Wedged to the ground, I took stock of my limbs. Wriggling toes. Flexing fingers. Cracking neck as I turned it left, then right. Three good things going for me. Shoulders— there was no holding back the grunt of pain tearing out of me.
Red hot and intense, agony sliced through my stomach, my side. I screwed up my eyes, willing my breaths to even.
One breath. Two. All the way up to five before it was time to assess the situation.
I pried my eyes open and squinted through the smoke-filled air.
Debris surrounded me, disorientating and chaotic. Lucas was going to kick my arse. There were no ifs, buts, or maybes.
Obviously I’d heal. My shifter abilities came in super handy, but the blazing ache on my right-hand side couldn’t be magicked or wished away.
Focussed on slow and steady exhales, I guided my hand to the area, already guessing what I’d find. A heavy sigh, followed by another throb of pain, trickled free when my palm connected with wet metal.
Blood. The sticky liquid coated the steel, the metallic scent thick and cloying.
Impaled was never a good look, let alone an ideal situation. But I wasn’t dead, so there was that.
My comms sparked to life. “Michaels, this is Kent. Check in. Over.”
Biting back my urge to grunt as I moved to touch the small device in my ear, I held my breath and finally pressed the button. “Michaels checking in. Over.” With no quiver, no shake, my tone remained neutral, controlled.
The two-second beat before Kent’s voice sounded in my ear was enough to warn me that she knew that shit had hit the fan. Her instincts were spookily accurate, even when a hundred kilometres away. “Status report. Over.” There it was—her tight voice, her tone making it clear I should be more concerned about her kicking my arse rather than Mathew Lucas, the head of the ITU—the Infiltration Tactical Unit—I was a member of.
“I may need an assist. Over.” I wasn’t quite gung-ho enough to think I could pull the steel out of myself. Well, not without causing more injuries. The thought of taking longer to heal, which meant more time out of the field, was enough for me to admit I needed backup.
Kent didn’t hold back her pissed-off snarl. “Two minutes. Over and out.”
Yeah, Kent was definitely the vampire I should be more concerned about.
Waiting out the two minutes wasn’t a hardship. The explosion had killed Muerso. The pool of blood decorated with ash and debris, as well as his prone form, was all the confirmation I needed. Plus the explosion was directly linked to the computer systems. I expected that would annoy Kent, our department whiz at all things cyber, but Muerso’s death would put an end to his criminal dealings.
Three months of intel told me he hadn’t been part of a wider ring. And with his servers destroyed, it was one more shady criminal enterprise dismantled. The metal piercing my side was totally worth it.
“You look like shit.” Chris’s grin was wide as he stepped carefully over the debris. His attention drifted to Muerso’s motionless form before returning to me, his brow quirked high. “I take it you not waiting for your team was worth it?”
I studied him closely, assessing if he was as annoyed as Kent. With his grin still in place, his posture relaxed, he seemed okay, but as he crouched before me and prodded my wound, I reconsidered my evaluation.
There was no holding back my hiss at his touch. Narrowing my eyes, I stared hard, holding back my snarl.
“You’re meant to wait for your partner.” His dark eyes appeared black in the flickering lights and the smoke that had yet to settle.
I rolled my eyes, which did nothing to ease the guilt bubbling to life in my gut. “You were warned I was an arsehole in the first five minutes of joining the team,” I grumbled.
“True, but you seem determined to push your reputation into uncharted waters. Putting yourself at risk like this is bullshit.” The calm tone, the casual way he scanned me for further injuries, didn’t gel with his words or the hardening glint in his gaze.
“Sorry. The wanker in me is strong.”
Chris’s lips twitched.
“While I’m digging the kebab look, you know, the whole wolf-on-a-skewer thing, you wanna help un-stab me?” I worked hard at controlling my expression, my voice. The injury in my side was a constant pulse of agony, and the sooner I was free, the sooner I could get pain meds and heal. While I was a legit arsehole lately, like right now for heading into the building without Chris, my partner of six months, I wasn’t a masochist.
I wasn’t that at all, and everyone in the team knew it, even Chris, the newest enforcer to join our unit.
At the sound of leather soles on rubble, he glanced behind him when a couple of medics entered, giving them a nod. “Looks like we can un-skewer you.” With an effortless grace I was envious of right now, Chris stood and made room for Grace and Hansen.
The two medics made quick work of checking that pulling me from the steel was the best way to tackle my release, and within a few minutes, the three of them yanked me free. Chris took a little too much pleasure in my grunt and groan.
