Hiding His Wolf [Urban Affairs 4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour ManLove) (6 page)

Simon Black had aspirations. He not only wanted money, he wanted the power, too. Simon had been born to a power-couple family. His father was a congressman. His mother was a doctor. They had groomed him for success.

At first he thought he’d make his mark as an athlete. When he was younger, he’d been a triathlete and had planned to join the Olympic team. His parents objected, especially his father. To this day, Simon hated him for that. Well, hate was a strong word. Perhaps, dislike was a better fit. These days he just kept his distance and let his father’s advice go in one ear and out the other.

Despite his parents’ interference, his life hadn’t turned out so bad. They had insisted that he concentrate on his studies. He had an affinity for the law, and that was what he’d majored in. Simon had been admitted to the bar, but his excellent grades and his family name ensured him many options and he took his time choosing a career path, finally settling on the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI believed that a law degree strengthened a man’s investigative capability, and he was offered a lucrative position. He thought he had made a wise choice, especially when Graham handpicked him to join the newly formed DSA. Getting in on the ground floor and securing his position gave him an edge over the agents who came after him.

Simon still worked out as much as he could. Every Federal office had a gym, and he utilized them, sometimes obsessively. Besides lifting weights, he ran. His body was muscular, and he felt able to deal with any threat that might come his way.

Graham was in his fifties, but he still had a trim body, not as muscular as Simon’s, but the man looked good for his age. Simon met Graham’s cold, steel-gray gaze over the desk.

Graham offered a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’ve done excellent work, Simon. I’m very pleased.”

“Thank you, sir.” Simon brushed a nonexistent speck of dust from his suit jacket. “I’ve done just as you asked. I trust the goods arrived safely.” Simon wondered why Graham wanted these
goods
so badly, but he hesitated to ask. Graham didn’t like to be questioned. It was just as well, he’d been trying to put the slave out of his mind, refusing even to call him by name.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you to procure this man.”

Can he read my mind?
“It’s not my place to question your decisions, sir.”

“Good answer, but I’m going to tell you anyway. Securing this man was only the beginning of your assignment.” Graham paused for effect. “The number of half-breeds hiding among the human population has increased.”

Simon’s mind went on alert. “Half-breeds?”

“Yes. Children born to Were and human couples.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Up until recently, no one has, but we’ve learned differently. We have proof. We’ve been rounding them up and quarantining them in a secure facility.”

How had he not known this? Evidently Graham wasn’t confiding everything in him—yet. “And you believe that the slave is one of these half-breeds?”

“No. Noah is human, but he grew up with a half-breed.”

Simon winced but covered his reaction with a frown. Hearing the boy’s name had opened the floodgates to a wave of guilt.

Evidently Graham didn’t notice. He continued talking. “Fifteen years ago Noah’s parents took in a boy, half-Were, half-human. They raised him until the Resistance found out where he was. The shifter’s own kind kidnapped him. They took Noah, too—after they murdered his parents. They turned Noah into a slave, brainwashed him and used him for sex. They’re animals, Simon. You can see why they have to be controlled.”

Simon shivered inside. It was true. The Weres could not be left to their own devices.
Thank God for the agency. But the needle on
Simon’s baloney detector swung to
full
and his own guilt gave voice to his conscience.

You’re no better than them.

Not fair. I didn’t enslave the boy—or beat him.

You didn’t do anything to help him either.

“Simon?”

“Uh, sorry, Mr. Graham.”
Focus.

“The shifter disappeared years ago.” Graham continued with his story. “But I have proof he’s still alive.” Graham rifled through a folder on his desk and pulled out a photo. He handed it to Simon. “This is a picture of the half-breed taken when he was a kid.”

Simon studied it. The adolescent looked vaguely familiar, but most teenage boys looked alike with their long hair and ratty jeans.

Graham handed Simon another picture. “And this is a photo taken recently by one of my Were-agents who sniffed him out by lucky accident. We think it’s the same person.”

