Their Unusual Mating [Paranormal Protection Unit 5] (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

Putting the key back in the realtor lock box, she patted the door of the house and headed out toward her car. Sliding into the soft leather seats, she closed her eyes for only a moment and let the peace and quiet take away her anger. So what, she had wasted a Friday night. Her date had cancelled on her three nights earlier, so it really didn’t matter.

Turning on her vehicle, she flipped the station from Hits 1 on XM to Smooth Jazz. Leaning her head back once again, she breathed in the jasmine scent of her air freshener and closed her eyes. Allowing the music to wash over her, Rimi relaxed for several seconds and then moved to pull the car into drive but was shocked to see a shadow beside the door.

She squeaked, but then he raised a large meaty fist to knock on the window of her door. “Crap,” she muttered and put the window down only about an inch. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Sebastian Montrose. I have an appointment.”

She wanted to tell him that he had an appointment forty-five minutes earlier, but she held her tongue and pasted a smile on her lips. “Certainly, Mr. Montrose. I know traffic must have been hard getting out here.” All right, so that was bitchier than she had wanted it to be, but Gods dammit all, the bastard was forty-five minutes late!

She watched the way that his lip curled, but she just smiled brightly. “If you would back up just a smidge please?” she asked sweetly, sugary with her request, and even batted her eyes as she did so.

“Yes, traffic was a bear,” he stated quietly and took one large step back, his eyes constantly watching her.

Rimi grabbed her briefcase and passed him a brochure before she stepped out of the Mercedes. “As you can see from the flyer,” she began and clicked the lock on the door, “the home is a five-bedroom, seven-bath home.” She smiled. “The previous owner who built the house was fastidious about bathrooms, hence why there are more bathrooms than bedrooms.”

Rimi continued to talk, her voice rising and falling as she hit the highlights of the home and so on. Stepping into the home with him, she stepped off to the side. “Please, feel free to look around. If there is anything that I can help you with or if you have any questions at all please do not hesitate to ask because I will be right here,” she told the man with a smile.

“I will, thank you.” It was a pretense. All of it was a pretense, but he had to get her from the open door first. She was the one. He knew it in the deepest part of his heart that this woman was the one that their organization had been searching for. She was the one who would bring the unnaturals to them.

A smile crossed his lips as he thought about how they had gotten that information. Ah yes, that had been utterly brilliant. They had caught one of the so-called magical workers, a man who could tell the future. Yep, he had been a bastard to break, but once he was broken that son of a bitch spilled his guts, just before Sebastian spilled them for him. Ah yes, that had been a good night.

As he walked from room to room, Bastian put together the weapon he had brought for the woman. It would put her down before she even realized what had happened to her. Ah yes, it was going to be a very, very good thing and he knew it. He had a team member who would come in and move her vehicle away as soon as they had her, but right now, right now he just had to get the little bitch cornered so that he could shoot her with the dart.

Moving from foot to foot, Rimi was feeling worse and worse with each and every second that passed. This was so not good. She knew that this wasn’t good. She listened to her grandmother’s voice in her mind that told her that sometimes you just simply had to run. She shifted again from foot to foot when her cell phone beeped.

What lead are you talking about, you crazy bitch? Have you been snooping through my files again? I’m on my way. Don’t you dare sell that fucking house without me or I’m going to go to Michael on this,
the text from the realtor whom she had only earlier bitched out on her Blackberry read. That’s when she knew. It was a setup.

Grabbing her keys from her pocket, she slipped from the home after calling out to ask if “Sebastian” had found the wine cellar or not. Hearing him, she knew he was at the back of the house, so she raced for her car, starting it remotely and then unlocking the driver door only. Hitting the emergency button on her dashboard, she told the responding operator, “I’m leaving right now from 820 McEnroy Street. There is an intruder who—oh God!” She screamed as she punched the gas to drive, seeing the weapon in the man’s hand raised. “He has a gun!” she screamed.

“We have units en route, ma’am. I need you to drive up Main Street toward the nearest police station. The route should be downloading on your navigation panel now,” the operator told her.

She turned onto the street and in her mind went through where the local station was and made the turns before the nav system told her to.

