Page 21 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)

Chapter Nineteen

Jesse

Moonlight glinted off the silver exterior of Jesse's Airstream as he approached it, still in cat form, his paw padding across the grassy land.

He'd left the trailer parked far enough from the main roads to avoid having anyone see it, positioning the trailer so the surrounding trees provided natural cover.

After confirming no one was around, he shifted.

The transformation was fluid, leaving him standing naked and in human form.

He stretched and wiggled his toes, happy to be back on two feet again.

While it was nice and necessary to allow his shifter side the freedom to roam and do whatever it was large cats liked doing, he had to admit he preferred being in human form.

He disliked surrendering so much control over to the cat when he was shifted and had to wonder if his cat side felt the same about him while in human form.

Jesse put his hand to the biometric lock on the door of the trailer.

He’d upgraded it a few months back and was pleased.

The reinforced lock gave way, and the door opened.

The familiar scents of leather and cedar greeted him.

He headed straight for the custom shower, wanting to wash away the grime of traipsing through the wilderness.

It took a second for the on-demand hot water tank to get the water to temp, but when it did, Jesse entered the stall and closed his eyes, enjoying the feel of water over his skin.

It didn’t take long for his thoughts to return to the hybrids and their talk of killing Charley.

Jesse wouldn’t permit that to happen, but he had to be smart about how he handled things.

He needed to come up with some way to stop them that wouldn’t leave The Corporation dispatching a strike team to handle him.

Every move had to be calculated, and the first step had to be learning more about the job fair location that the hybrids planned to utilize for their attack.

Jesse finished in the shower and stepped out, grabbing a towel from the shelf and toweling off before heading to the built-in dresser he kept his clothing in.

He pulled out a pair of loose-fitting pajama bottoms and pulled them on.

He wasn’t a big fan of underwear, they just got in the way, especially with how much he shifted while tracking the hybrids.

The thin blue material of his pajama bottoms was comfortable and wasn’t restricting in the least. After being tortured for months, years ago, Jesse found his skin was more sensitive to things.

That or he was simply more aware. All he knew for certain was he’d been fine with most material against his skin before Efren and Peters tortured him, but after, not so much.

Jesse ran his fingers through his shoulder-length wet hair before chancing a glance in the full-length mirror mounted on the door to his bedroom area.

He’d always been physically fit, but he was leaner than he used to be—more cut.

Most of that had come from the fact he’d lost his sex drive years ago and channeled that energy into working out.

When was the last time I had sex?

He wracked his brain trying to remember when it was that he’d last done the dirty or even had any urge to, only to land on the rest stop outside of Colorado thirteen years ago.

He’d had a random hookup with a woman there.

Had she been a redhead? A blonde? Hell, the fact he couldn’t recall said the sex hadn’t been that memorable.

It had simply been the last in a long line of meetups that quenched his need for sex, but nothing beyond that.

Jesse wasn’t sure why he’d had a thirteen-year dry spell since then.

He’d been subjected to countless physicals from his employer since then so he knew it wasn’t anything physical.

The only other things he could think that would cause his sex drive to go straight into the shitter was psychological or meeting his mate.

The woman from the restroom hadn’t been his mate.

She’d been human. That alone ruled her out, and he couldn’t even remember her hair color, let alone her face.

He’d felt no pull to her. No burning desire to take her as his and protect her for all his days.

That’s how he’d heard other male shifters describe what it felt like when they encountered their mates.

Restroom Gal meant nothing to him.

He’d not bitten her either.

Just fucked her.

Nothing more.

That left a mental block being the most likely culprit, though Jesse couldn’t pinpoint what would have caused it.

Jesse stepped away from the bedroom, heading to his tech room.

He stood before the biometric scanner, letting it scan his retina.

When it was done, the door popped open, revealing a hacker’s paradise.

The lights popped on automatically, as did the secondary generator that was specific to the room.

From the outside of the trailer, no one would ever guess all of this was waiting inside.

Jesse took a seat and powered up his system.

In no time flat, his computer set up was scanning the social media platform he’d thought he’d seen the post about the job fair on from afar.

At the same time, the scans Jesse had set up to monitor activity involving his employer showed in the corner of one of the three mounted screens.

A map of the area he was in popped up with a red ping, indicating there was at least chatter happening—possibly more.

He pulled up additional information and was surprised to see he wasn’t the only operative from The Corporation in the area.

That was a surprise.

He’d been led to believe he was the only official operative here for The Corporation.

Clearly, that had been a lie. From the looks of it, the place was crawling with them.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a strike team on-hold less than an hour from here.

That meant if Jesse did get caught going against direct orders and interfering with the hybrids’ plans to kill Charley, he’d have a lot of muscle on him in no time flat.

“Shit,” he whispered, shaking his head. Nothing was ever easy.

He dug deeper, trying to find directives for the team, wondering if they were lying in wait for him to fuck up or if they were there for another reason.

Not that it mattered. The Corporation would divert the team on a dime to deal with him should the need arise.

Jesse couldn’t find any directives for the team, but if they were on standby, it meant his employer was expecting something big to go down.

Jesse pulled up more information on the operatives in the area and realized most were deeply embedded in PSI.

Sleeper agents that had been put into position years, if not decades ago.

PSI was full of smart men and women. How they’d not caught on to the enemy working and living among them was beyond Jesse. No one was that stupid, were they?

Most of the sleeper agents seemed to be congregated around some wellness center not far from where Jesse was.

