In the Crossfire (Bloodhaven) (3 page)

Malcolm glanced at Lewski, who stood miserably next to one of the retrieval vans while other agents cast him disdainful looks. “Were we ever that young?”

“Never,” Isobel muttered. “We were old and jaded with jaundiced eyes the minute we exited the womb.”

Malcolm chuckled. “Bet you’re looking forward to writing this one up.”

“Don’t even start.” She’d have to address all of today’s events when writing up her report tomorrow. Blasted paperwork. Isobel rubbed the back of her neck and grimaced.

The smile on Malcolm’s handsome face turned familiar. He reached up to cover the hand on the back of her neck with his. “Relax. We’re close to wrapping up this mission.”

Isobel moved away from him. Malcolm’s hand fell back.

“I’ll relax when Rupert Ogden is in his cell or dead and buried,” she said curtly. “I don’t care which. Could you take over for me here? I have to leave.”

“Sure. Feel like unwinding later tonight?”

“Sorry, Mal. Something’s come up.”

Malcolm shrugged. “Well, let me know. I’m off night shifts until Tuesday.”

Isobel strode off to hitch a ride with one of the departing retrieval units. She had to head home, and her bike was still parked at Council HQ.

Malcolm’s little move had only worsened her mood. He was taking far too many liberties of late, she noted. Malcolm knew very well that whatever bedroom activities Isobel engaged in, she didn’t tolerate physical displays of affection while on the job.

She and Malcolm had had some good times together, but even if Naley hadn’t been waiting for her at home, and even if the Ogdens had been successfully captured, she still would’ve refused his offer tonight.

He was all right in the sack, but that was it: just all right. Isobel saw no sense in wasting her time on sex that bordered on the routine. If she was going to spend time screening potential bed partners to make sure they were in no position to compromise potential investigations, they’d better be damn well worth it.

When it came to sex, Isobel didn’t believe in settling.

She had long dropped Malcolm from her go-to list of sexual partners. They hadn’t hooked up in the last six months, so Isobel was surprised he’d approached her now. Eternal male optimism, she supposed.

It wasn’t uncommon for Council agents to turn to each other for physical pleasure. They had to take it wherever and whenever they could. If they chose to take a civilian lover, they had to screen that person five times over to make sure he or she wasn’t a threat or had an ulterior motive. The several rounds of background checks took a lot of mystique out of the attraction.

Though it wasn’t as if Council agents could afford to be sentimental. They knew the score when it came to work and meaningful relationships: there was no time for the latter.

The job was all-consuming. Few agents had a mate, let alone a family of cubs or pups. There was no way to maintain a balance between the personal and the professional—something had to give. More often, it was the personal that fell to the wayside.

Isobel had seen her colleagues suffer for it. A couple of them had even left the Council in order to try and pursue a normal life. The first one managed with some degree of success. The second had returned to the Council a few years later, bitter and alone.

Isobel knew the score all too well. It was why she didn’t do relationships. She liked her job, knew she was the best at what she did. She had no time to cosset the feelings of a prospective mate.

In any case, it worked out just fine. She kept her bedtime pleasures transitory and separate from the rest of her life. If she had an itch, she scratched it. A hard, fast roll in the hay—or up against the wall—did the job without messing with anybody’s head or emotions. Friends with benefits, as it were.

Or rather, coworkers with benefits. They didn’t necessarily have to be friends.

Isobel disembarked at HQ and was heading for the underground parking structure where she’d stashed her bike when her earpiece buzzed, indicating an incoming call.

She answered, ready to wring her sister’s neck. “Kaya, what the hell’s going on?”

“Aunt Iz?”

Naley’s voice was soft and uncertain. Isobel closed her eyes.

“Hey, cub.” She forcibly injected lightness into her tone. “You okay over there?”

“’Course.”

“Still at Liam’s?”

“Yeah. He’s letting me hang out while he works on stuff.”

The “stuff” Liam Whelan worked on was in high demand among Bloodhaven’s elite, but Isobel didn’t correct her niece.

“Good. I’m glad.” She paused. “Why don’t you head back to my place and make yourself at home? You know the code. There should be plenty of snacks in the kitchen.”

“I did. I even brought food over so Liam and I could eat together. Liam said it was okay for me to hang around until you came home.”

Isobel doubted her reticent tenant would’ve said exactly that—he tended not to use sentences in excess of six words at a time if he could help it—but she didn’t say so. She also didn’t miss the defensiveness in Naley’s tone.

“Are you comfortable being around Liam?” she asked carefully.

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“’Course I am.” Naley sounded genuinely confused. “Why wouldn’t I be? He has poor eating habits, but he can’t help that. Well,” she added thoughtfully, “I guess he can. He just doesn’t know any better. Don’t tell him I said so. I think he’s sensitive about it.”

Isobel supposed Naley must be feeling better, if she was returning to her usual verbose self. She knew her niece had encountered Liam a time or two the previous times she’d stayed over, and had been fascinated by the strange wolf taking residence on her aunt’s property. Isobel had observed their interactions closely in the beginning to ensure no inappropriate attachments formed, but she needn’t have worried. If anything, Liam had appeared more unnerved by the teenager than the other way around. It was like watching a bullmastiff trying to escape a very persistent duckling.

Isobel sighed. Her niece was lonely, and she knew it. Isobel couldn’t be there with her right now, so if Naley found solace in Liam’s company and in watching him work on his “stuff,” who was Isobel to take that away from her?

Besides, she could understand the sentiment herself. She’d stopped in on Liam enough times in the past—whether to collect rent, listen to his progress reports on the general upkeep of the land, or make sure his hermit self was still alive—and there was something reassuring in that strong and silent demeanor of his.

