Not That Angelic: Chosen Book 28 Read online

  Copyright © 2019 J.D. Light

  Edited by Ann Attwood Editing and Proofreading Services

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

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  Chapter One

  Grr! White tiger meat.

  Gabriel Todd was fucking delicious as he pounded away at that punching bag, his body flexing and contorting, and the muscles moving under his bronzed skin. I moved closer, my feet having a will of their own, carrying me in his direction.

  I was wearing my delphinium, so I knew he couldn't smell me, but possibly my movement catching the reflection on the glass was what let him know I was in the room. He didn't even turn as he addressed me.

  "What do you want, Agent Dyer. Can't you see I'm busy?"

  I watched this form, thoroughly enjoying myself. "You'd add a lot more strength to your punch if you rotated your body a little more. Torque."

  It became very clear that he been holding back with his strength when he hit the bag hard enough for the thing to swing up on the chain and smack the beam it was hanging from, making the entire building thrum with the vibration.

  "I think I'm fine," he said sassily. At least, I would have assumed it was sassy if it was anyone other than him.

  I smirked, giving a one-shouldered shrug and stepping closer. I wasn't a shifter, but I could still smell him, his scent rising in waves off his heated body. I was almost close enough to catch the droplets of his sweat slinging off him as he continued to move.

  "Well, if you want to rely on brute strength, sure, but it never hurts to learn how to make yourself even better." I moved quickly, ducking under his arm and sliding between him and the bag, tap, tap, tapping his right, left, right ribs, and ducking out again before he even fully understood what was going on. "People might surprise you."

  I moved fast for a human. Always had. It was a natural talent that I'd honed well for my line of work. I knew there were definitely shifters out there that could move faster, but it was the fact that most tended to underestimate me, because I was a human, that gave me the advantage. I didn't let many see it unless I needed to use it for that reason, but Gabriel was special.

  He backed away from the bag, breathing hard and glaring at me. "Are you crazy? I could've seriously hurt you."

  Gabriel Todd was a serious man. In fact, most the time I would go as far as to call him cold, but I had a strange talent when it came to this man. I could defrost him faster than any person alive, and I took advantage of it every opportunity I could.

  He shook his head, getting back to work, his fists flying over the bag while sweat glistened on his skin and slid in beautiful rivulets down his body.

  "You didn't tell me why you're here." He grunted, putting his hand against the bag to keep it from swinging while he turned and glared at me, his white-blue eyes burning into me.

  Good Lord, he was beautiful, darkly sexy, and so serious and stern all the time. It made me itch with the need to rile him. I couldn't even help myself, I just needed to see a crack. I just needed to find a sliver so I could dig my fingers in and rip it open. It was like he was constantly daring me with the way he moved throughout the world.

  He cleared his throat, raising his eyebrows at me, reminding me he had just said something, but I'd been too busy lusting over him to respond.

  "Oh, right." I licked my lips, my eyes following a single droplet of sweat as it slid between his pecs and down into the dark hair that formed a line down the center of his abs.

  "We're starting a new unit. We'll have FBI ties, but we'll be mostly independent. Our sole focus is protecting the chosen." When the drop of sweat soaked into the band of his shorts, I finally raised my eyes back to his, sighing stupidly at the intensity in his white-blue gaze. "We'll have several different branches, but one of them is going to be right here in Purdy, since Flynn and his leap have done so much for the chosen already. I thought you should know since you're the chief around here. We're gonna do our best not to step on any toes."

  "I appreciate that," he said, his deep voice making me shudder. "Flynn usually keeps me up to date with everything, but thank you for letting me know."

  There was nothing about his tone that would make any sane person think that he had warm fuzzies, but I couldn't help noticing that it seemed less cold. Maybe not warm, but definitely defrosted.

  "Also, if your station gets a call from someone by the name of Brinkley Rose, or Darian Phillips about being kidnapped, just go ahead and jot that down as a prank call," I said, moving toward the door.

  "Why would I get a call from someone pretending to be celebrities who've been kidnapped?" He asked, his voice rising the further away I got, drawing the attention of several other police officers in the station's gym.

  I turned back, smirking. "Who said anything about pretending?"

  He narrowed his eyes, and in that moment the lengths I'd gone to for this particular situation were suddenly completely worth it.

  "Agent Dyer, why would Brinkley Rose and Darian Phillips call and pretend they were kidnapped?"

  I bit my lip, my body coming alive as more heat entered his voice. "Again, who said anything about pretending?"

  I caught my breath, my heart thumping wildly in my chest as he stalked toward me, his face blazing with anger. When he made it to me, he didn't hesitate to reach out and grab my upper arm, immediately dragging me toward his office and shoving me inside. The door closed behind us, the sound almost deafening from how loud he slammed it.

  "I think you shocked the door." It had probably never been slammed ever. At least, not by him.

  I shuddered as he backed me up against the desk, a thrill running through my body when the back of my thighs hit the hard wood and it dug into the flesh there.

  "You kidnapped two celebrities? he growled, putting his face within inches of mine. "Have you lost your fucking mind?"

