Tactical Magik (Immortal Ops) (2 page)

“No,” Eadan said. “You’ll give us burping tricks to help the kid with gas.”

Lukian laughed, obviously enjoying the friendly banter. “You’re probably right.”

“Oh, I know I am.”

Jon groaned as he smiled. It was actually a good sign. Jon hadn’t been dealing well with the loss of Lance, an Immortal Ops team member. He’d died seven months prior, and in that time Wilson had been captured and thought dead. Jon blamed himself for not finding Wilson sooner and for not preventing Lance’s death. For months the men had been walking on eggshells around Wilson because of the horrible ordeal he’d gone through. He’d been captured and tortured while the rest of the team believed he was dead. Had the women behind the men who called themselves Ops not been so persistent, there was a better than average chance Wilson wouldn’t be alive right now. The women had gone after him, forcing the men to follow. They’d all managed to bring him home, alive and well. Wilson even managed to get a wife and son out of the deal.

Jon withdrew a pack of cigarettes from his vest pocket and then materialized a lighter. Eadan never said a word as he put the cigarette in his mouth and went to light it.
 

Wilson knocked it out of Jon’s mouth. “What the hell? When did you start smoking again?”
 

Jon’s amber gaze hardened as he reached for the cigarette.
 

“
Dad
,” Wilson said in a whiny voice, tapping the back of Lukian’s chair. “He’s smoking.”
 

Lukian looked as if he were trying to find his inner happy place.
 

“That shit will kill ya,” Roi said.
 

“While the effects of smoking have been proven to be detrimental to humans’ health, they have no ill effects on us,” Green chimed in.
 

“Tell them the head and heart story again,” Roi said with a wag of his brows.

Wilson shook his head. “I don’t give a shit. That crap stinks. You’re not doing it in here. I’ll smell it on myself all damn day.”
 

Jon’s mouth changed shape quickly, his teeth lengthening, the start of a tiger’s teeth showing. He gave a soft roar at Wilson.

Wilson smiled wide. “
Dad
, he’s trying to eat me.”
 

“Dumbass,” Roi said.
 

“Jon,” Lukian interjected. “No eating Wilson. He comes in handy from time to time.”
 

Jon’s mouth returned to normal and he propped the cigarette between his lips but didn’t light it. He merely looked out the window again, ignoring them all.
 

Eadan snorted, keeping the mood light, and tapped the back of Roi’s seat. “Try not to forget us next time, all right?”

“I think he wanted to leave
you
on purpose,” Wilson offered, a cock-sure grin on his face. “He’s still sore you used to bang his wife.”

True enough. Eadan and Missy had been married at one point in time. Now they were simply close friends. No stretch of the imagination, since their parents were close and had been since they’d been born. They’d been a constant in one another’s life since before Eadan could remember. Though his feelings for her were no longer sexual in nature. They were simply of love—the type of love one has for family.

Roi growled. “Missy would have my damn balls on a platter if I let one hair on
blondie’s
head be hurt. She’s a mess of hormones and damn scary on a good day. So, uh, let’s not tell her I forgot to pick him up. And mention him banging her again and I’ll cut your dick off, mouse.”

“Hey, you forgot
me
too,” Wilson protested. “And I’m a wererat. Get it right, douche.”

Roi gave Eadan a hard look and Eadan winked at him. “Used to take baths with your wife when we were little too. Stew on that, asshole.”

Wilson lost it. “Ohmygod, brilliant!”

Lukian grumbled. “Great. It will take me weeks to calm him down now, Daly.”

“He deserved it,” Wilson chimed in. “He left us in hostile territory. Hey.” Wilson looked to Eadan. “Are you leaking on me?”

Jon twisted and stared at them. “Do I even want to know?”

“No clue what he’s talking about,” Eadan added.

Wilson shivered. “Magik. Are you leaking it?”

“No. What you’re feeling is residual magik. Can’t help it. I had to use a lot to protect us from the bullets whizzing by us.” He looked up at the back of Roi’s head.

