X-Ops Exposed

by Paige Tyler

  “Harder,” she begged softly.

  “You sure you won’t scream?”

  She nodded.

  It was possible that a little cry slipped out when she orgasmed, but she was too busy coming to care. And when Gage stiffened and came inside her? It was like heaven. The closeness she felt with him at that moment was the only thing that could ever rival the pleasure she’d felt from the orgasm he’d given her.

  Then Gage was leaning over her, kissing her hotly on the mouth while his cock still pulsed inside her. It was impossible not to whimper a little with the aftershocks of her orgasm vibrating through her.

  Mac felt wetness on her face and realized that she was crying. Gage gently kissed away her tears.

  “That was amazing,” she said softly.

  “Yeah, it was.” He gave her another kiss, then gently pulled her into a sitting position. “We should probably get back out there.”

  But he made no move to get dressed. Instead he stood there between her legs, gazing down at her.

  Mac traced her fingers over the tattoo of the wolf on his chest. The design certainly held a lot more meaning than it had the first time she’d seen it.

  “So, what’s up with this tattoo?” she asked softly.

  Gage chuckled. “It’s the ultimate inside joke. For us, SWAT stands for Special Wolf Alpha Team, since we’re all werewolves and alpha-male types. Get it?”

  She poked him hard in the ribs. “Yeah, I get it. I’m sex-addled, not slow.”

  Gage laughed again.

  Mac went back to playing with his tattoo. She’d never get tired of seeing the way the wolf image moved over his well-muscled skin. Who was she kidding? She’d love playing with his chest if there was a hippo tattooed on it.

  She thought back to what Gage had said about her being The One. Maybe he and the werewolf legend were onto something. How else could she explain why she’d tossed aside a once-in-a-lifetime story for a man she’d met less than a week ago? Or that the thought of not having him in her life made her hyperventilate? They were truly made for each other. And if that meant there was some mythical force at work here, she was more than ready to believe it. If werewolves could be real, why not a cosmic love connection?

  Mac lifted her head to look at him. “So, what I saw tonight—is that as werewolfy as you get?”

  His mouth twitched. “Not exactly. I get a little bit more werewolfy.”

  “How much more?”

  “Think four paws and a tail.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Like a real wolf. Seriously?”

  He nodded.

  “Can I see?”

  He chuckled. “Not right now. Let’s take baby steps with this, okay?”

  She made a face. “Okay. But you have to promise to show me.”

  A few hours ago, she was freaked out about him being a werewolf, and now she couldn’t wait to see him turn again. Love could do that to a woman.

  Mac went back to playing with his tattoo again. “Did you bite all the guys in your pack to turn them into werewolves?”

  He snorted. “Hell, no.”

  “Then how did you do it?”

  “I didn’t. You can’t turn someone into a werewolf by biting them like in the movies. We’re born like this.” When she jerked up to look at him, he laughed. “I don’t mean we’re born with claws and fangs. That might be a little hard to hide.”

  “What then?”

  “From what we’ve been able to figure out, there’s something in our DNA that triggers our change into werewolves when the right set of circumstances come along.”

  “What kind of circumstances?”

  “A person carrying the werewolf gene, or whatever you call it, has to be exposed to a high-stress, life-threatening situation. If the person makes it through the situation, they come out the other side a werewolf.”

  She chewed on her lips as she considered that. “That’s what happened to you in Iraq, wasn’t it? When all the other members of your squad were killed?”

  He nodded. “That’s why I had to get out of the Army. I didn’t have a clue what was happening to me, and I needed time to figure it out.”

  As if seeing all his friends killed wasn’t enough, he then had to figure out what it meant to be a werewolf, too.

  “Is that how it happened to your pack, too? Combat?”

  “Some of them,” he said. “Cooper got blown through a building in Iraq. McCall’s convoy got hit in Afghanistan. That’s where Duncan, our senior medic, was turned, too. He got trapped in a small, forward-operating base that was completely overrun. Most of the others changed while they were on the job, after getting shot.”

  “And you just found them and recruited them?”

  “Pretty much.” Gage ran his hand up and down her arm. “I didn’t understand the significance of the Pack thing until I had about a half dozen of them together. That’s when I realized we all work better—and are happier—in an environment like this.”

  Mac smiled. Gage just couldn’t help it. He was the kind of man who worried about others. “But how did you find all of them? I assume there isn’t a website you can look on.”

  “I wish.” He let out a short laugh. “Over the years, I’ve gotten good at knowing what to look for. I read a lot of news articles about cops and stuff, looking for the right clues.”

  Clever, she thought. “How do you think your pack’s going to handle it when you tell them that we’re back together again?”

  He chuckled. “They already know. It was sort of hard to miss.”

  “I was quiet!”