“What do you mean that there has been ‘an incident’?” Katherine asked her friend, Betsy Wilderbrand. “What kind of ‘incident’?”

“Our goddaughter, Charisma, has been missing for the last three days.”

That had Kat frowning. “Rimi?” she asked and shook her head. “She never goes anywhere for three hours without telling you where she is.” Since Rimi’s parents died several years earlier, the woman was absolutely adamant about assuring her godmother Betsy that she was all right.

“I know, Kat. I just…” She sighed and then asked, “Do you think that maybe your big guys that are in police work can send out some help? We were told that because she’s twenty-seven years old and we aren’t her real parents we can’t file a missing persons report on her,” she stated. “It really makes me angry, too,” she muttered.

“All right, don’t worry, Bets. The twins are on assignment, but I will ask Trey if he will call his boss. Don’t worry, Bets, we will figure it out,” she assured her friend with a smile. “Can you e-mail me the most recent picture of Rimi? I haven’t seen her in about eight years, so I need a new one, please?”

“All right, doll. Thank you.” Betsy sniffed. “And tell your boys thank you. Just find her for us?” She was getting too old for this, and she knew it. “Call me as soon as you have any news for us.”

“We will, Bets, we will.” Disconnecting the phone with her friend, she turned to Trey and explained everything.

“I know that this isn’t your typical type of case, honey, but will you please look into it?” she asked Trey softly.

“Of course, baby. I need to go in and make a report anyway, so I will talk to Talon about her. We will see if we can find your little human friend.”

“Thank you, honey. Oh, and tell Talon I said howdy,” Kat said with a smile and winked at her man, watching him leaving her and heading off to the headquarters that were about ten miles from her home and business.

Stepping outside, Trey signaled the guard he was heading off and to wrap tighter around the house. Moving to his bike, he stopped by one of the Fae Guards and looked at him. “No one in and no one out,” he said softly. Getting a nod, Trey got on and pulled out, calling into base so that he could give Talon a heads-up.

Rimi had answered hours’ and hours’ worth of questions. It seemed as if there was a total flood of them, and she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open after a short time. Yawning again, she laid her head on her forearms and looked to the detective. “Can I please, please leave? I’m utterly exhausted. Maybe you can have an officer take me home?”

“We would, ma’am, but…” The paunchy, older, and balding detective leaned back in his chair as he said, “Your home has been burglarized. It’s not going to be safe for you right now. Not at all. Right now we need to keep you in protective custody because of the danger that is currently revolving around you.”

“Someone broke into my house?” she asked and jerked as if hit. Wide-eyed, she looked at the detective. “What about my kittens? There are four of them. They are just babies.”

“There were no kittens, I’m sorry.”

She sniffed, couldn’t cry, wouldn’t cry, oh fuck it! She was crying. Grabbing the tissues, she began to sniffle and sob. Dammit, those kittens were her babies. Yes, call her the crazy cat lady, but they hurt her fucking babies! Dammit!

“I need to go home. I want to make sure that my babies aren’t hiding somewhere. Please?”

“How about if we help you? We will bring two cars of uniforms and my partner. We will get your things, and then we are putting you into protective custody. Right now we understand that your godmother is about to have a heart attack and has sent in a special force. They will be here come morning.”

“Oh crap, Aunty B,” she whispered in horror. She hadn’t made her normal last two calls to her aunt. It wasn’t that she hadn’t wanted to. She just hadn’t had two seconds to do so. “I need to call her. Bless her heart, poor Aunty B is likely having a heart attack.” Good lord, she was a terrible goddaughter. She hadn’t called her godmother like she should have. Just another sin to tack onto the endless list of them she seemed to be accumulating lately.

“You can call her from your home, but once we have you in a protective home and environment there are no calls allowed out, deal?” When she nodded, he smiled. “Sit tight, Ms. Coleman. I will arrange protection and we will get moving, all right?” At her nod, he again nodded and stood, rising to go to the door and looking back. “If your cats are there, we will find them,” he added, a little softly for her since it was obvious that it was distressing her.

