Page 41 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jesse
Jesse stood there, fully shifted in cat form, his body coiled tight, his tail lashing in agitation as he watched the male with Lindy.
The man’s arms slid around her waist as she kissed his cheek.
Blinding rage consumed Jesse as he and his beast came to the understanding that the male needed to die for daring to touch the woman.
A snarl nearly broke free from Jesse as he stood off in the tall grass, watching the events unfold from afar, secretly wishing it was him there with Lindy, getting to touch her and know the feel of her lips on his cheek. It would also put him close enough to the man to rip his fucking throat out.
The man said something to Lindy about Charley, her truck, coyotes and a mountain lion and then stressed everything was fine. Jesse realized he must have been talking about Charley and the hybrid attack on the road outside of her rescue.
Lindy looked like she might make a run for her vehicle but the man held her firm.
“Lindy, stop. She’s totally fine. I promise. I’d have told you sooner but it’s been a crazy night. We’ve had a lot of calls coming in,” said the man.
“Robert, I should be there with her. What if she’s not okay?” asked Lindy, her voice vulnerable.
The man smoothed his fingers over her cheek. “I swear to you, she’s in good hands. You’d just be in the way there. Is Waverly still here? I don’t see her car.”
Lindy shook her head. “No. We were packed to the gills. She busted her butt for me tonight so I sent her home after last call. I can handle closing by myself.”
“I’ll help you finish up,” said Robert.”
“You’re on duty,” stressed Lindy.
“It will be fine.”
The wind shifted once more, putting Jesse directly downwind from the newcomer. As he drew in the man’s scent, his hackles raised.
Wolf!
Robert was a wolf-shifter!
The wolf’s smell was mixed with something else suddenly. Something that hadn’t been there seconds ago—succubus energy.
Was the shifter also part succubus? It was rare but not unheard of.
Jesse inhaled deeply, separating the wolf’s smell from that of the sexual energy. It took him a second to connect the dots in his state of anger—succubus. There was something hauntingly familiar about it.
The wind brought with it another scent that left memories from thirteen years ago flashing through Jesse’s mind.
To the time behind the grocery store with Efren and the young woman.
It took Jesse a minute to realize the smell wasn’t just honey and melon.
It was also blood. A small amount but blood all the same.
And he knew that blood! He’d smelled it behind the grocery store.
His gaze zeroed in on Lindy.
His breathing increased and he replayed that day again, taking him back to the moment he’d come around the corner of the store to find Efren there, scaring the hell out of a young woman.
Last night, when Jesse had been in Lindy’s home and had covered her with a throw blanket, he’d thought for a fleeting second that Lindy might be the woman from behind the grocery store, but he’d dismissed the notion, thinking the odds were stacked against it.
But now, smelling her blood too, he knew for certain he wasn’t wrong.
Lindy was the source of the scents that had sent him over the edge of reason thirteen years ago.
She’d been who he’d hunted for, hoping to find and protect.
That same urge remained. The need to keep her safe, no matter what.
Having confirmation that she was the source of the succubus smell he’d caught earlier meant something else too.
It meant she was a supernatural—fair game for a claim.
The thought should have jarred him out of the frenzied state he was in. It didn’t. It only managed to send him deeper into a spiral.
Jesse’s claws dug deeper into the earth as he fought the urge to attack the wolf-shifter for daring to be close to her, for daring to put his hands on her, and for clearly doing something to trigger her succubus side.
The intensity of his reaction made no sense.
His beast had never shown such focused interest in a female before, never demanded he stake a claim with such ferocity. The confusion only fueled his anger.
Rip his throat out! shouted the beast, curling its lip and baring its teeth.
Jesse nearly gave in, letting the cat do as it pleased.
Rational thought began to creep in, pushing through the haze of rage.
The wolf was clearly law enforcement, and Jesse couldn't afford that kind of attention.
Not when he was already going to catch hell from The Corporation for engaging the hybrids earlier— if they realized it was him.
Yet watching Lindy and the male interact, seeing the easy familiarity between them, made his blood boil in ways he couldn't explain.
But something about Lindy drew him like a moth to a flame. That attraction alone was dangerous enough. He couldn't afford to draw any more unwanted scrutiny.
His employer had made no promise to him that any issue he created would be made to vanish as they’d indicated with the hybrids.
And already, he'd deviated from his mission parameters twice in one day. First, leaving the hybrids unwatched as he joined the job fair, then protected Charley from the hybrid attack. That didn’t even count leaving the hybrids unwatched again so he could seek out Lindy and watch her.
Stalk her , his beast corrected, ever the asshole.
Jesse couldn’t add more infractions to his list. Not yet. Not if he wanted to keep backup teams from The Corporation from being sent in to clean up his mess. That could leave Lindy and Charley being caught in the crosshairs.
Unacceptable!
The man holding Lindy stiffened before his head snapped up, nostrils flaring. He said something to Lindy that was drowned out by thunder and rain.
