Act of Surrender: An Immortal Ops World Novel (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops Book 2) (11 page)

Harmony thought Casey was yummy?

Laney didn’t respond. “Okay, spill it. Why are you really here?”

Harmony paused and the silence was awkward, considering how much Harmony loved to hear her own voice at times. “Can we meet tomorrow? I don’t want to get into it tonight with you heading out on a date and all. There are some odd things I’ve noticed around my house that I just want to bounce off someone. You can then spin them out of proportion and make me feel better.”

“I can cancel.” She didn’t want to but she would. Her friendship was important to her.

Harmony’s eyes widened. “You will not do anything of the sort. You’re gonna go shake your moneymaker.”
 

“My what?”

Harmony pushed on her. “Let’s get you showered and see if we can make you presentable.”
 

“Gee, the love just pours off you.”
 

Harmony smiled. “We’ll meet up tomorrow, right?”

“Of course. We’ll meet for breakfast at
Stew’s Diner
.”

“If you don’t show, I’ll assume you’re a statistic,” reminded Harmony before she practically shoved Laney into the bathroom. “And no one wants to be a statistic.

Chapter Seven

James stood outside the small, neighborhood coffee shop. It was lit to a point one could see all the customers within through the windows this time of night. Most customers were on varying electronic devices, paying little mind to one another. He couldn’t help but reflect on how much the world had changed since he’d been alive. There used to be people having conversations with one another in person.

Not anymore.

Everyone had their noses in something that plugged in.

He leaned against a lamppost, his leg throbbing from the burn of standing so long. Nervous he’d somehow miss out on meeting Laney face-to-face, he’d arrived nearly an hour early. He’d showered, shaved and changed at work in the bathroom off his office, installed in the event James pulled an all-nighter, which he’d been known to do a lot in the past and old habits did indeed die-hard.

A group of women approached. They were walking so close together he wondered how they didn’t trip over one another. A stacked blonde left the group and stepped in his direction. She had full lips and actually made a kissy face at him, batting her long lashes. “What are you doing out here all alone?”

James put his hands in his pockets and took a small step away from her. She wasn’t Laney. He knew by her voice and his gut instincts that this was not the woman he was meeting tonight.

The woman who blew him the kiss wasn’t bad on the eyes at all. Some would say she was hot. And she was what he normally went for, but the shiny had worn off what he used to want. All he wanted now was for his little hacker to arrive. He didn’t care what she looked like.

“Waiting for my date,” he said with a slight incline of his head.

“She stand you up?” asked the woman, her friends forming a half circle behind her, looking a lot like a posse in Prada.

James grinned. “No. I got here an hour early. I didn’t want her to think I was standing her up.”
 

The woman eyed him and then shook her head. “You’ve got it bad for her, huh?”

“I think so,” he said. He knew he had it
bad
. Admitting it was half the battle.

Her friends laughed and she waved a hand in the air. “Any man who arrives an hour early for a date has it bad for the girl.”

James knew she was right. He merely shrugged, giving a sheepish grin. It was against his manly code to offer anything more. That was enough. It said what he wouldn’t.

The woman winked as if she fully understood where he was coming from. “Good luck. I hope she’s worth it.”

“She is,” he said with conviction.

The women walked away and James began to obsess about his appearance once more. He wasn’t even sure what to wear on a date, he’d not been on one in so long. Boomer had gone with him a week after his return to work to replenish his wardrobe. James had decided to keep a portion of it at the office. He spent most of his time there rather than his home—a place that had been handed to him along with his position. He had enough money to buy his own place. PSI paid ridiculously well. So much so that he could have stopped working centuries ago.

When he had more time, he’d get some more relaxed articles of clothing. Currently he only owned two pairs of jeans and two t-shirts, not counting the
Team Edward
one he’d grabbed to shut Boomer up. Though, he’d left the shirt on his desk.

