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Anson Rossi lay on the gross bed of the crummy motel where he and Agent Lee had stopped for the night. He still couldn’t believe he’d agreed to go with her, but what choice did he have?

After what he’d done, he’d been surprised that FUC hadn’t thrown him straight into their jail. He’d been impressed with the sympathy they’d shown him when he confessed that he’d only broken into the Academy and kidnapped a student because he was under duress.

“He has my sister,” Anson had said as they cuffed him. He’d thought they’d tell him to shut it, but instead, they asked for more info.

That was when Anson remembered to zip it.

He’d played Dr. Grimm’s game for this long, and he couldn’t fold now.

Not when he still had no idea where Grimm was keeping Ariel, or what he was doing to her.

Not when he wasn’t sure if he could trust FUC.

Even if they did want to help him find Ariel, he had no way of knowing that they could succeed in saving her from Grimm.

Not when the doctor had evaded them this long already.

So he refused to play ball with FUC. Interrogation after interrogation, he told them he had no information to help them in their case against the doctor.

Then Nari showed up at the motel where FUC was keeping him. He’d seen her at the interrogations, though she’d always been in the back, seemingly paying more attention to her nails than the conversation. FUC introduced her to him in a less-than-friendly way.

“Agent Nari Lee is with the ASS,” the hound dog shifter named Agent Stone had explained.

“Because Dr. Grimm has been experimenting on many fowl creatures, we’re allowing Agent Lee to observe our meetings as a courtesy to ASS.

But make no mistake. You’re in FUC territory, it’s FUC you’ll be working with, and FUC will be taking down Grimm. ”

And though she never asked any questions or participated in the interrogation, Anson couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering toward her.

She was average height but always sat straight and tall, staring at him with brown eagle eyes.

Her dark hair shone under the harsh fluorescent lights, her mouth never once turning up in a smile.

It had him wondering what a smile from Nari Lee might look like…

And then she showed up at his hotel door, barging in to remove his ankle monitor and declaring, “ Unless you want every FUC and ASS agent to pounce on you in the next ten minutes, I suggest we leave.”

He had no time to think. Nari was offering him his last chance to save his sister. So he followed her out to the red sports car, and after they’d hopped in, she peeled out of the motel parking lot and out of the rinky-dink town that was home to the FUC Academy.

And that was how he ended up in the next disgusting motel room, waiting for Nari to return with food. It felt like his situation hadn’t changed much—minus the ankle monitor.

What am I doing? he asked himself for what seemed like the millionth time.

Doing whatever I can to save Ariel. It was the answer he’d given himself for months now.

He fidgeted uncomfortably on the bed. The comforter appeared free of pests and creepy crawlies, but Anson feared what a black light might show.

He felt dirty just thinking about it—and not the good, natural kind of dirty or the even better, kinky kind of dirty.

As a shrew shifter, Anson felt at home in actual dirt, but in disgusting places like this motel room, he wanted to line everything with a buffer of plastic wrap.

Rolling around in fresh earth would be a step up from this place.

He had to wash his hands five times in a row to feel clean enough after touching anything in the room.

If they stayed long enough, the skin on his hands would probably crack and bleed from all the hand scrubbing.

He was not looking forward to any of that.

He laughed bitterly at his thoughts. Dry hands were really the least of his worries. He was a fugitive on the run from the Furry United Coalition while also likely a wanted target of the evil Dr. Grimm, who still had Ariel in his clutches. He was a dead man walking.

“Why are you doing this?” he’d asked Nari as she drove the sports car way too fast.

“Because FUC thinks they’re so smart, but the writing’s on the wall. There’s no way you’re going to reveal what you know to them, and they know it. They were talking about giving up on trying to work with you and locking you up.” Her cute nose wrinkled up in disgust.

