X-Ops Exposed

by Paige Tyler

  “And if your friend here doesn’t fight,” Ryan continued, “Mr. Nguyen will shoot that sweet girl in the head, and you can both watch her brains spatter all over the glass.”

  Before Tanner could say anything, Ryan turned and walked out of the cage. On the other side of the octagon, Spencer growled long and low at Tanner, his fangs and claws fully extended.

  Oh shit. This was going to be bad.

  Chapter 17

  “I’m picking up trace scents from that direction,” Diaz said softly, gesturing at a slightly narrower section of tunnel to his left.

  Tate shined his flashlight down the dark opening, eyeing the rubble-strewn floor that looked like it hadn’t been disturbed in a hundred years, wondering if the shifter’s nose was playing tricks on him. Frowning, he played the light over the map in his hand, courtesy of Cam’s historian friend. As he traced the squiggles on the map with his finger, he decided maybe Diaz was onto something. It certainly looked like they should be getting close to their objective.

  If Cam’s friend was right, somewhere just ahead of them should be a clear section of tunnel with half a dozen small rooms along it. Those rooms, which were two levels directly below the club, were where Tanner and the other kidnapping victims were most likely being held. Unless they were all in the club’s walk-in fridge, which, while scary sounding as hell, was highly unlikely.

  Tate glanced over his shoulder to make sure the other members of his team were still sticking close. Chase, Chad, Burt, and Malcolm returned his look with expressions that suggested they were as ready to get the hell out of the dark, claustrophobic tunnels as Tate was. Like him and Diaz, all four of the men carried M4 carbines they’d gotten from the DCO storage unit. That worried Tate a little bit. He trusted Chase with an automatic rifle, but the other three, not so much. Hopefully, they wouldn’t get in a situation where the men had to use the weapons.

  Behind Malcolm, who was bringing up the rear, Tate saw the glow of the green high-intensity ChemLights the team had left in their wake as they moved through the tunnels. While they were taking their time on the way in, there was a good chance they’d be hauling ass on the way out. They didn’t want to have to guess about which way to go if they were being chased.

  He nodded at Diaz, motioning him forward, then followed as Burt popped another ChemLight and left it at the intersection of the two tunnels. Tate breathed deeply as he felt fresh air hit his face. They must be getting close. That was good.

  Even so, Tate couldn’t help but worry about what was happening with the other team. They’d all entered the tunnels together about a mile back but had split up soon after, with Zarina, Cam, Clayne, and Danica heading through tunnels one level above. The map said there was a large open space between the rooms on this level and the club, so Danica’s plan called for her team to set up there and provide security for Tate’s team as he and the others rescued the kidnapping victims. If anyone tried to stop them during the rescue, Danica and her team would be positioned to take them down.

  It was a good plan, giving Tate extra help in case they had to carry some of the prisoners, while also hopefully keeping Chad, Burt, and Malcolm out of the worst of the shooting, if it came to that. Tate would have preferred if Zarina were down here with him, too. Hell, he would have really liked it if she’d stayed outside. But that wasn’t an option. Danica, Clayne, and Cam had needed help, too, and Zarina was the only one available. Not that she ever would have agreed to stay outside anyway. She was bound and determined to help save Tanner.

  With any luck, they’d find Tanner and the others down on this level, and it would be a simple matter of evacuating them back out through the tunnels. Then they’d call the cops and be done with it.

  The part of the plan that had him worried the most was communications. They’d known their radio headsets probably wouldn’t work in the deeper parts of the mine, but everyone hoped the reception would improve once the teams got closer to each other. If it didn’t, Danica’s team wouldn’t know when to fall back. Worse, Tate wouldn’t know if Danica’s team got into trouble. Maybe they’d get lucky and the damn radios would work the way they were supposed to.

  Tate was still thinking about what they’d do if the radios didn’t work when he realized Diaz had come to a standstill up ahead of him. Tate noticed the tunnel wasn’t as dark as it had been only minutes ago. He flicked off his light, and the rest of the team behind him did the same, dumping him into pitch-black for about thirty seconds until his eyes adjusted.

