Act of Surrender: An Immortal Ops World Novel (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops Book 2) (16 page)

She pressed a smile that didn’t look genuine to her face. “Go to Mary’s on Second Street. Tell her I sent you. She’ll find you a bed for the night. I don’t want you trying to sleep on the streets.”

“Ms. Laney is good people,” he said, turning his cart in the other direction and heading off.

Laney returned to James’s side. Touching her chin, she seemed to ponder what had just occurred.
 

“Emit isn’t a fast walker,” she said and inclined her head. “At his current pace, accounting for the number of times he stops and speaks with strangers and his affinity for picking up anything shiny, by my calculations, he would have been at the hotel before I even left to meet you for coffee. Before we even agreed to meet, Hagen. How would Casey know there was danger
afoot
before
I even agreed to meet you for coffee?”
 

Surprised, James watched her, realizing she’d done the calculations that quickly. “Laney, did you just figure that all out in your head?”

She raised her shoulders, letting them fall again as if it were no big deal. It was a huge deal. He didn’t like the feeling that was creeping up the back of his spine. Didn’t like the idea that Laney could be more than met the eye. If she was, then the Corporation wouldn’t rest until she was dead—or captured.

He would permit neither to occur.

If she’s not human, she’s mate material
, he thought, need slamming through him once more for her.

He took her hand and began walking again, ignoring his leg as it protested all the activity. When they were far enough away from the fading sounds of sirens, he motioned to a crate, pushed up close to the backdoor of a building near them. “Rest.”

“How will your people find us?” she asked.

He touched his nose. “Smell will lead the way.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That is so weird.”

“You get used to it.”
 

His leg was now screaming in pain. He knew it must have showed on his face.
 

Laney lifted the crate and brought it closer to him. “You sit.”

“I’m fine,” he said sharply. He didn’t like appearing weak in front of her. He’d once been fierce and now he felt like someone who needed a nursemaid.

“If you don’t sit, I will run screaming through the alley and let the bad guys know where I am.” From her stance, she looked serious.

He was about to call her bluff when he realized she was crazy enough to not be bluffing at all. With a grunt, he sat and gave her a hard look.
 

Damn purple-haired woman.

James glanced at her, loving the vivid streaks that matched her personality. There wasn’t anything about her he didn’t like.

“You can spank me later,” she said with a sexy pout. “For now, rest your leg.”

“I said I was fine,” he replied, making a move to stand. He got a mental image of what it would be like to bend her over his knee, her sexy little backside offered up to him, and he paused, his hand going to his groin as he adjusted himself. “You had to bring up spanking, didn’t you?”

She laughed and shrugged.

Chapter Twelve

Laney stared down at Hagen. He was a big man, muscular and tall with broad shoulders, yet something told her he was normally even bigger—more muscular. That he wasn’t quite himself. He was hurting and she couldn’t stand to see him in pain.

She put her hands on his shoulders and held him down. “I get that I’m not very strong compared to you, but if you try to get up, I will body-slam you.”

He glanced at her arms. “Actually, I was going to comment on just how strong you are.”

She laughed. “Casey tells me all the time to mind my strength. Like I’m some sort of Amazon warrior princess.”

“You spend a lot of time with this Casey,” he said, his voice off.

“We’ve been over this. He’s like family to me.” She glanced around and spotted a door. She left Hagen long enough to check it out. It was locked with only with an old rusty chain and a padlock. She nearly laughed. Like that would keep someone out.

Reaching into the back of her hair, just under her ponytail, Laney felt for her bobby pin. She’d had a strict never-leave-home-without-one policy since she was twelve. They came in handy and often helped to get in or out of things.

In this case, in.

She pushed it into the padlock’s keyhole and did what she’d taught herself to do years ago—she picked the lock. It popped open and she turned to tell Hagen to follow her, only to find him standing directly behind her, watching her with amused eyes.

“I’m on a date with a criminal, aren’t I?” he asked, his eyes crinkling with mirth.

“Could be worse.” She clucked her tongue. “You could be on a date with a werewolf.”

