Holiday Mates: Supernatural Enforcers Agency Short Stories (10 page)

“You let your husband boss you around?  I’d never let mine tell me what to do.  In my house, I’m the boss.”

Erin gave her a deadpan look.  “You sure he didn’t kill you?”

“Har de har har!  Now go to my house and get a vision or whatever!”

“Shannon, Gunner is looking into the case.  And he’s right, if I were going to get a vision, I would have when I was over there on Valentine’s.”  Erin gave her a sad look.  “Perhaps you’re going to have to accept that we may never find out what happened.”

“Get over this you cow!” yelled Shannon as she lunged at Erin.

Erin didn’t move, or flinch, as a frustrated ghost tried to slap at her.  Other than a slight chill as the spectre passed through her, there was no effect.  Although…  She blinked as an image of a woman in a hospital bed flickered through her mind.  The woman was hooked up to life support.  She got a look at the name on the chart.

“Does the name Diane Temple mean anything to you?” asked Erin, slowly.

“No!” griped Shannon as she started pacing the kitchen.

“When you passed through me I saw a woman called Diane Temple in a hospital bed.”

“So what?”

“So, I must have seen it for a reason.”

Shannon stopped and stared at her.  “Are you saying you got a vision?”  Excitement shimmered over her form.

Erin hesitated.  “Maybe.  I just don’t know what it means.”

“Well let’s find this Dinah Trumpet and shake the bitch until she spills what she knows about me.”

“Diane Temple,” muttered Erin, “and I think she’s in a coma.”  She paused.  Gunner told her explicitly that he didn’t want her going to the house until they had… appeased Shannon.  But surely a hospital would be safe.  And it looked like Los Lobos General.  She remembered the hospital vividly from the time she was there after a wolf shifter tried to throttle her…
long story
.

“I suppose I could call the hospital and ask about her.  And I suppose if I called Gunner and told him…”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

*

Erin peeked inside Diane Temple’s hospital room.  She had flashed her SEA badge to get past security.

“Well?  What’s happening?  What’s going on?  Who is this woman?” demanded her very own annoying ghost.

“You’ve been with me the whole time; you know as much as me.”

Erin approached the bed carefully and gasped as she recognized the occupant.  “It’s you!” she whispered as she looked up at Shannon’s ghost.

“You really shouldn’t have come here,” said an angry voice behind her.

*

Gunner sifted through the files as he sipped on a cup of the
gawdawful
SEA coffee, which seemed to have been percolating since dinosaurs roamed the earth.  He doubted he was going to find anything.  He wouldn’t admit it to the arrogant, shifter-hating LLPD cops, but they did a thorough job.  And if the reward Mike had offered hadn’t stirred up any witnesses, he doubted anything would.

His bear grumbled.  No, the beast was right; he had to keep looking.  Erin couldn’t turn her abilities off, but if he could help get rid of one ghost who was mildly haunting her, he was going to do everything he could.  He loved Erin.  Every single part of her.  Wouldn’t change a thing about her.  His bear agreed with that wholeheartedly.  But he wished he could protect her from herself.  Erin in a trance was easily the scariest thing he’d ever witnessed.  He worried about what she might unconsciously do.

Not to mention Shannon was hell on his love life.  While he didn’t share Erin’s reticence about resuming their amorous activities, he wasn’t keen on the crazy spook watching them either. 
Not to mention the painful incident the day before. 
Thankfully he was good as new.

Wes, a liger shifter and fellow agent strolled into the break room, whistling.  Gunner got on okay with him, even if he was a cat and, therefore, a horny, sly bastard.

“Hey, no Erin today?”

His bear rumbled.  An immediate quirk of jealousy assailed him as he wondered why the cat was so interested in his mate.  Gunner soothed that away quickly.  Wes was just being friendly.  There was nothing in it and certainly no need to go loco.  He wondered if he’d ever stop being so possessive. 
He doubted it somehow.

“Erin’s cutting back on her hours.”

Wes smirked.  “How’d you get her to agree to that?”

