Agent Alpha Ch. 02

Rhys cocked an eyebrow at her. "The sort that deals with plenty of bar fights, drunken brawls, and company barbeques." The thought occurred to him then that this was exactly what had transpired and he actually let out a chuckle. "Wait, wait, wait. You didn't get into a bar fight, did you?" Analise looked a bit sour and averted eye contact by turning her head to the side. Rhys laughed far more easily at this. "Unbelievable. An up tight little city girl like you? Wouldn't have expected that one, Shepherd," he said with a smirk, reapplying the slab of meat in spite of her protests.

"Yeah, well, me neither," she answered dryly. "I was in there looking for dinner. Apparently this town shuts down after 7pm and your bar's the only thing open. Oh, and, apparently, it's totally acceptable to be completely shit faced by 7:30 pm too."

"You don't say," Rhys replied, still finding the entire situation far more amusing than he should have. There was something horribly vindicating by Shepherd's black eye. A part of him wanted to clap the omega on the back for a job well done.

"MMm," she answered in a completely irritated tone. She was smirking a lot, as if finding some sort of dry humor in all of this. "Your buddies down the hall decided to bother me and their waitress with some rather rude solicitations followed by inappropriate physical contact. When they crossed the line, I suggested they cease and desist or face criminal charges."

"Bet that worked out for you," Rhys chuckled again. Given who was presently sitting in the drunk tank, he imagined that did not go over real well.

"Oh tremendously. When they refused to see my logic, I had no option but to use force to subdue them while we waited for the local police to not respond to the 911 call and walk their worthless asses fifty feet down the street to assist a fellow officer. So, I had no choice but to bring them here one by one while your impotent staff tried to figure out what to do." Analise pushed the meat away with more determination. "I-I'm sorry. I'm a vegetarian," she explained in a surprisingly personable tone. "And the smell of that is actually churning my stomach right now."

Rhys sat back in his chair which he had pulled across from her to dabble at her swelling face with the rib eye. He offered her a confused frown, though she hardly knew why. For all she knew, he was irritated at how his police force responded. In reality, he was trying to figure out how a woman her size had managed to subdue four male werewolves, one of whom was a gamma.

"What." She essentially demanded through a tired sigh.

"... you really did all that?... Those aren't some piss off city boys; they're country boys who scrap every week. Besides, you look like hell ran you over with a monster truck."

Analise rolled her eyes but did offer an amused grin and chuckle. Analise not trying to run the world was actually somewhat enjoyable. She had a dry sense of humor that Rhys could appreciate, and once her professionalism went down, she could cuss like any drunken cowboy he'd ever met; and fight like one too, apparently. "Yeah, well, you should see the other guys." she let out in an exasperated sigh as she pushed herself up. "Obviously I'm pressing charges. If you'll excuse me, I need to call my lawyer back." She stepped away, pulling out her phone again, though she did cast a hint of a smirk back at Rhys. He was right, a part of her did find this entertaining.

Curiously, Rhys peaked his head down the hallway to see Brody stepping out of the drunk tank with a confused look on his face. "They said she beat 'em up, boss," he replied in his usual flat baritone. Brody shrugged apathetically as he made for the door. "Let 'em sober up and give 'em to me in the morning. If they're scared of a little human girl, then obviously they need some more training. Fuck'n pussies."

"How bad is it?" Rhys inquired, obviously still very curious.

Brody shrugged again. "Lotta missing teeth and bruises. Pretty sure Sam's nose is broken, but he'll live. Said she went all kung fu on 'em, like I give a damn. Sounds like they got too rowdy and started makin some passes at women who weren't interested. When one of 'em wouldn't take no for an answer, your girlfriend told them to back off and, apparently, they announced that they weren't afraid of the FBI and Ric took a swing at her. She knocked out his front teeth with the butt of her pistol and all hell broke loose. They managed to land a few good hits on her, but..." Brody shifted slightly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Look, Rhys, I don't like where this is heading. Everyone's been talk'n about her all day. Say she's a werewolf hunter or some shit. Honestly, those four are idiots, but that don't mean a human should stand a chance against them if they're up for a scrap. And a tiny little piss-off human female? It doesn't make sense. Oh and worse, and the omega's have themselves all worked up that she's gonna root out the den or something." Brody shook his head in dismay. "Don't worry, man. I'll beat enough shit out of them for this one that the others will think twice before fucking up this bad again. I'm more worried about keeping it under control. What's this going to do for morale when they hear that a one hundred pound woman beat the shit out of four of our hunters?"

Rhys frowned as his heart sunk in disappointment. His men were better than this. Whatever else she was, Analise was a human woman and those were's had no reason to believe that she'd be able to defend herself. They easily could have killed her. Rhys considered for a moment that that would have made things a lot easier on him. Federal Agent killed in a bar fight? No one would even bat an eye at that sort of thing. At least not in a way that would threaten the pack.

He sighed again. "Yeah, fine," he let out at Brody, who answered with a nod. "She says she's pressing charges. Make sure they all have clean identities for when people start digging," he added, thinking again how close this call had been.

Rhys heard the old pick up roar into life as Brody drove it back to the den. He shook his head as he headed back to the conference room, dismissing most of the night staff, and stopping by the coffee pot and pouring a mug for him and the apparent martial artist. It was day old and luke warm. He smirked at the anticipation of her displeasure over it. It was petty, he knew, but he was still going to enjoy it.

