***THIS BOOK IS A STANDALONE***

Katrina Mejia knows she has to prove herself. As the newest member of the Federal Paranormal Unit, she’s in a whole new world. She needs a lot of field time to get up to speed and is happy to take on any case. She’d also like more information on tall, dark and broody who makes her heart skip a beat and her panties shrivel into nothing.

Hunter Cross is content with the anonymity of working undercover. He’s not a people person and isn’t interested in a mate or a relationship of any kind. His heart is dead to emotions and he’s more than happy to keep it that way. But things change when he finds his mate. A mate he doesn’t want but craves.

Putting herself in the sights of a madman abducting women, Kat’s about to become more than one man’s prey. When a piece of Hunter’s dark past shows up unexpectedly, it’ll take more than his dragon to keep his mate alive. Danger takes center stage as Hunter and Kat team up to take down a predator while fighting their burning passion.

Chapter 1

Katrina Mejia knew he stood in the shadows, had known where he was the instant she entered the building. Strong. Commanding. Arrogant. The words literally flashed in her mind. Then his aura confirmed what she’d already guessed. He was aloof, a loner, and completely unapproachable. Why then was her body acting like it’d never been touched by a man? Okay, yeah, sure, it had been a while, but work was not the place. And it was damn sure not the day.

Her body went up in flames the closer to him she got. Being near him was like straddling the equator. Walking through the office, following Cynthia Vega to meet the infamous James Brock, she’d felt his eyes, the briefest strike of a match, before her body had gone up in flames. 

It had taken a few days, but she’d found his name along with an extensive string of cases he’d solved while being undercover. So some of his standoffishness made sense. He was used to blending in, being part of the crowd, and watching instead of engaging. However, Kat wanted to engage with him…on a deep personal level. 

Walking straight into Brock’s office, she took a seat, pulled out the file full of papers she’d printed from her secured email in the middle of the night and waited. Seconds turned into long, tense minutes and all the while she could feel the man in the corner attempting to stare a hole in the back of her head. 

An image of the man himself formed in her mind. Deep blue eyes, the color of an angry sea. Short dark hair with a sexy wave that just tipped the edge of the collar of his T-shirt. Speaking of T-shirt, God help that soft cotton as it stretched tightly across the defined muscles of his chest and biceps.

The little voice in the back of her mind said that Hunter Cross didn’t work out. It was beneath him, or more likely, a complete waste of his time. Nope, his physique came naturally, and that was just sickening, but oh, so fine to look at. 

Done with her useless fantasies, she blocked all thoughts of tall, dark, and dangerous instead thinking about her first ever FPU briefing. Coming to the FPU before her thirtieth birthday was nothing short of miraculous. Director Vega pulled her right off the graduation podium and personally gave her the assignment. Never in a million years had she thought she’d get her first case so soon, but here it was and she planned on kicking its ass. 

Every single tick of the large institutional clock on the wall added to her raging case of nerves. If the boss and the others took any longer…

“Damn, Mejia. Who you lookin’ to impress?” Ramirez chuckled, looking extremely happy after his extended honeymoon. “You already got the job. No need to overdo it. Ya tryin’ to make us all look bad.”

She knew he was right. She was early and overly prepared. Had been getting ready for three days. God, she had no life. But none of that stopped her from getting up at three in the morning after going to bed at two and looking over the information for the meeting until she could recite every word verbatim. Being picked to be part of this special unit within the FBI had been a dream come true and there was no way she was fucking it up.

“Leave her alone,” Jane Donovan, their team’s tech guru and Ramirez’s wife teased while swatting his hip when she walked by. “We were all the newbie once upon a time. Mejia just wants to start off on the right foot.” The wink she included made Kat feel better, but the butterflies in the new agent’s stomach were still dancing like they were listening to house music, and the thought of throwing up was soon to become a reality if the show didn’t get on the damned road.

Recruited by Cynthia Vega, Kat was glad that only the director and her husband, James Brock, who also happened to be Mejia’s new boss, knew about her abilities. Secrecy seemed to be the only constant in the team known as the Federal Paranormal Unit and that was just fine by her. 

People never understood what she could do. Hell, she wasn’t always sure. Most thought she was crazy and that had led to her keeping it a secret for most of her life. It was just easier that way. Explaining never seemed to work, and in most cases, made it worse. 

Gripping the blue file folder like it was her only lifeline, she thought about the photos of the missing girls but it was the last one, Leslie Walton, whose face stayed in the forefront of her mind. 

