X-Ops Exposed

by Paige Tyler

  Halfway into the conversation, he put the phone on speaker so Ivy could hear, too.

  “You’ll come, right?” Zarina asked when she was done.

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

  “We’ll be there, but it’s going to take us a while,” Landon said. “We’re in the middle of Belarus right now, so it’s going to be a few days before we can get there.”

  Zarina’s heart dropped like a rock, tears springing to her eyes. This was hopeless.

  “But that doesn’t mean we can’t help you right now,” Ivy added quickly. “We’ll get Kendra to dig up everything she can on Ryan. We’re going to know more about him than he knows about himself. We’ll figure out what he’s up to and where he’s taken Tanner and the others.”

  “While Kendra is doing that, we’ll get as many operatives out there as we can,” Landon said. “It might take a few hours, but by the time we have the info on Tanner’s location, a team will be there, ready to do whatever is needed. You have our word on that.”

  Zarina started breathing again. “Thank you. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”

  “Not a chance,” Ivy said. “But just in case, is there anyone out there we can count on for help?”

  “Tanner has a brother,” she said. “He’s a cop in Seattle. I’m going to call him as soon as I hang up with you.”

  “Anyone else?” Landon asked.

  She was about to say no, but just then, the door of the main building opened, and Chad, Burt, and Malcolm came out, determined expressions on each of their faces.

  “There might be a few more,” she admitted. “I’ll call you back and let you know for sure.”

  Landon told Zarina they’d call the moment they dug up anything. “I’ll send you the location of the nearest DCO supply point south of Seattle. Head there as soon as you can. I’ll have everyone meet you there.”

  “Okay,” she said. “And Landon, thank you again.”

  Zarina hung up, ready to let Chad have it if he started arguing with her about bringing in outsiders again. But he surprised her.

  “Burt and I have guns, and we know how to use them,” Chad started. “We’re not soldiers or cops, but we’re willing to fight with you to save the people we care about. That includes Tanner.”

  She sighed, relieved. “Good. I don’t know exactly how long it will take for my friends to get here, but we need to be there to meet them as soon as they arrive.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Chad assured her.

  Chapter 14

  Tate had to hand it to Ashley. She was one determined woman.

  They’d chased the coyote shifter for nearly a mile through deep brush and cold, marshy ground, closing the distance between them little by little. The woman had a dozen chances to dump Mahsood and get away, but she didn’t do it. Hell, there were a couple of places the shifter could have smashed the doctor’s head against a tree trunk and called it a day. She didn’t do that, either. Instead, she simply kept running until he and Chase caught up and tackled her.

  They all tumbled to the ground in a heap, Chase gasping in pain, Mahsood screeching again, and Ashley leaping back to her feet with a snarl.

  Tate pushed himself to his feet, then pulled his gun and aimed it at the center of her chest. She growled and took a step closer to him.

  “I completely get why you want to kill this man, Ashley. I just met the guy today, and I already want to kill him, too,” Tate said. “But unfortunately, we can’t let you do that. So maybe we can all calm down and figure out a way to deal with this situation.”

  Ashley stared at him for a few seconds before turning her attention on Chase, who was climbing to his feet and heavily favoring his left side. Then her gaze dropped to Mahsood, and the expression of distaste that crossed her features didn’t do anything to make Tate think she was ready to give up her prey. She growled and extended her claws.

  Shit.

  “Ashley, don’t do it,” he said softly. “Don’t make me kill you, not over this piece of crap.”

  She tensed but didn’t retract her claws. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chase drawing down on her, too. Tate really didn’t want to have to kill her.

  Just when he was sure Ashley was going to take a swipe at the doctor and tear his throat out, she jerked her head up and sniffed the air. In a blink, she turned and darted off to the side, disappearing into a thick stand of evergreens.

  “Okay, that can’t be good,” Chase murmured.

  Tate was thinking the same thing. He spun in a circle, trying to see which direction trouble was coming from, when he heard the first gunshot. He barely registered the sound when the bullet ripped a chunk of bark out of the tree where his head had been two seconds earlier.

  Cursing, he shoved Chase and Mahsood behind the nearest group of trees, tackling them to the ground as dirt erupted around them in a hail of bullets. He didn’t need to see who was shooting at them to know the people after Mahsood had finally shown up.

  Chase rolled over onto his back, pulling a spare weapon magazine from his equipment belt and holding it ready for a quick change out. Tate did the same thing. Shit. Things were going to get really bad in a minute. To say they were outnumbered was an understatement. That wasn’t even taking into account the whole machine gun versus pistol thing. That was almost unfair.

  Oh yeah, and there were still the two shifters somewhere around here, too.

  Mahsood cowered between him and Chase. If the guy hugged the ground any tighter, he was going to start digging in like a hermit crab.

  “Now probably isn’t a good time,” Chase said casually as guys with guns circled around to the left and right of them. “But are you ever going to tell me what the hell DCO stands for? Is that who you really work for?”

  Tate took aim at some bushes off to his side that were starting to shake suspiciously. “What makes you think that?”

