Chapter Two
Clara
The morning sun cast a soft glow over the city as Clara made her way to work.
Her thoughts, however, lingered on the events of the previous night, on the frenzied fight in the forest, and on Seb—her mate.
She couldn’t shake off the vivid memory of his presence, the way he moved, the sound of his voice, and the undeniable pull she felt towards him.
Walking through the bustling streets, Clara was a study in contrasts.
On the outside, she appeared composed, her steps measured, her expression focused.
Yet, inside, a whirlwind of emotions and questions swirled.
Her attraction to Seb was undeniable, a deep, instinctual pull that spoke of the mate bond they shared.
She’d seen mate bonds at work before, of course, but that still hadn’t prepared her for the depth of emotions she felt.
Her attraction to Seb was…profound. But alongside this attraction was a nagging sense of doubt.
Seb’s story about being in the forest, and his vague explanation—none of it sat right with her.
Her wolf had immediately sensed the untruths in his words, just as Clara saw the evasion in his gaze.
What was he hiding? Why was he in the forest, really?
Mate lies, her wolf said sullenly.
Clara sighed, her mind replaying their brief but intense interaction—their conversation, the way their hands had brushed in the kitchen, the electric touch of his lips when they’d kissed.
Every detail was etched in her memory, but so were the inconsistencies in his story.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized how little she knew about him. Just who was Sebastian Dean?
As she approached her workplace, a nondescript building that blended seamlessly into the urban landscape, she forced herself to focus on the day ahead.
She had a briefing to attend, and responsibilities to fulfill.
Yet, even as she mentally prepared for the day’s tasks, she couldn’t stop her thoughts drifting back to Seb.
Pushing open the door to the briefing room, Clara stepped inside, her professional demeanor firmly in place.
But beneath the surface, her thoughts remained tumultuous, filled with questions and an undeniable curiosity about the mysterious man she had met in the forest. The man who, despite everything, she couldn’t help but feel drawn to.
The man who fate had decided was her perfect match.
Clara stepped into the room, her heels clicking against the floor in a steady rhythm.
The room was occupied by Rory, a wolf shifter she had worked alongside in Spain for several months, her two superiors, Lopez and Miller, and six other men whose faces were unfamiliar to her.
Each of the strangers were tall and muscular, and she suspected from the way they carried themselves that they were shifters, too.
Rory’s sharp gaze met hers as she entered further into the room. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” Clara responded, her voice steady despite the chaos of emotions inside her.
She noticed her superior signaling towards two empty chairs, and she made her way over.
“We’re just waiting for one more,” he said. “Then we can begin.”
Clara nodded as she took her seat and waited, her mind still partly occupied by the events of the previous night. The small talk around her seemed distant, the voices blending into a background hum as her thoughts wandered back to Seb.
The door to the office opened, cutting through her reverie.
She looked up, expecting to see yet another unfamiliar face, but instead, her eyes met Seb’s.
The shock of seeing him here, in this setting, was mirrored on his face.
Their gazes locked in a silent acknowledgment of the surprise and confusion that rippled through them both.
For a moment, time seemed to stand still as they stared at each other, the room and its occupants fading into insignificance.
The revelation that Seb was the ‘one more person’ they were waiting for sent a flurry of questions racing through Clara’s mind.
What was he doing here? How did he fit into this scenario? Was he CIA—like her?
The pieces of the puzzle were even more jumbled than ever. The tension in the room crackled like a living thing, humming with the unspoken questions between them. Clara could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on them, sensing their mutual surprise.
“Clara?” Seb said.
The six men who were seated around the table that Clara didn’t know drew in sharp breaths then turned to stare at her intently as if they were seeing her with fresh eyes.
“This is Clara?” one of the men asked.
When Seb nodded, one of the others let out a low whistle.
Clara’s superior, Senior Officer Miller had been listening to the exchange, his gaze flitted back and forth between them. “You two know each other?” he asked.
Clara opened her mouth to reply, but Seb answered the question before she got the chance.
“She’s my mate,” he said simply.
Senior Officer Miller choked on his surprise. “I see. Ah, that… might complicate things.”