  “Not to a werewolf. Even if they couldn’t hear your sexy little moans—which they did, by the way—they wouldn’t have been able to miss that scrumptious smell you put off when you’re aroused.”

  Mac groaned, her face hot. “I’ll never be able to look any of them in the eye again.”

  Gage cupped her cheek. “There aren’t any secrets in the Pack, babe. You’re just going have to learn to accept it. These guys are going to know every time we have sex because they’ll smell my scent on you, and yours on me.”

  “Will that—you and me together, I mean—cause problems?”

  She didn’t know much about wolf packs in the wild, but she thought she remembered reading something about how female wolves in heat caused all the males to go crazy.

  But Gage shook his head. “They won’t have a problem with it. You give them hope.”

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “They look at you and know the legend is true, that there really is someone special out there for every one of them.” He grinned. “And if they tease you now and then, it’s just because you’re part of our pack now.”

  Part of the Pack. She liked the sound of that.

  He gave her a kiss. “Come on. Let’s go see what they’re up to out there.”

  Remembering what Gage had said about werewolves and their keen sense of hearing, Mac would rather have put off facing the Pack as long as possible, but she got dressed and let Gage lead her out of his office and into the main room anyway.

  She’d hoped the guys wouldn’t be there, but the entire Pack was sitting around casually in their chairs, holding up cards with Olympic-style scores on them. She had more than enough imagination to figure out what they were grading them on. Her face turned bright red. Embarrassed didn’t even begin to cover it.

  But after a good laugh, every one of the guys gave her a hug and welcomed her into the Pack. She tried not to make a big deal out of it, but she was touched. She could see Gage was touched, too.

  Chapter 12

  “The judge signed the warrants against Hardy,” Gage told Mackenzie when he walked back into his office.

  She didn’t exactly look thrilled to hear his news, but then again, he hadn’t expected her to be. They’d spent a good part of the early mo
rning hours talking about what going after Hardy would entail, and Mackenzie had been pretty clear about her feelings that she thought someone else in the department should be kicking in the man’s front door instead of him and his team. They’d barely survived Hardy’s first attack, and now Gage wanted to put himself right in the crazy bastard’s sights.

  “I have to do this, sweetheart,” he’d told her.

  She’d tried hard not to cry, but he’d seen the tears. “Why?”

  “Because there’s a good chance Hardy will resist when the DPD shows up on his doorstep.” Gage gently wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. “If that happens, a lot of cops will die. Unless my pack and I are there.”

  Mackenzie still hadn’t liked it, but at least she’d understood.

  With the twenty-four-hour news outlets already plastering Walter Hardy’s face all over the TV and Internet, sensationalizing the attempted murders and detailing the supposed connections between him and the dead gunmen at the barn, it hadn’t been hard finding a judge to sign the search warrants the police needed.

  “When will you serve them?” she asked as she sat up from the couch where she’d been napping. Her hair was a wild tumble around her shoulders and she looked more tired than she had when he’d left to go downtown for the meeting at police headquarters at dawn this morning. Gage doubted she’d gotten any sleep.

  “We’re going to hit all of his major business locations and his residential addresses simultaneously at noon.” He glanced at his watch. “In a little less than three hours.”

  Mackenzie sat up straighter, alarm clear in her eyes. “That fast? Don’t you need more time for planning?”

  “Normally, we’d want at least a full day to plan out an operation this ambitious, but in this case, our biggest concern is that Hardy will get wind of what we’re doing and flee the country before we move on him. He likely has people on his payroll planted throughout the police department and the prosecutor’s office, so our only hope is to limit the number of people who know the details and hit him faster than he expects.”

  Gage could already hear his men getting ready outside, talking in low voices about team assignments and how they would deal with the possibility of serious resistance at multiple locations around the Dallas area at the same time.

  Mackenzie stood up and crossed the room to hug him. “When do you leave?” she asked, the words muffled against his shoulder.

  “Thirty minutes.” Gage hated seeing her worry like this. “I’m leading the team into Hardy’s main residence. The prosecutor thinks that’s where we’re likely to find the most evidence.”

  “What happens if he’s already gotten rid of any evidence that could tie him directly to the people who tried to kill us—if there ever was any?”

  Gage didn’t want to think about that. They had this one shot to find something worthwhile on Hardy. If they did, they had a good chance of getting him off the street. If they blew it, Hardy would hit back even harder than he had the last time Gage had come for him. And the son of a bitch had already shown a penchant for aiming at Mackenzie.

  But he didn’t voice any of those thoughts. Mackenzie needed to hear that this was all going to work out okay.

  “That’s not going to happen. We’ll get him, one way or the other.”

