Page 17

One week later…

“I’m bored. Why go to such great lengths to save my life only to bore me to death later?”

Garth ignored the sound of Gram’s voice as he continued to watch his sparring opponent—one extremely annoying French vampire. Auberi would love nothing more than to lay Garth out on his ass for all to see. The man would dance and break into the French national anthem or something. Whatever the hell it was the French did when they were excited. It probably involved cheese and dogs. Maybe both at the same time. He didn’t want to know if it did.

“Let me out of here!”

shouted Garth. “I will rip you apart, asshole!”

The crowd they’d attracted all laughed and threw money on a card table they’d set up in the training room.

“Who won?”

asked Jannick. “Whoever bet the Viking wouldn’t make it another thirty minutes before threatening bodily injury and wanting to escape again just won a hundred bucks.”

Garth snarled.

Jannick grinned. “Don’t take that tone with me. I’m not the dumbass who had to have his ass carted back here in a cage because I got stuck in wolf form—again.”

“You’re forgetting that he was stuck in said wolf form for nearly a week now,”

added Hans, picking up the money, clearly the winner of the pool. “At least he smells better now.”

“Only because we had to bathe him,”

reminded Jannick.

Hans groaned. “Don’t say it like that. We didn’t bathe him so much as we threw his naked ass in the showers and barred the door.”

Jannick shrugged. “Half a dozen of this. Six of that.”

Garth tried to make a run for the door, but Auberi was expecting the move and slammed into him. The two locked horns, snarling as Garth fought to get past the dead guy.

He needed to go. He had to get back to Nicolette. She needed him.

Jannick was suddenly there, helping to thrust Garth backwards. He laughed and returned to his seat.

“We’re not about to unleash you onto the world. For the umpteenth time, the girl is fine. When you have ahold of yourself and your wolf, we’ll take you to her ourselves. But you’re not there yet. If roles were reversed, you’d do the same to one of us. You wouldn’t let us loose when we were in a volatile state. You’ve been back to human form for less than eight hours. In that time, you’ve made countless escape attempts, bit the shit out of me and Hans, and have tried to kill Auberi like ten times.”

“He’s already dead,”

snapped Garth. “That can’t count.”

Auberi gave him a sideways glance. “This dead man has managed to keep you occupied in here for hours. Must be something that counts about me. I could be out right now at a club, dancing with sexy people before taking them all home with me for the night, not here with you.”

“So go,”

Garth said in a heated voice. “No one’s stopping you.”

“Ah, yes, but when given the opportunity to beat the hell out of you, how could I resist?”

Jannick laughed.

Garth’s bare feet glided over the foam-tiled mats in the massive training room. The area he was in was often called the dojo by fellow operatives. Though it wasn’t actually one in the traditional sense of the word.

Mat flooring had been installed and while it looked a great deal like hardwood floors, it was anything but. It was made to help both take and cushion blows from alpha-male supernaturals. In reality, not much softened the impact of alpha against alpha, as was the case now.

“This is about as fascinating as watching paint dry,”

shouted Hans from his seat. “We should have left Garth locked in a containment room downstairs. That was more amusing. I never knew the man could string together so many curse words and turn them into threats. If he wouldn’t have smelled like roadkill, we could have left him there to cool off and get his head about him.”

Garth shot Hans a dirty look.

Hans rubbed his lower leg. “I didn’t appreciate you taking a chunk out of me in wolf form, Captain.”

Garth had no memory of biting the man. In fact, he’d only just learned it had been a week since he’d been in Savannah with Nicolette. It had seemed like seconds to him. “I need to get back to her!”

“Captain, you’re having major control issues. You are the biggest danger to her.”

Garth didn’t agree. He bared his teeth at the man.

Hans grinned slightly. “Be upset all you want and face the truth. You had a bad reaction to the meds they gave you and you lost your mind over some girl.”

“She’s not some girl,”

snapped Garth. “And if you all know what’s good for you, you’ll stop keeping me here against my will. If something happens to her, I’ll kill each and every one of you.”

Hans glanced at his brother.

“That makes number three hundred and forty for him and the death threats today. He’s on a roll.”

Jannick raised a bottle of water in the air as if it were a beer. He’d sworn off alcohol several weeks prior after he’d woken up four states away from where he’d started the night’s festivities.

