Page 6 of Dark Auctioned Mate

The mission was in two days. She had things to do.

Chapter 3 - Rael

Rael laid on his back, with his eyes on the ceiling, in a bed that still smelled faintly of her.

He sighed and rubbed a hand across his face, then dropped his hand back to the mattress. His body was tired, but his brain refused to be silent. It continued to think about her voice, her face, and the moment when everything changed.

He glanced to the side, looking at the empty spot next to him.

His jaw tightened. He shouldn’t have said it. But at the time, it made sense. It always did in the moment. Control variables. Eliminate complications. It was the way he worked. It was the way he lived.

Something in her had thrown that system off, and it made him feel uneasy. It was not just the sex, although it was the best he ever had. It was just something else.

He inhaled sharply. She did not even bother to argue. She didn’t do anything, just turned her back and left with her dignity.

His hands curled into a fist on the sheets. Then he got out of bed. Sitting still wasn’t helping. Thinking wasn’t helping. He needed to move. So, he walked across the room and took his shirt off the back of a chair. It had been ripped off his body in a rush and was crumpled. He pulled it on, hardly conscious of the movement. He had to focus on his mission and not on some woman he had met once.

After a couple of minutes, he left the hotel and went to his apartment.

***

The names, numbers, and patterns that he had been attempting to put together for months filled his laptop screen.

He leaned forward, placing his hands on the table, as his eyes scanned the information again. He’d gone over it already. Multiple times. Cross-referenced every lead. But it was not enough. They were overly cautious. Whoever was behind this operation knew how to remain unnoticed.

Rael rolled his shoulders. Something was coming up. He could feel it.

There was a change in movement during the past week. Communications tightened. The financial activity increased, and logistics altered.

Something was going on, and this time he was not missing it.

He picked up his phone, glancing at the time. It was too soon to go out and too late to pretend that he was going to sleep again.

His thoughts drifted to her, and his jaw clenched once more, this time with irritation for himself.

He pushed off the table, entered the bathroom, and turned on the light. Rael looked at his reflection in the mirror.

Controlled.

Composed.

No visible cracks.

Good. “Concentrate,” he said to himself. He had work to do.

The guilt was watered down by noon.

Rael strolled round the city, his thoughts fixed once more on the task at hand.

It was just as his contact told him that it would be.

He monitored entrances, exits, traffic flow, and security guards. Not a lot could be seen on the surface, and that was all he needed to know. They were not counting on glaring deterrents. They were depending on control. On seeing who was entering and leaving, and working in an area where they created the rules.

Rael retreated into the stream of pedestrians, blending into the crowd. He could definitely work with this.

***

The device sat flush against his collarbone, buried under three layers of clothing. Rael had spent two weeks on the prototype and another week refining the calibration until the scent-masking held for a minimum of six hours without a single bleed-through. To every Alpha, Beta, or trained shifter nose in a ten-foot radius, he registered as human—unremarkable.