Page 15 of Act of Command

Duke sighed. “I know. I should have guessed something was going on. He’s been acting weird for a couple of weeks now.”

Striker nodded. Corbin had been off his game on the last mission and that wasn’t like the man. Corbin was always in control. Always ready to lead and he never struggled with his shifter side—unlike most of the men. Corbin rarely needed to join the men when they shifted forms and hunted on headquarter grounds. The woods outside of the facility were stocked with game for the men to hunt whenever their beasts needed to run free and be wild as intended by nature. If they didn’t hunt on a fairly regular basis they ran the risk of shifting and eating people.

It had happened before.

All the men on Striker’s team were natural born shifters, not bitten or genetically altered, as was the case with some PSI operatives. Natural borns had their own set of issues, like needing to shift and hunt animals every so often in order to stay in control of their beasts. Corbin’s willpower had always amazed Striker. They’d been through some hairy situations in the past, but Corbin had always kept his beast in line. But not now. Not with this woman. There was little doubt in Striker’s mind as to what that meant.

The woman was Corbin’s mate and it would end very badly if anything happened to her.

“He willnae ever be the same,” said Striker, having known Corbin a long time. The man was honorable and always did the right thing. If his mate died at the hands of the enemy, he’d blame himself, and he’d never let it go. He’d forever think that by standing her up on a date, he was the reason she fell into enemy hands. Maybe he was.

“Yeah, I know,” said Duke, lifting a sheet of paper. “If it were Mercy, I’d lose control too. And there is no way I’d forgive myself.”

“We know. We’ve seen it happen. If you’ll recall, we had to chain yer sorry ass because you would nae listen to us.”

“I recall,” snapped Duke.

“You were bein’ a dick. Do nae give me that tone. What else were we to do? Kill you?”

Duke grunted in frustration. “No.”

“We chained you to protect you and others.”

“I know.”

“If this lass is hurt or dead, Corbin willnae bounce back.”

Duke’s entire body stiffened as he leafed through the papers. “We should send him to this spot. It’s the smallest of the possible locations and probably isn’t the one they’re holding such a hot commodity at. They won’t be able to secure the facility like they could with these others. We’ll all split up and take one of the bigger ones. We’ll switch to channel five to communicate, but don’t tell the captain. We can keep in contact with him via Laney here at headquarters.”

Striker took a deep breath. He didn’t have a mate that he was aware of, and he didn’t understand the pull to any one woman. He liked all women equally. Hell, he loved women. The idea of commitment set his teeth on edge, but he did know enough about shifter males to know that if they did happen across their mates, not even the fires of hell would stop them from getting to them. “He’ll never forgive us if somethin’ happens to her on our watch.”

Duke touched his shoulder. “Striker, you saw him lose his shit just seeing the pictures of her. Do you think his head is in the game? We’ll get him back in a body bag if we let him go off half-cocked like this. No. We’ll send him to the location least likely to hold her. It will keep him safe while we find the girl. We’ll get her back here and then they can figure out what, if anything, they are to each other.”

Striker didn’t like the plan one bit, but Duke was right. Corbin’s state of mind said he’d rush in and get himself killed. Striker had seen Duke, James and even Boomer behave in much the same fashion when they’d found their mates. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Aye, yer right. I do nae like it, but yer right.”

“Right about what?” asked Malik appearing in the doorway minus Corbin.

“Where is the captain?” Duke glanced past Malik.

“I tossed him into the shower. Told him he smelled and needed to cool off and clear his head or he’d be of no help to the girl,” answered Malik.

Striker eyed Duke. “He thinks we should mislead the captain and send him to the location least likely to be holdin’ the lass.”

Malik was quiet a few moments before nodded. “I think that would be best. We let him go in as he is now and it will end poorly.”

“Yeah,” said Duke. “I fucking hate the Corporation.”

Chapter Seven

Corbin floored the SUV. The roads were empty this time of night. He was a skilled driver, and with his heightened senses, he took maneuverability to entirely new levels. He didn’t need the headlights to help him see, but he used them all the same. Driving without them tended to scare other drivers.

The coordinates Duke had given him were loaded into the SUV’s navigation system. Corbin had verified them on an actual map prior to leaving headquarters, as he’d found the nav systems in the vehicles to be less than reliable in the past. He wouldn’t chance being routed in the wrong direction when Mae needed him.

She needed you two weeks ago, he thought, his emotions running wild. He hated himself for walking away from that campus. For bailing on her. As he thought back to the night of their blind date, he remembered heading back to his vehicle and taking the chickenshit approach to dealing with standing her up. He’d left her a message.

Another thought occurred to him. In the parking lot he’d seen a black van and men who looking back now, seemed out of place. He gasped. They’d taken Mae. He knew it. Knew they were the ones responsible and knew that he’d ignored them, ignored his inner alarm system because he’d been too busy jacking off to relieve the pain in his cock.

He’d seen her abductors and he’d done nothing to stop them from taking her.

---