“I figured my time was about up,” he’d admitted. “But why didn’t you let it happen, then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if you know this, but FUC and ASS have a long history of animosity toward each other. I happen to know one thing they’d especially hate would be having ASS break this case, especially using an asset that they previously had in their clutches.”

“So, you’re using me,” he concluded.

“You got a problem with that?” she challenged, her brown eyes sweeping over him as if daring him to respond.

“If you’ll recall from when we first met, I already told you that I don’t trust you.

So it should come as no surprise to you that this isn’t some bleeding-heart mission.

It’s a tit-for-tat scenario. I’m helping you so you can get your sister back.

And you’ll be helping me to get a one-up on FUC—Foolish and Uncouth Creatures. ”

He’d laughed at her butchering of the FUC acronym. Though, as a shrew, he was aligned with the furry agents, he had always been one who desired a certain level of sophistication.

He liked his odds of being on the run with one agent better than the whole of FUC, though.

Grimm might actually reach out to him if he weren’t surrounded by armed guards.

But where could he start? How involved was he ready to let Agent Lee become?

He hardly knew her, and she had clearly stated her disdain for him, but even so, he knew that if Grimm had his way, he’d take Nari prisoner as he did everyone else.

And Anson had had enough of delivering innocent people to Grimm in hopes of getting Ariel back.

I’ve gotta figure out a way to be free of him. Anson scratched his head, looking at the brownish stains on the yellowed ceiling as he lay on the bed, absorbing his situation.

He jumped when the door to the motel room popped open without warning.

Nari strode in, whipping a lock of silky black hair over her shoulder like a model in a hair products commercial.

“What are you up to?” she asked, narrowing her brown eyes at him while juggling a bag of fast food and two fountain drinks.

Those eagle eyes missed nothing and almost seemed like they could read his mind. He hoped not, or he was a dead shrew.

“Nothing,” he snapped, a little too defensively.

“I’m trying to not get a disease from this bed,” he added dryly.

Anson pushed himself up off the springy mattress, dusting his chino pants off as if doing so did anything to decontaminate his clothing.

Wiping his hands on his pants a few times only partially quelled the rising anxiety about the possibility of being unclean.

He knew it didn’t make sense, but it helped ease his nerves, so he did it.

He hoped Nari didn’t notice some of his quirks.

Not only could they be embarrassing, but he also didn’t want her to exploit his weaknesses.

“That’s not what I mean,” Nari said with an edge to her voice, which meant she heard the sarcasm.

She put the food on the small, round table next to the window that gave them a nice view of the cracks and lines of grass in the asphalt in the parking lot.

When they’d first pulled in, Anson thought for sure the motel was abandoned, and he’d told Nari as much.

“It’s open,” she’d said, pointing to the open sign lit up in the office window.

“Is this the only place around here? Maybe we should keep going to the next town ? —”

“I’m sorry. Is this place too grungy for His Highness?” she’d interrupted him. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers.”

“I don’t remember doing any begging,” he’d muttered.

She’d ignored his remark. “Not that I owe you an explanation, but just so you know, I chose this place because it’s not likely to be one of the first places FUC would check.

Now, if you’d like to keep traveling on the highway and increase our risk of being caught by the agents looking for us, then you’re welcome to head out on foot. But I’m staying here.”

“You have that look on your face again,” Nari said, interrupting his thoughts.

Her voice was silk yet cut through the brief silence like a well-sharpened blade.

Even when she slid back into interrogation mode, her voice left the hair on his arms standing on end.

Anson couldn’t put his finger on how or why his body responded to her in this way.

How could he possibly find an agent attractive?

Especially one who was a bird of prey shifter who probably had dreams of eating small critters? He shook the image from his mind.

“What look?” he asked, keeping the defensiveness out of his voice this time.

He let a facade of innocence slide across his face, the one a puppy would give its owner when it didn’t want them to know it had just rooted through the trash.

He didn’t like the idea of her reading his thoughts.

He liked even less the smug look on her face when she felt she knew better than he did.