Jannick’s personality was vastly different from his twin’s. Where Hans was stoic, Jannick was all about fun. Too much fun. “I’m with stick-up-the-ass. Gladiator death match or we’re out.”

Hans shot his brother a hard look. “I am not that bad.”

Jannick said nothing in response. He merely grinned like a Cheshire cat.

“I’m with the Germans. That is somethin’ you do nae hear many Scotsmen saying,”

said Gram. “Less bitching and more blood sport, now! The vampire offered to keep you occupied and us entertained. Now make it so.”

Laughter echoed through the room at the suggestion.

Garth didn’t find the matter funny. “Grid is in Savannah. He’s stalking a human woman and you fucks are keeping me prisoner here. He’s going to hurt someone else while you all sit on your thumbs!”

Gram stopped smiling. “You forget, I was given the same shite you were. Turns out a side effect is hallucinations. You know that. Trust me, Viking. For the first two days I was awake, I was certain I was having conversations with my mother. She’s been dead and gone for over a century. If that wasnae enough, I kept seeing white wolves in the room with me. I think they were my version of dancing elephants.”

“I did not imagine my brother. He was there. He threatened the woman I was with,”

argued Garth, needing them to understand he was telling the truth. Nicolette’s life depended on it. That being said, the smallest of doubt crept into his head. Had he merely imagined Grid there?

Jannick cleared his throat. “Gram also thought I was Brooke and he tried to kiss me. That shit they gave you makes you randy, too. Makes sense you’d spend the weekend fucking a hottie, but we’re telling you, Captain, Grid wasn’t there. The Outcasts who contained you said they found the other shifter whom they’d been tracking prior to coming across you losing your shit in the open. And the wereduck was not your brother.”

Gram grunted. “Och, I dinnae try to kiss you. Stop telling people that. They’re likely to believe you. As for you, Viking, stop with thinking yer brother was in Savannah. What do you think the odds are that you’d be sent on an assignment there at the last minute and he’d just so happen to be there too? Oh, I know, one in a fucking million. Now, fists up, mouth shut. Kick the vampire’s arse.”

Hans tipped back in his chair. “Why am I only hearing of the wereduck now?”

Gram snorted. “Because it was nae a wereduck. It was a werebird—eagle, I think I heard Corbin saying.”

Jannick lifted his hands as if he was innocent. “Same thing.”

“What if you’re wrong about Grid? What if I didn’t imagine my brother was there? What if he attacked the woman I was with?”

asked Garth, desperate for his friends to listen to him instead of dismissing everything he was saying. “Just let me go to her. Let me see with my own eyes that she’s okay.”

He’d already tried to take them all on to get free. Turns out, one Viking—who hadn’t bothered to eat or sleep properly in a week while stuck in wolf form—against nearly ten PSI operatives who had eaten and slept didn’t really stand a chance.

Hans looked to Garth. “The human female is fine. The Para-Regs are keeping tabs on her just in case you aren’t crazy. The Outcasts who managed to get you subdued and keep you from harming innocents made sure the human woman had a protection detail put on her, even though neither of them laid eyes on your brother. They only saw you.”

“No. The one called Wheeler saw Grid following Nicolette. He just thought it was me,”

said Garth harshly.

“This is getting old, Viking,”

said Gram. “The woman is fine. Your brother is not in Georgia. When I was keeping tabs on him, he didn’t enter the states much at all. Canada was as close as he’d come. He prefers to do his dirty work overseas.”

Garth’s gut said otherwise. The men were now taking turns babysitting him around the clock, making sure he couldn’t run off and do something they saw as stupid.

Like get stuck in wolf form again.

But going to Savannah again wasn’t stupid. Nicolette needed his protection. None of them could see that though. They thought he was overreacting. That he’d imagined Grid being there because no one else had seen him. That Garth’s response was born out of an adverse side effect of the serum he’d tested for Gram’s recovery. Even if it was, he still had the burning desire to check on Nicolette. To see for himself that she was well. Not only that, but he needed to touch her. To feel her soft skin against him and to smell her as he held her.

His body burned for her, longing to be close to her. She consumed his thoughts, and he couldn’t stop the feral need to try to get to her. If the men he called friends were mistaken, and Grid was in Savannah, Nicolette was in grave danger.

