Dark Spy’s Mission Read online

  “The tips were good, but not good enough. Besides, I want to do more with my life.”

  “Have you considered college?”

  Jacki shook her head. “I can’t afford it, not even with a full scholarship. I need to support myself.”

  It was so difficult to keep quiet and not tell Jacki about the possibility of her being a Dormant. When she turned immortal and joined the clan, all of the concerns that were troubling her so much would become irrelevant.

  Instead, Jin patted her arm. “Don’t worry. The solution will present itself.”

  “I’m in the same boat,” Richard said. “I hope the organization will find jobs for us.”

  Wendy didn’t contribute her opinion, but she didn’t have to. Her troubled expression said it all.

  The thing was, even if her three friends turned immortal, that didn’t solve the problem of them earning a living. It wasn’t like clan membership came with a free ride. Every member Jin had met so far had a job.

  She and Mey should start working on the business proposal that Kian had promised to look over. If he decided to invest the clan’s money in their business, they could offer jobs to her friends.

  Doing what, though?

  Richard was a hustler, so he could be the sales manager. Wendy could be the secretary, and Jacki could model. At five foot nine, she was tall enough for their fashion line, and even though she was much curvier than what models were supposed to be, that wasn’t a problem either. The clothing line Jin and Mey had in mind was meant for real women who didn’t wear size zero or two. The average was more like size twelve. And that was especially true for tall females.

  Except, she couldn’t even tell Jacki that. Her friend’s lack of a college education wasn’t the result of a low IQ. Jacki was smart, and she would wonder why Kian was making Jin and Mey such a generous offer.

  It was better to bite her tongue and say as little as possible.

  Then again, she could lie and say that Yamanu had money and was investing in Mey’s dream. But to do so, she had to coordinate it with them first.

  “I’m bored.” Wendy got up. “Can I turn on the television?”

  “Don’t you want to play some more charades?” Mey asked.

  “I’m too good at it, and it’s not fun when I can guess it right away. I kept quiet not to spoil your fun.”

  Jin had been under the impression that Wendy had suggested the game. Why had she done it if she didn’t like playing it?

  The girl was weird.

  “How about something to drink?” Yamanu asked. “There is enough left over to make several margaritas.”

  The bedroom door opened, and Amanda walked in. “Did I hear margaritas? Because I would love one. But first, let me introduce the new and improved Arwel.” She waved both arms toward the door. “Please give him a round of applause.”

  As everyone started clapping, Arwel walked out with a shy smile on his handsome face.

  Talk about a transformation.

  He looked like a freaking GQ model.

  His hair was trimmed and slicked back, which made his gorgeous eyes pop, and he was clean-shaven, which made him look even more kissable than usual.

  But the best part was the change of wardrobe.

  Gone were the baggy cargo pants and the oversized checkered shirt over a plain white T-shirt. Instead, Arwel had a pair of slim jeans on and an elegant button-down shirt, both fitting him perfectly and showing off his fantastic body instead of hiding it.

  The man was mouthwateringly handsome, and he was all hers.

  “You cleaned up nicely,” Yamanu said.

  “Thank you.” Arwel wasn’t looking at his friend when he thanked him. He was looking at Jin, waiting for her to say something.

  “Wow,” was all she could come up with.

  What she wanted to do was take Arwel’s hand, lead him out of Mey’s room, take him to hers, and lock the door.

  He wasn’t going to stay dressed for long.

  6

  Arwel

  Some might have scoffed at Arwel’s efforts to look good for his mate as unmanly, but he didn’t care what others thought. If he did, he would have taken care of his schlumpy appearance a long time ago.

  The only person whose opinion mattered was Jin, and she seemed very happy with his new haircut and the well-fitting, elegant clothes Amanda had given him.

  It was so worth it.

  Smiling suggestively, she got up, walked up to him, and took his hand. “I’m tired of playing charades. I think I’m ready to call it a night.”

  “It’s not even eight yet,” Mey said.

  Jin cast her an amused glance. “I didn’t say that I was going to sleep.”

  Pulling on Arwel’s hand, she led him out of the room to the sounds of snorts and chuckles.

  “You look good enough to eat,” she whispered in his ear. “I promise to be careful when I remove your beautiful new clothes.”

  Fates, he loved how bold she was.

  “You know that most of them can hear you, right?” He used his phone to open her door.

  “I don’t care.” Jin pulled him inside and pushed him against the wall. “Kiss me.”

  He pressed on the close icon, tossed the phone on the bed, and closed his arms around her body, palming her ass.

  “Why don’t you kiss me?”

  “You are better at it.” She touched a finger to his fang, sending a pulse of heat straight to his shaft. “Because of these.”

  Smirking, he turned them around and pressed his body to hers. “Happy to oblige.” He took her mouth.

  Soon, the kissing got frenzied, with both of them fumbling for buttons and zippers in their rush to remove the barriers between them.

  And then his damn phone started ringing.

  Ignoring it, Arwel pulled Jin’s blouse over her head and cupped her breasts over her bra.

  As she moaned into his mouth and attacked his shirt buttons with renewed fervor, he helped, shrugging the shirt off as soon as she popped the last button and pressing his bare chest to hers.

