Chapter 6

R hys swallowed, his throat tight.

You are sitting in a car next to your mate. Say something! Anything!

Rhys had never considered himself a charmer or a ladies' man – unlike his teammate Trent, at least until he'd found his mate, Zina – but he'd never had any difficulty talking to women either. But now, he found himself almost paralyzed.

It had to be just the unexpectedness of it – after the day he'd had, what with being suspended, then attacked by wyvern venom, then… everything that had happened just now, only to have his mate appear suddenly in front of him without any warning whatsoever…

… Except, apparently we did meet before? And I just have absolutely no memory whatsoever of it?

He knew that it had to be the case, since just seeing your mate wasn't enough to spark the mate bond to life. There had to be a touch involved. That was just how it worked.

I have to find out what happened, Rhys thought desperately. And I have to do something other than sit here like a sack of potatoes while she drives me around.

"So, uh, you – you said I sucked on your fingers?"

Oh my God.

Rhys wondered if she'd take it amiss if he just quietly opened the car door and rolled out of it to be left behind on the side of the road.

When I said ‘Say anything' I didn't mean that!

The woman darted him a mildly incredulous look.

"Yeah, you did," she said, before she went back to focusing on the road. "And my name's Maisie Dawson, since you didn't ask before shoving my fingers in your mouth. Or at any other time."

Rhys cringed inwardly. He'd been too taken up by the fact that she was his mate to even think about asking her these things – of course, knowing her name was important, but he felt he already knew the most important thing about her, and everything else had kind of gone by the wayside.

And, he had to admit, if he really had sucked on Maisie's fingers, he was very sorry that he couldn't remember it.

She was, without a doubt, the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen in his life – even with her hair in a messy, damp bun, wearing wet scrubs, and clearly more than a little worn out, her allure was undeniable. Rhys had to stop himself from letting his eyes wander down over her body – which was all too clearly outlined by her damp clothes, which seemed to cling to every curve of her body.

And then there's that fierce, determined look in her eye… the ‘take no shit' attitude… the fact that, well, she did save my life…

It was clear that, even beyond being his mate, Maisie Dawson was clearly pretty incredible. In addition to being smoking hot… and right now, looking at him with a fairly pissed-off expression on her face.

"Hello? Are you in there?"

"Sorry," he said, jerking himself out of his reverie on the magnitude of her beauty and how desperately he wished he could stop noticing the way the front of her scrubs were making the curve of her breasts way too obvious. "I swear, I'm not usually this rude. It's just been… a day."

Maisie glanced at him again, and this time, her features softened a little. "Yeah, okay. I guess it has been." Her eyes narrowed. "But you do seem to be doing a lot better now – was that green goo some kind of top-secret healing serum or something?"

Grimacing, Rhys wondered how, exactly, he was going to even begin explaining everything he knew he'd need to explain to Maisie if she was going to accept him as her mate.

Of course she will accept us, his griffin cried, affronted at the very idea that he could be thinking anything else. She is our mate! She already knows us in her soul. She would never reject us!

That was easy for the griffin to say, Rhys thought morosely. To it, the issue was pretty black and white. But Maisie was human, and Rhys guessed she really didn't know anything about the world of shifters, let alone the world he came from. But maybe he could ask her a few questions, and try to figure out what would be the best way to approach the situation.

They still had a little way to drive, after all – though Rhys was wondering now if it was really the best idea to have asked Maisie along to where he was going.

But we could not let her out of our sight! His griffin preened and fluffed its wings. And you simply need to stop being such a coward and tell her the truth.

Rhys supposed the griffin had a point there – he really hadn't wanted to let Maisie go. And besides which, the entire afternoon was still a complete blur.

"No, unfortunately it wasn't," he said, wondering how much he could say, since he wasn't sure he should jump straight to most venomous substance on earth, made only by a mythical creature that's virtually extinct these days, ever heard of a wyvern?

That really seemed more like a kind of third date conversation.

"Is that why you had to suck it off my fingers?" Maisie asked, and Rhys could hear the tension in her voice, see the way she raised her eyebrows as she drove.

At last, a reasonable explanation for why I apparently did that!