Human or not, Grid would harm Nicolette just because he could. Because he’d always taken what he’d wanted growing up. He’d always had to have the best of everything. And if he thought for one second Garth wanted Nicolette for keeps, Grid would kill her just for the fun of it. That was what his brother had become. The monster that he’d permitted himself to grow into.

Maybe Garth was acting like an idiot because of the drugs that had been in his system. But they were gone now, and he still wanted to get back to Nicolette. Back to Savannah to be sure she was safe and sound. He didn’t trust her fate left to two Outcasts and the Para-Regs in the area. She was his to worry about. His to protect.

Mine.

He growled.

Jannick snorted. “There he goes again. Bet he loses his shit and shifts again. Vikings are pussies.”

“Agreed,”

said Gram. “Total pussies.”

Garth lifted his hand in the air and flipped off all the ops who were present.

“Precious, Garth. Really,”

said Gram with a wink. “The human is fine. Corbin is keeping tabs on the situation there, at least that’s what Hans told me.”

Hans nodded, looking bored with life. “It is true. The Brit has checked in daily with a contact in the area. All is well on that front. Now, are you going to confess to bedding the woman? You said you were with her, but do you mean with her like sex or with her like something boring?”

“I’m telling you all he totally spent a couple of nights screwing her until he couldn’t walk. No other reason for his behavior this week. She had to be something special in bed,”

said Jannick with a laugh.

Garth stilled. He knew he’d had sex with Nicolette on the night he’d lost control and shifted. He could vividly remember how it felt sinking into her…but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember much beyond that. Bits and pieces of events were with him, and in them, he saw Grid near a trashcan, mocking him. Even that memory was slightly jumbled. He remembered Cody appearing, and a man named Wheeler coming out of nowhere. Mostly, he just remembered the burning need to protect Nicolette right before his wolf took hold of him fully.

Maybe Gram was right.

Maybe the drugs had done a number on his mind. If that was the case, then how did things end with Nicolette?

Jannick cleared his throat, his expression growing serious. “If we let you run off right now, you’re going to look for trouble. If you turn over enough rocks, you’ll find it—or rather, it will find you. Hans and I know what The Corporation does when it has its hands on twin male shifters. If they get to you because you ran off half-cocked and get stuck in wolf form again, trust me when I say, death won’t come quick enough.”

Hans averted his gaze but nodded. “He’s right, Garth.”

Jannick watched Garth. “We keep you from leaving for your own good. Not to punish you. Besides, if you show up down there and its turns out Grid is really truly following you, and isn’t a figment of your imagination, he’s going to make the human a target because she means something to you and he finds it funny. You know it. So do all of us.”

Garth hung his head for a moment. “I just need to see that she’s okay with my own eyes. Let me call her.”

“We tried that this morning when you finally started walking on two feet again. You spent more time trying to eat us than bothering to tell us her name and her phone number,”

reminded Jannick.

“Someone can get a message to her. Have Cody do it,”

said Garth.

“Captain, she’s fine,”

stressed Jannick before he pointed to Auberi. “Focus on the dickwad in front of you. The two of you can’t stop bickering. Might as well fight it out. Take your aggressions out on the French guy. It’s what we Germans like to do too.”

Auberi grunted. “Dickwad?”

Jannick shrugged. “Let’s not pretend you’re anything but. I know you have no love for Germans. You French don’t much care for us.”

Hans lifted a brow. “It’s mutual.”

Garth ignored the pair as they began to argue back and forth. His focus returned to Nicolette. When he’d woken to find himself shackled and locked in one of the holding rooms in the lowest level of PSI, he’d been furious. He had no memory of being dragged away from Nicolette’s home by Cody and Wheeler. James had been the one to fill in those finer points. And he had no memory of the Para-Regs who apparently assisted with transporting him back to Division B Headquarters.

From what Garth had been told, the men had sedated him, put him in a cage, loaded him on a plane, and brought his ass back to Division B to be handed off and become someone else’s issue.

What he did remember was coming to in a holding cell, being disoriented, hungry, tired and desperate to get to Nicolette. The fierce need to free himself had been all-consuming. Hell, it had been so intense that it even managed to scare him. He could only imagine what it looked like to his friends.

Truth was, it had only lessened slightly. Enough for him to look like he was close to being in control. In reality, he was a ticking time bomb. He knew it. Apparently, so did the rest of the men.

He knew they were doing what they felt was right to protect him and others from him, but that didn’t change the fact they were wrong.