  He moved closer to Diaz, who was testing the air with his nose, his eyes glowing yellow-green in the darkness. “What do you got?”

  “I smell Tanner,” the coyote shifter said. “But I smell blood and smokeless powder, too. Someone has been shot down here recently.”

  Tate’s heart thudded. “Tanner?”

  Diaz shook his head as he started moving slowly along the tunnel again, keeping close to the wall. “No way to tell yet. The air currents are doing strange things to the scents down here. But we’re close. That much I’m sure of.”

  A minute later, Diaz led them out of the narrow tunnel they’d been moving through into a much broader and cleaner corridor lit with a series of bright fluorescent bulbs hanging every few feet.

  Tate glanced at the stairs at the end of the corridor that led up. He didn’t have a shifter’s ears, but even he could hear the near constant throb of sound coming from that direction. It sounded like he was in the basement of a football stadium during a game. Maybe he was hearing people partying in the club two levels up. Would have been nice to have sent someone to the club to give them a heads up about what was going on up there, but they didn’t have enough people in their rescue party for that.

  He opened his mouth to ask Diaz if he was right about the noise, but the Special Forces soldier was already heading down the corridor to the right and the door down there.

  Tate and the others quickly spread out around Diaz. Tate was glad to see that Burt and Chad seemed to know what the hell they were doing with their weapons. At least they had them pointed in a safe direction.

  Malcolm, on the other hand, had him a little worried. The guy’s eyes were starting to pulse with that familiar red hybrid glow, and the tips of his frigging fangs were showing.

  “Bryce is in there,” Malcolm said, as if feeling Tate’s eyes on him. “It’s his blood we’re smelling.”

  Tate glanced at Diaz. The coyote shifter nodded. “Definitely hybrid blood. There are other people in there, too. Maybe half a dozen. Tanner was there at some point, but I don’t think he is now.”

  Shit.

  Tate tried to get Danica on the radio to let them know what the hell was happening down there, but all he got was static. He cursed again. They didn’t have time for this. One of the captives was hurt, maybe more than one. They had to move. Now.

  He motioned Diaz in through the door first and to the right, then gestured for Chase to go in next and to the left. Tate would take the middle of the room while the others stayed out in the corridor. He simply didn’t trust Chad and his people in a close-quarter combat situation, especially with hostages in there.

  Everyone nodded, though Malcolm still worried Tate. The hybrid was getting visibly agitated by the second. The scent of blood must be getting to him.

  Tate counted down from three with his fingers then motioned Diaz to go. The shifter reared back and kicked the heavy door off its hinges like it was made of paper, then disappeared inside. Chase followed.

  Tate charged in next to see a scene out of some kind of horror movie. Six people huddled together on the floor, all of them showing signs of abuse. One of the men was curled into a ball, clutching his stomach as blood seeped from between his fingers.

  A big man stood in the center of the room, his weapon pointed at the captives, but he spun at their entrance, the gun in his hand turning their way.

  Diaz, Chase, and Tate fired at th
e same time, hitting the man before he could squeeze the trigger. The ear-splitting noise of three automatic rifles going off in the tight confines of the small space was deafening, and Tate whirled around, expecting the rest of the bad guys who had to be down there to rush in. There was no way they’d leave one guard down here to cover all these prisoners. But apparently, that was exactly what they’d done, since no one showed up.

  That didn’t mean people wouldn’t come running down the steps at any moment. He needed to see how badly the captives were hurt and get them out of there. If anyone headed this way, Danica and her team would deal with it.

  “The keys for the manacles are outside the door,” the youngest of the prisoners said.

  Chad ran to grab the keys, then hurried back into the room. As he hurriedly unlocked the manacles, he asked if anyone knew where Lillie was, but no one did.

