And when he looked at her, Olivia believed it. “You’re going to be safe.”

  A shy heat welled up within her in response to his confident statement. “Thank you.” If he was able to hold himself back from her, then she could follow in his example.

  She hoped.

  Maybe.

  Fuck. She doubted it.

  “Right.” Jack stood, signaling the end to the meeting. “The three of you can get the hell out of my office now. Go. And Chase, remember, don’t let your dick get in the way of this mission."

  Olivia wanted to die. Her chest, neck, cheeks, and ears blew up as though someone had put a furnace on full blast just beneath her skin.

  Why would he say something like that with her standing right there? Was this just the way they talked in this office?

  Maybe not, because Chase seemed about as pleased with his boss’ choice of words as Olivia did. "Great. Thank you so much for that."

  Chase did not do anything so obvious as take her by the hand and lead her out the door, but Olivia still sensed a certain protection from him as they left together.

  She walked ahead of her two mates, both men flanked behind her like they were bodyguards to some she was a high-priority client. She didn’t like the feeling. She was here to help with the job. Sure, she wasn’t going to be an equal partner to them, but at least she wasn’t going to let them treat her like her protection was the mission, or like she was made of glass.

  "I can't believe you just let him say that,” Mike muttered under his breath.

  “You want me to start a fight with Jack? Don't think that would go so well for me, but thanks for your opinion."

  She stopped and turned to face them, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I wasn't offended, you don't have to come to my rescue."

  Mike wasn’t willing to let it go so easily. "Something we need to get clear right now, we know you can defend yourself, in the water and out. You’re a kraken shifter, which means you’re powerful as fuck. You’re also someone strong enough and motivated enough to come in as a volunteer for a case like this. You wouldn't exactly be doing any of this if you were some kind of delicate princess."

  Olivia heard his words, but there was something lacking in them. Despite Mike saying he trusted her to hold her own, something about him screamed “protector.” It made Olivia feel like she needed to do more to convey a sense of strength. To shout from the rooftops that she was independent and self-sufficient.

  But actions spoke louder than words, so no matter how much she wanted to insist that she did not need to be coddled, she would have to wait it out till she could show them what she was capable of.

  “I don’t know why you’re both following me. I don’t know where I’m going. Do you have an office or a cubicle, we’re heading to? Or another meeting room to go over the files? They call that a war room, right?” She’d seen plenty of movies that had meeting rooms set up with photos pinned to the walls, and maps marked up with all the victim’s locations and reports of other suspicious activity that could be tied to the suspect.

  “You can wait in this room for us.” He motioned her to follow and opened a door into a small room with a little table and a few chairs. It looked like a room she’d seen on TV, all right, but not the war room she’d thought of. This one looked like the kind of room where witnesses and suspects were questioned. Where someone tried to pull a confession out of a perp.

  She looked at both men. “Where are you going?" She was pretty positive, looking at the way they tried not to glare at each other, that they were going to have a talk about her.

  "I just want to go over parts of the case with him," Mike said.

  Chase nodded, going along with the garbage excuse. They acted as though Olivia was an idiot. “Go over the case?”

  “Right,” Chase said. “And I want to grab some of my notes I left behind at my desk."

  Olivia wasn’t about to put up with that. "No.”

  They both kept it up with their fake smiles. Chase cocked his head a little. “No?”

  “That's what I said. No.” If she was going to be stuck in the weird position of having two mates, then Olivia was going to get a few things straight from the start.

  Olivia entered the room, sat down in one of the plastic chairs, and put her feet up on the table. “You want to unload me here so you can go off and argue over me. Well, forget it. I’m part of this, I know what happened in there. It's stupid, and should not be happening right now, but you're both my mates.”

  It was interesting watching the way both pairs of eyebrows flew up into their respective hairlines. They entered the room and shut the door behind them.

  Olivia continued, “But I’m here to catch this killer, and I’m going to follow Jack’s orders and not let this situation be a distraction. So, we have one week, and you don’t get to go off and argue and waste precious seconds that should be used to training me."

  Both men gaped at her. "You could tell?" Mike said, his voice flat and dead.

  Chase, on the other hand, glared at the other man. "I fucking knew it. I knew it. You've got eyes for my mate."

  “No,” she hissed, pointing a finger at one and then the other. “You are not about to devolve into some shit like that and ruin this for me. I don't care if you're my mate, if it’s one of you or both of you or the whole damn task force. I'll walk right back into Jack’s office and tell him to find me someone else to work with, because, fun fact, I’m essential to this operation. I can’t be replaced, but you both can.”

  Both men were speechless.

  And Olivia felt powerful as fuck.

  She kinda liked it. It went right to her head in the best possible way.

  They both continued staring at her as though they were trying to figure out what just happened, how a civilian had gained control over them. It was enough to make Olivia smile. Just a little bit. And mostly for herself.

