in the military,” I said, knowing that the best cover stories mirrored the truth. “When I retired I decided to use my qualifications to get a job as a medical assistant.”
She paused waiting for me to add more and when I didn’t she asked, “What about your personal life?”
I didn’t get the sense she was flirting with me, so much as being nosy.
“I live alone,” I said shortly.
Before Stacy could ask another question we heard a crash. I leapt to my feet, hands clenching into fists and senses heightening before I realized that the crash was the sound of a cleaning cart overturning. It was quickly followed by a low growl.
Yuri – one of the Belarusian bears – stood by the overturned cart, staring at Stacy with an intense look I recognized well.
Like his brothers, he was giant – tall and broad and ridiculously handsome.
And as a bear shifter, he’d recognize his fated mate the instant he saw her.
Or smelled her. Another bear hit the dust.
“I’ll go help him,” I said as I hustled across the cafeteria.
With the distraction gone, everyone went back to their food. Turning away from prying eyes, I stopped in front of Yuri and poked him in the stomach with my finger. It was like tapping against a concrete wall.
“Yuri,” I hissed, “Get it together.”
He blinked like he was coming out of a trance. “My mate,” he said urgently. “The redhead. She is mine. I must talk to her.”
“Her name is Stacy,” I said patiently. “She’s a nurse here in the Emergency Department so you’ll be working in the same area. You can talk to her later, you need to focus on the mission right now.”
His eyes cleared and he straightened his spine as he came back to himself. “Yes, sorry new vampire.”
I rolled my eyes. How long did a person have to work on this team before people bothered to remember your name?
“Darla,” I reminded him.
“Ah yes, sister of Bella.”
I smelled the sweet scent of my mate right before she walked up beside me. “Is everything okay here?”
I looked around to make sure no one else was in ear shot, then whispered, “This is Yuri, he’s part of our team.”
She held out her hand. “Hi Yuri, thank you for coming. I’m Dr. Kathryn O’Brian. Please call me Kathryn.”
I loved the way she always introduced herself that way, it was endearing.
“Very pleased to meet you,” Yuri said in his heavily accented voice, giving her hand a firm squeeze.
When I growled in warning, he released her hand, his eyes bouncing between us. He looked delighted.
“This is good thing. Two of us, just like the kindergarten.”
I knew he was referring to his brother and my sister both finding their mates on a job they worked together a while back. Lois was already irritated about me finding Kathryn, she was going to be apoplectic when she learned that Yuri was compromised too.
“We’d better finish our lunch before we get paged,” I told my mate, wanting her to get some nourishment besides that piece of toast she’d eaten hours ago. She didn’t eat enough. “We’ll see you later Yuri.”
“You will introduce me later, yes?” he asked.
“Yes, I promise. Now get back to work.”
As we walked back to the table, Kathryn shot me a curious look. “What was that about?”
“He, uh, likes Stacy.”
She shook her head as she realized the meaning. “Does he think she’s his fated mate?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Doesn’t your company have a policy about personal relationships on the job?”
“Not really,” I shrugged. “I mean, Lois wants us to keep things separate during the job, but she also knows that supes struggle to do that.”
Even though I dismissed it, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lois was going to fire me after this.
She hadn’t fired any of the other agents, but they’d all been longer term employees when they found their mate.
I liked working for Sapphic Security. I didn’t want to lose my job.
And I really didn’t want to embarrass my sister, not after she vouched for me to get the job.
I just needed to keep my focus where it was supposed to be – on protecting the doctor.