Administrative Control

Chapter Two

Colonel Asher Brooks stood in the shadows near the old warehouse on the pier. He tucked his phone back into his jacket pocket and patted it gently. He smiled despite himself. He lived for any moment he could speak with Jinx. The redheaded vixen held him enthralled when, in truth, she’d never used her succubus powers on him. He was powerful enough to have sensed it. No. Her lure was natural and his obsession with her was anything but. Asher had no intention of waiting until morning to see her. He’d pay her a visit as soon as he wrapped up matters on the dock.

Salty sea air and the odor of fish did not mask the smell of death that still coated the area. The warehouse had played host to an underground paranormal fighting ring backed by Walter Helmuth—a bigwig who controlled most of the paranormal underground in the Seattle area. Helmuth was a bottom feeder who had made it big. The man had been causing problems steadily for months.

As point person for the I-Ops team members, Asher was required to step in when called for, and the massive amount of bloodshed on the pier meant his presence was certainly called for. He already had the higher-ups breathing down his neck about it all, trying to say his men and the PSI boys were out of control and needed to be leashed.

To that, Asher had responded with a giant fuck you.

Lukian Vlakhusha, the captain of the I-Ops team, ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark brown, wavy hair and let out a long breath as he took in the scene around him.

“Eadan and Duke did this?” he asked, disbelief in his voice.

Eadan Daly, another I-Ops team member, stepped forward, shaking his head. “Not all of this. We did our fair share of damage, don’t get me wrong. But not to this extent. Nowhere near this.”

“You sure your faerie dust didn’t go bad and make everyone go nuts?” Roi Majors asked of Eadan as he pulled another t-shirt on. This made his third.

Asher gave him a questioning look.

Roi shrugged as if he wore three shirts daily. “Seattle is fucking cold.”

“You’re a shifter and your core body temperature runs hot. How can you possibly be cold?” asked Lukian, voicing what the others were thinking.

“Apparently, I need a thicker winter coat.” Roi flashed a wide smile, letting hair sprout up and over his forearms. Hair coated his face suddenly as well. He looked like a deranged teddy bear in his current state. “And no one told me to pack a jacket or even a long-sleeved shirt.”

“Seattle is northern. It’s colder the more north you go,” said Asher.

“Geography isn’t his strong suit,” mocked Eadan from the sidelines. His attention went to Roi. “How about I sprinkle some of my faerie dust on you, dickhead?”

“Don’t make me cut your hair,” snapped Roi, motioning to Eadan’s long blond hair.

“Do it. It just grows back by the next morning,” returned Eadan. He blew Roi a kiss and then gave him the finger when Roi growled at him.

“If pretty boy taunts me one more time, I’m gonna eat him,” warned Roi.

Taking the I-Ops anywhere was a lot like taking a preschool on a field trip. Though Asher thought the preschoolers would probably listen better.

Lukian nudged Asher. “They’ll be at it for hours. What have we learned about what went down here?”

Asher motioned to Eadan. “He was held captive here on a docked cargo ship. Duke was en route to help but was given a bogus location. Let the record state Duke is still pissed he had to fly as much as he did. He’s not a fan.”

“He doesn’t like anything,” murmured Eadan from his spot before he shoved Roi.

Growling, Lukian stared around, his eyes shifting to a brighter blue. “Do we know who steered Duke wrong? And do we know who the hell tipped off Helmuth and his men that Eadan would even be in this area to start with?”

“Rogues in PSI is my best guess,” responded Asher. Paranormal Security and Intelligence Agency had been hit with the same problems the I-Ops side of things had—traitors. Rumors had been spreading that more than one I-Ops team existed and Asher had his suspicions there was even more the higher-ups were keeping from them all. That was why he’d enlisted Jinx’s help. She had a way of getting information that others simply did not.

“Shit.” Lukian lowered his gaze. “Not another Parker.”