“Fuck.” Lightheaded and shaky, I trembled, wavering on my feet. Hansen stopped me from faceplanting by putting a strong arm around me. My head swam, a fresh wave of agony rolling through me and turning my stomach.
I swallowed hard. No way would I vomit. I’d never live it down. Chris would waste no time at all spreading that story about me in the unit. Would I deserve the shit talk? Absolutely. No chance would I make it easy for him, though.
“Let’s get you a stretcher,” Hansen said.
“Nuh-uh. I can walk.”
The three of them rolled their eyes. Not that I gave two shits. The investigation was over. The crim was dead—honestly, the best place for the blood dealer. As far as I was concerned, this was a win.
Directing me forward, Chris tugged out his phone, beginning to record the mass of devastation I’d caused. “Kent is going to go for your jugular, man.”
Not bothering to glance back as I unsteadily stepped over the rubble, trying not to stumble, I shrugged. “There might be something salvageable.” There so wasn’t anything left that could be rescued from the burst of flames and mini-explosions I’d detonated earlier.
Chris’s snort called bullshit.
Ignoring him, I made it outside to the waiting ambulance. With blood trickling down my side and seeping into my tactical pants, I couldn’t risk not getting patched up. I clambered into the open back, Grace following me inside.
“You need me to cut your shirt off?”
Wide-eyed, I stared at her in horror. “Fuck no.”
Her lips thinned out as she waited for me to unfasten my bulletproof vest and tug off my black SICB-issued T-shirt. These things were expensive as hell. The Supernatural Investigation & Crime Bureau budget was shit, and our unit’s even worse, which meant if I wrecked the damn thing, I’d have to buy a new one.
Screw that. I’d wait till my yearly replacements.
By the time I eased the bloody shirt off, sweat trickled down my temples and my spine. A hot shower, a coffee, maybe some whiskey, probably a few stitches to help the wound along its way, and I’d be golden.
“Oh fucking hell.” A gaping hole from the skewer had destroyed my shirt. I flicked my attention to Grace, who remained stoic as she stared at me, no doubt thinking I was a prize dickhead. “You could have told me it was wrecked.” Petulance rumbled through my voice.
“Could I?” she deadpanned, swiping up some medical supplies so she could clean me up.
Keeping my mouth shut as she dabbed at my wound, I grimaced, knowing better than to complain. A wince and a hiss escaped as she cleansed the wound, and I glanced away quickly.
“You need an injection to numb the area?”
“I’m good,” I said tightly, earning myself a grunted mumble about me being a pain in the arse. This wasn’t Grace’s first rodeo of stitching me up, especially over the past year. If I were her, I’d be sick of me too.
A few stitches later and a bandage taped on, I was good to go.
“I’ll be happy if I don’t see you again.” Grace shot me a pointed look, and Hansen snorted as he closed the rear doors of the ambulance.
“You won’t miss me?” I tugged on a fresh tee that was shoved at me by Hansen. Unfortunately, not a new SICB one I could steal.
“Miss your surly arse? Hell no.” She followed up with a smirk.
I waved her off, giving my thanks to both of them before seeking out Chris. Already in his car, he was tapping his fingers to whatever bad-taste beat was playing on the radio.
“You done?”
“Yeah.”
He bobbed his head. “I’ve asked Tony to take your vehicle back to the main headquarters.” Meaning, as opposed to our unit’s covert location. “Thought it would give you a chance to heal before you head out later.”
It would be easier if Chris was a dickhead. It would mean I could keep my distance and not like the man, but when he did stuff like this, it made it tricky. “Thanks,” I grumbled, settling down in the passenger seat. “You get my bag?”
He snorted. “You mean the one that’s burned to a crisp?” The sound of the engine cut through his chuckle. “That’d be a no.”
“Damn it. I liked that bag. It had my favourite Beretta in it.” What a clusterfuck. I secured my seatbelt, readjusting the belt strap so it didn’t press down on my injury. Not only would I be getting a bollocking from Lucas, but I’d destroyed my bag and one of my handguns.
But at least the bad guy was toast, and I could close my eyes for a few minutes while Chris drove us to the ITU headquarters.
Or maybe not.
Barely sitting up straight in the SUV, I grimaced as Chris took each turn fifteen kilometres faster than necessary. Despite his smile and ease with handling this situation, and the several others since he joined the ITU, the lion was pissed off.
I got it. Deserved it. Absolutely understood it.
