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“I know, but I just imagined dressing you up, and the fact of the matter is, even a new wrapper wouldn’t be enough to hide your roots from my mother. Even if I polished and shined you up like a member of posh society, I could never rid you of your hick heart.”
“What does that mean?” he asked through gritted teeth, trying not to lose his temper. “I’ve never gotten complaints about my manners.” His family brought him up to be a gentleman. Sure, he’d often come in from the field without remembering to take off his boots and he’d track in some mud through the house, but did stuff like that really make him unworthy?
Did being from the country mean he had some terrible disease or blight against his character?
When she failed to answer, he knew it wasn’t worth continuing. “I guess that settles it then.”
Cass had trashed him hard enough that he wasn’t even willing to put her in the friend zone. As far as he was concerned, he had an obligation to work with ASS, but that was it. They’d solve this case, ensure his students were safe, and go their separate ways.
The peahen blinked with long, dark lashes, taking him in. He expected a quip from her—the Cass he knew never missed a chance to cut someone with her words… or her talons—but she kept her ruby lips sealed. Instead, she perched on the corner of the table, crossing one leg over the other. Grayson’s eyes were drawn to the long, beautiful legs that sprouted from her pink mini-skirt. But then he caught sight of something new: a long, dark scar running up the outside of her right ankle, cutting through her medium-brown skin. The mark was almost a foot long. He flicked his eyes back up to Cass’ face as she rummaged through her giant purse. He hoped she didn’t see his eyes linger on the gnarled line streaking up her leg.
He'd heard a rumor she was out of action for quite some time but never learned the details. ASS didn’t like to share information with FUC unless it was completely necessary, and he could understand that an agency would want to keep the personal business of an agent secret.
Yet, now he wondered if the scar was a part of the reason why she was off active duty for so long.It’s not my concern,he reminded himself. Not that he didn’t care. He was glad she was all right, but the less he knew about Cass the better. She’d made it very clear years ago that he was well below her dress code. An inappropriate mate. What had he been thinking anyway? A hound and a peafowl? How ridiculous.
Cass pulled a black tube of what he presumed to be lipstick from her purse. He was about to make a snide remark when she pulled off the bottom secret-agent-style. She slid out a hidden flash drive. “Here’s the files you requested on the red-tailed hawk,” she explained, her voice smooth as satin. “I would have given it to you last night in your office, but you seemed keen on getting rid of me quickly.”
The bird of prey in question had attempted to kidnap one of Grayson’s students, Ellie Talbot, last year. After Ellie had recovered in the rehab wing after being experimented on, she decided to enroll in FUCN’A. The poor kid was temporarily recaptured by the hawk during her first assignment off campus. What terrible luck. Grayson wanted to deep-fry the bird responsible since Ellie was on the assignment for his class. Grayson had hoped that ASS would shake their tailfeathers and hustle after the intel on the rogue raptor. Instead, it took cutting through a mile of red tape for the agency tostartthe process of tracking down their foe. He should’ve expected that. ASS was a bunch of asses. Aside from his brief roll in the hay with Agent Sparks years ago, he couldn’t say that he got along with any of their on-loan agents. As far as he was concerned, they were a bunch of bird-brained bastards afraid to ruffle their feathers and get down to business.
His mouth hung open in surprise when Cass got right to the point. That was unlike the avian shifter from a decade ago. That Cass never missed a chance to strut around for a bit, forcing others to wait until she felt good and ready to disclose what she knew. Instead of the banter he’d expected, he got the information he requested. It was later than expected, but at least he received it.
“Are we waiting for others to attend the meeting?” she asked, snapping him back to the moment.
“No, it’s just us. FUC hasn’t yet deigned to send other agents to work on this case. They consider our target a low-level lackey and not a considerable threat.” He shook his head. He understood there were bigger cases, madder scientists, but a threat this close to the Academy should warrant more attention, in his opinion.
“We could have met in your office instead of taking up a whole room for just the two of us,” she replied, sliding off the table and into a chair while he popped the drive into his laptop.
“Meeting rooms are for mission briefs,” he muttered, opening the files and projecting them to the big screen. What he left unsaid was that it had felt much too intimate to have her in his personal space. His office was his den, his safety, and he hadn’t liked her scent in there, intermingling with his.
“I’m sorry there isn’t more there,” Cass said as Grayson clicked through the files. “Your hawk is known to ASS as a simple lackey, in it solely for the money, working for the highest bidder.”
