Chapter 12

M aisie came back to consciousness slowly, lazily, like she had all the time in the world. It was a stark contrast to her usual routine of slapping blindly at the snooze button on her alarm clock and staying in bed as long as possible, before dragging herself reluctantly to her feet, muscles protesting.

This must be what waking up is actually supposed to feel like.

She supposed that being pressed up against the side of the hottest guy she'd ever met in her life didn't exactly hurt, either. She listened to the slow, steady beat of his heart as his chest rose and fell, feeling his reassuring warmth through her cheek.

Maisie thought that lying here with Rhys may even possibly have been nicer than the sex… and the sex had been phenomenal . But the feeling of complete safety and contentment was something she had never realized she was missing. She hadn't known it was possible to feel this happy, simply lying here with Rhys in the dappled sunlight, the ocean lapping at the shore and the heady scent of lemon myrtle in the air.

Heaven. I'm in heaven.

She continued to simply lie there for some time, simply enjoying just existing, until eventually Rhys stirred. Everything he did was mesmerizing – she watched, entranced, as he blinked slowly, happy to just look at his eyelashes as they moved.

God, I'm being ridiculous. But I don't care. If I want to stare at the hot guy's eyelashes, then that's what I'm going to do. I can do whatever I want, here.

It was like being outside of society itself, in their own little private world, just the two of them. Everything else just didn't matter.

Eventually Rhys seemed to fully wake up, and he turned his head to face her… then he gave her the most gorgeous smile she'd ever seen, and her heart skipped a beat.

That's for me. That smile's for me. Maybe I'm still dreaming.

"Good afternoon, sleepyhead," she said with a smile of her own. "Had a good snooze, did we?"

"Yeah, I did," he laughed. "The best snooze I've ever had, I reckon."

"Me too," Maisie replied honestly as she sat up, stretching. She hadn't even realized she was drifting off until she'd woken up. "Though as much as I could happily stay here forever, I'd still like to get that swim in. The ocean is calling me. Plus," she added with a laugh, "I think I'd like to get clean again before round two."

"Round two, eh?" Rhys said, looking intrigued. "Well, far be it from me to keep you from preparing for that ."

"Indeed." Maisie lingered for a moment longer before getting to her feet with some reluctance – she really did want to go for a swim, but she also wanted to just curl up next to Rhys forever.

Still, he was following her down to the sand, so she supposed that maybe she could have the best of both worlds.

She plunged into the water, shivering a little. It was a little cool, given that she had only been able to afford to come in the off season, but it was still perfectly pleasant, and she adjusted to the temperature quickly. In a way, she was grateful – if she'd been skinny dipping in Queensland at the height of summer, she would've come out of the water lobster-red from top to tail, and some unpleasant places in between!

As it was, she was able to have a quick swim, enough to feel clean and revitalized. The water caressed her skin as she dived beneath the surface, tiny shoals of silver fish darting out of her way.

She felt Rhys's arms slide around her waist from behind, and she sighed in happiness, leaning back against his chest, feeling his warmth. He pressed light kisses against her temple, and her eyes closed in bliss as she simply let him hold her, feeling the gentle warmth of the sun on her eyelids and the swirl of the ocean all around her.

As much as she would've been happy to stay like this forever, she realized that she was practically ravenous… and she didn't want to push her luck with the sun, either.

"What do you say we see what's inside that hamper?" she murmured. "I could really go for some overpriced gourmet food right now."

"Sounds good," Rhys replied, and the two of them slogged their way out of the water and back up to their little patch of greenery, grabbing the food as they went.

Maisie tore at the hamper's cellophane as Rhys tried to hang out their wet clothes from earlier. She watched, entranced, as he attempted multiple times to hang his shirt over a tree branch that had a few too many twigs sticking out of it to be practical, before he gave up and spread it over the ground.

It was probably a good idea. The breeze was raising goosebumps on her damp skin, even as the touch of the sun slowly brought her back to something resembling warmth… but still, she didn't really want to be flying around the stratosphere in wet clothes.

"Get over here," she said, as she bit into a sweet, juicy strawberry. "I'm getting cold, and I need a big, burly man to warm me up."

"I don't know about burly," Rhys said as he plopped down next to her, "but I am willing to have a go at warming you up. For purely selfless reasons, of course."

