Down the hallway on our floor we passed no one. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator, we didn’t hear or see a soul. When we got to the floor above ours, we saw our first person. The tall man paid us absolutely no attention as he stepped into the stairwell, aside from a slight twitch of his nose as he scented me. With my heat closing in, my scent would be elevated. It didn’t affect him, though.
“Good morning,” I said politely as we passed. He nodded.
This floor was more open than ours, hosting a big office. The path through the middle was as narrow as our hallway, but on either side there were cubicles and desks instead of solid walls hiding livable suites. On the far side of the floor were offices with glass doors and floor to ceiling windows to the outside. A few people milled about, typing away or chattering quietly into their headpieces.
I hadn’t realized assassinating people involved so much office work.
Then again, the intelligence information needed to complete a hit was vast. I’d never planned a murder before. They just happened due to circumstance.
“This place is more organized than I’d expected,” Em said, echoing my sentiment. “Shan would love it. He thrives with solid research behind him. When I was doing the team’s office work, he nearly lost his damn mind.”
“I heard from Cas that you type like a grandmother.”
He released an exaggerated gasp. “How dare he be so rude to me.”
Chuckling, I peeked over the shoulder of one of the few people working, finding he was pouring over surveillance footage. There were so many desks in here I had to assume field agents had their own too, because having that many tech people couldn’t be cost efficient.
“Can we help you?” a man said behind us.
The second we saw him, Em and I were both on high alert. This wasn’t an office worker. He had an air of danger about him, a lethality that made my spine tingle.
His dark hair hung in two French braids, hitting just below his shoulder blades. The clothes he was wearing weren’t suited to the modern Null world. He wore black leather pants, likely made from a Zemterran creature, with utility pockets and weapon holsters sewn in. His chest was covered by a harness also holstering plenty of weapons, worn over a cream linen tunic. The attire was distinctly Zemterran, which I only knew from history books. I’d never visited, and wouldn’t have been safe if I’d tried.
Most intimidating of all, the entire left side of his face was mangled. Skin had been ripped and shredded, not healing properly from the attack and leaving lumpy scar tissue behind. His left eye was cloudy and unseeing, and I was shocked it had survived the attack at all.
“Who’swe?” I asked, only using a second to absorb all the information about his appearance. “There’s only one of you.”
He looked behind him, letting out an exasperated groan. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Sky. You can’t go invisible whenever someone unfamiliar shows up.”
Ah. I inhaled a deep breath, discovering there were two men present. Both were Alphas. The one standing visibly in front of us was an angel. He was likely a fallen angel, one who controlled shadows and walked freely in Zemterra. They were rare. Sky was a mage like I was. Neither of their scents were overly offensive to me, but I shifted a little closer to Emmett so his comforting, homey dryer scent overpowered theirs. He noticed my movement, but didn’t seem to realize I’d moved closer to bask in his scent, which was all the better.
Sky didn’t go visible despite the other man’s urging, and he turned to us again with a heavy sigh. “Can I help you? Since apparently Sky isn’t in a helpful mood.”
“We don’t need any help. Thanks, though.”
“You look like you’re snooping, and I’ve never seen you before.”
“I can’t imagine you’re on Earth much in that attire. I’m not sure why you’re surprised you’ve never seen us before.”
He laughed, glancing down at himself. “I do look out of place, don’t I? Well, I’m surprised I haven’t seen you because I would have heard of an Omega employee. Also, to my knowledge, Nolan is keeping an Omega woman prisoner on the floor below us. Would you know anything about that?”
Well, fuck. This man knew who I was. I’d forgotten I wasn’t using a scent dampener anymore. I should get used to all kinds of unwelcome attention and being identified easier than I was used to. “Prisoner is the wrong word,” I said, going for cocky. “I have free rein to wander the premises. There was no guard on my door.”
Surprised, he gestured for us to follow him. He walked into an office, shutting the door behind us all. Sky’s scent was lingering, so he was in the room as well.
They weren’t immediately trying to detain us and return us to our suite, so there was an upside. Emmett sat down in a chai and I perched on his knee. He kept the surprise off his face. It only made sense for me to make myself unavailable in front of unmated Alphas. I sure as fuck didn’t need any more potentials than I already had. That Em wasn’t technically dating me was irrelevant.
“Are you planning on telling us secrets?” I asked, leaning back against the big shifter’s chest.
“Not secrets. But the techs tend to be gossips, so I thought this conversation was better continued outside their hearing range,” he said, relaxing against the sparse desk. “You’re telling me Nolan left you unguarded?”
“At first he didn’t, obviously. I was scared and lashing out.” Scared wasn’t true, but I might as well play myself up as the weak Omega since I was stuck with the designation. “Once I had my Alphas again I was much happier. My men are going to be working for him, so he was going to have to trust them, eventually. Why not start now?”
It was only a bit of a bluff. The agreement hadn’t been set in stone yet, but it had been discussed.
His one eye narrowed, the other only twitching because of the scar tissue. “You must have been terrified,” he said. “Aren’t the men who came with you employees of the Next Life Company?”
Emmett piped up for the first time. He didn’t seem uncomfortable with strangers, exactly, but he was happy to let someone else do most of the talking. “There was an incident, and we’re no longer employed. Or employable. Nolan was kind enough to offer us a new life.”
