He didn’t buy the fine excuses they’d all been handed decades ago—telling them the holding facilities had all burned to the ground on the same day.

Convenient, as Asher had just finished demanding better living for the men in them.

“I don’t buy the load of shit the guys in charge are trying to make us swallow over what happened to the Outcast Facilities. Do you?” asked Asher. “And I think we’re being lied to again. You think they’re on the level?”

Shaking his head, Lukian pointed to the cleanup crew who were farther out in the distance on the dock. “From this mess, I’d say something is up. You think the rogues with PSI came in after Eadan, Jon and Duke left?” asked Lukian.

At the mention of Jon’s name, Asher tensed. “Any word from him yet?”

Asher had ordered Jon take leave. The man had gotten into his own head, and if he didn’t get himself sorted out and soon, he’d end up dead or he’d get someone else killed. Jon had been ordered to take a three-day leave and that was some six days prior. No one had spoken with him since then.

Lukian shook his head. “No. Green is still looking for him. Inara is back home helping since the others are too close to their due dates to be running around.”

“Are they checking the bars?” asked Asher without malice in this voice. Jon Reynell was in a low spot and had been since the tragic death of his teammate and best friend Lance. Didn’t matter what any of the men tried to do to help Jon come back from it, he just sank deeper and deeper. It didn’t help matters any that Jon was the last of the team members without a mate. The other men had beaten the odds and found their true mates.

That was rare.

They were now family men. All except Jon and him. But Asher kept himself removed from the men, never going on missions with them. It was the only way he knew to keep them from finding out what he really was.

Lukian turned in a slow circle. Blood and guts were everywhere the eye could see and probably a lot of places it couldn’t. “What the hell happened here?”

“I don’t know, but from what the cleanup crew has been able to determine, there are all kinds of different supernaturals in this.”

“It’s a hot mess,” breathed Lukian.

Asher agreed. It was. Whatever had happened on the pier after his men left had been rage-fueled. The more he looked around at the carnage, the more he became aware of having seen something similar in his past. “Bezerker of the shifter variety.”

Lukian stilled. “I’d buy that if they weren’t myths. I’ve seen a lot in a hundred-plus years. Never ran into one of those.”

Asher held his tongue. They existed and he was pretty sure more than one had a hand in what had gone down on the pier, though something was slightly off with it all. He met Lukian’s gaze. “Call Green and ask what the odds are of creating supernaturals who would end up in crazed bezerk-like states? And not just high energy, high violence—I mean all-out-gone killing rages.”

“You don’t think Krauss and his people created something that could do this, do you?” asked Lukian, worry on his face.

Asher stared out at the cleanup team, still working hard to remove any traces of what had gone down. “At this point, I’ll believe anything.”

“I’ll get with Green and take Statler and Waldorf there with me,” added Lukian as he thumbed in the direction of Roi and Eadan. “Want to meet back at the plane?”

“Yes. I’ll finish up here and then I have a stop to make,” said Asher.

Lukian grinned. “This stop wouldn’t happen to have a sexy redheaded succubus at it, would it?”

Asher had known Lukian a long time. The man held Asher’s obsession close to the vest and that was appreciated. “She ended up involved in all of this, and I asked for her help on a matter. I just need to see that she’s all right.”

“Of course,” said Lukian. He touched Asher’s shoulder. “You could always just claim her as yours, you know.”

He snorted. “What makes you think I could?”

Lukian eyed him. “The fact you haven’t aged in all the years I’ve known you. I’m guessing that means you’re fair game in the immortal mate market, and since I’ve known you, you’ve checked in on her a whole hell of a lot.”

“Maybe I just like getting my rocks off at a brothel,” said Asher.

Lukian laughed. “Oh yeah, sure. I believe that. I’ve seen you around her before. You’re not sleeping with her—yet.”

Asher grinned despite himself. “Go do what I told you to. I’ll meet you at the plane.”

“Yes, sir,” said Lukian, waggling his brows as he headed for Roi and Eadan. The two men were now taking turns pushing each other, much like small children would.

Yep.

Preschoolers.

Asher stepped over something he was pretty sure used to be an arm. When the cleanup team had notified him of the extent of the carnage, he’d boarded a plane with half the I-Ops team and headed to Seattle at once to try to figure out what had happened.

So far, it was a mystery to them all. Asher was sure of one thing—Walter Helmuth had something to do with it and he’d been rumored to be in bed with two genetic-altering bigwig bad guys—Krauss and Molyneux.

That just screamed trouble.

Men like Helmuth always seemed like scared little boys to Asher. So desperate were they to cling to power that they would do anything to hold on to it—even kill. The man had apparently aligned with the wrong people if this was the result, because a huge number of the identifiable bodies belonged to known Helmuth associates.

Asher had seen far too many men like Helmuth in his life. They never learned. They always thought their way would give them ultimate power. In the end, it never worked as planned for them.

Helmuth and others like him needed to feel important. Needed to keep people lower than them in order to inflate their egos. Egos that would lead to their downfall.

Helmuth wasn’t the first guy to try to rule through violence. Hell, Asher’s past had a man even worse than Helmuth in it.

It’s in your blood, he thought, stiffening.

Asher considered exacting revenge upon Helmuth, the likes of which the man had never seen. But Asher knew better than to. He’d seen firsthand what fully giving in to power such as his own could do to a person. It left them a shell of what they’d been—filled with rage, evil and the all-consuming need to kill.

Checks and balances.

Nature was full of them. So was the supernatural community.

His cell phone buzzed.  He removed it from his inner jacket pocket and nearly laughed when he spotted who was calling. A figurehead, placed in his role to give the few humans who knew of the I-Ops existence a false sense of security. As if they had the men on leashes and could pull back when they liked.

“Brooks,” he said, answering the phone.

The man on the other end didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Dammit, Brooks, I’m looking at a report here that says Seattle is a fucking disaster. You better have more proof than this that we’ve got traitors among us or—”

Grinning, Asher cut the man off. “Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

“I’ll have you replaced, and you know what happens to people we replace,” the man threatened.

Asher rolled his eyes. “Oh, do tell.”

“You may be tight with Newman and the others, but you’re nothing to me,” warned the man.

“As you are to me,” Asher warned. He would not take kindly to the man interfering any further. He let his power rise slowly and concentrated on the pudgy, balding man who’d let his position go to his head. “Do not even think of pushing me on this. You will pass the report to who it needs to go to and you will sign off on it, as you know as well as I do that you and the others like you have not been honest with any of us. And unless you want me showing up in your room while you’re in a dead sleep, standing over you with a sword, ready to remove that thick head of yours, I’d suggest you do as you’re told.”