  With the skin to skin sending another bolt of lightning down into his straining shaft, he kicked his boots off and was ready to push his pants down when the damn phone started ringing again.

  “You’d better answer it,” Jin murmured. “It might be an emergency.”

  “Someone else can take care of it.” He reached behind her back to unclasp her bra.

  The phone kept ringing.

  With a curse, Arwel let go of Jin and walked over to the bed. His intention was to bark at whoever was calling and tell them to get lost, but luckily he stopped for a split second to check who it was.

  “Fuck! It’s Kian.” He accepted the call. “What’s going on?”

  “I apologize for the interruption and for what I’m about to ask of you, but regrettably, I have no choice. You need to use condoms, Arwel. Jin can’t enter transition before she tethers Kalugal.”

  “Noted.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Damn. He should have thought of that. Not only had they had unprotected sex already, but he hadn’t gone out to buy condoms. Perhaps there were some left over in the old clinic?

  “What’s the matter?” Jin hugged him from behind, pressing her naked breasts to his back.

  He put his hands over hers and turned his head to kiss her cheek. “Kian reminded me that we need to use condoms to prevent you from entering transition before you tether Kalugal.”

  She chuckled. “It might be too late. We didn’t use them last night.”

  “Still, we need them now, and I don’t have any.”

  “That’s a bummer.” She rubbed herself against him. “But as I said before, you look good enough to eat, and that’s what I want to do. I don’t think you can induce my transition like that.” She nipped his ear.

  His eyes rolling back, Arwel pulled Jin’s arms tighter around him. “There might be some condoms left in the clinic. I can go check.”

  “You are not going anywhere.” Turning
him around to face her, she pushed him onto the bed. “Not right now, anyway.”

  When she kneeled on the floor and started tugging on his socks, he tried to stop her and do it himself, but she batted his hands away.

  “Let me. This is my treat to you.”

  Leaning back, he groaned. “Fates, woman. What are you doing to me?”

  She took a sock off and tossed it aside. “Pampering you.” She pulled the other sock off and dropped it on the floor. “And pleasuring you.”

  Bracing on his arms, he lifted his ass and pushed his jeans and boxer shorts down his thighs.

  Jin pulled them the rest of the way. “Oh, my.” She licked her lips. “Now, that’s a treat.” She touched his erection.

  His hips shot up. It was an involuntary action, but it seemed to please her.

  “Excited to meet me, aren’t you?” She flicked the head with her tongue. “I’m excited too.” She licked all around it.

  “Fates,” he groaned.

  “Jin would suffice.” She smiled up at him and then opened her mouth and took him deep inside it.

  His head dropped back, and he arched up into her mouth.

  She took him even deeper.

  Damn. He had to see that.

  Lifting on his forearms, he looked at Jin’s lips wrapped around his shaft. The dual sensation of feeling and seeing was enough to trigger his climax.

  Sensing it, she tightened her hand and pulled back. “Not yet. I’m not done having fun with you.”

  7

  Kalugal

  After a shower and a short nap, Kalugal headed down to the bunker. Not trusting anyone else to handle his treasures, he hadn’t allowed his men to unpack the trip’s loot and was excited about doing that himself. There was nothing like coming home and going over his latest finds before putting them on display.

  His best one was a small statue of a beautiful woman that was nearly intact. What fascinated him most about it, though, was that it looked a lot like a woman he’d seen on one of his trips to Egypt.

  On the way back from one of his digs, Kalugal had passed the Colossi of Memnon, but even though he’d visited the statues several times over the years, something had prompted him to stop at the tourist attraction and have another look.

  When he’d noticed the female, it was because of her height and her most unusual jade eyes. He’d been intrigued, but he’d had no intention of flirting with her while in his Professor Gunter disguise. Still, if she had been alone, he could’ve shrouded himself in a more appealing form and approached her, but since she hadn’t been, he had just walked over to take a better look.

  Something about her was different.

  When he’d gotten closer, that elusive something had turned into a most interesting discovery. The woman was an immortal. His reaction to her had been much subtler than the one he’d had to her man, but both of them had caused the hair on the back of his neck to tingle in alarm.

  As her senses had picked up on him as well, she’d turned to look at him.

  Instinctively, Kalugal had shrouded himself in thin air, disappearing from sight. Since she could sense his otherness, even his Professor Gunter disguise wouldn’t have been enough. The female would have wanted to check out who he was and why he’d triggered that particular response, or worse, send her formidable mate to investigate.

  Then he had bumped into the two of them again at the airport.

  Who were they?

  If he had met the male alone, Kalugal would have assumed that he was a member of the Brotherhood sent by Navuh to search for him. But the presence of the immortal female precluded that. The two couldn’t have belonged to the Devout Order of Mortdh.

  They either belonged to Annani’s clan or were an unaffiliated couple. In either case, he had no wish to engage, and not just because the male looked dangerous.

  Kalugal’s curiosity had been piqued, though, more on a personal level than anything strategic.