She was in danger.

And Grid had fucking been there.

He knew it with every fiber of his being.

Hans tapped the tabletop. “Are we here to watch a real fight or not?”

“No one is writhing in pain, so I’d say no,”

added Jannick as he slammed the rest of his water bottle.

Groaning, Gram leaned partially in the hospital bed the other operatives had lifted and carried (with Gram still in it) through the facility to the training room the second a fight had broken out between Garth and Auberi in the infirmary. Garth had already been past the point of reasoning because he was being held in the facility against his will. Add in having to spend even more time with that arrogant vampire who he couldn’t stand, and it spelled a recipe for disaster. A fight had been bound to happen.

In this case, it led straight to a fight breaking out in the infirmary.

That was what had gotten them to this point. He and Auberi had been quickly shooed in the direction of the training room and told to settle their differences there. Not in the center of the infirmary.

Multiple operatives were spread out in the training room. Several had set up another card table and were doing their version of scorecards while they did shots. Garth wasn’t surprised by that. He’d have been shocked if they hadn’t.

“Hurry this up or call a draw. It’s my first taste of freedom. I want to see hot chicks. Nae you two. Yer nae the least bit sexy,”

said Gram.

While the thought was nice, Garth knew better. He knew his friend well, and he knew Gram’s heart was still in the process of breaking over the love that he could no longer have. He knew the wolf-shifter’s world had crashed down on him. He’d lost the woman he’d proposed to, the little girl he saw as a stepdaughter, and nearly his life. The man was putting on a brave face and a good show in an attempt to throw others off the scent of his feelings.

While it might work on some, it didn’t on Garth. He knew Gram too well.

“Since I’m nae at risk of shifting and getting stuck like the Viking, I say we cut me loose,”

said Gram. “Like I said, you and Auberi are ass-ugly. I want something sexy to look at.”

“I don’t know about them not being sexy. Auberi has girlie hair. That kind of counts as sexy,”

said Jannick as he blew a kiss in Auberi’s direction.

Garth used the moment and struck out quickly, catching Auberi in the jaw. The vampire’s head snapped back.

“If the Viking kills yer doctor, can we take you to a strip club then? That damn French arsehole has you on bed-rest orders and willnae let you have any fun. So, if he’s deader than normal, we can go, right?”

asked Striker (Dougal only to his mother) McCracken as he put his feet up and onto the end of Gram’s hospital bed. The outspoken Scottish wolf-shifter had a tendency to attract trouble. So much so that he made Gram look tame.

In truth, Gram had tamed over the last few years. He’d met a woman who had a child and had done the family thing. Unfortunately for Gram, that woman was already mated to another man. One she’d thought was dead. A man Gram knew well. And a man Gram had about as much love for as Garth did with Auberi. Though that was changing too.

Gram and Malik, the man in question, were finding common ground. Garth highly doubted he and Auberi would ever find equal footing. They didn’t have a woman they both cared about. They did have mutual friends, but the manly best friend code only extended so far—it did not cover dickheads.

He snarled at Auberi as they continued to walk in a slow circle, each mirroring the other’s steps. When they’d first started to fight, it had been intense and an all-out battle. After three hours, it had certainly waned, but it was far from over.

Auberi struck out fast and hit Garth in the chest. The blow made Garth stumble slightly. Righting himself, he rubbed his chest. “Going to need to do better than that, Bouchard.”

The vampire came at him again, this time slicing open Garth’s torso. The wounds were superficial, but they did bleed. He swiped his hand through the blood and lifted his crimson-tipped fingers in Auberi’s direction.

A tic began in Auberi’s jaw as his gaze snapped to the blood.

Garth laughed mockingly. “So easy to tempt. It is why your kind is weaker.”

Auberi gathered himself. “Tell me. Are shifters the better species when they’re in animal form licking their own asses?”

“Och, I do nae lick my arse,”

protested Striker. He then grinned wolfishly. “Ask me if I lick my balls.”

Gram’s eyes widened. “Do nae ask. He’ll show you and I’ll throw up. I could pull a stitch or something.”

Hans cleared his throat and waved a hand in the air. “I have no wish to see Striker lick anything.”

“Yer no fun.”

