Their Improbable Mating [Paranormal Protection Unit 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) Read online

  Paranormal Protection Unit 3

  Their Improbable Mating

  The operation was planned for every possible outcome, all but one—complete and total loss of communications. Jackie Sutter doesn't know if anyone is listening, doesn't know if they know where she is, and doesn't know if the cavalry is riding to the rescue. All she knows for sure is that she's suddenly up on the block, being sold in a black market auction to the sexiest man she's ever seen.

  The mission is simple—get in and save the girls being sold off at a madman's whim. What Allistair Fairbanks doesn't expect, what throws a wrench into it all, is finding the woman that is his bond-mate on display for all to see. All he has to do now is get her out, convince her they are fated to be together, and live happily ever after.

  Never has a mission come with higher stakes. With their very happiness and future riding on the outcome, do they dare not try?

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Shape-shifters

  Length: 45,412 words

  THEIR IMPROBABLE MATING

  Paranormal Protection Unit 3

  Honor James

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  THEIR IMPROBABLE MATING

  Copyright © 2013 by Honor James

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-229-6

  First E-book Publication: February 2013

  Cover design by Viola Estrella

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Their Improbable Mating by Honor James from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Honor James’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. James’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  Thank you to my editor. I honestly do not know what I would do without you. You have managed to keep me on the path with very few deviations for…Ooh! Shiny!

  This book I also dedicate, as always, to you, my dearest readers—for without you, I am nothing.

  I would also like to dedicate this to the woman who made me, my mother—I love you, Mom!

  THEIR IMPROBABLE MATING

  Paranormal Protection Unit 3

  HONOR JAMES

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  He really hated that feeling. That sensation of being on the outside looking in. Like everyone else knew the punch line to the joke while he’d missed the good parts. And even if they did explain it to him, it was in a foreign tongue that made it even less decipherable.

  He really hated that feeling, and today it seemed worse than ever. Sighing, he shook his head and tried, again, to concentrate on what he was doing. Focus, damn it, he snapped to himself internally. One mistake could cost him his life. Rubbing a hand over his face, he let out a slow breath and forced his concentration to the computer monitor.

  There was a lot of data to take in, something he was pretty good at. Not as good as Talon, the leader of the Paranormal Protection Unit, also known as Bulldog, who seemed to have an elephant’s memory, or Skittles, the Lead Computer Tech whose real name was Quincy, who could, or so it seemed, magically pull shit out of thin air. No, he definitely wasn’t up at Mensa-level genius, but he could hold his own usually. Up to a point. Maybe not against his King or the techie, but against pretty much anyone else he was golden.

  Unless it was his twin, but they seemed to share a brain 99.9999 percent of the time, so really, that didn’t count. He just stole all his good ideas, really. Pausing, he tipped his head and waited. Nope, he wasn’t listening in.

  Focus, you tool! He had twenty-four hours to know all this stuff or he’d be pulled from the mission and another would go in. He wanted this one. It was kind of personal, not really, but sort of in a vague sixth-cousin-on-his-mother’s-grandmother’s-bastard-son’s-daughter’s-side sort of way. They’d come across this sort of thing too often, and it just sat ill with him. He didn’t like traffickers of human flesh, especially when it was young females and males sold into a life of servitude or worse, sold to some old bastard that used and abused them sexually and mentally. Then when they were broken, they would be tossed aside like a used tissue and the sicko would buy a new slave.

  “All right, eyes on the ball,” he muttered and decided to start with his cover again so that he could regain some perspective and hopefully get past his anger and need for retribution against a bunch of unknown men and women, who were codenames and nothing more.

  He would be going in as himself, mostly. He’d be a philanthropist by day, good deeds, charities, and kissing babies to appeal to the people who gave him money for his works. By night he had a sick and twisted sex fetish. Apparently he liked early-teen girls, ages eleven to fourteen, well developed for their ages, but they had to be virgins. That put him in an elite grouping.

