He tried to
sit up, but couldn’t force his body to move. His limbs lacked the coordination
even a newborn possessed, and his dick ached from too much use. Even his balls
had a void in them he’d never experienced before. Why couldn’t he recall where
he’d been or what he’d done? He smacked the bed then cursed the fact he’d done
so.
Raphael “Rafe” Angelo cracked one of his eyes open
and hissed. The dim light of a new day burned his retinas. Was this what a
hangover felt like? He’d laugh if he could. Beings like him didn’t get
hangovers. It was physically impossible. Yet, there he lay, in a bed caked in
crusty jizz and... Was that piss he smelled and rank B.O.?
He wrinkled his nose.
What kind of debauched fuckery had he partaken in?
He tried to swallow and coughed. Sticks—damn near
the size of sequoias—or what felt like it, were lodged in his throat. He slid
his tongue across the roof of his mouth and grimaced. The sandpaper-like
appendage surprised him as well. Something was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
The pounding in his head increased once more as he
tried to recall his memories for the last week along with where he’d been and
what he was doing. A giant black void greeted him once more, causing him to
wince in pain.
I’m dying, I
know it.
Rafe sat up then fell back over.
Nope. Not
happening. The world around him spun. His stomach lurched. The burn of bile
creeping up his throat left an acidic trail along his esophagus. He closed his
eyes again, willing the marching band currently taking up residence in his
brain matter to disperse. It didn’t work. Any other time, waking up covered in
dried cum would have turned him on. He would have relished it. Puffed his chest
out and strut around for several days, but this was bad. He should have been
able to remember what he did.
Where he went.
He glanced over at his clock. The blurry red numbers
came into focus. Five forty-five? In the morning? He’d missed his run. Shit. Caim, his second in command, would
have his ass. As the leader of the Fallen Angels unit, under the direction of
the FBI, Rafe had certain expectations of his men. One of them being, they had
to be at their peak performance. Every morning, they went for a run. Every
evening, they worked out. If they had an assignment, they took the
opportunities as they came.
Here he was, slacking off.
Rafe sat up again. The world tilted and rolled,
causing him to suck air between clenched teeth. A sour sickening feeling
sloshed in his stomach, and he willed the poor, abused organ to still.
Unfortunately, it didn’t listen. He stumbled into the bathroom, making it in
time to give a horrid offering to the porcelain god or whatever humans called a
shitter when drunk.
The thick bile ripped at his insides as he heaved
the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet once more. Twice more, he
dry heaved then nothing. The pain in his brain cleared. The dizzy roller
coaster stopped. A new ache took root in his gut—hunger.
Now I know something is wrong.
He flushed the toilet then stood on weakened legs.
Even with whatever plagued him being purged from his system, the lethargy
remained, making every task that much harder to accomplish. Rafe flipped on the
shower, hoping the hot water would flush the remains of whatever caused him
such ailment. His skin dampened from the steam filling the bathroom, and the
skin on the back of his leg felt off. He scratched the area and frowned when
his fingers came into contact with something rough.
A patch, no bigger than a small round bandage, lay
a bit below his left butt cheek. He traced the fabric disk, trying to remember
what he’d done to warrant such a tiny object, especially since his healing
abilities were twice what a normal fallen angel’s were. Rafe scratched at it
again, and it peeled away from his skin without effort. He glanced down at the
sticky object and frowned. The letters É V I E L were printed diagonally on the
front of it. On the back, a yellowish, odorless substance.
Somehow, he knew, without it having to be
analyzed, that thing resting in the palm of his hand had been the culprit for
all of his issues. What it was or how it got onto him, he’d have to figure out.
He carried it back into his room where his go-bag lay on the floor next to the
door of his room. Inside, were several small evidence bags. Rafe removed one,
then placed the disk inside.
Once he got it into the pouch and sealed with evidence
tape, he initialed it, then went to take his shower. He bent his head under the
warm spray and closed his eyes, trying to figure out everywhere he’d been. No
matter how hard he concentrated on the time he’d lost, it was still a blank
canvas. It was as if someone had wiped his memories for fuck knows how many
days or hours or hell–with the way his bed smelled–weeks?