  “Now, would you like to accept me as a team member, and show me to the war room where you can fill me in on the case? I’m going to need to start working on my strategy, and I can’t do that without taking in all the information you have."

  She stood and pushed past them to leave the room.

  Damn, it felt good to be in charge.

  3

  For Chase, finding his mate was supposed to be the best day of his life. From when he was a kid, his mother and father and every mated adult he'd ever known had told him he would be blown away when it came.

  It would knock him off his feet, make him see stars, and then leave him begging and slobbering for more.

  That much had been true. However, he hadn’t imagined or prepared himself for learning that he was going to have to share the woman he was meant to spend his life with.

  Add on top of that getting chewed out by her, and Chase wasn't having a great day.

  At least Olivia showed that she understood the situation. She was clearly not pleased about the way Chase and Mike continued to growl at each other, but she knew exactly where she was and what she was in the middle of.

  That was enough to remind Chase that he was a professional, and despite wanting to do very unprofessional things to Olivia, and violent things to Mike, his dick was no longer allowed to do the thinking here.

  At least, not until he could get Olivia all to himself and experience what her thighs felt like around his waist.

  How tight was her grip? He knew what they said about tentacles….

  Like Chase, Olivia was new to the Aquaterrestrial Task Force. Unlike him, she was untrained, not an agent, but a civilian, and she was going to be used as bait to flush out a killer. It was a risky mission.

  Chase was on loan from his main team at the FPU. A harpy shifter, he wasn’t a water shifter like the rest of the Aquaterrestrial Task Force members, but he was damn good at his comms job, so he was sent down to help. When he’d first met Mike, he thought they’d get on just fine. Now Chase thought that fate had a really sick sense of humor, bringing them all together like this.

  Mike nodded at him, a motion that suggested a tentative truce.

  Prick. Chase should have been the one doing the silent nodding here.

  But he couldn't fight with Mike. They had a job to do. Somebody, a kraken just like his new mate, was out there tearing up young women and teen boys in the water. Chase was going to do his job, do it well, and not think about the fact that he couldn't be underwater with Olivia the way Mike could be.

  Or the way they would have a chance to bond down there. Just the two of them.

  But this was stupid. He shouldn't be worried about Olivia picking favorites.

  Because he was most definitely the favorite.

  Except…

  Chances were good her favorite would be another shifter capable of entering the water with her, who could protect her in those depths when she would most need it.

  No. He was not going to think like that. He had to get his head back in the game. Had to focus.

  They wouldn't be flirting underwater with each other because they had a job to do. People were dying and this case needed to be solved as soon as possible.

  With all that going on, there was no need to be jealous. There would be no time to be jealous.

  When this was all over with, they would figure it out. Do all the flirting and passionate fucking they wanted.

  Hopefully.

  For the next week, Olivia was put through her paces.

  The fact that she had never held a gun before was worrisome, but she learned quickly. Chase stood at her side while she did an impressive job of putting holes into the target. She wasn't flinching so much with the loud, popping noises either.

  Olivia emptied her clip, and he watched her lower her weapon, safely hand it over to him, and then remove her hearing protection. “Will I even be able to fire this when we’re under?”

  “No,” Chase said.

  “So why am I learning this? Shouldn't we be doing other things?”

  Mike, who was supervising their training, spoke up. “You need to know this because standard safety practices are a must. The goal will be to keep any and all weapons out of your hands since you're not an agent, but on the off chance something happens, knowing you can defend yourself will be an asset.”

  Olivia nodded. Chase wished he was the only one teaching her.

  “Protect myself out of water, right?”

  “Right. The fortunate thing is that you're the sort of species not too many people or shifters are going to be prone to messing with.” She was a goddamn kraken, and that was so much hotter than Chase thought it had any right to be.

  “Why?” Chase asked, something unpleasant coming to mind. “Are you concerned?”

  “I can defend myself,” Olivia said quickly, pushing a strand of that bright red hair out of her eyes. It had come loose from her ponytail, and Chase wanted to swirl it around his fingers. “I've done it before.”

  Wait a minute. What?

  Mike spoke up. He set down the clipboard he was using to grade her progress and stood. “Underwater missions are tricky. Communication is low, and standard pistols are near worthless, but we make it work. Now come on, the both of you. We need to get back to work.”

  Chase fought back a growl.

  He hated this. Hated it so much that the woman who volunteered to help, the only kraken they could find for their plans, just had to be his mate.

  His very sexy, ultra-attractive, and deadly mate.

  The fact that he had to share her with Mike, and that he was on their asses as they worked, taking his stupid notes and looking over Chase’s shoulders was enough to make the Pope antsy.

  The short amount of time Olivia had to learn the ropes went by way too damn fast. Practically the blink of an eye. Which was amazing in and of itself because Chase had yet to take his mate to bed.