  And, just because Skittles wasn’t twisted enough with that bit, he apparently also liked women in their early twenties, virgins preferably but not a deal breaker. He did insist that if they had had sexual encounters they were very minimal. “Gods, I’m disgusted with myself,” he muttered, scrolling through the screens to learn the “charities” and works he supposedly dealt with. Even if the traffickers decided to do a backgro
und check they’d run into Skittles, Bulldog, and a variety of other people that would be rerouting calls to any of the numbers listed to them directly for the period he was undercover. Yeah, it could potentially cause issue with some of the workers and their personal calls, but hopefully they would keep it to a minimum. Besides, that’s what direct numbers were for.

  Frowning, he curled his nose up at his newfound sexual predilections. Damn, Skittles had a sick and seriously demented mind. He, or rather who he would be, apparently liked to ensure that his women were hairless on their bodies. So everyone got waxings or laser hair removal or both. “Ouch.” He winced in sympathy at the description of a Brazilian. Who the hell put themselves through that shit willingly? He did that to ensure that there was nothing between him and his “tools.” Gagging slightly, he had to go to a different sheet. He couldn’t read it. He just couldn’t. He knew that Skittles had likely gotten all that from various case files from the different agencies from over the years, but still, the fact that one human could do that to another for their so-called pleasure was disgusting.

  Blowing out a shaky breath, he reviewed who was going in. His twin would be their driver as well as their muscle. He’d remain in the vehicle and therefore out of view but would still have a disguise just to be absolutely sure. The Bear twins, Mac and Sully, would be his bodyguards, his main muscle, which was fitting. They did like playing the big, dumb, muscle-bound type. As well, Rainier, one of their Panther changers, who had a law degree as well as his business degree, would be acting as his accountant and legal adviser on sight to ensure everything played out right without any possible legal ramifications, for him anyway.

  Trey, as well as Omega Team, would be on standby in case the shit hit the fan. Not that they were expecting any issues. He was already being vetted and checked out from what the reports said. It was pretty sad when the bad guys had a better system for checking out people than the good guys in a lot of cases. If he received the invitation to attend the auction and private showing to check the “merchandise,” he would have passed. Either that or they figured he was law enforcement and were setting him up to get killed. Here was hoping that they figured he was just another sick sociopath with an addiction he needed fed.

  Getting up, he grabbed his empty mug and headed for the lunch room that serviced all the offices. Running his profile through his head over and over again so that it would be second nature, he poured more coffee before raiding the fridge. Finding a platter of sandwiches, he stared at it a second and, after a quick look around, pulled out a couple of corned beef and put them on a plate. There wasn’t a note on them, so hopefully he wasn’t stealing something he shouldn’t. Feeling bad though, he did leave ten bucks on top of the platter, just in case.

  Carrying everything back to his office, he shut the door and sat on the large, overstuffed sofa across from his desk. Kicking his legs up onto the ottoman he used for a coffee table, Allister sat back to eat and continued running all the details through his head.

  The invitation should come in soon. Hopefully it did. Then there’d be no option but to let him take the role. Otherwise Skittles would have to do some fancy footwork to come up with why someone was there in his stead. Not good for the untrusting bad guys who would just clam up and close up shop, disappearing into the ether with their “goods.”

  Looking up, he nodded to his twin as he wandered into his office. “Sandwich?” He offered his plate up to his brother.

  “Nah, I’m good, thanks,” Aidan said, sitting in a chair. “So, how’s it going?” he asked curiously, grabbing the can of cashews off his brother’s desk. “You getting it all down?

  “Getting there,” he murmured, taking a bite. “Some of it I can’t even look at, but if we get the invite I suppose I’ll have to.” He just didn’t want to know how twisted he was supposed to be, damn it.

  “Skittles did his research, that’s for sure,” Aidan agreed, picking out a cashew here and there to munch on. “I got a brief read of some of the early material and knew you weren’t going to like it.” His brother really wasn’t into kink or bondage of any sort. While Aidan didn’t mind trying new things and even experimenting, his twin was against anything that objectified women in any way. How they’d come from the same egg, he’d never know, but he loved him nonetheless and resisted the urge to tease him and his missionary ways. Heh, “missionary.”

  “He said he dug through old case files from the various government agencies worldwide, did a background on l’Aurette, and tried to find a few similarities and commonalities so that I’d ‘fit’ in,” he muttered with a scowl on his face.

  Watching him, Aidan nodded slowly. “If it’s too much, Allister, I can take your place,” he offered softly but already knew the answer.