When he finished getting all the crusty grime off
of his body, he felt a little more like himself. For sure, he’d be worried if
he was human. No one wanted to wake up in their bedroom, covered in their cum,
and someone else’s without memory of what they did. Fallen and wolves wouldn’t
get human diseases, nor were there any types of paranormal afflictions. Didn’t
mean it didn’t wig him out.
As he wrapped a towel around his waist, he caught
a glimpse of a receipt in the bathroom trash can. Louis’s Bar.
His normal hang joint when he wanted to grab a drink. Rafe glanced at the order
and frowned. He’d had two drinks. So, how the fuck did I end up so messed
up? He growled, crumbling up the paper.
The last time he’d felt so lost, had been the day
he fell. The only thing Rafe remembered from God casting him and his brethren
out, was falling and his spirit binding with a wolf. Raum had been the only
other member of his team to have a dual nature. His spirit bonded with a crow.
Together, they learned how to interact with the creatures dwelling within. Now,
Rafe’s wolf became an extension of the man who walked with it. If he lost the
furry monster, he didn’t know what he’d do.
After he dressed, Rafe grabbed his things,
determined to figure out what had transpired. He slipped the small evidence
packet into the pouch of his bag then grabbed his phone off the nightstand. At
least he’d had the wherewithal to put his phone somewhere safe. It vibrated in
his hand and Rafe frowned. Glancing at the screen, he realized he’d missed
several phone calls including six from Caim.
Shit, what did I do?
He slid his finger across the screen as he stepped
out of his apartment. “Angelo here.” His bike wasn’t parked where it should be.
It was six spots down on the opposite side of the building divider.
“Where the hell have you been?” Kendrick—his boss.
“Good question,” he answered.
“Are you smart mouthing me?” Kendrick snapped.
“Nope. What can I do for you?” He placed his pack
in the left-side saddle bag then straddled the beast of a bike.
“I need you to haul your ass into the office, if
it isn’t interfering in your sabbatical.”
Rafe frowned. How long had he been missing or in Adams’s
estimation taking a vacation? “Sure. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Hurry up.”
He clipped his phone to the holder on his bike
then started it. Later, after his meeting, he’d send the package off to the lab
and wait for the results. He pulled out of the driveway of his apartment and
headed toward the office. A niggle at the back of his mind said he should be
worried. Maybe not about getting sick, however he couldn’t account for his lost
time. What the fuck had he done?
The drive to headquarters gave him the chance to
access whatever memories he had. He could recall everything up to the void in
his mind and waking that morning. Anything in between–still nothing. The last
thing he’d said to Caim was taking downtime. The whole team needed it after the
last case. They agreed to meet up on Monday and debrief.
What day is it?
The usually stalwart wolf within him, whined. The
sound caused the hairs on his arms to stand on end. Be at ease, brother. We’ll figure this out. He pulled into the
parking lot of the FBI field office and found a spot near the door. On a normal
day, he’d park in the north forty, but due to the situation at hand, he didn’t
have time for dilly-dick’n around.
Rafe hurried inside and came to a sliding stop at Kendrick’s
office. The door was open, and his team filled the space. All eyes were on him.
He cleared his throat and took a seat next to Caim who stared him down. The
wolf inside him sat up at the challenge, demanding his second come to heel or
be ready to throw down.
Caim snorted then shook his head.
“We done pissing around?” Kendrick grumbled. The
half-demon half-shifter with abilities, stared a hole in the middle of Rafe’s
head. He knew what the man was trying to do, and Rafe allowed it. If anyone
could cut through the black goo keeping his memories at bay, Kendrick could.
“Anything?”
The man snorted. “Nope.”
Fuck.
Kendrick handed Rafe a file before opening his
own. “This morning, a call came in about a shallow grave off of the Old Forest River trail in Salem. An
investigative unit is already on scene with two more highly trained agents in
route as we speak. This isn’t a human matter. It’s something else. Have any of
you heard of a covert government unit called Paranormal Bounty Hunters or PBH
for short?”
Rafe had heard some rumblings about the group. PBH
was a collection of government scientists willing to kidnap shifters and others—those
with psychic abilities—to breed/create new super soldiers for the defense
department—or that’s what PBH wanted people to believe. Hell, it’d been almost
thirty years or so since he heard the first rumblings of them and about ten
years since the last time he’d been aware of their existence. If the last bit
of information was correct, all of their original leaders were either dead
after spending life in prison or were killed on the spot.