"Of course." Maisie tore a giant wheel of brie in half with her bare hands and passed one half to Rhys, before tearing a chunk off the other half and popping it straight into her mouth. It was all warm and melty and delicious, and she sighed happily.

"Mmph," she said around it. "That's good cheese."

"I should hope so," Rhys replied, popping a grape into his mouth, looking for all the world like some kind of ancient god as he lay around nakedly eating grapes and being way too sexy about it. "It probably cost a small fortune."

He reached over and slowly, gently, placed a grape in Maisie's mouth, his finger lingering on her lip. She sucked on it gently for a moment, barely even noticing how sweet and juicy the grape was as she instead locked eyes with Rhys, who was staring back at her heatedly.

If he's a god, he's making me feel like a goddess.

She reluctantly let his finger go, instead contenting herself with snuggling into his side.

She watched as he proceeded to rip the loaf of crusty bread into pieces, topping them with an ungodly amount of cheese before feeding one of them to Maisie, getting brie on her nose in the process.

She laughed, chewing on the whole mess happily.

"Maybe the lifestyles of the rich and famous aren't so bad after all," she said, once she'd managed to swallow it. "Though I suppose they're more into the whole ‘cutlery' and ‘plates' and ‘tables' thing. And also the ‘clothes' thing."

"Yeah, I don't think most of the other guests would go in for this kind of thing," Rhys mused. "But I've gotta say, I think I prefer it."

"Me, too." Maisie pulled a jar out of the hamper and peered at the label. "‘Crab apple jam' – sorry, excuse me, artisanal crab apple jam – ‘hand-picked and hand-made by the finest craftspeople in the Huon Valley, using a secret recipe passed down for generations in the Pickford family and fiercely protected by their descendants.'"

"Yeah, gotta keep that secret crab apple, water, sugar and lemon juice combo from getting out to the masses. Who knows what would happen if someone figured it out?"

"Riots in the streets," Maisie said solemnly. "It's a good thing we have the Pickfords here to maintain order and keep us all from our lesser selves." She opened the lid and scraped some jam out with her bread, chewing thoughtfully. "It is pretty good. Not quite good enough to inspire riots, in my opinion, but decent. I'd buy it if it was on special."

"Getting used to the high life already, are we?" Rhys said, his expression serious, even as he popped the champagne bottle and took a drink straight from it. "This place has clearly gone to your head."

"Quite," Maisie replied, gnawing on some meat. "This garlic and red wine salami is simply abominable – the garlic notes are far too overwhelming. Take it back and bring me another. And make sure it's edible this time."

"For something that's supposed to be abominable, you sure are eating a lot of it."

"Well, I suppose someone has to keep it from going to waste," Maisie said with a dramatic sigh, even as she ate another slice. Despite the banter, it was really good. She washed it down with her own swig from the champagne bottle, barely able to believe that she was sitting naked on a beach and sculling Dom Perignon like it was Passiona.

Rhys took the bottle back and took another long drink, and Maisie had to raise an eyebrow. "You sure you'll be able to fly after that? I don't want to go plummeting into the ocean. I doubt my travel insurance would cover drunken griffin accidents."

He shrugged. "Eh, I've done it a few times in the past, when it was just me and my mates in the Outback – couple of hundred k's home from the pub, and there was no one around for miles that we could crash into. Always made it home eventually, though one time I did wake up upside-down in a ghost gum." His eyes glimmered. "Maybe we'll just have to spend some more time here until we know we're sober. Find a way to pass the time somehow."

"Sounds dreadful. But I guess one simply cannot drink and fly – it would be irresponsible. I guess we're stuck here for the time being."

"Guess so."

The two of them simply sat and enjoyed the food and the breeze and the sun, happily warm at this point. Maisie almost thought she could doze off again, but now that she had time to think – and now that Rhys had brought up the subject of other shifters, no matter how ridiculous the context – her brain was starting to tick over.

Despite how much Rhys had already told her – and how much she had already seen – she was realizing that she had questions.

Lots of questions.

"So…" Maisie said, as she licked melted brie from her fingertips. "Is now a good time to ask some questions? Because I really do have some."

"Ask away. I'll do my best, but there's some things I can't give you an answer on, like how does the whole ‘mate bond' thing work," Rhys said. "Maybe someone knew, way back in the olden days, but now it's just accepted it's a thing and that's that."

