Act of Mercy (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops) (6 page)

Bertrand grabbed her roughly by the arm.
“Come. Fix the generator.”

She had to fight to keep her lip from curling at his touch. He dragged her to the end of the cellblock, to an o
ffice used by the doctors who frequented the area. The generator was on the edge of the desk.

Mercy jerked her arm free from Bertrand and shot him a nasty look, surprising herself with her bravery.
“Try saying please. An ounce of polite goes a long way.”

Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean…

Duke sat on the plane, his fingers digging into the
beige-colored leather armrests of his seat. The plane was PSI property—one of their many
toys
. This one was made to accommodate a team of six to eight men. Since they weren’t exactly small men, that said something. The entire interior was decked out with high-end fixtures and furnishings. Swanky was how he’d refer to it. All he wanted was a parachute. He didn’t really give a shit about anything else. Private and expensive did not equal safe. At least not in his mind.

He was a wolf.

Wolves didn’t fly.

They ran fast and killed things.
Sometimes they did it with a group of other wolves. Other times, they acted alone.

Flying wasn
’t part of the gig.

When he
’d first been recruited into the agency, planes weren’t a reality. Flying wasn’t expected of him. He’d been brought on because he could track just about anything through anywhere and he had a hell of an aim. Not to mention, he could shape-shift into a wolf and do damage that way. He’d not been brought on for his love of modern inventions. Much had changed in his two hundred and fifty plus years on this earth.

The other PSI-Ops on board
had no issues with flying. Boomer was relaxing with his feet propped up as he watched a movie. The plane had reclining seats that folded out into beds, as well as a back area with sleeping quarters for each team member. Boomer had turned on a movie to watch on one of the many viewing screens and had not budged since take off. He’d been nodding off and snoring most of the flight. The fact he made any noise at all attested to how safe Boomer felt. None of the men were predisposed to snoring during normal sleep—they’d been trained to make no noise or risk alerting the enemy.

If it wasn
’t for James, Duke would have been clawing at the seat, pitching a fit about being forced to defy gravity. James was a brother-in-arms and you didn’t leave a man behind.

Period.

All the men had seen combat before becoming a PSI operative. War had been going on since the dawn of time and there was no shortage of battles or warriors to fight in them. Duke had been in many wars. The earliest being the American Revolution. He’d been just a boy, barely in his teens back then. Didn’t matter. He was fighting for what he believed in, plus it wasn’t as though he and his countrymen had a ton of choices. They had to stand against England. He’d felt it was his duty to protect the land he’d been born to. Much had changed over the centuries. For one, he no longer used a musket—thank the gods. What a tedious weapon that had been. Stop. Shoot. Reload. Reload some more. Hope it didn’t misfire. Repeat the steps. England was no longer an enemy but rather an ally, and the wars tended to happen on other countries’ soil. Well, that was what everyone kept telling him anyways.

Though, he, like many, could still vividly recall where he was the day the towers came down.
That was an act of war on American soil. No one could tell him different.

Yes, there was much that had changed since he
’d been barely in his teens and taken up arms against Britain. He and his cousins had done so. Six Marlow boys went off to war. Three men returned.

Hiding what they were amongst the ca
rnage was hard. Duke had been going through puberty and already had enough hormonal changes to deal with, but couple in the wolf he carried going through its own sets of changes and he was a temperamental nightmare. He and his cousins would sneak away from their regiment on some nights, shift forms and run as wolves. It was how they kept control of Duke—and kept him from eating other soldiers. Well, their side at least. They didn’t really give a shit if he ate the bad guys.

He liked to give Corbin a hard
time because the man was British and in a position of authority. Plus, he drank a lot of tea and ate crumpets. What kind of self-respecting alpha male shifter ate something called a crumpet? It was engrained in Duke to be defiant to him.

I
n the end, they had each other’s backs.

As
an operative always did. They’d been through a lot together. Not all of it was good. War had a way of making a man out of you. It also had a way of changing you—sometimes for the worse. It left you always on guard, always ready for an attack. And it made it hard to let that guard down. Vietnam had done a number on Duke. He’d thought that had been his worst war to date. Iraq wasn’t a ton better. An IED encased in an animal carcass, made to look like harmless road kill, had taken out several PSI-Ops. They’d been Duke’s friends and he’d been close when it happened.

War fucking sucked.

The plane hit turbulence and Duke held tighter to the arm rests.

Pla
nes fucking sucked.

The only good he
’d seen come from war had been the bond he’d forged with other soldiers. There was a trust that ran too deep for words between them. A brotherhood born from violence. It’s part of why Boomer could nod off on the plane into a deep sleep but not do so anywhere else.

Trust.

Hard earned for sure.

Corbin pushed files across the table at Duke.
“Want to take a look at these now?”

In order to see the
m, Duke would have to stand. He didn’t want to move. In his mind, if he did, the damn plane could tip and they could all plummet into the ocean to their deaths.

Irrational.

He knew.

And he didn
’t give a shit.

Wolves weren
’t meant to fly.

“
I’m good.” He remained in place.

“
Pussy,” said Striker. “Captain, I think Duke is beggin’ for a mission that leaves us parachuting in. Face your fears. Live dangerously. Be a man. Okay, be a wolf-man.”

“
I will end you,” Duke warned, growling.

Striker ignored him and leaned
, taking the files from Corbin. He leafed through them. “She’s a bonnie lass.”

Duke simply arched a brow in Striker
’s direction. You could take the man out of Scotland but you couldn’t get Scotland out of the man. At least Striker had stopped referring to Corbin as a Bloody-English-Bastard-Out-to-Steal-His-Country. Progress was found in the strangest of places.

