Jaxson(7)

Jace frowned. “Interrupted?” He ran a quick look over Jaxson. “You’re still walking. Couldn’t have been too bad.” Shifters healed quickly, but he’d been gone less than an hour. “What happened?”

Jaxson sighed as he walked around the desk to face Jace. He crossed his arms and leaned back against it. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we’re no closer to getting inside. And the clock is ticking, Jace.”

“Yeah, I know.” His brother ran a hand over the scruff on his face, which made Jaxson wince. Another sleepless night, rolling out of bed to stumble into the office. Jace couldn’t keep going like this. But they had other problems they had to solve first.

“I can try going back in,” Jaxson said, “but not yet. It would be too suspicious if I showed up the next day, offering myself up for capture again. You may be right. We might have to tackle this head-on with a straight-up assault.”

His brother arched an eyebrow. “Jared will be pleased to hear you’ve finally come to your senses.”

Jaxson shook his head. It was risky, but he was running out of options. “When’s he getting back from the mountains?” Their older brother had taken the rest of the pack out to the Olympic Mountains for the weekend—for tactical training, weapons practice, the usual. Only with Jared as their CO, Jaxson was sure everyone would be limping into the office on Monday. If not outright taking a sick day to heal up at home.

“On Friday, he said would be in for interviews this afternoon.” Jace shrugged. They both knew Jared kept his own schedule. He had a darkness of his own to carry, one that no one could ever fix. Jace and Jaxson had long ago stopped talking about it—that was the only way they could keep Jared with them, and not have him end up a feral shifter anarchist in Idaho. They’d never see him again.

“Wait… interviews?” Jaxson asked, frowning. “Has Jared decided to bring on a secretary?” He had hoped the paperwork might keep Jared engaged, spending more time in the office where they could keep an eye on him. But apparently not.

“Office assistant.” Jace made air quotes. “But yeah. I guess he decided it wasn’t so easy running payroll after all.” Jace smirked—that had been his job before Jared decided the youngest River brother was too incompetent to cut checks and invoice clients. Since then, Jared had done nothing but complain about pushing paper instead of running drills or spending time on the firing range. He was a sharpshooter during his time in the Marines, and that was where he spent most of his downtime.

Which really wasn’t good for anyone.

“This is the first I’ve heard that we’re hiring.” Jaxson held in the growl. “Who are we interviewing?”

“Humans.” Clearly Jace thought this was a mistake.

Jaxson did, too. “What? Did he just forget we’re an undercover shifter operation? Or that our clients are very sensitive about their personal information?” Riverwise Private Security had an A-list of clients that was very black-book. The rich and infamous of Seattle’s bustling new dot com celebrities understood very well how easily they could be exposed. And they entrusted Riverwise to keep that from happening. “What about Thea? She’s got a background in accounting, right?”

“Thea?” Jace looked like he was about to choke on his spit. “The hot daughter of the alpha of the Blue Mountain pack? I thought you had your eye on that smokin’ redhead in the Northern pack? She’s shopping for a mate now, you know. You better make your move, or you’ll get aced out.”

“We’re not talking about a mate.” Jaxson’s growl definitely leaked into his voice this time. “We’re talking about a secretary.”

“Office assistant.” Jace’s grin was a mile wide.

Jaxson bared his fangs.

Jace just laughed. But he quickly reeled it in. “Jaxson, come on.” He held out his hands, imploring. “You know how it works. You bring Thea in here, and everyone’s going to think you’re looking to finally settle down. We’ve got three packs we could be making alliances with, and we can’t afford to piss off any of them. We need all the help we can get. Especially if we’re going to start doing direct assaults.”

“Yeah, I know.” This was not where he wanted the conversation to go. Jaxson slipped his hand into his pocket, running a thumb over the phone’s face. Olivia. Her name rolled around in his mind, sparking all kinds of feelings he had no right to have. Especially for a human.

Only… maybe she wasn’t. If not, she was even more dangerous to have around. But the mere possibility had his wolf sitting up and demanding they go after her. Jaxson studied the carpet in front of him, trying to decide just how big a fool he actually was. Returning the phone personally was a really bad idea. Probably why he was considering it.