My Mystery Mate

Joe froze, his eyes darting between three people. The stranger standing in the door. His mate standing in shock. And a toddler with long black hair, dressed in a black leotard and pink tutu, with a death grip on her legs as she yelled "Mommy's Back! Mommy's Back!" at the top of her lungs.

The stranger also froze, taking in the woman and the large man behind her. He silently cursed himself for not being on alert. He had walked them both in to a room with a werewolf and hadn't noticed until it was too late.

Meanwhile, Mommy was frozen, looking down at the young girls head and wondering what the hell was going on. Slowly she moved her hands down, touching her head and then trailing down her face as she bent down. When she got to her shoulders, she picked her up and held her in front of her face. Her mouth was open as she tried to remember, she looked in her eyes, she was familiar and loved and... she couldn't REMEMBER!!! The girl smiled and leaned forward to kiss her. "I love you, Mommy!"

"I love you too... Lynn!" All of the sudden, the memories came flooding back to her along with the white hot pain that seemed to split her head in half.

Holding her in her arms just after being born.

Singing her to sleep in the rocking chair.

Watching the bad men taking her away as she screamed for her Mommy to stay with her...turning her back on her...the door slamming...

"Mommy??" Lynn cried out as her mom's eyes rolled back in her head and she started to drop.

"LINDA!" The man in the doorway jumped forward, reaching for the girl as Joe moved in from behind. Joe wrapped his arms around her chest just before his mate hit the floor, while the other man dove low and caught Lynn just before she hit the ground. They all ended up in a pile on the floor, and quickly the man rolled to the side with Lynn tucked to his chest while Joe sat up with his mate's back to his chest. He caressed her face as he looked her over, she wasn't injured so he relaxed.

The man stood up, helping Lynn to her feet. She looked up at him, tears in her little brown eyes, and asked, "Daddy? Is Mommy all right?" Joe's wolf was surging forward, he didn't like this man and he was afraid of what he was to his Linda. His fists clenched and released as he held his unconscious mate close to him, his claws were starting to come out as he fought the shift. He looked at them both, his eyes were glowing and there was no mistaking what would happen next.

"Lynn, why don't we go into the kitchen and you can help me make some lemonade for when Mommy wakes up, all right?" She nodded and he turned to take her there, passing Joe with his hands up, clearly wanting to defuse the situation. "Please, take her to the couch, then we'll talk. I'm not your enemy here."

Joe nodded, his wolf retreating as he gained control. Getting into a fight right now wouldn't help, but he was worried- his mate had a daughter, her father was still around, and he didn't know if she would feel the same about him when her memories returned. After all, she was still a panther and he was a wolf, no one had ever heard of a mating across those species.

Once he had his wolf fully under control, he shifted around on the floor so he could pick her up. Even though she was still out, he saw that she snuggled her nose into his neck as he held her, and the low purr in the background calmed him further. He moved through the hallway past the dining table and to the small living room, where he gently laid her on the leather couch. She growled a little as he let her go, but she was purring again by the time he covered her with an afghan that was folded on the back. He caressed her hair, moving it to the side as he kissed her mark and then her lips lightly before standing up.

The man and Lynn were both watching him from the table, they both had glasses of lemonade and there was one at a spot for him. The man looked at him. "My name is Trevor Madison, I'm an old friend of Linda's, and I think we need to talk. Join us?"

Nodding, Joe moved to the table, thankful that the seat he had was across from Trevor, with Lynn to his right, and where he could still keep an eye on Linda. He sat down and smiled at Lynn, drinking a sip of the lemonade he smiled and looked at her. She was the image of her mother, he saw her eyes and the shape of her face and nose, and her hair was the same glossy black. A little part of his heart was already smitten with her. "This is really good, did you make it?"

"Yes, Daddy helped. Who are you?"

"My name is Joseph Miller, but you can call me Joe. I'm a really good friend of your mommy. Did you miss her?"

Lynn sighed, her shoulders slumped. "The bad men said she was dead, but they lied. I could still feel her in here." She touched her small finger to her chest as the tears came out. "They gave me another shot, and then Daddy had me." She finished her drink and was already yawning, which Trevor noticed.

"Looks like it is time for your nap, little one." She nodded and got up, putting her sippy cup in the sink. Joe watched as they headed off to the small bedroom. He listened as she changed and was tucked into bed. He was happy that she was being cared for and seemed happy, but he had more questions than he could shake a stick at right now. He focused on Linda, watching her breathing, feeling through the bond as she slept to tap into her emotions. She fidgeted on the couch, her dreams were pushing her from one emotion to another as she slept.

