Chapter Four
Aleksy had seen efficiency before. He’d built his life on it. Precision. Control. Outcome over emotion.
But this—this was something else.
He didn’t move from where he stood, arms folded loosely across his chest, gaze steady on the command table as Elara, Riley, Sienna, and Claire moved around it like they’d been doing this together for years.
No hesitation. No one trying to lead.
They just—flowed.
Elara drove the core structure, breaking the formula down with a focus that bordered on surgical. Riley adjusted alongside her, already mapping the biological impact, recalculating outcomes in real time like she could see the human cost before it happened.
Sienna shifted the lens outward, turning theory into battlefield reality, every scenario already branching into three more.
And Claire—Claire filled the gaps. The ones no one else saw yet. The ones that would matter later.
Aleksy tracked it all. Not as a soldier. Not as an enforcer.
But as something more deliberate. As a man watching his woman and a group of her friends making the world a safer place like a well-oiled machine.
Beside him, Jarek exhaled slowly.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “We got lucky.”
Aleksy didn’t answer, because he just didn’t need to. He agreed, and from the looks of the men around the room, they all agreed.
Not just with the mates they had. But with the fact that this—this alignment, this balance of force and mind and instinct—was why they were still standing.
His gaze shifted to her. Tamsin stood just off the edge of the table, not pushing in, not holding back—watching, assessing, already folding herself into the rhythm of the room like she’d always belonged there.
She didn’t interrupt, or try to lead, but he saw it.
The way her attention tracked the same gaps Claire moved toward, the way her focus sharpened in the same moments Elara’s did.
And in the way she leaned slightly when Riley spoke, already anticipating the medical implications before they were voiced.
She fits in. She fits them. Like she’d stepped into a place that had been waiting for her. Jarek shifted beside him again, quieter this time.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “She really does.”
Aleksy didn’t look at him, hadn’t even realized that he had said what he said out loud.
Watching the way she held herself, sharp and controlled, but not distant, not removed—he knew. She was theirs, and they were so fucking lucky that she was.
Claire’s head snapped up first, her fingers stilled mid-motion. “There’s a call coming through.”
Aleksy’s focus shifted instantly.
The screen flickered—then cleared. The Elite Shifter Enforcers comm channel lit—and the Tiger Unit feed came through.
“Command, this is Tiger Unit,” Kamon’s voice was tight, controlled, riding the edge of something. “We’ve got multiple incidents—this isn’t isolated.”
The room stilled, became focused.
Aleksy stepped forward slightly. “Define multiple.”
“Three confirmed hybrid attacks in shifter areas,” the operative replied. “Multiple medical incidents all shifters. All presenting with the same neurological symptoms.”
Riley moved immediately. “Seizures?”
“Yes, violent ones,” came the response. “Rapid onset. No visible trauma.”
Tamsin stepped closer to the screen. “Were they the same shifter type?”
“No, they were multiple shifter types.” Kamon’s answer was sharp.
Sienna stepped in closer, gaze narrowing as the map populated.
“They’re spacing them,” she said. “Why? Are they testing response time?”
Aleksy’s gaze hardened. “No.”
Sienna looked at him.
“They’re testing the weapon,” he said quietly.
Understanding hit the room.
Jarek’s voice dropped. “They’ve already got a working version. We know that, but have they worked out the stability issues?”
Aleksy looked over at Tamsin.
“No, the injured were from multiple shifter types,” she said. “They are testing the destruction impact.”
The feed flickered again.
Rune, Kamon’s brother, shifted onto the screen, something in his posture tightening. “Command ... we’ve got something else.”
Victor didn’t hesitate. “Just spit it out.”
“We’ve got a missing person,” he said, looking down at a table in his hand.
Aleksy stepped closer to the screen. “What information can you give us?”
“Female,” Rune replied. “Late twenties, and she is non-registered. Name’s Naomi Bishop.”
Aleksy wasn’t looking directly at Tamsin, but her felt her jolt of recognition.
“Naomi Bishop? Computer programmer?”
Now he looked. Her posture hadn’t changed, and her expression hadn’t shifted, but her focus seemed to have sharpened into something colder.
Jarek’s head turned slightly. “Sweetness, do you know her?”
Tamsin didn’t blink. “Yes, we were in the orphanage together. She is my friend.”
That was all, but it was enough. Aleksy’s jaw tightened. Because now—this wasn’t just a threat. This wasn’t just Chimera escalating.
This felt targeted. Personal and deliberate.
Sienna exhaled slowly. “If they’re taking subjects—”
“They’re refining stability in real time,” Elara finished.
