Page 1 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)

Chapter One

Jesse

Twenty-seven and a half years ago, South Dakota…

Jesse Culbertson glared at the lab technician standing a few feet from him.

The mandatory weekly injections from his employer, The Corporation, were supposed to help him "be all he could be." Instead, they left his injection site raw and irritated for days. Jesse was starting to suspect these serums were more about control than enhancement. He wasn’t looking forward to getting the newest one. His arm was still sore from last week’s.

The lab technician glanced fleetingly in Jesse’s direction, his hands shaking as he prepared the injection.

Jesse tended to make the techs nervous. He wasn’t sure why.

It’s not like he’d attacked any of them—yet.

Though if they kept injecting him with shit that burned and made him feel like he wanted to crawl out of his skin, it was only a matter of time before he snapped and went at one of them.

Sure, there would be blowback, but it could be worth it in the end if it meant no more injections. From the beads of sweat appearing on the technician's brow, he sensed Jesse was nearing his breaking point.

This tech wasn’t new to Jesse. The guy had been giving Jesse his injections for the last few weeks. The Corporation probably knew better than to put one of the new transfers in with Jesse.

The Corporation, or Dynamics Corp, if anyone was going off public records, had recently acquired three more pharmaceutical companies, expanding its already massive reach into the medical sector.

Each acquisition meant more suits visiting the facility, more closed-door meetings, more serums to test, and more staff members.

Jesse had been tasked with running background checks on the newly acquired medical staff as well as helping to weed out those who weren’t good fits for The Corporation.

More than one of the employees from the other companies hadn’t been able to pass The Corporation’s extensive background check.

Some that had managed to pass it simply weren’t cut out for the type of work The Corporation did.

Those people had been sent to work at other businesses owned by the company.

Ones that were above board, unlike this facility.

Even Jesse wasn’t entirely sure about all of what this facility did and didn’t do.

He had learned long ago not to question The Corporation's methods or motives.

He'd seen too many “reassignments.” Good men who asked the wrong questions and were never heard from again.

Better to play the good soldier, even as his instincts screamed that something was wrong.

It was that or risk ending up on the side of a milk carton.

As a cat shifter, being listed on a milk cartoon would just be adding insult to injury.

No thanks.

He came in, did his job, and left at the end of his shifts.

He didn’t dare speak of what he really did for work to anyone without clearance.

Anyone who asked was told he was a security guard, nothing more.

If someone pushed too much, wanting to know how it was he afforded the “toys” he had, he simply said he’d come into money from an inheritance, never the truth.

The truth left a trail of dead bodies in its wake.

He knew because, more than once, he’d been sent to eliminate people who put their noses where they didn’t belong.

Jesse hated what he used to do for The Corporation—interrogation and target elimination—but the weekly injections were making him start to second-guess his stance on it all.

Maybe, just maybe, being the heavy wasn’t so bad.

Sure, it left him unable to look himself in the mirror for years, but he never wanted to crawl out of his own skin like the serum made him want to do.

It was a sad day when he was considering going back to being the ultimate villain just to avoid injections.

He side-eyed the lab technician, counting all the various ways he could kill the man in under ten seconds. If given an extra three minutes, Jesse could hide the body too. He was that talented.

The technician stepped forward, the syringe trembling in his hand. The man glanced at Jesse’s arm and then up again, slowly, as if he was rethinking a fair number of his life choices.

Wise man.

The tech gulped before nodding to Jesse’s arm—to the area he’d wiped with an alcohol swab only moments prior.

Jesse remained silent as he gave a curt nod. If the tech was hoping for a smile and an open invitation to stick him, the guy was going to be sorely disappointed.

He pushed the needle in with great care as if being stuck by a needle was the part Jesse hated, not the serum itself.

Warmth spread through the injection area and quickly turned into a burning sensation.

It felt as if someone had poured a thousand fire ants on the spot and watched as they took turns biting him.

Pain shot through the area, and Jesse barely managed to contain the hiss wanting to come. It came out as a low growl.

A warning.

The only one the tech was going to get.

“Y-you’re all set,” the man stammered, nearly dropping the now empty syringe on his way to dispose of it in the designated biohazard container fixed to the wall.

He got rid of the syringe and bumped into the counter with a sink basin in it. The counter was also home to an intercom phone and a large stack of charts. The technician selected the chart at the top of the pile and clumsily made an entry in it, glancing toward Jesse sporadically.

Despite having a weekly standing appointment for his injection, Jesse didn’t know the technician’s name. That was fine with him. Jesse didn’t need to make friends with the man. The technician muttered something under his breath as he scribbled notes in Jesse’s chart, his hands moving too quickly.

Jesse narrowed his eyes. The man’s breathing was shallow, his gaze darting between Jesse’s arm and the far wall like he couldn’t decide which was safer to look at.

The asshole was acting like he was the one with the problem when Jesse was the one who felt like his arm was about to burst into flames.