  Newly mated couples tended to fuck like bunnies. They needed to. The heat of the mating pulled them together. Their bodies demanded it.

  At least he could be content knowing that Mike was in the same situation. He would have been able to smell Mike on her if they’d been together.

  And he really fucking hated thinking about that. His inner animal was wild with jealousy.

  Focus. He had to focus on the job and not on her delectable body.

  They moved quickly. The public wanted answers, and everyone wanted the killer off the streets. But now that Olivia was involved, now that she was going to be using herself as bait to lure out what they believed to be another kraken, Chase wished they could take their time. He wanted her to get all of the training exercises possible so she’d be as prepared as possible.

  They had their first outing barely a week after she first volunteered. It was meant to be only a test exercise, but as far as Chase was concerned, it was still too soon to put Olivia through the paces.

  It wasn’t just the three of them, either. There was an entire team watching and participating. The FPU and ATTF weren’t about to clear a civilian for a mission if she presented any sort of liability. She had to prove herself in this test.

  In a way, Mike and Chase were also being tested. They had to show everyone that they could work together, and professionally, despite their personal situation.

  The exercise wouldn’t last long. Mike was to be the biggest fish in the water, aside from Olivia, and that meant that the smaller water shifters faced certain risks with being in the water too long. Larger fish eat the smaller fish and don’t stop to ask their meal if they’re actually a shifter. The last thing they needed was for an agent to become a snack.

  Mike would be with Olivia, but at a distance.

  But not too much of a distance.

  Chase might be jealous as fuck that he couldn't go into the water with them, but that didn't mean he was stupid. He wasn't about to risk the life of his mate. He had to trust Mike.

  Olivia, on the other hand, would be only shifting halfway. Meaning, her top half would stay in its human form, and, well, her bottom half would be showing a few more tentacles.

  Chase hadn’t been sure of this plan at first. But then he realized the entire point was to draw attention to themselves. Rather, for Olivia to draw attention to herself.

  If this was another kraken shifter they were dealing with, then they wanted him, or her, to have a chance to see that Olivia was one of them.

  Kraken shifters were rare, and there was a good chance that if one heard about another, that they’d want to meet. If their kraken suspect heard about Olivia, they might be compelled to track her down.

  And then they hoped to make contact. Which would be followed by a swift and smooth suspect apprehension.

  The beaches where the bodies had washed up were still closed to the public. Thanks to a team of dedicated security, the only people who would be on the premises would be those assisting with the mission.

  "Carol, are we good to go?" Chase asked from his spot in the van as he tapped his fingers on the consul in front of him.

  "Eyes and ears are up in the air, cameras have been set down below, we should be good."

  “Should be, or we are?" He checked the monitors, seeing the cameras above the clear, almost crystalline turquoise water shimmering with the light that reflected off its surface. It was beautiful.

  And the last place in the world he would've expected a killer to be lurking.

  "We're good," Carol answered.

  Chase could feel her looking at him, trying to figure out what his problem was. "If you're worried about Mike—”

  “I'm not.” He swiveled in his chair to look at her. “And what makes you think I’m worried about anything, anyway?"

  She shrugged and turned her nose back to the screens in front of her. “No reason.”

  Clenching his hands on his knees, Chase turned back to the screens that needed to be watched. There were so many coves and caves where something or someone sinister could be hiding.

  Tiny underwater cameras had been set up in as many nooks and crannies as they could manage. Sonar systems measured the noise below the water, but no one would be communicating with Mike, or Olivia, or any of the other agents down there.

  All Chase could do was watch and wait.

  4

  The mission was to keep within sight of the cameras. For this exercise, they would be sticking to more shallow waters. The deeper, darker waters, where the light struggled to penetrate and the cameras would likely pick up little, would come later.

  Olivia's heart raced. She forced herself to breathe deep through her gills, which were barely noticeable on her human neck. She had on a bikini top and carried a bag.

  This was it. This might be the day she met someone else just like her. Another member of her kind.

  Someone who was probably a serial killer.

  So, not fun.

  At least the actions expected from her, which consisted of frolicking around in the water while keeping to the paths set out for her, wasn't so bad.

  She'd memorized these paths on the maps and studied enough photos and videos during her training to feel like she'd swam there a thousand times before. There’s the jagged coral, and the greenish-grey rock over there.

  She felt down a pair of eyes watching her from below. Eyes that had nothing to do with the many cameras hidden on the planned path.

  Mike.

  He was down there. She could almost see him.

  Almost.

  But she felt him.

  Which concerned her. If she felt him, then could the killer pick up on his presence, too?

  She'd make it known in the exercise debrief that Mike was probably going to have to back off just a little, going even deeper in the water.

  She wasn’t going to let him being too close mess things up. She'd gone through so much just to be here. Had put herself through a week of hell, all the rigorous training combined with being carefully watched by suspicious ATTF members who didn’t trust her just because of her shifter form.

 

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