Simon’s blood went cold. The shot had been taken with a telephoto lens and it was grainy, but the man in the picture was looking over a bare shoulder and he had a tattoo on his upper back exactly like the one Simon had seen on Levi. “Where and when was this taken?”

“A year ago in Delaware. Evidently the half-breed was just passing through. My man lost him and never got a name.”

A wildly improbable coincidence, Simon could hardly believe it. Levi had just been a treat for Simon. He’d wanted to fuck him badly, but in his line of work, one-night stands were all he could afford. The bouncer had been eyeing him all night. The chemistry between them had been fierce, and Simon had had a feeling that Levi wanted the same thing he did. So when he ran into him on the street, he offered him a ride. It was simple as that. They had not exchanged personal information, and Simon never expected to see Levi again. This came totally out of the blue, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. He’d liked Levi. Under different circumstances, and in another life, maybe he’d have wanted to see him again. But he’d believed the man he fucked was human.

But Levi was an animal. And a wanted man. No, not a man, he had to keep that in mind. Levi was a beast who couldn’t be allowed to run free. And Simon had a job to do. His loyalty to the Agency and to Richard Graham came before anything else.

Graham’s voice broke into his thoughts. “I want him, Simon, and I intend to use Noah for bait. In the meantime, the slave is safely tucked away at our new secure facility.”

Simon suppressed a frown. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to keep Noah here?”

“I’ll bring him back when we get a handle on the half-breed’s whereabouts. Until then, I want him in my behavioral modification program. And I want to question him myself.”

Graham has a taste for blonds. I should have known.

As if Graham heard him, he continued his explanation. “The slave has already been trained to serve a man’s needs. Why should his talents go to waste? I intended to fly out there immediately and take possession of him, but something came up. Thanks to your father.”

“My father, sir?”
What has the congressman been up to now?

Graham nodded. “He’s a good man, and he’s done me a big favor. After you dealt with the media, your father intervened with the Governor of New York and got a pardon for my Were-agent Duke Baron. He was being held on murder charges by the Weres in Dogtown, that wolf ghetto that’s given us so many problems. I think we got him out before he broke and revealed any information that might discredit us. He’s being held in
Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison. I need to get him out, and I have to do it personally.” Graham paused. “He listens to me.
I trained him myself, but it pains me to admit that he’s a lousy spy. I put a lot of time and money into that wolf-shifter, and now I’m afraid I’ll have to exterminate him.”

Simon handed back the photos, his mind already coming up with a solution for Graham’s latest problem. “Sir? If I might suggest an alternative…”

“Yes, Simon, go ahead.”

“There is a way to utilize Baron’s talents and still keep him out of trouble. Why not find him a job at the new installation?”

Graham leaned his head forward and rested his chin on his fingertips. “It’s a good idea,” he said finally. “I find myself depending on you more and more, Simon. You will go far in this organization.” Graham picked up the file decisively, as if he’d just made a decision. He shoved the photos inside and slid it over the desk to Simon. “I want you with me when I visit our new facility. Take this home and read it over carefully. You’ll be hearing from me in a few days. Make sure you’re available.”

Fuck!
The last thing he wanted to do was see Noah again, but Simon picked up the folder and stood. “Of course.”

“Simon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s important that we find this Were.”

“You can count on me, Mr. Graham. I’ll find your half-breed.”

Simon had disappeared so quietly and quickly, he left Levi stunned—and furious. The shifter searched the alley frantically, tossing aside metal garbage bins and Dumpsters as if they were made of cardboard. Rats and cockroaches scattered as the larger predator let his anger out on whatever he happened to grab. Finally, Levi had to admit that the other man was gone.

He fumed as he tracked Simon’s tantalizing scent, now mixed with his own. The depth of Levi’s anger surprised him. Of course he’d just lost his only link to Noah, but there was more to it. Levi felt like a spurned lover. How stupid was that? What had he expected? This was no romance. Simon had said as much. This was all about a quick fuck in an alley, nothing more. Did he want more? Levi had to admit that he did. He’d just had one of the longest and hottest orgasms of his life. He liked giving up control, and he liked the way Simon made him—dominated and abjectly submissive.

