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Paranormal Security and Intelligence Division B Headquarters , classified location

Two weeks later

Corbin turned, placing his body in the ready position again as he prepared to run through the Wankan kata once more. It wasn’t a widely practiced form of the kata, but he liked it all the same. His mind was clear, focused, and his body took each step, each motion as if an opponent was truly there in the martial arts training room with him. He wore only a pair of loose-fitting workout pants, nothing else. His bare feet swept over the foam-tiled floor mats of the dojo. The pattern upon them was wood grain, giving the feeling of a wood floor, but the padding was required to train properly. The other portion of the oversized training room had actual wood scraped floors, providing options for the men who used the room.

This time of night, there weren’t many left at headquarters. Most were either at home or deployed on missions, as was the standard. Corbin preferred to use the martial arts room when it was nearly empty, and it wasn’t as if he had anyone waiting on him at home, so he was free to spend his time as he wished. He enjoyed the tranquility of the room—one of the elements it had been designed with in mind. He welcomed the time to reflect.

To focus.

To be alone.

While able to function easily in social situations, he wasn’t one who normally sought them out. Too long ago he’d been forced into them—forced to wine and dine aristocrats, every word spoken holding double meaning and everyone out for themselves. He didn’t miss the vapid women with their arrogant men. Even worse were the women who had been angling to ensnare a wealthy man to wed them.

He shuddered, thinking back on the women of old. Some tried just about anything to land a husband, even stooping so low as to try to put the man in a situation that made it seem as if he’d compromised their virtue. Corbin had seen it all. He’d been in their sights more than once and had taken off to fight for his country—something his mother still wasn’t keen on, though she’d had centuries to get used to the idea. What he had hated most at the height of his forced socializing was the outfits. The bloody footwear. Squared toes, heels, even for men. He didn’t miss the breeches or justacorps either.

And he didn’t miss the wigs.

The horrid wigs.

He fucking hated wigs.

That fashion couldn’t have died quickly enough for his liking.

He hated it nearly as much as he’d disliked the bellbottom craze that seemed to have happened only yesterday, but upon closer reflection was decades ago. Time tended to get away from immortals. All he knew was every fifteen to twenty years he had to reinvent himself in the eyes of the human world and vanish on paper for a while before reemerging under an assumed name—to the humans.

To the supernatural community he was Corbin Jones. That did not change, no matter the fad or craze. And Corbin was not much of a trend chaser. No. He liked his hair to be long, despite modern standards and what was considered normal for nowadays. His long, blond hair was pulled up in what he’d heard someone term a man-bun, though it was a style he’d worn long before the name had been applied to it. A style many men he knew in the paranormal community wore, before hipsters decided to covet it.

It kept it out of his face as he trained. That was all that mattered. He’d surprised himself lately by not shaving. He did keep his facial hair trimmed and maintained—he was a fan of looking orderly. His newfound rugged look probably had something to do with his mother’s revived kick of trying to find his mate. Without realizing, he had staged his own version of a protest. He’d stopped shaving his face clean. His beard was not as long as Striker’s. The damn Scot had given up shaving, and at the rate the man was going, he’d be nothing but a giant head of red hair. Evidently, the online forums Striker was so fond of were composed of women who thought beards were sexy—therefore, the man refused to get rid of his. Looking that unkempt wasn’t something Corbin could willingly do.

His mother, notwithstanding all her bluster, was a hopeless romantic at heart. In her mind, she’d be the one to seek out that one perfect person created just for him and bring them together to live happily ever after. His father no longer attempted to intervene on Corbin’s behalf. He simply allowed his mother to do as she pleased whenever she got in the mood to see her son with a woman—which seemed to be every ten or so years. And she was in the height of one of her moods now—spurred onward by his canceling of the date she’d set up for him.

He repeated each step of the kata and was midway through his fourth time when his concentration began to waver, his latest mission vexing him. He generally prided himself on his ability to compartmentalize, to push down and store for another day anything that wasn’t relevant to the task at hand, but the mission had gotten to him. It had gotten to all his men. Nearly as much as when they’d helped to shut down breeding centers for what the government had now termed the Asia Project. That had been just over twenty years ago.

It wasn’t until Corbin had run through the kata twice more that he realized he was no longer alone in the training room. Dr. James Hagen, a fellow operative and a member of Corbin’s team, stood near the entrance, silent, waiting to speak with Corbin. James was reserved, and Corbin liked that about the man. They had that much in common. Corbin continued with his training, and it wasn’t long before James had kicked off his boots and was joining in, following step by step in the kata.

