Shifting Sands: An Alex and Jamie Novel

By Kurrie Hoyt

Marshal Alex Reese’s career is on the rocks. Disgraced, he finds himself chasing a run of the mill hacker but Jamie Iverach will teach Alex more about himself than he ever wanted to know. A shady club owner with a plan and a trip to the desert will change the marshal’s life forever. Can he survive being hunted by his own people long enough to find a way out of the madness? *Note that this novel contains several explicit sexual encounters between two consenting, male adults.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kurrie Hoyt
• Release date: Apr 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310338977

Kurrie Hoyt

Writer, Voice Actor, GamerGirl, Whovian, SPN'er, book-worm, chocoholic, Oblivion Modder, coffee addict, SciFi junkie and above all, I am a giant Nerd. Born in Hawaii as a Navy brat, I grew up in New York, spent a decade in Ohio and now live in Virginia where I work on my novels and write Supernatural Fan Fiction when I need a break. Never underestimate a Busman's holiday.Author of:Sereine: Book One of the Hunter TrilogyCaelestis: Book Two of the Hunter TrilogyShifting Sands - An Alex and Jamie Novel (Adult modern fantasy/Gay Erotica)From Bad to Verse: A poetry AnthologyWinding Deep: Book One of the Red ChroniclesWorks in Progress:Casus Belli: Book Three of the Hunter TrilogyCatalyst - An Alex and Jamie NovelThe Crossing of Camlan: Book Two of the Red Chronicles

Book preview

Shifting Sands

Published By Kurrie Hoyt at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Kurrie Hoyt

Acknowledgments

To my good friend Sheilah for her help proofing and catching holes in my story. To Lisa who worked her magic with my cover and a shout out to the world of Supernatural Fan Fiction authors who dragged me cheerfully screaming down into naughty-ville and showed me that I can write adult fiction without blushing so hard I pass out. Thank you!

Chapter 1

Alex slowly dragged his head up from the hot ground. He had to blink furiously to make his swimming vision focus, and a guttural moan tore out of him when he tried to move. F…fuck. He slid a shaking hand down to his hip and felt the blood, and the jagged, open wounds that those teeth had left in him through the shredded cloth of his pants. He wanted to let go and pass out again, but then he remembered…he hadn’t been alone. Jay? It was little more than a whisper from his dry throat. He pushed past the pain and the fear and rose up on one elbow, looking at the desert around him, and he found him: a dark mound against the bright desert ten feet away.

Can do this. Alex clenched his teeth and pulled himself slowly over the sand. It burned his skin through the tears in his shirt, and the sun beat down on his back relentlessly, sapping what little strength he had. Idiot…makin’ me…chase your…your ass…through the desert. He slumped and had to stop, coughing and fighting not to let the pain take him away. He looked up and scowled. He had to know if the kid was even alive. Alex crawled the last few feet and somehow found the energy to sit up. He put shaking fingers to Jay’s bloody throat, expecting to feel nothing, and a breath of relief punched out of him when he felt a pulse beating a too-fast tattoo against his fingertips.

Damn, kid, Alex breathed. He pulled his service weapon out of Jay’s limp hand, noting with satisfaction that the clip was empty and set it beside him. The back of Jay’s right shoulder was torn open with a vicious bite, and as Alex groaned and struggled to roll him over, he saw that the front of his shoulder held the other half of the bite with blood trailing over the muscles of his chest. The sand beneath him was muddy with blood already drying in the heat as Alex pulled Jay’s head into his lap, brushing dark hair from his closed eyes. Ok. Ok, kid. We’re gonna… Alex shook his head and hunched over him. He fumbled a hand into his back pocket, relieved to find his cell phone still there and pulled it out. He would have cried if he’d had any moisture left in his body when he saw the single bar and dialed the Vegas field office with shaking fingers.

Marshall Alex…Alexander Reese. Badge No. 3905. Got a med…medical emergency. Alex closed his eyes, listening to the calm voice on the other end of the phone and rolled his eyes beneath his lids. M’in the desert. Track… track my, uh…GPS. He didn’t have a damn idea where they were other than vaguely east of the city. S’two of us. Attacked. Tell…tell search and res-rescue…come armed. Big cat. He snorted at the question from the other end. S’what I said. Like a…a leopard or something. You should…should hurry. He let the phone fall into the sand and patted a hand to Jay’s good shoulder. He probably should have mentioned Jay was the criminal he’d come to Vegas to track down, but…he just couldn’t make himself screw the kid like that, not after he’d saved his life. He owed him. Help’s comin’, kid. With that, Alex let himself slide over sideways, no longer able to stay sitting up. He kept one hand on Jay, hoping the thing that attacked them wouldn’t be back and tried to remember exactly when his easy life had become so damn screwed up…

Three days before the desert…

You’re a good marshal, Alex.