Ten minutes later, Trevor came back out and sat down. "So, Joe, who are you and why were you with Linda?"

"We didn't even know her name until today. I found her in a river, near death, with severe injuries including a skull fracture. When I found her, my wolf claimed her as my mate." Trevor sat up in shock at this one, but didn't interrupt. "I got her to my Pack doctors outside El Paso and they were able to help her, it was touch and go for a while. Her heart stopped once while we were in the helicopter." He gathered himself and continued. "When she finally woke up, she had no memory of what had happened- who she was, how she got there, not even what her name was. Twenty minutes ago she had no idea she had a daughter. It's a lot to take, but maybe you can tell me how you know her and what she is to you."

Trevor tapped his fingers on the table, trying to figure out what to say. "Linda Merrill I first met when she was sixteen. She was an orphan, living on her skill as a burglar. She was daring, talented and fast, but one day she got caught. My organization was always on the lookout for people with... unique talents. I went to talk to her in the juvenile hall, and I knew she was a werecat like me. She had tons of potential but no guidance; if I left her there she would have struggled to live another year with all the werewolves and other dangers in the area. I called my boss, he was so impressed we got the charges dismissed. We took her into the program, where I was the head trainer. We disappeared all records about her, fingerprints, birth certificate- we made it so she never existed before our program."

"What program?"

"The CIA. We have many needs for people who can do the stuff she could do, and after two years of training she was already the best field agent I had ever trained, the best the program had seen since I was retired. I specialized in wet work- assassination, kidnapping, burglary, and sabotage. We trained her to fight, shoot, steal, how to get past security alarms, video surveillance... she learned it all. By the time she was nineteen, she was in the field and soon had a better success rate than I had before I was retired."

"So she is a CIA agent?"

He smiled. "No, the kinds of things we were involved in, they weren't ever things the Agency could be implicated in or know about. We were a very small team, and only our boss was actually a CIA employee. You see, it was all about plausible deniability for them. As far as they were concerned, when they told my boss they needed something, he was using locals or contract labor. No one knew Linda or me, and if we were ever caught we were common criminals."

"So the men today at the bank, were they CIA? They called her Linda and said their boss wanted to talk to them." He described the earlier events, the people, their dress, their armaments and vehicles, then the outcome.

"Probably. They might also be FBI. You said you killed two?"

"Yes." Trevor let a breath out and closed his eyes. "Can we make contact with your boss and straighten this out?"

"I don't know. Our boss died last year, so I don't have any active contacts within the group. After Linda disappeared, they scrubbed any information on her from the files. All they know is that she is Black Ker and that she has done contract work for us in the past."

Joe sat forward. "Wait a minute, when did she disappear?"

"Right after Lynn was born, she was only five weeks old when we lost contact. She didn't come to see me, and when I went to her apartment in Virginia she was long gone. There were signs of a fight, some blood that was hers and some that wasn't. It was humans that took her, and she was gone. At first we thought her past had caught up to her."

"What do you mean?"

"Black Ker was the best cover story our group ever had. She fit it well, she was damn near invisible, stealthy, could get into any place, could kill anyone. We encouraged her legend. She would leave a tarot card behind as a warning, the Death card. More and more kills and impossible robberies were credited to her, and she was feared by governments and criminals alike. So, when other teams were able to steal or kill, they also left the card behind. It was a way to build her legend while also diverting attention from the CIA doing it."

Joe shook his head. "Didn't people figure out what she was doing?"

"Nope. You see, she wasn't an employee, she couldn't be directly paid for what she did, so we would find other ways. Some of her jobs were plain robberies just to make money. Jewels, art, cash; our group would identify some shady character we didn't mind hitting, and we would help with surveillance and alarms and such. She would grab the stuff and split it with the rest of us on the team who were in the same boat. Even on CIA jobs, she would grab cash or valuables; it would help the team out, plus it was good cover for the job she really had. After a few years, the list of people who wanted her dead was quite extensive. We couldn't keep her in the field forever. That's why she had a numbered account, multiple identities, safe houses. We needed to make sure that she could disappear if she needed to. We didn't protect her well enough after the team disbanded."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, a little over three years ago we knew the team was going to come to an end. New administration, new Director... the appetite to cover up for the kind of work we were doing, hell the ability to even SEE the need for our group, was going away. The Boss was approaching retirement age and they weren't going to replace him. We all started to look ahead to what we would do next. Then Linda went into heat." Joe looked up confused. "You see, werecats aren't like you wolves. You mate for life, your mate goes into heat, you raise the family together. Panthers are solitary, the males only involvement is in the conception. Birthing, raising the young is all done by the female of the species, alone. When the child is weaned, she goes into heat again. It's our way."

