by Anya Nowlan
Most of the local agents were skilled fighters and people who had either been raised in the jungles or at least spent notable time there. They didn’t congregate much, it seemed, and could work as lone wolves, evading capture. Currently, Thor and Shifter Squad Nine were tracking an Arctics lieutenant, a man by the name of Salvador Milu, and his companions.
Considering by the gunshots, at least someone had found something but whether or not it was Shifter Squad Nine finding Salvador or Salvador finding Shifter Squad Nine, Thor had no way to know.
Couldn’t we just do it the old-fashioned way? Carpet bomb the whole goddamn forest and be done with it?
The thought was particularly appealing because it would mean that he wouldn’t have to be here and all of the work would be done by someone else. Two things Thor Dremmons had come to enjoy far too much.
As a sniper for The Firm, and ex-Navy SEAL, Thor was painfully accustomed to staying very still for long stretches of time. For a man who hated being alone with his thoughts, it was an odd career choice, but he’d figured that out way too late into sniper training and there was no backpedaling from there. For the last eight years, he’d been a diligent soldier, or sailor depending on the branch he found himself in, and The Firm had been paying his wages for four years now.
Apparently stabbing a superior officer in the neck with a fork was a big enough deal for the SEALs to quietly discharge him, but it didn’t mean anything to The Firm. He’d gotten picked up practically from the gate.
I should have become a mall cop instead, Thor continued grimly, glancing upward.
The sky was getting dark fast. He checked his watch and listened one more time, hearing nothing but the endless, screeching, incredibly loud jungle all around him. As a shifter he was more than capable of weeding out all of the unimportant noises and focusing on the ones that would give him any information, but there simply weren’t a lot to choose from.
“Lynx Four, does anyone copy?” he asked, tapping his headset when he deemed it safe to talk – not that anyone’s listening, obviously.
No answer.
Big surprise.
They were supposed to meet up after the sun went down and by the looks of it, the sun would drop like a stone in a few minutes. Being stuck in a small primary forest basin nestled by mountains and hills on all sides, dusk would come fast and turn into night even faster. Thor counted down the minutes and when nighttime fell on his surroundings, he gingerly began the process of waking his body up from the near-endless slumber a sniper would freeze into when on his post.
Joint by joint, he felt life enter into him once more until he could roll back his shoulders and carefully sit up on the thick branch he’d been basking on. He took apart his gun and put it away in the large backpack of gear that he carried, slinging his assault rifle over his shoulder instead. Checking quickly, he made sure that he had all three of his knives strapped to his body and that he’d secured away everything he came with.
Then, listening for another moment, he descended the tall tree foot by foot, stopping every now and then to listen again. He moved so gracefully and so fluidly that the untrained eye would not see him progress down the tree trunk at all. Feline grace and years of rigorous training had instilled in him a certain shadow-like quality, enforced all the more by his black panther heritage.
If Thor Dremmons didn’t want anyone to see him, they wouldn’t.
Or so he thought.
When he dropped down on the ground, the scrunch of dead foliage beneath his boots felt good.
Solid ground at last, he thought, scruffing a hand through his short-cropped hair. He was in head to toe camo, including face-paint. Now to find these lazy fucks who can’t do their goddamn jobs.
Grumbling under his breath, he began the arduous trek toward the gathering point, picking a route that would take him about three miles off-course in order to not use the same path he took before. He got about five minutes away from his nest when the first bullet whirred over his head, almost taking his ear along with it.
Shit!
He dropped down on the ground immediately, pulling up his rifle. Whoever had shot at Thor had either been lying in wait or they’d managed to sneak up on him. He was willing to bet it was the former rather than the latter. No one snuck up on him.
Staying perfectly still, he listened, trying to discern any noise that was out of place in the dark, nighttime jungle. Somewhere, he could hear the slight whir that came with a flying fox leaping from one tree to another. Not too far, he could hear the hissing of a snake, probably somewhere around his ankles. He didn’t have time to worry about it yet. Humans were far more serious of a threat.
Tentatively, he moved forward an inch and braced himself for impact. No bullet came.
So they’re higher, he thought, peeking upward slightly at the dense leaves and branches that covered him.
Very slowly, keeping his breath even and his thoughts centered, he maneuvered the backpack off his back and undid it. The zippers and latches were made to be soundless, but even if they hadn’t been, then the deafening chirping and whirring in the nighttime jungle would have covered the sounds. One by one, he took out the pieces of his sniper rifle and put it together, his hands working reflexively.
He could take that thing apart and put it together in his sleep if he needed to. Considering that it was pitch black and he could only make out shapes and movement thanks to his augmented shifter eyesight, that was a boon. In a matter of minutes, because of his cramped and uncomfortable position, he had the rifle put together and mounted.
I’ll get you now.
Leaning into the scope, he looked around slowly, the thermal imaging of the night vision scope setting the jungle around him on fire with life and motion. Endless small critters seemed to be skittering around, but Thor was looking for a much bigger piece of prey. Because of the low angle, he couldn’t see too high and after making sure that whoever had tried to shoot him wasn’t in his immediate field of vision, he did something far foolhardier than he would have liked.