Gunner shrugged and went back to perusing the files.  It had involved a meat feast party sub, curly fries, an epic foot rub and a marathon of Charmed (which he loathed), but Erin had reluctantly agreed to work fewer hours.  She didn’t want to, but even she couldn’t deny that she was slowing down.  He’d actually been more concerned about getting Erin’s team leader Diaz to agree to her working less.  But, oddly enough, the jaguar shifter had been more than accommodating.  The damn cat had virtually been jumping for joy ever since Christmas.  There were rumors spreading that the jaguar had either won the lottery or was on drugs. 
If Gunner cared at all, he would have looked into that.

Wes let out a groan and threw his coffee cup at Gunner.  His bear saw it coming and batted it away.  The beast roared in fury.

“What the hell?” he snarled.

“Erin’s in danger, asshat.  Look at your freaking phone,” slurred Wes before doubling over and shuddering.  “What the fuck just happened?”

Gunner grabbed his phone and noticed the missed call.  “Erin!”

*

Shannon licked her lips as she blinked awake.  She let out a croak and was immediately plied with water from her husband.  Tears streamed down his happy face as Shannon glared at him.

“What the crapola is going on?” she rasped.

A vaguely familiar, pretty brunette stepped forward.  She smiled kindly, as she hugged her huge stomach.  “Do you remember anything?”

“Uhmmmm… Erin?” 
How did she know her name?

The brunette nodded.

“Oh, Shannon!” wailed Mike, trying to hug the life out of her.

“Need air, moron!” she gasped.

A huge blonde guy with light blue eyes put a hand on Mike’s shoulder.  She had the strange sensation that blondie was really pissed at her, but she had no idea why.

She picked at the various tubes coming out of her body.  Hospitals were so gross.  Wait, why was she in a hospital? 
Was she sick?

“You’re probably a little confused right now,” said Erin.

“No freaking kidding,” she muttered.

Erin blew out a breath.  “Long story short, your husband’s assistant…”

“Shelly fake tits mcbitch face?”

“Yes, her.  She drugged you and had her sister, who’s a nurse, put you in a medically induced coma.  She had her sister admit you to the hospital under the name Diane Temple and paid the health insurance through your husband’s company.”

Shannon glared at Mike, who gave her a sheepish smile.

“Apparently, Shelly was in love with your husband, but also wanted to keep your trust fund money, so she made you disappear.  She was worried about your body showing up, so she decided to keep you alive.  I think the plan was to get Mike to marry her and eventually she was going to… dispose of you.”

“I never touched Shelly,” declared Mike, piously.

“While you were in the coma, you were kind of half-dead, so your spirit was haunting your house, and as I’m psychic, you sort of latched onto me.”

“Where’s Shelly now?  I am going to pound her!”  Shannon tried to get out of bed, but moving was actually harder than she remembered.

“Take it easy, lovebug,” murmured Mike.

“Ugh, I hate that nickname you idiot,” hissed Shannon.

Mike beamed.  “Isn’t she wonderful?  She’s just like her old self.”

She looked at Erin.  “So you figured out what happened?”

Erin shrugged.  “I had a vision which led me here.”

“Which almost got you killed,” muttered blondie.

Erin gave a patient shake of her head.  “When I called the hospital, Shelly’s sister called her, and Shelly tried to hurt me, so I maced her and threatened to shoot her if she tried to move.  She’s now under arrest.”  Erin stroked her belly.  “I may be pregnant, but I’m still an SEA agent.”  That was said to blondie who was seriously scowling.  “Apparently Shelly’s not so tough when she isn’t sneaking up on people in the dark with a syringe.”

“Ugh, what a nightmare.  How long have I been here?  Can we go home?”

Blondie took Erin’s hand and hurried her to the door.  “We’ll let you get some rest.”

Mike said thank you to them before giving Shannon a guilty smile.

*

“What?!  A year?  A fucking year?  And you sold my house?!” 
Shannon could be heard throughout the whole hospital.

Gunner whispered in her ear, “Let’s get out of here before she finds out we bought her house.”

Erin snickered as he led her to the elevator.  “No wonder she was such a cranky ghost – she wasn’t a real ghost.  Must have been how she managed to take control of Wes, even if it was only briefly.  I hope he’s okay.”

He pursed her lips, and Erin rolled her eyes.  “I’m fine, the babies are fine – we’re all fine.”

