Laurann Dohner - Wrath

The man cut her off. “You said his name is Wrath?”

“Yes.”

The man growled. “I have a list of all New Species right in front of me. There is no one named Wrath. Female, if you ever call here again I will send the police to your home. We have your address right here. Any incoming calls are immediately traced.” He recited Amanda’s address. “Never call here again.” He hung up.

Lauren clenched her teeth. She turned her head to stare at Wrath. He was definitely New Species. She dialed again and the same man answered.

“Listen to me, whoever you are. I’m looking at him. He’s right here in the living room. Please send someone to arrest me because when they get here they are going to take one look at him and know I’m not lying. He’s been shot with a dart and he’s unconscious. He needs help, I’m worried about him, and have no idea what was in that dart. I was told not to dial 9-1-1 so I haven’t. They took two more of your people, are holding two women hostage and hurt a man named Brian. He was bleeding in an alley.”

“Who did this to the male and those others you mentioned?” He sounded bored.

“My boss and some of my coworkers. They took two of your people at gunpoint and were going to put them in the courtesy van my company owns. They—”

“Don’t call here again, damn it. Call a head shrink.” The man hung up.

“Fuck!” Lauren hit the top of the bar.

“He didn’t believe you?” Amanda lifted her head.

Lauren was pissed. “No. He hung up on me again. I wish I knew where headquarters was but I wasn’t paying much attention when we left there.”

“Well, all you can do is hope that whatever they shot him with wears off soon and then he can tell us what to do.”

Lauren pushed off the barstool and walked toward him. She sank down on her knees and put her hand on his chest while she studied his face. She removed the glasses with gentle fingers, stroked his cheek and hoped that he’d wake soon.

“I hope it was just a sedative. What if it wasn’t?”

“We’ll watch him and if he stops breathing or something, we’ll call for an ambulance.”

Lauren nodded. She shifted her body, getting comfortable, to stay by Wrath’s side. She wasn’t about to let anything happen to him.

* * * * *

Saturn shook his head, trying to shake off his anger. Didn’t humans have anything better to do than screw with him? He got a bunch of crazy calls every day. An hour before a female had called to see if she could hire a Species to be present at her child’s birthday party as if one of them would visit just to entertain children. The call before that was from a man saying he wanted to marry a Species female. Now a female was calling to tell him someone in a courtesy van was kidnapping his people and she had one of them in her living room. He snorted.

“Bad day?” Tiger, his supervisor, smiled.

“I hate phone duty,” Saturn admitted. “Humans are crazy.”

Tiger nodded. “I know. I can never decide if the ones who call to tell me to die are worse than the ones who call and ask me if they can get a ride back with us to our home planet.”

“Direct line, Tiger,” a female Species called out. “It’s Tim Oberto and there’s a problem.”

Tiger cursed. Four—no, three—of his Species males were working with Tim’s task force. He prayed there wasn’t another issue. One of the males had already turned out to be unstable and unfit for duty. He hoped another one of them hadn’t cracked under the pressure. He walked to the phone and lifted it to his ear.

“What is wrong?”

“We have a big fucking problem. One of my men and all three of yours have been taken. We’re tracking two of your men and our man at this moment. They had their uniforms on and they are tagged. We’re in pursuit and we should have them at any time unless they are stripped of their clothes. Unfortunately one of your men wasn’t wearing his uniform and didn’t take a tracker. We have no idea where he is, Tiger. He’s off radar unless he’s with the others.”

“Son of a bitch. Which one is missing?”

“Wrath.”

Tiger frowned. “Who?”

Tim sighed. “You called him 919. I ordered them to pick names and that’s the one he chose.”

“Wrath?” Tiger pushed back anger that something had gone wrong and fear for the safety of his males. “What happened?”

Tim quickly explained what the mission had been. “The woman called in on Brian’s phone to alert us all hell was breaking loose. Brian is one of my men assigned to your guys. She’s in the wind too now, wasn’t on scene when we arrived, and to be honest, I’m playing catch-up. Your men didn’t run this by me first or I would have sent more backup, Tiger. I just pulled the damn notes Brass made so I know what the hell was going on and who this woman is. No one was there when we got to the address. The entire office was abandoned. We found our SUV around the corner and some blood on the ground where she said Brian was injured.”

“You think the woman stole them?”

Tim sighed. “She alerted us to something being wrong. Otherwise we wouldn’t have known to activate their tracking devices until they didn’t report in. That would have been a few hours. We’re assuming she’s friendly at this moment and was taken with the team.”

“Got it. So a human female is missing too? What is her name? Did 358 pick a name too?”

Tiger wrote it down. “I’ll alert my people. Maybe whoever has them wants a ransom. Call me back the second you close in on those signals.” He hung up.

Tiger spun and raised his voice. “Everyone, we have a situation. We have three missing Species males, a human male and a human female. Our males were on a retrieval mission with the human male driver from the task force and a human female who was helping them locate the target. Our men missing are Brass, 919 and 358.” He paused. “Sorry. They picked names. 919 is going by Wrath and 358 is going by Shadow.”

Saturn suddenly cursed and stood. “Did you say Wrath?”

Tiger fixed his gaze on Saturn.

“Would the human female’s name possibly be Lauren?”

Tiger strode across the room toward him. “Yes. Lauren Henderson.”

“Shit. She called us but I thought she was a crackpot. I hung up on her twice. She’s got Wrath and wanted us to help him but I didn’t believe her.”

* * * * *

Lauren grew more alarmed as time passed and Wrath didn’t wake. She had borrowed clothes from Amanda, changed into something more comfortable, and stayed by his side. Amanda had tried to convince Lauren that he’d rest easier if they removed Wrath’s shirt. Lauren shook her head at her best friend.

“Give it up. We’re not stripping him down.”

“But he’d be more comfortable.”

“Not when he woke up and needed a shower from you drooling all over him.”

“I’ll get a drool rag and tie it around my neck.”

Lauren laughed. “For the last damn time, no! You aren’t taking his clothes off.”

“You removed his boots.”

“Well, that’s just his feet. He’s sleeping. No one should do that with their boots on.”

“He’s got big feet and hands. Think that saying is true?” Amanda grinned.

“It is in his case.”

Amanda’s eyes widened. “You peeked when I was changing, didn’t you? God, you’re such a bitch. You are supposed to do everything with your best friend.”

Lauren hesitated and decided to just tell her friend the truth. “I didn’t peek while you were changing. I’ve showered with him.”

“No! Get out! You’re lying just to make me jealous.”

“We spent last night together.”

Amanda let her eyes roam up and down the man on the pink inflatable mattress. Her gaze returned to Lauren. “You are my hero, girlfriend.”