Act of Surrender: An Immortal Ops World Novel (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops Book 2) (3 page)

He wished he had something in the way of control over his Fae side so that he could reach out mystically and
will
GothGirl online. Being born with small bits of Fae in his pack line, James could normally sense magik on others faster than most shifters. He’d also had limited abilities in the persuasion side of things. He couldn’t wipe humans’ memories or anything that full Faes were often capable of, but James had been able to push out suggestions that humans felt compelled to take. The gift had come in handy over the years. Even that particular gift seemed off late. Everything with him did. He’d lost trust in himself and that was a scary thing for a special operative.

Come online
, he silently pleaded.

His screen blinked and then chimed, announcing the arrival of GothGirl in the chat room. James didn’t believe for a second he’d really had anything to do with her coming online at that very moment. It was merely a coincidence. Nothing more.

He waited for what felt like forever with as anxious as he was to talk with her, before she finally sent an audio chat request. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t have issued the request but he didn’t want to appear needy to her. He answered the request and grabbed his wireless earpiece and microphone, excited to be able to speak with her again. His entire body seemed to respond to the idea of getting to hear her once more.

“Hello, gorgeous,” she said, her voice sultry yet young sounding. She had moxie—he admired that about her. She was an interesting mix of fire and ice, carefree yet reserved in other aspects. He enjoyed the mystery she presented.

From the way she talked, she’d been on her own for a long time. If he had to hazard a guess, she’d been a street kid, and he knew from experience the streets were not kind to anyone, let alone the young. The kids learned at early ages to avoid putting trust in anyone. The longer they spent on the streets, the harder they were to crack. GothGirl had probably been on them for longer than most.

She’d assured him she was twenty-two, and he had to admit he felt a bit like a dirty old man finding her attractive since he was over four hundred years old. James wasn’t like some supernaturals. He didn’t dwell in the past, yearning for a time long ago. He liked progress and embraced new technologies. He didn’t cling to old ways, or every custom from his motherland. Not that he really had a motherland to speak of. The pack he’d been born into was nomadic and hadn’t tended to put down roots for long. Probably why James never grew too attached to anything in his long life.

They hadn’t been big fans of showing affection or giving a shit about their younger members. You either survived or you didn’t. The weak were weeded out and the strong remained.
 

Immortality left him looking like he was mid-to late twenties, but some days he felt as old as time. Felt like he’d seen and done too much to find joy in anything. GothGirl changed that. She made him feel young again.
 

Made him feel alive.

Made him laugh.

Made him look forward to whatever interactions, even if only short-term, that they could have.

“You do realize that I may, in fact, be less than pleasant to look at,” he said, taking a seat on the stool in his lab. His leg wasn’t fully healed from his time as a prisoner of the Corporation, and he had a hard time standing for long periods.

“Oh, you’re a hottie. I can feel it,” she said.

“Sure,” he returned, not really thinking of himself as a catch.

Women found him attractive, but he never understood why. He lacked the arrogance his teammate Duke had. Striker, another of his teammates, also believed himself to be the gods’ gift to women. Corbin was more understated in his sexual appeal—like James. Malik, a teammate who was still on forced leave to clear his head, was very secure in his ability to charm the pants off the ladies. Boomer was a different story. There was a certain vulnerability to him that women found irresistible, and Boomer did nothing to discourage the attention.

“I can hear you doubting yourself,” she said, her voice light. “I’m telling you, I know I’m right. You’re a hottie.”

“What about you? Do I get to guess what you look like?” he asked, his mind suddenly trying very hard to make her look like the woman from his vision. He pictured her hair long and dark with purple streaks running through it. Her eyes nearly dark as midnight and as captivating as well. Like normal, whenever he spoke to her his body responded, humming with desire, with the idea of having more than just conversations with her.

“Sure, but I bet you get it wrong,” she said with a sharp outtake of air. “Plus, I’m not really bombshell material. Just a heads up.”