Benjamin Parker was the man Roi had replaced on the I-Ops team. They’d thought him dead and gone and had even mourned his passing. When he’d surfaced out of the blue and off his damn rocker, they’d realized he had gone rogue, letting his hurt and anger over having been a test subject loose on the men he’d once called brothers. His revenge and rage cost Lance, a team member, his life. He nearly cost Lukian’s mate’s life as well.

Having a traitor in your ranks wasn’t taken lightly.

“I’m guessing there is more than one,” Asher said. “And I think Parker isn’t our only blast from the past either.”

Lukian’s expression was guarded. “More Outcasts?”

The creation of the I-Ops team was still a controversial subject. The government had started working on them in the early 1900s—though Asher wouldn’t have been shocked to learn that too was a lie and that they’d actually started earlier. Eugenics wasn’t something any nation was proud of. The fact that America was steeped in various attempts with it seemed to get buried fairly easy in the history books as did so much of the country’s sordid background. It was that way just about anywhere, though. There was history, and history according to the guy telling it. Often they didn’t match.

America wasn’t the only country guilty of trying to make human-hybrids. Asher could still remember IIya Ivanov’s ape-army. The public had been told it was a failure. That was a lie. The sick bastard had succeeded to a degree. There had been more attempts by others, more commonly referred to as Nazi’s Eugenics.

The world was full of some fucked-up people.

From what Asher had been told, as he’d not been part of the organization at the time, the majority of the first attempts at creating super soldiers had failed miserably. Somehow the government managed to talk more young men into donating their bodies to science in the hopes of making a brighter future.

Politicians were devils in suits.

Always had been.

Always would be.

Some of the politicians were honest-to-god demons. Asher knew a few. Those guys were actually the better of the crop.

Go figure.

Asher knew Lukian had stepped in at some point in the program’s history to help try to minimize the deaths. As a full-blooded, born shifter who by rights was the King of the Lycans in the United States, his DNA was what was needed to help sort things out. Unfortunately, not all the test subjects took to the introduced DNA cocktails. Some died. Some went mad. Others had been left at the point they’d wished they were dead.

In the end, all the Outcasts, as the program heads had termed those unfortunates who couldn’t handle what the scientists put them through, were gathered and placed in holding facilities. Those in charge spoke of the places as if they were retirement communities. They were prisons, and more like insane asylums in their infancy stages than that of retirement homes.

Asher had seen one for himself and knew the truth of the matter.

He didn’t buy the fine excuses they’d all been handed decades ago—telling them the holding facilities had all burned to the ground on the same day.

Convenient, as Asher had just finished demanding better living for the men in them.

“I don’t buy the load of shit the guys in charge are trying to make us swallow over what happened to the Outcast Facilities. Do you?” asked Asher. “And I think we’re being lied to again. You think they’re on the level?”

Shaking his head, Lukian pointed to the cleanup crew who were farther out in the distance on the dock. “From this mess, I’d say something is up. You think the rogues with PSI came in after Eadan, Jon and Duke left?” asked Lukian.

At the mention of Jon’s name, Asher tensed. “Any word from him yet?”

Asher had ordered Jon take leave. The man had gotten into his own head, and if he didn’t get himself sorted out and soon, he’d end up dead or he’d get someone else killed. Jon had been ordered to take a three-day leave and that was some six days prior. No one had spoken with him since then.

Lukian shook his head. “No. Green is still looking for him. Inara is back home helping since the others are too close to their due dates to be running around.”

“Are they checking the bars?” asked Asher without malice in this voice. Jon Reynell was in a low spot and had been since the tragic death of his teammate and best friend Lance. Didn’t matter what any of the men tried to do to help Jon come back from it, he just sank deeper and deeper. It didn’t help matters any that Jon was the last of the team members without a mate. The other men had beaten the odds and found their true mates.

That was rare.

They were now family men. All except Jon and him. But Asher kept himself removed from the men, never going on missions with them. It was the only way he knew to keep them from finding out what he really was.

Lukian turned in a slow circle. Blood and guts were everywhere the eye could see and probably a lot of places it couldn’t. “What the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know, but from what the cleanup crew has been able to determine, there are all kinds of different supernaturals in this.”

“It’s a hot mess,” breathed Lukian.

