by Milly Taiden
The four guards had retaken their original positions at the corners of the building. Josh had to time everything correctly for a surprise attack. Sliding with stealth in the darkness, he smelled for his three men. They were spaced around the building, hiding behind the bushes.
Bryon hunched in his wolf form, waiting behind the shrubbery at the back of the building. Of the current shifters in ALFA, Bryon was easiest to spot at night. His multibrown coat was best for desert camouflage. He looked more like a domestic dog than any of the others. Damn monster domestic dog.
Josh whimpered and that told Bryon what the plan was. The agent continued the whimper and crawled through the shrubs, sticking his head and paw out the other side, lying on his stomach. Once he got the attention of the guard, Bryon played the injured puppy, drawing the guy toward them. When the man knelt and reached out to pet Bryon, his wolf sprang forward and snapped his jaws around the human’s neck, then dragged him to the rear of the shrubbery.
It had been a long time since Josh and his men had been able to work as a team. Most assignments required only one, sometimes two, of his men. With them all together, they were unstoppable. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, giving his wolf more strength and his human more clarity of mind for quicker strategizing. They were a force to be reckoned with.
Next was the other man at the back. He’d been on the side of the building when Bryon lured the first one into the bushes. This second guy didn’t even know his comrade was missing. But it didn’t take long for him to notice once he came around the corner.
Bryon shifted into human form then started groaning as if badly hurt. Josh hid in the shadows of the shrubs several feet from Bryon and the dead enemy body. When the guard whispered, Bryon answered in Russian, drawing the guard to them quickly. Bryon scurried to the shadows, out of the immediate sight of the man coming through the bushes to find his deceased buddy.
When the Russian guard knelt to feel for a pulse, Josh sprang forward and took him down in similar fashion. Two down, two to go.
* * *
* * *
Candy stared at the exterior camera monitors and sat speechless. When Tumbel ran out, she tried to go after the idiot, but he must’ve held the door closed so she couldn’t open it. Fine with her. If the stupid man wanted to commit suicide, so be it. Her emotions went all over the place and her mind argued with her about letting him die. He was cute and she was growing attached to his company, but she wasn’t in love with him.
He was the first man who hadn’t tried to talk down to her. And he had been professional even when she’d been a total bitch to him. Something she was now trying to rectify, even though it was damn hard. But she still didn’t want to see him dead. She’d never know what more time with him would be like. Ugh. She had to stop getting emotional with him. Tumbel wasn’t her boyfriend. Maybe working on serious lust issues . . .
Then one of the guards in the rear of the building moved toward the bushes. She figured Josh had to be hiding there, but she couldn’t imagine what the agent could do. When he fired his weapon, that would draw attention from the others, making it one against three. He couldn’t be that dumb, could he?
She watched as the guard squatted, then a scuffle that she couldn’t really see, and he suddenly slid through the foliage and disappeared from camera view. Not a single shot fired. She jumped to her feet. Wouldn’t she have heard the gunshot outside, considering they weren’t that far from her position? He must’ve had a silencer.
On a monitor below the exterior views, something was happening at the front of the lobby and on the sidewalk just outside the door. Front monitors showed the man with the news truck had the TV camera set up on a tripod and a bright light shined on the news reporter as she talked into a microphone. Fuck! Dubois had told her not to go live. Were they?
She snatched up the TV remote and switched on the twenty-four-inch box to the station matching the call letters on the van outside. Some kind of cop show was playing. One with police or firemen depicting the “real” lives of those who put their lives in danger for others. Except for some of the hot men, she had no interest in seeing Hollywood’s version of what she did for a living.
At least the camera crew hadn’t gone live. Candy glanced at the front monitor angle. The woman outside was handing off the microphone to one of the captors inside the building. The short one, Yulian, stood behind the NIA director still tied to a chair blocking the door from any frontal attack. Guess the Russian was too chickenshit to stand in the clear. Not that anyone was set up to take him down yet. It had been less than an hour since this had all started.
Candy reached out to turn up the volume of the lobby mics, but her eye caught the image in an exterior view of something she was completely at a loss for how to handle. Where the fuck had the panther come from?
Chapter Twelve
Josh and his two agents had come around to the side bushes to see the TV camera aimed at the lobby. The microphone cable snaked on the sidewalk in through the door, so he figured one of the bad guys was making a demand or pontificating his views for his fifteen minutes of fame around the world.
He noted the satellite equipment on the truck wasn’t up and running, so they weren’t on live television. Apparently, their Russian guest didn’t know how a satellite broadcast should look. Josh had seen plenty of those in his days working high-profile security cases.
The last enemy guard stood at the building’s corner, watching over the crew and scanning the area for trouble. The man had frisked the camera guy when the two newscasters had approached the doors, then he’d edged back into the shadows. During that interlude, Josh and his men had taken care of the third guard. Frank had stayed behind to drag the body to a hidden location.
The problem with this guy was that he was too close to the front of the building for any of them to sneak up on. Too much open grassy space didn’t provide any of cover needed to get close. So the plan morphed into a let’s-play-it-by-the-panther’s-ear.
