Chapter 11 Adri #2
“It’ll be okay,” Rafe murmured. “And if it isn’t, we’ll fix it together.”
In all his years working for the Lunettis, Adri had only visited the pack lands a handful of times, and he’d never stepped much further into Marco’s mansion than the front entryway and reception room.
Rafe led him confidently through the front door, not bothering to knock, and directed him through to a study with a gentle hand at the small of his back.
The rest of the room was already full when they arrived.
Marco was on a call behind his desk, his facial expressions giving nothing away.
His cousin Emilio was perched on the edge of the desk, talking to his husband, Rocco.
Silas, Marco’s second, was deep in conversation with Luca, the hacker, over on one of the couches.
A flash of movement caught his eye when they stepped inside as Bella waved a hand at him in greeting, keen interest in her eyes as she watched the way Rafe’s arm snaked around his waist as they headed to the only free seat.
“You take it,” Adri said.
He might have met most of these people before, but they were still a dangerous bunch. He’d much rather be upright and able to move if he needed.
Rafe raised an eyebrow at him before dropping into the seat and pulling Adri along with him.
He was so caught by surprise that he fell right into Rafe’s lap, exactly where the irritating doc had meant for him to be.
Twisting, he snapped his teeth at Rafe’s throat as his strong arms wrapped around his waist, sparking a soft laugh from the doctor.
“I’d be thoroughly distracted if you were standing beside me with your fly right next to my face. This is much better,” Rafe whispered in his ear.
The ridiculous statement somehow made him smile and shake his head instead of rage. He could feel the bulge of Rafe’s cock against his ass where he sat on his lap, so he knew for sure this was going to be way more distracting. For both of them.
“Oh shit, did you finally lock down your jaguar, Doc?” Silas called from nearby, which of course had everyone turning to look at them.
Adri stiffened and opened his mouth to swear at the asshole, but Rafe snuck a hand under his shirt, stroking his skin. A gentle reminder that here, of all places, he needed to keep a civil tongue.
“If anyone locks him anywhere, I will make them die a very slow, very painful death,” Rafe replied, voice dry.
“Alright, Doc. Message received,” Silas said, smiling as he held his hands up in surrender. “Welcome to the family, Adrien.”
Adri’s scowl deepened, and Rafe pressed a kiss to his neck. “Play nice, Adri,” he murmured.
“Sai, stop pulling the jaguar’s tail just to see what he’ll do,” Marco said.
Silas smirked before turning to his Alpha, inclining his head. “What’s the plan?”
Everyone quieted as all attention turned to Marco.
“For those who don’t know already, last night Adrien followed two fighters suspected of being part of an unsanctioned fighting ring into vampire territory, where he was ambushed.
He managed to get a tracker on one of the guys enroute before that, and we now have the address of where that tracker ended up.
It’s in an area with limited cameras to tap into, so all Luca’s been able to track down is some grainy satellite footage and a collection of shell companies that own the location.
He confirmed the links between the feral fighter and the unsanctioned ring.
Rafe’s research suggests the deaths were related to illegal medical research, most likely undertaken by the D-2S for unknown purposes. ”
“Well, fuck,” Emilio said as Marco paused. “Does that mean we can go kill them now?”
“This is the best lead we’ve had on a physical location associated with the D-2S yet, but there’s too much of a paper trail.
It’s sloppy compared to their usual MO. I doubt it’s a significant site, but I’ll take any lead I can get on whatever is turning these shifters feral.
They won’t stay there long if they’re using it for something.
We need to go in hard and fast tonight and get as much intel as we can.
Rafe is coming to identify any medical equipment and run triage if things go wrong.
Adri is there for any insight or knowledge of the fighters there.
We’ll confirm tactics once we’ve got eyes on the building. Any questions?” Marco continued.
“Given the history of explosives, Blaze is making a fire witch available to you, and I’ll come along to keep your approach hidden,” Rocco chimed in.
Marco tipped his head in thanks. “We’ll roll out as soon as they’re here, then.”
“Will you shift when we get there?” Adri asked.
Rafe glanced over at him before looking back at the road as he drove the same SUV he’d used to get them to the fight.
“No. I need to carry medical supplies on me, and I prefer to have some clothes on if I’m patching people up in the middle of a gunfight.”
Adri couldn’t help but be a little disappointed.
He’d never seen Rafe’s wolf. It shouldn’t matter.
He hardly shifted himself because he’d spent so long ignoring and suppressing that side of himself as a child, only to have it exploited as an adult.
Watching the way the Lunetti Pack had been together had reinforced what he might be missing out on by keeping himself aloof, though. Maybe a pack wasn’t all bad.
A strong hand reached out to squeeze his thigh. “You want to see my wolf, kitten? I’ll show you whenever you want. Or you can come run with me in the forest one night with the pack.”
Adri shrugged, not ready to admit what he wanted yet. “I’m going to shift.”
His senses were much more acute in jaguar form. He’d be better able to make sure no one snuck up on his doc while he was busy. Plus, he wasn’t interested in wielding a gun, and his bite force when shifted was an excellent weapon.
“I’ll do my best not to let your beautiful jaguar distract me, then.”
Adri rolled his eyes. Rafe was ridiculous sometimes.
“I’m serious, kitten. I can barely tear my eyes off you in either form.