From the haunted expression that passed between the men, Corbin knew James’s thoughts were where Corbin’s had been—on their latest mission. Paranormal Security and Intelligence Ops Team Five, headed by Corbin, had just returned from the Middle East where they’d taken down a sex trafficking ring. One of so very many that existed. This one dealt primarily with supernaturals, though a few humans had been victims as well. Humans were food for some types of supernaturals. There to be sold, sexually assaulted, and then killed for the food they provided. Some were to be sex slaves and blood banks for certain supernatural elements.

The supernatural victims had numbered high. Some had been thoroughly abused already by the time the Ops got to the facility, and others had been traumatized, but not sexually assaulted. Corbin now knew more about human trafficking than he’d ever wanted to, and it was keeping him up at night. He’d been somewhat familiar with it prior to the mission, but not to this extent. He’d had a brief encounter with traffickers just over twenty years ago. The memory of how horribly the ordeal had ended still haunted him to this very day.

Corbin’s stomach twisted at the thought of what they’d uncovered on their newest mission and just how deep it all ran. He and his men had barely spoken on the plane ride home, their normal banter gone, each soaking in the reality of what they’d just broken up. The looks on the faces of the victims, mostly women, but some men, had nearly broken his spirit. Even Striker, the team’s smartass, had refrained from making lewd remarks or jokes. He had torn apart three of the men who had been bidding on a young woman. Striker had then taken off his gear, removed his shirt and put it over the girl, shielding her body from the view of others, taking her directly to the female PSI-Agents who were on site, ready to render assistance.

The world was full of sick bastards.

Thankfully, nearly seventy of them were detained and no longer a threat, and almost twenty more were too dead to be an issue again. Those who were detained were being pumped for information in hopes of breaking up more trafficking rings.

One more thing PSI had on its plate. The list was never-ending.

The bust had taken down of a large number of bad men, but that didn’t minimize the damage the bad guys had done. The lives they’d already ruined. And it would never make things right for the victims. That was something he’d witnessed twenty years back. That trafficking ring had been one that focused on supernaturals as well—all women though. All seriously mistreated and most, by the time Corbin had gotten there, were in various stages of pregnancy that none had been willing participants in.

The memories of it all washed over him. One of the women who had been held captive and offered up for sale had been heavily pregnant. Corbin had burst into the small holding room she’d been in all those years ago and had nearly vomited at the state he’d found the young woman in. It had been uncovered later that she’d been first held in a breeding facility that he later found out had ties to the Asia Project, but at the time he’d been unaware of such overlap. The woman, who he took to calling Jane because her identity was never figured out, had been force bred and then sold on the black market to traders. Jane and her unborn child had been up for grabs. Available to whoever had the deepest pockets—no questions asked on what use the buyer had for them. Nothing.

By the time Corbin and his team had happened upon her and the others being held, the woman’s mind and spirit were long broken. He’d sat by Jane’s side while she lay in the infirmary under the watchful eyes of PSI doctors, a shell of herself. Corbin had even found himself holding the woman’s hand, though she didn’t acknowledge his existence. He hadn’t been able to walk away from her. A strange, almost feral need to oversee her condition had been all consuming. He’d been so obsessed with her child that someone had even asked if the child might have been his in some way. It wasn’t. He just had to see to the child’s safety. He couldn’t have explained it if he tried, so he’d not bothered trying. He’d not wanted to leave the pregnant woman’s side, but duty had called and he’d had no choice.

Upon his return he’d learned Jane had died during childbirth and that the baby girl she’d been carrying had been placed in a good home, with loving parents. He’d had to fight the need to demand the location, knowing it was for the best. He trusted that the man who had placed her—General Jack C. Newman, Director of PSI—wouldn’t have put the baby with someone he didn’t trust fully. Another mission had come up and it had been a welcome one. It had taken his need for answers from him.

That had been just over twenty years ago.

Yet the newest mission had brought it all to the surface again as if it were yesterday. His worry for the child that had been born long ago had hit him hard once more. He couldn’t shake the feeling from his head that he should be searching for her. That was absurd. She wasn’t a brand new baby in need of protection anymore. By his calculations she’d be nearly twenty-three years old by this point. And Jack would have told him if something bad had happened. If the closed adoption hadn’t worked out.

Jack had said nothing when he’d ordered Corbin and his men to head to the Middle East for the newest mission. Perhaps the similarities of the situation fell short on Jack. Corbin had been surprised when his team, in particular, had been deployed on the mission. They’d been handling hunting down bad guys affiliated with the Corporation, an evil catchall conglomerate that was like a hydra. They’d cut off one head, and two more would pop up. When the orders came for wheels up and to head to the Middle East, Corbin wasn’t sure what to make of it all. It hadn’t taken him and his men long to track and break up the ring. It wasn’t until they were on the flight home that the hows and the whys became apparent.

