All rights reserved. Copyright © 2024 by LA Magill. All distribution rights reserved for the exclusive use of Wicked Women LLC.
The never-ending duties of an Alpha called at every hour. I’d grown accustomed to giving up my personal time for my people. Rousing myself in the middle of the night or from the middle of a nap didn’t bother me, as long as it was for good reason.
So, I growled at the distracting dim light that pulsed from my smartwatch. Only flashing. That meant it wasn’t one of my important contacts.
“What’s wrong?” Rohan murmured against the inside of my thigh.
“N-nothing.” I took a deep, uneven breath and forced my fingers to unclench from the sheets around me. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Good.”
I gasped as Rohan took me at my word, but I couldn’t enjoy the lavish attention of my newest sleuthmate for long. My watch chimed and glowed bright with a new incoming call, one that I couldn’t brush off.
I groaned with extreme frustration as Rohan pushed himself up. I fisted my hands over my eyes, hoping the call might end abruptly. That someone had made mistake.
“It’s the head of security,” Rohan said.
Rotting mana. I held my hand out, and he put the watch in my palm. I glared at the disturbance as he stretched out alongside me. Rohan always smelled good to my supernaturally sensitive nose, but as his body pressed flush against mine, the deluge of heady hormones pouring from his skin nearly tempted me to chuck the watch at the wall and lick him all over.
Instead, the Alpha made me clear my throat then accepted the call through the watch.
“Alpha Sialuk?”
“Yes?” I asked, sounding mostly like myself.
“Senator Murphy is here to speak with you, ma’am.”
“What? Why?”
“He won’t tell me, ma’am. He says it is urgent.”
“Very urgent,” I heard the man in the background.
My supernaturally sensitive ears picked up on the excited strain in the man’s tone.
“Put him on,” I grumbled.
Rohan rubbed my back soothingly through the few seconds of shuffling as Murphy got on the line.
“Lucky?” Murphy asked.
“Is it Tadhana?” I asked without preamble.
“Well— no, but—No. I need to talk to you. Let me in.”
I held back the Alpha’s temper.
“Not tonight,” I said. “I’ll call first thing in the morning.”
“It’s Brodding, alright? I really need to talk to you.”
I hesitated.
Senator Fabian Murphy, a representative from Kentucky, was well-known for his hatred of shifter kin, but he’d developed a bit of blind spot when it came to me. It had nothing to do with me. Not really. He was a greedy man with big ambitions. Seeing my one-of-a-kind power in action, and the results only I could achieve, made it all too easy for a man like him to see me as an asset rather than shifter scum.
Director Sylvia Brodding, the appointed head of the American Shifter Defense Agency, though, had ambitions just as big, but they blinded her. She worked for the Americans, but wasn’t loyal, a corruption that Murphy had hoped to expose with my help.
Which I wouldn’t give until he promised to pay me.
We could use the money. “You figured out how to pay me?” I asked.
“Come down here so we can talk. Privately.”
Ugh. Fuck off.
Instead, the Alpha made me say: “I start charging the moment we start talking about my services. Are you ready to start paying for my time?”
“Jesus, yes Lucky, alright? Now, please hurry. There’s still a lot I have to do tonight.”
I hung up the call with a seething sigh. Rohan’s flushed cheeks, the way his fingers lingered over my skin, the smell of me on his mouth—putting him side literally hurt.
Before, the Alpha would have suppressed both my regret and my desire. It would have chastised me for trying to satisfy personal urges when duty called, and it wasn’t just because before, Rohan wasn’t one of my sleuthmates.
He was also human, and no matter how he proved himself, no matter how he cared for me, the Alpha rejected my personal need for a partner without two skins. I’d fought the Alpha for every moment I’d shared with Rohan, an internal struggle in my spirit between carrying the magical mantle I’d been given and the person I wanted to be. It had been so hard, but he was worth it.
Now, as my sleuthmate, the Alpha cherished Rohan more than the rest. My human mind felt guilt that I had favorites. My bear’s mind, though, blurred in subconsciousness when I walked on two feet, found it perfectly natural that my strongest bond came with the sleuthmate I chose to love.
Which made it ache behind my belly button all the more. The kin bond between us thrummed with his buried lust, and the Alpha and I both yearned to satisfy his need.
I reached for Rohan’s face, but he caught my hands before I could pull us together the way I wanted. How we both want.
Instead, he kissed my palms. Softly. Then he drew me out from the sheets, leading me back toward our abandoned clothes on the floor.
“Time to put the big Alpha pants back on,” he said, trying to infuse his mesmerizing voice with light humor rather than the regret I felt in our bond.
I took hold of him, and he didn’t resist when I pulled him close that time. Chest to chest, I pressed my forehead against his.
“You’re the best, you know that?” I said.
Warm gratitude bloomed in our bond. He’d spent the first decade of his life on the fringe of shifter kin; truly being one of my sleuthmates, being accepted by the Alpha without having to change who he was, filled him with humble appreciation.
“I mean it,” I said firmly.
I felt it. He believed me when I complimented him. He just didn’t think he deserved it. Me.