Lindy nodded, thrust the trash bags into the man’s hands, and then turned, heading back into the bar, leaving the wolf-shifter standing out in the rain. The wolf-shifter cocked his head to the side in an unnatural manner and dropped the bags of trash.
Jesse went completely still. Between the rain, his injuries, and the residual scents from his earlier fight, he should be impossible to detect.
But something had caught the wolf's attention.
While Jesse had burning hot rage on his side should the wolf-shifter come at him, his injuries could cost him precious reaction time.
Thunder crashed, and lightning flashed as Jesse weighed his options.
He could retreat into the shadows and return another night.
That would be the smart play. But the thought of leaving Lindy with another predator, even one who wore a badge and who seemed as if he wanted to protect her, made his blood boil.
The Corporation would have his head for this level of insubordination.
Observation only, those had been his orders.
Instead, he'd gotten himself hired at the rescue, fought a pack of hybrids, and now found himself territorially fixated on a woman who might very well be the same one he'd been drawn to thirteen years ago. A woman his cat-shifter side seemed determined to lay claim to as if she were Jesse’s mate or something.
The thought left him jerking backward, causing the grass to rustle and the wolf-shifter's attention to zero in on him.
Samuel had always warned him about getting personally invested in missions.
The bastard had been right. And now Jesse had to decide which was worse—facing The Corporation's punishment or walking away from the first woman who'd ever made his beast want to claim a mate.
The wolf-shifter's head snapped up, his attention zeroing in on Jesse’s location. The storm caused the tall grass to rustle, moving it in a way that risked revealing Jesse. The man’s stance became defensive as his nostrils flared. It was then Jesse knew the wolf-shifter was aware of his presence.
His wounded side screamed in protest with the slightest of movements. As much as Jesse wanted to stand his ground and fight the male, especially after touching Lindy, he couldn’t risk it. Not with his current condition. Jesse wouldn’t risk Lindy being harmed in the crossfire.
No.
Retreat was the only option for now.
He backed into the tall grass more, doing his best to ignore the pain that seemed to radiate from every spot on his body.
Blood seeped freely from Jesse’s open wounds.
The fight with the hybrids had left him more damaged than he’d initially thought.
He heard, rather than saw, the wolf-shifter male’s booted feet running across the parking lot in the rain.
Jesse’s beast snarled, clearly stupid since it was all for taking on the large male, even with as injured as it was. It took all of Jesse’s control to get the beast to turn and run. It did, moving at a quarter of its normal speed. Each step jarring his already sore body.
The sound of a squelching radio cut through the storm, and Jesse slowed, listening as the wolf-shifter responded to a call about a body being found in the woods several miles from their current location.
Jesse had a sinking feeling the hybrids and Peters were behind it, but he couldn’t worry about that right now. If the wolf-shifter was responding to a call for work, that meant he’d be leaving Lindy alone at the bar.
Jesse watched the wolf-shifter’s headlights disappear into the night.
His gaze landed on the discarded trash bags by the bar’s back door.
Despite the pain screaming through his body, Jesse focused and shifted back into human form.
He was left on his hands and knees in the wet, tall grass area, too weak to stand right away.
It took him three tries before he was able to get to his feet.
When he did, he swayed, naked, rain washing blood down his body from the various open wounds he had.
He didn’t need to see the full extent of his wounds to know he looked like death warmed over.
He could feel it. Ignoring the pain, he made his way across the parking lot, unconcerned with his state of undress.
No one was around to see him. The only person he had to worry about happening upon him was Lindy.
He wasn’t sure how in the hell he’d explain why he was naked and bleeding behind her bar.
Gritting his teeth, ignoring the bite of pain, Jesse gathered the trash bags and carried them to the dumpster, trailing blood the entire way.
The rain would wash it away, hiding his scent from the hybrids should they find their way back to the bar.
The simple task of lifting the lid to the dumpster took all the strength he had.
He managed, and once the trash was inside the dumpster, he turned.
Everything spun around him, and he staggered backward, hitting the dumpster and falling to his knees.
He smelled her before he saw Lindy opening the back door of the bar.
“Robert, you could have told me you got the trash bags,” she said, her voice sounding like sweet music to his ears. “I just dried off, and now I’m wet again. What? Uh, well, if you didn’t throw them in the dumpster, who did? My fairy godmother?”
Jesse didn’t want Lindy to find a bleeding naked man behind her bar. With no other choice, he shifted back into his cat form and fell onto the ground fully.
“Y-yes, I’ll totally stay in the bar and lock the doors. I won’t leave until you get back,” she said.
Darkness swarmed his vision as he watched Lindy glance across the parking lot, her eyes widening. “Fluffy!”
Shit.
She ran right toward him. If Jesse managed to live through this, he was going to have a long, stern talk with the woman about rushing toward injured wild animals.