After Alpha Mikael and Peter had left, Frankie continued to work. I had no idea what he was doing, but his fingers were constantly moving as they flew over his keyboard. Finally, around 4 a.m., he started to flag.

I reached over from my chair next to his, and rubbed his neck with a firm grip. I looked at my tired mate and suggested gently: "Why don't we head over to the B&B now? I'll show you my room and let you get some rest."

He looked at me wistfully, then back at his computer. "But what if she moves? I need to keep watch. Also, I don't want to be tempted with distractions right now, no matter how appealing the package."

As if realizing how that sounded, he stopped and turned in his chair to face me. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking tired right now that the words in my head aren't making sense when they come out of my mouth. Of course I want to be with you, and be distracted by you, Liam. That would be the best kind of distraction, you know?"

His eyes lit with worry as he spoke. The poor guy was working so hard, he hadn't even cleaned the dried water spots on his glasses from the rain earlier. "I promise, it's not you. I just feel so obligated to finish this, you know? People have been hurt, and many others have died. This bitch needs to be caught."

I reached out and removed his glasses. After quickly cleaning the smudged lens with the soft fabric from the inside of the bottom edge of my shirt, I carefully slid them back on his face. Taking his hand in mine, I turned and scooted forward so that we were touching knees.

"Frankie. I get that you're under the gun here, and have a duty weighing heavily on you. I don't care if we don't seal a claim and mate each other immediately. I'll be happy just holding you in my arms while we sleep. You're not any good to the den if you fall asleep over your laptop."

He was chewing his lip thoughtfully when Jules came in and slid into a chair across from us. "Sorry to eavesdrop, but I heard that last bit when I was coming down the stairs. Cat ears, can't help it. But, Frankie. Liam is right. You are no good to me if you're exhausted. I'm assuming you want to keep the setup here, right? Why don't we loop my mates in after all? Sean can keep watch on your stuff, take notes, whatever you need. He's good with computers, not your level, but good enough."

I squeezed Frankie's hand. "Babe? I hate to say it, but we might as well include Jules' mates anyway. From what I understand, they'll pick it up through their bond at some point anyway. This is going to be a long project, while you watch her routines, right? Let someone else help. Maybe do this in shifts."

After a few moments, Frankie nodded. Jules gave a sharp nod and excused himself. I reached out and pulled him in for a hug. A sense of peace settled over me as his weary head rested on my shoulder. His hands reached up under my arms to wrap around me. For that brief time, all was right in the world as I held my mate and inhaled that sweet scent of vanilla coated balsam.

Jules came back with both of his mates in tow. He returned to his seat while Colin headed straight for the coffee pot. Sean came over to take the chair on the other side of my mate. With an easy grin, he waggled his eyebrows and said: "So, I hear that I'm about to get a crash course in tracking the alpha-bitch? Awesome! Does this mean that I can now add cyber-stalker to my resume?"

Frankie sat back and turned to look at Sean with a snort. "Sorry, dude. You'll have to rank up your hacker cred a lot more than this little gig before you can be a legit cyber-stalker. Anything less is a just a wannabe."

Sean grinned and held out a hand. "I'm Sean. Jules' alpha mate, and Mikael's brother in law, if you give a shit about the kind of random trivia."

Frankie shook his hand with a grin. "It's a pleasure to meet one of the men that tamed the wild Jag. I'm Frankie."

Colin came over and slid a mug of coffee in front of Sean and took a seat between his two men. "The wild Jag? That's cute. I like it!"

Jules shook his head. "Shut up, Fingers. This works both ways my friend. You tell my mates stories, and I can do the same with your new mate."

Frankie laughed. "The only thing I hate to share is that godawful nickname! Now that you've outed that twice tonight, I'm pretty sure that I have nothing else to worry about you saying in front of Liam. Now you on the other hand? I have one word for you, Jag. Singapore."

Jules threw his head back and laughed along with Frankie at some shared joke from their military past. "Okay, Fingers. You win. Now show me and my mates what you want us to do so that you can get some sleep."

His eyebrows drew together in confusion as Frankie asked: "What do you mean? All three of you want to assist?"

Colin nodded. "I've already texted my assistant manager and arranged to take time off. It's open ended, we have enough staff to fill in. They'll be glad of the hours anyway, I'm pretty sure. Thank the goddess that Sean had us hire extra people!"

Jules added: "With four of us working, we can do it in six hour shifts. That way it's not too much on any one person. You can use us as you see fit, but that's the best way from my perspective. I'd say five of us, but Liam will probably come and go with you."