Alex rolled his eyes quickly while the director’s back was turned. Statements like that always came with a caveat, and he knew he was in the doghouse. He scrubbed a hand through his short, brown hair and pushed it off his forehead. Thank you, sir.

But… Director John Gladston turned and eyed his marshal with a frown. …you can’t blow an operation like you did last month without repercussions.

I did not blow that op, sir! Alex resisted the urge to shout…barely. He took a deep breath and fought for calm. He looked up at the balding, overweight man who, most of the time, he counted a friend and sighed. Hostage negotiations were tricky things, and, somewhere during the controlled chaos of going in after the criminals, his order to stand down had been ignored and they’d gone in guns blazing instead. The hostage takers were dead, three of his men were wounded and in hospital, and it was all on him. Oh, he knew damn well where the confusion had happened -- his partner. Grady had aspirations and had argued long and loud with Alex about taking the safe, quiet approach as opposed to a more aggressive one, the one he thought would gain him glory.

You were in charge, Alex, the director reminded him firmly.

I’m responsible. I get it. Alex shrugged. Do what you have to, but I…respectfully request you give Grady to someone else. He needs a different partner.

Director Gladston stared meaningfully at him. The request was bordering on refusing responsibility and they both knew it. Alex’s only shot of not being kicked down to the mailroom was to take his lumps gracefully. You won’t be needing a partner for a while. Grady’s already been reassigned, and you’re being sent to the E division.

Whoa. What the hell do I know about electronic crime? Alex did stand and waved his arms. You’re lucky I know how to work my cell, John.

Now you’re just being ridiculous. The director waved away his argument. They’re not going to sit you in front of a computer. You’ll be out in the field.

E division. Alex shook his head. Awesome.

The director sighed and sat at his desk, pushing papers around for a moment. It could have been worse, Alex. This was…they wanted your badge.

Alex nodded and sighed. He knew that. Thanks. I guess. So, which of the genius nerds do I report to?

The director chuckled and smiled. Alan Crane. He’s waiting for you. Dismissed.

Alex opened his mouth and then closed it because, really, there wasn’t anything to say that would change this. He could only make himself look bad at that point. He tossed John a salute and left, silently fuming all the way to the elevator where he slapped the button. Alex had always thought that he’d rise higher in the service by the time he was thirty, and yet, three months after his thirtieth, he was demoted, disgraced, and reduced to errand boy for the geek squad. It galled him that he had to take the rap for that mess, that he couldn’t lay the guilt squarely where it belonged, because the men who had taken Grady’s orders over his had apparently taken a damn vow of silence.

Fuck. Alex snarled softly and stepped on the elevator when it opened. The whole mess was making him begin to rethink whether being a marshal was what he wanted anymore; was it worth it when someone else’s mistake could screw him this much? He preferred to be screwed by his own bad choices. The scowl on his face deterred anyone from speaking to him when he reached the electronics division and wended his way across the maze of cubicles, all filled with computers and their techie owners, to the offices on the other side.

Alex knocked twice on the door with Alan Crane’s name on it and pushed it open. Marshal Crane? He’d been expecting some pimple-faced teenager, honestly, and had to take a moment and stare at the portly man with a shock of silver hair who looked up at him in surprise from behind thick lenses. Uh…Deputy Marshal Reese…sir.

Right. Come on in. Sit. Crane waved him in and pointed to one of two chairs not loaded with computer parts and boards and various bits of wire. The man’s office looked like a magpie’s nest. It was cluttered and cramped and made Alex, at six-foot-three, feel like a behemoth.

The director said you were expecting me.

And you’re damn pissed about the whole thing, Crane said and raised his brows at him, smirking. You got a crap deal, kid. No two ways around it. He leaned back and studied the man in front of him -- twenty years younger and clearly disabused of his love for the marshal service just then.

Alex rolled his eyes at being called a kid but smiled. His gut told him this was one of the good guys. Yes, sir.

I’ve seen your file. Crane pulled a folder out from under the open guts of a computer and then tossed it aside. Basic computer skills, more than you admit to. He chuckled at Alex’s surprised look and shrugged. People skills, weapons and combat training, and, I’ll be honest, pretty much everyone in my division would crap and faint if you pointed a real gun at them. So, he leaned forward again and smiled, best for everyone concerned, I think, if I keep you out in the field. You’d just end up shooting someone around here to shut ‘em up otherwise.

