Southern Shifters: Pryde and Precious (Kindle Worlds Novella)

A
rianna Ferrars
, a minor telepath, might be a skilled botanist, but her specialty is in the marriage of genomes to create vibrant blooms—not recombinant DNA for scent. When senior researcher on the scent project disappeared, Arianna finds herself facing a new task. With only a handful of samples and a rapidly approaching deadline, Arianna needs a crash course in chemistry from military attaché Colonel Brandon.

Working undercover among the humans gives John Brandon access to the latest potential threats against the clans. When Project Pryde crosses his desk, he makes it his business to find out why a psi clan wants to work with high-level human chemists. Intercepting their request and supplying his information, he sets out to seduce the lovely Arianna Ferrars in order to learn everything she knows.

The last thing the white tiger expects to find in the delicate plant specialist is a treasure more precious than any science.

“
A
s always
, we begin in the seated position, hands relaxed in the lap, feet flat on the floor. Let your gaze soften and take a deep breath. In through the nose and out through the mouth.” The nondescript masculine voice recited the gentle meditation exercise, insisting she take a step back from her thoughts, to focus on her body. How did it feel? Experience the contact between her body and the chair, her feet and the floor.
What a bunch of claptrap.

“If you feel your mind wander from the path, take a breath and return to your focus. As you inhale again, let your eyes close. Let the sounds around you, the scents, and the space fill your awareness, note them so you can eliminate them one at a time.” Since the masculine voice was one of the sounds, did that mean she got to eliminate him?

“Remember, your thoughts are a highway, constantly shifting and changing with new thoughts streaming onto the road and other thoughts finding the exit. We’re not going to try and stop them; instead, we want to sit back and observe.”

How the hell is this supposed to help me relax?
Tension knotted her shoulders and bunched in her neck. A cramp in her thigh sent a throb of pain along her spinal cord. Maybe the thoughts entering her mental highway were pain. She had a ton of work to do, and she’d spent the whole morning repotting and planting new hybrids she’d been growing. Dirt crusted her nails, and the scent of loamy earth filled her nostrils. Maybe doing the meditation exercise hadn’t been the best idea.

“Let’s focus on our breathing…”
Let’s not.
Tuning out the man’s continued advice, she tried to focus on her breathing. The exercises were supposed to help her relax, relieve the stress on her mind and get her thoughts organized. Even a telepath with her low level of skill found herself bombarded by tremendous background noise within her clan and outside of it.

Admittedly, living more amongst the humans than the clan proved quieter for her. Her apartment, for one, was located in a former artist’s colony. Most of the residents in her area were musicians, writers, painters and scholars. Not the most organized of thinkers, but at least they seemed more inwardly focused than other people. Scientists, as natural observers, for example, tended to be louder as did customer service representatives or cashiers. The worst were security personnel—police and the like. Their constant vigilance created a jackhammer on her shields and she needed to guard herself against the noise.

“Are you an observer of your thoughts or are you trying to interfere?” The man’s nonsensical interruption irritated her and she opened her eyes and silenced the program. Her mentors thought she would benefit from meditation techniques.
Arianna, you need to discipline your thoughts. When you can do this, you’ll be able to shield more effectively and hone your talent.

Talent. As telepaths went, she was a micro-organism in a world filled with sharks, whales and barracuda. They didn’t even notice her, and she did her damndest to stay below their radar. She didn’t care if she could read a mind or send her thoughts to another, making her a source of constant disappointment to her parents and her teachers. All she cared about was keeping others out of her mind.

Of course, if I could discipline my thoughts, I’d know the moment someone began to rifle through them.
She annoyed other telepaths almost as much as they annoyed her. Her shields weren’t pristine. They were haphazard and disjointed. Formed more out of brutal necessity in a given moment rather than carefully crafted to glide smoothly through the world of thoughts.
Maybe it’s just me.
Arianna didn’t like people.

Psi. Shifters? Humans? Nope, she preferred plants. Rising from her zero gravity chair, a hedonistic purchase she enjoyed for relief after hours of back-breaking work on her hands and knees in her hothouse gardens, she abandoned her exercises to make a pot of coffee. Like the rest of her apartment, the kitchen was tiny and stocked only with what she needed.