"Um. Yeah. It's… a toxic substance. If it had stayed on your skin, that would have been trouble. It wasn't on there for very long, was it?" he asked.

Maisie shook her head. "No. You took care of that. So I guess… thanks, then? Even though it was only there for a second, it did still give me a bit of a burn." She paused. "So then, I guess it makes even less sense as to why you're up and about so quickly. Shot, got… venomous goo on – and in – you, looked like you were at death's door…" She looked over at him. "And what was that place I drove you to, anyway?"

Rhys bit his lip. "It was… my workplace. Sorry, I feel like everything's a bit of a blank. Did I tell you to take me there?"

"At first, yeah," Maisie said. "But you were a bit too out of it to give me any directions. It seemed like you were making a call, but you dropped your phone – and when I picked it up, some guy on the other end told me where to come. So I just did what he told me to do."

Rhys frowned, groping around in his pocket for his phone. He opened his Recents list, but the most recent phone call he'd made was yesterday, to Euan, his teammate, about something he couldn't even remember now. But for today, there were no calls.

No texts after the ones Hector and I sent each other either, Rhys thought, as he switched to his messages.

Obviously, Maisie wouldn't have any reason to lie to him – obviously, something else was going on here.

But then, that was why they were heading out to where they were heading.

Unease crawled through Rhys's stomach. Everything else had been temporarily wiped from his mind after Maisie had appeared in front of him and he'd realized she was his mate, but now, he knew he had even more things to deal with than trying to find a way to tell her they were mates.

"Are you sure it was my phone?" he asked, though he knew it was a stupid question. But still, it was better to make sure this wasn't some kind of misunderstanding.

"Well, it definitely wasn't mine, and I have to say, I'm not known for my psychic intuition," Maisie said. "I just lifted up your phone after you dropped it, and I got directions for where to go, since you were pretty insistent on not going to a hospital."

Rhys nodded. "And the voice on the other end – can you remember what it sounded like?"

Frowning, Maisie thought for a moment. "Well… male. Kind of serious-sounding. I couldn't really tell his age, but not that young. I thought it was the guy who greeted me when I brought you in, but I can't be sure. Everything is… well, it's kind of a blur, to be honest. So the details are a little hazy just now." She shot him a quick look. "And anyway, why am I the one getting twenty questions here? I feel like I have way more things I should be asking you ."

"No, you're probably right about that," Rhys conceded – he just wished he knew what kind of answers he should give her. Right now, he wasn't even sure he had many answers for himself .

What I do know is, someone wiped that last phone call from my phone. And yeah, maybe the guys who attacked me did kill themselves. But maybe…

Rhys shook his head. He couldn't get too caught up in speculations right now.

"Like… perhaps you could, for example, tell me where we're going right now?" Maisie asked, her voice sharp.

That, at least, was a question Rhys knew he could answer – or mostly answer, anyway.

"To see a friend of mine," he said. "He's a bit of a night owl – he's a computer specialist. Of a sort. And right now, I feel like there's a few things I need his expertise on."

It was a completely truthful answer – it just left out the part where the computer expert was a quokka shifter named Michael who did hacking jobs for him sometimes, and was his own personal source – in other words, not affiliated with the Agency.

"O… kay," Maisie said, glancing at him. "Well, I guess you said he's a night owl, but is there any particular reason we have to go see him right now? "

Because there's something fishy going on here, and I want to know what it is, Rhys thought, but what he said was, "I know it probably seems weird. But I just want to ask him to do some work for me. It's kind of urgent, and it might take him a while."

"Hmm. Sound like some James Bond shit," Maisie said, her voice arch. She turned to him. " Is it some James Bond shit?"

She was closer than perhaps she realized, Rhys thought – and for a moment, he contemplated telling her everything right there and then. It wasn't exactly like there was anything else to tell her.

