Page 6 of Robb

Robb wanted nothing more… but it was absolutely out of the question.

If he’d been dedicated to the Agency before, he would have to be doubly so now. Everything from now on would be absolutely, one hundred percent by the book. He’d fucked up tonight, and he could never let that happen again.

Tahnee turned back for a brief moment, and it was enough for Robb’s pulse to catch on the slimmest of hopes that she might come sauntering back – but no, after a moment of staring, she hitched one foot in its towering, spangled high-heel onto the railing on the side of the boat, before pulling herself up until she stood fully on top of it.

Tahnee –

The name was almost out of his mouth before she jumped – and Robb almost dashed forward to follow her, until he saw, a moment later, a large, majestic bird with a long, sinuous neck and long, long legs sailing away from the boat, its massive wings outstretched as it rode the river breeze away from him.

Robb couldn’t immediately identify the huge bird, until some more fireworks went off, illuminating the harbor as bright as day – and then he could see not only the soft gray of the bird’s feathers, but also the distinctive red banding across the back of its head.

A brolga, he thought, as he watched her flying away.

Somehow, it suited her – a powerful, majestic bird, elegant but fierce.

And known for their elaborate courtship rituals.

That has no relevance at all, Robb tried to snap at himself. And yet, all he could do was watch her, his chest aching, until she disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Chapter 1

“Isee Lachie’s made the front page again. That’d be, what, third time this year?”

Robb didn’t look up from the report he was writing, even as his subordinates dropped any pretense of being an elite team of professional crimefighters, and instead crowded around to gawk at Trent’s phone.

He didn’t need to look, anyway – he already knew exactly what had gotten them so excited. It was his job, after all, to know what shifters were getting up to, and Lachie – or Lachlan Edward Thatcher, as Robb knew he was actually called – was a known quantity. Not a threat in and of himself, but certainly a threat to shifter secrecy.

After all, a guy with a tendency to get drunk, shift, and then totter around town in his shifter form was always going to attract attention… and doubly so when that shifter form just happened to be an enormous saltwater crocodile. The only thing keeping Lachlan out of trouble was the fact that he was in Darwin, not Sydney – a croc passed out in the middle of the street next to a comically large pile of empty beer cans in Darwin was likely to draw tabloid journalists and amused onlookers, rather than hordes of animal control officers and every cop within a ten-kilometer radius.

It was a shame about Lachlan, really – Robb certainly could’ve used a crocodile in his team. But there were some people who just weren’t Agency material.

Trent hooted as he looked at his phone. “Look at all those empties – I bet his head’s hurting today. Hang on, I’ll just text him.”

Robb’s dingo narrowed its eyes. What was that you were just saying about not hiring those who are not Agency material?

Robb couldn’t entirely disagree, but he knew that when it came down to it, Trent could always be counted on to do his job to an extremely high standard. As could all of Robb’s team. He actually preferred it if they mucked around and blew off some steam when things were quiet.

Within reason, of course.

Not that he would ever let them know that.

He hadn’t deliberately set out to cultivate an aura of being emotionally detached and overly rigid, but it had somehow happened that way, and maybe it was for the best. It gave his team a common target for their gripes and complaints, while they knew that they could count on him when they needed it.

Well. He hoped they knew it, anyway. He’d been fairly confident in that belief, right up until the moment that he’d had to let a mole in the Agency pin the blame for a failed mission on one of his team members, Rhys. It was Robb’s biggest professional regret – after his failure to complete his mission on that fateful New Year’s Eve, anyway – even though it had been necessary at the time.

He didn’t think his team held it against him, but it was hard to be sure. He was always going to be on the outside with them.

It couldn’t be any other way. In his position, he had to be ruthless, and put his personal feelings to one side – Or I should, anyway – and while it made sense to keep himself separate from the others, it was a lonely position to be in.

“Brrrrp?”

Brought out of his thoughts, Robb looked up to see an enormous pair of golden eyes peeking around the corner of his computer screen, framed by dark blue scales that gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Razor-sharp claws scraped along the edge of his monitor.

Having a baby dragon shifter on his desk wasn’t that strange of an occurrence – these days it was pretty much par for the course, given that his team had apparently decided to use their place of employment as a creche for baby shifters whenever they felt like it.

Robb didn’t mind, as long as there was no risk to anyone’s safety, but he did have a reputation to keep up. And, he had to admit as he watched the dragon’s claws embed themselves into the plastic monitor casing, he would’ve preferred it if they weren’t quite so destructive.

The baby dragon cheeped at him, his eyes getting even bigger. Not that Dusty was so much a baby dragon anymore, as more of a preschool-age dragon – he really was getting too big to be galumphing about on Robb’s desk. But he hadn’t learned to shift yet, and Robb didn’t feel like wrangling with a petulant baby dragon when he could just ignore it.