The Alphas Game - Complete Set (2 page)

He held his hands in position behind his back and allowed the man to cuff him. “Go ahead.” He lowered his head again. The man was ashamed, and he didn’t know what to do about it. “Am I going to be okay?”

“You’ll be fine. I’m quite skilled at what I do.” When the other agent left, Hope started on her questions that she wanted to ask. “What do you remember of the past few weeks?”

“Nothing really.” Grey admitted, not even attempting to conceal how upsetting this entire situation was. “It’s all kind of fuzzy, like I’m trying to remember through a thick fog. That doesn’t make any sense at all, I know, but it’s the truth. Maybe I was drugged.”

“Perhaps. We’re  going to do what we can to fix it, but you have to trust me.”

Grey looked at her, carefully considering the woman’s shining blue eyes. “I trust you.”

Her blonde mass of curls sparkled in the florescent lighting, bobbing when  she nodded and smiled. “That’s good; it’s going to make this easier.” She started to focus, staring into his eyes. “There is something wrong here, I’m pretty sure that it’s the work of fairies, but if you need more details than that it’s going to take longer.”

“What’s going on? What happened to me? I don’t understand.” Grey’s voice was pleading; he looked entirely bewildered, as if his entire life had been turned upside down. “What is happening to me?” He asked the question again, hoping that some answer would magically materialize.

“We don’t know for sure, but we think that you might have being controlled, so they called me in to check the signs. Depending on what we find we might be able to do something about it.” Her explanation was calm, she was using the minor abilities that she had gained from her fairy ancestry to calm the beast within the man. Something about her parentage allowed her to react with animals and people of a bestial nature with great grace and control.

Hope smiled at the man; it wasn’t a smile that beamed, but rather one that held the compassion that she was well known for. She hummed as she worked, carefully smelling her way through several potions that were in her bag before she started to work with him.

Chapter2

Grey is a handsome man, I’m actually looking forward to working with him in the future. He’s got the magnificent dark brown; I’m talking so dark that you can barely tell it isn’t black, hair that is just a touch too short to be considered inappropriate for work. His eyes are a deep black, so dark that it is impossible to tell the irises from the pupils. From the twinkle within them, it is easy to see that he is a person who can be easily swayed by passion; that natural characteristic is exactly what got him into the trouble with his alleged fairy ex-girlfriend. It was a trait that many shifters had, quite common actually. I don’t think that he’s going to change it however, but you never really know. His body has been well built from labor and weightlifting, it’s easy to see how women are attracted to him. In fact, I can feel my heartbeat speed up when he looks at me with a practiced lady killer smirk that holds promises that are only appropriate in the dark when two people are alone.

“Is she your mate?” Grey asked his former partner as they sat once again in the interrogation room.

Kevin took offense to the question. “No, she isn’t, not that it’s any of your business.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me. It wasn’t my fault.” Grey was trying to find some way to absolve himself of the guilt that he would carry for the rest of his life. He wanted to leave it behind forever and never think of it again.

“I’m still not entirely convinced of that fact.” The lion was becoming adversarial, that much was very clear. He wasn’t happy about working with this man again.

Rosie butted in to the conversation. “I need him.” After she said it, she couldn’t help but wince. She knew how badly that sounded. She felt the need to explain what she was trying to say. “I need him as an anchor. I might be able to strengthen my visions if he’s close by.”

“I know that, but I don’t have to like it.”

Kevin was pouting while Rosie took over the questioning. “I know they haven’t finished clearing the enchantment yet, but do you remember anything? Anything would help us. Do you have a name?”

“No, I remember her name. I called her Amanda, but I know it’s not her real name. I know it, but I can’t remember what her real name is.”

“What kind of abilities does she have?” Rosie was being specifically gentle with her questions; she knew that Grey wasn’t going to remember easily and there were some things that he might never be able to remember.

“I don’t know. I had the strangest dreams.” The eerie quality of his voice had been fading for a while, but it still held on, unable to fade quickly enough for anyone else’s taste. If he could remember more he would be able to blow this case wide open, but Hope had told them that it was very likely that he would never remember all of it. He might remember what he did, but there wouldn’t be much about the people controlling him. There were other effects helping maintain the memory loss, one that someone like Hope didn’t have a chance to put an end to.

