Angel's Touch [PUP Squad Alpha 7] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

PUP Squad Alpha 7

Angel’s Touch

Devlin Meyers, recently retired Navy SEAL, isn’t thrilled when his first assignment with Deeks Security seems to be a wild-goose chase, and it sure doesn’t help that the warlock he’s working with isn’t his idea of a nice guy.

Jed Mathewson’s renewed enthusiasm for the job can’t be dampened, not even when he’s given a mission partner stiff enough to use as a surfboard. But thank the goddess it’s only one assignment.

Yet, when the woman they’ve been searching for manages to find them instead, life takes a rather interesting turn. That they both knew her years ago is troubling, but the fact that they both still love her could be a huge problem.

Especially now that Lilly Wicks has a whole new set of skills to deal with.

Can explosive passion, intense circumstance, and boring isolation help undo past mistakes, or are all three doomed to repeat them?

Genre:
Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal

Length:
21,975 words
 

PUP Squad Alpha 7

Abby Blake

MENAGE EVERLASTING

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting

ANGEL’S TOUCH

E-book ISBN:
978-1-61926-945-3

First E-book Publication: July 2012

Cover design by Les Byerley

All art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
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PUBLISHER

Siren Publishing, Inc.

www.SirenPublishing.com

Letter to Readers

Dear Readers,

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Angel’s Touch
by Abby Blake from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

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www.SirenPublishing.com

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ANGEL’S TOUCH

PUP Squad Alpha 7

ABBY BLAKE

Copyright © 2012

“I’m sorry to hear about your sister, Dave.”

Dave Jenkins nodded in acknowledgement and bit back the urge to tell yet another sympathetic coworker the truth. It had taken some seriously fucked-up maneuvering, but between himself, Ronan Deeks, and the members of PUP Squad Alpha they’d managed to provide enough information to make Kali’s supposed death look genuine.

It had helped of course that the Paranormal Undercover Protection squads did this sort of thing for a living.

Dave finished the paperwork he’d been doing on an apparent murder-suicide of the average, yet still tragic, human variety and glanced at the clock. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d finished a shift on time. Each day seemed to bring one more reason to stay late, another murder, another innocent victim, another violent offender. It seemed never ending, and on nights like tonight where there was no one to save and no killer to bring to justice, the job felt hollow.

He’d worked homicide longer than most. Maybe, as his wife had been subtly suggesting for months, it was time he moved on. He reached for the phone to ring Kate and let her know he’d be home soon, when one of his colleagues walked into his office and placed a box on Dave’s desk.

“Looks personal,” he said with a shrug as he left the room.

It was indeed addressed to Dave, but it was the sender’s name that caught his attention. April Childes. She was the mother of the pixie assassin’s first victim, Bethany Childes, and had been devastated by her daughter’s horrific murder. It was clear that she wanted answers, but knowing the truth about what had happened would only confuse the poor woman more. Knowing that her daughter had likely been gifted with the knowledge of an Oracle at her birth and then murdered because of it twenty-seven years later would not help the woman sleep better at night. Dave shook his head sadly as he opened the box and found a handwritten note from April Childes.

It read simply, “I thought these might help,” and was signed in a shaky hand.

Determined to do right by a woman who was grieving, Dave lifted the leather-bound appointment diary from the top. A quick glance confirmed it was one of many. He riffled through the pages quickly, feeling the need to at least be able to look the lady in the eye and say that he hadn’t been able to find any answers to her daughter’s death in the diaries.

A strange little scribble caught his eye as he flicked through the pages, but it wasn’t until he saw it for the third time that he took a closer look. He grabbed the other books, opening them to pages that had the same scribble. There was also a carefully written website address listed under the twelfth of January—Bethany’s birthday—in each diary.

Curious, but not very hopeful that it was more than just a dead end, Dave typed the website into his computer. Immediately a small box opened asking for a password. Working on the assumption that the recurring scribble and yearly entry of the website were linked, Dave looked closely at the squiggle, trying to discern letters, numbers, or symbols that might indicate a password of sorts.

On his fifth attempt the password was accepted. Feeling buoyed by the small victory, he was almost floored by the amount of information that came up. Ironically, other than the odd, seemingly out-of-place, repetition of the word Oracle, the rest of it seemed to be in a language he’d never seen before. He scrolled to the bottom of the page, his eyes widening when he saw that it was page one of four thousand seven hundred and two. No wonder Bethany had been known as a workaholic. Between this diary and her busy schedule as a hardworking public defender she would have had little time for anything else.

He grabbed the phone, dialed a number he knew better than his own, and left two words on the answering machine. “Call me.”

“Thanks, Jed,” Jennifer said with a bright smile as she stepped from the bounce tunnel and onto the dirt road. Her mates, Thomas and Adam, were close behind her.

“Anytime, sweet thing,” Jed said, managing to piss off both werewolves by laughing at their growls of annoyance. Between Hannah’s oversensitive bears and Jennifer’s growly wolves it was likely he’d be torn to pieces by sharp teeth in the very near future. Maybe he should tone down the teasing just a bit.

“Will you stay for the ceremony?” Jennifer asked, either missing or ignoring the tension coming off the two men holding her.

“Sure,” he said, completely disregarding his own advice of a moment ago. He tried to convince himself he was staying because Jennifer wanted him there, but a small part of him acknowledged the inherent mischief in doing the exact opposite of what her mates wanted.

He was still laughing to himself when his mission partner landed not far from where they were standing. The ex-Navy SEAL marched over to stand in front of him. “Sit-rep,” he demanded.

Jed rolled his eyes, making certain the man saw his exaggerated movement. “Relax, Devlin,” he said, smirking when the guy showed no sign of following his order. “This is a celebration. Chill for a while.”

“We need to find Li—” the guy began, but Jed cut him off.

“Lilly has been evading us for weeks. A few hours off to celebrate a friend’s acceptance into her husbands’ wolf pack shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Devlin glanced around the area as if he wasn’t quite convinced. “I’ll just do a quick security sweep of the area,” he said as he lifted back into the air. Jed wanted to roll his eyes again at the man’s dedication to his job, but grudgingly admired the man’s ability to fly. His wingspan was rather impressive, but it was the fact that to humans, and even to some paranormals, the guy appeared to be just a majestic eagle flying overhead that was truly intimidating.

* * * *

Devlin soared lazily, circling the area several times but finding little of interest. The werewolves’ community was quite impressive and blended well into the natural landscape, but none of it offered the distraction he was looking for.

The fact that Lilly Wicks was still MIA annoyed the hell out of him. As a Navy SEAL he’d never failed to complete a mission. His service record had been exemplary, but when the replacements to his original teammates started retiring, he’d known it was time to move on. It didn’t matter how perfect his record had been. Sooner or later someone was going to notice he wasn’t aging.

He’d considered joining the PUP squads but had, rather ironically as it turned out, chosen to go into the private sector because he’d grown tired of being given orders by people who’d never fought on the front lines. Considering how much he missed the structure of military life, it seemed like a poor decision in hindsight.

Reluctantly he circled the area once more and then lowered himself to the ground at the far edge of the yard where the celebrations were being held. He got there just in time to see Jennifer fall asleep in her mates’ arms. They held her close as they spoke to friends and family, but just like she’d been warned, it seemed Jennifer was going to miss her own party.