Striker sat in a wheeled office chair that he’d brought from the bullpen area of the offices. While he’d started off using scorecards as well, he’d gotten bored with that and hungry. He’d already eaten his way through most of the food that had been in the breakroom refrigerator, regardless of who it belonged to, and was now doing his best to destroy the popcorn reserves. He watched Garth and Auberi while he ate from a bowl of microwaved popcorn. He lifted the bowl to Gram. “Want some? I’ve seen the shite they feed you in the infirmary. Bland diet is right. Even the pudding tasted horrible. How can you fuck up pudding?”

Gram snorted but didn’t take any. While the serum had ultimately worked to help kick-start his body’s natural healing abilities, it by no means offered an instant cure. He had burns that were still being treated over large portions of his body and his bones were still mending. All things, as a shifter male, he should have done already, but whatever he’d been given by The Corporation was proving harder to counter than anyone thought.

Somehow, Gram had managed to pull through. But the man on the other side of the explosion wasn’t quite the same as the one before it occurred. Not that anyone could blame Gram.

“No popcorn for you,”

said Auberi sternly to Gram, ever the medical professional when called for, as he pointed a finger at his patient.

Gram met Garth’s gaze. “I changed my vote. Kill him. Turn him into dust. Be quick about it and I’ll help spring you from this hellhole with me. We can build a boat or something. Is that nae what yer kind enjoys doing? That or go steal loot. I know you have a thing for acquiring weapons. We’ll go in search of those. Make it quick, I’m nae getting any younger in this fucking bed.”

Striker chuckled as he tossed a handful of popcorn into the air, leaned in the chair, and artfully caught it all. Knowing Striker, he’d spent centuries perfecting the art of catching food like that. He chomped on it, seemingly unconcerned that bits of it were stuck in his wild, deep red beard. The man had the attention span of a gnat and a beard that was fast reminding Garth of the band ZZ Top. At some point, someone was going to hold the man down and cut the thing.

“Does somebody want to tell me what in the hell happened to my infirmary? And where is Gram? He’s supposed to be resting. He’s not even in the medical wing, let alone resting,”

said Dr. James Hagen as he entered the training room. His gaze slid to Gram and the hospital bed. He lifted a brow. “Striker, what did you do?”

The burly Scot stood, holding the bowl of popcorn to his chest. Stray pieces of popcorn fell to the floor around him. “Och, I’ll have you know this was nae my idea. It was his.”

He pointed to Gram.

Gram made a pouty face. “Sure. Blame the sick guy.”

Between the two of them, it was hard to understand half of what they were saying since they were both Scottish and proximity to another Scotsman seemed to intensify their brogues. At any moment they’d likely break out in songs dedicated to William Wallace, as both had been known to do in the past.

James glanced at Auberi and Garth. A sigh came from him. “Really? The two of you are fighting? Again?”

Auberi used the moment to deliver a rather well-placed punch to Garth’s face. “Yes.”

Garth growled and gave James a dirty look for distracting him. “He started it.”

“Do I have the two of you to thank for the mess in the infirmary in Lab D?”

asked James, his arms crossing over his chest as he glared. The look on his face said he was tempted to give them both time-outs for bad behavior. That or join the sparring.

“Aye,”

said Striker and Gram at the same time.

Garth and Auberi stared at the Scots and then shared a look. For that brief moment, they were on the same page.

“Assholes,”

said Garth.

Auberi nodded and then he reassumed a fighting stance. That was fine by Garth. He more than wanted a piece of the asshole.

Auberi made a sudden movement, faking an attack.

“Weak,”

yelled Gram.

James laughed. “He’s not wrong.”

Garth nearly fell for the faked attack because his mind had been elsewhere. “Just like the French, come out of the gate strong and then fold.”

“Unlike the Vikings, who pillaged their way through how many lands?”

returned Auberi, never one to back down.

“Feed any innocent, helpless children your blood lately?”

asked Garth, his mind still locked in a state somewhere between the past and present. He couldn’t get the little girl from long ago out of his head and he couldn’t stop worrying about Nicolette.

Auberi’s gaze narrowed, and Garth knew he’d struck a nerve.

Good.

His lips curled as he continued to walk in a slow circle with Auberi mirroring his every move. They continued to watch one another, each prepped for the other to make a move. Already they bore injuries from their “friendly”

sparring match.

Garth could taste blood in his mouth from a recent hit Auberi had delivered. And Auberi’s jaw was turning an angry purple from the well-placed punch Garth had landed minutes before. They were evenly matched, which was part of the problem. Both were powerful in their own right. One a shifter. One a vampire.

