Rylee shook her head. “Ms. H., you now work for us. All ties to the CIA are secondary to our needs, understood?”
“About that, ma’am—”
Rylee cut her off. “We’ll talk privately after I brief you on your assignment.”
Nik wondered if she would decide to quit working for the LIA. If he was human, he would. Hell, even as a werewolf he preferred his human comrades to the pack.
Emma shrugged. “I suppose we can start with interviewing the warden. I take it he’s in Croatia?”
“No. He’s on his way here. His plane should arrive in a couple hours.”
Nik frowned. “I don’t think soldiers would have volunteered.”
Rylee smirked. “They might have jumped at the idea of becoming super human mercenaries.”
“My father had files on all bioengineers with the means for working on wolf hybridization experiments,” said Emma.
“Yes, we got the intel thanks to him. However, there might have been others with secret labs, hidden from our noses,” said Rylee.
“Do you think the Keep is working on a lethal way to reverse the change?” asked Nik.
“We have someone on the inside and as far as he knows, the Keep vowed to stop any type of lycanthropy. My instincts say this experimentation is run by a rogue werewolf group working with a human biotechnologist. Could be someone in the government working on creating an elite group of soldiers,” said Rylee.
Nik narrowed his eyes. “Or Russian government.”
“I could see that,” said Emma.
“This is not the Cold War, Emma,” countered Nik. Did she hate Russians?
“Not cold, but lukewarm,” she said.
Nik shrugged. “Have there been any missing werewolves?”
“I’m having all the wardens report any missing lycans, but as far as we know even the ones in Croatia are accounted for.”
“Well, they must be getting DNA from werewolves, either living or maybe from the bones of the departed,” said Emma.
Rylee nodded. “That’s what we need to find out.” She turned to Nik. “Return to your station, while I talk privately with Emma.”
Nik didn’t want to leave, but obeyed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter Three
Emma swallowed as Nik left the room. Alone with Rylee who, as the alpha’s alpha, intimidated the hell out of her.
Rylee sat across from Emma and smiled. As much as she could strike the fear of god in everyone, her smile reassured that she had one’s back. “Not so long ago, my father sat across from your father, Lawrence York, our key human, our Mr. H.”
Emma’s eyes threatened to fill with tears. “Father was thirty-nine years old and second to my grandfather.”
“And you are twenty-eight years old, thinking you had another ten or more years before your father retired.”
“Not necessarily. My grandfather died in action. Once I learned the nature of my father’s work, I feared losing him as well.” Emma’s mother had died when she was five. Her live-in nanny, Mara had been in Rylee’s pack. She taught Emma survival skills. At age twelve, Emma had to survive in the Canadian Rockies for a week with nothing but a small pack of five essentials she had selected. Naturally, Mara had watched her from a short distance, although, at the time, she didn’t know it. The experience nonetheless built confidence in Emma. Her former nanny now lived in England and she visited her at least once a year.
“Shall I formerly introduce you as the new Ms. H. or do you need to think about it?”
“You mean you would let me go if I chose not to serve the LIA?” She hadn’t expected a choice. Part of her was duty bound to her family’s legacy and the other part felt as though she were betraying her government, her kind. What if she and Danny had gotten married? Permitted to tell a spouse, she still would have hesitated. Would he have taken the lycan blood vow? Her father told her he never told her mother. Knowing Danny was a brilliant intelligence officer, he would have learned her secret.
“You didn’t know your father had the same choice?”