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  Act of Mercy (PSI-Ops Series / Immortal Ops) by Mandy M. Roth

  Paranormal Security and Intelligence Operative Duke Marlow has a new mission: find, interrogate and eliminate the target—Mercy Deluca. She’s more than he bargained for and Intel has it all wrong. She’s not the enemy. Far from it. Intel forgot to mention one vital piece of information—she’s Duke’s mate. And this immortal alpha werewolf doesn’t take kindly to her being in danger.

  Excerpt from Act of Mercy (PSI-Ops / Immortal Ops) by Mandy M. Roth

  Duke Marlow finished typing the last of the reports due into his handler. Corbin handled more than one Paranormal Security and Intelligence Operative (PSI-Op) and Duke already knew he was Corbin’s most trying. He enjoyed getting under the man’s skin. Corbin was a panther shifter and everyone knew cats and dogs didn’t mix well together. As a full-blooded, born werewolf, Duke tended to get a kick out of giving Corbin as hard a time as possible.

  Duke rotated his neck, working out a kink as he sniffed the air, the wolf in him catching the scent of pending rain. He grinned, knowing he’d be running free in it soon enough. Well, as soon as he finished this damn paperwork. He didn’t understand the point of it. It wasn’t like the organization existed to anyone who asked about it. They were ghosts. Operatives who never were and never would be, at least on paper.

  What the fuck did they want with a paper trail then?

  The truth of the matter was most of the people within the organization had been there a hell of a long time. Immortality afforded them that luxury. They had some young ones—people under the age of fifty often seemed like pups in his eyes. When you got to his age, most everyone seemed young.

  He looked across the main office in PSI headquarters. Rows of desks filled the large bullpen. There was a raised walkway that circled the rounded room. Various doors dotted it. Some were offices. Others interrogation rooms. Some were termed briefing rooms. One was a hallway to restrooms and a kitchen area and the one he disliked visiting most was just past that—the infirmary.

  He’d been alive a long time and lost too many people to count that he considered friends, even loved ones. He didn’t do well around hospitals or anything of the like. They made him itch. Not as much as planes or anything that flew did.

  He fucking hated to fly.

  He’d had to fly more times than he’d cared to for the week prior when he’d been called in to help a fellow PSI-Op. Eadan Daly was someone he’d consider a friend. Eadan was young yet, barely thirty, but like Duke he’d stopped aging. Somehow, Eadan, even at his young age within the immortal world, had managed to find love and happiness. He and his mate were together. That was what was important. Not the how or whys of how they’d come to be that way.

  Longing still lingered deep within Duke. He wanted what Eadan had. What so many of the I-Ops had—a mate. Wouldn’t happen. Not at his age. If his woman had been out there, he’d have found her by now.

  He focused on his reports. While they may be done, they still needed to be emailed. Damn, he hated computers. Everyone around him seemed to love them, but he liked putting pen to paper, not fingertips to keyboard. He took a lot of grief at the office about his aversion to certain technologies. He wasn’t a luddite, but the others in PSI seemed to enjoy calling him one.

  While he would forever look to be in his mid-thirties, he was considerably older. With that age came the reluctance to accept change with ease. Plus, he was stubborn by nature. And truth of the matter was, most of what he was given technology-wise ended up breaking. In his opinion it was shit.

  He’d seen a lot in his life-span. Some good. Some not so good. And some downright horrifying.

  An auburn-haired giant poked his head into the room. Striker McCracken was there, grinning a grin that said he was ready to be up to no good. He was Dougal only to his momma, who had been buried over a century. Duke knew his real name because he’d actually met the man’s mother way back when. She’d been a sweet woman who managed to be half her son’s size, yet still keep him in line nicely.

  “You almost done?” asked Striker, traces of the Scottish accent that had once been so thick Duke had a difficult time understanding the man, showing through. “I’m positive the bar at the corner has beers with our names on ‘em.”

  With a groan, Duke emailed off his reports. “I fucking hate this thing,” he said, as he tried to get the computer to go to sleep, but it kept instantly waking back up.

  “Name one thing you do like.”

  “Women,” returned Duke.

  Laughing, Striker came to his recuse. He took the wireless mouse from Duke’s grasp. “It’s nae gonna shut down with you bumping the mouse. Here. Let me.”

  Duke slid back in the chair and then stood. “Keep the fucker.”

  Striker continued to laugh. “You know, if you tried a little harder, you might actually learn to like the thing.”

  Sliding his long-time friend a hard look, Duke stood silent. No words needed to be spoken. He’d never bond with his damn computer.