She was a carbon copy of all the others ~ light eyes, long blond hair, short and thin, and way smarter than the average bear. Hell, she had a Masters in Biomedical Engineering. Where could they all be? Was someone setting up a secret lab to create a whole new group of super soldiers to take over the world? Maybe they were concocting some crazy DNA and cloning the rest of the human race. Anything was possible, right?  

What the hell? I seriously have to stop watching late night cable. Mom was right, that shit is rotting my brain. Besides, Kat had discarded all those theories somewhere between her second and third mug of coffee. Someone had targeted and taken those young women. Something bad was happening and she refused to rest until she brought them home, one way or another.

Remembering all the lists she’d written, the many pieces of yellow paper filled with details she’d written with her favorite blue pen and stuffed into her folder on her way out the door. Every damn one of them detailed all the things the girls did not have in common. Not one of them went to the same college. Not a one lived in the same town. They hadn’t been Facebook friends, or followed each other on Instagram, or even followed each others’ twitters. And it went on and on from there. 

She’d only written two things in big bold letters in the middle of one sheet of paper. MISSING and LOOKS.

Snapping out of her own head and sitting up straight when the tall, dark-haired leader of FPU strode into the room, Kat refused to let her nerves show even as a cold drop of sweat made its way down her spine. Stopping only when he was standing behind his desk, the boss put his coffee down, and only when he had picked up Leslie’s photo did he glance in her direction.

“I hope you all have taken the time to welcome Mejia to the team.” 

A rousing chorus of yes and sure filled the room as he looked at each person. All except for tall, dark, and asshole in the corner. Kat heard not a peep from that direction and had to admit that was fine by her. Of course, she was lying. There was almost nothing she wanted more than to hear his voice.

Turning the eight-by-ten glossy of Leslie that her parents’ statements said was taken right before her graduation, Brock stated, “Anybody got any new information?” As silence was the only answer to his question, he stepped to the side, took what looked like the key fob for a car from his pocket, and pointed at the wall behind him.

Watching as the panels separated and a large video screen came to life, Kat’s eyes moved from photo to photo. They there all were. All lined up in order of disappearance. Names in bold, black letter, dates of the last time they were seen in blue, when they were reported missing in red, and the name of the last person to see them in green. 

“Donovan has gone through all their computers and their social media. She’s even gotten their phone records since we don’t have the phones themselves and the only thing even remotely linking one to another is their appearance and intelligence.”

“And the fact that they all love biology and were really good at it, but chose not to be doctors,” Donovan added. 

Unwilling to keep her mouth shut even though that was probably what the newbie was supposed to do, Kat asked, “Isn’t it weird that none of them even applied to the same colleges?” 

Feeling all eyes on her, she went on, “I mean, okay, so they didn’t live in the same towns or go to the same high schools, but we’re talking about a hundred -twelve-mile radius and some really smart ladies who are all interested in the same subject. It seems impossible that their paths never crossed. Even if it was on a computer screen in some university registrar’s office, they had to have been on the same list somewhere, didn’t they?”

“Good call, Mejia,” Donovan nodded. “But we checked. One or two, sometimes four or five, applied to the same places and another couple were contacted by the same recruiters or the same companies. But when we tried to connect all ten, excuse me ~ eleven, it was a dead end.”

“Good thought, though,” Brock encouraged, giving her a knowing look. “Got anything else?”

Not sure if she should say what she was thinking, a spike in energy from Strong and Silent in the corner had Kat’s libido betraying her and her mouth opening before she’d time to overthink it. “What about the browser histories from their phones?” 

Talking faster, not liking at all how the feelings of the man in the corner affected her, she hurried on. “I mean, I know you’ve checked their laptops and computers.” She nodded at Jane. “But it seems to me that the only thing missing from any of these women’s lives was a love interest. Could they have been using their phones to hook up? Or at the very least, talk to people they were interested in? Do the companies keep that information if it’s not a text message? What if they had iPads or tablets? Is there a way to get that information?”

Out of her seat and racing toward the door, Donovan called over her shoulder, “Good call, Newbie.” Then quickly added, “I’m on it, boss.”

Looking up to find Brock smiling at her, Kat was finally able to relax. The weird vibes coming from behind her had settled and she could feel the approval of the others on her new team. It was a good feeling. One she hoped lasted.

“Good job, Mejia,” Brock echoed her thoughts. “What else ya got?”

“Nothing right now, sir,” she replied. 

“Anybody else?” When the room stayed silent, he went on. “Then dismissed, but don’t go far. As soon as Donovan has the information, I want each and every one of you pouring over those files. Find me something. The brass are breathing down my neck.” 

Reaching for the handle of her bag, Kat nearly jumped out of her skin when Brock added, “Don’t go anywhere, Mejia.”