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“See that you do.”
Waiting until he was sure Ranger had completely severed their telepathic link, Donovan shored up his mental shields before mumbling to himself, “Oh, Ranger, my boy, if you only knew. All tangled up in my underwear is like saying the Grand Canyon’s a little hole out west. Brother Man, I’ve met my Mate and boy howdy am I in deep shit. Five-foot-five inches of piss and vinegar, mind-blowing intelligence, breathtaking good looks, and shares her soul with none other than a Sleipnir Mare, that woman is nothing short of spectacular. And you’re right, I was gone hook, line, and sinker before I knew what was happenin’.”
Just thinking about Carlotta Maldese-Dalgaard made his heart race and had him talking to the cactus in the middle of the desert. From the moment she’d walked into the DIA offices acting like she owned the place, he knew that woman was the only one for him. Unlike any other woman he’d ever met, dated, or Heavens forbid, slept with, his Mate was a sight to behold, a true force of nature.
Not only was she drop-dead gorgeous, but Lottie,not Carlotta- as she quickly corrected the Boss when he used her given name - was quick witted and perceptive beyond anything he’d ever imagined. The power and strength that closely rivaled that of a Dragon came off her in waves. Her Magic, so potent it made him punch drunk, called to his own. And those lips, Goddess help him, her lips had the most perfect Cupid’s bow he’d ever seen just begging to be kissed –by him.
No sooner had the Boss announced that newly inducted Agent Carlotta Dalgaard would be on their team than did she scan all five of the huge white boards, both walls of pictures and clippings, and the multitude of papers covering the top of eighteen-foot of conference table then boldly ask, “Y’all do know you should be focusing on Vanessa Marron and Hammond Reginald Thommingham III, don’tcha?”
“And how did you reach that conclusion, Agent Dalgaard?” Chase, the newly named Team Leader, snapped right back. “Was it from your extensive training?” Holding up the index finger of his left hand, the temporary Team Leader shook his head, the glint in his eye assuring everyone who knew him that his next words were going to be utterly obnoxious.
“Nope, that can’t be it, because you were ushered in here like royalty without any training. Could it be that you have vast experience in criminal investigations?” Not even a half a second later, he added, “Nope not even a little bit. You, Agent Dalgaard, have one qualification that apparently astounds and stupefies the upper echelon of our great agency. The almighty blood of the horse of a god nobody cares to remember runs through your veins. Now, speak when you’re spoken to. The clock is ticking, and I don’t want any more dead bodies on my watch.”
“And that completes the Asshole portion of your orientation,” Donovan forced a chuckle, stepping between the two of them, facing Lottie, and motioning towards the table. “How about you walk us through how you came to that conclusion so we can all be on the same page?”
Happily, that cooled the tension. Unfortunately, the cease fire lasted about two minutes during which time they all learned that Lottie’s full name was Maldese-Dalgaard and her mother and Coven were the latest on a growing list of unsolved murders the DIA was trying to solve.
Then Chase opened his mouth, inserted both his feet, an arm and all ten of his toes and Van was sure he was going to have to save his Brethren’s ass from one very pissed off Sleipnir Mare. Whatever the problem was, the newly appointed Team Leader of the Texas Witch Slayer’s disposition went from bad to worse. It was the weirdest thing Van had ever seen.
Normally, a very leveled-headed and friendly guy, it was like something out of a sci-fi story. Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something. Having known the blue and silver Dragon since they were kids, Van was completely clueless and unable to get answers without embarrassing his friend.
It was the weirdest thing. At his first sight of Lottie, Chase’s mood turned dark and his aura a smokey gray. Then he opened his mouth, and all bets were off. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been ordered to take over Ranger’s position as Team Leader and the pressure was getting to him. It didn’t excuse his behavior but might have been the cause. It couldn’t have been easy going from just one of the guys in a tightknit team, to the dude whose ass was on the line if they didn’t catch the bad guys sooner rather than later.
There was no time to prepare, not even a minute to say, ‘You got this, Chase. You can do it’.
One minute, the older Guardsman and more experienced Agent, Ranger Evans, got a new lead on a case he’d been working for years - chasing the ones responsible for the death of his Mate’s parents – the next, nothing would ever be the same again. Not only was he back in the desert where he’d grown up and with his adopted family, but the woman the Universe made for him was so close all he had to do was breathe and her scent filled his senses.