"Ah, right," Maisie said – which was a shame, because she really was curious about that. But there were other things she wanted to know. "Well, how about this then – you're a griffin who's a secret agent. I'm betting that job doesn't come up on job seeking websites very often. Care to fill me in on how that all happened?"

Rhys's expression clouded, and Maisie wondered if she'd messed up – and she could see that yeah, probably asking about what sounded like top secret shit probably hadn't been the best idea.

"Sorry, you don't have to answer that," she said quickly. "I guess it was a pretty silly question – I'm sure you can't really talk about your job."

"No, that's not it, though I also really can't say much – or anything – about most of it," Rhys said. "It's just that right now, I'm not really sure how much longer I'll even have the job."

Maisie bit her lip. Everything that had happened at Michael's place was a bit of a blur in her mind, given the information overload she'd been going through at the time. But she did recall now that Rhys had mentioned something about being suspended – and that had not sounded good.

"So… what happened?" she asked – if she wasn't allowed to know, she guessed he'd tell her, but she also couldn't deny she was pretty much being eaten up by curiosity.

"It was my mistake…. I guess," Rhys said slowly, looking out over the ocean. "I was monitoring communications for a mission another agent was on. They were deep undercover – they'd been building up an identity as a rich businessman. Shady as fuck, always in need of a loan and happy to deal with anyone to get their hands on more cash, you know the type. Anyway, he was putting it around that he wanted to get in on the weapons trade, make some big bucks through illegal sales. Stuff like that. After a while, of course, some arms dealers came knocking, thinking he was some doofus with more money than brains, which is exactly what we'd wanted all along."

Rhys paused, grimacing.

"It took ages for him to build up that identity and get into a position where the arms dealers would meet with him – and they were real nasty types as well, the worst of the worst. All shifters, too, one huge wolf pack working together. So as soon as the authorities would start to get hold of them, they'd just shift into their wolf forms and lay low for as long as they needed to to throw people off, and then they'd just get right back to work."

Maisie blinked. This sounded dangerous. Of course, she'd kind of gotten that from Rhys falling through her bedroom window covered in blood, but it was starting to hit home for real now. She waited, cold tension curling in her stomach despite the warmth of the sun and the sound of the sea on the sand.

"Anyway, like I said, my colleague, Agent Merrett, was the one who actually had his arse in the fire – he had to meet these guys, and if they didn't like the smell of him they wouldn't hesitate to tear him apart, and I mean that literally. I was supposed to be monitoring their communications to see if they'd caught on to anything being fishy about him."

Maisie nodded. "Okay. Sounds reasonable. So what happened?"

Pulling in a deep breath, Rhys grimaced. "While I was poking around in some of their recent messages to each other, I came across a photo – it was of Agent Merrett, at one of the Agency's Christmas parties a couple of years ago. It was the kind of thing that was supposed to be totally scrubbed before he'd gone off to make his new identity. But somehow, these gun runners had it, and it proved he wasn't who he said he was. Or at least, it'd put enough doubt in the gun runners' minds that they'd probably kill him rather than risk it."

"Oh," Maisie said, her eyes widening. "That sounds… not great."

She got that that was kind of an understatement, but she didn't have much experience of this kind of thing. As hectic and sometimes dangerous as the hospital could be, it wasn't like that .

It was a whole new world to her.

But then, all of this is new to me.

Until the other day, she'd had no idea there was any such thing as griffins or quokka hackers, either. Or cassowary bodyguards, for that matter.

Rhys shot her a quick grin. "Yeah, not great is one way of putting it. Anyway, when I found that photo, putting my agent friend in a place that, according to his new identity, he couldn't have been, as far as I knew his cover was blown and he was about to get killed. So then my mission changed from monitoring the mission to getting him the hell out of there. But by doing that, I basically had to blow his cover anyway – but it'd be better than him getting killed, right?"

Rhys ran a frustrated hand through his hair, shaking his head. Maisie could practically feel the anger radiating off him.

"Anyway, that was why I went charging in to extract him – if they knew who he really was and they were meeting him anyway, chances are they had every intention of killing him. It's a pretty big score for those kinds of criminals, killing an agent. It makes them look tough and like they're not afraid of anything. It's a big deal to bring one down. Huge bragging rights."

"Yeah, I can see that," Maisie said. She waited for Rhys to continue.