Asher agreed. It was. Whatever had happened on the pier after his men left had been rage-fueled. The more he looked around at the carnage, the more he became aware of having seen something similar in his past. “Bezerker of the shifter variety.”

Lukian stilled. “I’d buy that if they weren’t myths. I’ve seen a lot in a hundred-plus years. Never ran into one of those.”

Asher held his tongue. They existed and he was pretty sure more than one had a hand in what had gone down on the pier, though something was slightly off with it all. He met Lukian’s gaze. “Call Green and ask what the odds are of creating supernaturals who would end up in crazed bezerk-like states? And not just high energy, high violence—I mean all-out-gone killing rages.”

“You don’t think Krauss and his people created something that could do this, do you?” asked Lukian, worry on his face.

Asher stared out at the cleanup team, still working hard to remove any traces of what had gone down. “At this point, I’ll believe anything.”

“I’ll get with Green and take Statler and Waldorf there with me,” added Lukian as he thumbed in the direction of Roi and Eadan. “Want to meet back at the plane?”

“Yes. I’ll finish up here and then I have a stop to make,” said Asher.

Lukian grinned. “This stop wouldn’t happen to have a sexy redheaded succubus at it, would it?”

Asher had known Lukian a long time. The man held Asher’s obsession close to the vest and that was appreciated. “She ended up involved in all of this, and I asked for her help on a matter. I just need to see that she’s all right.”

“Of course,” said Lukian. He touched Asher’s shoulder. “You could always just claim her as yours, you know.”

He snorted. “What makes you think I could?”

Lukian eyed him. “The fact you haven’t aged in all the years I’ve known you. I’m guessing that means you’re fair game in the immortal mate market, and since I’ve known you, you’ve checked in on her a whole hell of a lot.”

“Maybe I just like getting my rocks off at a brothel,” said Asher.

Lukian laughed. “Oh yeah, sure. I believe that. I’ve seen you around her before. You’re not sleeping with her—yet.”

Asher grinned despite himself. “Go do what I told you to. I’ll meet you at the plane.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lukian, waggling his brows as he headed for Roi and Eadan. The two men were now taking turns pushing each other, much like small children would.

Yep.

Preschoolers.

Asher stepped over something he was pretty sure used to be an arm. When the cleanup team had notified him of the extent of the carnage, he’d boarded a plane with half the I-Ops team and headed to Seattle at once to try to figure out what had happened.

So far, it was a mystery to them all. Asher was sure of one thing—Walter Helmuth had something to do with it and he’d been rumored to be in bed with two genetic-altering bigwig bad guys—Krauss and Molyneux.

That just screamed trouble.

Men like Helmuth always seemed like scared little boys to Asher. So desperate were they to cling to power that they would do anything to hold on to it—even kill. The man had apparently aligned with the wrong people if this was the result, because a huge number of the identifiable bodies belonged to known Helmuth associates.

Asher had seen far too many men like Helmuth in his life. They never learned. They always thought their way would give them ultimate power. In the end, it never worked as planned for them.

Helmuth and others like him needed to feel important. Needed to keep people lower than them in order to inflate their egos. Egos that would lead to their downfall.

Helmuth wasn’t the first guy to try to rule through violence. Hell, Asher’s past had a man even worse than Helmuth in it.

It’s in your blood, he thought, stiffening.

Asher considered exacting revenge upon Helmuth, the likes of which the man had never seen. But Asher knew better than to. He’d seen firsthand what fully giving in to power such as his own could do to a person. It left them a shell of what they’d been—filled with rage, evil and the all-consuming need to kill.

Checks and balances.

Nature was full of them. So was the supernatural community.

His cell phone buzzed. He removed it from his inner jacket pocket and nearly laughed when he spotted who was calling. A figurehead, placed in his role to give the few humans who knew of the I-Ops existence a false sense of security. As if they had the men on leashes and could pull back when they liked.

“Brooks,” he said, answering the phone.