“Something you want to say?” asked Jesse, narrowing his gaze on the man.

The technician’s spine straightened. He shook his head slightly. “N-no.”

Jesse watched the man nervously fumble with the biohazard container.

“By chance, did something change recently with the serum?” asked Jesse, earning him a fast glance from the technician, whose pulse rate sped, giving Jesse all the answer he needed. Something had changed.

“No!” the man practically shouted, nearly yanking the biohazard container from the wall.

Liar. Jesse seethed inwardly. He just needed to refrain from punching him in the face for injecting him with a substance that Jesse was coming to believe was poisonous.

“You sure?” asked Jesse.

The tech stiffened. “I’m…sure.”

Jesse flexed his arm in an attempt to relieve the discomfort.

It didn’t work. It only served to reinforce his aversion to the injections.

The heat from the injection site crawled up his shoulder like a line of fire.

The ache was sharper than usual, spreading under his skin and leaving his muscles tight.

Damn thing feels like acid , Jesse thought, rubbing at the spot as subtly as he could. The technicians would notice if he flinched too much, and he didn’t want to give them any reason to look at him longer than necessary.

The tech glanced at him. “You good?”

Hardly.

Jesse gave a slight nod.

“Any new side effects?” questioned the man.

Jesse cocked his head to the side. “Why would there be? I mean, you said it yourself, nothing changed with the serum, right?”

The tech tugged at his collar. “Right.”

“Then there shouldn’t be anything new on my end,” said Jesse as he stepped out of the exam room and into the hallway, massaging the injection site on his arm.

The hallway was large enough to accommodate the men who worked at the secret facility.

Supernatural males weren’t known for being small guys.

Most were at least six feet tall or over, and all were fit.

This part of the building always made Jesse uncomfortable. He couldn’t exactly explain the feeling, only that it left him on edge. It wasn't just the sharp, sterile smells of bleach and alcohol or the fluorescent light humming with unnatural brightness—all of which bothered his shifter senses.

There was something else.

Something deeper.

He was always torn between avoiding the area altogether and wanting to be there to get to the bottom of what bothered him. There was something unsettling about it. The place had a way of amplifying sound while feeling utterly empty like even the air didn’t want to linger too long.

And like the air—Jesse didn’t want to linger long either.

Just then, his attention was pulled to the far end of the hall.

To the set of double doors with a state-of-the-art biometric scanner and encrypted keypad.

Jesse could probably figure out a workaround for them if he really wanted to.

He’d considered doing as much once before but held back.

He knew the double door led to an elevator that required special level clearance to access it.

Clearance Jesse didn't have, despite being pretty far up the security food chain. Its red light blinked steadily, a constant reminder of where he wasn’t allowed to go.

That meant the elevator went somewhere that had a lot of shady shit happening.

Shit he didn't need to get wrapped up in.

That didn't seem to stop the pull for him to attempt to access the elevator.

Thankfully, he never gave in to the urge.

What the hell’s down there? he wondered for the hundredth time since he’d transferred to the facility. It wasn’t a question anyone answered.

You didn’t ask unless you wanted to get reassigned—or worse.

Still, he couldn’t help but glance toward the elevator doors.

There was a ping, and the light changed from red to green as they slid open, and a pair of guards stepped out, carrying a locked case.

The guards were part of another security detail.

One that was composed entirely of were-coyotes.

Very rarely did The Corporation create teams of the same species of supernaturals. It usually left them forming a pack of sorts, which never ended well for others around them. That’s why the team Jesse was a part of had cat-shifters, wolf-shifters, and even a bear-shifter on it.

The moment the men spotted Jesse, their gazes hardened. He didn’t know them personally, but knew they were part of the same security team as two guards he couldn’t stand—Peters and Efren.

Both men were giant dicks, and if these two were buddies with them, it stood to reason they too were dicks.

Efren, in particular, got under Jesse’s skin—always reeking of wet dog and cigarette smoke, with a dark, thick mustache that did nothing to hide the yellow staining starting to show on his teeth.

He was always making snide remarks about cat-shifters, seeming to take particular pleasure in antagonizing Jesse.

More than once, Efren had tried to bait Jesse into a fight.

The guards glanced at the locked case and then at him.

Jesse noted the way the one man’s fingers drummed against the case, how the other’s stance shifted ever so slightly. Small tells Jesse had learned to spot during his years of training as a special operative. Whatever was in that case made them uneasy.

Jesse didn’t budge as he fought the urge to wrinkle his nose at the smell of cheap cologne, artificial pine, cigarette smoke, and body odor that always seemed to cling to the group of men. Jesse raised his chin as if daring them to comment.

Wisely, they didn’t.

With the way that the serum was fucking with him, Jesse would have been hard-pressed to control his anger had they opened their mouths.

His skin prickled as they passed by him and the other closed exam room doors.

The faint scent of blood mixed with something else, something he couldn’t place, but that caused his shifter side to take notice.