Most of her meals were microwaveable, so she didn’t have to do dishes beyond cleaning out her coffee cup or the occasional silverware. Her refrigerator hosted projects in their nascent stages—seeds she wanted to keep dormant or plants she tested in the dark and chill areas.

Speaking of projects, she opened to check the dahlias she’d been customizing. The hybrids would survive winter and summer. It would allow for beautiful blooms year round, but also could help prevent the flowers from perishing to sudden frosts. Though they were found in higher altitudes all over Mexico and South America, she wanted to cultivate them to grow in the tougher northern reaches and endure greater periods of darkness.

The tubers did well when they could be buried deep down, but they needed a lot of light, and they didn’t like frost. The soft cream-colored blooms in her fridge all looked healthy and hearty. She’d stored them at a relatively cool temperature for four days with limited light. Twisting away from the fridge, she went in search of her tablet. Once her coffee was ready, she poured a cup and drank it while she added notations to her charts. One more day at their current temperature and limited light, then she’d put them under the sun lamps. If her latest hybrids were calculated correctly, they would not only blossom, but thrive with renewed light.

Then we test the frost.
She shivered, whether in anticipation or sympathy, she wasn’t sure. A soft alarm dinged on her tablet—a classified flagged email had been received. Since only the senior managers of her grant-funded project emailed that account, she switched screens to check it immediately. A dozen files were attached to the email and they unpacked and began to download the moment she opened the mail.

Draining her coffee cup, she glared at the email message.

A
rianna Ferrars
,

Y
ou are being reassigned immediately
to the recombinant DNA scent project. The senior researcher is no longer available for questioning; however, you will find all of her notes and the current status of the project attached. Please review and be prepared to present a project plan within twenty-four hours. All other tasks assigned to you will be reapportioned to other projects.

T
he name
at the bottom of the note gave her fury pause— Simon Hampton. He was not only the overseer of all funds for projects like hers, but he was a member of her Psi clan’s council. She couldn’t tell him no. She couldn’t even send a protest. If she tried to decline the project or in any way make waves, he had the power and authority to have her retrieved to her clan.

Worse, he could have her arrested and locked away forever.

Suppressing a shudder, she glanced from the tablet to her fridge then back again. What the hell was the recombinant DNA scent project? Why her? She had to wait another five minutes for the last file to download. When it finished unpacking them, it required a security verification to even open the files, including her thumbprint ID and the password she’d been given by the clan council when they approved her relocation.

After pouring a fresh cup of coffee, she carried it and her tablet back to the living room to begin reading. By the third page, she wished she’d finished the stupid meditation exercise.

It had made more sense.

C
olonel John Brandon
leaned away from his desk and pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache formed behind one eye, the pain an end product of too many hours spent reading reports, emails, and having to respond to them. Though he worked well with humans, their corporate need to file everything, repeat everything and schedule meetings to discuss upcoming topics for meetings continually baffled him. Assigned as a military liaison, he guarded what information he fed to all sides. It was the perfect game for him, one that satisfied his cat and protected his clans.

Patience, however, proved his ally time and again. Several folders awaited his attention. The firm he worked for specialized in corporate intelligence. They gathered data on multiple companies in multiple fields, analyzed their financial strengths, and weaknesses in order to use the information for investment, mergers, acquisitions and more.

Karberos prided itself on authenticating potential twists in technology and research into multi-billion dollar deals, a percentage of which they would in turn pocket to continue their work. Clients hired them for their discretion and track record of proven success. An email flashed on his screen, a note from one of the product managers. A keyword had been red flagged. Though they kept most of their work legitimate, some of their means used to acquire data involved mining unsecured emails and information transfers.

The Internet made their work all too easy.

To open the red flag report, he had to enter a specific password. Only four people within the company had the access codes to the red flag items. All of them clan, all of them shifters—all of them trusted. Begun initially to keep an eye on the developing business interests in and around Clan territories, the company had grown under the nurturing of cutthroat humans who enjoyed the hunt for information as much as John enjoyed the hunt for game.

