Page 7 of Act of Command

Upon his return he’d learned Jane had died during childbirth and that the baby girl she’d been carrying had been placed in a good home, with loving parents. He’d had to fight the need to demand the location, knowing it was for the best. He trusted that the man who had placed her—General Jack C. Newman, Director of PSI—wouldn’t have put the baby with someone he didn’t trust fully. Another mission had come up and it had been a welcome one. It had taken his need for answers from him.

That had been just over twenty years ago.

Yet the newest mission had brought it all to the surface again as if it were yesterday. His worry for the child that had been born long ago had hit him hard once more. He couldn’t shake the feeling from his head that he should be searching for her. That was absurd. She wasn’t a brand new baby in need of protection anymore. By his calculations she’d be nearly twenty-three years old by this point. And Jack would have told him if something bad had happened. If the closed adoption hadn’t worked out.

Jack had said nothing when he’d ordered Corbin and his men to head to the Middle East for the newest mission. Perhaps the similarities of the situation fell short on Jack. Corbin had been surprised when his team, in particular, had been deployed on the mission. They’d been handling hunting down bad guys affiliated with the Corporation, an evil catchall conglomerate that was like a hydra. They’d cut off one head, and two more would pop up. When the orders came for wheels up and to head to the Middle East, Corbin wasn’t sure what to make of it all. It hadn’t taken him and his men long to track and break up the ring. It wasn’t until they were on the flight home that the hows and the whys became apparent.

The newest ring had ties to the Corporation.

Corbin and James drew to the end of their kata and faced one another, the air to the room thickening with the pending conversation’s tone, though no words had been spoken. Laney, James’s mate and a gifted computer hacker, had been working on encrypted data the team had retrieved while in the Middle East. They’d been back nearly three days and she’d spent the first day giving James one hell of a welcome-home present and the next two assisting PSI’s analysts with cracking the encryption and decoding files. Nothing they had managed to decipher to date was good.

He waited for more bad news as he bent, grabbing his workout towel from his gym bag before putting it behind his neck. He held it with both hands as he faced his longtime friend. He wiped the sweat from his brow. “It’s late for you to still be here. Let me guess, Laney is lost in a sea of data mining again.”

James inclined his head. “She and Mercy are looking over some information on the Corporation that came through about an hour ago.”

Corbin hadn’t realized Duke Marlow’s wife had come in as well. It was apparently all hands on deck. “How was Duke with her being here?”

Duke was also a member of Corbin’s team. And the man tended to hate nearly everything. Everything but his mate Mercy.

“Not pleased, but when is he ever,” answered James with a shrug.

“Do I want to know what they’ve found?” Corbin asked, his British accent lighter than it had been when he’d first moved to the United Sates, but still very noticeable to others, or so he’d been told.

“No,” answered James softly, his brown hair longer than normal. His mate was helping James come out of his buttoned-up, prim and proper shell. Hopefully, James didn’t take it to Laney’s extreme. She was a Goth punk girl. Boomer was already Goth enough for the team. They didn’t need James going that way as well.

“How bad is it this time?”

James exhaled slowly, his large shoulders slumping. “We’ve found another ring, linked to the one we just busted. The girls found the tie by following some accounts the Corporation has set up. This ring is run stateside and it’s big. Really big. A small faction of it is local and they’ve already grabbed new merchandise.”

By merchandise Corbin knew James was referring to supernaturals for sale. It turned his gut. Criminals never ceased to surprise him with their cruelty. He’d been alive a long time and he’d never known a world without mad men, a world without violence, and he probably never would. Peace was something on greeting cards, not something that seemed obtainable. Not when there were sick people in the world who would do anything for a profit.

James continued, “The Corporation has been placing bids of some of the merchandise—turns out, its not them holding these people, but they want them. They want them bad. There are several that are up for auction right now that are hot commodities. Looks like the Corporation has some competition for them. I had the girls set up a dummy account with offshore funding in an attempt to outbid these assholes, but, boss, there is no way the girls are going to win. The backers for these guys are big. Really big and really motivated. I think we’re going to have to extract the women ourselves.”

Corbin’s body tensed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear more, but knew he had to.

James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “From what Laney was able to find, the Corporation and the other big bidders want these women for breeding, and they’re hunting for male candidates to use in hybrid testing.”

“Bloody hell,” he said in a hushed whisper. His disdain of the Corporation grew daily. Did their horrors never end? They had been a thorn in his side for months now, and he was frustrated with PSI’s inability to get ahead of them. The Corporation’s reach was far and wide, and they were so much bigger than Corbin or the others could have predicted or imagined. It didn’t help that rogues had been uncovered, working within PSI, feeding the Corporation and their allies information. “Tell me we have some leads on the whereabouts of those being held.”

“The girls are trying,” replied James, reaching out and touching Corbin’s shoulder lightly. “I wanted them to go home and rest, but they’re refusing. They’ve been at this all day and night now. I don’t want them stressed. It’s not good for their pregnancies.”

Corbin didn’t want Laney or Mercy taxing themselves or putting their health at risk. The information was important, but so were Laney and Mercy. “I’ll order them to go home.”

With a snort, James backed away. “Let me know how that works out for you. Duke has been trying, and even with all his bluster, they’re ignoring him. Last check, they had him grabbing printouts for them and some ice cream. He’s been reduced to a glorified errand boy. He’s bitching the entire time, but he’s doing it.”

It was amusing to see his friend now that he was mated. James had always been known as the one who came off as easygoing but had a wicked temper. Since mating to Laney, the alpha male seemed to only fear her wrath.

No other.

The same went for Duke and Mercy.

“We need to get you mated off,” said James sternly. “It’s about time you had a woman and some kids. You know matings tend to happen in clusters. Look at the I-Ops.”

Corbin was far too British to want to discuss his feelings. He wiped his face once more with the towel as the entrance to the training room darkened.

Chapter Four

Mae tried again to pry open the door between her and freedom. It was no use. She couldn’t budge the old, rusty, metal door. Each time it closed she winced, hearing the thud echo around the room, knowing the door was too thick to get through. And she’d heard the noise more times than she could count.

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