“Fair point.”

“Come on,” she said, looking back at him, enjoying the feel of doing something that fell into shades of gray according to right or wrong. “Let’s go in and get off the streets for a little bit. Will your team find us if we’re not out in the open?”

“Yes.” He followed her in, his large body crowding her decidedly smaller one. Heat moved through her and Laney was sure the building must be on fire because all that heat couldn’t be coming from her, could it?

She moved slowly in the darkened corridor before Hagen put a hand on the small of her back, causing additional heat to rush over her. He eased around her, his hand finding hers as he took the lead.

“I can see in very low lighting,” he said, the timbre of his voice licking at her insides, making them feel as if butterflies filled her. Harmony would laugh at her, calling her naïve in the ways of men.

Laney gripped his hand and she followed close at his heels. She wasn’t sure what he meant by low lighting, because it seemed pretty much pitch black to her until Hagen pushed open a door and light spilled out. Several old, beat-up washing machines and dryers lined the walls. Each was coin-operated.

Hagen turned and lifted her, his large hands fitting nearly all the way around her waist. She gasped as he pulled her close and then set her upon a washer. He stood there, his body pressing to hers.

She couldn’t stop herself from touching his face. What was it about him that drove her so nuts with lust? Her girly bits wanted his manly bits in bad way. To the point they were about to beg. And her girly bits had never begged for anything in her twenty-two years.

This man could punch my V-card any day.

“You should sit,” she said, needing to say something to fill the silence between them. Having him sit and rest his leg seemed much more safe for her V-card than what she’d wanted to say, which had been
do me
.

Harmony would have loved that.

“Hagen,” she said, a thought hitting her. “I need to check in with my friend. I need to make sure she knows to stay away from my place.”

“If the Corporation is as good as you, what do you think they’ll be doing?” he asked.

She pondered his question and then felt deflated. “Monitoring my known associates.”

“They’ll know if you reach out, Laney,” he said. “They’ll know and it could get your friend hurt.”

“Harmony lives a pampered, rather sheltered life,” she pushed. “I don’t want her brought into this. I dug my own grave.”

“You’re not dead yet.” He winked.

But she’d probably gotten her boys killed.
 

Casting her gaze downward, she felt the tears wanting to return again. Felt the severity of the situation soaking through her every pore, settling around her neck like a noose. “I shouldn’t have wanted to find out about my birth and its weird circumstances. I should have left well enough alone. I shouldn’t have let my curiosity get to me when Blue Butterfly gave me the tip on the Asia Project. It’s been nothing but a curse.”

Hagen put his hands on her bare thighs. “What did you say?”

She sniffled. “My stupid hunt for who I am and where I come from got me here.”

“Did you say Asia Project?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What do you know of it?” he asked.

Laney did her best to keep herself together. Breaking down more wouldn’t fix anything. Nothing would. “It’s linked to my birth. I was part of it somehow. My biological mother was in it while she was pregnant with me.”

Hagen stepped back and spun, punching the cinderblock wall of the building’s laundry room. The room shook and Laney half expected the place to crumble around them. She yelped.

Hagen kept his back to her, and when she saw the fur on his arms, she knew why—he was doing that wolf thing again. She knew she should have been terrified of him, but she wasn’t. He felt safe to her. Didn’t matter how furry he got.

“What is it?” she asked. “Do you know more about it?”

“I do, but you shouldn’t know the details. You’d be in even more danger,” he answered, his back still to her, his voice deep.

“More than people already wanting me dead? How much more dead could I get?” she asked with a snort.

When he faced her, his green eyes were red again and his shoulders and neck seemed bigger than before. “They’d stop wanting to kill you and start wanting to capture you. And trust me,” he said, lowering his head, his words slurring a bit as if he was having trouble speaking clearly. “You do not want to be captured.”

Her gaze went to his leg. Was that what had happened to him? Had he been held prisoner by these madmen? Rage trickled over her and she sat up straight, her feet dangling.

“Tell me who hurt you,” she insisted.

