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Zeke walked Celine back to her side of the island, running into the shifter night patrol at one point, but they passed with simple nods of acknowledgment.

Zeke was glad they weren’t hassling Celine or himself.

He didn’t really know where they were going with their relationship, but he had realized that whatever happened, he needed to be with her.

In whatever capacity she’d allow. If she wanted to friend-zone him after this, then he’d have to accept that, even if he didn’t particularly like it.

He didn’t think that would happen, but it was all up to her.

He would do whatever she wanted. He was that desperate to be near her, looking after her, protecting her, in whatever way he could.

Though, he had to admit, after the past two nights, he would give anything to be her lover.

Maybe even her mate. Though he still didn’t know exactly how that worked.

He had to find a way to get some answers about that particular subject without being too obvious.

First though, he had to figure out a way to protect her if she did get invited along on the mission he knew the brass was already planning.

Every one of his instincts revolted at the idea of bringing her along on such a dangerous trip, but it wouldn’t be up to him.

Ultimately, the shifters had say over who did what on their side of the island, and because his unit was officially grounded, they would be working under the auspices of the shifter command.

That’s how things had been working ever since they’d gotten to this island.

Zeke only had a few hours of sleep that night, and they were troubled by thoughts of Celine being in danger. But he didn’t have time to dwell on that the next morning when the entire unit was called in a briefing. He’d been expecting this. It was time to talk about how to go on the offensive.

“Up to this point, we been reacting instead of taking the fight to the enemy.” Captain Haliwell was leading the briefing in the big conference room.

Most of the unit members were there, except a couple who were keeping watch.

Liam Kincaid and Master Chief Santini were also there, representing the shifter contingent.

Zeke was glad to see Santini. He hoped to get a chance to talk to the master chief after the meeting, if possible, about how to best safeguard Celine if she did end up going on the mission with them.

But that was for later. Right now, he was very intrigued by what his commander had to say.

“Thanks to recent intelligence breakthroughs, we now have multiple targets.” Hal hit the button, and the lights went down in the briefing room, as a display lit up on the far wall.

“Starting at the top, we have Abdul Kettering.” The reclusive billionaire’s face came up on the display in a surveillance shot taken from a distance at what looked like a private airstrip.

“For those who don’t know or need a refresher, he’s the son of a German arms merchant, carrying on the family business.

Actually, Abdul has been expanding the business into more unsavory, illegal, and even radical places since inheriting everything on the death of his father.

We don’t know the whereabouts of his mother.

She dropped off the radar years ago and there was speculation that she’d died under mysterious circumstances, but nobody knows for sure.

Abdul has been on our radar for a long time, but we never had the direct linkage of intel that we have now.

Not only has Abdul been supplying weapons to the wrong sides of several conflicts important to our government and allies, but we now know that he has confirmed ties to the Venifucus and a trio of mages, one of whom took out Master Chief Santini’s son and daughter-in-law in a sneak attack.

Both of them were selkies, and according to Zeke’s report, they put up a valiant fight and acquitted themselves well.

The fact that they were both killed by this one woman is no shame to them, but rather, a salient warning about the caliber of enemy we’re planning to take down. ”

Hal nodded respectfully to the master chief, who nodded in return. Everybody in the room was giving Hal their full attention. An eagerness came over them. They were warriors. None of them enjoyed being cooped up on this island, unable to use their hard-won skills.

“Because of the personal nature of the transgressions of this single mage, and reports that she is in the area, we’ve decided to go after her first. And when I say we , I mean to say that this will be a joint Army and Navy endeavor.

I haven’t talked much about this with anybody yet, but there have been discussions at a higher level than mine about the fate of our unit.

At the very least, it’s clear we can’t go back to what we were doing before.

But what we’ll be able to do in the future remains up in the air.

There has been talk of decommissioning us entirely.

Retiring us and putting us out to pasture.

” Rumbles went up from around the room at that pronouncement, but Hal still held their attention.

“There has also been talk of posting us permanently to this base and Commander Kincaid, having us work alongside the other special troops assigned here. Consider this mission a trial run for that second option. We all need to learn to work together, utilizing each other’s strengths to the best of our abilities. Do you understand?”

It was a loaded question. Hal had just let them know that there was a possibility they could all be out of a job very soon if they didn’t learn to play nice with the shifters. Each and every man responded with an affirmative ooh rah that almost shook the walls with its intensity.

“Now, thanks to our Navy friends and their ability to infiltrate places where even we might have trouble getting in, we know that the mage in question is holed up on a very exclusive estate on the North Fork of Long Island. They’ve been monitoring communications in and out of the estate and discovered that she arrived back in the U.S.

in response to the magical contact Zeke reported after his mission to the Santini home on the coast of Connecticut.

Research has uncovered that the estate is owned by Kettering, through several shell companies.

Lieutenant Kinkaid, would you like to continue with what your people have uncovered?

” Hal turned over the briefing to the shifter officer in the room.

Liam Kinkaid stood, his slightly shaggy blond hair and exceedingly tall frame dominating the space.