And just like that, all hell broke loose. The Chimera struck. The whole damned thing was like something out of a spy novel with shit nobody could’ve seen coming. When the bad guy is that close to home and goes undetected, well, it makes every damned Agent wonder if the world has been turned upside-down and inside-out.
Shit got really bad, really quick and the couple had to fight for their lives. Thank the Heavens, they came out on top and the head of an evil organization and her second in command were eliminated.
Of course, that cleared up all the old baggage and paved the way for Ranger to claim the one woman in all the world created for him. It took less than a week and they were Mated. It was the happily ever after Van had been praying would come to his best friend.
“And pretty much –wam, bam, I do, ma’am,” he snickered under his breath.
The whole DIA were all happy for Ranger. Hell, it was a partyevery timea Guardsman found his Mate. However, their Team Leader’s extended and unplanned honeymoon put a hitch in everybody’s giddyap, and just when he was supposed to be back, the other shoe dropped.
Boss announced Ranger wouldn’t be coming back for the foreseeable future. He explained with furrowed brows and a frown that deepened the already profound wrinkles around his mouth that Vanessa Marron – a heavily favored suspect on their list of magical robberies - just happened to be the mother of one of his brother’s Mates.
“Talk about convoluted, messed up, family connections,” Van scoffed, “But it still doesn’t explain Chase’s reaction to Lottie, and dammit if the boy is more tight lipped than a turkey the day before Thanksgiving. She was right. We had dismissed that crazy Sorceress as a one off. Every damned one of us was sure no Witch would turn on her own.”
At the thought of Mates, honeymoons, and family holidays, and with the hot air of the desert whipping up tiny ‘sand tornadoes’ as he and Ranger used to call them, all Van could think about was scooping Lottie up, throwing her over his shoulder, and running off to parts unknown for as long as he could get away with it. It didn’t matter that the last time he’d spoken to her, the gorgeous Sleipnir Shifter literally threatened to turn his balls into rocks and put them in a jar on her mantle.
“I’d say, you’d make it about five minutes on a good day. ‘Cause that pretty lady would kick your ass and leave you for dead right here in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert. Never mind any other part of you she might have already promised to remove,”Daig, the Dragon King with whom he shared his soul howled with laughter. “Not only did you contradict her in front of the entire team and tell her that as the newest member of the DIA she needed to listen twice as much as she talked, you, King Doofus of all the Asshole Doofuses on Planet Earth, let her leave without so much as trying to talk her down, asking her to stay, or apologizing for letting your giant ego do the talkin’. As far as a Mate goes, you suck.”
“But I took her side. Asked her to walk us through her process.”
“Then you went point-by-point through everything she said and poked holes in all her theories before you figured out that it was her mother and her Coven that you were talking about. You didn’t even know she was their Protector. How did y’all miss that?”
“We didn’t miss it,”Van growled. “We just hadn’t gotten there yet. The intel was still being collected.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s rich. Isn’t it you who’s always sayin’ ‘the only way to know the suspect is to know the victim’?”
“Yeah, but…”
“But nothing,” Daig deadpanned. “You and all your boys were caught with your pants down. You were shown up in your own house – plain and simple. And if that wasn’t bad enough, let me repeat for those of us who are hard of hearing or just plain daft, you poked holes in all the FIRST HAND, EYEWITNESS information Lottie was giving you. Ripped her logical and very well thought out theories about the killer’s motivation to shreds in front of a room full of her peers.”
“Hey, wait, I didn’t know it was firsthand. Boss didn’t tell us who she was. He introduced her as Carlotta Dalgaard. How was I supposed to put two and two together and come up with a hyphenated last name? We didn’t even have a full list of Coven members yet. Yes, I knew the Priestess was Margarita Maldese and that she had a daughter, but the Doc was still trying to figure out exactly how many were dead. Almost all of them were just piles of ash. And… well, dammit, I was still in shock. You, better than anyone, know how resigned I was to the fact that I would never find my Mate. I mean two-hundred-and-six years is a long time and…”