Parish was a black jaguar that people constantly misidentified as a panther. As humor between the coworkers, they called him a panther and bought him pink prank items for his birthday. But when it came to stealth and surprise attack, no one was better than Parish, the jag.
Josh, along with Bryon, made their way to the rear of the building, staying out of sight behind bushes. The jaguar had slinked its way to the bushes along the middle of the building wall where the enemy had dumped the NIA security guard’s body before taking over. The only evidence Josh could see was the hint of green eyes when Parish looked directly at him. Even Josh’s animal’s night vision couldn’t pick out the jag from the shadows.
With Parish set, the agents threw rocks at the wall to draw the guard’s attention to the back. When the guard didn’t see his other man, hopefully he’d go to investigate. And that was the case. The enemy hurried back, passed the bushes, then put his back against the wall, sliding toward the corner.
At that moment, the metal door to the security room opened and Candy came out, draped in guns. Josh drooled. The only way she could be any sexier was to be naked with the guns strapped to her. He didn’t start to freak until she headed in the same direction as the gunman ready to turn the corner.
Where the fuck was Parish? Why hadn’t he taken down the guy yet? He watched as both his mate and the bad guy rushed to an intersection. Josh was ready to spring over the bushes and tackle the man in a frontal assault, probably getting shot in the process. But he’d do that to save his mate. She was now his reason for living.
The man inched closer to the corner as well as Candy. Josh’s human form tensed. He wanted to shift, but didn’t have time for that. Bryon put a hand on his arm, then hollered out words that sounded guttural. The man stopped and faced the bushes where he and his agent hid, his face full of confusion.
Candy came around the side, almost slamming into the guy. Guns swung into motion. Josh jumped to his feet and fro
ze while Parish’s cat body slammed into the guy’s backside, taking them down to tumble to the edge of the bushes. Parish ended up under the guard, sharp teeth deeply sunk into the man’s neck.
Josh had thought he would shit his pants, if he’d had any on. Then he would kick Parish’s ass for waiting so goddamn long.
“Josh,” Candy yelled, “don’t move. There’s a wild jaguar on the . . .” she paused and looked more closely at the heap that was the dead man next to the bushes. Parish, in jaguar form, moved from under the body, and she snapped the gun into position faster than Josh thought possible. Bryon jumped up, distracting Candy for a second, Josh following suit.
“Don’t shoot,” Josh and Bryon said at the same time.
She looked at the agent next to him and frowned. “Day? What are you doing out here? You’re supposed to be in my office. How did you get out?” She then eyed both of them. She noted the bushes came to just below his waist.
Her brows rose and then lowered in confusion. “Do I want to know why the two of you are hiding behind the bushes, buck naked?”
Josh felt his face ready to melt off from hot embarrassment. “No, it’s not how it looks.” He started to push through the prickly bushes, but quickly discovered that wasn’t a good idea for his man parts. “Just hold on a second.” He jogged toward a narrow path cutting through bushes between the park and the NIA building.
Candy kept her shotgun aimed at Parish on the ground, but her eyes followed him. How was he going to explain this to her? He couldn’t possibly make up a scenario that would begin to make sense. He dashed for his clothes on the ground outside the security door where he’d dropped them before shifting.
When he bent over to pick up his pants, Frank came around the far corner and smacked Josh’s butt sticking up in the air. “Great job, guys. Need to do that more often. Whoa.” He saw Candy and stopped. “Boss, did you know your mate’s standing out here with a gun pointed at Parish?”
“Yes,” Josh huffed, “I am quite aware of that.” He slipped his pants on, foregoing the boxers. “Turn around.” A growl came from him. “My mate sees no one else naked.”
Frank spun on his heel. “No problem. I’ll just go back to where no guns were pointed at my nuts.”
Josh glanced at his mate. Her face was as red as his had to be. She aimlessly pointed the gun in his direction. She probably didn’t even know she’d moved when seeing Frank. She glanced at Bryon, back to him, then dropped her eyes to the cat hiding under the dead person best he could.
Her voice was strong but unsure when she said, “That’s not Hamel’s body.”
Josh hurried toward her, pants done up, but no belt. “No, you’re right. That’s not what Frank meant.” He stretched for the gun in her hands and she jerked it out of his reach.
“This is mine,” she said and stiffened her stance. “Will somebody explain why we’re not worried about the man-eating animal, and why you’re all naked, and how the hell you guys got outside, anyway?”
Josh put an arm around her shoulder and directed her back toward the security door. “We’ll discuss this inside.”
She looked up at the building toward her second-floor office. “What the fuck?” She stopped and turned back to Bryon. “You jumped out the—”
The jaguar had climbed out from under the guard and was following them. Candy twisted around and pulled the trigger. If not for Josh’s shifter speed, Parish would’ve been toast. The bushes to the side of the cat’s body had a new entrance to the park. Smelling feline blood, Josh snatched the gun from her hold.
At the same time, Parish shifted, feeling around his ribs. “Son of a bitch, man. Your mate freaking shot me.” He rubbed his hand over his chest and abs.
“You were barely touched,” Joshed huffed. “The pellets mostly went over your back.”