“What did you do in these dreams?”

“I was chasing the two of you in a car; that was one of them.”

“That wasn’t a dream, you actually did that. We were followed by you all the way from Orlando, and we were pretty sure that it was you in that car.”

Grey wasn’t really listening to her. He was going over memories, carefully cataloging the terrible dreams that haunted him during the time he was gone. He had thought that he was sleeping, that everything that had happened was a dream, but it wasn’t. Still the memories held that dreamlike quality, the slipperiness of the thoughts, the struggle to remember the exact events in any semblance of order. “There was a man in Orlando.” He was concentrating impossibly hard. “He had a camera, some equipment that we needed. I bought it from him.”

“We know about him. You followed us from there.” Rosie explained gently.

“There was a hotel, a place with red brick.”

“Can you tell me anything that happened there?” Her voice grew soft and she touched his arm gently, leaning forward and carefully trying to pick up any clues that he didn’t realize he was uttering.

“I don’t remember much.” He rubbed his forehead; a headache was forming from the intense concentration. He closed his eyes trying to bring up anything that he could. “Wait, something happened there. Something horrible, there was blood, so much blood.” He was disturbed and Rosie could tell. A part of her wanted to go easy on the man, but she knew that if he didn’t give them something, Kevin would lose his patience soon. “I was fighting. I was hurting someone. I felt so bad, but I couldn’t stop myself.” Rosie noticed a tear squeeze out of his tightly closed eyes. “I hurt you.” He looked at his former partner. “I am so sorry.”

Kevin grunted. “I’m fine.” He didn’t want to let the man know anything about himself.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” His eyes were fully open now, wide with the realization of what he had done. “I didn’t want to do it, but I had to. I didn’t have a choice.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Kevin crossed his arms, unwilling to acknowledge the apology.

Rosie was getting a little upset. She turned to Agent Leonard, the lion with too much pride, and yelled. “Damn it, Kevin. He was violated and you don’t even seem to give a damn. If it happened to you, and it could have easily,  I would hope that people would be more understanding than you are. If it happened to you, if you were forced to do something against your will, something that you would never consider doing in a million years, would you like to be treated the way you are by people that are supposedly your friends?”

Kevin didn’t blink. “I’m not going to feel guilty about this. He should have been more responsible.”

“If I make a mistake, remind me never to ask for your help.” Rosie groaned; it was fairly clear that she wasn’t going to make the lion see anything other than what he wanted. “You are the most frustrating man I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Trust me, I know the feeling.” His eyes held a memory when she mentioned that. He had said the same thing to her before they spent that amazing night together, of course that was before he broke into her office and was framed for breaking into her home. That was after he had been hurt, and before they had actually captured Grey in that storage shed. He remembered how she had cared for him, how they had made love on the living room floor by the door, and how he had broken the trust by invading her office without permission. He wasn’t sure if she would ever get that feeling again, but he knew that being a bastard to Grey probably wasn’t going to help his case.

Rosie could see all of the memories flash through his eyes. The hazel color seemed to shift with the specific memories as they rushed through his head, giving them a strange sparkle that resulted from the quick change. “Be nice.” Her warning didn’t fall on deaf ears, but each of the men took the sentiment a different way. Grey was thinking that it was a warning about his behavior, but Kevin knew what she was really referring to.

They couldn’t really get a lot of extra information out of Grey, he didn’t have much yet, but they did manage to get a few facts. They had stayed in the area, within two hours of the Tampa. They ate at several restaurants, but it was mostly at the Chinese buffet where  the psychic detective and the wolf’s former partner had seen him. He had been ordered to get all of the files, but the person he was working with had only wanted to know about fairies that were held in special prisons around the country and she wanted to know details about the prisons.

“I wonder why that is? Can we have access to that information?” Rosie asked Agent Leonard after Grey had come up with the information, extracted from his cloudy memory with an excess of frustrated straining.