"Can't she hide herself during the heat, just wait it out?" Joe's experience with she-wolves was that they either found a male to help them through, or they were taken to a remote location and protected by other females, the males commanded to keep well away.

"Again, for us cats it is different. The female has the choice, she has to accept a male as her partner for the heat, but she must find someone. The drive is powerful, and if she doesn't mate it can be extremely painful, even fatal. That is why a cat's heat comes on over a couple weeks, they may have to wander to find a mate. If more than one male is around, they will compete to show her they are the strongest, the best to make a child with. Linda chose me, and knowing that she was retiring from the work she also chose not to use protection. She wanted a child, she wanted to start a family."

"Are you together then?"

Trevor laughed. "No, not like you wolves are. We are close friends, she would talk to me, send me photos, tell me about Lynn, but she didn't want me involved in raising her. She was going to move to Los Angeles and thought she could blend in, and a few weeks later she was gone." His head hung low. "I didn't hear from her again. Then the rumors started up, she was still pulling jobs, still killing people. The CIA contacted me, looking for her, but I had no idea where she was. In their minds, she had gone freelance."

Joe looked down the hallway. "So how did you get Lynn?"

"About a week ago a man knocked on my door. I'd never seen him before, he was human, and he had Lynn in his arms. He told me that Linda was dead, and that she had requested I take Lynn. He dropped a suitcase, handed her to me, and left. She knew I was her daddy, Linda had shown her pictures of us at some point, so when she started crying I knew I had to protect her. Then, a few days later, the rumors started to fly that Black Ker was still alive. I didn't know if her enemies would come after her, so I took her and we traveled here. This safe house belongs to Linda but she gave me a key. I figured, eventually she might check here." He put his hands on the table. "So how bad is it for Linda?"

It was Joe's turn to sigh. "Her last job was against a wolf pack- the Telluride pack. According to them, she got into their Pack house and poisoned their Luna. The Alpha killed himself in grief shortly after. They found out we had an injured were at our hospital, and sent a kill squad to get her. She... she's my mate, I'll do anything to protect her. We got out of there before she regained consciousness, and we've been on the run ever since. Two times packs have tried to kill or capture us, and both times we've fought our way out. Now she has a kill on sight order, backed up by the Werewolf Council, and I have a dead or alive poster. Every pack in the country knows our scent, our looks, so it's pretty bad. Now we have the CIA or some other alphabet group out after us, so the humans are looking too."

"Any allies?"

Joe smiled. "Just a couple, not everyone believes my mate is a stone cold killer."

"She's not stone cold, but Joe... she is a killer. She's killed more than fifty targets in service to her country, and is deadly in a fight. She is still a good person, though. She would only kill the bad ones, never the family or children; that wasn't who she was and no one was going to change that." He looked around, then back to Joe's eyes. "I'm glad she's back, Joe, and I'm happy she's found you. I can tell you love her and will protect her, and Lynn as well. I need to leave you guys, and leave Lynn with you."

The sound from the living room startled us both. "Trevor, Lynn isn't safe with us. I need you to protect her for a while longer." Linda sat up slowly, then sat back and looked at us. "We need to resolve this thing with the Telluride pack, and I can't have her around for that."

Joe moved quickly to her side, pulling her close as she rested her head against his broad chest. "She's right, they won't stop just because we have a kid along. Lynn needs to be out of the way."

Trevor moved into the living room, sitting with a groan in the chair across from them. "I don't think you understand, Joe. The Packs aren't the ones to worry about, you can hide from them easily. You CAN'T hide from the government, they are too tied in to everything. In a city like this, they have facial recognition, video surveillance, they can track all communications, all cellphone and computer traffic. They'll find you, they already know you are here and trust me, they're pissed. You killed their men, plus you're a loose end they can't afford to leave hanging."

She looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Since you left you've been blamed for many things, not all of which are savory. They can't take a risk of you being linked back to them, of you saying anything. They'll kill you, and they'll kill me or Lynn to get to you."