Riley’s voice cut in. “And burning through anyone who doesn’t survive it.”
Jarek didn’t hesitate. “We go get her.”
Aleksy didn’t disagree, but he didn’t move either.
Because—he watched Tamsin. She was ahead of them and coming up with a plan
“They won’t keep her where they took her,” she said.
Aleksy’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”
Her eyes met his. “Because she matters to me, and somehow they know that. And they know I’ll come for her.”
Ivan’s expression turned sharp. “Then we don’t do what they expect.”
Tamsin’s lips curved faintly. “Good, because I wasn’t planning to.”
Victor stepped forward.
Decision settling.
“We split up.”
Aleksy’s attention locked in.
“Kamon and Rune, I want you to hold and feed intel,” Victor continued. “Gorillas move now—cut off transport routes. Secondary extraction points.”
Malik and Jamal didn’t hesitate. “Copy that.”
He turned to the Lions and the Leopards. “You will join us. We need to put a stop to these attacks. We will leave finding Naomi to Tamsin and her mates.”
Then they were gone.
Jarek stepped closer to Tamsin. “We’re not letting you play martyr, sweetness.”
She didn’t look at him. “If I need to do something to save Naomi, then I will.”
Aleksy stepped in beside her. Close.
“Then we do this right,” he said. “And we will be either standing in front of or beside you.”
There was no give in his tone, no compromise at all. It was a line in the sand, clear and simple.
Tamsin nodded once. “Yeah, I get that. And I am not stupid enough to turn down bodyguards that shift into fuck off big boars.”
Then her gaze sharpened.
Something colder settling in.
Something that matched the weight now sitting in the room.
“They don’t get to keep Naomi,” she practically growled.
Aleksy held her gaze.
“No,” he said quietly. “They don’t.”
****
The air shifted the moment they stepped onto the site.
It wasn’t something she could see, not clearly, not in a way she could point to and explain, but it pressed against her skin all the same.
Wrong. Too still in places it shouldn’t be, too quiet in ways that didn’t belong in an active structure.
It prickled along her instincts, tightening something low in her chest.
Trap.
Not subtle. Not clean. Layered.
Good. She preferred it that way.
Jarek didn’t slow. Of course he didn’t.
“We’re burning time,” he muttered, already moving toward the structure.
Tamsin’s lips twitched despite herself. Reckless. Predictable. Useful.
Aleksy followed a step behind him, but not in the same way. Where Jarek pushed forward, Aleksy calculated, his gaze sweeping, mapping, absorbing everything before committing to the next step. It was quieter, more controlled—and just as dangerous.
Tamsin moved between them, not behind, not ahead, exactly where she needed to be. Her body had already shifted into something sharper, cleaner. The distraction from earlier was gone. The pull, the awareness, the complication of them—pushed down, locked away where it couldn’t interfere.
Focus.
“They’ll have her somewhere in the center of the building,” she said, her voice low, certain.
Aleksy nodded once. “Most likely in a secondary containment area.”
Jarek huffed. “Then we break it.”
No argument from her.
They didn’t take the front entrance. They never did. Aleksy reached the side panel and overrode it in seconds, the lock disengaging with a quiet, almost polite click that didn’t match what waited on the other side.
The door opened, and the world snapped into motion.
Two hybrids came at them immediately, fast and coordinated in a way that told her these weren’t the early failures they’d seen before. These were refined. Controlled.
Aleksy met the first one with precision, redirecting its momentum and ending it in a single, efficient movement.
And God—even in motion, even in violence, he was controlled.
Black tactical gear molded to him like it had been built for his body—broad shoulders, powerful chest, every movement clean and economical. Dark hair shorter, rougher, a slight beard framing a mouth that looked like it spent more time smirking than behaving.
Jarek hit the second hybrid head-on, and there was nothing controlled about it. He was pure force and impact.
Power wrapped in muscle and momentum, his combat gear stretched across a heavier build, thicker, broader, built to break things rather than outmaneuver them. Dark hair pulled back off his face, sharp jaw set, eyes focused and cold in a way that should have been intimidating—but wasn’t. Not to her.
He moved like a wrecking ball with intent.
Aleksy ended fights. Jarek dominated them.
And the contrast—her pulse kicked.
Tamsin didn’t pause to watch.
Didn’t let herself linger. But she registered it anyway. Stored it.
Because even under fire—even here—she noticed.
She moved through the space they created, already pushing deeper, her attention narrowing on the pull she couldn’t ignore.
“She’s this way.”
It wasn’t a guess. It wasn’t hope.
It was certainty.
They followed without question.