X-Ops Exposed

by Paige Tyler

  Zarina was sleeping contently on his chest, her perfect naked body lightly coated with a sheen of sweat. They’d made love for hours, and it had been incredible. He’d never been with anyone like her. He was so in love, it hurt to even think about being apart from her for more than a few minutes.

  Folding his arm under his head, Tanner glanced at the cabin’s lone window with its makeshift curtain. The sun would be coming up soon, and he and Zarina would be facing another day. But for the first time in forever, he was looking forward to the day and what it might bring.

  While they’d made love, he’d shifted as far as he’d ever gone, and Zarina hadn’t flinched once. But as far gone as he’d been, he’d never felt the urge to do anything other than love the hell out of her. He and the beast had both been consumed with a single goal—making Zarina feel more pleasure than she’d ever experienced. Coming to accept that his hybrid half would never be a danger to the woman he loved was a life-altering moment.

  Zarina murmured something in her sleep, cuddling closer to him. Tanner was about to snag one of the blankets they’d pushed around on the bed, sure she was cold, but then her eyes fluttered open, and the look she gave him took his breath away. Her blue eyes were so captivating, it felt like they could take possession of his soul with a single glance. He was more than okay with that.

  “Ready for round two?” she asked, pressing her lips to his chest and making him shiver. She’d been doing a lot of that over the past few hours, but he was sure he’d never get tired of it.

  He grinned. “Technically, it would be at least round four. Or five if you count that thing you did with your mouth.”

  Zarina smiled, pushing herself up on her elbow and putting her beautiful breasts on display. His cock immediately went hard at the sight of all those curves.

  “Only if we count by the number of orgasms we’ve had, which I don’t,” she said. “I prefer to go with how many times I pass out from pleasure, which has only happened once. So, in my mind, we’ve just gotten started.”

  He chuckled. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

  She slipped a warm thigh across his hips, gracefully climbing on top of him. “Yes, but feel free to keep telling me. I promise I won’t get tired of hearing it.”

  Tanner shook his head as he grabbed her hips, getting her settled carefully on his shaft. “I’m never going to stop letting you know how amazing you are or how much I love you. I can promise you that.”

  Zarina leaned forward, pressing her breasts against his chest as she kissed him. “It’s a promise, then. We never stop saying I love you, no matter how crazy things get in the future.”

  He slid his hands down and cupped her ass. “Deal.”

  Tanner had just leaned in to nuzzle Zarina’s neck when a pair of familiar scents reached his nose. It took him a moment to place them, but when he finally did, they had him flipping over so fast, he almost spilled Zarina onto the floor.

  “The camp is under attack,” he said. He jumped off the bed, scrambling for his jeans and boots as he strained his ears for the sound of gunfire. Spencer and Peter were out on the perimeter somewhere. If he was smelling the assholes, they should have, too.

  As Zarina hurriedly put on her clothes, Tanner had to clamp down on the impulse to tell her to hide under the bed until the fighting was over. But he couldn’t do that, no matter how loudly his instincts demanded he do so.

  Not wanting to take the time to bother with looking for his shirt, he snatched up the AR-15 he’d leaned against the wall last night. “I’m picking up the scents of at least two of the men who hit the camp up north. I have no idea why Spencer and Peter haven’t raised the alarm yet, and that scares the hell out of me.”

  Zarina stepped in front of him as he started for the door. She already had her shirt, jeans, and boots on. The sight of the revolver on her belt stopped him cold. It was terrifying to think Zarina might have to shoot someone, mostly because he wasn’t sure she had it in her. But he had to respect her right to protect herself and others.

  “Be careful out there,” she said, going up on tiptoe to kiss him. “And don’t get so wrapped up in worrying about other people that you don’t watch out for yourself.”

  He kissed her back, closing his eyes for a second as worry almost overwhelmed him. Then he nodded and reached past her to grab the doorknob. “The same goes for you. Focus on protecting people, not going after the men attacking the camp.”

  Then he was out the door and running for the north side of the camp, letting the scents of the men attacking the camp lead him. There were at least half a dozen men moving in from the north, and they were already well within the perimeter of the camp. That meant there was a good chance they’d already taken out Spencer and Peter.

  He pointed his weapon skyward and popped off three rounds. “The camp is under attack!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Inbound from the north!”

  Wishing he could do more to get the camp’s residents moving but knowing he’d already done as much as he could, Tanner turned his attention to the men intent on taking them by surprise, using his nose to pin down their location. They must have regrouped long enough to get reinforcements so they could hit Chad’s camp right before dawn, when the people who lived there would be caught unaware.

  Around him, the camp came to life. Tanner prayed it wasn’t too late.

  His first instinct was to go after the four men circling around the camp from the west. But then he picked up Spencer’s and Peter’s scents the other way, along with those of two men. He veered that way, remembering how he’d seen the men trying to kidnap the tranquilized preppers up north. He had to make sure they weren’t doing that to the hybrids.