“You might not have been,” he ground out.

“But I am.  I told you, I'm surprisingly capable.  And instead of worrying about what might have happened, perhaps we should pick up where we left off on Valentine’s.”

He thawed slightly.  “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  She ran her hands over his chest.  “In fact, perhaps it’s about time that we spent a little time getting to know our new home.  Now that it’s spook free.”

He wrapped his arms around her and growled before nipping the bonding mark on her neck.  She trembled in his strong arms.

“We don’t have any furniture,” he breathed against her skin.  “Mike removed all his stuff – it’s completely empty.”

“Well, I guess you’re just going to have to be creative.  Just make sure you wear the Valentine’s underwear – that’s a dealbreaker.”

He chuckled.  “Sounds like a plan.  Mate.  Mine.”

The end

Lucky Charmed

“And this is my desk.”

“Oooh!”

“This is where I do my work.”

“Ooooohhhh.”

“And this is my stapler.”

“Oh my!  You are the most impressive male I have ever met.  Your very own stapler?  Oh me, oh my!  I’m surprised I don’t just swoon right here and now.”

Diaz let out a dirty chuckle.  Wes paused and cocked an eyebrow outside the slightly ajar door to Diaz’s office.  He heard the definite sounds of kissing and his inner liger huffed and inhaled.

Diaz had a female in his office
.  Not just any female – a penguin shifter, not one he recognized.  Only one penguin worked in the building, and this mystery penguin wasn’t her.

There was a sharp slap as the female squawked.  “Not here!”

Diaz made an uncharacteristic whining noise.  “But Pingu!”

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed, “and we are not having sex in your office!”

Diaz was known for his flirty nature, but actually bringing a female to work… now
that
was unheard of.  The horny jaguar serial dated and Wes understood that he never even invited his females to his apartment, never mind where he worked.

This was definitely worth a look thought his liger, virtually grinning with malicious intent.

Wes banged on the door and barged right into the tiny office.  Both Diaz and Wes were lead agents for teams who worked cases for the Supernatural Enforcers Agency.  All of the lead agents had their own offices, which was a generous description – they were basically shoe-boxes.  Gunner another team leader and a polar bear shifter could barely fit through the door of his office.

“Hey, Diaz.”

The jaguar spun in his chair, a growl on his face and a penguin shifter on his lap.  The penguin blinked at him, and Wes allowed a huge smile to spread over his face.

Wes placed a hand over his heart and gave his best cute kitty face.  “Pardon me; I didn't realize that Diaz had company.  I’m Wes; it’s nice to meet you.”

Diaz, still growling, managed to scowl at the same time, while his arm tightened around the female.  His hand, which had been resting lightly on her ass, squeezed proprietarily.

The penguin rolled her eyes and tapped Diaz on the shoulder.  “Rude,” she murmured to him, before beaming at Wes.

Struggling to get away from Diaz’s possessive grip she leaned forward and shook Wes’ hand.  “I’m Penny; it’s nice to meet you, too.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” he said with feeling.

Diaz didn’t like that at all. 
Yep, different when the shoe was on the other paw.
  Usually, Diaz flirted outrageously with other agents’ females.

But, Wes had to admit he was kind of surprised at her.  She wasn’t anything like the usual tall, sleek but ultimately self-absorbed bombshells that Diaz occasionally turned up with at the bar they all frequented.  She was cute and sparky.  But that wasn’t to say she wasn’t exceedingly pretty.  She had large silver eyes framed by long, dark lashes, as well as a silken curtain of black hair that flowed to the top of her ass and a small rosebud mouth.  Her eyes seemed to be alight with mischief.  She was on the small side with very rounded hips – which Diaz didn’t seem to want to let go of.

Wes nodded at Diaz, who was locked in a perma-scowl.  “One of your suspects?  Trying to annoy a confession out of her?”

Diaz snarled as Penny smirked.  “No, I’m…”

“My girlfriend,” snapped Diaz.

Wes’ beast almost fell over trying to laugh.  The lustiest, most flirtatious shifter in the whole SEA building was getting bent out of shape at introducing his girlfriend to another male.  It was just too delicious.