The man might be hopeless at conversation, but he was as steady as a rock. The fact that he wasn’t hard on the eyes either was just a little bonus.

Isobel knew from the multiple background checks she’d performed on Liam that he was a good man. More importantly, he was a good
wolf.
He had that protective instinct going for him, so Isobel knew Naley would be safe in his care.

“Okay, then. As long as Liam’s fine with it.” Isobel reached her bike and retrieved her helmet from the seat. “Try to keep out of his way, though. He can be a little . . . shy.”

Naley snorted. “Only around you.”

“Funny. Is he there now?”

“He’s outside sawing stuff. I’m in the kitchen. Aunt Iz, his place is
tiny.”

Isobel winced. “He wanted the place, cub. I did try to dissuade him.”

“You mean warn him off. And he has nothing to eat!”

“You know my kitchen is stockpiled until kingdom come.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I want you inside the house—
my
house—by seven. I don’t care what Liam says.”
Or doesn’t say.
The man might be as steady as a rock, but he was also as silent as one.

“’Kay. Um, Aunt Iz, could you pick up my clothes and backpack from school? I, uh, kinda left them there after today’s match.”

“Sure, no prob—” Isobel stopped. “Wait, you shifted at school? So you ran all the way. . . .”

Naley was silent.

Isobel pinched the bridge of her nose. “You want to tell me what happened?”

No answer. Isobel heard what sounded like the fridge door shutting.

“Not right now,” Naley finally said.

“We’re going to have a talk when I get back. You know that, don’t you?”

“Whoops, gotta go. I think I heard Liam lose an arm. Bye.”

Isobel sighed as Naley hung up.

It was much later than she’d anticipated when Isobel finally took the exit off the highway leading toward home.

She lived an hour outside of Bloodhaven, on a piece of land she’d found three years ago while tracking down a rogue. Before returning to the hunt, Isobel had taken note of the fifteen acres out in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by dense, untamed forest on three sides, it sharply abutted the base of a mountain ridge on the fourth.

The original owner had been an elderly man who’d lived through two of the last human-shifter wars. He’d built his shack out in the wilderness, hunkered down with a rusty shotgun, and threatened any outsiders unfortunate enough to wind up on his land. Five years later, the solitude got too much for him and he ended up moving west to live with his grandchildren. He’d been only too happy to sell the place to Isobel when she’d tracked him down.

The shack he’d lived in had been a flimsy old thing, essentially in shambles, and totally useless as any sort of foundation. In any case, Isobel had preferred to construct her new home on the south side of the property, at the top of a knoll leading up to the mountains. Not only did it have a better view of the sunrise, the location itself provided the perfect range of vision over the land as well as the surrounding forest.

Isobel now turned off the main road into the familiar dirt path that bisected the woods. Moonlight failed to pierce the overhead canopy, and even with her keen shifter sight, Isobel navigated the woods more out of memory than anything else.

Finally the trees cleared to reveal the edge of her property. There was no fencing around the perimeter—what was the point of having a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere if she converted it into a prison?—but there were hidden receptors set up to alert Isobel whenever they registered an unusual collection of heat signatures. The receptors were programmed to accept both Liam’s and Naley’s presence, which was why Isobel hadn’t received a notification earlier when Naley had unexpectedly shown up. Otherwise, depending on the nature of the invasion, the receptors would either text Isobel an alert or send a paralyzing jolt through the intruder’s nervous system.

Most Council agents went with the requisite seven levels of security. Isobel went with nine. It never hurt to be too careful.

She slowed down on reaching her front gates, a massive blend of stone and reinforced steel decked out with motion sensors. A palm scan and access code later, she was inside riding up to the main house. Security cameras followed her every step of the way.

Her land might not be surrounded by barbed wire, but Isobel made sure that her house itself was a vault. It required various codes and verifications in order to enter different parts of the house. After all, if she wanted to kick back and enjoy the pleasures of home—and extend Naley that same safety—she damn well better have a well-protected home to do it in.

It was one of the reasons Isobel had chosen to live outside the city. Sure, it required a commute to Bloodhaven whenever she had to get to HQ, but that was negligible in exchange for the privacy it offered. Liam was her only neighbor for miles around, and he was a quiet man who kept to himself.

At the thought of Liam, Isobel glanced in direction of his cabin. The knoll her house was situated on provided enough of a vantage point. It was a distance away and completely enclosed in darkness now, but sometimes, when he had a light on at night and her bedroom window was open, Isobel could just make out the outline of his cabin.

Isobel had initially been suspicious when he’d first approached her about renting the decrepit shack that the previous owner had left behind. Given the nature of what she did and the type of people she encountered on a daily basis, she’d naturally thought it was a ploy to get close to her, or at least get close to Council secrets.

Despite herself, Isobel had been intrigued by the man.

One might’ve thought Liam was simply reserved, but Isobel had seen through to what lay barely leashed beneath that unassuming demeanor. She knew there was more than meets the eye when it came to this wolf. More than he was telling, certainly.

He’d had only the clothes on his back and a duffel bag in one hand when he’d approached her. When Isobel had questioned him, he’d said he was “traveling.”

“And why don’t you just keep on traveling?” she’d asked flatly.

Liam had merely shrugged. “Seems like a good place to stop.”

She’d taken his prints to run through Council databases. If he was on the run, Isobel wanted to know about it.

Suspicion turned first into surprise at what she found, then into interest. He was part of the Whelan clan, a pretty sizable wolf pack up north. One typically didn’t encounter many intact packs and prides nowadays—urban expansion being what it was—but apparently the Whelan clan was so expansive, and so insular, that it had essentially formed its own town, shunning interference from the nearest Council.