Since Jenson’s—my old partner’s—death last year, I hadn’t made life easy for myself or my team. I kept pushing the boundaries and had been reprimanded more than once for taking unnecessary risks. Add to that the number of times I’d gone lone wolf, and I was surprised I still had a job.
That I did such things, was so selfish at times, didn’t sit easy. But I didn’t know how to stop, how to process Jenson no longer being around. And no amount of talking about it, including the mandatary six sessions of therapy after the whole Lentwood shitshow, changed that one bit.
It didn’t help that I’d refused to share a single thing the whole time. Well, nothing of value or truth.
“You doing okay there?”
I tilted my head to look at Chris and offered a chin lift. “Still alive.”
He grunted in response.
“You got something to say?”
He sent a quick glance my way. “Not sure there’s any point.” His gaze returned to the road ahead.
The headlights caught on the late-night mist that had settled over Sydney. I always liked this time of night, especially on a weeknight. The busy city was virtually still with most residents tucked up for the night, ready for their early starts in the morning. So close to the headquarters, it was especially quiet.
While I registered Chris’s words, I struggled to form a response that wouldn’t simply piss him off even further. Landing on “Fair enough,” I watched as the electronic gates whirled into action at the compound and thought about the report Lucas would demand I write.
We pulled into the underground parking, and Chris found a space and parked. I exited with a grunt, irritating my injury.
“Get to the infirmary. You’re going to need all the strength you can get before Lucas sees you.”
Not wanting to rile Chris up any more, I held back my refusal, since I’d already been patched up. Though some drugs that actually blurred the edges of my pain wouldn’t go amiss. “He really that upset?”
His brows shot high. “I don’t think upset quite covers it.”
With a nod of thanks and a grimace, I waved off his help and headed to see the doc.
It didn’t take too long to get the all clear—after having a couple of shards of metal pulled out of my back, which I hadn’t noticed before—and make my way to the central workspace. This was really Kent’s domain, and she was the first to spot me.
“You know what they call a dead shifter who goes in blind and plays with metal sticks?” Kent deadpanned, her unwavering attention on me.
Knowing not to bait the vampire, I simply looked at her.
“Whatever the fuck they want because the cockhead is dead.” Her stare was hard, the only tell she gave that she wanted to lay me out.
I sighed, hating the guilt raising its ugly head.
When Jenson had been killed by our former division manager, it shook the whole team, devastated us all. Despite knowing how much it had impacted everyone, I found it easier to not focus on any of it. It hurt too fucking much otherwise. “I’m sorry I was a cockhead.”
An unimpressed grunt filled the space as Kent narrowed her eyes at me. “Stop trying to get dead.”
“That’s not what—”
“Michaels, office, now.” Lucas’s usually quiet, steady voice was tense and filled with ice. My attention still on Kent, I widened my eyes.
The vamp simply smirked at me and flipped me off. “Enjoy getting your arse handed to you.”
Locking my jaw, I shot her a stink eye, which only had her chuckling as I made my way to Lucas’s open door. The man was at his desk, his focus on me as I loosened my limbs, trying not to appear affected.
“Close the door and sit.”
After doing so, I sat as still as possible, working hard not to twitch under his intense stare. While Lucas was so unlike Thatch, the old head of the ITU, they had one thing in common. Both of them knew how to make you squirm with their annoying-as-hell silent glare. For years under Thatch’s leadership, I’d battled to wait him out. Not once had I won, and Lucas had the same frustrating determination that Thatch did.
Too sore to last the distance, I relented in twenty seconds. “So, that went well. Case solved, mission over.” Inside, I grimaced, knowing I was playing with fire.
Lucas remained stoically silent, and another twenty seconds passed.
“Perhaps I should have waited for Chris.”
A quirked brow from Lucas was at least a reaction.
“I should have waited for my new partner and not put myself or the case in jeopardy,” I admitted.
“I’ve got something new for you,” Lucas said, surprising me. “Tomorrow morning you’re to head to the academy.” I groaned and was sure there was a damn twinkle in Lucas’s eyes at my reaction. “Plan for four weeks, and I’ll let Thatch brief you.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” Lucas grinned. That reaction right there told me so much. “The doc said by the morning, your wound should be closed, and by tomorrow evening, just some minor bruising should be the worst of it.” He scanned his computer, no doubt reading the doc’s report. Talk about efficient. “Doc says, nothing strenuous for forty-eight hours, so I’ll let Thatch know to give you a hall pass.”