Corbin laughed.
“She is good looking, but don’t let that fool you. From all the information we’ve been able to recover, she’s a heavy hitter with this group from what we can tell.”

“
Funny, sounded to me like the analysts can’t tell shit,” Duke added through gritted teeth, still clutching the armrests. Dammit, the flight was going to take forever and the turbulence just got worse. “Encryption they can’t even fully crack. Nice. Maybe we should track down who leaked the intel and hire ’em on. If they’re capable of keeping our eggheads from deciphering the information, they must be good.”

Corbin didn
’t seem amused. He looked to Striker. “The target is linked to James somehow. We believe she knows where he is.”

“
Anything else?” asked Duke, intrigued but not enough to risk his life by moving.

Idiots need to sit down and stay in one place.

Nodding, Corbin continued on,
“We were able to dig up an address for her in Paris.”

“
You think she’s dumb enough to still be there?” asked Striker. “I’m guessin’ she’s long gone. If she’s half the threat they’re makin’ her out to be, she’ll be halfway around the world before we land.”

He had a point. Duke nodded in agreement
and started to stand, with the intent to go to the table. The plane hit a particularly rough bout of turbulence and shook. Duke pushed down into his seat, positive his movement caused the plane to rock. No one could tell him different.

Boomer kicked awake.
“Huh? What?”

“
Corbin is briefing us,” Duke said, wanting to think about anything other than being thousands of feet in the air—above the ocean. “You’re not missing anything. He doesn’t know shit. And Intel got their asses handed to them by some random informant. Consider yourself briefed.”

“
Would that I could fire you,” Corbin said in a sing-song voice.

“
Sucks, don’t it.” Duke blew him a kiss. “You get us for life.”

“
Know that I’m entertaining killing you,” said Corbin with a smile. Corbin would never make good on the threat and Duke knew it. They were a family of circumstance and family protected family—that was why they were handling the extraction of James. No other teams. PSI had division headquarters in cities much closer than theirs but none of them would see James as a brother.

Duke
’s team did.

Yeah, they
’d had a falling out of sorts. Didn’t matter. Only getting James back safely mattered. To hell with everything else.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Boomer sat up fully, looking a bit more awake. He stood
, stretched, and went to the table. His violet gaze centered on the files before him. He ran a hand through his long hair. If it wasn’t for the closely clipped facial hair he kept, Boomer would look a lot less manly. He’d heard women talk about him reminding them of a rock guy or Goth something or other. Duke tried not to pay too much attention to what others thought. And since Boomer wasn’t his type, Duke really didn’t care.

Boomer
touched the files, the sadness around his eyes returning. “She’s a babe.”

“
I know,” Striker said, appearing in the main cabin area with a bottle of water. It was a considerable step up from the cheap beer he’d been pushing for earlier. “She’s my kind of gal. I like redheads. They have fire in their souls and sometimes the actual ability to wield fire—I suggest avoiding the supernatural ones. They can be hazardous to one’s health.”

“
The last time you went out with a redhead, she tried to cut your dick off,” Boomer said from the sidelines, perking, a smile touching his lips. “Said you were a cheatin’ bastard who needed to be taught a lesson you’d never forget.”

Striker grinned from ear to ear
as if the memory was one of his best. He had a reputation with the ladies. Most of the operatives did. They were all careful. They knew the risks of being with human women. You didn’t dare spill your seed in one. It could kill them—shifter seed was toxic to humans and if they managed to survive it and gods-forbid, became pregnant, they’d never carry the baby to term—they’d die. It was worse for those who weren’t natural-born supernaturals—that was where the luck of those who were bitten ran out.

No one really knew why.

Humans just weren’t built to handle supernaturals pregnancies.

“
Want to talk about ladies’ men,” Striker said, pointing to Duke. “Right there. Big time.”

Duke
wore the label with pride as he did most of what he was called. “What of it?”

“
Someday, yer gonna meet a lass who shakes the verra ground you stand on. Then what are you gonna do?”

Duke groaned.
“Hope she knows how to interpret for your shaggy self. I get about half of what you say. And trim that beard. You look like a bear. And besides, what do you know of a woman making the ground shake around you?”

Striker laughed.
“I’ve shaken many a lass, Marlow.”

“
Children,” Corbin scolded. “Focus. It appears Mercy Deluca is a doctor who also has a degree in biomedical engineering. Sounds like she was some sort of child prodigy.”

Striker whistled.
“Hot and smart. If she wasnae an evil bitch, I’d do her. No, wait, I’d do even her with her bein’ an evil bitch. I like ’em naughty.”

Boomer high
-fived Striker. Duke snorted.

Corbin pinched the bridge of his nose as if dealing with a
ll of them gave him a headache.

Maybe it did.

Duke closed his eyes. They could hash out what little details they had on the woman. He needed some shuteye. Sleeping was the only way he was able to pass the time on long flights. It was do that or obsess about plummeting to his death. It felt as if he’d only just nodded off when Striker was there, touching his arm then stepping back in case Duke woke with a start.

“
What?” Duke asked.

“
You were moaning and going on about a woman,” Striker said, laughing partially under his breath. “And by going on, I mean grunting like a ruttin’ pig and whispering lovey dovey sayings. We never knew you were such a romantic.”

Duke glanced at Corbin and Boomer, unsure if Striker was simply trying to get a rise out of him or telling the truth.

Corbin nodded. “And you said the target’s name.”

“
What?”

“
You said Mercy and, Duke, you said it like you were in the middle of one hell of a sex dream.”

Duke remembered nothing. He
’d thought he’d only nodded off a few seconds. “How long was I out?”