James had decided on black dress pants, black boots because he felt comfortable in them, and a blue, silk dress shirt. Duke had tried to talk him into jeans. He’d refused. Now he wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice. He continued to fidget with his shirt, wondering if he should have gone with a t-shirt and jeans, if this get-up was too much for coffee.
 

James took out his phone and texted the number Laney had given him.
Having a wardrobe rethink. I feel like a teenage boy. You should get here soon so you can save me from myself. LabLupus.

He laughed partially under his breath. “Oh, how the mighty alpha male has fallen.”

He was about to text more when he sensed something. At first, he wasn’t sure what it was, only that it commanded his attention, drawing it from his text in the other direction. It took James several long seconds to realize what it was he was sensing.

A woman.

Not just any woman either.

One he
had
to see like he had to draw in air.

Breathe
, he told himself, and then finally listened and did just that.
 

His entire body strummed with the feel of her approaching. His hands tingled and he lifted them, looking down at them, wondering what in the hell was going on. Every fiber of his being seemed to come to life, his gaze moving slowly towards the end of the street. There, across the way, was the young woman from his vision. Her long dark hair with purple streaks was pulled into a high ponytail. Her chocolate gaze was mesmerizing. She looked down at a phone in her hand.

His wolf, who had been missing in action for months, picked then to prickle to life, waking slowly. He felt it nosing around within him, wondering what this new curiosity was.
 

Was it food?

No, he and the wolf found a quick understanding. The woman was not prey.

Far from it.

The wolf pushed up more, wanting free, wanting to investigate the woman. James gasped and touched his chest, the biting pain in his leg lessening somewhat as he stared, totally enamored, with the female across the street from him.

She smiled and James nearly lost his footing. When she laughed at whatever it was she was reading on her cell phone, James’s cock hardened. This was not the time or place for that.

She’s in danger.

He’d sensed it and seen it for himself in his vision. His cock didn’t seem to compute the severity of the situation because it hardened more. It wanted in the woman and the wolf was in total agreement with his cock.

Ganging up on me. Great.

The woman, decked out in dark attire, was not what he’d normally find attractive. He tended to like his women refined, dressed in high-end clothing, and to have an air of elegance about them.

However she’s dressed and whatever her hair looks like, she will be beautiful.

Guilt crept over him as he thought about Laney and the fact that he was meeting her soon. He’d established a deep connection with her and here he was panting over a stranger.

This wasn’t like him.

He didn’t collect women. He wasn’t Striker or Boomer. For fuck’s sake, he’d had one serious relationship in his life. Elsbeth had been a shifter as well and her death had shaken him greatly. He’d known she wasn’t his mate, that they could never truly be bonded. Yet, he’d been loyal to her even far beyond her passing.

He couldn’t help but look back at the girl from his vision. He was drawn to her in a way he’d never been drawn to Elsbeth. The only other woman he’d experienced anything similar with was Laney. Their conversations were like drugs to him—he couldn’t kick the habit.

He didn’t even want to.

The woman from his vision approached the coffee shop he was to meet Laney at and then entered. When she was just inside the door he saw her texting.

His cell phone buzzed and he pulled it from his pocket. He read the —
Unless you’re in a clown suit, I’m guessing you’re perfect. If you are, in fact, in a clown suit, I might bail. They freak me out.

James looked from his phone to the woman who had just entered the coffee shop. The woman who was on her phone, smiling. It couldn’t be.

No.

He dialed her number, needing to know. The phone rang and James watched, a rush of adrenaline spiking through him, as the woman in the shop with the purple streaks in her hair lifted her phone, putting it to her ear.

“Hey, sexy, which one are you? I’m in here, and don’t take this the wrong way, but there are nothing but hipsters hanging in here. Are you a hipster?” she asked, turning, facing him. “Say it ain’t so. I have standards. I’d rather date a clown.”

James watched her mouth move, syncing up to the words he was hearing. As he put it all together, fear raced over him. He’d had the vision of her being in danger and he had a deep connection with her.

“You there?” she asked.

