Page 5 of Dark Auctioned Mate

"You're going to tell me they're good," he said.

"I haven't had one yet."

"You will, and then you're going to tell me."

Alanis chuckled. "Luis, I tell you every single Monday."

"And every single Monday it is correct." He smiled as he disappeared back into the kitchen.

Priya slid her coffee across the counter and added the croissant to a small plate—golden, layered, and just perfect.

"Table's free," Priya said, nodding toward the window.

Her table. The small round one in the corner that caught the morning light and was far enough from the door to muffle the entrance noise. It was unoccupied, which on a Monday at seven forty-five felt like the universe choosing to be kind, and she took it as her due.

Behind her, from the direction of the door, came a low whistle. “Damn. Look at that hot piece of ass.”

Alanis rolled her eyes, settled in, and took the first sip of her coffee. It was dark, slightly bitter, and balanced by whatever Priya did to the milk that Alanis had tried to replicate at home with consistent failure.

Then she reached for the croissant and took a bite. It was buttery and crisp on the outside, soft and layered within. Nothing could ruin her day. Well, nothing except the thoughts in her head about the mission.

She'd been with the Lumen for eight years, and for most of that time her work had been rescues from immediate situations, intelligence gathering in known locations, support operations for people higher up the chain. Useful work. Work, she was good. It all changed six weeks ago when Deva called her in.

There was a network. Had been for a while—a trafficking operation running across multiple cities, using shifter resources to move human women through an infrastructure that left almost no traceable evidence. The Lumen had been on their tail for years, and they had

finally assembled enough information to send someone in. Not to rescue; the network was too large and too well-protected for a targeted extraction to accomplish anything—but to gather evidence. Go inside. See how it worked from within.

Deva had looked at her across the table, looking as serious as ever when she told her, "I want to send you."

Alanis jumped at it.

It was the most significant mission she'd ever been given, and she'd spent the last six weeks preparing for it. She understood exactly what was at stake. She was lucky enough to escape her pack and find a home with Deva. The women moving through this network had none of those things.

So yes. She was ready. She was prepared. She had the cover story memorized, the skills needed, and the compartmentalization that eight years of field training had built into her.

What she did not have, and had not planned for, was Rael.

She took another bite of croissant, and her brain, treacherous and evidently bored with being useful, decided that now was the moment to revisit last night in detail.

His hands had been—God, his hands. She'd noticed them at the bar. They were huge and did ungodly things to her. She remembered how he thrust his thumb into her mouth as he rammed into her endlessly. She remembered how he felt too thick and perfect inside her. She remembered how he made her come multiple times throughout the night, almost making her pass out. She remembered how he slid his finger in her back hole—She choked on the croissant.

A piece of buttery pastry went down the wrong pipe, causing her to cough hard and hurriedly reach for her coffee. At the table nearest to hers, a man in a suit looked over. She held up a hand.

"Fine," she said. "I'm fine."

He went back to his laptop. She set down her coffee, pressed two fingers to her sternum, and murmured to herself: “He was a one-night stand who was an asshole. You are not going to think about him anymore.”

Sighing low, she groaned, “But the sex was so good though.”

That was an understatement. The sex had been the best of her life, and those sensations she felt.... Alanis shook her head, cleared her throat, and physically straightened in her chair.

This was not useful. She was two days out from the most important mission she'd ever been given, and she was sitting in her favorite café, choking on a croissant while thinking about a man whose last name she didn't even know. The Lumen was counting on her. More importantly, there were women somewhere in this city who were going to end up at an auction in forty-eight hours, and she was the only person positioned to do something about it.

She finished the croissant and drained her coffee.

“Compartmentalize,” she told herself, in Deva's voice.

She stacked her plate on the edge of the table for clearing, pulled her jacket on, and stood.