  Tanner’s body shifted as he ran. No shock there. He always lost a little bit of control when the battle adrenaline started flowing. However, he was surprised that this time, even though he was worried as hell about Spencer and Peter, not to mention Zarina, he was able to keep the hybrid in control. Was it because of the acceptance he’d found in Zarina’s arms? Maybe. Regardless, he was able to limit the changes to his muscles and his senses, things that would help him in the coming fight while still letting his human mind take the reins.

  Tanner found Spencer and Peter three-quarters of a mile outside the camp, just as two men in tactical gear were loading them in the back of one of the same SUVs he’d seen earlier. He could make out their heartbeats, so he knew the hybrids were alive, but they’d clearly been tranquilized. He had no idea how these men had been able to dart the hybrids with enough of the drug to knock them out before Spencer or Peter could sound the alarm. Ultimately, he didn’t care. He wasn’t letting them kidnap his friends.

  Tanner could have stopped and taken a shot at the men, but he didn’t want to risk hitting Spencer or Peter. So instead, he growled and let his body shift further, putting all his effort into closing the distance between him and them as fast as he could.

  The men must have heard him, because they both turned at the same time. The NVGs they wore hid their expressions, but they both brought their weapons up quickly, as if they weren’t shocked at all to see a man running at them through the dimly lit forests at thirty miles an hour.

  Tanner dodged to the right to avoid the incoming submachine gunfire, sure they’d missed him. But then something smacked into the center of his chest, and for a second, he’d thought he’d been hit. Then he realized the sting didn’t feel like a 9mm. He glanced down to see a metal dart tube sticking out of his chest mere inches from his heart.

  Shit.

  He slapped it away but knew it wouldn’t help. The damage was done.

  His mind raced. He might only have seconds before he ended up in the same condition as Spencer and Peter. He growled, letting the beast inside out all the way, praying it would help him fight off the drug for a time. It might not have helped the other hybrids, but maybe being partially shifted before getting hi
t would make a difference.

  He avoided more darts, letting his claws and fangs extend completely as he lunged at the men. They tried to line up for another shot with their tranquilizer guns, but Tanner was on them too fast to let that happen.

  Both men scrambled backward, suddenly desperate to get away, but the SUVs blocked their way, and they had no choice but to deal with him. Tanner didn’t even consider pulling the trigger on the weapon he was carrying. That wasn’t the way his inner beast chose to fight. It was the one disadvantage of letting his hybrid half take the lead.

  He roared loud enough to shake the trees around him, hitting the first guy between the eyes with the butt of his AR-15, delighting in the crunch of cracking bones as the man dropped like a sack of potatoes. Then he spun and threw himself at the second one.

  That’s when he found out just how much the drugs dumped into his system had already affected him. The leap that normally would have taken him ten feet barely covered five. He came up far short of his prey, giving the man time to get his dart gun up again.

  Tanner moved a little to the side, hoping to make the man miss. It worked. A little. Instead of getting Tanner in the chest again, the dart clipped his right arm. But Tanner still felt some of the drugs pour into his bloodstream before he plucked the dart out.

  He snarled, and the man with the dart gun stumbled back a little in fear. But while the guy might be scared, he wasn’t giving up. Grabbing the automatic pistol holstered at his hip, he pulled it out with the practice of a man who handled weapons for a living. Tanner didn’t think. He took two strides and slashed out with his claws, raking them across the man’s throat.

  Tanner stopped and looked around, wondering what he should do next. His thoughts were getting fuzzy as hell, and it was all he could do to keep from dropping to the ground right on the spot.

  A sound filtered through his muddled head, and after a few seconds, he realized he was hearing gunshots from the camp. He forced his mind to clear, remembering the four scents he’d smelled from the west. Shit. Those men had reached the camp.

  He glanced at Spencer and Peter. He couldn’t leave them out here like this. He’d grab them and hide them in the woods. That plan proved much more difficult than he’d imagined. The tranquilizer had made him so weak, he could barely drag Peter out of the back of the SUV, much less carry him. By the time he finally got the big hybrid shoved under the low-hanging branches of a fir tree, he was gasping for breath. Cursing, he walked over to get Spencer.

  He’d only gone a few feet when a woman’s scream echoed in the air. That was Zarina. He knew it in his soul. She was in trouble.

  Leaving Spencer where he was and hoping the brush would hide him, Tanner started toward the camp. His head spun as he ran. He was so dizzy now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to help once he got there. He brutally shoved the doubts from his mind. Zarina was in trouble. He’d do anything he had to do to save her.

  He stumbled into the camp, his arms and legs feeling like they weighed a ton. But he was still moving, honing in on Zarina’s scent, and that was all that mattered. She was somewhere near the main building.

  But as he rounded the corner of one of the cabins and headed that way, another scent smacked him in the face hard enough to stun him. Not because it was so strong, but simply because it belonged to someone he knew. That couldn’t be right. The tranquilizer drug had to be playing tricks on him.

  Tanner was still trying to convince himself of that when a pair of black-garbed mercenaries stepped out from the next cabin ahead of him, dragging an unconscious woman between them. Tanner smelled the blood before he even saw the red streak running down her face.

  Growling, he lunged at the men in full-on shifter mode. It felt like he was moving through molasses as he crashed into them, only realizing as they all went flying that the girl was Lillie, not Zarina. A part of him felt horrible for being relieved it wasn’t Zarina, but he pushed that guilt aside as he fought to save the younger girl.