He doubted that very much. In his mind, she was the sexiest woman alive and he wanted to shout at her to recognize that.

Slow down there, buddy, your wires are all crossed because of what was done to you. Don’t let that mess with your better judgment.

“But I can sense that you’re a looker,” she said with energy that was infectious.

It took him a second or two to gather his control again. Something he seemed to lose a lot whenever anything to do with GothGirl came up.

“One way to know if you’re right or not,” he persuaded. Part of his mission involved gathering as much intel on her as possible, and that included a picture. He felt like an ass continuing to pursue the mission in regards to her. James liked the woman.
More
than liked her. He wanted to get to know her more than he wanted information on her to pass to others. He wanted to put a face with the voice. “And I’d like to see you.”

“Patience, grasshopper,” she said. “I’m still considering it from the last time you asked. You know, about thirteen hours ago.”
 

Something baser in him was on the verge of pushing too far to get a glimpse of her, and he worried if he dared let that side of himself out, he’d scare her away for good. She’d go to ground, and if PSI was lucky, they’d find her before the Corporation.
 

If not…

He didn’t want think on that. He couldn’t. He’d spent months held captive by them and knew what sick sons-of-bitches they were. Donavan Dynamics—or the Corporation, as they were more commonly known—was about as bad as they came, but by all outward appearances they were pillars of the community, leaders in the search to help rid mankind of disease.
 

Bullshit.

They were nothing more than mad scientists bent on creating a super race and ending humans for good. Funny the lies humans believed when money was involved. They thought the Corporation was there to help them. In truth, if the Corporation had their way, humans would be nothing more than food for supernaturals.

Cattle.

“Did I lose you?” GothGirl asked.

“No. Still here, tripping over my own thoughts.” He ran his hands over the keyboard before him, wondering again what she looked like. He had real mysteries to solve, yet he found himself obsessing over what some hacker looked like.

“How are the nightmares?” she asked, trepidation in her voice.

James stiffened. He’d not told his teammates that he was suffering from nightmares. They worried enough about him as it was. He didn’t want to add to it all. Seemed as if they took turns checking in on him. He wasn’t really sure why he’d confided the truth of it all to her. “I managed to get some rest after we finished talking this morning. Then I had to haul my tired ass into work.”

“Work blows,” she said with a snort. “Or so they tell me. I’m not really one who has what another would call an honest profession.”
 

“You’re really a cat burglar, aren’t you?” he questioned, already knowing she was a hacker.

“Guilty.”
 

He smiled and realized he did that a lot whenever he spoke to her. She had become something of a lifeline to happiness for him.

You’re lying to her to gather intel on her
, he reminded himself.
When she finds out, she’ll drop you in a heartbeat and probably never surface on the grid again.

“Making any headway in your research?” he asked. She’d told him bits and pieces of what she was working on. He’d filled in the blanks on his own. She was painting a huge target on her back as far as the Corporation was concerned.

“Oh yeah. A lot. I accessed another server from the Evil Giant whom I shall not name,” she said, making worry lance through him. “I’m running my decryption program on it now. I should have something juicy within twenty-four hours. How is work going for you? Any luck with the samples you were looking more into?”

He’d confessed to being a doctor, but he could sense that she hadn’t believed him when he’d told her as much. “Not really. Sort of stuck in a rut with them. I’m thinking I can’t see the forest for the trees right now.”

“Step back and take a breather then, LabLupus,” she said, using his screen name. “I should call you Doc Wolf. Means the same thing, huh?”
 

He grinned.
 

If you only knew.

“I feel like I should howl or something,” he said, wishing he actually still could. He missed his wolf.

He’d not been able to shift since he’d been captured. The samples that were currently stumping him were his own. He couldn’t figure out what the Corporation had done to him. Whatever it was, it changed his genetic make-up, altering him to the point he didn’t have a clue what to expect.

“Are you wearing a lab coat?” she asked, a teasing, sexy note in her voice. Her question pulled him from his thoughts.