Obviously, Simon had gotten what he wanted, and it didn’t include exchanging cell numbers.
Fuck him! But isn’t that exactly what you want to do—again and again and again?
Yes, but it wasn’t all about the sex. Simon was a link to Noah. His only link. He’d hoped after their close encounter, Simon would at least be willing to set up another meeting.

Still, Levi was not at a complete loss. Although he’d lost Simon’s scent again, he still had Simon’s name and his hacker friend, who could find the
weaknesses in any computer or network and wiggle his way inside. The elusive programmer would expect repayment sometime in the future. Levi would owe him big time and he didn’t know how he’d repay the favor, but the hacker was a patient person who liked having people in his debt.

Levi gave the surrounding area one more cursory glance, put on his shirt and headed home to his third floor walkup in a converted brownstone on Pine Street. His one-bedroom apartment was sparsely furnished, but he didn’t need much. A black metal card table and four folding chairs with vinyl upholstered seats filled the small dining area. On the table, sat his laptop, a printer, and a stack of file folders where he kept information about where he’d searched for Noah.

Levi turned on the PC and went to a harmless-looking website called Techy Museum. It provided a trip down memory lane, the history of computing, going back to calculators and punch cards. The pictures alone were priceless. Levi had poured over them many times. This time he went right to a picture of an old IBM PC XT. The XT originally came with 128 kb of RAM, a floppy disk drive, and a 10 MB hard drive.

We’ve come a long way, baby!

Levi laughed as he clicked on the space bar of the keyboard in the photo. Another window opened up. This one had a dialogue box that required a password. Levi entered a long string of letters, numbers, and symbols that he had committed to memory. He was rewarded with a welcome screen and a blinking cursor. He started typing.

[Hello Hodag]

[Where U been Rolf?]

The man never slept. Thank God for that. Levi had no time to waste.

[I’ve been Busy]

[2 busy 4 an old friend?]

[It’s complicated]

[Explain]

[I need information]

Several years ago, a lover who shared a mutual interest in computers had introduced Levi to the online hacker he knew only as Hodag. The lover had long since disappeared, but the connection with Hodag remained a valuable contact. At first Levi thought the hacker must live in Wisconsin because hodags are part of the lumberjack folklore of that state. But then, he discovered that hodags are also well known to cave explorers across the country, and so the man could be anywhere. If indeed Hodag was a man. For all Levi knew, he could be communicating with a female. They had never met, and it was likely they never would. Hodag was a computer wizard, much smarter than Levi, but for some reason, they had built up a trust between them. Levi typed out his request for information on Simon Black, and Hodag told him he would get back to him.

Levi checked in throughout the rest of the night, but didn’t get a response until morning. What he read didn’t make him happy. Simon Black was an agent with the Division of Shifter Affairs, and not just any agent, but a man who was connected. Black’s father was a congressman. Levi wasn’t stupid. He could put two and two together as well as any man and come up with four.

It couldn’t be an accident that Black had gone after him and Noah on the same night. The DSA must have discovered the connection between Levi and the slave. Of course there was always the outside chance that it was a coincidence. That the government wanted Noah because they were cracking down on slavers, or maybe Noah was involved in some other bullshit, like drugs. And it was quite possible that Simon just wanted to fuck Levi because…well, just because. There was no doubt that Simon had enjoyed the sex as much as Levi.

Then why doesn’t he want more?

Levi thought about all the men he’d dumped after one night. Black could be a loner, just like him, and probably for a lot of the same reasons—work, trust issues, etc., etc., etc. Still, being rejected sucked. Levi cast it off. One-nighters were a fact of life in his world. Hooking up with someone for a quick fuck with no strings attached happened all the time. And most men did not exchange personal information. No one wanted to be stalked later on.