“Is this an investigation or—”
“Kent has your academy pass and has sorted your paperwork. On paper, you’re there for a month-long sabbatical as part of the academy’s teaching and training program.”
“No.” I gasped, legit struggling for breath at the horror of it all. “Me with recruits? Have you lost your mind?”
“We need someone from the team in there, and Thatch is going to be assisting you however you need it. Active agents from different divisions do four-week stints all the time, usually for official reasons, to share skill sets, assist with training, and give recruits an insight into the different fields available. You can offer all of those things while on the job. You’re to use your official ID.” As opposed to my unofficial role in the SICB ITU, which was a hush-hush, need-to-know unit.
Narrowing my eyes at the man, despite knowing it would have no impact, I tried to keep my petulance at bay, asking, “Is there really an investigation, or are you punishing me for being a dick?”
Lucas quirked his brow. “You think I’d fabricate something like this to punish you?”
I thought about that a moment and figured Lucas wouldn’t be the one to do that. But I knew someone who would.
“Maybe not you, but I’m sure as shit Callen would.” My former colleague, who was also Lucas’s best mate and the man Thatch bumped uglies with—admittedly it was more than that with the whole domestic-nuclear-family thing they had going on, but still, this had Callen Blackheath written all over it.
“Are you suggesting the SICB division leader would fabricate an investigation while punishing you with green recruits, just so you’d pull your head out your backside?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely he would. He’s your BFF or whatever. You know he’d totally do this.”
His lips twitched and amusement shone in his eyes. “Well, you perhaps have a point there. We all know exactly the sort of things Callen’s capable of when he’s worried about someone he cares for.” All of Lucas’s humour slipped away, and once more I felt a punch of guilt in my gut. “But no, this isn’t such an occasion. Kent will send you an encrypted file, and Thatch will be briefing you at 0800 tomorrow. Your only orders for today are to file your report, get home, pack, and rest. Got it?”
Nodding, I stood, the fight bleeding out of me. Once I was at the door, Lucas’s voice stopped me.
“Listen, Vaughn, you know the whole team has your back, and I’m at the top of that list. This assignment is going to take some unravelling.” I glanced over at him, and a small smile lifted his lips. “Perhaps use the time while you’re there to get back to the root of it all. Maybe inspire a recruit or something along the way while you’re at it.”
It didn’t matter that I understood what he was saying or that his heart was in the right place. My reasons for being in the task force had changed. They had the moment one of our own had put a gun to Jenson’s head and pulled the trigger.
To protect and serve was like a distant memory. Instead, seek and destroy all the fucked-up criminals in our world had become my new mantra.
Being locked in the training academy for a month was not part of that mission.
That meant whatever it was that I was sent in to investigate needed to take a lot less time than the prescribed month. No way could I handle longer than seventy-two hours in the place.
I gatheredmy things and jumped in my SUV, relieved there was enough time to grab a coffee before starting the hour-long journey to the academy. The traffic was shit, a given when trying to navigate through the roads of Sydney, but with spring only just started, at least I didn’t have to put the air-con on full blast. It all but destroyed my senses—the blast of cool air tended to mess up my ability to scent clearly, as well as screwing with my hearing when in such close confinement of my car.
Once I had my caffeine fix in hand, I gulped the black coffee, wincing at its heat. Last night, after I’d picked up food from a local restaurant, a place that was known for its generous portion sizes to accommodate its nonhuman clientele, I got to my place, inhaled my food, then was out for the count.
It meant I hadn’t looked through the file Kent had sent me, too tired to get a heads-up, which I would have preferred. There was no doubt Thatch would talk me through the investigation when we met. As my old unit leader, I trusted him implicitly. It helped that Thatch never cut corners.
When I pulled up to the security gates of SICB Academy, I tugged my ID from under my shirt, holding the lanyard so the tiger on duty could scan me in. I nodded my thanks when he gave me the all clear and followed his directions to the C-block car park.
Thatch stood sentinel before an empty parking space, and since he was smiling, I figured I wasn’t in the doghouse too badly. He met me at the door with a hug when I stepped out, something he’d never have done pre-Callen. Me either, for that matter.
“Good to see you, Michaels.” He patted my back and released me, and as frustrated as I was about this assignment, seeing the man who’d been my mentor was no hardship.
“I’m still standing.” I tugged my bag from the back seat of my SUV, noticing immediately that Thatch had taken in its size, his lips twitching.
Instead of challenging me about my lack of packing, he indicated for us to start moving. “Just about standing after yesterday, I heard.”
