Leon made a beeline for the break room. He wasn't sure what they served there could be considered coffee, but it'd keep a man up even if he'd been dead for three days. He grabbed a cup of the dark liquid and doctored it with enough sugar to give himself diabetes then made his way to one of the empty tables.
He shuddered when he took his first sip. He liked coffee as much as the next guy, but this stuff could curl the hair on his lip. He knew he'd need it if he was going to be at the top of his game going into this assignment without taking rest time first.
He couldn't wait until it was over and he got an entire week off. Maybe he'd go to Aspen and do a little skiing and find himself some sexy ski bunny to spend a few days and nights with. It had been a bit since he'd been laid.
He happened to know from personal experience that the guy who rented out skiing equipment at one of the resorts up there could do things with his tongue that would make Leon's eyes roll back in his head.
He really needed some time off.
After taking another sip of coffee, Leon flipped open the file and started reading. The more he read, the more he understood why Gareth had been asked for help. George Carver might actually be the last nice guy on the surface of the planet. The second people realized he had money, he was going to be eaten alive.
The name of the town where George lived sounded familiar, but Leon couldn't place why. He did find it interesting that the man was a bear shifter, but that was going to make things a bit dicey. Leon was human down to this DNA. He didn't have a single gene strand of shifter blood in him. Not a trace.
In his experience, most shifters tended to look down on humans. He'd had to prove himself more than once over the years because of that. He'd also had to put more than one shifter in their place when they thought they could intimidate him.
He didn't get intimidated.
Ever.
Leon read through the rest of the file, made a few notes, then started working out a plan to keep George safe. Going in as the man's boyfriend would work. It would allow him to stay close to the man day and night.
George was also gorgeous, so it wouldn't be a hardship. Leon was no slouch, standing at six foot one inches tall, but George topped him by more than a few inches. He also out-weighted Leon by at least a hundred pounds.
The short brown hair and neatly trimmed beard were a nice touch, but what really made George attractive to Leon was the wire-rimmed glasses and the glint of shyness in the deep brown eyes behind them.
George Carver was a big ol' gentle bear.
Leon smiled as he finished reading the rest of the file. Shifters were notorious for being hard to work with. They had an aggressive nature, mostly due to being a shifter. George didn't look as if he had an aggressive bone in his body.
He had no history of aggression that Leon could see, either in the human world or the shifter world. There had been no complaints lodged against him except for a few filed by George Carver Sr. and his wife, Rose.
Leon knew there was a story there simply because Gareth had told him the parents were trouble. Failure to do his duty to his parents just didn't seem like a good enough reason to file a complaint with the shifter council.
But what did he know? He wasn't a shifter, and he never would be. Unlike the Hollywood movies, you could not become a shifter through a bite or serum or ritual or whatever. You were either born one or you weren't, and he wasn't.
Leon groaned as another thought hit him. He grabbed the file and headed back to Gareth's office, knocking on the door once he reached it.
"Come."
Leon opened the door, stepped inside the office, then closed the door behind him. "I have a question," Leon said as he laid the file down on Gareth's desk. "What kind of crap am I going to get from the alpha of Carver's clan?"
He really didn't want to have to deal with all the posturing and politics that went into dealing with a clan alpha. They usually liked to beat their chests and hear themselves talk more than be diplomatic.
"He doesn't belong to a clan."
That hadn't been in the file.
"How can he not belong to a clan? I thought all shifters had to belong to a clan."
Gareth shook his head. "No, most of them tend to join clans because there is safety in numbers, but they are not required to. In George Carver's case, he lives in Alpha Henry Barker's territory, but he doesn't belong to the clan."
"How is that possible?" Alphas were notoriously territorial. They tended to attack first and ask questions later if someone not affiliated with their clan entered their territory.
"When George got kicked out of his clan, he went to his uncle, who belongs to Barker's clan. His uncle got special permission from their council for George to be there, but Barker refused to allow George join his clan."
Leon felt a prickling of unease climb up his spine. "Why?"
"He doesn't want to be challenged by George."