I grinned. As if I’m not the lucky one.
He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me, a tender touch full of adoration compared to the passion five minutes before.
Even though I knew the senator was waiting on me, I could have spent hours in his arms like that. The intimacy we shared, the connection Earth magic gave us—only true danger could be as important as the relationship we shared, to both the Alpha and me.
Rohan let go first. I let him pull away from my lips, breathing in the last of his breath.
“Let’s go get it over with,” I said quietly.
“Then we can return to more important things.”
Senator Murphy had pulled just inside the Fortress’ gate. He paced the length of his car while he waited on me. I noticed his keen stare even from a distance. The moment he saw us, he pivoted and walked straight toward us.
Fabian Murphy looked like. Though ambition gleamed in his gaze, dark bags hung under his eyes. His body odor reeked of old adrenaline.
“Good evening, Alpha, Rohan,” he said. “We need to make this quick. I—”
I held a hand up.“Before we get started, I need too see a contract.”
Murphy snapped his mouth shut and gave me a sassy glare. “Naturally. My aide is working on it as we speak.”
I glowered at him. “No details until I accept the job.”
“But Lucky!” Murphy exclaimed. “We don’t have time for procedure. I only have four more hours to get everyone on board, and then we have still have to coordinate all the operations.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Please, Lucky, otherwise we wait another month.”
I gave him a wry grin. “You can’t tempt me, Senator. I’ll play along once I see you sign the dotted line.”
Murphy threw his hands up at me, then turned away as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He stalked off a few feet to speak with his aide, though I could clearly hear the terse conversation.
“What do you think he meant? Wait another month?” Rohan whispered next to me.
I shrugged. “I’m want to know, too, but I’m not taking his bait to find out.”
Murphy returned with a pleading expression.
“Alpha Sialuk, we’re drafting a reasonable contract as quickly as we can. It’s going to take time since you don’t have any of your former clearances to work domestically.”
“Not good enough,” I said.
“We’re offering you two hundred. Half up front, half upon successfully bringing charges against Sylvia Brodding. If any subsequent trial goes well, there could be a bonus coming your way, too.”
The Alpha kept my jaw from dropping. “Two hundred t-thousand?”
Murphy’s eyes glittered. “Yes ma’am.”
I swallowed down my glee. “For what exactly?”
“As we previously discussed, I want you to use your magic to force the truth out of her.”
I tempered my excitement. “It sounds like there’s a specific truth you’re looking for.”
“I want anything that proves she’s been working as a double agent,” he clarified.
“And that’s it?” I asked.
“Well… any crimes she’s committed against us. And if she’s behind Norman getting kicked out of the club.”
“Are… are you serious?” I asked.
Fabian didn’t have the decency to look sheepish. “She’s had a feud against Norman that goes back for years, and there’s no other reason why he was asked to leave.”
I shook my head.
“Does that mean no?” Murphy asked, a hint of panic in his voice.
I rolled my eyes. “I can make her talk. That’s not the issue.”
“Oh thank god.” Murphy sighed. “The generals would not be happy if we had to go all the way back to square one.”
The Alpha projected patience that I didn’t have for him. “What’s the plan, Senator?”
“Right. Yes.” Murphy cleared his throat. “I need you to come to the SDA building tomorrow morning around five AM. I have it on good authority that Director Brodding will engage in a little ritual she thinks she’s kept secret. It happens to be in a very convenient spot for our endeavors. You’re going to walk in on her, and I’m going to make sure myself, the director of the NSA, a couple military brass, the president’s Chief of Staff, and I are watching live.”
I considered what he’d told me. Something like a one-way mirror, would be ideal, and I knew from experience that there were plenty of serviceable interrogation rooms at the SDA headquarters.
But, I couldn’t figure out what little ritual would take Brodding into an interrogation room since my investigation was over. There were no ongoing high profile cases against shifters.
I knew I could catch Director Brodding with my dominance. I also knew that an overwhelming bloody taste would fill my mouth when I shared the room with her. I knew her cortisol would fill the air, I knew her heart would pound, and I knew the call of the hunt would tempt my spirit to take advantage of her, like stalking a rabbit caught in a trap.
But I also knew I couldn’t give into temptation. I would ring the woman out, hold her like a moth to the flame with my magic, until she bled her true colors for all to see.
“Alright,” I said. “I’ll do it as long as I have a signed contract in my inbox by four AM. If I catch even a hint of something else going on, I’ll walk.”
Murphy held out his hand, and I took it. A sheen rolled over his eyes.
“That’s a deal, Alpha,” he said. “We’ll finally bring this rat to justice.”
I squeezed his hand, drawing him in. “Just don’t come after the rat catcher if you don’t like what you learn.”
The proud gleam in Murphy’s eyes flickered with doubt. “Will I want to come after you when I know the truth?”
“You? Probably not,” I said, dropping his hand. “But your government…” I nodded my head toward his sleek black car. “Good night, Senator. Maybe I’ll see you in the morning.”
Murphy paused, his eyes calculating. “Good night, Alpha.”