“Yeah, I’ll arrange it.“He nodded to the one-way mirror, letting them know to pull up the information for the consultant who secretly had a higher security clearance than ninety percent of the people in the room.

The witch left, leaving the two partners to face each other. Grey tried not to look Kevin in the eye, but the lion was specifically seeking his gaze. Agent Leonard knew that it was making the man uncomfortable and he didn’t really care. He enjoyed his tiny bit of revenge directed toward the traitor. “I don’t know what you think you’re getting away with.” Kevin spoke softly, carefully opening the door as he spoke to cover the sound. “I don’t believe you and I don’t trust you.”

“I understand.” Grey’s head was down so he didn’t see what happened next. The lion flew into action as they were leaving the room. He forced the other man against the wall and put his forearm against his throat. Hazel eyes burned bright green. It was a frightening sight. Kevin’s arms rippled with his powerful muscles. He looked like he was ready to kill someone.

“Let me make this clear, because I don’t think that you do understand.” The low growl was bone chilling and violently cruel. “You screwed up, I don’t care if you were controlled or not. You betrayed this country, our people and everything I believed in. I don’t just bounce back to trusting you like all of those other people out there.” Unlike Rosie’s angry screeches and screams, Kevin’s voice stayed low and controlled, the most frightening way a person could threaten another. His voice said more about what could happen than his words. It was filled with barely controlled rage and his face was contorted into a snarl of anger. “You aren’t going to get away with anything, and I will be watching you. You don’t stand a chance of getting anything by me.”

Grey didn’t respond, people were pouring into the room, forcing him and his attacker apart. The director stood between them. Deputy Director Schmidt moved into the mass of bodies, ordering the lion to back down. “You’re going to work with him. That’s already been arranged. It isn’t going to change unless you get yourself arrested.”

Kevin ignored the order, instead staring deeply at his former partner. “I’ll be watching you.”

The deputy director moved between them, but he was much shorter than the two men and the florescent light bounced spectacularly off of his balding scalp. “I’m getting tired of this shit. Someone is messing with us and we’ve got to do something about it. Leonard, you aren’t going to screw this up because of some personal vendetta. We’ve brought in another specialist that might be able to help him recover some more of his memory.”

“What other hack are you bringing in?” Kevin didn’t believe it. “He’s lying. I can tell. You can’t let him get away from this.”

“Trust me, the woman we’re bringing in will be able to tell if he’s lying in a heartbeat. She’s about as expert as someone can get.” The deputy director wasn’t afraid of the shifters, they all knew that he had ways to handle them and he wasn’t afraid to use the tricks if he needed to do it. The only mystery was which one he would choose to use.

Kevin backed up. “Who is it?”

“Anna.” The word brought everyone down. It was a simple name, but the woman commanded respect. She used to have Schmidt’s job, but had left to start her own company. Nobody really knew what she was, but she would do the right thing, even if it didn’t seem like it was the right thing at first.

The silence gave way to a loud whispering from the other agents in the room, the ones that had come in to break up the fight. Kevin actually believed that this woman wouldn’t lead him astray and she wouldn’t lie for anyone. He nodded. “When is she supposed to get here?”

As if on cue,  a tall dark haired woman of unknown origin walked into the room. Her accent was unrecognizable, probably a mesh of accents from the many different countries that she had been living in. “I just arrived.” She turned to Kevin’s boss. “When can I get started and where can I work?”

“Hope has already been setting up in one of the empty offices. I hope that it will work.”

“As long as there is privacy I think that we can do this. Who is this Hope person?”

“Rosie Zuckerman’s secretary, she’s an expert in fairy magic, or at least the best qualified expert that we could get right away.”

“Ah ok, her grandfather was Obie, wasn’t he?” She appeared to know that off the top of her head. Kevin scrunched up his nose, but he couldn’t smell anything specific, in fact she smelled like she was a little bit of everything.

“I think so.” The deputy director answered, in awe of the powerful woman who had volunteered to come in, helping them out without taking anything out of their budget.

“I’ll take him and we’ll get to work. Show me where we’re going.” She and Grey followed the Deputy Director out of the interrogation room, the previous altercation being pretty much forgotten.