As he began pulling up information on the wellness center and doing a deeper dive into the backend of The Corporation’s databases (which they had no clue he’d gained access to), he found direct links between the owner of the center and his employer.

He also found reports on the death of the wellness center’s owner—Caladrius “Cal” Fabius, who had been some sort of cult leader.

“Yep, sounds exactly like someone they’d get in bed with,” said Jesse with a grunt. There were days he really wondered why he’d ever started working for The Corporation and why he kept doing so.

From what the reports disclosed, PSI had launched a full-scale attack on the center, and one hell of a battle had gone down there a little over a month ago.

Between PSI’s cleanup teams and PR division, the public was none-the-wiser about what had happened, but The Corporation knew, and they were pissed.

Cal had been funneling money, weapons, and trafficking supernaturals for them.

His loss was being felt and they weren’t pleased.

Jesse had never met the man, but if the notes in the reports were to be believed, Cal had been a real piece of work the world was better off without.

“Good riddance, asshole,” whispered Jesse.

It didn’t appear that The Corporation was taking the hit lying down.

They had extensive files on all the PSI operatives currently assigned to the wellness center and its clean-up process.

Jesse scanned the documents, committing to memory every one of the operatives listed in the event he crossed paths with them while in the area. Knowing the enemy was vital.

There was a set of twins that looked like they should be heading a biker gang, not working for PSI.

They had long dark hair, thick beards, and more piercings and tattoos than Jesse could shake a stick at.

When he spotted their surname—McCracken—a tugging in the back of his head started, like the name should mean something to him. It didn’t.

The man running the operation was named Theodoar “Teddy” Beckert, and from what was in his file, he was a bear-shifter, born in Germany a hell of a long time ago and pretty high up in PSI. He had extensive martial arts training and was listed as being an explosives expert.

There were countless other operatives on site, dealing with the impressive amount of weapons on the premises. The mention of an asset of value came up, and when Jesse opened the files attached, he sat back in his seat. He knew the man.

They weren’t friends.

No.

They were far from it.

The man was Ace Hargraves, the Outcast that Jesse had helped retrieve from Samuel’s horse ranch and delivered to The Corporation for testing years prior.

Jesse hadn’t had anything against the guy.

In fact, had circumstances been different, they’d probably have been friends, but Jesse had already pushed the limits with protecting Charley back then.

He had to come back with something of worth, or The Corporation would have been suspicious.

Too many red flags would have gone up and that would have left them dispatching a second team to retrieve or kill Samuel, Benat and Charley.

Ace had been the sacrifice.

The golden ticket.

An asset so valuable The Corporation hadn’t bothered digging deeper into the events of the ranch. They’d taken Jesse at his word and eagerly seized the opportunity to test an Outcast.

Jesse had turned the man over and stepped back, aware of what The Corporation would do to Ace. It wasn’t one of Jesse’s proudest moments, but he had done far worse things in his life.

Sometimes war meant making sacrifices.

He was surprised to see Hargraves was not only back in the area but working hand in hand with PSI. There had been a time, not that long ago, when the Outcasts had been hunted by their own too—not just The Corporation. Evidently, times were certainly changing.

Jesse wasn’t sure if Hargraves would recognize him should they come face to face and testing it wouldn’t be wise. The best course of action would be for Jesse to do his best to keep his distance from the man.

Additional files and photos popped up on the screen.

One of the photos caught Jesse’s attention.

It was of a tall man with long dark hair.

It had been taken at night. The information included with the photo had the man listed as Armand Faucher—part of the Crimson Ops Division of PSI, also rumored to be tied to the Shadow Agents side of things.

There was something about the man that was familiar.

From the information provided, Faucher was a vampire with a skill set that was listed as unknown.

That didn’t happen often. Normally, The Corporation knew everything about everyone.

Next to Faucher in the photo was a man who looked about as far from a special operative as you could get.

The man had wiry gray hair, was short and plump, and was wearing clothing that was several sizes too small, showing off his hairy beer belly.

Jesse had seen pictures of the man before in The Corporation’s databases.

His first name was William “Bill,” but the list of surnames linked to him was seemingly endless, and so were the photos The Corporation had of him.

There was a large number from the Vietnam War era showing Bill in one of The Corporation’s testing facilities, as noted by the logo sprayed onto the side of crates in the background.

The photo was grainy and worn, but there was no mistaking the logo.

There was a note in the file to capture, not kill him, should the opportunity be given.

That meant The Corporation wanted something from the man, be it information or, worse yet, testing.

Whoever or whatever Bill was, he was making a name for himself with The Corporation as an ally of the PSI-Operatives and the Outcasts. His name seemed tied to another in the files—someone by the name of Gus.

It took a minute or so for Jesse to find photos of Gus, and when he did, he was shocked by how young the man appeared to be.

He looked as if he was in his twenties and, like Bill, didn’t look to pose much of a threat.

Gus was tall and somewhat lanky with brown hair.

His fashion choices were as questionable as Bill’s.

From the notes in the man’s file, he had the gift of precognition and was telepathic.

Jesse had to wonder if they should add psychotic, seeing as how he was holding a mannequin head in most of the photos, treating it as if were both alive and precious.

How either of the men could be causing a stir with The Corporation was something of a mystery to Jesse.

And he wasn’t sure how he felt knowing The Corporation was paying such close attention to the area because of the wellness center.

It made the task of finding a way to protect Charley from the hybrids that much more difficult.

“But not impossible,” he muttered, settling in to find out what he could about Charley being back in the area.