If you think that’s best, sir, Alex replied. Truthfully, he didn’t mind being kicked out of the building. Three weeks was plenty of time for the story of his blown op to make the rounds, and he was already having trouble being cornered by fellow marshals and everyone else for details, or, in some cases, outright misplaced hostility at him for the marshals who had nearly died. He was officially persona non grata thanks to Grady. Got something in mind?

Crane nodded and hunted around his desk until he came up with another folder and passed it across. Some yahoo in Vegas hacked the core system at Merrill Lynch. He snorted a laugh. I almost hate sending you out to find the guy ‘cause…he’s got style. He uploaded a virus that made every computer in the network say ‘Would you like to play a game?’ every time a command was entered.

Alex watched him laugh and raised a hand in confusion. Why is that funny?

Crane stared at him in a little shock. Where the hell were you during the 80’s? It’s the tag-line from ‘Wargames’. Mathew Broderick? He waved a hand. Never mind; but you should know, I respect you less now. Crane snorted. Gonna be part of this division, you better work on your inner ‘geek’. Go on. Plane ticket’s in the file and all the info you need. You’ll liaise with the field office there. Good luck.

Right. Alex stood and ran a hand through his hair. Uh, thanks.

Do good on this, kid. Crane said while Alex opened the door. You can sink or you can swim. All up to you at this point.

Alex nodded and closed the door behind him. He tried to look less angry on his way out of the E division, noticing some of the clearly worried looks he received as he passed. These people were his co-workers now, more or less. He flipped open the file when he reached the elevator and started wading through the reports, wondering how much of a headache he was going to have over this job as the tech-speak on the first page made him groan.

Two days before the desert…

Las Vegas looked awe-inspiring from the air, but from the ground, as the desert heat oozed into his pores and covered every inch of his skin in sweat in a matter of moments, Alex decided it was just hell on earth with fancy lights. He’d spent a long, painful three hours in the field office being briefed on the hacker attack. Alex considered himself an intelligent guy, and despite his protests, he did know his way around a computer, at least more than your average idiot. The techs in the Vegas field office, though, had driven the spike of a monumental headache behind his eyes by throwing around terms he needed a dictionary for.

Alex left the field office with a stack of files and reports to go over and a list of various addresses that might or not belong to his perp. He kind of wished the hacker had gone for something more important and paranoia-inducing like the Pentagon. There’d have been an army of agents looking for him instead of just one, pissed off, disillusioned marshal. He barely looked at the city while his cab took him back to his motel and he walked around the anemic swimming pool in the motel’s courtyard with barely a glance for the deep green, uninviting water rippling lazily in the heat. Alex opened the door to his room, thankfully on the first floor, and groaned happily when a wall of cool air from the air conditioner he’d left on high greeted him.

Oh, thank God. He kicked the door shut behind him, dropped the files on one bed, and rolled gratefully onto the other beside the A/C unit. Alex sighed and tossed an arm over his face. He missed the days when there would have been someone else in the room. He missed having a partner he could trust. Having Grady assigned to him after his last partner had been…painful. He took a deep breath and tried to picture Mack’s face the way it had been -- open and cheerfully wicked under that ridiculous mustache he’d refused to shave. Alex smirked. They’d spent years hiding their relationship from the marshal service, thinking that was the worst that could happen, someone finding out they were partners in every sense of the word. The smile fell from Alex’s face, and he rolled to sit up because it turned out there were worse things.

Alex shook his head, refusing to let his mind replay those events and grabbed the files instead. Alright. He pulled off his suit jacket and badge and tossed them to the bed and then the dress shirt as well. He rolled his arms, letting the air from the A/C cool the sweat on the muscles of his chest with a sigh. Better. Now, let’s see if I can’t bag me a nerd.

Yes, ma’am. I’m sure your Davey is a good boy, but I still need to see him. Alex rolled his eyes and pulled at the collar of his t-shirt with the sun beating down on him. Two hours of driving through the Vegas heat had pretty much stuck his shirt to his body. He couldn’t help the slight smirk when he caught Lisa Campbell’s eyes looking heatedly at his sweat-damp shirt pulling across his chest and showing off the body he worked hard to maintain. Mrs. Campbell? Davey?

Her eyes shot back up to his and a blush crawled up her face, but she shook her head. "He’s in his room alright? But I’m telling you. He