"Maisie," he said, swallowing, and preparing to just blurt something out and hope for the best, since apparently he couldn't think of the right way to phrase things. "What do you know about –"

" Your destination is on the left, in ten meters, " the electronic voice of the GPS Maisie had clipped to her dashboard smoothly interrupted him, sounding even more smug and insufferable to his ears than these things usually did. " I hope you enjoyed your journey! "

"Um. Well, it seems like we're here, then," Maisie said, pulling up. The street wasn't anything special – it just looked like any other street in Bondi Junction, lined with trees and filled with some pretty flash terrace houses – but then, being an expert hacker certainly made Michael more than enough money. "Does your friend know we're coming?"

"Kind of?" Rhys said. Michael was used to him dropping in at odd hours. Though this time, Rhys realized, he had a reason to let him know he was coming by. "Just a sec."

He pulled out his phone, his lip pulling tight at the mysterious missing phone call. Quickly, he texted – hey. sry. about to come up. please DO NOT be in quokka form when i get there. i have someone with me.

Hopefully that would be enough for Michael to understand that by ‘someone' he meant ‘someone who doesn't know about shifters, so please just look and act normal'.

A little Read popped up next to the message the moment he sent it, but that was typical of Michael – he was almost never unplugged unless he was asleep, and clearly it was late enough for him to be up and about. Quokkas were nocturnal after all, but Rhys got the feeling Michael would have stayed up all night regardless of that.

"Okay," Rhys said. "We can head up."

"Uh, forgive me for being a little suspicious, but is it a good idea for me to go into the house of someone I've never met, with a man I've barely met?" Maisie asked, but she was already getting out of the car.

Rhys blinked.

Why would she be apprehensive about going somewhere with her mate? his griffin asked, as if it couldn't understand the question. Doesn't she know we would protect her to the ends of the earth? There is no harm that could possibly come to her if we are by her side!

But Rhys knew Maisie was right. She'd already trusted him far more than he could reasonably expect. She, after all, didn't know anything about what the mate bond meant.

"You can stay here, if you prefer," he told her, though the idea of letting her out of his sight while he was still so uneasy and confused about what was happening sent a spike of pain lancing through his chest. "And if you get a bad feeling about anything, you can just drive away."

He could see Maisie thinking it over, a series of conflicting emotions chasing each other across her face.

"No," she said after a long moment. "No, if it means I get some answers, then I'm coming inside."

Well, hopefully Michael actually read and comprehended my text, rather than just glancing at it and then going back to doing… whatever it is he even does. Typing? But fast?

Still, Rhys took his time leading Maisie up to the front door – he could see her looking around with a faintly impressed expression on her face. It was a pretty nice house, after all, even if it was clear just by looking that Michael was a little less than interested in gardening.

Rhys knocked on the door – the paint was flaking, so it was pretty clear Michael wasn't that interested in home beautification, either.

There was no answer, and after a moment Rhys knocked again. Still, no answer.

Frowning, he tried the handle and found the door unlocked. He opened it, and peered into the darkened house.

"Should we just be going inside?" Maisie whispered, though she was following him readily enough. "What if he's not home?"

"Oh, he'll be home," Rhys said – it was way too early for Michael to be out and about –it was still only about seven p.m. If anything, Rhys wasn't sure if he'd even be fully awake yet. "Hello? Michael?"

"Upstairs."

A voice rang out from some distant room that Rhys had to assume was, given the direction, upstairs. At least the fact that Michael had answered him meant he wasn't currently hopping around in quokka form – Rhys knew he'd have to explain everything to Maisie sooner or later, but that seemed a bit too much like a crash course in the existence of shifters.

Though it could have been a convenient introduction, too, Rhys mused. But really, it was probably better this way.

"Come on," he said to Maisie. "Let's go meet Michael."

"So… who is this Michael?" Maisie asked him as they climbed the stairs together. "This is all kind of mysterious."

"He's… a friend of mine," Rhys said. "Maybe friend is pushing it a bit – he's… a colleague. He gets information for me when I need it."

"That's really not making anything sound any less mysterious," Maisie said flatly. "What kind of information?"

"He's a hacker," Rhys clarified. He supposed he was so used to talking around certain subjects that it had become second nature to him these days, even with someone who he knew he could trust to the depths of his soul, like his mate. "And I have some things I'd like to him hack into for me."

"Uh-huh." Maisie's voice didn't get any less flat. "Like… what, exactly? Credit card information? State secrets? Taylor Swift's private jet's flight path? Am I going to regret this?"