“Och, this is going nowhere fast,”

Striker added from his chair while he ate popcorn again. He tried to give some to James, who in turn wrinkled his nose and shook his head.

Auberi again seized the momentary distraction to punch Garth in the mouth.

Garth’s head snapped back as blood dripped from his lip.

Striker leaned back in the chair and reached for the scorecards on the table. He held up a sign that had the number six on it. The scoring went from one to ten, ten being the best. “I’ve seen better.”

His partners in crime held up their votes as well.

Miles “Boomer”

Walsh’s sign had a five. “I’m with Asshole. I’ve seen better too. Put some effort behind it next time, Auberi.”

Rurik lifted a sign with a four on it. “That hit looked weak. No real surprise. The vampire is French after all.”

Garth spun around and elbowed Auberi in the gut. When the vampire bent, Garth struck him in the side of the face. His head whipped up and a challenge lit his eyes.

The men judging them for sport all lifted sevens.

Garth rolled his eyes.

Boomer glanced at Rurik’s vote. “He’s your team captain. You should really give him more points because of that alone.”

The Russian bear-shifter lifted a dark brow. “I did give him more because of that. My first vote was going to be a five.”

Striker rubbed his beard. “Aye. Was my first thought too. I feel the elbow bit was verra showy. Screams ‘insecure with manhood.’”

The others nodded in agreement.

Boomer pushed his long blue-black hair from his face and winked at Garth. “Hit him once for me, okay?”

Auberi gave Boomer the finger.

“Yeah, that screams ‘classy and sophisticated,’”

returned Boomer. “They’re going to take your French card away.”

“But will they?”

asked Striker. “That would involve confrontation, so I do nae know that they will ask for shite back.”

Rurik grunted. “I hate the French.”

“We don’t care much for you either.”

Blaise poked his head up from the back of the training room, where he’d gathered several mats and was resting.

Garth’s attention returned to Auberi. He stepped in his direction, but the vampire quickly changed his stance, clearly anticipating Garth’s next move.

Asshole.

The vampire tried to take Garth by surprise but failed.

The men held up signs with zeroes on them.

“Boring,”

stated Boomer with a fake yawn. “We need more blood. The German is right. This is as fun as watching paint dry.”

Striker lifted his arm out and did a dramatic motion while he gave them a thumbs-down. “If this was the arena, I’d have just signed yer death warrants.”

“If this was ancient Rome, you’d be in a whorehouse, nowhere near the fights,”

said Boomer.

Gram snorted. “Praying his prick does nae develop a weird itch.”

Striker thought on it, then nodded. “Aye. Guid point. I’ll let them live. For now.”

With a sigh, Garth leveled a gaze on the Scot. “Go find something else to do. Like taking endless selfies and putting them on the internet. You like that. I’m sure you haven’t updated anything in at least five minutes. Aren’t you overdue?”

“I do nae know. Is there nae a horned hat you should be wearing, Viking?”

Striker was in his signature kilt, paired with a T-shirt that suggested he could sparkle. From the amount of glitter showing on the man from his night at a strip club, he actually did sparkle.

“I’ve already told you that horned helmets weren’t—”

Striker waggled his brows, indicating he was well aware that he was getting on Garth’s last nerve. “Someone stake the vamp so we can go to dinner. I’m hungry.”

Boomer raised his hand, his catlike violet eyes holding mischief. “I’ll do it.”

Blaise sat up, his hand darting into the air. “I’ll help.”

Garth eyed Auberi. “Your own kind wants you dead. Why am I not surprised?”

“Eat me,”

snapped Auberi.

“No stealing my staking sunshine,”

Boomer said in Blaise’s direction. “Pun intended.”

Hans and Jannick laughed.

“Kitty, yer wife would kill you. That’s her family,”

reminded Striker as he did a blatant ball scratch. “Or have you forgotten she’s apparently from their line of vampires?”

“How can I forget?”

asked Boomer. “Blaise and Auberi remind me of it all the damn time.”

“Because cats are stupid,”

added Striker. “You have to tell them things over and over again.”

“You have some serious hang-ups with me being able to shift into a panther,”

said Boomer, grinning. There was a time when genuine smiles from Boomer were rare and far between. It was good to see that he’d found happiness. “You have cat-shifter envy, don’t you?”