“Ah, we’re going to take the conversation there, are we?” he asked, hopeful. He’d gladly permit the conversation to enter bedroom territory. Hell, it would make his week.

She laughed softly, the sound filling him to the brim with happiness, something he’d sorely lacked for nearly a year. “Hey, I’ll admit to finding it sexy when a guy wears a lab coat. I’m a total kink that way.”
 

“Oh yeah. Nothing says hard-core kinkster than a doctor fetish,” he mused, making her laugh more.

“Found me out,” she said, and then huffed. “Honestly, I’m not what anyone would label kinky.” She was quiet for a bit. “I don’t have a lot of experience when it comes to men.”
 

James paused. Was she saying what he thought she was saying? “You have been with a man before, right?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer. The idea of her being touched by another did what nothing else seemed to be able to do, tempt his inner beast. As a natural-born werewolf, he should have been a force to be reckoned with. Of late, he was about as useful as a human.

He shuddered at the thought. Humans were pretty worthless when it came to anything of importance.

“Um, does our chat room teasing banter count?” she asked.

James palmed the counter before him, pleased with her response. She had not been touched by other men. “No.”
 

“Then no.”
 

He smiled wide. The news of her saving herself moved him in a strange way—he shouldn’t have cared about her sexual life choices. They were her choices after all, and he’d seen too many men think they knew what was best for a woman and her body to dare do the same. Yet, he found great pleasure in hearing she’d not let just any ole man touch her. “Good.”
 

“I gotta jet,” she said with a tiny moan that turned him on even more. “I just wanted to talk to you quick. Will you be on later?”
 

“I will,” he said, wanting her to remain on the line. Her voice soothed him and helped chase away his overthinking.

“Take care of you, Doc Wolf.”
 

“You too, GothGirl.”

She ended the chat and James suddenly felt very empty without her voice in his ear. He craved every moment he could get with her, even though they were virtual moments. Her voice always seemed to wrap around him, making his body tingle with need and his cock ache for release. He’d not wanted another like this ever. Hell, he hadn’t even come close to this level of desire before, and he’d been around a long time.
 

Get a fucking grip, Jimmy
, he said to himself.

Chapter Two

Doctor Bertrand paced before the window of the rather unimpressive apartment he’d been calling home for the past week. How could anyone live this way? At least the smell of the rotting corpse was gone. Had the previous resident of the apartment simply listened and obeyed when Bertrand and his men had ordered him to be silent, he might still be alive.

Bertrand laughed. Who was he kidding? He’d have killed the man regardless. His lip curled as he looked around the apartment, noting the distinct lack of high-end furnishing he was accustomed to. He’d been living the good life, but all that changed. When he’d tried to reach out to the Corporation for help after the raid in France, his calls had gone unanswered. It was days before he had been able to get a response, and it wasn’t the one he was expecting. They blamed him for it all. Claimed he had lost sight of the vision and the mission.
 

That animal had reduced him to this. Had left Bertrand living just shy of the gutters.

“He shall know no mercy,” he said with brutal detachment.

Test Subject 87P.

Though, the test subject had a name now to go with the face. He was no longer a number.
 

Dr. James Hagen.

Bertrand went to the broken mirror, hanging tilted from the wall. Peeling wallpaper that had yellowed with age lay partially over one corner of the mirror’s edge. How any could live this way—permitting their surroundings to be as such—was a mystery to him.

Bertrand’s lips curved upwards, revealing his now-jagged teeth. They had changed when his anger had overtaken him just over two weeks ago. Prior to that, the injections he’d been giving himself—a mixture of varying strands of supernatural DNA and other ingredients known only to him—had been working, increasing his strength, his stamina, his vision, his hearing. But that had all changed when he found himself enraged. He had become what looked back at him in the mirror now. Some sort of disfigured monster. Worse even than the hybrids he and the others like him had been working so hard on creating.