“You sure?  If he’s holding you hostage, blink once for yes and…”

“Wes!” snarled Diaz.

He held up his hands.  “Okay, okay.  You’re a brave, brave woman.”

Penny let out a suffering sigh.  “I know.”

“If you two are done,” ground out Diaz.  “We have lunch reservations.”

Penny giggled, “I’d hardly say getting drive-through and making out in the car counts as having reservations.”

Diaz grumbled, and Penny whispered something into his ear that Wes pretended not to hear - it was full of naughty promises for later.  Diaz smiled, and his eyes flashed to the yellow of his beast for a couple of beats.

She pushed off his lap, and with great reluctance, he let her go.

Penny twinkled a smile at him.  “I just have to visit the whizz palace and then I’m ready.  Nice to meet you, Wes.”

“You, too,” he said, unable to hide his grin.

“Meet you in the lobby, Walt.”

Diaz grunted and stood up so he could awkwardly maneuver her out the door, making sure she didn’t in any way touch Wes while taking the opportunity to pinch her ass cheeks.  The moment she was out of sight, he swung murderous eyes in Wes’ direction.

“Choose your next words wisely,” warned the jaguar as he dropped back into his desk chair.

“Walt?”

“It’s my name.”

“No way?  I thought your name was just Diaz, to be honest.”

Diaz fidgeted in his seat.  “Well?”

“Well, what?”

The jaguar narrowed his eyes.  “Aren’t you going to make some comment about Penny?”

“Is there anything I could say that wouldn’t make you smash me in the face?”

Diaz grinned.  “Doubtful.”

“She’s…” he considered the next word carefully, “nice.”

The jaguar scrubbed a hand down his face.  “She’s perfect is what she is.”

“So… a penguin?”  Diaz was always more of the big cat kind of guy.  Although, for a while he seemed to be trying out different shifter species.  Out of natural curiosity, he said.  It was the reason he gave for flirting with the hedgehog shifter nurse – and definitely not because it pissed off the surly wolf shifter who had a crush on her and who eventually mated her.

“You dare laugh and…”

Wes held up his hands.  “Wouldn’t dream of it.  So you and her… been dating long?”  If they had, he had kept it very quiet.

“Since Christmas Eve.  I saved her life,” he told him proudly.

Wes snorted.  He heard the story of the Christmas Eve hostage situation.  According to the tactical officer, Lake, a penguin shifter –
who he now knew to be Penny
- had raced to Diaz’s rescue on roller skates and saved
his
life.

“Surprised you haven’t introduced her to everyone.”

Looking back, it was kind of odd that Diaz had been pretty much AWOL from the bar since Christmas.  Usually, he was there every night.

Diaz winced.  “Yeah, she thought so, too.  She was starting to think I was embarrassed about dating her, so I had to bring her here.”

“Are you?”

“No!” roared Diaz, making the tiny office and everything in it rattle.  “First of all, I don’t get embarrassed.  And second, I would never be embarrassed of her.  Just didn’t want any of the assholes who work here sniffing around her.”

Wes noticed that in pride of place on Diaz’s desk was a framed photo of Penny wearing a tiny pair of hot pants, a tight, pink t-shirt that said ‘flappy racer’ and roller skates.  It stood out against the photos of Diaz’s many family members and his Corvette.  Actually, Penny’s photo was directly in front of the Corvette –
the car that Diaz had previously claimed was the love of his life.

Diaz pulled a box out of his desk drawer and opened it to show Wes a ring.  It was a dark pearl set amongst diamonds.  “I’m planning on asking her to marry me on St. Patrick’s Day.”

Both Wes’ eyebrows rose.  Diaz, the biggest hound dog –
or hound cat
– in the building, a male who rarely even told females his last name, was actually diving into marriage at warp speed.

“Wow, that’s… fast.”

Diaz smiled faintly as he looked at the ring.  “She’s my mate.  I’m not letting her get away.  I’m going to ask her to marry me and bond with me.”  He snapped the box shut.  “I was just hoping to get it locked down before I had to introduce her to any of my horny bastard friends.  Hell, I was hoping to get it locked down on Valentine’s Day, and I would have if it weren’t for that crew of strippers who were breaking into houses, giving people lap dances and stealing everything they could carry.”

