Braden only hoped the DCO didn’t know how fast Dreya would get to him. He’d always found her attractive. A man would have to be in serious need of a set of corrective lenses not to see how incredibly beautiful she was. But now that attraction was becoming much more physical. When he’d helped her out of her clothes after the paintball training, he’d come damn close to kissing her. And kissing her was only the start of what he’d been thinking of doing. Sleeping that night had been hard as hell, mostly because he’d been that way, too. How could he not be when he’d spent it fantasizing about what it would be like to have Dreya naked in his arms?
He was still trying to push those cock-stiffening thoughts aside when he realized he’d stopped walking and was standing in the middle of the quad, staring off into the distance like an idiot. And that Dick Coleman, the deputy director of the DCO, was regarding him with obvious amusement.
“You look like a man who’s been through a life-changing event,” Coleman said. “Tell me, did that event come with claws and fangs?”
Braden nodded. For a guy who probably spent more money on his clothes than Braden did on his car, Coleman seemed like an okay guy.
“Is it that obvious?” Braden asked.
Coleman laughed. “Only because I’ve seen the look so many times. It can be a shock to the system the first time you see the claws come out.”
Braden snorted. “A little bit. You people ever consider maybe giving someone a heads-up first?”
“Not really. Most people wouldn’t believe it if we did,” Coleman said. “There’s a certain value in seeing how a person reacts the first time their prospective partner shifts in front of them. You’re more likely to react genuinely when everything is raw and unfiltered. If you can’t handle this new reality, it’s better to find out now than when you’re in the field and lives depend on you trusting each other.”
Braden thought back to the scared, vulnerable expression in Dreya’s eyes when she’d first come down from that wall. She’d been waiting for him to say something hateful and reject her.
“I can understand that,” he said.
“I thought you might.” Coleman regarded him thoughtfully. “You strike me as a man who rarely lets his emotions outrun his head. It’s part of the reason you were considered such a good match for Dreya Clark. That and your particular police background.”
Something about the way Coleman said the words caught Braden’s attention. “Particular police background? You mind telling me exactly what you mean by that?”
Coleman shrugged. “Nothing negative, I assure you. It’s just that you have a reputation for being a straight shooter, a man who understands what it means to do things the right way.”
Where the hell had Coleman picked up that little nugget of intel?
“I’m not going to lie to you, Detective. There are some people at the DCO who tend to think that the gravity of our mission gives them the right to play fast and loose with the rules. Sometimes even break the law when they feel it’s necessary.”
That wasn’t surprising. Everything from the bizarre training to the blatant manipulation made it easy to believe there were some in this organization who liked to live outside the box. Tommy would have loved it here.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Coleman added. “The real world is a complicated place, and sometimes breaking the rules—even the law—is necessary. But I won’t mince words. Putting someone with a criminal background like Dreya’s in a place like this could be the equivalent of giving the fox the keys to the henhouse.”
Braden’s first instinct was to tell Coleman to piss off, which made no sense. Dreyawasa thief. Didn’t a part of him think the same thing? Things might be good right now, but he knew better than anyone that she had a history of falling into old habits. Working in a place like this, how long would it be before she got into more trouble?
“From the look on your face, it’s obvious you share my concern,” Coleman said. “Dreya has a chance to turn her life around here at the DCO and do something with it—something impressive. But it’s going to be up to us to make sure she doesn’t mess up that chance. There’s a lot I can do to help, but you’re going to be the first one to see it if those old instincts of hers start to kick in. If she does anything that makes you suspicious, you need to let me know. It’s the only way we can make sure she doesn’t sabotage herself.”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tommy was telling him this wasn’t cool, that partners—even if only temporary—didn’t go behind each other’s backs like this. But Coleman was right. Given the right set of circumstances, he could see Dreya going right back to the one thing she’d always excelled at—stealing stuff. Even if it blew everything else she had that was good in her life at the moment.
He promised himself right then that he wasn’t going to let it happen. He had no idea how long he and Dreya would be partners, but as long as they were, he wasn’t going to let her screw up, no matter what he had to do.
* * *
“Lift your tongue, and show me underneath it,” the stern looking nurse ordered Trevor, clearly wanting to make sure he’d swallowed his tiny paper cup full of antipsychotic meds.
Trevor did as he was instructed, not because he was necessarily in a compliant mood, but simply because that seemed to be standard protocol among all the other poor zombielike patients who had taken their meds before him. And blending in with the heavily medicated crowd was the plan at the moment.
It didn’t hurt that there were the two beefy orderlies accompanying the red-haired nurse. They looked giddy with anticipation at the idea of getting to force-feed someone their meds. Trevor could easily take them if he had to, but that would probably only get him shipped off to jail.
“Now move your tongue to one side, then the other,” the nurse instructed before giving Trevor a curt nod. “Thank you.”
“No. Thankyou, Nurse Ratched,” he said warmly.
Gray eyes narrowing, the woman tapped the plain black name tag on her white sweater. “It’s Nurse Fletcher.”
Trevor almost followed after the woman when she turned and walked away so he could ask her if it was legal to work at a mental health facility if you hadn’t seenOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. He decided not to bother. Being snarky lost all its appeal if you had to explain it.
He finished the paper cup of water she’d given him, then crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash can against the wall for a perfect three-point-play. He wasn’t too worried about the meds. His shifter metabolism burned up any drug he took in pretty short order. He only knew that because someone in the Chinese Ministry of State Security—kind of like their version of the CIA—had tried to poison him a little while ago. He’d come out of that with little more than indigestion.
