Page 7 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)
Jason stepped off what Kyle not so affectionately called the slowest damn elevator on the planet and headed down the hall to the Bureau’s office.
The building was in the heart of downtown Cleveland, but the team didn’t spend their days behind a desk.
Much of the time they were out in the field where he liked to be.
Now they were meeting to figure out the next steps in the smuggler case.
He opened the door to the office and found Dolly sitting at the reception desk.
She was the gatekeeper for the group, ensuring that any humans who stumbled into their detective agency were dissuaded from working with them.
Today she wore a black polka dot mini dress with penguin earrings.
She was a beautiful shifter female with a sarcastic streak a mile wide.
She could give Kyle a run for her money.
She smiled. “How’s shifter school going?”
He wasn’t surprised she knew, but his dinner with Griffin had just been the night before, so that was fast. “How do you know about that?”
“Secrets are hard to keep in the pack. Big ears and all that. You turn into anything interesting?”
He grinned. “I’ll share mine if you share yours.”
“Nice try, shifter boy. They’re all waiting for you.”
It was surreal sometimes to be part of a team again. A demon, two vampires, and Kyle, who was a force all on her own and technically half demon. With her ability to manipulate memories, she played a key role in helping keep supernaturals a secret. And he couldn’t forget Sabrina.
He opened the door to the back offices and took a trip back to the 1970s.
Kyle sat on the lime-green couch, and Misha at the almond-colored faux-wood table typing on his laptop.
Talia made coffee in the kitchenette while Jean Luc looked on.
No matter how many times Talia tried to teach him how to make coffee, the vampire could only produce sludge.
Talia made great coffee even though she couldn’t drink it.
Jason sat down at the table, and Talia brought over a mug of coffee and set it in front of him before taking a seat as well next to Jean Luc.
“Thanks.”
“I think we can start the meeting once I get Sabrina linked in,” Misha said.
Jason blinked. Sabrina didn’t normally join their meetings unless they had specific medical questions for her.
Jean Luc must have noted his confusion. “Sabrina wants to be part of the conversation about these smugglers. She wants them—and I quote—caught before someone else ends up in her ER. Especially you.”
Jason’s heart sped up, but he shrugged. “I don’t plan to throw myself in front of Misha again any time soon.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sabrina’s voice chimed in as Misha turned the laptop toward the group so they could see her.
From her background she was in her office at the Shamat clan hospital.
Even through the screen, Jason could feel her looking him over with her doctor’s eyes.
They missed little but hid a lot. “How are you feeling?”
“Good as new.”
And now those doctor’s eyes were narrowed at him. He liked that way too much.
“So what do we know, Mish?” Kyle thankfully asked from her perch on the couch.
“There wasn’t much left in the warehouse once we got back to check it out. But we were able to pull some video from surveillance cameras on the street when they left in several trucks with whatever merchandise they had in the warehouse.”
“You and Jason didn’t get a chance to check it out?” Talia asked.
Misha shook his head. “The smugglers came back before we could plant the bugs or look around.”
“They aren’t just smuggling tchotchkes. It must be serious for them to shoot Jason,” Kyle said.
“Agreed,” Jean Luc added.
Talia leaned forward. “Weapons? Drugs?”
“We know that most human drugs do not impact supernaturals in the same way,” Sabrina said. “But there are a couple of synthetic drugs that have hit the black market that can impact demons.”
“If it’s weapons, I think they wouldn’t be your standard issue. Maybe something supernatural?” Jason added.
Misha nodded. “We’ve seen what the poachers did with the sonic weaponry against shifters in the past. There could be weaponry imbued with demon powers. Anything is possible.”
Kyle stood up and started to pace. “I hope you’re wrong about that, Mish. So what did you pick up from the cameras?”
“A license plate that we traced to a box truck rented using a fake ID. Mostly unrecognizable faces and one partially blurry face.”