The man on the other end didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Dammit, Brooks, I’m looking at a report here that says Seattle is a fucking disaster. You better have more proof than this that we’ve got traitors among us or—”

Grinning, Asher cut the man off. “Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

“I’ll have you replaced, and you know what happens to people we replace,” the man threatened.

Asher rolled his eyes. “Oh, do tell.”

“You may be tight with Newman and the others, but you’re nothing to me,” warned the man.

“As you are to me,” Asher warned. He would not take kindly to the man interfering any further. He let his power rise slowly and concentrated on the pudgy, balding man who’d let his position go to his head. “Do not even think of pushing me on this. You will pass the report to who it needs to go to and you will sign off on it, as you know as well as I do that you and the others like you have not been honest with any of us. And unless you want me showing up in your room while you’re in a dead sleep, standing over you with a sword, ready to remove that thick head of yours, I’d suggest you do as you’re told.”

The man would. The compulsion in Asher’s voice was too great for a mere human to resist. It wasn’t something Asher did too often, as it was easy to go too far, to push too much. But it was called for now.

“Yes. Of course,” the man said, hanging up.

The idea that a human had any control over him or his men was laughable. His men were handpicked and superior soldiers. That being said, they did tend to bend or break about every rule set before them. It was simply the way of their personalities and he actually found that to be an asset.

“They are chips off the ole block,” he said softly, thinking of how he too had issues following commands when given by fools. He tucked his phone back into his jacket pocket. His men thought they were the only ones within the I-Ops organization who were supernatural.

They were not.

Asher was hardly ordinary or human. But he’d not worn his paranormal abilities on his sleeve for all to see. He kept them close to the vest, knowing better than to shout from the mountaintops about who he was—and more importantly, what he was.

That was a whole bag of shit he didn’t want opened. Things were good with his working relationship. He was the one “human” the men listened to. Though, he had to wonder if they ever suspected there was more to him than he let on. He’d seen the way Jon, one of his men, watched him of late. And he had a feeling Jon might be onto him same as Lukian was.

“I’m getting way too old for this shit,” he said softly, meaning every word of it.

He wouldn’t trade what he did now for anything. He was paying back the supernatural community. Sure, they weren’t aware of it, and yes, he was paying off a debt that wasn’t actually his own, but he needed to do this for his own peace of mind.

His phone buzzed, indicating he had an email. He already knew without looking that it was to alert him that his preliminary reports that Eadan and Duke had given regarding their involvement in matters in Seattle had been passed up the chain, signed off and all.

He laughed.

The men who believed themselves in control actually held little in the way of power. They were simply figureheads. Tools to be manipulated as the others saw fit. Asher was one of the people who viewed them in this light.

Once, long ago, he’d broken the rules. Bent them more than broke, really. The results had been catastrophic. He still carried the guilt of it all to this day.

With a slow measured breath, Asher took in the sights around him as he ran his hands through his now shorter black hair. Once he’d worn it to his waist, as most of his family and brethren did. In an attempt to blend in with his current job and surroundings, he adopted a more modern, clean-cut-male look, even going so far as to magikally sprinkle in some white hairs on his temples to show aging, where no other aging signs could be found. If he kept on as colonel he’d need to use his magik to create some laugh lines around his eyes or something to help the others believe he wasn’t immortal.

Or, you could break the rules and tell them the truth.

No.

The warehouse had been the scene of one hell of a throw-down. Dead bodies still littered the area and the battle itself had taken place the night prior. It was easy enough to keep humans at bay. A few well-placed spells and the humans felt no need to be in the area—in fact, they wanted to stay as far from it as they could. The heavy lifting in the spell department had been done by Helmuth’s magiks, not Asher’s.

The magik, while old and powerful, seemed a bit more like child’s play to him. Then again, he had run with a very different crowd the majority of his life.

While the warehouse area was bloody, Asher had seen worse.

Much worse.

Truth was, this was hardly a drop in the bucket for him. At least he could still acknowledge the brutality around him. Many like him had lost that ability to be sensitive to the deaths of others. There had been a time, not long ago, that he too was in danger of losing the skills needed to relate to those thought to be lesser.