“Yeah, mostly,” Parish complained. “I was still bleeding to death.”
Josh looked down at Candy’s face and sighed. She was white as a sheet. “Shit.” He turned them toward the security office, away from Parish’s full monty. “You guys hang out somewhere close, but stay out of sight.”
“Wait,” Candy said, “are you all ”—she flipped her hand in the air—“animals or whatever?”
Josh continued walking with his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll talk inside, love.” Well, he hoped they would talk and she didn’t just decide to shoot them all.
Chapter Thirteen
Seeing the guys without clothes carried Candy into the past, about ten years ago. Casualties were heavy on the front line that day and medevacs were in high demand. Night had fallen and the temperature in the desert was dropping rapidly. After three full transport runs for injured soldiers, Candy’s helicopter was grounded for fuel. Which was fine since the mission was about over. A few more helos were on their way in, but that was it.
As she stood outside the depot, she watched doctors and nurses frantically trying to save the lives of brave men willing to die for their country. She heard that several chopper pilots had been injured during their pickups. In the midst of all the goings-on, a shout came out for an SF pilot. SF pilots were a group of specialized flyers who picked up certain combat units.
As far as she could tell from her few conversations with those pilots, they did nothing different from what she did with her medevac chopper. Except the pickup locations were in more dangerous combat zones.
Someone hollered that no SF pilots were available. They were either en route back to camp or down in the battlefield. The coordinates for the pickup were not too far from her last field landing location. When a second call came in, she knew it was dire. The men needed help now. With nobody moving toward any choppers, she decided to take the call. If the situation was that bad, the unit would not mind a non-SF pilot dropping in.
With all the medevac helos down for service, she headed for one of the bigger non-emergency ’copters and powered up. Even though the helicopter was not equipped with full medical supplies, she would be able to fly the guys out. After giving the call letters of the helo and her ID, she confirmed grid coordinates and lifted off.
According to protocol, she should’ve waited for authorization to go, but sometimes when speed was the key, they cheated a bit and left early. There was never a time when departure was not approved. None she ever knew of. And of all times, now was a time to cheat. The first medevac request had come in over fifteen minutes prior. A transport should’ve been on site already. Every second she waited, another soldier could be killed.
Well on the way, she was surprised when a deep harsh voice came over her headset. “Lieutenant Obermier, this is Sergeant Sanders. Do you copy?”
She almost laughed. She didn’t deal with this sergeant much since he worked with the SF teams, but she still laughed when the men called him Colonel Sanders when chicken was on the menu.
“Copy, Sergeant Sanders.”
“Lieutenant, you are not authorized for an SF pickup. Copy.”
Oh shit. It was too late to turn back. She couldn’t turn back. There were no others available to save the men. “Copy, sir. Over.” She heard garbled noise and an electronic squeal through her headset. Then the normal dispatch person came on.
“You cheated, didn’t you, Obermier,” Dispatch said. “You’re already in the air.” Candy breathed a small sigh of relief. This guy in dispatch was a friend. He usually worked the combat runs when medevacs went out.
“Kellems,” she whispered, though not sure why, “no one was going to help these guys. I can’t just leave them to die when I can fly just as well as any SF.”
“Candy,” Kellems said, “you are disobeying a direct order.” He was silent a moment. “How close are you?”
“Almost halfway. ETA ten minutes,” she replied. “Is Sanders there?”
“No, he left after he talked to you. I don’t think he knew you were airborne.”
“I think that
’s obvious, Kellems,” she said. “Do you want these men to die because I don’t have an SF at the end of my name?”
“No, Candy, but that’s not my job. I can’t make that decision.”
“Okay, here’s the deal, Kellems,” she said. “I didn’t take off. I heard what Sanders told me and I abandoned the mission. I’m now in my bunk getting ready for dinner. That’s all you know. Radio silence begins now.” She flipped the mic button, cutting off any sound on her side.
“Dammit, Candy.” Anger came from his voice, but she wasn’t worried about him. She saw the familiar landmark of her last pickup and passed it to reach the coordinates given earlier. Finding a flat area behind a rock outcropping, she set it down. Sand whipped into the air, creating her own dust storm. She had no idea where the men were. Hopefully, they saw her.
Through the hazy view came a group of men. One giant of a male carried an injured soldier over his shoulders. Following him, two others continued shooting their guns as they backed through the kicked-up grit. Those two were bloody, but on their feet. As soon as they were in, she started lift off.
The men shouted for her to wait. There was another coming. One of the soldiers yelled out a name she knew, telling this guy to hurry his ass up. If it was the same person she knew, she hoped he was okay. She liked him. He was funny and sweet. Big, though, over six feet tall and muscles out the wazoo. In fact, all these men on her craft were exceptionally big.
On the front of the helo, bullets from enemy fire ricocheted off the metal moving up to the windshield. Time was up. Despite the men’s objections, she lifted off the ground. One sacrificed for the good of the many. Barely off the ground, her head turned and she saw a wolf materializing out of the sand-filled air. With a leap, the animal covered fifteen feet of ground and slid through the open side door.