Misha turned his laptop back and typed on it before turning it again to face them. The picture on the screen had been split in two with Sabrina on one side and the picture on the other. The face was blurry, and the man looked like he was middle-aged with a short haircut.
“Supe?” Kyle asked.
“We have not found him in the paranormal database as of yet,” Jean Luc responded.
Kyle frowned. “If he’s a norm, that opens up a whole load of trouble.”
“You think humans are involved in this?” Talia asked.
Jason wrapped his hand around his coffee mug and held on a bit too hard at the possibility. “I hope not.”
Misha tapped his fingers on the table. “We’ll know more once we can trace them. I’m working on the fake ID used for the rental van. And I’m running the pic through facial recognition between our database and some of the government and police databases.”
Kyle plopped back down on the couch. “Good thing Dalton’s not here.”
Kyle’s FBI boyfriend tried to ignore the fact that Misha had the ability to hack into almost any system. But in the long run he knew that they had to contain the secret about supernaturals as best they could.
“How did we get the lead about the smugglers in the first place?” Sabrina asked.
“Our anonymous tip line,” Misha volunteered.
Kyle smirked. “But is it really anonymous, Mish?”
Jason had been thinking the same thing.
Before Misha could answer, Jean Luc jumped in. “ Ma petite , as much as Misha might like to use his hacking skills to figure out who we are dealing with, that would defeat the purpose of it being anonymous. If word spread that we knew who contacted us, no one would use the tip line in the future.”
Kyle’s smirk changed to a frown. “Why do you have to be so reasonable, Jean Luc? It’s tres annoying.”
“We don’t have to approach the person,” Jason pushed. “But if we determined who it came from, we might be able to figure out who might be involved—shifters, vamps, demons?” And hopefully not humans.
“I understand but we can’t,” Misha said.
Jean Luc nodded as if he were a proud parent.
“I already traced the number and it’s a burner phone, so no dice.”
“ Mon Dieu! ” Jean Luc growled before closing his eyes and, if Jason wasn’t mistaken, uttering some choice French curse words.
Talia rested her hand on his arm and murmured softly to him.
Kyle’s mouth dropped open. “Talia, are you speaking French?”
“I am. I find it helps calm Jean Luc when he’s upset.”
Kyle coughed as if to hide a laugh but wasn’t successful when the laugh burst from her and grew in volume.
Jean Luc stopped mumbling and turned his attention to Kyle. “What is so amusing?”
Kyle giggled some more before she wiped her eyes and appeared to collect herself. “You have tried to calm me down with French for years . I just like to see the tables turned, mon ami. ”
Jean Luc narrowed his eyes. “I attempted to teach you French years ago.”
Kyle shrugged. “I know, and Misha tried with Russian. But other than a few random words, the only things that really stuck from both languages were the curse words, and you just let some creative ones fly!”
Misha chuckled. “Very true!”
“Talia has been an exemplary student,” Jean Luc responded, not jumping at the bait.
“It has been very educational,” Talia said with a small smile before leaning in and whispering to him. Jean Luc shared a heated look with her.
“Ew! You two are gaggy enough without the sexy love language,” Kyle groaned.
“Kyle, you practically erupt in glitter when Dalton returns home from a case,” Misha said.
“You take that back! I am the antithesis of glitter! And you have some nerve. You are so sickly sweet with Callie it’s enough to give us all cavities.”
And then Misha blustered at Kyle. Jason sat back and watched his teammates with exasperation. They all had found love, and as happy as Jason was for them, he was jealous too. He might not want glitter or cavities, but he did want someone to share his life with.
Yes, he had this ridiculous found family who had taken him in even when he had treated them like the enemy, but they all went home to their partners and he went home to an empty apartment.
Jason looked at Sabrina on the screen, and she shared a smile with him as the team kept bickering around them. Her eyes danced like they used to with him before he tried to make their relationship more.
He had hoped that Sabrina would be his someone, but that wasn’t going to happen. It was time to finally move on and find a different someone who would accept him, random shifter DNA, warts, and all.