13. Loki
13
LOKI
B laze drummed his fingers on the table, one of his usual fidgets when he was stuck doing something he didn’t want to be doing. “Why can’t we go see her?”
“You know why,” I replied as I typed my interview notes on my laptop.
He slouched in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Yeah. You’re right.”
Hawk slipped through the door to the small conference room the dean had assigned to us for the duration of our investigation, a tray of coffees in hand. “Dean Bennett just stopped me in the hallway to let me know that Professor Hart agreed to meet us here for his interview at her request. Nine o’clock.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’m sure he’s as interested in discretion as we are.”
We’d decided to keep a low profile while at the OFS for a few reasons, which meant that we arrived early to our little conference room in the admin wing, conducted our interviews there, and only left the room when classes were in session or there were otherwise few people out and about. As a result, hardly anyone knew Sentinel was conducting an investigation on campus, nor did they realize three strange unbonded Alphas were roaming the grounds.
It also meant we hadn’t seen Seraphina since we crawled through her window like a bunch of horny teenagers sneaking around on our parents.
Which was for the best. We’d agreed on a strict plan of action, and it did not involve us getting into Sera’s tiny little sleep shorts the second we showed up here, which would push the limits of even my control. We were supposed to be hunting a thief.
Every hour it was a different one of us who was questioning that plan, but reason did win out every time.
“Seraphina just sent in her morning report,” Hawk told us with a pleased grin as he parceled out the coffees. “She’s… really good at this.”
Blaze pointed a finger in Hawk’s face. “Stop looking so fucking smitten. Loki already told me no this morning.”
“I’m allowed to be impressed with her investigative skills,” he retorted. “That is keeping with the plan . We’re building a solid professional relationship with her. Creating mutual respect. She wants us to nab our guy as much as we do.”
She sure did. Each morning for the past three days, she’d texted Hawk a secured link to a report she was slowly compiling. In her first missive, she detailed Professor Hart’s daily movements, both around campus and—somehow—when he was at the hospital for his work in its endocrinology department. She’d also provided us his home address—which we knew—but she’d further included the security codes to his alarm system. We hadn’t gone looking for those yet, so she’d saved us the effort. Her report yesterday contained the deed of sale to a small lake house the man had bought a week ago as well as a topographical map and the house’s blueprints.
That one had been news to us.
This morning’s report indicated she’d managed to get a tracker onto Professor Hart’s Land Rover. She’d sent Hawk a link to the live feed of its location.
While we’d been bullshitting around, wasting time interviewing the faculty we didn’t really care about and dealing with OFS information systems staff, Seraphina had been out there taking care of business.
I let out a low rumble of approval. “She makes it difficult to resist, doesn’t she?”
Now I was the one receiving a reproachful look. “Hold the line, fearless leader,” Hawk said. “When you cave, we all cave. It was a wonder you hadn’t shoved your knot inside her by the time Blaze and I got to her room the other night. And then we all misbehaved after that.”
“I should’ve put her right onto my knot,” I growled. “I would’ve edged her for hours until she was a writhing, begging mess. It’s what she deserves for pretending she was just a beta girl looking for a wild night when she slept with us.”
We really did owe her for the complete sucker punch we’d received when we discovered who she really was. And for a few other things.
“But that is not in the plan ,” Hawk said, groaning. “If we fuck around now, we won’t get what we came here for.”
Blaze, still surly, huffed from his chair. “And as our handler reminded us last night, if we don’t make actual progress on the investigation, Sentinel will pull us from the OFS.”
And we couldn’t lose our special privileges here. That would derail everything .
Fortunately, our morning got itself back on track when, promptly at 9:00 a.m., a knock sounded at the door to our makeshift command center.
I rose and made my way over. As pack leader, I’d greet our guest on my feet.
“Professor Hart,” I said, forcing a nonthreatening smile, “thank you for making the time to assist us.”
The man behind the door radiated impatience and self-importance. He wore scrubs as if he was at the hospital and not here in his role as a part-time professor at an all-girls finishing school. His vaguely minty scent was unremarkable and sterile.
He raised his chin to look me right in the eyes, crossing his arms over his chest so that the biceps he had clearly worked overtime to earn bulged with the movement. He had carefully styled his blond hair, and he wore his scrubs tight so that the young omega girls he surrounded himself with would have little doubt how much time he spent in the gym.
I suddenly had the intense desire to meet with the dean to rearrange Seraphina’s schedule so she was never in this asshole’s presence again.
“Yes, well,” Hart said flippantly as he strode into the room, taking in Hawk and Blaze with the same arrogance that said he wasn’t impressed with any of us. “I’ve had to cancel my office hour today, but I can’t refuse a request from the dean, can I?”
He took a seat at the table, glaring at Hawk, who smirked right back at him. Hawk, a highly dominant Alpha with a baby face, floppy curls, and glasses, tended to annoy the shit out of beta men like Hart. “What’s this about?”
I sat down in the empty chair between Hawk and Blaze, which put the three of us on one side of the small conference table and Hart on the other. I introduced myself and my packmates, then I explained our role as private investigators for Sentinel.
“We’re here, Professor Hart,” I continued, “on behalf of our client, Ackers Pharmaceuticals. I presume that, given your line of work, you’ve heard of them?”