Wes nodded grimly.  He remembered when Diaz and his team arrested them.  He’d never seen so many male thongs or baby-oiled pecs in one room.  Some of the women they robbed wrote to them in prison.

“So, how come you didn’t introduce her to my team?”

Diaz scowled.  “I’m not sharing her with any of the males in this building.  I gave her a tour of the cafeteria, the gym because I knew it would be empty at this time of day, archives where they keep the zombies, the technicians’ labs because they’re all nerds – and there’s no way she’d choose a nerd over me, and I introduced her to every female in the building except for Charleen in tactical.”

Wes considered that was probably wise
.  Charleen, the ostrich shifter, was the female equivalent of Diaz, and she liked women, too.

He slapped Diaz on the back.  “Good luck to you.  And just remember, when she says no, the Stop ‘n’ Go has a sale on catnip.”

He was out the door before the punch could land.

*

Penny fiddled with the strap of her purse as she waited patiently for Diaz to arrive.  Her inner penguin tried to pout disapprovingly.  She was
not
insecure.  She had no reason to be.  He hadn’t said it, but she was sure that Diaz loved her. 
Pretty sure
.  She sometimes had a sixth sense about these things, and she had the same strong feeling of belief as when she was certain she had failed her driving test.  Course, during the test, she’d flipped off two other drivers, run through a stop sign, accidentally got on the freeway and was pulled over for speeding –
but that wasn’t the point
.

Diaz certainly
loved
being with her.  And as for the loving – that was incessant and incredible.  They couldn’t even see a movie without being thrown out for indecency.  Diaz could barely go a moment without touching her, and of course, she was powerless to resist his expert attentions.

Penny loved him
.  She was in no doubt about that.  And hadn’t she been the one to insist that they take things a little slowly?  Sure, they’d already met each other’s families on Christmas Day.  Hers had been flabbergasted.  His had been teasing.  But other than that they’d just been steadily dating,
and obviously having sex as often as possible
.  And she had been fine with that.  When they first met she wasn’t ready to mate immediately and had wanted to take a little time to get to know one another.  But now she knew him, and she was more than ready for the ‘L’ word.

As to the tingles of worry she was currently feeling, she just hadn’t realized how many females Diaz worked with. 
There hardly seemed to be any men in the building at all!
  The zombies didn’t count, and the technicians who cowered under Diaz’s panty-wetting glare when they dared even look at her were not even in the same league as her horny jaguar.

And the women in this building…
ay chi-wow-wow!

If they weren’t lion shifters who looked like Valkyries, they were tiger shifters who looked like the grinning incarnation of a saucy joke.  And she wasn’t even going to get started on the swan shifter whose long, graceful neck looked like it should have an elevator installed.  There was just far too much beauty in the building, and it was pissing off her squat, grumpy bird.

She wasn’t some lithe, fast, predatory shifter - she was a penguin shifter who had a tendency to lose her temper and be sullen.  Not to mention her huge ass.

And yet, her penguin reminded her, it was a peachy, round ass that Diaz couldn’t stop groping.  An ass that he lustily told her he liked to see rocking in front of him when he took her
over and over…

Penny fanned herself with her hands.  Perhaps she had been a little too quick to eschew office sex.

The redheaded tiger shifter – Iris?  Isis? – stomped out of the elevator dragging by the ear a tall, dashingly handsome, strawberry blonde man in a green suit.  She pushed him into the lobby and let go of him.

“If I see you in this building again, it better be because you murdered someone!” she snapped before turning her furious attention to the guard at the security desk.  “Do not let this idiot past you again!”

The brutal looking bear shifter guard held up his hands.  “I didn’t.”

Her lips pursed before her attention swung back to the man in green and she barked, “What are you standing there for?  Get out!”

He gave her a stern look and pulled a green bowler hat onto his head.  “That’s not how it works, m’dear,” he said softly, in a slightly lilting accent.  “The SEA caught me so now I have to perform three acts before I’m free to go.  I’m indentured to you until I do.”

The tigress curled her lip in derision.  “Right, because you’re a leprechaun.”