“Yer a pain in the arse.”

Striker permitted his lower jaw to begin to change shape. His teeth lengthened, taking on the look of a wolf rather than human. He snapped his jaws at Boomer.

Boomer laughed as if the action was the funniest thing he’d seen lately.

“I vote we have the cat and dog fight it out,”

said Blaise from the back. “It would be more entertaining than the Viking and Auberi. I’m bored to death, and I came into this missing a pulse. Shifters are morons.”

Boomer smiled even wider. “At least we’re not reanimated corpses.”

Gram whistled. “Guid one.”

Auberi cast the cat-shifter a sideways glance. “I’m sure your mate will love hearing your views on vampires, seeing as how she is part vampire.”

Gulping, Boomer shook his head. “Never mind. I love vampires. Really wish I was one.”

Striker faked a cough. “Pussy. I’m glad I’m nae married. Mating takes powerful men and reduces them to sniveling fools. I’ve lost track of the number of men who have fallen victim to it lately. There has been an epidemic of mating. I’m scared I’ll catch it.”

It was true. There had been a rash of matings throughout PSI and its subdivisions. It was as if a matchmaking fairy had decided to pay the organization a visit. Garth hoped the little shit left before it got to him. The last thing he wanted or needed was a wife.

Just then, he swayed, and the buzzing he’d been experiencing returned. Flashes of being above Nicolette, drilling into her sweet body, filled his head. He stiffened as he thought about how he’d buried his face in her neck as he began to lose control of his shifter side.

He gasped as he thought about the taste of her flesh in his mouth.

He’d bitten her during sex?

No.

He wouldn’t have done that.

The serum must have really messed with his head, because there was no way he’d ever bite a human woman at all, let alone during intercourse. That was a claiming move, and it was involuntary. Something a shifter male had no more control over than the weather. Nicolette, a human, wouldn’t trigger that response from him.

“They’re still at it?”

asked Malik Nasser as he entered the training room. The ancient Egyptian had been reunited with his mate a short while now and today marked his first day back to work officially. Garth and Malik had always had a level of respect for one another. Even when they’d faced off on the battlefields of old. Over the centuries, mutual respect turned into friendship.

Rurik smacked his lips loudly. “Da, they are still at it. Apparently, we found the one Frenchman who doesn’t surrender quickly,”

said the bear-shifter. He put his hands behind his head, laced his fingers, and put his feet up on another folding chair.

Malik lifted a dark brow. “How long have they been going at it this time?”

Rurik checked his watch. “Just over three hours now.”

James gave Malik a pointed stare. “When they’re done here, they’re cleaning the infirmary. This started down there.”

“Guys? Really?”

asked Malik, disappointment showing on the man’s face. Malik was friend to both Garth and Auberi and had never understood the animosity between the two.

Auberi and Garth ignored him, continuing to move in a circle, each surveying the other.

The vampire came at him fast and Garth slammed into him. The impact was thunderous, neither giving an inch. A battle of the titans. They snarled, each fighting for the upper hand. When they broke apart again, sweat flew to the mat.

Boomer was all smiles. “Want me to order pizza or something?”

The Russian nodded. “Sure. Get extra ones. Captain will be hungry when, or if, they finish. He’s not had anything to eat all week. Might want to find a few bodies for the vampire to drain, unless he likes pizza.”

Boomer snorted. “I’ll see what I can do. Don’t let them kill each other, okay?”

“If it makes this end, I’m willing to kill them both,”

offered Rurik, earning hard looks from both Garth and Auberi.

The twins smiled. “Pizza sounds good.”

Duke Marlow, a fellow operative, who just so happened to be on the same team as Striker, Malik, and Boomer, entered the training room and groaned. “For fuck’s sake. They’re still sparring?”

With a huge sigh, Malik nodded. “The last time they did this, they were here for three days straight until the general ordered them to knock it off.”

“Want me to call Newman?”

asked Duke, a hopeful note to his voice. That was saying something, since the man basically hated everything and everyone except his mate.

“Call Newman for what?”

asked Corbin Jones, entering as well. Corbin was the captain of Team Five and the least likely to act like a grown man-child. The moment the Brit spotted Garth and Auberi, he shook his head. “I’ll put in a call for pizzas and beer. We’re in for a long night.”