  One of the men came up with a .40-caliber pistol in his hand. Tanner knocked it aside and slashed the man across the face as hard as he could. The guy shouted in pain, and Tanner’s inner beast roared in approval.

  He spun for the second man, scrambling over Lillie’s unconscious form in the process. But as he closed one clawed hand around the man’s weapon and the other around the guy’s throat, something thumped into his back. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him forward, but it stung like a son of a bitch.

  The man twisted away from his grip and punched him in the face as he fell against him, but Tanner couldn’t feel a thing. Then his whole body went limp, and he was on the ground, doing everything in his power to get back to his feet despite the tranquilizer dart. When that didn’t work, he tried to sit up, but that wasn’t possible either. His whole body was one solid chunk of lead now, and none of his parts would do what he told them. Breathing was even getting to be a chore.

  A man suddenly leaned over him, his face a blur. But Tanner didn’t need to see the man to know who it was.

  “Ryan?” he rasped.

  Tanner tried to force his numb mind to focus, to come up with some rational reason for his old friend to be here. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

  “Damn,” Ryan said. “I’d always thought you were a little screwed up, but I guess I underestimated just how fucked up you are. You really are a freak, aren’t you?”

  Tanner tried to tell the other man to go to hell, but he didn’t have the energy to even speak now.

  Ryan turned and looked at Lillie. “Get her up and back to the vehicles. I don’t know what we can do with her, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

  Tanner’s eyes locked on the .40-caliber he’d knocked out of the man’s hand earlier, lying on the ground nearby. Gritting his teeth, he strained to reach over and pick it up. It took all his strength to get the weapon pointed toward the blond man scooping Lillie off the ground, but the guy merely slapped the weapon aside and threw the girl over his shoulder like she was a sack of Christmas presents.

  “What about Everett?” the man asked, motioning with his chin at the guy Tanner had slashed. He was still rolling around with blood pouring between the hands he had clapped over the shredded remains of his face.

  Ryan looked over casually, as if just noticing the man. “Don’t worry about it, Anton. I’ll take care of him.”

  The blond man hesitated but then shrugged and headed toward the woods.

  “Once you get her tucked away, come back and help me drag this big bastard through the woods,” Ryan called after him. “He’s going to weigh a metric ton.”

  Anton grunted and disappeared, leaving Tanner lying there paralyzed and nearly unconscious with Ryan and the injured man.

  Ryan gazed down at Tanner for a long moment, then shook his head. “That tranquilizer has been in you for at least five minutes and you’re still conscious? What the hell are you?”

  Tanner couldn’t tell the asshole who used to be his friend that he’d been hit three times, but he enjoyed the displeasure his continued consciousness brought the man. There was still shooting going on all around the camp. Maybe if Tanner was able to stay awake a while longer, Malcolm or one of the preppers would stumble over them.

  Ryan must have heard the shooting, too, and thought the same thing Tanner had. “Guess I’ll need to start dragging your ass to the truck myself.”

  The man on the ground—Everett—groaned again, maybe trying to remind his boss that he was still there. Ryan frowned at the man in annoyance, then pulled out a .45 and put three rounds point-blank into the man’s chest without blinking an eye.

  He looked at Tanner. “Don’t worry. You’re too valuable to shoot.”

  Smirking, Ryan lifted a heavy, booted foot and kicked Tanner in the face, leaving nothing but stars followed by darkness.

  Chapter 13

/>   Tate let Chase deal with the doctor while he focused on leading them into the woods and away from the people after them. His gut instinct had been to head for their vehicle parked north of the house a mile down Highway 11, but he’d immediately dropped the idea. The bad guys had followed them here and would certainly know exactly where they’d parked. They were smart enough to make sure the Oxford County cruiser wouldn’t be of any use to them on the off chance he and Chase got past them and back to the vehicle.

  Unless they wanted to try and swim their way to freedom, that left them with no other choice but to skirt the edge of the lake and head due south through the woods until they reached Highway 114. If they were lucky, they’d be able to flag down a vehicle and get the hell out of there before the people hunting them even realized they’d left the house.

  Their chances weren’t as horrible as it seemed. The bad guys had been on the far side of the lake house the last time Tate had seen them on the security cameras. That meant they’d need a few more minutes to get to the house, then another minute or two to search the place. With that much of a head start, he and Chase might be able to beat them to the main road.

  Then reality—in the form of Mahsood, who was currently gasping for breath as he tried to keep up—made an appearance, and Tate knew his plan had the potential to go to crap really fast. He glanced over his shoulder to see Chase practically dragging the man through the woods by one arm and not making very good time even then. They’d fallen a good fifteen feet behind him already.

  “Can’t you just carry him?” Tate suggested, pausing for a moment to check behind them.

  Chase snorted. “If you’re so hyped up about someone carrying the evil doctor, why don’t you do it?”

  Tate chuckled. “While I’d like to get Mahsood back to the DCO alive, I don’t want it badly enough to carry him. Besides, you’re younger than I am by a few years and obviously need the workout.”