“I will.”
Kendra checked her email once more before logging off and thumbing the power button. It felt weird to shut down her computer. The only time she ever did it was when she went on vacation. And running around the hot, sweaty Costa Rican jungle for two weeks was going to be anything but a vacation. But she’d been begging her boss, John Loughlin, for months to go into the field, and now that he’d finally agreed, she was damn well going to make the most of the opportunity. Sure, she would have preferred if her first real mission had been going with Ivy and Landon to check out a hybrid research lab. Or maybe tagging along with Clayne and Danica to serve as backup the next time they took down a bad guy.
But John wasn’t ready to go that far…yet. He probably thought that if he sent her into the hot, humid, bug-ridden Costa Rican jungle, she’d hate it so much she’d never bother him about going into the field again. He was wrong. She was going to kick butt out there.
Kendra grabbed her purse and was heading for the door when her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her bag, putting it to her ear as she locked her office. “Hello.”
“Hey, Kendra, it’s Layla Halliwell,” the caller said, then added, “Ivy’s sister? I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at her wedding.”
Kendra almost laughed. She doubted there were many people who could forget Ivy’s younger sister. The girl had the kind of personality that made you smile just thinking about her. She and Layla had both been in the wedding party, so they’d hung out and talked—when the other woman hadn’t been hip deep in conversation with Landon’s Special Forces buddy, Jayson Harmon.
“Of course I remember you.” Kendra started down the hall toward John’s office. “What’s up?”
“Ivy told me to call you if I ever needed help, and well…I need help.”
Kendra frowned. “What’s wrong? Are you in trouble or something?”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” Layla assured her. “I’m looking for a job and was hoping you might be able to get me an interview at the DCO.”
Kendra stopped mid-step.Crap. If there was one thing Ivy was dead set against, it was her little sister working at the Department of Covert Operations. They might call shifters like Ivy and Layla extremely valuable assets—EVAs for short—but they also gave their human counterparts permission to kill them if they ever got compromised on a mission rather than let them fall into enemy hands. Ivy had been lucky enough to be paired with a partner who would die himself before hurting her; Layla might not be so fortunate. Why couldn’t Layla be like Kendra’s other friends and call asking to borrow money or something?
“You know, I’d love to, but the DCO isn’t really hiring right now,” Kendra said slowly.
There was silence on the other end of the line. “Ivy told you to say that, didn’t she?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Yes, she did. Damn her.” Layla growled in exasperation. “She thinks I want to be a field agent like her, which is ridiculous. I don’t know the first thing about guns and spies and covert operations. I’m a psychologist. All I want is to work with other shifters like me. I don’t understand why she’s so against that.”
Kendra felt for Layla, she really did. Being told that someone knew better than you what was good for you and what you should or shouldn’t do was tough to handle. It was even tougher for Layla. Knowing there was a whole world of shifters like her out there and being told she couldn’t associate with them? Ivy was wrong to do that.
Besides, the DCO could use a person with Layla’s education and personal familiarity with the shifter mind. The psychologists the DCO had on staff—both of whom were human—were overwhelmed with the workload and not all that great when it came to helping shifters anyway.
“Kendra, please,” Layla begged. “Ivy won’t even know you set up the interview.”
Right. And how else would Layla get a job with a super-secret organization like the DCO? It wasn’t as if Layla could just walk into the personnel office and fill out an application.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll get you an interview with the director.”
Silence. Then, “Seriously?”
“Seriously. I’ll text you the directions to the main office in DC.”
“Thanks,” Layla said. “I owe you big for this, Kendra.”
“It’s only an interview,” Kendra said. “You have to get the job.”
Though something told Kendra that wouldn’t be a problem. She stifled a groan as she hung up. Ivy was going to kill her.
She dropped her phone back in her purse and walked into John’s office. As she’d suspected, he was more than willing to talk to Layla.
“Just because she’s a shifter doesn’t mean she’s a field operative, John,” Kendra reminded him.
He peered at her over his reading glasses, his mouth quirking. “I heard you the first two times you told me. Don’t worry. I won’t ask her to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Now go before you miss your flight.”
Actually, Kendra still had an hour before she had to meet Tate and his team at the airfield, but she could take a hint. Telling John she’d see him in two weeks, she left and headed over to the lab. The facility had gotten a complete makeover, thanks to the DCO’s new fascination with hybrids.
Six months ago, nobody knew what a hybrid was. There were the DCO’s natural-born shifters and that was it. Kendra’s very best friend in the whole world, Ivy Donovan, was a feline shifter, but no one would know it just from looking at her. Sure, when Ivy wanted to, the claws and fangs came out and she could be deadly as hell. But most of the time she was a normal woman. The other DCO shifters were like that, too—Clayne Buchanan and his wolf traits, Trevor Maxwell with his coyote abilities, Declan MacBride and his massive physique to match his bear DNA.