He had been put in his place and had his eyes opened wide.

He began to shake slightly as his mind threatened to take him back to the events of old—to remind him of what had been his turning point. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t mentally return to it all. He was a broken man now because of it. His self-imposed punishment didn’t seem like enough.

It would never be enough.

The entire dock area smelled like a mix of death and fish. Neither were great on their own. Combined they were nauseating. He avoided any further deep breaths as he surveyed the situation. The mess should have already been cleaned. He could have done it much faster than the current cleanup teams, but there were rules in place for a reason, and exposing himself to those around him wasn’t allowed.

No one had seen Asher arrive. They never did. It was how it should be. He needed to be someone the supernaturals he worked with trusted fully without fearing or questioning his loyalty. Besides, he was forbidden from telling them the truth of himself. The pact between the remaining members of his kind included secrecy. That was fine by Asher. He’d stopped claiming to be one of them long before they’d decided it was best to allow everyone, including supernaturals, to believe them nothing more than mythology. It was for the best. They did not need the insanity he and his kind brought to the table.

His allegiances were his own and not up for debate with the group or the organization. When he’d been brought into the Immortal Ops program, it had not been lightly. The people who thought they had control of it were wrong.

Dead wrong.

Controlling immortal soldiers wasn’t something that could be done easily. Making sure the scientists involved in it all didn’t change sides was apparently even harder—as had already happened.

Bad decisions had been made. Good people had lost their lives.

He checked his watch. The current cleanup crew should have already been done with the warehouse and the pier. That spoke to just how big of a cleanup issue they were dealing with.

Your men all returned alive. You can’t ask for anything better.

He could ask that the violence stop—period, but that would never happen. Since the dawn of time good had been pitted against evil. It would continue to be until the end of it all. There was no changing it.

He knew.

He’d tried.

Asher approached the cleanup crew and then stood among them. They had yet to notice his arrival. He’d have a talk with them later about that. They should always be on the alert. They may not be the most skilled fighters the organization had, but they were trained to protect themselves and their surroundings.

This was hardly a secure location.

“Speed it up,” he barked. The two men nearest him nearly jumped out of their skin.

They needed to get their shit together and clear out soon. He wouldn’t risk any of them learning personal information about him. He’d been alive too long and seen too many turncoats to trust anyone with what he held precious.

Or rather who.

You should probably start by telling her you have the hots for her, he thought to himself.

Coward.

With as many years as he’d lived and as many battles as he’d fought, he thought himself a strong man. Not when it came to one tall redhead with curves in all the right places.

She had a way of making him feel weak and vulnerable, something Asher wasn’t used to at all. He’d tried rather unsuccessfully to keep his distance from her, to ignore her pull, but clearly the Fates had other thoughts on the matter.

Damn Fates.

Always butting in where they didn’t belong.

Family did that.

Soon enough he’d see Jinx again and everything would be right in his world once more. Or, as right as it got in his world. A slow smile found its way to his face and he had to control his expression around the cleanup team. They didn’t need to know he was excited to see a woman.

Information was a weapon, and in the wrong hands it could be deadly.

He was far more excited to see Jinx than he should be. This was a business meeting. Nothing more.

He thought back to the times he’d been near her in his life. Each time she’d commanded his attention, holding it, captivating him from his head to his toes.

Never had a woman held such pull over him.

It wasn’t just because she was a succubus. He’d been around enough of those in his lifetime to know that had nothing to do with the attraction he felt for her. His pull to Jinx was carnal and instinctive. Over the years he’d watched her from a distance, always drawn to her, always mindful of what his obsession could bring.

He’d carved out a nice living for himself—staying off the grid for the most part while still helping to fight the good fight.

She knew about him. About the secrets he kept from his own men. About his magik and so much more. She knew about his father and the horrors his father had brought down upon the earth. About the death and destruction that had followed in his father’s wake. And she knew that he carried those same powers, that same ability, and that he walked a fine line of control.

She knew all the details he kept from everyone, yet she’d never once tried to use it to her advantage. That spoke highly of her character. Of her.