“It’s been a long time,” Rafe said. “What do they
have to do with this?”
“Everything,” Kendrick replied. “A group of
shifters out of Window Rock, Arizona have been trying to protect shifters, others,
and those with abilities. In the last fifteen years, PRA—Psychic Retrieval
Agency, has relocated hundreds of children and teens. This, I suspect, has been
the first fuck up for them. If the intel is correct. The shallow grave
contained the two agents, two adults, and two children. We don’t have much to
go by, other than the report taken and the initial outreach phone call made to
our unit.”
“Hence why you want us on the ground,” Raum stated.
“You know we lost our sight when we fell.”
They couldn’t see the dead anymore. They’d also
lost their link to the other angels and to God. They were completely blind on
the mortal plane, which made their job ten times harder while also making them somewhat
human.
“This isn’t the first case, though,” Kendrick
said. “With the little digging I did while waiting for you guys to show up, I
found several similar types of cases. None could ever be linked, but this might
be the one that does. I have sent them to your tablets and requested all of the
crime scene photos be sent to your hotel. It should all be there when you
arrive.”
Rafe nodded. “Makes sense. Sometimes, serial
killers hone their skills. Do it enough times, and they can become proficient
enough to not get caught.”
“Like the Zodiac killer,” Raum said.
“Exactly,” Kendrick answered. “Which also means
this case might be like finding a needle in a haystack. However, that’s where
the two agents come in. You’ll meet up with them on-site and work together to
find those responsible.”
“What’s their ETA?” Rafe flipped through the
meager paperwork from the incident form and frowned.
“Two hours. They will be escorted in by two
federal agents, Hauser Benefield and Maxwell Steele. A perk, I guess, of who
they are and their clout.”
Got it. Self-important agents. “Then we
should get on the road.” The drive would take an hour and half, depending on
traffic. Plus, they still needed to gear up and load their equipment into their
SUVs.
They broke from their meeting, and Caim grabbed
Rafe’s arm. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Apparently,” he answered, “home.”
“For three days?” Caim cocked a brow.
Three fucking days? How the hell had he
lost that much time? What the fuck had he been doing? He’d freak out later when
he was alone; right now, he had to keep his shit together. “Yeah, why?”
“I have been trying to call you since you left the
bar with that guy.” Caim matched him stride for stride as they headed for their
supply room.
Well, that also explained the stains and smells on
his bed. They’d been laying in their own cum and bodily fluids for days. I am burning that fucking shit when I get
back. No way in hell I’ll be sleeping on that mattress again. “Sorry, I
think I shut off my phone on accident.”
“It’s been three fucking days,” Caim hissed in a
hushed tone.
“Good piece of ass,” Rafe replied, trying to keep
his shit together. “What can I say?”
Caim shook his head. “You suck at being a leader.”
He never claimed to be the best, either.
“Whatever. Let’s get our shit and go. It sounds like we have some haughty
agents coming in, and I don’t need them riding my ass because we’re not there
to escort them or whatever the hell they expect from us.” The patch in his bag
would have to wait. If PRA agents were involved in their case, even the little
bits Rafe knew of them, all hell had broken loose.
The heads of the agency were asshole shifters.
Kalkin Raferty, the Sheriff of Apache County shared PRA duties along with his
Co-Alpha Rapier Dryer, and Jerome Blackhorn, a highly decorated former FBI
Agent, and Beta Caden Raferty. Their mates Keeley, Danielle, and Jasmine also
had a hand in the agency. Keeley Raferty ran the traces and hacked databases
along the way, kind of like an underground railroad getting all who needed help
from point A to point B—to them in Window Rock. Danielle Raferty was their
resident healer and doctor, while Jasmine Dryer ran the children’s therapy clinic.
Brienne Blu worked with the adults who happened upon them for services as well.
The Alpha, from the information he could recall about the man, made it his
mission to protect their kind. For all his bullshit bluster, Kalkin Raferty,
even though he was an asshole, had been a stand-up guy, and a fair Alpha, more
than most packs would ever see.
“Yeah, this conversation is far from over, but
you’re right. Our victims need us. I won’t let you fuck this up.” Caim pushed
past him and went straight to his locker.
Ouch, my feelings.
Code Of Love - Book 1: 
Code Of Misconduct - Book 2: 
Code Name Love - Book 3: 
