Administrative Control (Immortal Ops) (9 page)

Duke stiffened. “You took a picture of yourself and put it on the internet?”

“Aye.”

Duke seriously considered getting a new best friend. His current one was a jackass.

Striker leaned in and held his phone out, snapping a picture of them both. Duke grabbed his phone and squeezed, crushing it with one hand. It fell to pieces on the floor.

“Och, was that called for?” asked Striker, looking far too attached to his phone for Duke’s liking.

“Think about what you’re doing. How are you going to explain all that away later when you have to reinvent yourself?”

Striker licked his lips. “I’m gonna tell ’em I’m a vampire or a time traveler. Humans seem to be into wantin’ one of those to be true. I say fuck it. We give ’em what they want. They’re simple minded. They’ll believe what we tell ’em.”

Duke sat perfectly still, knowing his friend was on a roll. “Vampires are real. I took out an entire den of them just last month.”

Striker waved a hand dismissively. “Not the rotting kind. The sexy kind. Like in the movies.”

“Jackass.”

“Thanks. You owe me a phone.”

“Corbin keeps extras in his desk drawer for when I lose my temper. Grab one of those.” Duke pointed in the direction of Corbin’s desk and then went back to trying to get his computer to shut off. His computer won the battle four more times in a row. “Piece of shit!”

Laughing, Striker came to his rescue with a new phone in hand. He took the wireless mouse from Duke’s grasp. “It’s nae gonna shut down with you bumpin’ the mouse. Here. Let me.”

Duke slid back in the chair and then stood. He’d rather be in the den again with the vamps and a stick than dealing with the piece of crap computer. “Keep the fucker.”

Striker continued to laugh. “You know, if you tried a little harder you might actually learn to like the thing.”

Sliding his long-time friend a hard look, Duke stood silent. No words needed to be spoken. He’d never bond with his damn computer. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

Striker glanced at the screen. “Hold up, are these the reports on the Seattle incident?”

“Yep.”

“Anything interesting you want to share? We ever find the person who relayed the faulty meeting coordinates to you?” asked Striker.

Duke understood what Striker was actually asking—did they find the traitor who sent Duke on a wild goose chase while one of their operatives needed assistance and backup. Shaking his head, Duke stood, allowing Striker to take his seat. “No. I knew the voice was off but, Striker, the guy had the passcodes. I didn’t recognize the voice but you know interference can be on some of the comms and relay equipment.”

Striker sighed. “Aye, I’d believe the orders too if I were given the right passcodes.”

“That was what they were counting on,” Duke agreed. “I fell right into their trap. Eadan was lucky to have the Immortal Ops Team there to back him. I nearly didn’t make it in time.”

Striker shut off the devil computer and stood as well. He touched Duke’s shoulder. “You couldnae help how it went down and in the end you did make it in time. Eadan was thankful for yer help.”

There was nothing Duke could say so he decided to change the subject. “Beers, huh?”

“Cheap ones.” Striker laughed.

“You do realize we have more money than we could ever hope to spend, right?” questioned Duke. And they did. They’d all done well in their own rights and PSI paid ridiculously well. They had to.

“The cheaper the beer, the more I feel like home,” Striker added.

“Missin’ the good ole days?” Duke smiled as he walked towards the lobby. “When you ran around in a kilt, singing songs of William Wallace while you got shitfaced off crappy beer.”

Striker paused. “Old days? Och. I call that William Wallace Wednesdays. He’s a legend amongst lycans who fell too early. We should get a day off work each year in honor of him. I’ll petition for it. Right after I finish drinking tonight.”

Having seen the man drunk too many times to count in their long history of being friends, Duke knew it was closer to the truth than not. “Hey, after beers, I need to run. You in?”

Striker was a lycan as well and often ran in shifted form with Duke in the woods outside PSI Headquarters. The woods were stocked with deer and other woodland creatures on purpose, there for the operatives who were shifters to hunt and kill. Before they’d ensured something was there for the men to hunt, the men did it on their own, elsewhere.

What a mess.

This, while certainly not winning them any favor with animal rights activists, was the safest thing for everyone. Better a deer than an unsuspecting human. Sadly, it was part of the total package when it came to being a natural-born shifter, unlike humans who were bitten and infected with the virus that left them shifting forms and lived to tell the tale. Those lucky bastards weren’t slaves to so many things as naturals were. Seemed like it should have been opposite, but nature had a funny way of saying
fuck you—even if I created you
.

A human getting eaten near headquarters by an operative had happened more than once in the past. Still kind of happened. They were just better at hiding it.

He put his palm to the scanner at the lobby door. “Weird that they check us in and out when we’re salaried.”

Striker wrinkled his face. “Big brother’s way of keepin’ track of how much we show our faces in here.”

“I hate big brother,” Duke said, knowing he’d get a laugh out of his friend.

“Aye, me too. Now, there are beers with our names on them.” Striker rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and Duke wondered if the man had started the party without him.

“Had a few already?”

Striker lifted his thumb and forefinger. “Wee bit.”

As Duke stood closer he picked up on the smell of whiskey on Striker’s breath. A
wee bit
would have worn off already. Their metabolism was that fast. Striker had had more than a few drinks. He’d probably put away a bottle or two.

“Mankind feels safer already,” Duke jested. He was all for blowing off steam. They’d put in a lot of hours in the last month and been dealing with a rash of bullshit in the way of bad guys. They needed to relax and unwind every once in a while to prevent them from losing their temper when a situation didn’t call for it. “With us in charge of their safety, why wouldn’t they?”

