Page 26 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)
“Thanks for dropping me off,” Jason said as Sabrina pulled through the gates of Griffin’s estate.
She smiled. “Of course. It’s been a long couple of days. Try to get some sleep and…”
“What’s wrong?” he asked when she stopped talking. He turned from her to look out the front windshield. The BSR van was parked in Griffin’s driveway. “Should we really be surprised?”
Sabrina chuckled. “No. They care about you. Look at it this way. If you tell them all at once, you don’t have to spend all night dealing with calls and texts.”
They climbed out of the car, and Jason grabbed his bag from the back seat before they headed inside.
Bea answered the door. “Good to see you both.”
“I see you have a full house. Sorry if I’m the cause,” Jason said.
Bea smirked. “A semi-full house. And you all are always welcome here. We’re in Griffin’s office. Come join us.”
They followed Bea and found Griffin, Misha, Kyle, and Jean Luc in the seating area next to Griffin’s monstrosity of a desk.
“Couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” Jason teased.
Misha sat up straight. “You can’t send us some cryptic text message about what happened and expect us to wait.”
“I tried to stop him,” Kyle said.
Jean Luc shook his head. “I tried to stop both of them.”
Jason laughed. “It’s okay. Let me tell you what we know and then you can ask questions.” He stared at Misha and then Kyle, who both held up their hands in mock surrender.
They all sat and Jason filled them in on what had happened with his parents. They stayed as quiet as they could, which for Misha and Kyle was saying something.
“Wait. Your mom pointed a shotgun at Sabrina to protect you,” Kyle repeated what Jason had said, her eyes wide.
“Yeah. She didn’t blink when Sabrina told her she was a demon.”
“Lidia is my new bestie,” Kyle announced.
Sabrina shook her head. “Your new bestie pointed a gun at your old bestie.”
“Hey!” Misha grumbled. “Who said you’re her bestie? I’ve known Kyle since she was born. Oh wait, that’s right. I delivered Kyle. She’s named after me!”
Kyle crossed her arms. “Oh, for the love of all that is holy, you are both my besties. And Jean Luc and Talia.” She looked at Jason. “And you. You’re all my besties!”
“ Merci for including us in your bestie list, Kyle. I will make sure to let Talia know,” Jean Luc quipped with a smile that showed more fang than usual.
“Maybe we should let Jason finish,” Griffin interrupted with a touch of humor.
Jason recounted what his mom had told him about Jessica and why they had kept his adoption a secret.
“Do you have the information she gave you about the lawyer?” Misha said, holding out his hands in a gimme gesture.
Jason reached for his duffel and unzipped it, pulled out the envelope, and handed it to Misha. “It also contains a paper with Jessica’s and her mom’s full names they were using at that time.”
“Can I have the names as well? I want to look at our shifter lineage database to see if I can find more information about your mother,” Griffin said.
“And it’s concerning that Jessica’s family left their pack,” Bea added. “That’s not something that happens often.”
“And I’ll start digging into all this ASAP,” Misha said.
“What about the smuggler case? Shouldn’t you be working on that?” Jason didn’t want to distract them from finding the smugglers.
Misha pulled the papers out of the envelope. “We might have a lead on that. Doyle has a previous unsavory acquaintance who might know something. We’re scheduling a meet.”
Jason frowned. “That should be your priority.”
“We spoke to Nicholas about the case and about the need to help with your family as well. He agreed we could use some more help,” Jean Luc said.
“The Big Boss agreed to more help?” Jason asked. Nicholas could be a bit controlling over his BSR teams.
Misha chuckled. “Yes. Talia is bringing Will back with her from Vegas. He’s going to help temporarily.”
Did they see Jason as a liability now? He wasn’t exactly reliable if they had to worry about sedating him every time he got stressed.
“Plus Will needs a break from Vegas,” Kyle added.
Sabrina leaned forward. “I’m going to start looking at the drug in more detail. Try some other tests to see if we can figure out what it is for and where it would be coming from.”
Misha glanced at the unzipped duffel. “Is that a bag of cookies I see?”
