Page 12 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)

At first, Jesse hadn’t thought much of it. He’d headed plenty of units for The Corporation in the past. Then, he’d been paired with a coyote shifter team for a mission that would test his limits. The Corporation was aware of just how much Jesse hated the coyotes.

After all, they’d been the ones to spend months torturing him.

So when he’d found himself sitting in the briefing room twelve years ago, watching the higher-ups practically drool when they announced Samuel and Benat had been located in Colorado and were rumored to be with an Immortal Outcast—a test subject from the other side that they’d give their right nut to possess—Jesse had understood what was at stake.

The Corporation planned to observe only—not act.

At least not to start. Irrational anger with Samuel over what had gone down in the lab had filled Jesse, consuming him to the point he took personal leave and went to Colorado himself.

His intent at the time had been to finally handle Samuel and Benat once and for all.

He’d gone with the intent to kill them both.

To pay them back for fucking everything up, even though, deep down, Jesse knew he would have done the same thing.

He’d have freed those kids. At the root of his anger was the sense of betrayal he felt knowing they’d excluded him from the planning—kept him out of it all—not trusting him.

Maybe, had they come to him before they carried out their plan, it could have gone smoother.

Sure, he'd have been resistant to start but there was no way he could have let little kids be harmed.

But they hadn’t.

Even Nick, his supposed best friend, had kept him in the dark on it all.

And Jesse had been the one to pay the price.

Yes, he’d picked that fate, but still, resentment remained.

It had festered to the point he’d hunted them, fully intending to kill them.

He had spent several days watching Samuel’s ranch, gathering intel.

Learning their routine and studying them for vulnerabilities.

Know thy enemy.

The minute Jesse had seen Charley, who had been pushing five at the time, he’d been instantly taken back to the day in the labs when he’d seen the scientist beating her and the other little girl.

It was as though a floodgate of memories of that night had been opened, leaving Jesse seeing Charley’s face clearly again and again, as well as her friend from the lab. The little girl with the black hair.

His heart broke all over again for the children.

It was as if he were back in that lab, staring at the results of The Corporation’s madness.

All thoughts he’d had of killing Samuel and Benat went out the window.

He’d stopped caring about the comings and goings of Samuel, Benat, and their resident Outcast, and he focused solely on a way to protect them.

She’d seemed so happy in Colorado with her father, Benat, and the Outcast. Jesse had watched from afar in shifted form as she laughed and smiled as her father and the Outcast played guitar and sang around a bonfire.

In truth, it had taken all of Jesse to keep from joining in, as if he’d actually be welcome by the group.

And it had made him think of Nick. He’d wanted desperately to ask Samuel what had happened to Nick.

If he was still alive and doing well. And he’d wanted to ask if Samuel knew what had become of the little girl with black hair.

Jesse hadn’t trusted himself or what The Corporation’s reconditioning had done to him to do it.

He’d seen the place plant kill orders deep in the subconsciousness of others.

What if they’d done that to him? What if he’d been able to find out what happened to Nick and the little girl with black hair, only to find he had orders planted deep in his mind to eliminate them upon sight?

He’d never forgive himself.

He took the coward’s approach, staying in shifted form to observe them, knowing Samuel and Benat would more than likely scent or sense him in the area. Unbeknownst to Jesse, The Corporation had changed their mind about simply observing Samuel and the others.

They had sent several teams to retrieve Samuel, Benat, the Outcast and even Charley.

While there was nothing that he could do other than hope the little girl with the black hair had made it to safety and wasn’t in the crosshairs of The Corporation, he could do something about Charley.

He could make sure The Corporation’s taint didn’t touch her again.

That she didn’t end up back in their labs as another experiment.

When the strike started, Jesse acted against his own people. He’d killed two men, making it look as if Samuel or Benat had done it, and then he’d intervened, stopping the others from being able to take Charley.

He'd done it in shifted form, knowing the men he’d been paired with wouldn’t be able to tell it was Jesse and not a wild, normal mountain lion.

They’d never seen him shift before and had never been around him when he was in cat form, so they didn’t have his scent memorized.

They’d assumed Charley had been mauled to death by the wild cat.

That’s what had ended up in their reports.

They didn’t know that Jesse had pulled the little one to safety and left her in the care of a group of people who lived on the land adjacent to the ranch. Sure, the people were more than odd, but they seemed like a far better choice than allowing Charley to end up being a lab experiment again .

Jesse doubled back to the ranch with the idea of actually protecting Samuel, Benat and even the damn Outcast, but he found he was too late.

The Outcast had already been taken by The Corporation and Samuel and Benat had gotten to safety.

Jesse left, never revealing himself to them and returned to The Corporation, acting shocked when he saw the unconscious Outcast male—Ace Hargraves—in a cell.

He’d done nothing to free the man. He couldn’t.

Not with having only just regained their trust. The best Jesse could do was try to take shifts in that area of the facility.

He never permitted Ace to be beaten or tortured during his shifts.

He didn’t let the other guards do what they wanted with him. That didn’t stop the abuse when Jesse wasn’t there though. A bit of guilt still tugged at him when he thought about it all, but he’d been one man against a fucking empire. He had to pick and choose his battles.

Over the years, Jesse had returned to Colorado whenever he had spare time.

He wasn’t sure why. Samuel and Benat had taken Charley and left the area after the attack.

That hadn’t mattered to Jesse. He’d continued to come back to the ranch area.

He’d often go into the mountains, shift forms, and spend a week living as a mountain lion; the need to be in the area was too great to resist.

That was why he was here now. It was his annual pilgrimage to the area.

He’d brought his Airstream. The plan was to camp by a stream and spend a week or two fishing and relaxing.

He could afford to vacation somewhere fancy or exotic.

Hell, he could own several vacation homes around the world and not bat an eye at the cost, but it wasn’t about that. His cat felt at home here.

So did he.

He just needed to stop at the grocery store to stock up on some essentials, and he’d be set for a week of rest and relaxation.

Perfect.

No one would give him shit for growing a beard, like more than one person on staff with The Corporation facility he’d been working at for the past two years.

Wisely, when he told them to fuck off, they’d stop pushing the issue.

If Jesse wanted to have a beard and let his hair grow to his mid-back, he’d do it.

He was done asking permission from anyone.

Besides, the ladies didn’t seem to mind it.

If anything, it benefited him. It hadn’t hurt that he was even more muscular now too. Chicks seemed to dig it.