  “Nothing specific,” the deputy murmured, most of his attention focused on the mercenary in black who was low-crawling behind a fallen tree on their right. “But I couldn’t help noticing that what we’re doing now sure as hell doesn’t show up as a typical Homeland mission on your website.”

  “I see your point,” Tate said softly, waiting for the person behind the bush on his side to pop up and start shooting. “It’s kind of complicated—and classified—but since we’re both likely to be dead in the next few minutes, I can’t see an issue with telling you.”

  “If not telling me will improve our chances of survival, feel free to keep the secret to yourself.”

  Tate chuckled. If he had to be in a situation like this without Declan and the rest of his old team, he couldn’t ask for a better person than Chase. Tate appreciated people who were cool in the face of impending doom.

  “The DCO is the Department of Covert Operations,” Tate said. “It’s a classified organization buried in the guts of Homeland. Few people know it exists, and even fewer realize the government uses shifters for classified intel work.”

  Chase took the announcement in stride. No shock there. Nothing they’d been through had affected him yet, so why would hearing there was a secret government organization using shifters be any different?

  “You don’t have a shifter you usually work with?” Chase asked, poking his head around the tree to see where the bad guys were.

  Tate shrugged. “I had one, but his wife had twins recently, and now he’s home helping her take care of them. They’re trying to find me another partner, but shifters don’t grow on trees, you know?”

  “Twins, huh?” Chase nodded. “That’s cool.”

  Tate would have agreed, but that’s when the mercenary guy on his side popped up and started shooting. It must have been the signal for all the others, because all hell broke loose after that.

  The guy on Chase’s side opened fire, too, while the two shifters—who’d quie
tly worked themselves all the way around until they were in front of them—jumped up and came racing at them full speed through the brush. The feline shifter had blood on his face and neck, as well as the front of his uniform. He seemed to be moving slower, too.

  Tate ignored the two pissed-off shifters heading their way and instead focused on the man coming at him from the right. It was one of the guys who’d been on the stairs at Joanne’s house.

  Tate was still lying on his back when he remedied that problem by putting two bullets through the man’s chest. The guy looked shocked for a second, then tumbled to the ground in a twisted pile of arms and legs.

  Tate came up on one knee, his weapon swinging around fast to engage the feline shifter who was closing quickly on them. Even as he squeezed the trigger, he knew it was too late. The shifter was going to take him out before he got a shot off.

  Then, out of nowhere, Ashley smashed into the feline shifter like a frigging truck. They hit the ground growling, yowling, and going at each other with their claws. Tate shifted his aim to the wolf shifter at the same time as Chase started shooting at her. Together, they forced the woman to veer sharply and race past them without engaging.

  Tate probably would have cheered if Mahsood hadn’t chosen that moment to jump up and run off into the woods, barely avoiding Ashley and the feline shifter rolling across the forest floor, tearing each other apart. The ungrateful bastard didn’t make it more than thirty or forty feet before two of the bad guys rose up out of the bush and grabbed him, dragging him away.

  “We’re about to lose our prisoner!” Tate shouted.

  Chase had gotten to his feet and was now moving toward the man behind the log on their left, shooting as he went. “I’m a little busy here,” he called out without looking at Tate. “Go get him. I’ll catch up.”

  Tate cursed and raced after Mahsood, slowing when he got close. Lifting his 9mm, he took slow, careful aim at one of the men leading the doctor deeper into the woods. He lined up his sights on the center of the man’s back, steadying his hands. He was just about to squeeze the trigger when a strangled growl off to his left interrupted him. He threw a quick glance in that direction to see that the feline had Ashley pinned to the ground and was slowly choking the life out of her.

  Shit.

  Tate shifted his aim from the men dragging Mahsood away to the feline shifter and popped off a quick shot, clipping the shifter in the shoulder. The shot wasn’t fatal, but it distracted the asshole enough for Ashley to push his hands away and rake her claws across the man’s throat with a snarl, killing him. Ashley apparently didn’t know that, because she shoved the shifter off her, then straddled his body, both hands swinging in a blur as she screamed in totally out-of-control fury.

  Damn. Had he just shot the wrong shifter?

  Ashley leapt to her feet and turned to glare at him, like she could actually hear his thoughts. She growled at him once, giving Tate a look that implied he shouldn’t follow, then took off after Mahsood.

  But he did, because he was stupid like that.

  She was too fast for him to catch up, so he fired a few rounds in their direction, hoping to slow them down enough for him to line up the same shot he’d been about to take earlier. Instead, it earned him a burst of automatic weapon fire that had him diving for the dirt. He immediately came up and returned fire, cursing as the slide on his weapon locked back on an empty magazine.

  Tate was in the middle of his reload when he sensed someone step out from behind a tree ten feet away. He looked up and saw the female wolf shifter standing there with an MP5 leveled straight and steady at his chest.

  He was fucked. He couldn’t reload faster than she could squeeze that trigger and obliterate him, and at this distance, any defensive move would have merely delayed the inevitable. He locked eyes with the woman, waiting.

  She stared at him for a moment before dropping the nose of the weapon down a few inches and plowing a dozen rounds into the dirt a few feet in front of him. He wasn’t a fool. He didn’t know what that was about, but he took the unexpected gift and got the hell out of there, finding refuge behind the nearest tree.

