He chuckled and her ni**les tightened. “Cade saw us come in. He’s going to come up here and want a report on what happened.” Regret in his face, he took a step back and cleared his throat. He also had to adjust himself—she took him from zero to rock-hard in two seconds.

Nodding, she smoothed down the front of her jeans. She walked around him to deal with the clothes she’d just purchased. He made her feel shell-shocked every time he touched her and then moved away. What was going on? It had to be grief related. That was it, grief related! It was about losing her brother and she was seeking out comfort from a man. That explained it. Satisfied, she nodded her head once and continued dealing with the packages and bags.

* * * * *

After Lex left to go deal with Cade and she put her clothes in the washer, Nina sat in the cheerful, bright eating nook in the kitchen for the rest of the afternoon, drinking coffee and working, her face a mask of intensity.

Her program had found some weaknesses in the security and she had been systematically taking it all apart for the last two hours. “Oh! You thought you were so clever, didn’t you?” she mumbled.

Lex came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. “What?”

“Stop that,” she said, but he wouldn’t move back. Sighing, she pointed to the screen. “A honey pot.”

He slid a hand down her belly to press a long finger over the seam in her jeans, against her swollen clit. “This honey pot?” he asked in a whisper against her ear.

She grabbed his wrist and moved him away but that didn’t stop him from noticing her hardening ni**les. He grinned to himself.

“No! Get over yourself already. Ego much?” She pointed to the screen. “This honey pot. It’s a program designed to look like something good, like what we’re looking for. Only it’s a trap. You open it and a virus eats everything on the hard drive or locks up critical programs.”

“So what do we do then?”

“We don’t open it. I’m almost done, or I think I am. Give me another hour,” she said, dismissing him.

He moved away from her with regret. Sitting back at the table, he scanned the plans for a home he’d been commissioned to design. Since Cade was working from home to be nearby, Lex could be an architect for a few hours, put his gun aside. Before too long, he lost himself in his work and time ceased to exist for him.

* * * * *

“Lex,” she called out two hours later.

He looked up and walked over to her, rubbed the back of her neck, pleased that she didn’t try to shy away. “What is it, love?”

“Well, it’s several things.” She pointed to the screen. “These numbers…”

“Shit, those are Swiss bank account numbers,” he said, leaning in, interrupting her.

Cade came into the room. “What’s up?”

Besides the very hard c**k poking at his zipper? Lex motioned to the screen. “She’s in. It’s Swiss accounts.”

Cade came to look over her other shoulder.

“Okay,” she began as she flipped between screens of data, fingers flying over the keys. “These are Swiss accounts and those are dates of transactions and the totals moved. Don’t know what currency, that’s not noted, but let’s assume dollars.”

“Holy crap! If it is dollars, there’s quite a lot of money there,” Cade said with a whistle.

She pointed at the screen. “Yeah and money going out too. Lots of it. Someone has an expensive lifestyle.”

Cade looked at Lex and frowned.

“Jeez, you’ve got millions here coming and going. Within days of a transfer in, there’s transfers out,” she said as she worked.

She clicked to another screen.

“What on earth is that?” Cade asked, looking at the string of numbers and letters.

“Something they didn’t want anyone to see. I think this is what the security was for,” she murmured as she entered a long string of code and hit enter. The numbers and letters coalesced into something else. “It looks like a formula of some kind.”

“Jesus, that’s the lycanthropy virus,” Lex breathed out.

“The what?” Nina asked, alarmed.

“Why would Tommie have this?” Cade asked as Lex continued to rub the back of Nina’s neck.

“I don’t know but it can’t be good. He said he had something big but he couldn’t say more, there were people around. All I know is that he was supposed to meet with me later that night after he’d met with the others.” Lex looked to Nina. “We’ve known that lycanthropy is carried as a virus that can infect humans through contact with blood. Recently our scientists isolated it and began to try and work on ways to protect the immune systems of humans. So if they were infected against their will, they could take some kind of anti-viral blocker right after exposure. It’s still experimental but shows a lot of promise.”

Nina made a face. “Yeah, well. Too late for Gabriel. Of course, if you isolate the virus you can also use it to infect people. Hell, you can make it in large doses and contaminate something shot directly into the system—something as innocuous as a flu shot. Or you can use the anti-viral agent to attack werewolves, causing their system to attack itself,” Nina said.

“The Rogues,” Cade said simply.

“But why?” Lex ran a hand through his hair, clearly frustrated. “We need to find out just exactly is going on. Rogue wolves usually just get involved with petty stuff, nothing too bad. Certainly not at this level!” He paced as he thought. “You can’t just accuse a Pack member of something like this without proof, without any real idea of just exactly they are up to and why.”