“You’re CIA?” Seb asked.
Clara nodded. “I take it you are, too.”
Seb gave a curt nod of his head.
“I brought Seb and his team here because of Rory’s intel about Ortega attending the gala last night,” Senior Officer Miller explained. “We understood that most of Ortega’s guards would be with him.”
“They were supposed to be,” Rory said defensively.
Seb turned to Clara and frowned. “I don’t understand. If you knew the CIA were bringing over a team to infiltrate the warehouse, why were you so surprised to see me in the forest last night? You must have had an idea of who I was.”
“I didn’t know about the plan,” Clara said, turning to shoot a glare at Senior Officer Lopez. “Not until this morning. But it would have been nice to have been kept in the loop.”
“If you didn’t know about the operation, what were you doing in the forest?” one of the six men that Clara didn’t know asked.
She heaved a sigh. “I had orders,” she said cryptically.
He frowned. “From whom?”
Clara glanced at her handler, Senior Officer Lopez, then at Senior Officer Miller before turning back to the man. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Apologies,” Miller said. “Clara, this is Max. Next to him you’ve got Logan, then Arlo, Toby, Carter and Ezra.
Seb as we’ve already established, you already know.
They work out of the San Antonio field office in Texas.
” He glanced to the other men, and added, “Clara’s U.S base is the Washington office. ”
“You still didn’t explain why you were in the forest last night,” Arlo said.
Clara glanced at Miller briefly before returning his gaze. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that.”
“What?” seven booming voices demanded in unison.
Miller cleared his throat. “Yes, that’s need to know, I’m afraid, guys.”
“That’s bullshit!” Max boomed. “How the hell are we supposed to do our jobs properly if you are keeping information from us?”
“I’m sorry,” Miller said, “It’s not my call. Some of Clara’s work on this case is classified.”
“So, what can you tell us?” Seb asked.
Miller blew out a breath, apparently grateful that at least one of the men wasn’t at his throat. “Not much more than you already know, I’m afraid. Rory might be able to shed some light on the shit show that happened last night because he was at the Gala with Ortega.”
When all eyes turned on Rory, he sat up a little straighter in his seat.
“I’ve got an in with Ortega,” Rory explained. “To some extent. He has an eye for fine art—all funded through his terrorist activities, naturally. I’m posing as a high-end art dealer, and I’ve been helping him to…acquire certain pieces.”
“Steal them, you mean?” the one called Carter asked bluntly, and Rory shot him a look that, while not wholly hostile, certainly wasn’t friendly.
And this, Clara knew, was why shifters didn’t tend to work in large teams. Things could get tense quickly without a clear chain of command. And with one, too, apparently.
“No, actually,” Rory said tightly. “There’s a particular painting he’s been trying to get his hands on for months and we knew the seller would be at the gala last night so Ortega asked me to meet him there to try to broker the deal.
Usually, when he goes out to something as public as that, he takes the full force of his guards with him and that was what he did last night.
” Some of the tension and defensiveness left his posture, and he looked genuinely apologetic.
“Halfway through the night, he got a call on his cellphone and moments later he sent his guards back to the warehouse. I called Senior Officer Lopez to let him know, but by then, it was too late to call you guys back.”
“So, he got a tip-off? Seb asked, but the tone of his voice turned the question into more of a statement.
Rory nodded. “It looks that way.”
Clara frowned. “Who else knew about the plan to infiltrate?”
Senior Officer Miller steadily met her gaze. “No one.”
Clara froze. If no one else knew about the CIA’s plan, that meant someone in this room had passed along sensitive information—information that could have proved fatal. They had a traitor in their midst.
The men in the room started talking loudly amongst themselves, arguing mostly, and denying vehemently that they had anything to do with the leak.
Clara looked first at Seb, then at each of the other men in the room.
Could one of them really have tipped Ortega off?
It couldn’t have been Seb, or the two friends he said he’d been with in the forest, because she didn’t believe anyone would willingly walk into an ambush—unless of course they hadn’t known that Ortega’s guards were wolf shifters and thought they could handle a few humans.