Rhys stepped into the conference room as Analise was hanging up the phone, silently offering her a mug while taking a seat. "Thanks," she replied, taking a sip and contorting her face in disapproval. Rhys could only smirk at the reaction.

"So," Rhys started, taking a sip of his equally horrible brew. "You're a vegetarian, cat loving, kung fu master. Any other character flaws I should know about?" He pulled out a flask from his breast pocket of his jacket and dumped a good amount of clear liquid into his drink, offering some to her as well.

Shepherd hesitated for a moment before shrugging and accepting. "Thanks," she muttered, taking a sip and wincing. "But seriously, are you withholding crime stats? Frankly, I don't care; that's for your district attorney to deal with, not me. I'm just worried about the impact on the case."

Rhys rolled his eyes. "Why yes, Rhys, I'm also obsessed with my work so much that I use it to avoid social contact, now that you ask," he retorted before resting his cobalt blue eyes on hers and shaking his head. "I want to find Allison, Agent Shepherd. Riverton's a close knit community. You think I want to go to church on Sunday and look her pop in the eyes without knowing I've done everything I could to bring his little girl home? Police officer aside, what sort of man does that make me?"

This seemed to be a reasonable explanation as far as Analise was concerned and she both shrugged and nodded her acquiescence at the same time.

Rhys just shook his head at her. "You got any friends, Shepherd? Someone you can call and bitch to about having to defend a waitress's honor against a bunch of drunk lumberjacks?" The statement was light hearted, but hearing what had happened had earned Analise a measure of his respect. Sure, she was rigid and uncompromising, but at least she had her head on straight.

Analise actually chuckled at the question. "No, not really," she replied. "That would violate the obsession with work as a means of avoiding social contact rule," she added, her eyes twinkling just a bit at the jab. In truth, she kind of found Rhys attractive.

"How about you?" She countered. "Anyone you can call up and complain about the overbearing FBI agent who just stormed in and took over?"

Rhys offered her an amused grin. "Touche, Agent Shepherd, touche." He took another swig of his coffee-other tincture and set the glass down before looking at her again. "How 'bout we try this a little different," he suggested. This was new territory for him and if he was right, it would be for her too.

"I'm listening," she replied with a curiously cocked eyebrow. She casually sipped her coffee-other, watching him over the brim of the mug.

"How about, we try working together instead of trying to beat each other into submission every chance we get? I'm pretty sure neither of us are going to back down which means we're just getting in each others way. Not really fair to Allison and those other girls, in my opinion."

Analise was still watching him carefully though she obviously took his suggestion to heart. "Not really my style," she admitted. "But you've got a valid reason." She thought for another second. "Ok, Captain, you've got yourself a deal."

She chuckled slightly and shook her head in confusion. "I'll tell you... I'm pretty sure I'm missing something," she admitted. All the bite of her dominant personality was gone, replaced instead by analytical cooperation.

The honesty of her tone went a long way with Rhys, who, was growing equally tired of butting heads with her every step of the way. This new world of cooperation just might work out after all. "Don't know about that," he answered honestly. "You found their campsite didn't you?"

Analise dismissed the suggestion with a wave. "A transient day camp," she explained as if it weren't of consequence. She was right but Rhys suspected she had no idea why. "They have Allison holed up somewhere and we're running out of time. They won't do anything until they have a full moon. We've only got a week left before that hits and then we'll never find her."

She leaned into the table, making direct eye contact with Rhys. At first he decidedly hated when she did this, but now, he was finding it was actually sort of nice to look someone in the eyes when speaking with them. Her eyes were nice, too. A pretty green with bright grey and brown flexes. Unless you actually looked at them, they just looked green, but now he could see all of the rich complexity in them.

"We need to look at that first area," she revealed, much to Rhys's displeasure. It reminded him that he would either have to kill or turn her; just when things were starting to go his way for a change. "I was looking at a topographical map, and I'm pretty sure there are cave formations in that area. I'm telling you, it's an ideal location for these people. In all my studies, I've not seen something so perfect for them."

Rhys cocked an eyebrow and shrugged. And here he looked on his den location with disdain. The werewolf hunter's description almost made him blush with pride. "I suppose we can go take a look at it in the morning," he suggested, already regretting that it would likely result in him having to put the woman down.

"But-" Analise started to argue.

"Absolutely not," he interrupted impatiently. "No way in hell I'm dragging you out into the woods at this time of night when you just got the snot knocked out of you."

Shepherd's brow ruffled in offense. "I'm perfectly fine," she insisted. "Just a few bruises. Not even note worthy."

"Note worthy enough for you to press charges," he returned. "It can wait for morning when we've got some better light. Here," he said, retrieving her glass and standing up. "I'll walk you back to your hotel. I'll get you first thing in the morning and we'll see if your cult spotting is just luck or if you've actually got a talent in it," he promised.

"Fine," she answered begrudgingly as she stood up to join him at the door.

They both paused at the threshold at the same time. The precinct was deathly quiet and Analise frowned from the eerie familiarity. Rhys was frowning for a much more concerning reason. He smelled the rogue alpha and at least five other weres with him. "Something's not right," Analise muttered as she reached for her Glock.

"Get back in the conference room and stay low," Rhys ordered in full on General Rhys voice. Oddly, Analise seemed to approve of the tone, though she had no intention of obeying him. Some sixth sense of hers was telling her what Rhys's nose had confirmed: Danger was clear and present.