Excerpt from Act of Mercy (PSI/Immortal Ops) by Mandy M. Roth
Excerpt from Act of Mercy (PSI/Immortal Ops) by Mandy M. Roth (c) 2014 Mandy M. Roth
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Paranormal Security and Intelligence Division B Headquarters, classified location…
Duke Marlow stretched the two typing fingers he used because he wasn’t exactly gifted in the way of a keyboard, and hunted and pecked the last of the reports that’d been due in to his handler—who also happened to be captain of his ops team—several days prior. With Duke’s reluctance to do any type of recordkeeping, let alone the kind that involved a computer, his handler would be happy to see the files this quickly. Duke was actually at least one month early if anyone went off his past turn-in dates, or the fact that occasionally he never turned in a report at all. The idea of leaving the damn things to sit for a few more weeks had crossed his mind.
That would piss Corbin off for sure.
Corbin Jones headed one of the many Paranormal Security and Intelligence Operative Teams (PSI-Op) and Duke already knew he was Corbin’s most trying team member. He wore the badge with honor. What could he say? After knowing the guy well over a hundred years, he had to do all he could to keep their working relationship interesting. Plus, Duke was set in his ways. He didn’t embrace change.
Never had.
Besides, he enjoyed getting under Corbin’s skin. Corbin was a lion shifter, and everyone knew cats and dogs didn’t mix well together. As a full-blooded, born werewolf, Duke tended to get a kick out of giving Corbin as hard a time as possible.
Came pretty easy to him and that nearly took the fun out of it.
Nearly, but not quite.
And Corbin looked like a blond underwear model. That alone was grounds to be given a hard time.
The phone on his desk rang, drawing him from his thoughts. He sighed. He disliked the phones at PSI. Too many buttons. Too many options. It was never just answer and be done. They had people who normally handled routing the calls. Without them, Duke would be totally and completely lost. It was way after hours and he knew there was still a group who worked somewhere in the building, handling these types of things. What he couldn’t figure out was why they’d send a call his way. Corbin had taken Duke’s phone privileges away when he’d told a conference call full of people to get bent. He’d then followed that up with the suggestion they lick his balls.
Corbin hadn’t been amused and said Duke lacked anything in the way of phone etiquette. Duke could have told him that to start with.
He answered the phone. Hell, the apocalypse could be starting and Duke suspected Corbin wouldn’t want him getting called over it. “What?”
There was silence on the other end. Duke waited a fraction of a second and hung up the phone. He wasn’t in the mood for bullshit. If it was important, they’d call back.
The phone rang again.
“What?” he practically shouted as he answered it again.
“Hello?” came a voice that was soft and sweet, extremely feminine and hot as hell, making his loins stir, surprising him. “I was told to call. Did you get the information I sent?”
As much as the voice moved him, its owner was making no sense. “What?”
“Do you know how to say anything else?” she asked, sounding annoyed with him. Most people tended to after short bursts.
He stiffened. “You called to give me crap? Striker put you up to this, didn’t he?”
“Striker?” There was beeping on her end. “I can’t talk long. They’ll hear me.”
“Woman, you’re not making any sense.” But damn if her voice wasn’t making him hot and bothered. He was nearly ashamed of his reaction to her. It wasn’t like he made a habit of getting a hard-on for random callers. The idea of phone sex had held little appeal to him before but now, hearing this woman’s voice, he was fast changing his outlook on it.
“I need to know if you’re them,” she said.
“Them who?” As turned on as he was, he had reports to get done and the conversation wasn’t going the route of phone sex so it needed to end sooner rather than later.
“Them. The one Test Subject 87P told me to send the information to,” she insisted.
Great.
Sexy voice and bat-shit crazy. Just his luck. He hung up on her. Whatever game Striker was playing wouldn’t work. Duke was busy. Too busy even for hot voices with riddles.
Duke rotated his neck, running his hands through his shoulder-length dark hair, working out a kink as he sniffed the air, the wolf in him catching the scent of pending rain.
Good.
The area needed some rain. He grinned, knowing he’d be running free in it soon enough. Well, as soon as he finished this damn paperwork. He didn’t understand the point of it. It wasn’t like the organization existed to anyone who asked about it—not that anyone even would. They were ghosts. Operatives who never were and never would be, at least on paper.
What the fuck did they want with a paper trail then? Did they enjoy redacting crap later? Maybe the guys who sat around drawing black lines through important information had blackmail photos of people in high positions and threatened to expose them if they didn’t get enough papers passing across their desk.
Made no sense to him.
Not much involving the people running the PSI show did.
