***
Jared climbed slowly to his feet, staring at the compact crossover vehicle. Not a car, not an SUV, it was a little of both and a lot of neither.
“Everyone okay?” he called out, though he never averted his eyes from the vehicle.
Affirmatives rang out, and when everyone was accounted for, he closed on the car. The driver’s door opened, and he heard the sound of pained coughing, following by a very feminine-sounding groan.
He didn’t take down his guard, but he did relax. The Agency was as old-school sexist as it came. To his knowledge, no one had ever seen a female working for them. It was a strictly male environment. That meant the odds were heavily against the newcomer being an Agent.
“Stay where you are,” he said firmly as he worked himself through the debris. Madison and the others emerged from the tunnel, eyes wide as they surveyed the crash. He raised a finger to his lips, asking for silence as he finally rounded the vehicle enough to see the occupant.
Time seemed to stand still as a disheveled brunette who was all thick legs fell from the car, her hair falling in a mess across her shoulders as she shook her head.
“Ow,” she said clearly to herself.
Jared let one of his shoes scuff the floor and the woman looked up at him. The huge muscles around the big shifter’s throat tightened involuntarily and his lungs locked up, unable to pump air into his system as he stared at her in wide-eyed surprise.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, his words echoing the non-verbal assessment of his bear, who growled and pulsed emotions through his mind.
“What?” she asked, blinking at him in surprise.
The world shot back into focus. Jared shook his head, hoping his cheeks weren’t a dead giveaway to his embarrassment.
“Who are you?” he asked, trying to sound extra gruff to cover up.
The woman looked skittish. “I need your help,” she said, trying to pull her lips back into a smile. The fear in her eyes was so thick it was practically flowing off of her.
“Why are you scared of me?” he asked, squatting down on his haunches. In the periphery he could see his team come to a stop. They didn’t have much time, but something inside of him told Jared that if he didn’t do it now, he would never get another chance and he would regret it forever.
There was no hesitation in her answer. “Because you might actually be as bad as the news makes you out to be,” she said. “If that were true, you might hurt me.”
He frowned. “Do I have any reason to hurt you?” he asked.
“No,” the woman replied, just a little too quickly for his liking. Then, “Please, they’re not far behind me. I don’t know what else to do.”
“Who is not far behind you?” he asked, letting his eyes narrow, so that she got the hint it wasn’t okay to lie this time.
“Bad people,” she said. “I don’t know who they are, or what they do. But they look really evil, and I’m pretty sure they tried to do something bad to me earlier.”
Jared nodded once, sharply. “Come with me,” he said, trying not to let his attraction to her shine through as she stood up, her legs unfolding deliciously. His mouth went dry as she smoothed her hair down and tugged on her shirt, the motion momentarily accentuating the large swell of her breasts under the material. The formal outfit clashed somewhat with the more casual zip-up sweatshirt, but he let it slide.
“Madison, how long?” he asked, helping guide the newcomer through the wreckage around her vehicle.
“Almost there,” she said, disappearing back inside after giving the woman a long look, and then directing an equal one his way.
Jared got the hint. He was in charge of her for now.
The tension in the building continued to rise. Every second now they were risking assault from the Agency in numbers they might not be able to fight.
“Start from the beginning,” he told the brunette slowly. “Begin with your name, and then tell me everything that has to do with why you’re here, in as chronological of an order as you can. Okay?”
“Nadia,” the woman said promptly, sticking her hand out with more confidence than he thought she should possess.
“Jared,” he said, forcing himself to revise his opinion of her slightly upward. She was in deep shit, doing something that as far as he could tell she thought was crazy, but she was still confident enough to try and shake his hand.
Interesting. Perhaps there is more to her than crashing down other people’s doors.
“I used to work for the city,” she said bluntly. “Nothing fancy, just data work. Anyway, I got a promotion yesterday, for helping clean up some long-standing files. So I was transferred to a new division downtown.”
He nodded along, wondering when it was going to get to the pertinent part. Time was not on their side at the moment, but he held his breath. After all, he had ordered her to tell him everything.
“The guy who told me he was my new boss was a bit of a creep, but I just brushed that off,” she said, following in his footsteps as he made his way back to his truck and began to toss more gear inside. “I’m used to that. There are creepers everywhere who will hit on anyone. So I reported like ordered.”
“And then what happened?” he prodded, trying to move it along a tad faster.
“I got there this morning, and it all just felt… wrong. Really wrong. All the men were dressed the same. They were rude and acted as if I were practically nonexistent. It got worse as I prepared to head upstairs. Then three big men were in the elevator, and something told me that if I didn’t get out of the building, I never would have left. So I freaked out, got ridiculously lucky and sneaked back into the elevator, and left.”
Jared frowned. “So what does any of that have to do with us and you coming here?”
“They started following me. Chasing me really,” she said, and again he got the impression she was telling him no lies, but she certainly wasn’t including the entire truth. “I was never going to make it to a police station. So I came out here.”
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “Some guys at work gave you the creeps. So you decided to drive out to what the news is calling a terrorist hideout, and hope they could protect you?”
Nadia’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah, when you put it that way, it sounds absolutely stupid, doesn’t it?”
Jared barked a laugh. “That’s one way to put it,” he said mildly. He thought about calling her on her avoidance, but decided he didn’t have the time. Or perhaps he was letting her beauty, the little button nose, the slightly thicker swath of freckles below her eyes, or the thickness of her rear push aside his objections. Either way, he knew he wouldn’t be doing it now.
“So what do you want from us?” he asked, still not positive about that.
“Protection?” she asked.
“For how long?”
“As long as I need it?”
He snorted. “That could be forever if you’ve pissed off the people that are coming here.”
“Oh,” she said uncomfortably. “If I get away from the city, will I be safe?”
“Safer,” he said. “Stick with me, and we’ll see about that.” He left it unsaid that she would have to come clean before that would happen, but the unhappy look in her eyes told him that Nadia picked up on it.
“Where are you going now?” she asked, grabbing a bag and trying to lift it. “Oh,” she said as the bag barely budged.
Jared reached over and casually lifted it from the ground and hurled it into his truck.
“Another secret terrorist base,” he said dryly.
The woman visibly flinched.
“We’re not actually terrorists,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “Just people not welcome here anymore.”
“I know,” she said, the inflection on her tone making him wonder just how much she truly did know about them.
Jared turned as noise came from the tunnel.