“She wasn’t your mate.”

“Bullshit!”

“She was a minion, Chris. Someone placed a tattoo on her and she found a way to sneak in undetected to the compound. It only took us twenty seconds before we realized she wasn’t one of us. By that time she’d already pulled out a gun. We had no choice but to kill her,” Eric explained, sighing in relief when Chris stopped struggling.

Immense relief surged through his body as Eric’s words sunk in. “So….she wasn’t my mate?”

“No.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Chris closed his eyes as he dropped his head back. Not his mate. That meant his mate was out there somewhere waiting for him, but most importantly she was alive. That was fine, because it meant he still had a chance. He’d find her and together they’d take care of his family. He just had to get his ass in gear.

“Eric?” he bit out between clenched teeth as a new and very uncomfortable pain registered in his mind.

“What’s up?”

“I think one of you bastards just ripped out my catheter.”

Chapter 1

Present Day

Seattle, Washington

?Okay, this probably wasn?t such a good idea,? Isabella murmured softly to herself as she gripped the worn shoulder straps of her favorite backpack tightly.

She stumbled and quickly righted herself. She straightened her baseball cap as she quickened her pace. Okay, so she admitted she probably had no business being in this area at three in the morning by herself. She was too short, had two large melons that somehow passed for br**sts that constantly threw her off balance, and had the fighting skills of a day old baby. Why she ever thought agreeing to this meeting was a good idea she really didn’t know.

Well, maybe the prospective buyer of her program had something to do with it. Normally her potential buyers met her at restaurants, downtown offices and a few times she was flown to Europe. What she wouldn’t give to meet a client in a stuffy office during the day for this sale. Of course that couldn’t happen with this particular program, it being extremely illegal and all.

Not that she was in the business of creating illegal programs or anything. This one time had been a complete mistake. Okay, illegal might be a poor choice of words, but she was pretty sure that was the point the FBI Agent was getting to the other night. She hadn’t been happy finding her small apartment ransacked. It was more insulting that anything. Did they really think she kept her work in her apartment?

That would be pretty stupid considering how many Fortune 500 companies were after her work. A few of them didn’t take being outbid well. Just over this past year her apartment had been broken into thirty-seven times. The only thing they found was a small collection of CD’s she may have set up to look like her programs.

What they got if they stole them, and they did each and every time, was a dummy program full of virussy goodness. They could scan those discs until the cows came home and they’d never detect their true nature until after the damage was done.

It took her program twenty-two point six seconds to infect a large network. The sweet part of her viruses was that she was the only one in the world that could put a stop to them and recover all the work. Well, recover might be an overstatement since what her program really did was create the illusion of destruction. All she required was an apology and a check to cover the damage to her apartment and time before she fixed it.

A large figure suddenly stepped in front of her, scaring the living hell out of her. Isabella screeched and stumbled backwards, falling flat on her ass. She pushed her tan baseball cap up carefully so she could see the imposing figure. The heavy B.O. followed shortly after, making her gag.

“Have you seen my kitty?” the gruff voice demanded.

Isabella shook her head.

“He’s around here somewhere. He ran out of the house when I was going out to milk the cows. Now I’ve got to look for him and the cows are gonna have to wait to be milked. They’re gonna be mighty angry with their tits sore from the milk.”

“Oh, ah….I hate when that happens,” Isabella said, not really knowing how she should respond. She didn’t speak crazy, but if he let her live she’d be willing to learn.

He nodded firmly as he sighed heavily. “I guess I should go check the barn,” he said, heading back into the alley between two brick buildings.

Isabella jumped to her feet, fixed her hat, and moved her ass. The last thing she needed was for him to come back and mistake her for a cow that needed milking.

She made her way to the small park and found the bench for the meeting place five minutes later. She sat down and hugged her backpack to her chest, trying to catch her breath.

In no way was being in a rundown park at three in the morning a smart idea just because she was desperate to get rid of her program. It wasn’t over money, she was far from poor, but she couldn’t stomach destroying one of her babies or allowing the government to take it from her. It was pride. Stupid pride that was going to get her a slot on the ten o’clock news tomorrow night when they found her nude body in some embarrassing position tomorrow, well, really today.

“This is stupid,” she decided to say out loud just to add emphasis to something she already knew. She couldn’t let her program go to someone who needed to meet in places like this. What in the hell was she thinking? In the wrong hands her program could do so much damage.

This really was not one of her finer moments, she decided.

Groaning, she got to her feet. Well, she’d have to chop this up to a life lesson and figure something else out.

She started towards the street, hoping she’d spot a taxi that could take her safely back home. She was not looking forward to the return walk. She idly wondered if her farmer buddy had any luck with his kitty when several figures stepped out of the darkness in front of her.

“Miss. Smith, you weren’t leaving, were you?” a tall thin man with a slight accent she couldn’t quite place asked in an amused tone.

“Ah, no?” She forced her eyes to focus on anything other than the scar running down his face and the one across his throat. Something told her the man wouldn’t appreciate staring.

“That’s very good,” the man said, gesturing to one of the other men to take her bag from her. She resisted the urge to fight him, reminding herself that she really sucked at fighting. Seriously, it was sad. Her only move was a cross between a windmill motion and bitch slapping, which usually missed its mark and sent her stumbling.

The man took the bag and opened it. He tossed her candy bars to the ground and she almost bitch slapped him then and there. What kind of sick bastard came between a woman and her chocolate? Her copy of Lord of the Rings soon followed along with her iPod, bottle of water, and cell phone. When he pulled out her Netbook she nearly winced at the thought of that getting tossed into the pile. It wasn’t her main computer. It was just a cheap little computer that she used when she was out and wanted to play around with some code. Still, she loved it. It was small, cute, and had a picture of a baby groundhog standing on its hind legs eating a carrot set as her wallpaper. It was really cute.

He handed the computer off to one of his men. A moment later he pulled out three CD cases. “I presume this is what I’m after?”

Nope, but Isabella nodded slowly. She forced herself to remain cool. If they were going to kill her than at least she could die knowing they just screwed themselves over with no way to repair it. Ever.