James took a step forward, and the moment his booted foot touched the street, his sensitive hearing returned tenfold, taking him to his knees. He twisted, dropped his phone and covered his ears as the sounds of the city crashed into him. Through the fog of it all he heard the distinct sound of squealing tires and smelled exhaust fumes.

He blinked open his eyes open, his hands still on his head as he turned just enough to see two large black vans speeding in his direction. For a moment, he could do nothing, realizing who they were—the Corporation. They were just like the vans that had come when he’d been ambushed and taken prisoner. Just like the ones that had changed his life, and they were back. It would have been so easy to permit the panic welling to overtake him.

But something tugged at his gut, forcing his gaze to Laney, who was standing at the door of the cafe, about to head out, her phone pressed to her ear, confusion on her beautiful face.
 

He heard it then—her voice coming from his cell phone on the street. “Hagen? Hagen, are you there? What’s wrong? Something is wrong. I can
feel
it.”

She stepped out of the cafe and her gaze whipped across the street to him. He shook his head as the vans came closer. The realization hit him that they weren’t there for him. They were there for Laney.

No
, his beast roared from within.

“Laney, run!” he shouted.

She froze in place, looking stunned, her phone moving from her ear as she stared across the street at him. “Hagen? Ohmygod, what’s wrong?”
 

She didn’t run from the area. Instead, the crazy fool of a woman ran at him. He forced himself to his feet and pulled his hands from his head. “Go! Run!”
 

She kept coming, hitting the midway point of the street just as the vans lined up with her. They weren’t going to stop. They were going to run her down. Something snapped inside him.

She was not to be harmed.

With a speed that shocked even him, James shot forward, going at her head-on. He wrapped his arms around her gently, the sweet smell of her filling his head as he swept her up and off her feet, racing forward with her in the direction of the coffee shop. The racing vans buzzed right past him, exactly where she’d been standing, before they screeched to a halt.

James didn’t stop. He kept running, right past the coffee shop. He darted into a side alley with her. Raced down it, reaching out with his senses, hoping they wouldn’t fail him.

The telltale sound of weapons being prepped for firing reached him. Whatever the Corporation had done had left his abilities and his wolf feeling supercharged and out of control. He couldn’t worry on that now. His only concern was Laney.

Twisting, he pushed her body against an alcove in the building, using his own body to shield hers as bullets whipped past them. One grazed his shoulder, the bite of it stinging slightly. Within seconds the sensation was gone, his body hopped up on adrenaline and testosterone.

His senses on overdrive, he zeroed in on the enemy’s location. With one hand and countless years’ worth of muscle memory he grabbed for his ankle holster and realized he wasn’t wearing his weapon. It was in his car, which was parked across the street from the coffee shop. He’d not wanted to scare the shit out of Laney by packing heat. He didn’t want her running screaming from him thinking he’d arranged a face-to-face with her, only to bring a weapon.
 

Fuck.

James reached out via the mental pathway he’d established with his teammates long ago. One he’d not used in over ten years. He wasn’t even sure it would still work. Normally, Striker would have been the teammate he connected with first because of their long-standing bond. But at last check Striker was still coming down from the Mercy-Juice, and James couldn’t risk the message going astray.

Duke.

There was a tingling and then familiar energy pressed over him.

James?
responded Duke.

We’re taking fire.

Who is we?
asked Duke.

My date and me.

Son-of-a-bitch! I knew this was a bad idea. I knew that hacker was trouble. Where are you?

Mugs coffee shop. Alley next to it,”
he pushed out with his mind, his body on fire and his wolf wanting free, wanting to be let out and allowed to kill all those who had threatened their woman.
I’m unarmed and unable to shift.

On it,
returned Duke.
Stay safe, brother.

What is your ETA?

Duke’s silence hit James like a ton of bricks. He knew Duke had left PSI headquarters to take Mercy home and get her settled in for the night. He also knew that Corbin had left as well, with Boomer and Striker, intent on making sure they went home and not out on the town, since they weren’t totally free from the aftereffects of the Mercy-Juice.