"Ah. So you know who I am." He had a movie-star smile. "My Jaguar Team needs another shifter for covert ops work. In addition to a generous signing bonus, we're willing to pay you a full salary while you recover from your injuries. And of course, we'll cover all of your medical treatment."
It sounded too good to be true, especially right now, when she was trying to come to grips with the end of her military career.
And Catrina had heard the stories about the Beast Warrior teams. Within WSS, they served as Tier One security contractors, working alongside the military forces of several nations…but in the shifter community, it was known that they also served as Colonel Perry's most brutal enforcers.
It was no secret that he had spent the last few decades trying to bring all of the shifter communities under his rule, but no one knew why. The jaguar shifters, who lived carefully concealed in Los Angeles' Hispanic neighborhoods, had mostly resisted Perry's efforts to recruit—and rule—them. If anything, it had made them even more secretive.
Papá had warned her about WSS. That was good enough for her.
Catrina closed her eyes and considered the offer, weighing the pros and cons, including the fact that she was currently drugged to the gills, mostly helpless, and being held in an unknown location.
Cursing the thoughts that moved thick and slow, like molasses, she made her decision.
"That's a generous offer," she said, choosing her words very carefully.
She had no interest in becoming a mercenary, and especially not an assassin for hire, which was what she suspected he wanted. "I really liked being part of the hostage rescue team. I'm willing to consider working for Whitepine if you can offer me a similar gig. No assassinations or other black ops."
Perry raised fair brows, looking nonplussed. Next to him, she saw Bell stir and cast an uneasy sideways glance at his boss.
Perry shook his head regretfully. "What I badly need is someone with your special ops skills, who will do whatever is needed."
A chill slowly penetrated the fuzzy blanket of painkillers surrounding her. "I'm sorry," she said. "But I'm not interested in becoming one of your assassins for hire."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she cursed herself. Too blunt. Too rude. Too likely to offend the dragon towering over her bed.
She expected him to fly into a rage and kill her on the spot.
What he did was worse.
He smiled down at her.
"I'm afraid I can't accept no for an answer," he murmured.
His blue eyes began to shimmer with gold. Shit.
Catrina tried to break his gaze. To look away. And failed.
Dragons ruled the shifter world not only because they were bigger, stronger, and meaner than anyone else—even bear shifters—but because they could force anyone to do whatever they wanted.
"Welcome to Jaguar Team, Chief Gonzales," he said.
"No!" She managed to force the word past her lips, but she was already drowning in a sea of gold.
It rushed in, sweeping away resistance and memories like a tsunami hitting shore.
* * *
"—I'm so glad you accepted our offer," Perry was saying. "Whitepine Security Services is honored to welcome a veteran with such a distinguished navy career. And Captain Hector Marin, your new commanding officer, will be thrilled when he hears that he's getting a former SEAL for Jaguar Team."
Perry held out his hand, and with an effort, she raised her right hand to take it. His grip was strangely cool, firm but gentle, solicitous of the IV needle. "Welcome to the Beast Warriors, Chief Gonzales."
"Th-thank you," she managed, feeling dizzy.
Colonel Lugh Perry, her new boss, was charismatic as hell.
If he wanted to, he could be a movie star, she thought. Or maybe a politician.
But something wasn't right. It niggled at her, but like a fish darting away into the murky depths of a pond, she couldn't quite grasp it.
Damn drugs, she thought.
Perry released her hand, but she still felt the ghost of his touch against hers. It made her shiver reflexively.
"Are you feeling all right, Chief Gonzales?" asked the slender, silver-haired man standing at Perry's side.
"Uh. Not really," she said lamely. Both of the men were shifters, she knew that much. "I'm sorry, who are you, again? And where am I?"
"I'm Dr. August Bell," said the man.
The corners of his clear gray eyes crinkled in a smile, and suddenly, he didn't look quite so young any more.
"You're at a Whitepine Security Services clinic, and we'll be taking very good care of you for the next few months until you're ready to go to work."
Chapter 1 – Pursued
Ten years later
Catrina's recon mission went sideways the minute she spotted the three cowboys repairing a fence in the middle of a cold, rainy autumn forest in Idaho…and they spotted her.
She had been sent out here, to the middle of nowhere, on a covert op to locate and retrieve Dr. Liam Donlon.
According to the mission briefing she'd received, Dr. Donlon was a member of Whitepine Security Services' research staff who had deserted WSS twenty years ago, taking all of his work with him. Research that WSS had paid for.
Vitally important research, Captain Hector Marin, her commanding officer, had told her.
Yesterday, she had left WSS headquarters in Montana, bought a used car for cash, and driven several hours southwest. She arrived in a remote river valley with sagebrush and grass in the lower elevations and dense pine forest covering the higher hills and rugged ridges.
Catrina had driven through the tiny town of Elysia, which was barely more than a main street lined with quaint brick buildings that looked like they dated from the 1920s, then decided that a stranger would definitely be noticed if she checked into one of the town's several hotels and inns.
She'd driven her car around the valley for the next few hours, discovering that most of the side roads weren't paved, had taken a look around at the widely scattered clusters of ranch buildings, and had decided to shift to jaguar form to scout the area.