  “No, I’m doing this.” He’d seen too many families torn apart by such sick bastards. They talked the girls into believing they were talent agents, photographers, or various other ploys. Then, when the women showed up at a predesignated area, too often alone and in a secluded spot, they vanished without a single trace, never to be seen again except on a morgue table.

  “All right, well, I’m around if you need me to bang things around with.” Aidan got up and, stealing a couple more of the cashews, he set the can back on the desk. “Hit me up if you need me, bro,” he said, but he knew his brother. He’d internalize and keep it all locked away never to see the light of day again.

  “Thanks.” Allister knew his brother worried for him, knew about his personal mission in life and just why he, Allister, was in the Teams. Yeah, he was all for saving the world from mass destruction, nuclear threats, terrorists, and everything else, but those that preyed on the innocent held a special place in his soul. He was determined to see them all go to that special place in hell for all eternity.

  * * * *

  Shifting in his seat, Allister peered out the darkly tinted windows. An itch between his shoulder blades warning that something was off just wouldn’t go away.

  “What’s wrong, bro?” Aidan asked from his spot in the driver’s seat, his normally long white-blond hair tucked up in a way to make it look like a short cut, heavy sideburns and a goatee pasted on his mug. With the dark glasses and pale makeup with shading he looked like an entirely different person. It was damned creepy talking to him.

  “Don’t know, just a bad vibe.” He met his twin’s gaze in the mirror. I’ve got a tickle between my shoulders that won’t let up. It’s also getting worse the closer we get, he sent through the mental connection he and his brother shared.

  Do we bail on this? Aidan asked, trusting his brother’s instincts just as Allister trusted in his.

  No, we keep going, he said softly, but keep an eye out for law enforcement. Skittles said that between the Feds and Interpol they’ve been trying to build a case on l’Aurette for a while. That their chatter nearly dropped to nothing in the last day made Allister twitchy, big time.

  Copy that. His twin’s jaw hardened more and Allister knew he was searching everything as they drove in at a sedate pace to the meeting spot. He wasn’t dallying along, but he was going cautiously. No reason to spook the target if they could help it. Plus, it gave them all a chance to get a visual lay of the land. Satellite mapping was great, but things changed over time, and having a look was necessary for their sanity and the op.

  “Heads up, boys,” Mac said from the front seat. “We’re coming up on the party,” he told everyone in the SUV as well as the Team waiting on the sidelines.

  Adjusting his tie, Allister forced himself into the role, one that would challenge his every moral. But it had to be done, for all those l’Aurette had and for all those that couldn’t be saved.

  Chapter Two

  “The most unpredictable part of any mission is not the mission so much as the players that are in action.” This mantra had been drilled into her mind from the time that she was able to walk. Born the only female to a shit load of hard-core Marines was not any girl’s idea of a great girly childhood, but when you add
ed to it the fact that she hadn’t “bloomed” as a girl until she was in college, it was even harder.

  As she looked at herself now though, she wanted to amend her daddy’s words. The most unpredictable part in any mission wasn’t the players so much as what they did to the others. She was shaking, the drugs that she had been pumped full of flooding her senses and making her unable to make a clear and conscious thought.

  Hold onto sanity, hold onto yourself. Don’t give in. Don’t give up, she kept telling herself. They all knew where she was. The tracking chip that had been embedded in her skin was still giving off her location. She needed to just keep faith that they would get her out of this hell before too much longer because they had to know just what she was going through, thanks to the little chip that was not only a tracker but also a biometric tether that gave them her vitals at all times.

  She moved as in a haze when her captors came again. Everything felt as if she were seeing and feeling through ten feet of water. It was all a haze, a blur.

  “This one will be good for the new customer. She naturally has a hairless body. She’s the right coloring as well,” Mrs. Monster Woman told Mr. Monster Man. “And with her being a virgin, she’s perfect for him. I can see her giving him a good run for his money,” she said with a cruel laugh.

  “It is said that he does love to chase them. With this one’s body you would think that she was a runner. In fact,” Mr. Monster Man said to Mrs. Monster Woman, “wasn’t she a track star? Isn’t that what we found in the online yearbook about her?”