Jes had worked with Forrest on a few other missions and got along well with him. She knew Misty by reputation and had heard a lot of good things about her but had never been in the field with her. The technopath would be a good addition to the team.
“Likewise,” she said.
Jake’s hand was warm, his grip firm, and while Jes knew it was stupid, she couldn’t stop herself from peeking at his fingers, half expecting to see claws. There weren’t any, but when she lifted her gaze to his, the expression there made her wonder if he’d somehow picked up on her thoughts. What if werewolves could read minds? She supposed it was possible. They wouldn’t be the first supernaturals she’d run into with that talent.
Jes had been stunned when McKay told her he was sending a pack of werewolves to help find the creature that had killed her teammates. Then he’d really blown her mind by adding she was being assigned to the team permanently.
She’d heard rumors for the past several weeks that STAT was considering bringing in more supernaturals. She supposed it made sense. Saving the world from monsters was a nearly impossible job to start with, but after discovering a little while ago that vampires and werewolves existed, STAT realized they were in over their heads and needed an assist.
Jes never thought that assistance would come in the form of a pack of werewolves.
Part of her understood the people STAT was recruiting weren’t like the monsters she’d spent the past couple years chasing. That said, she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of working with Jake and his friends, especially after her former teammates might very well have been killed by werewolves.
“I’m surprised you came here straight from the airport,” she said, releasing his hand, a little uncomfortable thinking about what Jake’s claws actually did look like. She’d seen photos STAT had taken when they’d first encountered werewolves. She knew what he and his friends looked like when they wanted to. “I know flying from DC to London can wear you out.”
“We wanted to get here as fast as possible, so we could take a look at the bodies of your teammates and get them back to their families for a proper burial,” Jake said.
Jes opened her mouth to reply, then realized she wasn’t sure what to say. Jake was right. She didn’t know Neal and Jaime all that well, but she did want to get them back home. They deserved that. It was nice Jake thought the same, even though he’d never even met the two men.
She nodded. “Okay. They’re back this way. The embassy has a cold storage room for when they need to repatriate deceased American citizens.”
The two Marine Corps embassy guards who’d been stationed at the door outside the room eyeballed her and her new team but didn’t say a word as they walked inside. They already knew Jes was an agent and probably assumed the people with her were the same.
Not quite a freezer, the room was cold enough to see your breath. Jes led them over to the metal tables in the center and wordlessly pulled the sheets down to the waist, revealing both men’s upper bodies. They’d been stripped of their blood-soaked clothes and cleaned up as much as possible, but there was only so much that could be done with jagged wounds as vicious as theirs. Even though she’d already seen the bodies, she couldn’t keep from cringing at the sight. Around her, everyone else flinched, too. She was a little surprised to see Jake and the other werewolves react that way. Surely, they must be used to seeing stuff like this.
“The embassy doctor did a preliminary exam,” Jes said as Jake moved around to stand across from her. “There was no saliva in the wounds, which made her think they were caused by claws instead of fangs. Based on the similarity of the wounds, the directionality, and the depth, she believes Neal and Jaime were killed by the same creature—or creatures.”
“Did you see more than one of them at the scene?” Forrest asked.
She shook her head. “No, but my gut tells me there were more than the one I saw. I didn’t get a really good look at it, but I know it had glowing yellow eyes.”
Jes glanced at Jake to see his reaction to that bit of info. She was disappointed when he didn’t so much as blink.
“That rules out vampires,” he said. “Their eyes are flat black, like a shark.”
“I was thinking they might have been werewolves,” she murmured, trying to keep an eye on all three of those particular supernaturals as she waited for some kind of response.
“If it was a werewolf, it damn sure wasn’t an omega,” Caleb said casually from his place over by the wall. She hadn’t missed the way he’d separated himself from the rest of the team when they’d come in there, hovering on the edges of the room, like he didn’t want to be a part of the team. Or maybe he simply liked his space. “If an omega lost it and started slashing up people like that, his eyes would glow blue, not yellow.”
Jes had no idea what that meant. Maybe an omega was a type of werewolf? Before she could ask, Harley spoke.
“It wasn’t a female alpha or beta werewolf, either. Her eyes would have been vivid green.”
Unlike Caleb, Harley didn’t seem to need her space. But at the same time, Jes noticed she stood closer to Forrest and Misty, like she didn’t want to be associated with her fellow werewolves.
Okay, obviously this werewolf thing was a lot more complicated than Jes thought. “Okay, if it wasn’t an omega or a female werewolf, what kind was it?”
When Harley and Caleb turned their gazes on Jake, she had her answer.
Whatever kind of werewolf he must be.
“If it was a werewolf, then it had to be an alpha,” Jake said softly, like it hurt him to admit it, and Jes almost felt bad for dragging it out of him. “Our eyes glow yellow gold.”
Folding her arms, she locked eyes with him. “Ifit was a werewolf? The creature’s eyes glowed yellow and it slashed my teammates open. What else could it be?”
At least Jake the werewolf was man enough to not flinch at the accusation she slung his way. Not that she thought he’d done it himself, of course. He’d obviously been a whole continent away at the time. But one male alpha werewolf was pretty much the same as the next as far as she was concerned. Hell, all werewolves—regardless of their silly designations—were the same to her.
“One way to find out, I guess,” he said.