Parking in a riverside parking lot intended for use by boaters and fishermen, conveniently located in the middle of a grove of trees that concealed her vehicle from passing traffic on the highway, Catrina stripped with swift efficiency and shifted.
It hurt, as it always did. When it was complete and she rose to her feet in jaguar form, she needed a few moments to recover and orient herself to moving on four paws.
Then she began her reconnaissance. She had been able to find surprisingly little information about Elysia on the Internet, and the GPS unit she'd brought with her hadn't known about the town either.
In fact, the only real intel she had was that Wolf Team had disappeared somewhere in this area four months ago. They had been pursuing Dr. Donlon's granddaughter Shannon Joyce, after the WSS plane bringing her from Ireland crashed in the rugged Bitterroot wilderness.
After reviewing the history of Wolf Team's successful abduction op and Joyce's subsequent escape, Catrina had discussed the situation with Captain Marin.
They had decided that Elysia was the logical place for Catrina to begin her search for the vanished Dr. Donlon.
She had done her homework on both Shannon Joyce and Liam Donlon, as well as studying maps of the area until she had them memorized. Then it was time to pack the items she might need.
As always, she had to force down her distaste for the assignment.
You're the one who wanted this job, she told herself, hoping that someday she could convince herself.
She only wished she could remember why she'd agreed to do WSS's dirty work. In a decade with Jaguar Team, she had done it all—assassinations, abductions, interrogations, theft…and worse.
The only missions that actually gave her any satisfaction were the hostage rescue ops.
WSS had developed a reputation for being able to rescue hostages from any kind of situation, whether it was kidnappings for ransom,
airplane hijackings, or mass abductions of civilians by extremists.
All it took was money.
Catrina didn't know how much WSS charged for a Beast Warrior-run rescue, but she did know that each successful mission saw extremely generous bonuses deposited to the bank account of her new identity, Catrina Hunter.
Awakening in WSS's clinic all those years ago, blown to pieces by a bomb and suffering from post-traumatic amnesia, she had been grateful for the kind of job that would give her the time and space to recover from her injuries without awkward questions.
WSS was a shifter organization. They understood what kind of healing was possible for an injured shifter.
Even with the best help available, it had taken her nearly a year and a lot of painful physical therapy to regain full use of her regenerated left arm and her legs.
And her memories had never fully returned…she was plagued with odd gaps and moments of deep confusion, especially when she tried to remember exactly what had happened on her last, disastrous mission.
Now, though, she glided effortlessly on four feet through dense stands of lodgepole pine on a ridge high above the valley, all her senses alert for any clues that might reveal the whereabouts of the elusive Dr. Donlon on one of these ranches.
His trail, and his granddaughter's trail, had both vanished here. She hoped she'd be able to pick up that trail, even though months had passed since then.
What she wasn't expecting was that the cowboys would scent her presence among them. Shifters were rare, and there had been no indication of a community here.
She knew they hadn't seen her. She had circled around them, never coming into sight of the fence line or the pickup trucks parked alongside it.
But less than a dozen steps into the forest, the wind shifted, sending a fresh shower of cold rain into her face.
And a male voice somewhere to her left shouted, "You! In the trees! Stop right there!"
Catrina crouched under the scanty cover of some berry bushes, already knowing it was useless.
She'd been made. Less than two hours into her mission, and she'd blown it.
Colonel Perry would be furious. He had made it clear to Captain Marin that retrieving Dr. Donlon and his data was Jaguar Team's highest priority.
And on the scale of terrifying, nothing came close to a dragon in a rage.
The command was repeated, then the man shouted something that sounded like Swedish or German.
Shit, shit, shit. Catrina ran.
And heard the sounds of pursuit behind her.
The three men hadn't shifted out of human shape yet, so she might still be able to make a getaway.
Then the pursuit stopped for a few moments. Shit. Catrina knew what that meant. The men had paused to shift into their animal forms.
She didn't slow down, determined to put as much space between her and her pursuers as she could.
Then she heard a couple of sharp canine yips…and the deep roar of a bear.
Wolf shifters and bear shifters working together…wasn't that just fucking great?
Well, on the bright side, she'd apparently found the Wolf Team deserters that Captain Marin had warned her about.
She had to shake her pursuers somehow and then figure out if they had any connection to Dr. Donlon.
Somewhere up ahead, she heard the sounds of running water and veered to head towards it. It proved to be a nice-sized stream, flowing over tumbled boulders and fallen logs.
Hoping to lose the wolves and the bear on her trail, she leapt over the frothing brown water and landed on a boulder protruding from the opposite bank.
She crossed and recrossed the stream several times and even swam downstream for a distance where the water was deep enough to submerge the rocks and form wide pools.
Jaguars were excellent swimmers, and her animal side loved lakes and rivers. On previous missions, she had often used this ability to move quickly and silently through water and infiltrate heavily guarded areas from an angle that human sentries weren't expecting.
Now, even with her thick pelt protecting her, it didn't take long for the icy water to chill her to the bone. Hoping that she had swum far enough, Catrina emerged from the water and shook herself vigorously before padding silently into the undergrowth.