Reaching behind him, he patted along the ground until he found a reasonably large fallen vine, grown brittle with age. In a split second, he hoisted it up into the air and away from himself, letting it fall a couple dozen feet to his right.
There you are, he thought with a grin, noting the faintest spot of movement behind a tall tree almost dead ahead of him.
He zeroed in on it and waited patiently, like a hunter would, until about ten minutes later, the fuzzy shape of a man peeked out once more. Thor squeezed the trigger just in time and was rewarded with the sound of a body hitting the jungle floor.
Thor stayed still for another ten minutes or so, listening and watching, waiting for someone else to show up. Before getting up, he tried the same trick he’d used before with a rock, hoping that whoever else was around his area would be dumb enough to try and discern his location again.
No movement.
Carefully, he rose up, his assault rifle drawn up. Frowning, he moved to the body of the man he’d shot, crouching down next to him. He couldn’t tell if it was a werewolf or someone else because the darkness wasn’t particularly helpful in making out the exact facial features and eye color of his enemy, but he was certainly a soldier. An oldschool sniper rifle, the kind that if you were unlucky enough you could get shot by in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, laid next to him and Thor shook his head slightly.
Sorry, brother. It was you or I and I didn’t feel like dying today.
He patted through the man’s pockets and bag, finding field rations and a notebook and pen but no personal items or radio. Putting the notebook away to look through when he had some light, Thor left the body there and returned to dismantle his rifle once more. When his pack was put together again, he set off on the arduous task of finding his team again.
He’d spent at least two hours on the ground, trying not to die, and he was way behind schedule. Shifter Squad Nine was no group of angels, no man left behind hardly qualified as a
motto for them and Thor had no doubt that if things played out the wrong way, he could find himself enjoying the nights of Borneo far longer than he was expecting. Until Price felt like coming to pick him up again, anyway.
They’d left Rio and Ryker behind for two days like that once when the lions got way too into blowing up a mountainside with supposed Arctics’ terrorists hidden in its caves. It ended up being three days of wasted time for two dead bodies of wolves who were malnourished to begin with. Dice hadn’t been a fan and neither was the rest of the squad.
If that fucking wolfy leaves me here, I might just have to shoot my way out of The Firm once and for all, Thor mused idly, walking through the jungle at a faster pace now than he had originally, but keeping his ears perked and his senses sharp.
He didn’t want to get his head blown off his shoulders in the middle of nowhere in Asia. Odds were good that no one would even find his body and how could he disappoint his parents then? His father had always assumed he’d be coming back in a body bag from when he announced he’d be joining the Navy and his mother had just shaken her head. Apparently shifter parents had very distinct plans for their firstborn and Thor had done his best all his life to throw wrenches into the plots of his parents.
Having a The Firm intelligence agent – probably Spade, that motherfucker – turn up at his parents’ place to announce that he was lost on a ‘highly critical’ mission would just serve his dad right. He wasn’t okay with letting that happen.
They didn’t want me when I found Ashley, so I’ll be damned if I do anything to brighten up their goddamn day.
Deep in thought, he found himself going down the mountainside slowly, descending deeper into the valley. It was steep and every now and then his footing would slip and he’d have to brace himself to avoid falling flat on his face or on his ass and skidding down the rest of the way. The jungle was wild, the primary forests having never been logged, so they were dense and thick and treacherous because everywhere Thor stepped, it was likely that he was the first man who’d touched that particular plot of land.
He was just coming down to a small river bend, about to step into the mostly dry, crackled mud and continue his path along with the river, when the very recognizable sound of a helicopter approaching from behind him gave him pause.
“Shit,” he murmured, using the far more openly used motto of Shifter Squad Nine, looking up at the sky.
There were two blinkers on the chopper, barely enough to tell it apart from the perfectly starry sky above him, or at least what he could see through the trees. He was still off of the meeting point by at least two miles. Slicking his tongue over his teeth, Thor grabbed the straps of his backpack with his hands, secured the assault rifle at his side and took off in a run.
Getting shot would be way better than being left to crawl around that damn jungle for another few days, dodging bullets and shooting guys with gear from the nineties. His steps were heavier now, the mud doing nothing to mask them, but he took a calculated risk. A couple of miles were nothing for a trained SEAL, even in the middle of the night and on terrain he didn’t know, but the gear was weighing him down a little and the way the branches and vines kept grabbing at him made for a labored run.
Growling under his breath, Thor fought forward, hearing the helicopter sounds disappear up ahead. It could only mean that the chopper had touched down already and the rest of the squad was getting on. Thor made it to the edge of the clearing that they’d marked as a meeting spot in time to see the helicopter still down on the ground, the massive rotors spinning around.
He paused for a moment, catching his breath as he dropped his hands on his knees, glaring at the damn thing. The radio was still silent, not a single word had been spoken. Thor could spot Price sitting back in the pilot’s seat, the glow of the instruments reflecting off of his face, wearing the smug grin that the werewolf twins were so well known for.