So much for hoarding the cookies. It was all over now that Misha had seen them. “Yeah. Oatmeal raisin. My mom makes the best.”
Misha’s eyebrows raised. “I think we need to be the judge of that.”
Jason bent and pulled out the bag, passing it around so everyone could take one.
Misha bit into the cookie and groaned. “This is amazing. I think I’m going to claim your mother as my new bestie.”
Sabrina laughed next to him. “You should try her biscuits.”
Jason looked between his teammates, his pack mates, and Sabrina. He couldn’t ask for a better group of people to have his back.
Sabrina pulled into her garage and parked.
There was so much to do, but tonight her bath called to her, and she needed to get some sleep so she was fresh tomorrow.
Her never-ending fatigue was now her constant companion.
She grabbed her bag out of the car and reached for the door leading into her house.
Energy surged over her and she sighed. So much for a nice long bath.
Opening the door, she dropped her bag on the bench just inside the entry, kicked off her shoes, and headed to the living room where she wasn’t surprised to see Alexander. He sat in her comfy chair reading a book.
“By all means, make yourself at home.”
Alexander finished the paragraph he was reading—of course he did—and then looked up at her. “I arrived in town a couple hours ago. I assumed you would be home today or tomorrow, so I needed to do something while I waited.”
Did he need to do it in her house? She didn’t say that out loud, but by the look on Alexander’s smug face, he knew what she was thinking.
“You didn’t have to come all this way to tell me Lucas refused to help. You could have called me.”
Alexander smiled. “Except he didn’t refuse. He wants to help.”
Sabrina’s heart sped up, and Alexander’s eyes narrowed. Damn it. She held her emotions close, always had. “That’s surprising.”
Alexander shrugged. “You knew that sending the blood tests and notes would tempt him to solve the puzzle.”
“I hoped he would want to help. He is brilliant.”
Alexander blew out a breath. “And he knows it. Brilliant and egotistical, or at least he used to be.” Until they lost Robert was left unsaid.
“Has he said what he wants in return?” she asked, holding her breath.
Alexander stared at her in the uncomfortable way he had of trying to read one’s soul. “Not yet.”
“Has he come to any conclusions?”
“Probably, but you know he isn’t going to say anything until he can dive more into the case. He wants an actual blood sample from the patient and any family members—parents, siblings. He also wants a patient history as well to start with.”
“I can get the blood from the patient. The rest is a problem. He was adopted. We’re looking for his biological family. All we know is that his mother was shifter and his father human.”
Alexander pursed his lips. “That won’t make Lucas happy, but it will have to do for now.”
“How is he?” Sabrina asked, doubting if Alexander would tell her the truth.
He hesitated for a moment. “Single-minded.”
Her heart broke for Lucas all over again. He was still obsessed with finding a cure. Still not over Robert. Although did you ever truly get over losing someone you love?
“I have some additional test results that I can provide Lucas, and I can get more blood tomorrow for you to take to him.”
Alexander stood. “Excellent. Contact me when you have collected the blood.”
“You’re staying in town?”
He smirked. “I have a date tonight. There is some sort of event that we’re going to.”
She wasn’t surprised that he’d already been asked out on a date in a matter of hours of arriving in town; he was a powerful Incubus after all.
But she was surprised that he had accepted.
Alexander had become very picky about his encounters.
He only went out with humans that he declared had “high energy,” and those were few and far between.
“We’ll talk tomorrow, then,” Sabrina said.
Alexander walked toward the front door. He turned back to her. “I’m glad that you reached out about your patient, Rina. I think this distraction will be good for Lucas.”
She bristled a little at Jason being called a distraction, but she wouldn’t argue the fact. She didn’t want Alexander to know how much Jason meant to her. But who was she kidding? She had reached out because of him. Alexander was a lot of things, but clueless was not one of them.
And she needed to be careful that Jason wasn’t used as a means to an end. She had no doubt that Lucas would want something in return. But if it meant saving Jason, then she wouldn’t refuse him.