“You in the loop for all classified shit these days?”
“And don’t you forget it.” He smirked, and I rolled my eyes, barely holding on to my grin. Sure, I liked to wind the man up, but I had no concerns about the fact that he was in the loop of all things SICB related. If anything, that he had Callen’s ear was reassuring. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. You’ve ducked out of the last couple of get-togethers,” he said, nodding at a group of recruits kitted out in black fatigues and jogging in formation past us.
“Blame Lucas for putting me on assignments that keep draining me,” I jested, knowing full well he wouldn’t buy my bullshit.
“Well, it’s a good job I’ve got you for a month, then. It’ll give us time to catch up while we’re figuring things out.”
Refusing to bury myself under the added guilt of distancing myself from those I cared about, I instead focussed on his last words. “So there really is a genuine reason for me being here?” Yesterday when I’d challenged Lucas, it hadn’t been in jest. Callen really was the sort of guy who would totally set me up to try to get me to see sense.
“In my office.” Thatch swiped his card through a security door, then reached a second door, this one with a print scanner.
I frowned. “This level of security normal for campus?” The green light beeped, and as I stepped inside the office, I caught the sign on the door. Chief Instructor was spelled out in gilded letters. That was new, or at least I thought it was. It was something I would have heard about, right?
The door closed with a soft hush, and a moment later, my ears popped. I grimaced at the sensation, knowing immediately that Thatch had activated a sound blocker. The plot was seriously thickening, and for the first time since hearing the news about this assignment, my interest was piqued.
Thatch tugged the visitor’s chair to his side of the desk and turned on his computer, going through a series of safety checks. I sat at his side. Thatch was not a man to be rushed, and I could be patient when I needed to be.
“Jack Chambers, the academy’s chief instructor, disappeared approximately forty-two hours ago.” My brows shot high as he opened an email containing a folder with numerous files. “We started a covert internal investigation rather than a red alert after I received this email on our encrypted server.”
He toggled open a document and eased back in his chair so I had more room to read.
“Kent traced the particulars of this email. It was sent one minute after an email from Chambers’s account to the board and headquarters indicating an emergency and he would be leaving town.”
So basically he’d broken every protocol going. Not only had he sent an email rather than going through HR to request time off, but emergency leave required verbal and visual confirmation from HQ.
As if already knowing where my mind had gone, Thatch continued, saying, “Chambers was a stickler for protocol. Him doing this goes against everything I know about the man.”
I nodded in understanding. “So a red warning flag and not something he’d even do in an emergency?”
Thatch shook his head.
“What’s in the folders?”
Thatch clicked on one. “This is the only one we can open. The rest have some serious security encryption. Kent’s been at it, but she’s struggling.”
My brows shot high at that. “What about Lucas?” Before Lucas joined our unit to take over Thatch’s role, he spent his time buried neck deep in coding and tech. Between him and Kent, there shouldn’t be an issue.
A grim expression appeared. “They’ve been working on this since the moment I received it, and nothing yet.”
“Shit.”
“It’s going to take time. There seems to be some sort of activation key that they’re struggling to get around.”
I glanced around the tidy office. Activation codes tended to never be written down, for all the obvious reasons. “But why send them if you’d need the code to open them?”
“Now that’s the question we’re trying to get our heads around. Either he has faith in the ITU, knowing that with time they’ll crack it, or—”
“Or it’s somewhere we can find it.”
“Exactly. I’m going to focus on that while you keep your ear to the ground. Focus on the staff, the recruits. Everyone.”
I bobbed my head, understanding a little better why he called me in. Pulling someone in with fresh eyes was a no-brainer. But reading people, cutting through the bullshit, discovering their secrets was a skill set I was particularly proud of. “Got it.” I indicated the file he opened. “And what’s the one file you can open?”
He double-clicked on the one document, using a password.
“My tax file number.” He rolled his eyes, and I snorted, wondering how many attempts it had taken him to work that out.
The page opened, and I froze.
Hughes. Gallagher. Smith. Shadowfall.
“Shadowfall? The clandestine op?” Goose bumps startled to life on my arms. “As in, Captain Hornell?” A quick glance Thatch’s way was enough to have my gut twisting. “They were shut down four years ago.”
“I looked into the general SICB database for those other names, which was a nightmare.”
“The Smiths?”
“You know it. I switched my focus to the academy’s enrolment. Martin Hughes, Kate Gallagher, Paul Smith. All quit the academy in the past three months.”