  Tate didn’t need a shifter’s nose to tell him the captive bleeding from a gunshot wound was Bryce. While everyone was beaten up and bleeding from cuts and abrasions to the face and what looked to be defensive wounds to their hands and arms, none of the injuries were life-threatening. But the hybrid Bryce was bleeding so much, any normal human would have been unconscious already, if not dead.

  Tate tried to get a look at the wound to see how bad it really was, but the hybrid growled at him, revealing a mouthful of long teeth.

  “Stop it, Bryce,” Malcolm murmured, firmly pulling his friend’s claw-tipped hands away. “He’s trying to help.”

  Bryce relaxed enough for Tate to get a look at the two bullet holes perforating the hybrid’s stomach. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much Tate could do for the injury. He wasn’t a frigging doctor. Hell, they didn’t even have a first-aid kit. Why the hell hadn’t he insisted Zarina come with him?

  He glanced at Diaz and Malcolm, knowing his bedside manners sucked. “Do either of you know how long a hybrid can handle a gut shot like this without medical treatment?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “I’m fine,” Bryce growled.

  Tate ignored him. It was obvious he wasn’t fine.

  “We need to get these people out of here and get Bryce to a hospital ASAP,” Tate said.

  Malcolm immediately reached down to scoop up his friend, but Bryce stopped him. “We can’t leave. They took Spencer and Tanner. They’re upstairs.”

  Tate frowned. “To the club? What the hell are they doing up there?”

  “Not the club,” said the kid who’d told them where the keys were. “They’re one level up in the octagon. They just put Spencer in there with Tanner a few minutes ago. They’re making them fight each other. The crowd tonight is huge, and they’re screaming for blood.”

  Tate knew he looked pretty stupid kneeling there with his mouth hanging open, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been ready for almost anything when they’d come in here, but finding out the big open space they’d seen on the map was being used as some kind of gladiatorial ring and Ryan was forcing two hybrids to fight each other while a crowd cheered them on wasn’t something he would have expected in a million years. His team looked just as shocked.

  “Why would Tanner and Spencer fight each other?” Diaz asked in confusion. “They’re friends, right?”

  “They have Lillie, and Spencer knows it,” the kid said softly. “He’s nearly insane with worry already. If they threatened to hurt Lillie, there’s nothing Spencer wouldn’t do to keep her safe. Even if that means fighting Tanner in front of a couple hundred people.”

  Tate cursed, his head spinning as he tried to count how many ways this could go horribly wrong for them. Beyond the obvious fact that Danica and her team were likely about to step into a meat grinder—if they hadn’t already—there was also the serious issue of how a crowd of bloodthirsty fight fans were going to react when they finally realized the creatures up there with claws and fangs were real.

  He was still imagining how that scene might turn out when a wall-shaking roar ripped through the air, paralyzing everyone in the room.

  “Shit, that’s Tanner,” Diaz growled, his yellow-green eyes glowing brighter as he sprinted for the door.

  Tate got to his feet. “Chad, you, Burt, and Malcolm get everyone out of here and away from the cave. I’m going upstairs with Chase and Diaz to find the others.”

  Malcolm scooped up Bryce and headed for the door while Burt herded the other prisoners in that direction. Chad didn’t move.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said with an angry shake of his head. “They have my daughter up there.”

  “Yes, they do,” Tate agreed. “That’s why I’m sending you out with the others. You run up those stairs thinking like a father, and both you and Lillie will end up dead. Let my team and me handle this. It’s what we do.”

  Chad looked like he wanted to argue, but he finally nodded. “I’m trusting you, something I’ve never done before. Don’t make me sorry. Save my daughter.”

  The older man turned without waiting for a reply, getting one arm around the female prisoner who was having a hard time moving and following Burt and Malcolm out the door.

  Tate took off after Diaz, Chase at his side. They caught up with the shifter halfway up the steps at the end of the hall. That was when Tate heard the screams from above. Not shouting or cheering, but bloodcurdling screams, as if a whole lot of people had just seen something they wished they hadn’t. Then the shooting started.