"No, nothing like that," Rhys said – though he mainly meant the credit card information and the private jet flight path. And what he wanted Michael to look into wasn't technically a state secret either. "It's just… things to do with what you saw today. I just think there's more to it than what either of us have been told."

"Well, considering I've been told nothing , that's not very difficult to imagine," Maisie pointed out. "I came here for answers, though, so it you have any, I'm all ears."

Rhys nodded. He realized he'd really need to start being more open with Maisie – and quickly. "Right. It's just hard to know where to start."

"Try the beginning?" Maisie suggested, raising an eyebrow. "Because right now, whatever you have to tell me can't possibly be any crazier than the fanfiction I'm writing in my head about you."

Rhys wasn't sure he liked the sound of that, but before he could say anything about it, a silhouette appeared at the top of the stairs.

"This better be important, getting me up so early," Michael said, yawning widely.

True to his quokka form, Michael was also kind of short and dumpy in human form as well, with a tangle of dark hair he was always pushing out of his eyes, and glasses he was always shoving up his nose.

Right now, he was dressed in his usual getup of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt, despite the cold, and he really did look like he'd just gotten up.

"I appreciate it," Rhys said. "I wouldn't have called if it hadn't been urgent."

"Yeah, yeah," Michael said, with feigned ill-humor. "Whatever. And who's this?"

Rhys glanced at Maisie. "This is Maisie. She's…" Instinctively, he'd been about to tell Michael that Maisie was his mate, but he cut himself off quickly. Somehow, it seemed right that Maisie should be the first person to know.

"She helped me out when I was in a tight spot," Rhys finished lamely. "Seriously bad. Which is why I've come to see you – I need your help figuring out what the hell's going on."

Michael squinted at him, head tilted, very obviously not believing a damn word Rhys had said. Rhys telepathically tried to project the word PLEASE at him as loudly as he could, begging him to not pursue the topic.

Apparently it worked, because Michael huffed a little sigh before nodding in an extremely fake fashion. You're going to tell me all about this later, his eyes said, even as his mouth said, "Sure, no worries." Also, you owe me one. Big time.

Rhys nodded back gratefully, not bothering to look to the side to see Maisie's reaction. He could almost feel her disbelief radiating off her at that unconvincing display, but, thankfully, she didn't comment.

Everyone here thinks I'm full of shit! And okay, I kind of am, but it's not my fault!

"Have a seat," Michael said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of a sofa that was piled up with papers, food wrappers, and all kinds of other crap.

While Rhys would've normally bristled at the directive, he knew damn well that he was being done a huge favor here, so he obligingly picked up a pile of junk off the sofa and looked around for somewhere to put it… before Michael just went up to the sofa and swept a bunch more of it straight onto the floor, sending paper and chip packets fluttering to the ground.

"Well, when in Rome," Maisie muttered, doing a bit of her own rubbish removal and sending a stack of old pizza boxes to the floor with a vicious swipe of her arm. She looked oddly satisfied.

Shrugging, Rhys dumped his armful of papers in the corner, not worrying too much about where they went. It was kind of satisfying, if only because he knew he wouldn't have to be the one to deal with it later. And at least he knew that the furniture was in enough of a state of disrepair that his wet clothes couldn't make things any worse.

He sat himself down on the sofa, ignoring the way his griffin rejoiced when Maisie sat next to him, almost close enough to touch. Not that he wasn't doing his own little bit of internal rejoicing, but he had bigger worries on his mind. Like how the hell he was going to explain everything that had been going on in front of Maisie.

Maybe it had been a mistake to bring her here.

Michael sat down on his computer chair and turned it to face the sofa, one eyebrow lifted expectantly.

"Well, I'm here. What's this urgent problem that you saw fit to wake me up about?"

Rhys opened his mouth. Shut it. Opened it again.

Shit.

Sweat broke out across his brow. He really hadn't worked out what he was going to say. How on earth could he explain any of this, without mentioning the existence of shifters?

"Uh… Well, you see, it…"

It was almost – almost – a relief when the door at the back of the room exploded.