  The clan played no part in his future plans, and they could do nothing to stop him, so he was perfectly okay with leaving them alone. But ever since he’d seen that couple and the loving way they had interacted with each other, he’d been having thoughts about finding an immortal female to share his life with, and the clan was the only community that had them.

  “I knew that I’d find you here.” Rufsur walked over to the worktable. “Pretty.” He leaned to look at the small statue.

  “Don’t touch it.” Kalugal cast him a warning glare.

  “I know better than to breathe on your artifacts.” Clasping his hands behind his back, Rufsur peered over the fragments of a stone tablet that Kalugal was carefully spreading over the table.

  “Anything interesting happen while I was gone?”

  Rufsur rubbed the back of his neck. “There was a small incident that I forgot to mention.”

  Straightening up, Kalugal narrowed his eyes at his number two. “What is it, and why didn’t you call me right when it happened?”

  “Relax, it’s nothing. We had a woman stop by the gate and ask to see the grounds. She and her husband were looking for a house in the neighborhood, and she wanted to see the landscaping. Just in case, I had them followed and checked them out. They seemed to be precisely who they claimed to be. They were staying at a posh hotel, looking at properties during the day, and enjoying their evenings in nearby restaurants and bars.”

  “It could be nothing, and it could be something.” Kalugal took his gloves off and started walking toward the security office. “I want to see the footage from when that woman stopped by the gate. Was she alone?”

  “The husband stayed in the car.”

  That made it less suspicious. A woman alone wouldn’t ring the bell on a stranger’s estate and ask to come in. But a pushy one who had her husband as backup might.

  “Hello, boss.” Gabe turned his swivel chair around. “What brings you into my humble office?”

  “I want to see the footage.” Kalugal looked at Rufsur. “When did the woman stop by?”

  “Twelve days ago. I think it was Thursday.”

  “I remember her.” Gabe turned back to his monitor array. “A hot little number. I hope they find a house in the neighborhood and that her husband leaves on many business trips.” He typed on his keypad, bringing up the gate footage from that day and then scanning it on fast forward to the right moment.

  Kalugal leaned over Gabe’s shoulder. “Freeze it and zoom in on her face.”

  She was petite and too skinny for his taste, but her face was beautiful. Her hair and the gentle expression on her face reminded Kalugal of his mother, and as always, the memory made his gut clench with sorrow.

  Keeping him away from her was a sin for which he was never going to forgive his father.

  “That’s indeed a gorgeous woman. A trophy wife,” he said to cover up for his momentary slip into sentimentality. “Let it play with the audio on.”

  Without consciously admitting it to himself, and for no reason whatsoever, he hoped that the woman also sounded like his mother, but she didn’t. No woman ever had.

  His mother was one of a kind. A gentle soul trapped by a despot whom she for some reason loved.

  Was this woman who called herself Viv also married to a control freak?

  “Can you show me the husband?”

  Gabe switched to another camera. “Here he is. Nice car.”

  “Mercedes’ finest,” Kalugal said.

  The top of the convertible was down, and the husband was clearly visible. The man was immaculately groomed and elegantly dressed. While his wife conversed with the guard, the guy was busy typing a message on his phone.

  So far, everything had fit with who the couple claimed to be, but they also could have been well-prepared spies. People were curious about the mysterious owner of the estate, and ambitious journalists might have devised a plan to find out more.

  “Can you zoom in on the phone? I wonder if I could read what he is typing.”

  “I can try.”

  T
he camera angle was such that it was impossible to read the message, but the phone itself was interesting. At first glance, it looked like the latest iPhone model, but upon closer examination, it didn’t look like any of the major brands.

  “Are either of you familiar with that phone?”

  Rufsur leaned closer. “It looks like one of those cheap Chinese copies of an iPhone.”

  That was what had crossed Kalugal’s mind as well, except it didn’t fit the rest of the picture. The couple seemed rich. Why would the husband use a non-brand phone?

  There were two possibilities Kalugal could think of.

  One was that the couple had been journalists in disguise, using a rented Mercedes and expensive clothing as disguises, but not bothering with a small detail like a phone.

  The other possibility was that the phone wasn’t a cheap replica, but rather a special issue of breakthrough technology or powerful encryption, or both, like the ones he and his men were using.

  “I want security increased, and I want you to report anything suspicious to me right away. And I mean everything, no matter how trivial you might think it is.”

  “Yes, boss.” Gabe saluted. “Code red?”

  “Code yellow will do.”

  Rufsur frowned. “Why? What did you see?”

  “The phone. A guy wouldn’t be driving a Mercedes and at the same time using a cheap Chinese counterfeit. I have a feeling that this device is a special issue, encrypted like ours.”

  8

  Syssi

  Amanda walked out of her office and stopped at Syssi’s desk. “Let’s have lunch at Gino’s.”

  Syssi looked up. “We haven’t been there in ages, and Gino is going to give us the look.”

  “What look?”

  “The guilt-inducing sad one because we’ve stopped coming.”

  Amanda frowned. “We are there at least once a week.”

  “Precisely. But the last time was three weeks ago.”

  “We need to plan Kian’s birthday, and that’s the best place for it. I’ll just give Gino a hug and all will be forgiven.”