  His breath was hot against my cheeks and mouth, making my lips tingle. I tilted my head back, putting my face closer to his without thought. I forced myself not to groan at the musky scent of him, or the way the heat from his body seeped into mine.

  "They have direct ties to the people who keep kidnapping and selling chosen," I said, my eyes moving over his face, mapping out the fallen angel that was Gabriel Todd.

  "How is kidnapping them gonna solve anything?" He growled, stepping back slightly.

  I shrugged. "Because, right now it looks like two people ran away together. When they don't show up, people are going to start digging, and then they are going to find that they are involved in all kinds of things, but most importantly, that they are hiding money from the government. If I can't get them on human trafficking without exposing the chosen and possibly shifters, then I'll do whatever it takes to make sure they are locked up. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying myself and reminding them constantly why they're there."

  He growled again, pushing his fingers through his hair and turning to pace the floor in front of his desk. "Where are they?"

  He moved like a caged… tiger. He was grace and strength, and there wasn't an ounce of flesh on his body that didn't speak of predator. It was intoxicating, and I needed to get out of that fucking room before I did something stupid.

  I wanted Gabriel Todd... desperately... but I wasn't meant to be his. I was a chosen, and I wanted a family someday. I'd never asked, but I was willing to bet he wasn't a family man. If there was any man in the world who pushed people away and made it completely obvious he didn't play well with others more than Gabriel Todd, I'd never met them.

  "Why?" I asked, easing away from the desk and toward the door. "What are you gonna do
, let them go?"

  He grunted, putting his hands on his hips and closing his eyes while he took a long, deep breath. "You can't keep them like that."

  I smirked, resting my hand on the knob of the door. "Sure, I can, but you're more than welcome to sniff them out if you're so sure what I'm doing is wrong. I'd like to remind you that it was only a month ago that you said you were going to evict that Bradley asshole by any means necessary. And I don't think you meant just from the town."

  He curled his lip, glaring at me. "Delphinium," he growled, latching on to the first part of that statement and ignoring the other.

  I chuckled, raising my wrist and giving it a shake, waving my delphinium bracelet in his face. "I know how much you love it."

  "It's like you aren't even really there. It's like that with all you agents."

  Yeah, but for us humans, it tended to be one of the only advantages we had when dealing with shifters.

  "Bye, Gabby," I said, turning the knob and opening the door. I glanced over my shoulder at him, batting my eyes. "It was nice seeing you again. Seriously though, torque."

  ***

  The sound of one of my booby traps springing just outside the front door had the butterflies in my stomach flapping happily, and I jumped up, pretty sure I knew by the growled cussing alone who'd decided to pay me an unexpected visit.

  I swung the door open, smiling brightly at my guest. "Gabby! You came. How did you find me?"

  He was spitting the dirt and leaves I'd had covering the net while trying to maneuver around in the thing, making it swing back and forth like a crazed pendulum. He was growling and throwing out expletives with dry, dead leaves sticking out of his usually silky, black hair.

  I'd purposely used the netting with large, eight-inch spaces and thick, soft rope, since it made it a hell of a lot harder to get yourself maneuvered into a decent position while hanging in the air.

  When he finally got himself sitting in far less of a wadded-up position, he glared at me, his teeth crunching down on dirt as he ground them together. "I scented until I found a void in the scent. When something is visible, but it doesn't smell like it's there, it's pretty obvious its scent is being blocked if you know what you're looking for. Like with you."

  I stepped forward, smirking up at him. "Aren't you just a smarty pants?" I reached up, booping the end of his nose with my index finger, making him growl. "Should I cut you down?"

  "No need." He raise his clawed hand above his head and cut the cinch rope that pulled the ends of the net together, making the whole thing fall, and he landed in a graceful crouch in the center of the net on the ground, making it look easy and sexy as hell.

  I pursed my lips. "Oh, so tigery."

  He stood slowly, seeming to loom over me, even though I was less than a couple of inches shorter than him. "Where are they?"

  I considered pretending like I had no idea what he was talking about, but it was getting late, and I hadn't really been feeling all that good for most of the day. The sooner I could get into bed, the better, so I led him into the old rundown house we'd confiscated on leap territory. Flynn had assured us it had been empty for quite some time.

  I led him through the front room, throwing a hand out and directing him around another booby trap and then down the hall to the door to the basement. The set-up was pretty simple. Creepily enough, there had already been three working toilets in the basement, and the way they were lined up made it pretty obvious, I hadn't been the only person to house people down there… in cages. It hadn't been something I'd wanted to think too much about, but it had made Darian and Brinkley freak the fuck out when we'd first arrived—especially when you took into account the loops in the walls that definitely looked like they could hold chains and shackles.

  I handed Gabriel a mask, winking when he gave me a funny look.

  "I really do plan on sending them back when I'm done, Gabby. I don't want them seeing your handsome face and possibly giving a description to someone."

  "But they’re shifters."

  "If that is your way of saying they know better than to expose Purdy and the leap, I will remind you that they should probably also know better than to treat people like farm animals… but here we are."