Three keywords had flagged the email he scanned. The first one he focused on was the chemical symbols for a formula regarding attractive scents. The second for one on denaturing a scent. Both topics which had been explored by human companies over the years, usually with regard to pet care products. On more than one occasion, he’d messed with the formulas at the request of the council to dilute them of any potency. Eliminating all scent markers was a dangerous territory for any chemist to be exploring.

The last one to do so had gone on the run with her mate. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the PSI’s name—Darcy something or other? She’d mated a snow leopard. No one separated mates and their decision to abandon the work and vanish had satisfied most of those worried about how close she had come.

The third keyword, however, sent a flash of anger to heat his blood and replaced away his earlier irritation. Pulling up another screen, he entered the woman’s name and began to scan all the public data he could find on Arianna Ferrars. A botanist, she worked for a known PSI clan research facility. Her primary field appeared to be in plant hybridization, specifically adapting flora from one climate to another.

Why the hell is she attached to this project?

The request in the email involved specific chemical compound questions to a human company that specialized in developing formulas for research. She wanted information on storage, expiration dates and more. The details were as specific as they were vague. Unless one knew about the earlier attempts to create formulas to disguise and eliminate scent as well as enhancing it, they wouldn’t know what they were reading.

A second ding warned him of another keyword-flagged email. Pulling it up, he scanned the response from the company she’d written. Fairly standard, promised to return information within seventy-two hours and it came from a non-response handle which warned the recipient any replies would go unread. Drumming his fingertips, he switched back to the original request.

If a psi clan was intent on pursuing the project once more, he had a duty to his clan to report it. If. The botanist had never worked in any scent projects he could find outside of flora—a step into fauna was a deviation. How much of a deviation? Could she use the work on her plants?

Why would anyone want a scentless flower?
Allergies.
Some humans possessed sensitive sinuses which responded to different scents. If they wanted to see the flowers but not smell them…still, it was a thin reason. Fauna DNA and flora DNA were not similar enough to use one compound on the other.

Or were they? His headache returned with a vengeance. Over the years, he’d learned to adapt to different situations. Researching what he needed to know, most of the time it was attitude which convinced others he was an expert and capable of engaging in a conversation about their project.

The gentle shuffle step of his assistant approaching the door had him securing the screen a moment before she knocked. As Abby always did, she poked her head inside. “Sir, I’m going to place the lunch orders. You haven’t sent me yours.”

Was it after ten already? His gaze tracked to the clock. He’d arrived at the office just after six. “I’m eating out today, Abby.” Decided, he closed the laptop and began to pack it into his backpack. “I’ll also be out for a couple of days. Time to do some field research.”

She laughed. While he tolerated most humans, he was genuinely fond of the woman who’d been his assistant at Karberos for the last five years. Whether he was away on assignment, scouting a potential threat, or eliminating said threat, he could leave the rest of the work in her very capable hands.

“Will you be available by phone or should I tell them you are out of the country?”

“Out of the country.” It was a code for them. It meant he wouldn’t respond, though she would send regular reports to keep him apprised. It frustrated their colleagues when he returned from his mysterious trips that he was never out of the loop. If he’d told her he would be available by phone, she wouldn’t contact him at all unless he reached out to her first.

“Very well. Have a good hunt.” She waved, then closed the door behind her and shuffled away. An illness as a child had left her with a permanent limp, but the physical disability didn’t detract from her sharp mind or her stellar work ethic. When the time came for him to move on from the assignment, he’d miss her.

The first time she’d wished him good hunting on one of his trips, it had startled him. Had she become aware of his shifter status? He never slipped, but she’d explained that he got a certain look in his eye when he had a lead. It reminded her of her father, who loved to go hunting. His cat hadn’t minded the comparison, nor did he.

Leaving the office, he shed the veneer of civility. Whoever Arianna Ferrars turned out to be and whatever she was up to, he enjoyed the fact he could leave the human corporate shenanigans to themselves. Once in his SUV, he programmed her address into the GPS.