  He finished reloading his weapon but still waited a few seconds before leaning out to take a look around. The men with Mahsood were long gone, and so was the wolf shifter. He caught sight of Ashley just before she disappeared from view into the trees, a furious expression on her face.

  Tate was about to go after Mahsood and the men again when the sound of running feet from behind had him spinning around and lifting his weapon. He pulled up sharply as Chase slid to a stop in front of him.

  “What happened?” Chase asked.

  Tate wasn’t sure himself. Mahsood had run right into the arms of the men trying to kill him while Tate had helped Ashley kill another shifter, and the wolf shifter had let him live after having him dead in her sights.

  “That’s a long story we can get into later,” he told Chase. “Right now, we need to get moving if we hope to have any chance of catching up to them.”

  Tate started heading in that direction when his phone vibrated. Slowing to a fast walk, he pulled it out and thumbed the green button, then held it to his ear.

  “Evers.”

  “It’s Landon. I need you in Seattle ASAP.”

  “Now?” Tate frowned. “I’m in the middle of a shoot-out with Ashley Brannon and a group of hired guns who just kidnapped Mahsood. If I leave now, Mahsood is probably dead.”

  “That’s Mahsood’s problem,” Landon said. “Tanner and Zarina are in deep shit out in Washington, and helping them takes priority over everything else. Get your ass to the airport. Kendra is arranging air transport right now.”

  “Shit.” Tate stopped in midstride. Beside him, Chase did the same, a curious look on his face. “I knew I should have gone out there with Zarina. What happened?”

  “An old army buddy of Tanner’s kidnapped him. Kendra’s trying to figure out where the asshole took him, and I want you out there to help with the rescue the second we have anything.”

  “I’m on the way.” Tate hung up and looked at Chase. “Change of plans. Mahsood and Ashley are now my second priority.”

  “What’s your first priority then?”

  “Getting to Washington State to help out that lion hybrid I told you about. He’s in trouble.”

  Chase frowned. “What the hell am I supposed to do, act like I never heard about any of this shit?”

  Tate thought a moment. “You have any vacation days saved up?”

  The question caught Chase off guard. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Feel like taking a trip out to Washington State? I hear it’s nice this time of the year.”

  “Is someone out there going to end up shooting at me?”

  “Probably.”

  Chase seemed to consider that. After a moment, he shrugged. “When do we leave?”

  Chapter 15

  Tanner was numb all over when he woke up, and for a while, he lay there with his eyes closed. Shit. His head felt like it was full of cotton. What the hell?

  It took him a minute to remember, but he slowly pieced everything together. Images of Lillie’s unconscious body and Ryan kicking him in the face flashed in his head. He opened his eyes and bolted upright, terrified by the thought of what might have happened after he’d passed out. Most importantly, what had happened to Zarina?

  While his mind was alert, his body hadn’t quite caught up yet, and he nearly blacked out again. But he clawed and thrashed against the darkness, refusing to let it have him back. He had no idea how long he’d been unconscious, but he needed to figure out where he was and how to get out of there.

  He looked around the pitch-black space, his eyes immediately shifting and allowing him to see as clearly as if someone had flipped a light switch. He was in a small, dank room with a single wooden door. Seven people lay curled up on the floor around him. They we
re so still that, at first, he thought they were all dead. But then he picked out seven individual heartbeats.

  He sniffed the air for Zarina’s scent, and even though the dark space was filled with a bewildering array of everything from sawdust to alcohol, he was relieved he couldn’t pick up even a trace of her. Then he realized he couldn’t smell Lillie either. Maybe she’d gotten away?

  But while Zarina and Lillie might not be in here, there were other scents he recognized. One was Spencer. The other two were Bryce and Josh. He was also picking up blood. Lots of it.

  Eager to help whichever captive was bleeding, he started to get to his feet only to stop when he realized there was something around his wrist keeping him from moving more than about two feet in any direction. He couldn’t even stand up straight.

  Frowning, he looked down and saw a heavy metal manacle around his right wrist attached to an equally stout chain running down to an eye bolt in the bare concrete floor. There was no way he was going to get loose from the thing, at least not easily.

  Tanner glanced at the other captives and saw they were all wearing manacles like him. He called Spencer’s name softly, then Bryce’s, trying to rouse them. Spencer didn’t stir, but Bryce lifted his head and pushed himself into a sitting position. He blinked at Tanner in the darkness, his eyes glowing ever so slightly. Bruises covered one side of his jaw, and there was a cut above his eye. He’d been hit hard—recently.

  “I’m awake,” he said quietly. “I thought you were still unconscious. I can’t believe they grabbed you and Spencer, too. I was kind of counting on you guys to figure out where we were and get us the hell out.”

  Tanner grimaced. That had been the plan. At least the young hybrid seemed okay. “Help me wake Spencer up. We need to get our asses moving.”

  It took him and Bryce a few minutes before they could wake Spencer. He sat up slowly, shaking his head as if trying to shake off the effect of the tranquilizer.