Roi shifted in his seat somewhat and Eadan knew the guy was refusing to turn to look back at him. Eadan felt like he was in high school again with the way the men carried on. He’d gotten used to being called blondie. He couldn’t blame them. He did have long, blond hair. And as Roi liked to point out, it was very
pretty
. He snorted. “The maturity in this SUV is awe-inspiring.”

“Hey, I’m nearly as old as time,” Lukian said from the front.

“Old timer,” Eadan shot back, making Lukian laugh. “How many centuries have you been alive?”

“We’ll get him a walker for his next birthday,” Roi said with a grin. He more than likely would, just to get Lukian going. “He can use when he stands before the masses to talk to his minions.”

By minions, Roi meant the rest of the lycans. Lukian was the natural-born king of them. Never acted like royalty though. And Eadan knew royalty because of his family and their connections within the Fae community.

Jon mumbled something and returned to looking out the window, seeming very uninterested in the current conversation. Eadan couldn’t blame him. The talk would no doubt spin back around to kids and babies. It seemed to do that all the time anymore. Sure, it was nice most of the team was mated and with families, but none of that changed the fact they still did a dangerous job and their full attention was required for it.

Wilson glanced at Eadan. “Colonel Brooks said you’re being pulled for a PSI mission after this. That true?”
 

Eadan nodded, unsure how he felt about returning to his actual job with Paranormal Security and Intelligence even if just for a short period of time, even if PSI was in desperate need of his services. He’d been with the Immortal Ops longer than anyone had thought he would be. There had been an unspoken “never the two shall meet” rule before Eadan coming aboard. He didn’t understand why everything had to be so secretive, but that was the government for you, creating super soldiers when they could, bringing in existing supernaturals and using them all to do their dirty work—missions that didn’t exist done by men who didn’t exist.
 

Bet they’re shitting themselves now that we’re technically intermingling.
 

Funny how he’d been so upset about being “saddled” with them when he was first assigned to the unit nearly seven months back, but they’d become a family of sorts to him—they were his brothers now. He couldn’t imagine going back to solo operative work. Sure, he had close friends within PSI, but Eadan wasn’t ever paired with them. And PSI was in the process of doing some major housecleaning since it had become evident not long ago that they had traitors in their midst.

“They get their shit sorted out?” asked Roi, ever the user of great prose.

Jon glanced in Eadan’s direction. “Any more rogues turn up?”

“Not that I’m aware of, but I haven’t been in the loop in a few months now,” he admitted. It wasn’t that long ago they had all been forced to watch as Missy took on a group of rogue agents. She’d weeded them out and then kicked the ever-loving shit out of them.

Missy-Bean
would do no less.

He snorted. She was tenacious.

Wilson tipped his head. “Sounded like the trouble ran deep over there.”

“Yeah.”

“Brooks also mentioned it could be a long assignment,” Lukian said, worry in his gaze, reflected in the rearview mirror. “You need me to talk with him? I think we should be there to back you on this.”

“No,” replied Eadan. He appreciated the offer. “It’s my job. I’m a PSI agent and a handler. Solo work sort of comes with the territory.”

“You’re one of us now, brother,” Jon corrected, coming out of his daze. His amber eyes held concern. “And if I was you, I wouldn’t want any one of those assholes over there to have my back. I wouldn’t trust them.”

Roi mumbled something derogatory under his breath. Lukian cleared his throat and Roi pressed a smile to his face and glanced in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, one of us.”

Eadan stared at Jon. “I’ll be fine. And there are some I trust with my life. They’re not all bad. Just a few rotten apples got into the bunch.”

Jon didn’t appear to believe him. Eadan already knew the guy was afraid of losing another team member. And Eadan knew how dangerous his job within PSI was. It had already nearly cost him his life once.

“The women will miss you,” Green said over the comms unit. Eadan understood he was voicing the men’s feelings as well in a way that deflected from them.

Roi grumbled more. “Yeah, cryin’ fucking buckets here.”

The other men laughed.

Wilson bumped the back of Roi’s seat. “What? Afraid your woman will miss him too much?”

“I know mine will,” Green said, reminding them of the fact his wife was Eadan’s sister. “If you’d return her calls, you’d hear all about the dream she keeps having. It involves you finding your mate.”

