Page 2 of Betrayed Auctioned Mate

"No way," she says. I hear her draw her glock, the only gun we could sneak her in with.

Guns at ready, crouched with our shoulders narrow, we dart across the street on silent feet. The USB chip burns in my pocket. Soon, we'll be back at base, and I can bring Keira one of those chocolate bars she loves from the vending machine. Soon, we can sit on her bed; soon, I risk thinking, we could do more than sit on her bed.

A tall man bursts out of the shadows with a shout. Keira screams. I see her raise her gun and fire, and I know before the shot has even finished sounding that the bullet has gone wide. It streaks over the man's shoulder. He grabs her.

I surge forward and fight to press the muzzle of my gun against his neck, but he swings hard to the left. His hands are on Keira's upper arms. He drags her toward the floor, and one of his arms crooks around her neck in a chokehold, holding her body between him and me.

I freeze, gun up. It's as if the world has gone silent. I hear only one sound piercing out of the muffled din of screams and alarms, a low, rumbling, clicking noise. I realize it is a growl emanating from my own throat.

"One move, and the bitch dies," the wolf warns. He tightens his arm. Keira's pale face is turning purple. Her hands scrabble helplessly against his grip.

She looks into my eyes, and I see her fear as my own.

"You kill her, and you'll die in a heartbeat," I warn.

Keira's soft lips part, gasping. "Ado...!"

"I'll kill you," I say again. Why do I sound like a desperate man, a man praying? "I'll put twelve bullets in you and then twelve more. You want me to start with your kneecaps? Let. Her. Go."

The man doesn't buy my bluff. I watch his eyes slide from my face into the space behind me. Some part of my body, an instinct ingrained deeply by years of service, knows that I should dodge now, should turn and fire.

But Keira's face is purpling still, and I watch her perfect eyes begin to flutter, pupils flickering upward toward the sky she painted with her own tenacity.

I feel my lips say her name. Something hard lands against the back of my skull.

Chapter 1 - Keira

"Half-shot, just the way you like it," greets one of the new interns as I step into the office complex. She pushes a hot coffee into my hands.

She's a sweet girl, a wolf, like most of us in the agency. I thank her. I wonder, as I do with many of the girls I meet through my work now, whether her family is wealthy enough that if she were to become one of the faces in our files, they would be able to fund her rescue. I wonder whether she ever reads those case files.

"You don't have to keep getting my coffee," I remind her as I pick my way through the cubicles to my desk.

She grins toothily at me. "You always forget!"

I guess she's not wrong. I have a nasty habit of getting lost in my work. Even Director Jenkins has started complaining when I stay late night after night, sternly ordering me to go home and sleep.

It's not as if I have a lot to go home to. In the military, I slept in barracks with five or six others every night. Now, the silence and emptiness of my apartment downtown unsettles me.

Jenkins herself is waiting at my desk when I reach it. She's an older woman, with steel-gray hair and even steelier eyes. She's a good boss. I get the sense that perhaps, beneath the authority she wields, she's also a good person. I can't be sure.

"I was just looking at your photos," she greets unconvincingly as I approach. She gestures to the single framed picture on the corner of my desk.

In the frame, me and my old unit beam out toward the viewer. I catch sight of myself and Ado toward the back, his thickarm around my shoulders, pulling me against his side. I look happy.

Despite my best efforts, it's a photo I often look at.

"From my time in the military," I say needlessly. We're all in uniform.

Jenkins nods. She glances me up and down. "Did you go home last night?"

"Of course." She doesn't need to know it was only for three hours.

"Well, that's good. Because I wanted to speak with you." Jenkins nods toward her office. "Come sit with me. It shouldn't take too long."

Anxiety spikes through me, a hard, cold sword. Irrationally, I am suddenly terrified she'll fire me. I can't lose this job. I'm not sure what else I have left.

Jenkins' office is cold, minimalist, and hard-edged. Not a spot on her broad, mahogany desk is smudged by even a single fingerprint. Through the huge glass pane that comprises the back wall, I can see over the whole city, shimmering with yellow heat. Cars screech in the street below.

---