Page 54 of Covert Affections (Shadow Agents/PSI-Ops #5)

What were the odds of that being true?

The realization that Charley was her best friend settled over him. Charley had been close to the little girl from the lab too. They’d been inseparable. Could it be that the women somehow reconnected over the years? He’d heard it said more than once that like attracts like.

Mine.

Wife.

He’d bitten her. He’d said the word mine during it all. He’d laid claim to her and she’d returned it.

That meant, in the eyes of the supernatural community, they were married. And there was no getting out of a mating. No divorce.

Not that he wanted one.

Hell, he wanted to tie her to him and never let her go.

Jesse struggled to wrap his mind around the fact she might really, truly be the same little girl from long ago.

He’d worried about that little girl for decades, hoping she was all right.

Could it be she was Lindy? And if that was true, had fate really been doing its thing for nearly thirty years? Could it really be that cut and dry?

Everything he knew about mating raced through his head.

There was no denying the pull he had to Lindy.

The minute he’d seen her photos on social media, his sex drive, which had been on seemed like a permanent hiatus, came rushing back to him tenfold.

Before that, it had been thirteen years since he’d fucked anybody.

Some of the wind left his sails as that fact took up root in his mind.

If a supernatural male met their mate before she was of claiming age, their sex drive instantly shut off.

It was a natural failsafe. A way to level the field when dealing with immortals and to make sure nothing happened that shouldn’t.

If Lindy really was the same girl from the lab twenty-seven years ago, Jesse wouldn’t have had a quickie with a random woman in the restroom thirteen years prior.

It would have been physically impossible for him.

Jesse had banged his way through countless women for years after the lab incident.

That didn’t stop until he’d met Lindy behind the grocery store.

That meant Lindy couldn’t have been the same child from the lab.

The serum.

The thought popped into his mind with such force it actually hurt. The serum had fucked with his head and his body. Could it have done something that kept Jesse from fully realizing who his mate was back then? Prevented him from fully recognizing who the girl was to him?

Heat flared through him as a wave of nausea hit him.

He’d read through countless reports The Corporation had on PSI and its operatives.

For a while, PSI had been testing a serum that was similar to The Corporation’s.

The reports said it had interfered with the natural mating process of certain operatives.

Had it done that to him? Had it blocked his ability to know?

You turned on The Corporation for her. You sacrificed everything to protect her.

If he was right and the serum had interfered with his natural senses, it would explain a lot.

It fit with when he’d cross paths with her again, when she was in her late teens.

The serum was out of his system by that point.

His natural senses were in place. Meeting her again then triggered the failsafe, it shut off his sex drive until now—until he came face-to-face with her again as an adult.

“If my dreams were right about Lindy, does that mean they were right about Samuel too?” he whispered, hoping to make sense of it all.

Repeat after me… Don't question the process. Obey orders. Keep your head down.

The heavily French accented voice echoed in his head and was followed by a sharp pinching.

Jesse rubbed his temple, and the pain increased. There was a loud ringing in his ears that followed.

Do you see the man next to you? Samuel Eyres? He is of no relation to you. You have no ties to him. No allegiance. In fact, the very idea of having to answer to him infuriates you, said an accented voice, one Jesse instantly recognized from his dream—Anatole.

Don’t fucking tell him that! Samuel’s voice cut through the noise.

Your name is Jesse Culbertson , said Anatole. And Samuel Eyres is no friend of yours.

Jesse’s cat side pushed up fast, nearly overtaking him while he was next to Lindy in the bed.

Fear of harming her left him twisting fast, rolling away from Lindy and falling onto the bedroom floor.

He fought against the pending shift, but it was too late.

His bones cracked and reformed as fur burst forth from his skin.

He was left in full cat form and in immense pain on the floor, his emotions all over the place.

"Fluffy?" Lindy's sleepy voice came from above. She was still on the bed where he’d left her. “Mmm, I had the best dream. In it, I had amazing sex with the hot guy from the bar today. I’m not sure I even want to see if he is that good in bed for real. It might ruin the dream.”

Jesse froze.

She thought it had been a dream? That their joining and their shared claiming hadn’t been real?

Fuck!