Frankie looked like he was about to argue, then sagged back in his chair. He pulled his glasses off with his left hand, and scrubbed the right over his face. With a long sigh, he put his glasses back on and looked around the table. His eyes were taking all of us in as he looked from person to person. He finally nodded.

"You're right, Jules. I need to be less of a control freak. This is a marathon, not a sprint, right?" He paused and looked at Jules' mates. "I appreciate you guys jumping in like this. I can show you what to watch for and if you have any issues, just come find me. It should be simple enough, now that I say that out loud."

Jules nodded. "Yeah, it's hard to take help when offered, but that's why we're here. Take our help, this is our battle to fight anyway. We'll look to you to lead us technically, until the minute that I can step in and take the bitch out."

Then the fucker winked at us both and added: "Besides, with only a six hour work day, maybe you'll take five minutes to actually let your alpha claim you."

Frankie silently shot him the finger while pulling his laptop closer. He began tapping some more, then turned it slightly toward the three snickering mates. "Okay, let's get back to what we’re here for instead of discussing my sex life."

Jules fake coughed into his fist: "Or lack thereof"...

Frankie merely shook his head with an amused smirk. "So this is my program. Let me show you what you’re watching for, that's pretty much all we do. When the dot moves, that means that the target is on the move. When that happens, take a screenshot by hitting this button. There's a few more steps after that, but I'll write it all out for you in a file that you can access if you forget a step." He paused and check another file that was blinking on the corner of his monitor.

"Okay. Here. This is another duty for you guys. This is Yvonne sending an email. Take screenshots of everything, in case she deletes it later. I can dig for it, but why waste time when we can just do it this way for the beginning? Now, over here, this file is to save texts, both outgoing and incoming. For phone calls, we'll want to record, so just..."

Goddess love him, but my mate was fucking smart. He went on for almost an hour, taking the time to patiently answer every question that came up and show us how to operate his program. I had done a double take when I realized that this fancy system we were playing with was all his design.

No wonder the guy was so secretive about his identity. He was more than just a hacker, he was a cyber-genius. I'd heard of black hat and white hat hackers, but I'd consider my guy to be a gray hat. Neither all good, nor all bad...just somewhere a tad left of center.

By the time he was done teaching us all, we were all a lot more comfortable about being able to pitch in and take turns being on cyber-watch. Frankie almost fell asleep in his chair when he yawned while Colin was taking the helm so we could leave.

I just shook my head. "Okay. Let's get you over to the B&B. I've got a nice comfy bed with your name on it."

Jules looked at me with concern. "Are you okay to drive, Liam? You had a long night too. We have plenty of spare room if you want to crash here for now."

"As tempting as that may be, Jules, I'll be fine. I've been working the night desk for the past month anyway. Last night just happened to be my night off. I slept most of the day before I went up the den to check in on Dylan."

Frankie dug in his pocket and passed me his keys. "Sounds good, alpha. You drive, and I'll sleep. Just wake me when we get there."

We said our goodbyes to Jules and his mates, then headed out to Frankie's car. After I unlocked his door, I waited for him to get in and settled before closing the door and moving around to the driver's side. After I was backing down the drive a few minutes later, I realized that he was staring at me with a goofy grin.

I glanced over his way. "What? Am I so sexy driving your Jeep that you can't take your eyes off me? Tell the truth, I’m the sexiest alpha you've had behind this wheel."

Frankie chuckled. "Now that you mention it, you're the only alpha to sit behind that wheel. Or anyone else for that matter, I'm a little controlling when it comes to letting other people drive my car. No, I was just laughing at what a gentleman you were as you helped me into my own fucking car."

I raised an eyebrow. "What, are most of the alphas you hang out with total wankers or something?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I've never given any the chance to prove themselves one way or the other. It's hard enough being an omega in the military. Adding easy along with my designation would have been a recipe for disaster. Nope. Computers and comics, remember? Those have always been my loves."

I pulled into the drive of the B&B before we could go much further with this line of conversation. I pulled into my parking spot and turned off the car. Reaching over, I took his hand in mine.

"Well then let me be the first alpha to show you how an omega should be treated. Not like a priceless work of art to admire from afar, or a bug on the ground to squash under my foot, but as an equal. That's what I want for us, Frankie. To be equals in our life together, while I show you how special you are to me. How does that sound to you?"

He smiled sleepily and said softly: "It sounds like you need to take me to your bed, alpha." After a long yawn, Frankie opened his door and said: "To sleep, that is. Anything else will have to wait until I'm resuscitated, alpha. I hate to break it to you, but I'm about ten seconds shy of just passing the fuck out."