“Of course I have,” Hart replied easily. “Everyone in my field has. They’ve made a lot of noise about their new experimental drug. It is interesting, but until they actually solve the fertility crisis among beta women, that’s all it ever will be—noise.”
“You don’t believe the Ackers drug had any real value?” Hawk asked.
Hart threw a casual arm over the back of his chair, like he was totally relaxed in our company, just four bros hanging out in a conference room. “I didn’t say that. Their most recent report indicated that they’d made some progress. There’s value in even small breakthroughs. An effective fertility treatment is the biggest arms race in my specialty. Everyone wants to be the one to elevate the beta man and give him what he deserves.”
Well, that took a weird turn. “And what does the beta man deserve?” I asked.
He waved a dismissive hand. “You wouldn’t understand. You probably have a pretty little pregnant omega at home, if you don’t already have an Alpha whelp or two running around.”
“We’re not bonded,” Hawk replied evenly.
Hart quirked a brow. “Why in the world not?”
“We’re young,” I said, shrugging with a carelessness I didn’t feel, “and just getting started in our careers. You know how it is.”
“I certainly don’t. You three have been given the world just for being born with your designation.”
“I won’t argue with you there,” I replied. “So explain it to me. What does a beta man deserve ?”
“A legacy,” he replied, the word spoken with the fervor of a preacher. “Why should Alpha males like you three be the only ones with the ability to create the next generation? The country cares only about the procreation of the Alpha and issues you an omega to extend your line while beta men languish, left only with beta women who are lucky to conceive a single healthy child. Why should virile beta men like me and others I know be left behind?”
Blaze squinted at Hart, his hazel eyes turning frosty. “Biology is indeed a cruel mistress. And it’s unfortunate that the government is so controlling over when an omega woman should bond and with whom.”
“Would you look at that? An Alpha who gets it,” Hart replied with a patronizing smile. “Omega mating laws shouldn’t limit them to being available to Alphas only.”
That wasn’t what Blaze meant at all, but we let him continue in this perceived moment of kinship.
“But since that isn’t our current reality,” Hart went on with an exaggerated sigh, “those of us in the field are working tirelessly to solve the beta fertility crisis so that we, too, can have a brood of children and create a dynasty that will last for generations to come.”
He stared off into the middle distance like he was imagining his horde of blond children running around in matching too-tight scrubs.
I cleared my throat. “Would it surprise you, then, Professor, to learn that earlier this year, there was a break-in at the Ackers lab, and an entire case of their experimental fertility drug was stolen?”
His eyes widened. “Are you telling me the bright minds at Ackers let someone run off with their new drug?”
This guy was good. His facial expression was that of a man who was genuinely perplexed, but there was a smug satisfaction underlying it all.
“There was a theft, yes,” I replied.
“And what in the world does that have to do with me or anyone else here at the South Texas OFS?”
“We have reason to believe someone from this campus communicated with the conspirators who perpetrated the theft,” Blaze replied.
Hart’s smile turned brittle. “And what leads you to believe such a thing?”
“We have our reasons,” Hawk replied, his pierced lip quirking as Hart returned to glowering at him. “And since you’re so knowledgeable and well-connected in the field, would you have any idea who might be so bold—and so desperate for our client’s research—that they’d orchestrate a robbery at the Ackers lab that killed a security guard and severely wounded another?”
“Of course not,” he spat, indignant. “Do I look like I run around with criminals?”
I smiled at him. “Tell me, Professor, do you still keep in contact with your old friend, Arnold McKinney?”
Hart stood abruptly, shoving his chair away from the table. “This meeting is over. I have students to teach and a real job to return to.”
He stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
“Touchy,” Blaze said after a few seconds.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “He certainly didn’t do anything to remove himself from the top of our list. What I still don’t get is the motive. Why assist this shadowy conspirator in stealing the drug by connecting them to Stone and Onyx? He doesn’t seem like the type to want to play middleman.”
“It would’ve made more sense if he’d wanted the drug for himself,” Hawk mused. “That fucker is weirdly obsessed with breeding.”
“But he said himself the drug doesn’t work on beta women,” Blaze added. “So it wouldn’t help him knock up whatever poor woman he convinces to squeeze into his house with him and his ego.”
“He’s divorced,” I reminded them. “And he did not have any children with his ex-wife.”
“And none of this explains the omega girls Stone procured for our target,” Blazed said. “What does one have to do with the other?”
We were silent for a few moments, each of us turning the facts over in our minds. What were we missing here?
After a beat, Hawk asked, “Does it bother anyone else that this guy breathes the same air as Seraphina? He’s such a classic beta male striving to be an Alpha. I bet he’s only here to lap up the attention of the omega girls because it makes him feel…. What the hell did he call it? Virile .”
Blaze and I grunted our agreement. At least we knew Sera saw right through Hart’s act. She was shrewd.
“I think we can assume we’ve spooked him,” I said. “We’ll need to move quickly now.”
Blaze grinned. “Yes. Let’s call the princess and put some shit in motion.”
My fingers were already flying over my laptop keys, typing out a message to Sera’s secure line.
Get ready, Lamb. It’s time.