No sounds of pursuit.
And then she caught her first real break of the mission when she smelled the faded, familiar scents of motor vehicle exhaust and tire rubber.
Motor vehicles meant roads.
She couldn't smell asphalt, so it was probably another dirt road. She didn't care. She only hoped that it would lead her back down to the highway, so that she could hotfoot it back to her car and get the hell out of the area.
Then she'd have to regroup and think about what to do next. Colonel Perry had made it very clear that failure was not an option on this assignment.
After initially being bowled over by Perry's charisma and movie-star charm during his recruitment pitch, she had quickly become aware that the Beast Warriors' commander had a really bad temper—and that he didn't take feedback well.
Still, he usually treated his Beast Warriors with respect…though, according to Captain Marin, that hadn't always been the case.
There had been several major policy changes at WSS after Hal Sigurdsson, who had been Bear Team's well-respected commanding officer, had deserted several decades ago, taking all of his bear shifters with him.
Catrina followed the scents until she emerged onto a narrow, muddy dirt road, studded with rocks and puddles, which wound through the hilly wilderness. It followed the path of a second, larger stream.
She huffed softly in relief and headed down the road at a steady lope in the same direction that the water was flowing, sticking to the rocks and grassy verges where she could, in an attempt to avoid leaving paw-prints.
Her relief lasted for about a half-mile. Then a shift in the direction of the wind brought her the mingled scents of wolf and bear.
Those bastards were still following her!
Abandoning her attempts at stealth, Catrina broke into a run. If worse came to worst, she could climb a tree, but then she'd be trapped, if out of reach of her pursuers.
Somewhere behind her, she heard a deep ursine grunt of frustration. It sounded closer than she would have liked.
She increased her pace to a flat-out sprint, knowing that neither wolves nor bears could run at more than half her speed.
The real problem was stamina—but she could put a huge lead between her and them, and then she'd have some breathing room find a way to throw them off her trail so that she could get back to her car.
At top speed, Catrina raced downhill following the bends and hairpin turns of the unpaved road. No longer concerned about leaving prints, she splashed through puddles until her legs and the fur of her belly were spattered with mud.
At the bottom of the slope, she rounded a turn and suddenly found herself at the end of the dirt road where it intersected the paved highway.
Too late to look for traffic…and much too late to stop as her front paws landed on asphalt.
She heard the roar of an engine and the loud sound of tires screeching on wet pavement, and then something hit her hard.
* * *
Even wearing his heavy oilskin coat, Brett Thorfinnson had long since given up any hope of remaining dry in the pouring rain while he and his two ranch hands, Leif and Svein, repaired a section of fence line destroyed by a falling tree downed in the last storm.
Just two more hours to go until sunset, he thought as a gust of wind tried to snatch his Stetson off his head and slapped his face with icy rain.
With any luck, it wouldn't turn to sleet before they finished here and headed back down to the ranch's main house for dinner.
As he worked, he did his best to ignore the grumbling of his two new employees.
Leif and Svein were unloading lengths of wood from the back of the pickup while complaining loudly about being stuck in the woods with a grumpy bear when it was cold
and wet and they were miles from a decent bar.
Brett huffed out a sigh and wished that Elysia's newest arrivals would just shut up.
In the four months since Erik Redclaw and his Wolf Team had decided to desert WSS and join Hal Sigurdsson's bear shifters in hiding in this remote area, these two had done nothing but complain.
Accustomed to preferential treatment as Colonel Perry's favorite Beast Warriors, they disliked being forced to work as ranch hands, volunteer firefighters, or anything else that comprised the community service required of all shifters living in Elysia.
Normally, Brett's business partner, Rafe Magnusson, would be up here on the hillside, helping them.
But Rafe was unwilling to venture far from his pregnant mate Shannon these days.
Not surprisingly, Rafe's natural protectiveness towards his mate had escalated to near-paranoid levels after she had been abducted by Erik Redclaw's wolf shifters last summer.
Rafe had even given up working as a guide during this year's hunting season, letting Brett and their third partner, Drake Snorrison, carry that part of their business.
Leif and Svein had been assigned to the Grizzly Peak Ranch as hands, since they both knew how to ride horses.
Despite his dislike of the two men, Brett had no complaints about the quality of their work—they had spent the late summer and autumn helping with everything from the never-ending chores of repairing fences and cutting brush to rounding up cattle and moving them down the mountainsides to pastures closer to the valley floor.
At least Rafe was still willing to host hunting and fishing guests at the ranch…and to cook for them. Rafe loved to cook and to feed people, and Brett took shameless advantage of that most days.
So did Drake, especially now that his girlfriend had broken up with him.
The two wolf shifters had now stopped complaining about the rain long enough to begin arguing with each other about details of some past mission.
Brett sighed, fighting the urge to shift to bear-shape and squash Leif and Svein with two quick blows from his paws.
His thoughts returned to Rafe and Rafe's Irish mate Shannon.
Hunter: A Werebear + BBW Paranormal Romance (Beast Warriors Book 2) Page 2