* * * *

“We will be collecting Ms. Coleman, removing her and her belongings from the situation, and taking her back to base,” Talon told the team he’d had to scramble to pull together. Too many things going on in too many places all at once. “The locals know we are coming, they just don’t know yet that we’re going to be pulling jurisdiction on them. Be polite, be nice, and for the love of the Gods, nobody rip anybody’s arms off. They may be small town, but they are the law there and will be treated accordingly.” He shot a look to the Jaguar changer on the mixed-up team sitting next to Trey. “Got it?!” he asked specifically.

“Absolutely, boss.” Tryggr smiled slowly, all predator. “No tearing off arms. But legs are still a go.” He was yanking Talon’s chain. One damn time, and an accident at that, and you got yourself labeled as the guy that tears off arms. It had been successfully reconnected. What was the big deal?!

Trey growled and shook his head. “No legs either, hotshot,” he muttered darkly. “Katherine will have my balls if I don’t bring her ‘sister’ home.” He rolled his eyes. “The two haven’t even spent more than a few months together, but Katherine has it in her fucking mind that she’s her sister, and I would do whatever it took to make my mate happy.” He added with a grin, “Especially since she has this way with her tongue when I do something that makes her happy. Hell yeah.” He growled. “Oh, one more thing.” He looked at each man there. “This girl, Charisma Coleman, she knows jack shit about us and it needs to stay that way, got it?”

Talon got nods from everyone and looked to Quincy. “Skittles will be sending you details on the fly. Keep your phones handy and on vibrate only. All communication will be via comms. We are going in looking like black ops all the way, lads. They want us all stereotypical, we’ll give them stereotypical.” He grinned.

“Oh hell yeah,” another changer murmured in appreciation from the back. “Hey, boss, can we do a rapid descent from the chopper? Can we? Huh, huh, can we, boss?” A couple others were grinning at that.

Shaking his head in amusement Talon, nodded. “Yes, you guys can play it up to the extreme. Just remember we’re on their turf and technically we have no jurisdiction there. But what the locals don’t know won’t get me shit upon.” Besides, with Charisma’s godmother…He was pretty sure he was fully covered from shitstorms. “Wheels up in ten. Good luck, fellas, and we’ll update you as we go along.”

* * * *

“Good lord, what did they do to my house?” Rimi asked with a frown as she turned around in the shattered remains of her home. “I loved this.” She gently touched a wooden figurine that her godfather had whittled just for her, and now it was a shattered mess. A sob tore from her lips as she moved. “Good lord,” she whispered softly and moved to the next room. More tears.

Rimi wasn’t poor, not by any stretch, but she worked hard for absolutely everything she had. Nothing had been given to her apart from the handcrafted items that her godfather had given her since she was born, and now, now they were all gone, and it broke her heart. Things could be replaced, she knew that, but it was the memories she would miss so very much.

“We will have a cleaner come in as well,” the detective told her. “I’m so sorry, again I’m sorry.” He truly meant it, too.

“Thank you,” she whispered and moved to the hiding place that the kittens had found, a place that was just behind a loose baseboard and pulled it free. Yes, she knew that was a place that mice would likely hide, but since it had been knocked down, maybe, just maybe her babies would be there as well.

“Come on, babies,” she said and dropped to her knees. Rimi didn’t realize the view she was presenting to anyone on her hands and knees, with her skirt hitched high as it was.

* * * *

“Approaching the house now,” the pilot reported as they moved silently through the night.

“Copy that,” Trey responded and looked to everyone else as they double-checked weapons and gear. It might be a cakewalk of an assignment, but he was pleased to see that they all were approaching it like every other mission, serious and down to business.

When the helicopter went into a smooth hover, the doors were slid open, ropes tossed out, and every man leapt out in unison, zipping down the lines to land featherlight on their toes. Unhooking, they all moved into positions, weapons down though to ensure they didn’t get perforated by the locals all standing around looking shocked.

Trey waved off the pilot, who would go and set down in a nearby field to await further orders or their arrival at his location. Moving toward a deputy, he looked down at the man. “I’m looking for the sheriff,” he said, holding up identification for his inspection.