  "No," he said, dryly. "I'm saying, they have very good hearing. Don't you think they have already heard you using my name and mentioning the town we are in."

  I smirked, blinking up at him as sweetly as possible. "Nope."

  He narrowed his eyes on me, but took the mask and slid it on his face while I did the same with mine, and we descended into the basement. The further down the stairs we got, the louder the hum of the old breaker box became, and I turned and winked at Gabriel, knowing he must have realized by now how we agents were so sure they wouldn't be able to hear what was going on upstairs.

  "I thought you said you were having fun with them," he said, when we were standing right in front of their cages, glaring into the cells at the fairly comfortable-looking cots, and the privacy wall I'd put between the two cages. "They look perfectly fine to me."

  I rolled my eyes. The privacy screen had been because regardless of what a horrible person Brinkley was, and the fact that I would gladly slit her throat if necessary, I still had my sister squawking in my head about a girl's need for privacy. There were some things you just couldn't un-train.

  "Well, they're shifters, so they heal fast, but I also can't send them back looking like they've been tortured. Then people might believe what they say. They need to be mostly intact and looking like they were on the lamb."

  "I can't just let you keep these people," he grumbled stepping closer to the cage.

  "Oh. You want me to kill them?" I turned and looked at the two, crossing one arm over my chest and resting my elbow on it while reaching up with the other to tap my fingers on the plastic of the mask I was wearing. "I bet I can make it look like a murder suicide. An if I can't have you, nobody can type situation."

  Brinkley growled, moving up to the edge of the cage and grabbing the bars, her eyes shifting and her canines coming down.

  A challenge. I licked my teeth, reaching back to pull my knife out of the sheath at my lower back and stepped closer to the cage, only to be snagged from behind by my shirt.

  "No," he rumbled out, grabbing my wrist and peeling the knife out of my hand, his hand hot and rough against my skin.

  Brinkley tilted her head, looking over at Gabriel… and looking Gabriel over, her face going soft as she practically melted against the bars, pressing her breasts through two of the gaps. "Are you here to save us?"

  And she made her first five million by acting?

  I curled my lip, clearly displaying my disgust.

  Gabriel raised an eyebrow, also unimpressed with her display. "No. I'm just not sure I want him to end your life so soon. You know, as shifters, you should cherish chosen, not buy and sell them, and treat them like cattle." He stepped closer to the cage himself, his voice getting deeper and angrier with every step. "They're a gift."

  She scoffed, rolling her eyes and turning her back on us both, moving further into her cell and plopping onto the cot like a pouting child.

  Darian was quiet, his eyes watching, but his mouth not moving. I'd always hated how his eyes followed me when I was the only one in the room with him. It was like he knew something that I didn't want him to know. And since the only secret I really had was the fact that I was chosen, and my mark was actually on the bottom of my left foot, I didn't think it was that. Nobody really knew about that.

  Gabriel must have seen something he didn't like about the guy too, because he stepped closer to his cage, growling low and deep, making the guy’s eyes widen in surprise before he was looking away again.

  Right. I may have forgotten to mention the fact that there was delphinium sewn into the masks, to help mask whoever's scent was down in the basement with them. He probably hadn't known Gabriel was a shifter since Dylan, Lane and I were the only three that ever came down to see them and we were all humans.
>
  Darian looked away, clearly intimidated by the man, and I couldn’t say that I blamed him. Gabriel looked fierce when you just looked at him, fully expecting him to be human. Having him go all white tiger badass on you would probably be absolutely terrifying.

  From my perspective, it was sexy as fuck.

  We left the basement, closing the door and hanging our masks on the hooks, and I led Gabriel to the kitchen, sending him a questioning look as we entered.

  "I didn't know you felt that way about chosen," I said as he looked around, and then grabbed a bar stool, pulling it out to sit down.

  "Even if they weren't special for what they can give my kind, they're still humans, still people," he grumbled, leaning forward on his elbows on the counter. "They aren't less than us."

  I chewed on my lip, watching him for a long moment. "What about the fact that the men can get pregnant. Doesn't that bother you? Sit funny with you?"

  He curled his lip, his eyes once again looking cold as they met mine. "Well, as a gay man, the idea that I might someday meet a chosen that I can mate and have children with sounds pretty amazing."

  He held my gaze the entire time, direct and open, almost daring me to say something rude… about chosen, about him being gay, I wasn't sure.

  "You want kids?" I asked instead, leaning down to rest my elbows on the counter and prop my face in my hands.

  "Yes."

  A slow smile slid onto my face as the possibilities of what I could do with Gabriel Todd suddenly changed. The man wanted kids. He wanted a family. I would have never guessed in a million years, but I couldn't deny that my stomach flipped with excitement at the prospect.

  "Are you like a secret softy?" I asked, my heart racing.

  "No."

  Fuck! He was going to be the death of me. I didn't know why I found his standoffish behavior and his general ability to be a bit of a cold prick so fucking hot, but I did… and now I knew that he actually wanted a family as well.

  The one thing that had been holding me back from pursuing the man was no longer an issue.