Laughter edged its way into my throat. Never, not once in all the time I’d been working under the self-righteous bastard, had I ever known him to shut down quite so quickly. And holy hell, his face paled before heating, his eyes seeming to grow wider somehow. A squeak or something slipped out of my mouth unbidden, but it was enough to turn both gazes to me.
It seemed to give Brent the moment to regather himself as his eyes narrowed at me. His closed mouth seemed to struggle with words, and damn if it didn’t lighten my heart for just a moment.
“Thatcher.” Brent’s voice appeared uncertain. Brent was never uncertain. Ever. He seemed to realise it and physically straightened up. He glanced at Thatch, then at me. But rather than the tyranny I expected him to throw at me, his focus returned to the man a mere metre away from my side. “I don’t understand.”
My eyes moved to Thatch. His jaw clicked, heat travelling up his neck. He looked pissed off, and I had zero idea why.
“Brent. Callen here one of yours?”
Brent didn’t hold back his sneer, exposing his contempt. “Reluctantly, yes, but his status is always up in the air and can be changed at any time.”
There was a subtle shift in movement from Thatch. While I’d caught it, I wasn’t sure if the very human Brent had. When his head wasn’t planted firmly up his arse, Brent was actually a good agent. He’d never allowed his human genes to hold him back. The knowledge annoyed the crap out of me some days.
The side of Thatch’s face was to me. His back molars ground together before he spoke. “Callen”—holy hell, my name on his tongue lifted goosebumps on my arms—“saved my arse tonight. Two years of work was almost wiped out, would have been if he hadn’t entered Cartwright’s lab, found me, and got me out of there.” He didn’t shout, didn’t stutter, and he certainly didn’t mince his words. Though heat flew through each syllable, I didn’t think pissed off did justice to the anger rolling off him.
For a moment, I wished I had my phone with me, just so I could have recorded the damn thing. Reliving this moment of Brent behaving every bit the reprimanded kid was epic. Who in the hell was this guy really? Liam Thatcher. I was not buying he was a regular agent in the Human Division. There was no way.
“Callen will be joining me and my task force, starting immediately.”
“I what now?” I pushed off from the wall. Unease sat heavily in my chest. “But you’ve been bi—” I could have smacked myself as soon as I started, and definitely once his fiery eyes landed on me. Within the next few hours, the changes would start and then it was up to him to see how his once human form handled the transition. “I mean, what?” Eloquent to a fault, I didn’t even attempt to expand.
Thatch’s dark brown-eyed gaze raked over me, those damn specks of green brightening a little under the harsh fluorescents. “I now need you on this.”
Any smartarse comments stalled on my tongue as realisation finally seeped its way into my exhausted brain and wrecked psyche. He’d be undergoing the change soon, and while I assumed he knew people who could guide him, Hazel was the one who’d turned him. Her memories would be coming to him soon enough, and even though I had no clue what was going on, that information was enough for me to agree.
I nodded.
“Sir, you can’t—”
Sir? What the…?
Thatch’s stern gaze was enough to stop Brent in his tracks. But I could see the strain in Thatch’s form. He was hurt, exhausted, and I imagined his body was already going through hell. While I was a born shifter, I wasn’t ignorant to the way the gene passed on, and sometimes the difficulties.
But before I offered my final words of agreement, I just had to know. “So, who the hell are you?”
Brent groaned while Thatch smirked, and damn if the latter didn’t make me not really care who he was one way or another.
CHAPTER TWO
THE LIGHTS of the cars made me squint. My eyes were sore, my heart hurt, and my head pounded. While it was probably wise that I wasn’t driving, sitting so close to Thatch in the back of the blacked-out SUV did nothing to help me relax. On edge didn’t even begin to describe the tension running through me.
My brain wasn’t up to it. I’d heard enough to understand the basics of what Thatch had told me. Apparently I had high-level clearance now. Maybe in another life I would have felt proud of that. Today was not that day. Thatch was the head of the SICB ITU—the Infiltration Tactical Unit. It meant he only answered to Durrant, the SICB director, herself.
When I’d indicated that I’d never heard of the ITU in the agency, I was shut down quickly. Apparently that was the point. They were supersecret black ops of humans working with a range of supes. He had a selection of agent identities, like the one he’d given me, that would have checked out. The difference was, he’d given me his real name—though an ID that would go with his Human Division identity. I didn’t have the energy to think about that further.
Only three people in the bureau knew who he was beyond his close team. Brent was one of them. When he’d shared that information, my stomach had clenched peculiarly. I put it down to the fatigue beating at me. I needed to sleep. Passing out sounded like bliss.
I glanced over at Thatch. While he sat ramrod straight, his eyes were tight. He was struggling. Selfishly, I wanted a few hours’ sleep. Then I could function and deal with what he needed.