Every member of Zeke’s unit was taller and a lot bigger than average, but some of these shifters were downright massive, though not in a bulky bodybuilder sort of way.

No, these guys were sleek fighting machines, and in Liam’s case, Zeke knew he owed his size and physique to his wild side.

Liam Kincaid was a big-ass lion shifter.

“Thank you, Captain Haliwell. And thank you, Zeke, for perhaps unintentionally, luring the mage back to the United States. We have recordings of her saying unequivocally that she returned here based on your interaction with that magical lamp trap at the Santini home. If not for that, we’d still be looking for her,” Liam said, surprising Zeke a bit, but in a good way.

He was glad his misstep with the lamp had brought about the discovery of the mage’s location. Hell, she’d even come running so they didn’t have to go far to kill her. Wasn’t that accommodating of her?

Liam went on with his briefing, using the display to show aerial images, topographical maps, and schematics of the mansion and grounds of the estate in question.

There was one giant, opulent house, along with several outbuildings set aside for different uses.

A guest house. A pool house. Various garages and storage sheds, as well as barns and animal enclosures. Lots of places for people to hide.

“We had one of our bird shifter soldiers do a flyover last night, along with some of the werewolves who prowled around the grounds. They picked up a lot of scents which altogether indicate that she’s gathering a small army around her.

A sort of strike team that is almost ready to take action against us.

Until yesterday, we thought they were just looking for Celine, and that we could hide her effectively.

But, again, thanks to Zeke, we now know that they were targeting Celine and her parents in order to bring the master chief out into the open so they could follow him back to the rest of us.

Their original plan was to bring down as many shifter soldiers as they could because they see us as a threat to their ultimate goal.

However, the communications intercepts indicate that she’s been putting two and two together and realizing that the Green Berets everybody seems to be interested in are now working with us, and have somehow gotten involved in this situation.

There’s a recording of her cackling with her mentor about killing two birds with one stone. ”

“And now that they’ve connected us with the shifters,” Hal put in from the other side of the table, “and they know where we are…they also know where the shifters are. So, it’s a good news, bad news situation.

On the plus side, they aren’t just after Celine or the master chief alone anymore.

And they’re not quite ready to attack us yet, according to the surveillance done last night.

We’ll still have the element of surprise if we’re ready to go after them first. On the down side, this may mean that two separate enemies are now working together against us.

There were the foreign agents who were after us and the mage who was after the shifters.

Both were formidable opponents separately, but now, it’s likely that they’re combining forces.

Also, our presence here on this island has inadvertently given away the presence of the shifters, endangering them more than I like,” Hal admitted, shaking his head.

“We knew that was going to happen sooner or later,” Liam said with a slow shake of his head. “Don’t feel bad about it, Captain. Change is inevitable, and after this matter is settled, we’re all going to have to take a hard look at how, and where, we move forward.”

Well, that sounded ominous. Zeke looked around the table and realized everybody else wore the same expression he probably had on his face. Things were going to change, and soon. He just hoped it would be for the better.

“There’s one other thing,” Liam continued after a short pause, turning his attention to Zeke, meeting his gaze directly. “If you’re willing to try another reading, our patrols picked up a few items from the estate last night. They may be nothing, or they may help…”

Zeke perked up. “Absolutely. Anything I can do to help.”

After a short consultation with Rick, Hal asked for Lynn to be summoned to the meeting room so Zeke could do the readings right then and there.

This was the first time since they’d been overseas that Zeke had used his new power in front of the entire unit.

Mostly, he’d been using it under Rick and Lynn’s close supervision.

The other guys knew vaguely that he was getting better at controlling his new gift, but a few of them still looked skeptical.

Zeke couldn’t really blame them. The last time they’d seen Zeke use his power, he’d been reeling from the new ability and had gone unconscious more than once from artifact overload. He’d learned a lot since then.

Liam grabbed a small canvas satchel he’d had beside his chair and fished out a few plastic baggies, placing them on the table in front of himself.

All eyes turned when Lynn knocked then entered the conference room, looking around questioningly.

In short order, she was giving the objects her own examination.

“This one could be a problem, but I don’t think any of these other items have a magical imprint. Still, I’d urge caution,” she said quietly, lining up the little evidence bags on the table in front of her, holding that problematic one back from the others.

Zeke nodded and gestured for her to push the items in his direction. Rick intervened, sitting between them. He opened the first bag, dumping out the small object in front of Zeke. He put out a finger, exercising the caution Lynn had advised.

The item was the ring off an aluminum drink can. A bit of detritus that might contain information. Or not.

“This is recent. Two days ago, a man was a little too rough with the can and ripped this ring right off. He only touched it briefly, but while he was touching it, he was surrounded by three other large men who were cleaning weapons. They look like hired guns. Professional soldiers. And they all spoke a dialect of Chinese I’m not entirely familiar with,” Zeke reported.

“Get Carter,” Hal ordered, summoning a member of the unit who had been left on watch and not at the meeting.