If you’re going to use your cat senses, could you see if you can sniff out anything that might be a neural chip?
It’s probably too much to hope there’s one with brain matter on it that will make it easy to scent, but you should be able to pick up on the scent of solder if it’s somewhere it shouldn’t be. ”
“Yeah, Doc. I can do that, but I’m sticking close to you.”
“Good—” Rafe swallowed back the ‘kitten’ at the end of that sentence, clearly thinking better of it, and Adri couldn’t decide if that made him more or less annoyed.
“Are we heading back into vampire territory again?” Adri asked, peering at the surrounding streets as they crossed one of the three boundary roads that trisected the city.
“Yeah, Marco’s been talking to Darius about it.
If we find evidence that Kyan is involved with the D-2S, he’s going to have to move up his plans to take over the coven, whether he’s ready or not.
We can’t leave that kind of threat in charge of a third of the city, and we can’t trust the Council to deal with it without going full nuclear option and replacing all of us. ”
Adri’s brow furrowed as he considered this information. He’d been peripherally aware of the power plays in the city, of course. You couldn’t avoid it when you worked for the Lunettis. But no one had ever trusted him with any sort of detail about it.
“I thought the Council was there to maintain order.”
Rafe scoffed under his breath. “They’re there to maintain power.
Theirs. But to do that, they need to be perceived as the least bad option by the vast array of supernatural communities they deal with.
Some individuals who work for them are fine.
They have morals. They genuinely want to keep people safe.
Rocco’s family is like that. Marco had to quietly look into them before we finalised the marriage arrangement with the MC.
The rest range somewhere from unknown to dangerous power-trip. ”
“Should you be telling me things about Rocco and the Council? Isn’t he part of the Lunetti family now?”
“So are you, kitten, and you can’t be part of Marco’s inner circle without understanding the political context we’re operating in.”
Adri’s head whipped round to glare at Rafe. “I’m not part of that, though!”
“You don’t get to decide who we let close. If I have my way, you’ll be on my lap at every meeting I attend from here on out.”
Adri swallowed hard. How had things between them changed so quickly? “What if I betray you?”
“You would never hurt me, kitten. Not like that. But you can keep kneading me with those delightful claws as much as you like.”
Adri looked down in surprise to find his hand had migrated to Rafe’s leg without him realising, and he was, in fact, digging his partially shifted fingers into the fabric and scratching at his skin. A hot flush spread up his neck to his face.
“Sorry—”
Rafe grabbed his hand and kept it pinned where it was before he could pull away. “Never apologise for being your truest self, Adri. I love watching you settle into who you were always meant to be. Just like I love feeling your claws claiming my skin.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Adri huffed, ignoring his jaguar’s protest in the back of his mind that it was exactly what they were doing and how much better his scent stuck to their mate when he implanted it with his claws.
“We’re almost to our staging point,” Rafe said, gesturing to a darkened warehouse ahead that Adri recognised as one of the venues for their fights.
The fighting ring that operated throughout the city provided excellent cover for Marco to acquire property in other territories, he realised.
Then he shook his head and told himself to focus.
He didn’t need to be trying to familiarise himself with Marco’s methods and strategies.
No matter what Rafe said about him becoming part of his inner circle.
Rafe pulled the SUV right through the large doors and into the darkened building.
Adri blinked in surprise as they crossed the threshold and light flooded over them to reveal half a dozen other vehicles parked neatly in the space and a group of predatory-focussed shifters standing around a table in the centre.
“What the fuck?” Where had they all come from?
Rafe parked the vehicle and reached over to undo Adri’s seatbelt for him while he stared around in surprise before kissing the scruff on his jaw.
“Rocco is an expert in glamour and illusion. You wouldn’t have noticed after your fight with the feral fighter, but Rocco used his magic to keep the whole place and all the crowd fleeing from drawing police attention.
He’s one of the most powerful air witches in the country. We’re lucky to have him.”
He’d known being involved with Rafe and his pack was going to be next level, but this really hit it home. What was he thinking, trying to fit in with these people?
“We wouldn’t even know where to look without your help, Adri. You belong here as much as anyone. You belong with me,” Rafe murmured, somehow picking up on the thoughts he hadn’t expressed.
For a split second, Adri considered leaving. Then he realised that would mean relying on someone else to watch Rafe’s back. That wasn’t something he was willing to do.
“Whatever. Let’s do this already,” he said, stepping out of the car.
Adri hung back as the pack discussed how they’d go about breaching the location of the tracker, not willing to draw any more attention to himself.
“The building is a decommissioned office block. Four levels and a basement carpark,” Marco said.
“Our scan shows one guard on the main entrance, one on the carpark elevator, and half a dozen people concentrated on the second floor,” Rocco added.
“The limited number of people suggests either this isn’t a significant location, or they’ve already mostly cleared out,” Marco continued.
“None of our magical or technical scans suggest the building itself has been wired with explosives, but given the D-2S history, we have to assume the occupants might be. There’s also a chance the people here are just fighters associated with the ring and don’t know anything about the group.
Given the variables, I want to send Rafe in first, undercover as a doctor visiting, and see if we can avoid triggering an incendiary response that would destroy any intel. ”
“No!” Adri growled before he could stop himself.
They could send his mate alone into a building filled with terrorists over his dead body.