Administrative Control (Immortal Ops) Read Online Free Page A

position go to his head. “Do not even think of pushing me on this. You will pass the report to who it needs to go to and you will sign off on it, as you know as well as I do that you and the others like you have not been honest with any of us. And unless you want me showing up in your room while you’re in a dead sleep, standing over you with a sword, ready to remove that thick head of yours, I’d suggest you do as you’re told.”
    The man would. The compulsion in Asher’s voice was too great for a mere human to resist. It wasn’t something Asher did too often, as it was easy to go too far, to push too much. But it was called for now.
    “Yes. Of course,” the man said, hanging up.
    The idea that a human had any control over him or his men was laughable. His men were handpicked and superior soldiers. That being said, they did tend to bend or break about every rule set before them. It was simply the way of their personalities and he actually found that to be an asset.
    “They are chips off the ole block,” he said softly, thinking of how he too had issues following commands when given by fools. He tucked his phone back into his jacket pocket. His men thought they were the only ones within the I-Ops organization who were supernatural.
    They were not.
    Asher was hardly ordinary or human. But he’d not worn his paranormal abilities on his sleeve for all to see. He kept them close to the vest, knowing better than to shout from the mountaintops about who he was—and more importantly, what he was.
    That was a whole bag of shit he didn’t want opened. Things were good with his working relationship. He was the one “human” the men listened to. Though, he had to wonder if they ever suspected there was more to him than he let on. He’d seen the way Jon, one of his men, watched him of late. And he had a feeling Jon might be onto him same as Lukian was.
    “I’m getting way too old for this shit,” he said softly, meaning every word of it.
    He wouldn’t trade what he did now for anything. He was paying back the supernatural community. Sure, they weren’t aware of it, and yes, he was paying off a debt that wasn’t actually his own, but he needed to do this for his own peace of mind.
    His phone buzzed, indicating he had an email. He already knew without looking that it was to alert him that his preliminary reports that Eadan and Duke had given regarding their involvement in matters in Seattle had been passed up the chain, signed off and all.
    He laughed.
    The men who believed themselves in control actually held little in the way of power. They were simply figureheads. Tools to be manipulated as the others saw fit. Asher was one of the people who viewed them in this light.
    Once, long ago, he’d broken the rules. Bent them more than broke, really. The results had been catastrophic. He still carried the guilt of it all to this day.
    With a slow measured breath, Asher took in the sights around him as he ran his hands through his now shorter black hair. Once he’d worn it to his waist, as most of his family and brethren did. In an attempt to blend in with his current job and surroundings, he adopted a more modern, clean-cut-male look, even going so far as to magikally sprinkle in some white hairs on his temples to show aging, where no other aging signs could be found. If he kept on as colonel he’d need to use his magik to create some laugh lines around his eyes or something to help the others believe he wasn’t immortal.
    Or, you could break the rules and tell them the truth.
    No.
    The warehouse had been the scene of one hell of a throw-down. Dead bodies still littered the area and the battle itself had taken place the night prior. It was easy enough to keep humans at bay. A few well-placed spells and the humans felt no need to be in the area—in fact, they wanted to stay as far from it as they could. The heavy lifting in the spell department had been done by Helmuth’s magiks, not Asher’s.
    The magik, while old