  Shit. They might be too late to save anybody.

  * * *

  “Spencer, you don’t have to do this,” Tanner said, trying to sound as calm and soothing as possible. “We can figure a way out of this and save Lillie at the same time.”

  His words had no visible effect on the other hybrid. Spencer merely growled louder and dropped into a crouch, circling to the left, like he was trying to work himself into a better attack angle.

  “There’s no way out of this,” Spencer murmured, the words so slurred from the mouthful of teeth that Tanner could barely understand them. “The only way Lillie will be safe is if we fight.”

  Spencer threw a glance at the luxury boxes. Tanner followed his gaze. Lillie was still standing near the glass with Nguyen on one side, his gun still pressed to her head. Ryan was on the other side of her, one hand around the back of Lillie’s neck, making her watch.

  “You know you can’t trust anything Ryan said.” Tanner backpedaled and moved to the right to keep his distance from the other man. “Even if we tear each other to bloody ribbons, he’s not going to let Lillie go. You have to believe me on this.”

  But Spencer wasn’t even listening now. He was too far gone and had been from the second he’d learned Ryan had Lillie. His face twisted with rage and despair, he launched himself at Tanner with a snarl.

  Tanner lunged to the side, but as fast as he was, it didn’t save him completely. Spencer was still able to get his claws into him, tearing four parallel lines across his right shoulder as he flew past. The hybrid hit the floor of the cage with a thud that shook the whole ring, crashing forward in an out-of-control tumble that didn’t stop until he slammed into the fencing on the far side of the octagon. Then Spencer was up and readying himself for another attack.

  The beast inside Tanner howled as much in frustration as pain, and he felt his claws and fangs slip out. He might not want to willingly hurt Spencer, but he doubted his hybrid half was interested in letting his body get ripped to shreds either. Tanner was in control for the moment, but he wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to last.

  The crowd was going absolutely batshit, shouting and cheering for more. Tanner risked throwing a glance in that direction, shocked to see some of the people were shoving each other out of the way to get closer to the cage. Some were snapping pictures or taking videos as he and Spencer went at each other, but most only seemed to want to get closer to the bloodshed.

  Tanner was still worrying about
how much worse things could get if those videos ended up on the internet when his instincts warned him Spencer was coming again. He jumped to the side and hit the floor in a roll, coming up ready for anything.

  That turned out to be Spencer coming at him in a full-on hybrid rage, his red eyes now devoid of even the tiniest shred of human intelligence, his mouth open wide in a growl that displayed more teeth than any human could possibly possess. Tanner wondered if this was what he looked like when he lost control. If so, he could understand why so many people were terrified of him.

  Tanner blocked the claws coming at his neck, then punched the other hybrid in the face, hard. Spencer stumbled back a few feet but otherwise barely seemed to register the blow, even though Tanner was sure he’d caused some damage. Snarling louder, Spencer came at him again, his mouth opening wide as if he intended to tear Tanner’s throat out with his fangs.

  Tanner darted to the side, slamming his heavy boot into Spencer’s gut at the same time. The move slowed the hybrid, but only for a moment. Then he lunged for Tanner’s neck again. Tanner tried to sidestep him, but there was no time. Spencer was too close and too fast.

  Heart pounding, Tanner tried to get his arm up to protect his vulnerable neck, but even that seemed too little, too late. The best he could do was shove his forearm up against Spencer’s upper chest, shoving him aside and deflecting the hybrid’s aim. Instead of his friend’s fangs slamming into his vulnerable throat, they came down on the left side of his neck and shoulder, burying deep in the muscles there.

  The pain was beyond intense, and Tanner’s inner beast crashed through the door out of pure survival instinct. Tanner knew if he continued to try to do this on his own, he’d end up dead, so he relinquished control, letting his claws and fangs fully extend as he forcibly ripped Spencer away from his neck.