Grayson’s heart sank. Typical Cass, showing up with all the pomp and circumstance, with nothing solid to present with it. All fluff. “You really came all this way to deliver me nothing?”
“No.” Cass let out a sigh. “I know this on its own isn’t much help, but no, I didn’t come all this way to deliver nothing. I came here to help you track him down.” Despite the tone Grayson used with her, Cass’ voice remained soft as silk. It tickled at his senses and jiggled lose a memory of Cass nibbling on his earlobe, whispering about all the dirty things she would do to him…
A snap of her fingers brought him back to the room, where she stared at him with large hazel eyes. That’s when Grayson noticed a new scar, one that cut through her left eyebrow. Another remnant from the incident that caused the jagged line down her ankle?
Cass waved her hands as if flagging down a jet. “Earth to Grayson. You home?” Annoyance had started to creep onto her face as she narrowed her eyes to slits. She shifted her round bottom in her chair, a bird about to take flight—and probably peck his eyes out for being rude.
“Yeah,” he said, realizing with embarrassment how ignorant he’d just been. The hot prickle of a blush crept up his neck before settling in his cheeks. While Cass wasn’t necessarily a friend, he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure if it was rude to ask about the scars so pretended he noticed nothing. “I was trying to remember what Ellie told us about the hawk.” His deep voice sounded hollow, like the soul had been sucked out of it. He didn’t like lying. He didn’t need to try to remember what Ellie had told him: he’d been thinking of this mission constantly and hadn’t let a single detail go unexamined any day since he’d recovered the cadets.
Cass raised a perfectly groomed brow. “That’s all in there, too.” Each word dripped out of her mouth, marinated in a confused tone. She cocked her head sideways, scarlet ringlets bouncing with the quick movement. There was no doubt in Grayson’s mind she’d noticed how odd he was acting. Grayson swallowed the sting of shame rising in his chest. He was acting like a complete ass and digging the hole he was standing in deeper.
“Right,” he said with a drawl, stretching the word to buy time to create a legitimate excuse. Here he was, looking like the crazy one in the duo, when that was supposed to be Cass’ role.Shewas known as the firecracker. The wildcard. “I was trying to remember details left out of the report.” He shifted his eyes around the room, trying to hide his discomfort, too afraid to look at Cass. With her sharp eyes, she’d see right through him.
“You mean because of FUC’s shoddy job at completing paperwork correctly?” she snapped.
He should have been offended by the jab, but he set himself up for it. “I mean because not every detail can be put into a report, no matter how thorough. Scents, for example.” Grayson wished the brainiacs in their IT departments could find a way to store aromas. Once his Basset Hound scented something, he could track it. While the flash drive contained the last known associates, recent sightings, and even some pictures of the foul fowl, Grayson felt that knowing what itsmelledlike would be invaluable to agents like him with a well-developed olfactory sense. Especially shifters well-suited to tracking or hunting.
“I’m glad you guys stepped up the quality control.” There wasn’t even a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Grayson was taken aback by the positivity directed at FUC. That was very un-Cass-like.
Her watchful eyes studied him for a moment before she glanced back to the projected image. He’d closed the files, and it now featured his desktop, a picture of a sunset Grayson took while on vacation in the mountains. She smiled softly at it, and his heart prickled, pleased to see a piece of the old Cass again. As a young agent, she’d been passionate about her job, maybe a little birdbrained at times, but she’d always been competent, and together they’d always been able to track down their mark and make their arrest. Despite the mysterious scars, Cass really seemed like her old self, without as much spite, though he had occasionally loved to witness Cass cutting people to shreds in a mere sentence.
Grayson felt some of those old, warm feelings creeping back in as he thought about another place where Cass’ fiery passion took center stage: in the bedroom. He cleared his throat, pushing the images back down. “Where doyouthink we should start?” She was an ASS agent after all, and their specialty was shifters with feathers. Wasn’t she the expert with all the great ideas?
“There’s a bird bar in the next town over, not far from here.”
“Bird bar?” He wasn’t familiar with such a thing. Large quantities of birds had made him nervous since childhood, when his family had a mean rooster on their farm. One day, the cock and the hens cornered Grayson. He still had a small scar on his leg from when the birds’ talons dug in. To this day, the thought of flocks of avian shifters in a small area left him feeling like he’d be walking into a crowded chicken coop. He’d be up to his eyeballs in plumage.