“I’ll be fine,” Eadan managed. He didn’t want to talk to Melanie about his possible mate. His sister meant well, but Eadan had no desire to get into the discussion with her—again. “I swear. I’ll check in when I’m able. Ops-honor.”

Lukian touched his comms unit. “Green, what is our ETA to base?”

“Six minutes, Captain.”

Eadan soaked in the knowledge that in six minutes he’d technically be done with this mission and then back to what he knew best. Or what he used to know best, anyways.

*

Jon Reynell glared out the window, his unlit cigarette perched on the edge of his lips, wanting to voice more outrage over Eadan being yanked from their team but holding his tongue. Fucking higher-ups always thought they knew best. The higher-ups didn’t know shit. Their cluelessness had cost Lance his life and almost cost Wilson his as well. How many of their team members did they need to bury before they understood that, while hard to kill, the I-Ops weren’t impervious to death?

As Green had pointed out more than once in the past, a head or heart shot would indeed take them down in a way they wouldn’t get back up from. Still, the men who pulled the strings kept doing stupid shit.

Like breaking up the band, even if just temporarily.

They were a well-oiled unit. You didn’t mess with that. You didn’t touch it. You let it be.

But not
them
. Whoever
they
were.

In all the years Jon had been part of the I-Ops, he’d only known a handful of point people—those who handed them their missions, had them report back and pretended to have some semblance of control over them, all the while keeping the people in power a secret. Colonel Brooks was the most recent. Seemed nice enough, but he was kept in the dark on things too. Jon suspected the man was more than met the eye—more than human.

Just like the I-Ops.

There was something about him that Jon couldn’t put his finger on. If he was shifter then he’d learned to mask his scent like the I-Ops had decades ago, and if he was a magik he kept that shielded somehow too. All Jon knew was the man had been the same age, appearance-wise, for the past three decades. That wasn’t something that happened in nature.
 

Colonel Brooks had been surprised by the news of a second Immortal Ops Team. And from what Jon could gather, the colonel had been startled by the number of hybrid super soldiers who had attempted an attack upon the I-Ops facility.

Jon shuddered to think what Roi must have gone through when his mate had been the target of their attacks. Finding out they were fighting hybrids who were part-vampire, part-were, part-whatever-the-fuck someone decided to put in the test tubes had set them all on edge.

The hybrids had failed.

Of course.

When they’d all learned of the second I-Ops team, they began to speculate there might be more teams. Jon couldn’t imagine more men being subjected to what they’d all gone through, and how many good men had been lost along the way? They’d been trying to locate them, but so far hadn’t had too much free time with as busy as Gisbert Krauss and his army of mutants had been keeping them. Mad scientists were a given in what they did. Jon knew that. Yet he couldn’t help but wonder if there was any type of mental screening the government did on scientists they recruited. Looked like they kept picking the nut jobs.

The last few months had taught Jon one thing. The people in power had lost control a long time ago. Maybe they never even had it. He could still vividly remember the fear in the eyes of the scientists who had helped to make him what he was now.

A killing machine.

Half-man, half-tiger. All killer.

Lukian’s mate, Peren, was the daughter of one of the men who had taken over the experiments. He’d not been the founder of it, but had been who helped to perfect the creation of the team. He didn’t fear them. But others who worked on the project before him did. They’d seen the horrors of it. They’d seen men who had volunteered to be all they could be die horrible deaths. Setting aside Lukian, they’d all been humans with supernatural traits somewhere in their family ancestry. Most were so faint it was barely there but it had been enough. Enough for the scientists to be able to try to build from. But it hadn’t worked as planned. Some took to it. Some they watched go mad. And they watched others become hardened killers.

Jon remained silent in the SUV, wanting to encourage his brothers to simply break away, go it on their own from here on out. They never would. They were that loyal to their country. Problem was, their country wasn’t in any way loyal to them.

Case in point, they were breaking up the team, even temporarily, and possibly sending another I-Op to his death. It was hard not to be bitter. Hard not to let it all get to him. He knew his emotions were all over the place and, as of late, finding a dark place to reside. He worried that he was like Parker—one of the broken test subjects.