Free Bite (Bloodlines Book 1) by Crissy Smith

him. He wouldn’t be able to stand it.
    Cowardly maybe, but Kieran chose the email for Dean first.
    There was no message, just an attachment that he double clicked open. A picture of a younger Dean was the first thing he saw. He was a good-looking kid who’d grown into a handsome man. He’d resembled Caspar more when he’d been younger. They shared the same square chin and high cheekbones. It was hard to hate the guy when he reminded Kieran so much of a man he cared for.
    He scrolled down past the picture. Dean had attended the Organization’s boarding school in California. So Angel and Remy probably wouldn’t know him. They’d both gone to school on the east coast. Dean had been a good student who’d aced all his classes, especially math and science. Kieran read about all of Dean’s accomplishments and was impressed. If he’d been in charge, he would have put Dean in a lab or as a technician. He would thrive investigating, just like Lettie. Maybe Dean was good in the field but he had a feeling that it was his last name that had decided his position.
    Vaguely, he wondered how Dean felt about that.
    According to the file, Dean had been partnered with Dakota for three years. A long partnership that had benefited the city of Las Vegas. There was little on his personal affairs in the file but that was to be expected. The juicy stuff would be harder to find, but Kieran was a determined man.
    He minimized this email and pulled up the program that gave him access to the Organization’s files. He typed in a request for cases in the Las Vegas area for the last six months.
    Jesus! Over four hundred open, closed and current cases. How did the agents there get anything done? To narrow down the numbers, he typed in Dean’s name. That was a little more manageable. Still just shy of one hundred. He picked the newest and opened it. He’d work his way back. If he didn’t get a good idea of how Dean and Dakota worked after reading through these, he didn’t know how he would.
     
    * * * *
     
    It was almost ten at night but no one had seen Kieran leave his suite, so Dakota hoped he was still in for the night. After she and Dean had left the hotel earlier, they’d been called in to assist some of the other agents.
    A group of shifters had decided to try their hand at breaking and entering. They’d used brute force instead of finesse and that was what had got them busted. It wasn’t hard to follow their scents to where they’d crashed.
    But that had made her later than she’d wanted.
    She knocked softly on Kieran’s hotel door so as not to disturb the occupants in the rooms around him. Dakota leaned closer to the door and could hear sounds. She moved from foot to foot as she waited.
    When he opened the door, her breath caught. Kieran wore only a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. She hadn’t seen him dressed down before and she liked it. Almost as much as when he was naked. He looked good in his street clothes but now? He actually took her breath away. His hair was ruffled like he’d been running his fingers through it. To see him so laid-back and in comfort made her feel like she was seeing a side of him very few did.
    Without a word, he opened the door the rest of the way. She stepped in and picked up the smell of coffee, food and wine? It had to have been a better meal than what she and Dean had picked up on the fly. Dean loved fast food, and while Dakota tried her best to shovel some of the same crap down, she always felt slightly nauseous after.
    Kieran closed the door and with a hand to her lower back, led her into the living space of the suite. The suite looked even more lived in than it had the night before. The room wasn’t as neat as when she’d left earlier but still tidier than her own place. She wondered if he was always neat or if it was just because he was in a hotel room.
    “Would you like a drink?” he asked as he strolled to the table ahead of her. “I had a bottle brought up.”
    “Yes, please,” she