The newest ring had ties to the Corporation.

Corbin and James drew to the end of their kata and faced one another, the air to the room thickening with the pending conversation’s tone, though no words had been spoken. Laney, James’s mate and a gifted computer hacker, had been working on encrypted data the team had retrieved while in the Middle East. They’d been back nearly three days and she’d spent the first day giving James one hell of a welcome-home present and the next two assisting PSI’s analysts with cracking the encryption and decoding files. Nothing they had managed to decipher to date was good.

He waited for more bad news as he bent, grabbing his workout towel from his gym bag before putting it behind his neck. He held it with both hands as he faced his longtime friend. He wiped the sweat from his brow. “It’s late for you to still be here. Let me guess, Laney is lost in a sea of data mining again.”

James inclined his head. “She and Mercy are looking over some information on the Corporation that came through about an hour ago.”

Corbin hadn’t realized Duke Marlow’s wife had come in as well. It was apparently all hands on deck. “How was Duke with her being here?”

Duke was also a member of Corbin’s team. And the man tended to hate nearly everything. Everything but his mate Mercy.

“Not pleased, but when is he ever,” answered James with a shrug.

“Do I want to know what they’ve found?” Corbin asked, his British accent lighter than it had been when he’d first moved to the United Sates, but still very noticeable to others, or so he’d been told.

“No,” answered James softly, his brown hair longer than normal. His mate was helping James come out of his buttoned-up, prim and proper shell. Hopefully, James didn’t take it to Laney’s extreme. She was a Goth punk girl. Boomer was already Goth enough for the team. They didn’t need James going that way as well.

“How bad is it this time?”

James exhaled slowly, his large shoulders slumping. “We’ve found another ring, linked to the one we just busted. The girls found the tie by following some accounts the Corporation has set up. This ring is run stateside and it’s big. Really big. A small faction of it is local and they’ve already grabbed new merchandise.”

By merchandise Corbin knew James was referring to supernaturals for sale. It turned his gut. Criminals never ceased to surprise him with their cruelty. He’d been alive a long time and he’d never known a world without mad men, a world without violence, and he probably never would. Peace was something on greeting cards, not something that seemed obtainable. Not when there were sick people in the world who would do anything for a profit.

James continued, “The Corporation has been placing bids of some of the merchandise—turns out, its not them holding these people, but they want them. They want them bad. There are several that are up for auction right now that are hot commodities. Looks like the Corporation has some competition for them. I had the girls set up a dummy account with offshore funding in an attempt to outbid these assholes, but, boss, there is no way the girls are going to win. The backers for these guys are big. Really big and really motivated. I think we’re going to have to extract the women ourselves.”

Corbin’s body tensed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear more, but knew he had to.

James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “From what Laney was able to find, the Corporation and the other big bidders want these women for breeding, and they’re hunting for male candidates to use in hybrid testing.”

“Bloody hell,” he said in a hushed whisper. His disdain of the Corporation grew daily. Did their horrors never end? They had been a thorn in his side for months now, and he was frustrated with PSI’s inability to get ahead of them. The Corporation’s reach was far and wide, and they were so much bigger than Corbin or the others could have predicted or imagined. It didn’t help that rogues had been uncovered, working within PSI, feeding the Corporation and their allies information. “Tell me we have some leads on the whereabouts of those being held.”

“The girls are trying,” replied James, reaching out and touching Corbin’s shoulder lightly. “I wanted them to go home and rest, but they’re refusing. They’ve been at this all day and night now. I don’t want them stressed. It’s not good for their pregnancies.”

Corbin didn’t want Laney or Mercy taxing themselves or putting their health at risk. The information was important, but so were Laney and Mercy. “I’ll order them to go home.”

With a snort, James backed away. “Let me know how that works out for you. Duke has been trying, and even with all his bluster, they’re ignoring him. Last check, they had him grabbing printouts for them and some ice cream. He’s been reduced to a glorified errand boy. He’s bitching the entire time, but he’s doing it.”

It was amusing to see his friend now that he was mated. James had always been known as the one who came off as easygoing but had a wicked temper. Since mating to Laney, the alpha male seemed to only fear her wrath.

No other.

The same went for Duke and Mercy.

“We need to get you mated off,” said James sternly. “It’s about time you had a woman and some kids. You know matings tend to happen in clusters. Look at the I-Ops.”

Corbin was far too British to want to discuss his feelings. He wiped his face once more with the towel as the entrance to the training room darkened.