“Hey, they don’t know we exist. To them we’re the stuff of fairytales.”

Duke slid his friend a hard look. “I’m no faerie.”

“You’re too ugly. They wouldnae take you,” Striker said with a snort. “They’d nae take either of us. We’re not pretty enough.”

“True. Let’s go get you drunker.”

The Dragon’s Queen (Dragon Lords 9) by Michelle M. Pillow

Bestselling Futuristic Shifter Romance Series

Mede of the Draig knows three things for a fact: As the only female dragon shifter of her people, she is special. She can kick the backside of any man. And she absolutely doesn’t want to marry.
 

Mede has spent a lifetime trying to prove herself as strong as any male warrior. Unfortunately, being the special, rare creature she is, she’s been claimed as the future bride to nearly three dozen Draig—each one confident that when they come for her hand in marriage fate will choose them. When the men aren’t bragging about how they’re going to marry her, they’re acting like she’s a delicate rare flower in need of their protection.

She is far from a shrinking solarflower.
 

 
Prince Llyr of the Draig knows four things for a fact: He is the future king of the dragon shifters. He must act honorably in all ways. He absolutely, positively is meant to marry Lady Mede. And she dead set against marriage.

Llyr’s fate rests in the hands of a woman determined not to have any man. With a new threat emerging amongst their cat shifting neighbors, a threat whose eyes are focused firmly on Mede, time may be running out. It is up to him to convince her to be his dragon queen.

The Dragon’s Queen Excerpt

There were three things Medellyn knew for a fact. She was special. She could kick the ass of any boy. And she did not want to marry and have babies.

She was special.
 

Medellyn was one of the only dragon shifting females in all the universe, and definitely in all of the Draig. Only once in a thousand births was a female dragon shifter born. She was rare, or so everyone kept telling her. Her childhood was a strange contradiction. Her very proper mother tried to treat her as if she were some sacred crystal that might crack. Her warrior father tried to make her train like a boy while dressing like a girl.
 

She could kick the ass of any boy.

Medellyn hated when boys tried to act as if she were weak and to be protected. Her dragon was just as fierce as any of theirs, probably more so. To prove her point, she’d gladly pummel any who had challenged her to the ground…and some who hadn’t.

She
absolutely, positively
did not want to marry and have babies.

Being the special, rare creature she was, in the twenty not-so-sweet girlhood years of her life she’d been claimed as the future bride to nearly three dozen boys—each one confident that when they came of the age to marry she would make their crystals glow and they hers.
 

Glowing crystals wasn’t just a metaphor. On the day she was born, her father journeyed to Crystal Lake like all the new fathers did. He dove beneath the waves, swam down to the deepest part and pulled her stone from the lakebed. Like all Draig children, she wore the stone around her neck, and would continue to wear it until the day it glowed telling her which of the dragon shifting men she was destined by the gods to marry.
 
Okay, technically she might be destined to marry an offworlder like most Draig men, but no one on her planet seemed to think so.
 

Gods bones, she hoped she wasn’t destined to end up with any of the idiots on her planet. They had yet to impress her.

When it was her turn to go to the Breeding Festival, the crystal would glow signifying her
curse
for all to see. Well, her “blessing” as her mother called it. Lady Grace did not appreciate her daughter calling marriage a curse. Grace did not appreciate a lot of things that Medellyn liked, such as swords and bows, ceffyl riding, camping alone in the forest, hunting, sparring, smashing arrogant looks off of dragon men’s faces.

It was a fight with her mother that sent her running through the mountain forest. Medellyn hated the woman, hated what her mother wanted her daughter to be. Grace was only a human, brought to their planet as a bartered bride. She married Medellyn’s father without question and spent most of her days completely in docile agreement with whatever her husband said. Medellyn couldn’t imagine taking anyone else’s opinions over her own.

Her father, Axell, was a highly praised warrior in the Draig army and carried the title of Top Breeder of the ceffyls. The man’s whole life focused on four things: his wife, his only child, and mares and steeds. Her father was a very important man, but his work kept him away from home several nights a week as he slept outdoors with the herd. With a three-year gestation period and only about fifty percent live-birth rate, the animals were not a resource that could be easily renewed. His ceffyls supplied the soldiers with mounts and farmers used them for beasts of burden to help with the fields.

To find out more about Michelle’s books visit www.MichellePillow.com

A King’s Ransom by Reagan Hawk
(pen name of Mandy M. Roth)

Book One in the Masters of Pleasure Series

On a quest to find his brother, King Kritan of Katarius on the planet of Panucia finds himself ambushed, beaten, tortured and then sold to fight in the arena games. The people of Tamonius—his rival kingdom—condone slavery, take public sex to new lows and try to turn a profit off anything they can. Nothing can change his hatred for everything Tamonius… That is, until he meets the most breathtakingly beautiful woman he’s ever laid eyes upon. Surina of the House of Argyros, daughter to a powerful senator, stirs the beast within him, making it want to lay claim to her as badly as the man does.

Free or not, Kritan is a master of seduction, and has selected Surina as his newest prey. But this virginal beauty has secrets of her own—ones that change everything. And destiny just might have the last laugh.

For more information about these titles and other bestselling Mandy M. Roth titles please visit www.MandyRoth.com