Thor was just about to step out of the shadows of the tree-line when a massive explosion threw him back, making him flip over his head and land in a half-crouch, his ears ringing. Where the helicopter had stood before, a bright flame plumed around its carcass, the back rotor blown clear off.
Shit.
Thor scrambled up, blinking his eyes a few times to adjust them to the sharp change in light. He couldn’t see anyone in the chopper but there was movement around the helicopter, shouts and commotion. One of the people yelling sounded like Dice, but Thor couldn’t make out the words because his head was humming so hard. Bringing a hand up to his forehead, he could see it come away bloody.
He frowned slightly. His instincts were making him tear the bag off his shoulders and undo it to get his sniper rifle, to help with whatever the fuck was going on, but his hands wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t even manage the goddamn zipper because his hands just wouldn’t co-operate. His vision blurred.
Taking a step forward in his disoriented state, he almost toppled out of the protective cover of the trees, but something yanked him back. The next thing he knew, he was lying on his back, staring up into a pair of eyes that seemed to burn brighter than the stars and the fire put together, and then everything went black.
Two
Nia
Nia fidgeted slightly, listening to the steady thrumming of rainfall outside her makeshift hideaway. It wasn’t much, built partially into the giant roots of a tree that had stood in the jungle for centuries, with a roof thrown over it and the ground dug up slightly to give more space.
Though ‘more space’ was of course a relative term, because between Nia herself and the rather large, prone body of the man she’d dragged into it, there wasn’t room for anything but air in there, really.
How did you get into this mess, shifter-brother? Nia mused to herself, frowning as she looked at the man, still adrift in sleep.
She had tended to his head wound, covering it with a mixture of mud and healing herbs, and made him drink water and eat a few berries that should aid with his injuries, though he had been anything but co-operative. If her guesses were right, the man should be waking up any moment now, and it would be about time, too.
It would soon get too hot, staying in that little hidden hideaway, and while it was virtually undetectable at night, then it made for far too easy of a target at daytime. Nia had learned as a child to always move around and to have several places to call ‘home.’ Though the jungle was more friend than foe, one could never be too careful.
She chewed on a long piece of straw quietly, looking at the sun dotting the ground and fallen leaves with yellow light. Dozens of bugs crawled, skittered and hopped around them and she absently brushed a centipede off of her fallen companion – it was one of the non-poisonous ones, no worries. Her leg brushed against his and for the umpteenth time that day, she had to wonder why she had done what she had.
The large man had caught her eye early the previous day, stalking through the jungle with all the calm casualness of a seasoned predator who fears few things and expects the world to quake before him. He wasn’t wrong – built like a big cat, all muscle and sinew, danger wafted off of him as a deep musk, even though he had gone to lengths to hide his scent. Nia couldn’t think of a single being in the jungle who would willingly cross this man’s path without a very clear and concise plan.
Yet she had been unable to let him out of her sight. She tracked him soundlessly through the jungle, until he settled in the trees as quiet as a mouse, barely moving a muscle for nearly twelve hours. Nia had done the same, scaling another tree close by and hiding herself in the high branches while he was settling in, all the while wondering why she chose to track this man who would most certainly shoot first and ask questions later if he were to notice her trailing him.
But the decision had been made for her – if she had tried to descend from the tree, he would have heard or seen her and she would have been as good as dead. When night fell, Nia had been entirely certain that she would drop from the tree after he had left and wander back to her hideaway, since going home wa
s out of the question when it was so late already. The firefight that followed him caught her attention once more and while every nerve in her body was screaming at her to run and get as far away from this deadly man as she could, her mind did not listen and moved her after him regardless.
She had stopped only for a moment to check if there was anything she could have done for the werewolf – a man she had seen in the depths of the jungle before, but he had always been easy to evade – and then moved on. There was no love lost between Nia and her people and the werewolves who scoured the woods looking for them, but needless bloodshed had never been something that Nia had found in her heart to endorse. If she could help, she would.
And so here she found herself now, caring for a man who was just as likely to choke the life out of her lungs when he awoke than to help her. She had read the situation well enough when the helicopter landed, noticing the familiar paths of the werewolves converging upon the landing site. Armed with a handful of herbs that were intoxicating and overwhelming to the senses, she had jumped the soldier now lying next to her when he had been blown back by the blast and seen to it that he did not hit his head when he passed out.
Mighty he may be, but there were few remedies against the skills of a woman who the jungle had raised, and modern technology had schooled.
He is a handsome devil, isn’t he? she pondered idly, letting her gaze roll over the man.
He had stern, hard features that spoke of loss and pain, though whether he was the one that had inflicted those or had them inflicted upon him, she could not tell. His jaw was hard and she had counted endless scars when checking him for injuries, luckily only finding a few bad bruises and minor cuts other than the head laceration. His skin, tanned but pale underneath his clothing, was riddled with tattoos, all telling a story about him that she was eager to know more about.
But it was perhaps the heavy curve of his lip that caught her the most, the kind of lips that were made for smiling yet looked like they never did, considering by the downturned corners in his fitful rest.