"Anyway, of course when I intercepted him just before he got to the meeting, his cover was totally blown. Just completely fucked. And it would have been anyway, since you don't get second chances with these guys – if you miss the meeting, they'll never meet with you again. So it was our one and only chance to get in with these guys and make them think that Merrett was really one of them. And I messed it up, because I wanted to save him."

Maisie frowned, leaning forward. "Sounds to me like you did the right thing," she ventured. "I mean, his life is more important right? These guys sound like they really would have killed him… or worse, maybe."

"Yeah." Rhys nodded. "That's what I thought. But it seems like my bosses don't agree – or at least, they don't think it's possible the gun runners could ever have had that photo to begin with, and I just… fucking hallucinated it or something. But it was there, in their servers. I know what I saw. But getting anyone to listen is another thing entirely."

"So… that's why you're suspended? Because you saved someone's life?" Maisie asked.

"They have to do an investigation about it," Rhys said. "You have to understand, millions of dollars and a lot of time went into setting this up, so it'd be weird if they didn't investigate it. That part I don't care about. It's just the fact no one seems to want to listen to me that gets my back up. And no one seems to be asking any questions about how the gun runners even got the photo to begin with – they don't even seem to think it existed in the first place."

Maisie swallowed, looking down. She could hear the frustration in Rhys's voice, and she didn't blame him.

But to me, he did the right thing. He saved someone's life. I don't care about all that money and time – he did what he had to do to save someone.

Reaching out, she placed a hand on the bare skin of his thigh. An electric shock jumped between them, sharp and tingling, and Maisie gasped as she felt the sensation run up her arm, like a pleasant little fizz in her blood.

But alongside that, she could feel the beat of Rhys's heart, strong and steady, but burdened with pain.

It's almost like it's my pain too, Maisie marveled. Is this part of what it means to be someone's fated mate?

"I still think you did the right thing," she said firmly. "Would you have felt any better if you'd let it go, and then your friend really had been torn to pieces by the… the gun runner wolf pack?"

Rhys shook his head. "No, of course not. And I know I did the right thing. It's just hard to swallow that doing the right thing might cost me everything." He looked at her, pain glimmering in his golden eyes. "Being in the Agency is all I've ever known. And now I have you… how am I going to take care of you the way I should, if I get turfed out on my arse?"

Maisie felt her heartrate pick up. "I don't care about that," she said, and she didn't. "All I care about is you – and to me, the fact you didn't let someone get tortured to death is a hell of a lot more important than you keeping your job." She smiled – maybe just a little wickedly. "And anyway, if you do get fired, you can always just get a job as a nude model. You'll be raking it in in no time. I hear some guys are making out like bandits on OnlyFans, and they're not half as hot as you. We could come on these kinds of holidays all the time, and even pay for them ourselves."

Rhys laughed, a low, growling rumble that sent a warm shiver straight through Maisie's belly.

"Thanks – well, I guess that's a comfort. If I can't be a secret agent, then I can at least earn a living getting my dick out for strangers online."

"Well, I didn't say you had to get completely naked," Maisie said, as a possessiveness wound through her.

Why did I even suggest that?! I don't want strangers seeing Rhys totally naked! That's for my eyes only!

"We can pose you with a modesty cushion," she said. "Or a strategically placed banana. Or an eggplant." She glanced down. "Although it'd need to be a really big one. Not sure if they come in that size."

"Okay, let's just… stop talking about this," Rhys said, though Maisie thought she could hear a pleased tinge to his voice. "At the moment, let's just enjoy ourselves on the island. Before I either die of embarrassment or my head explodes from getting too full of myself."

Maisie laughed. "Okay, you have a point. We're on a secluded private island – kind of makes it hard to focus on your troubles."

"Speaking of," Rhys said, glancing up. "It's getting a little late. Did you want to head back?"

Looking up at the sky, Maisie realized he was right – she'd been so caught up in the, uh, everything that she hadn't noticed the pink of sunset beginning to streak the sky. She knew night would be coming, but she really, really wasn't ready to let go of her time here with Rhys.

Besides which, our clothes are still soaking wet!

"No," she said, turning to him, reaching out and placing a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered at the touch, his eyes hooded. "No, I think I want to stay here for just a little longer yet."

"Got any plans for what we should do?" he asked.

Smiling, Maisie leaned in to kiss him. "Maybe one or two," she whispered against his lips, before he claimed her mouth in a searing kiss.