I scooted my chair so I could see Thatch better. Since he’d been turned into a wolf shifter last year, he had even better control of his tone, his expressions. But sometimes his tells gave me a clue as to what he was thinking.
“Three dropouts. What’s so special about them? When I was training, at the beginning of my two-year course, there were ninety-eight recruits. Only thirty-three made it.”
Thatch’s startling green eyes shone with intensity, a vivid contrast to his dark skin. “All three dropped off the face of the earth within sixteen days of leaving.”
I frowned, waiting for him to continue, certain there was more he’d put together. He didn’t disappoint.
“You know the SICB keeps a close eye on dropouts for the first two weeks. After that, they do spot checks.”
I bobbed my head, knowing that SICB checked to ensure the health and well-being of recruits who didn’t make the cut. Or at least that was the party line. The reality was, they were also ensuring the former recruits were on the straight and narrow, as it were. Not selling bureau secrets—not that recruits were exposed to many, but the bureau was a secretive bunch for a reason.
“All three were excelling in hand-to-hand combat. Top ten of their class, in fact. The same for tactics and weapons.”
“So what’s the bottom line here?”
“Preliminary digging shows families are not concerned that their child—and in one case, husband—are not around, but they all have one additional thing in common.”
I quirked my brow at him and held back my smirk. Thatch had always been a straight shooter, but the way he was unravelling the information was on the cusp of telling a tale, complete with dramatic pauses. Callen was rubbing off on him, and I was half tempted to let him know as much, but I wasn’t sure I was that brave.
“All three next of kin have a connection to AXF.”
“The medical research lab?”
“One and the same. They’re the second largest in Australia and conduct ground-breaking trials and a whole shitload of medical projects. Several government approved.”
My mind ticked overtime, wondering if Thatch’s deductions were leading him in the same direction as my own. The missing chief of staff and former recruits, the links to AXF as well as the academy…. I frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?”
A barely there smirk was directed my way as Thatch leaned forward and pressed a small button underneath his desk. Once again, my ears popped as the soundproofing deactivated.
A second button unlocked the door.
Immediately, my gaze was drawn to the opening door and the dark-haired panther who entered. Like most panthers in human form, his skin was golden brown, indicative of their species’ heritage. Lithe and with eyes that struggled to blend in with the human world, the young panther was mesmerising.
Securing the door behind him, he didn’t take his gaze off me. It was only after the pop of the soundproofing being engaged that he finally flicked his focus to Thatch. He stood at attention before the desk, his gaze ahead.
“At ease, recruit,” Thatch ordered. “Take a seat.”
Curiosity fluttered to life inside me, not only at the reason for Thatch bringing him in, but at the young man himself.
I expected I had at least eight years on him. Likely more. It was the confidence he exuded, though, that sparked my interest.
Sure, SICB recruits could be cocky bastards, but there was something more about this one, different somehow. Yeah, he was good-looking, ridiculously so, something I could usually see past within an instant, especially of late. But with his golden eyes sparking with intelligence and pouty lips that I struggled to glance away from, I was ensnared.
Thatch clearing his throat jerked my attention away. His brow was quirked high, amusement seeming to battle with concern in his stare. I clenched my jaw and gave him a firm nod, returning my attention to the recruit, who now sat before the desk, interest clear in his eyes as they roamed over me.
“Jett Shaw, meet Agent Michaels. Shaw here is going to be supporting you while you’re on campus.”
Snapping my eyes in Thatch’s direction, I frowned. Any amused expression he may have had earlier was gone. This was full-on “I will kick your arse if you question me” mode.
“Shaw’s already in the loop, and yes, there’s a reason why you’re on campus, as this will be the focal point of our investigation. Shaw here is the top of the class for—” Thatch tilted his head, gaze on Shaw. “—well, everything.”
That got my interest as I refocussed on Shaw. While I wouldn’t exactly describe it as challenge evident in the young panther’s eyes, there was certainly a boldness there I kinda liked.
“He’ll be graduating in two months and is already in talks with Lucas.”
“No shit?” My eyes widened. Lucas was interested in this kid joining our unit? Not that I needed to look at Shaw with renewed interest, since he already had my attention, but if Thatch had recommended him to Lucas, our team, which I had no issues declaring was fucking awesome, then he must be good.
“Yes shit,” Shaw responded, a smirk on the cusp of being cocky forming.
It took effort to hold back my grin, but I did, not wanting to make Shaw think we’d become best buddies or some shit. I’d had one of those.
Never again.