Hagen’s jaw worked back and forth. It was then she realized his wolf thing was impeding with his speech. Her anger faded fast, replaced with concern for him. She put a hand out, waiting, knowing he’d come to her. He did. She touched his furry arm. “My date with a werewolf has been something indeed.”

Laney watched as the hair on his arms receded, disappearing as if it was never there. She let out a low whistle. “Coolest thing ever! If I throw a ball, will your instincts tell you to chase it?”

Hagen’s neck and shoulders returned to regular, but still large, size and a slow smile crept over his handsome face. “No. But don’t throw a stick or I won’t be able to help myself.”

Her eyes widened. Was he serious? “Really?”

He laughed. “No.”

She pushed lightly on him. “Jerk.”

He caught her hand and kissed the back of it. “Laney, tell me more about yourself. Tell me what you don’t tell anyone.”
 

“I’m good with computers and anything tech related,” she said.

He gave her an even look. “That I know. Tell me something I don’t.”
 

“Hagen, I’m not just good. I’m freakishly good. Like, I can work them and do things with them others can’t. Sometimes, I’m faster than the computer at processing the information I’m taking in.”

He nodded and she kept going.

“And Casey tells me I’m strong. Stronger than I should be for a girl, I guess.”

“Not for a girl,” answered Hagen. “For a human.”

“Oh.” She thought more on it all. “And at times I just get strange vibes from people and then I sometimes say things that don’t make a ton of sense to me. Harmony jokes that I have a sixth sense.”

“She might not be wrong.” he said. “Anything else?”

She shook her head. “No. That is it. Am I a freak? From what I could uncover about my birth mother, she was experimented on when she was pregnant with me. I couldn’t find out much beyond that—well, and that she was part of some Asia Project. I haven’t been able to find out more on it. I was digging for information and that was when I came across some files that suggested the government had knowledge about supernaturals but was hiding it from the public.”

“And let me guess, that led you straight to the Corporation,” he said.

She nodded. “Sort of. I had a little help with being pointed at them. They’d been on my radar for nearly a year, and then two weeks ago one of their facilities in France had a series of explosions. Their cover story didn’t add up.”

“No. It didn’t. I was there. It wasn’t pretty,” he said.

She looked to his leg. “My gut is telling me you were hurt and it has something to do with them.”

He huffed. “Your gut is not wrong. But I don’t want to talk about my time being held there.”

She flinched. He’d been held there? She’d read what they did to their captives. As she touched Hagen more, a sinking feeling came over her. “Test Subject 87P?”

The veins in his thick neck worked and tension rolled off him. “Yes.”

She cupped her mouth. “Oh, Hagen.”

He lifted his head, the red gone from his eyes. “I don’t want you to pity me.”

“Pity you?”

Was the guy for real?

“What they did was horrible. They’re monsters. All I want to do is wrap my entire body around you and hold you, just to show you what love is.”

Love?

Why had she brought that up?

She didn’t throw the L word around with reckless abandon. She kept it closely guarded, as she’d never trusted anyone enough to set it free.

While she was lost in thought, Hagen touched her lower lip with his thumb. The action was oddly erotic and she couldn’t help but ease a little closer to the edge of the washing machine in order to close the gap between them.

He bent his head and moved his thumb, his lips pressing to hers. The kiss was chaste, unlike their others, but it still packed a wallop.

“Thank you,” he said.

She took hold of his shirt, keeping him close. He cupped her face, his lips returning to hers. This time, the kiss was anything but PG-rated. Laney’s legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a mind of their own. Apparently, they were in league with her girly bits and on a mission to get her V-card punched.

His kiss increased and Laney found herself untucking his shirt and pulling it up, her fingers finding his undershirt. There was simply too much material between the two of them. With a groan, she pulled up hard on his undershirt, their lips still together, their tongues darting and weaving from one another’s mouths.

The minute Laney’s fingertips brushed over Hagen’s hot, hard abdomen, her hormones rocked into outer space. She sucked on his lower lip, and then Hagen’s hands were suddenly seemed to be everywhere at once and she loved it.