  Fortunately, Mackenzie was so preoccupied that the anger in his voice escaped her notice. That was good, because this was another topic they’d argued about in the early morning hours, when he’d made the mistake of saying he’d track Hardy down and tear him into several small, Butterball turkey–sized pieces before he ever let the man get near her again. Mackenzie had come seriously unglued, complete with finger waving and foot stamping.

  “You aren’t a murderer, and I’m not going to stand by and let you turn into one,” she’d told him angrily.

  Yeah, he realized as he stood in his office and hugged her tightly. She’s still an idealist. Learning about werewolves hadn’t changed that.

  * * *

  Mac chewed on her lip as Gage loaded more equipment into the operations vehicle, then climbed in with Delaney and Lowry. There were way too many different locations to hit and not enough SWAT officers to go around. Which meant that one or two would go in with regular cops for backup at each target. Gage, Delaney, and Lowry were hitting Hardy’s home out in Southlake. Gage had assured her it wasn’t any more dangerous than the other locations, but if that were true, he wouldn’t have insisted on taking that one himself, and there wouldn’t have been two other SWAT guys going to the same location.

  The anxious feeling that had been growing all day suddenly turned to fear. She jumped up on the running board on the passenger side of the vehicle. Grabbing Gage by the collar, she pulled him close and kissed him, not caring if she embarrassed him in from of Delaney and Lowry.

  “Be careful out there, okay?” she whispered.

  His mouth curved. “I will. And you stay inside as much as possible. If you come out, I want someone with you.”

  Mac nodded. Cooper, Becker, and Brooks were staying back to supposedly man the compound, but in reality, they’d been pulled out of action so they could be there to protect her. She expected them to be unhappy about being left behind, but they weren’t nearly as upset as she thought they’d be. In some bizarre way that only a man could understand, the three werewolves took it as some kind of distinction that their alpha leader had selected them to stay back and watch over his woman. She was already comfortable with Becker and Cooper, and Brooks was so damn big that she couldn’t help but feel safe around him.

  Still, as she watched Gage drive off, she couldn’t deny she was terrified, not for herself, but for Gage and all the other guys in the Pack. They might be stronger and more capable than ordinary men, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t get hurt, or worse.

  Mac and the guys spent the next few hours listening to the drama unfold over the police radio, with frequent updates from the teams. During the initial entry, there had been some resistance, but not anything extreme—yet.

  Of course, when the press got wind of what was going down, every TV news channel lit up like a Christmas tree, so they were able to watch the whole thing going down live. Around seven that night, Gage called to talk to Cooper. Mac worried her bottom lip as she waited for a report.

  “Hardy wasn’t at his house or any of the places the teams have searched so far,” Cooper said when he hung up.

  Crap.

  “But on the upside,” Cooper continued, “Gage says they’ve already found evidence tying Hardy to the gunmen he hired. Apparently the man was so obsessed with getting someone who could kill the two of you that he didn’t even slow down to hide his tracks. Arrest warrants are on a judge’s desk right now.”

  Hearing about the evidence helped, but she’d feel a whole hell of a lot better if they could locate Hardy.

  Mac tried calling Zak to see if he’d heard anything, but it went to his voice mail. She left a message asking him to call, then hung up. Her cell rang before she could even get it back in her pocket. Zak’s name popped up on the display. That was fast.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Mackenzie Stone?” a woman’s voice asked.

  Mac frowned, not recognizing the voice. “Yes.”

  “This is Amy Bronson. I’m a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Mercy General. We found your name listed in Mr. Gibson’s phone under his emergency contact.”

  Oh God. “Is Zak okay?”

  “We’ve been able to stabilize him, but he was beaten pretty badly.”

  “Beaten? Where? By whom?”

  “We’re not sure. A few tourists found him in an alley and brought him to the emergency room about thirty minutes ago,” the nurse said. “Does Mr. Gibson have any family we can call, or would you rather do that?”

  “I’m the only family he has,” Mac said.

  “Then you might want to
come quickly.”

  Mac clutched the phone to her chest. “It’s Zak,” she told the three werewolves. “Someone beat him up. I have to go to the hospital.”

  She jumped to her feet, but Cooper caught her arm. “Hang on. Let me call back and make sure Zak’s really there. Which hospital?”

  Crap. Cooper thought it might be a trap. She hadn’t even considered that. “Mercy General. The nurse said he was in ICU.”

  Mac listened impatiently as Cooper identified himself and gave his badge number to whoever answered the phone. The look on his face told her all she needed to know.

  “He’s there, and he’s in bad shape,” Cooper told her when he hung up. “Come on. We’ll drive you.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Brooks pulled the SUV up to the emergency entrance. Mac would have jumped out right away, but Cooper stopped her.

  “Wait until Becker gives the all clear.”

  Becker got out and scanned the surrounding area, then nodded.

  Mac was out of the car and running toward the building when she heard gunshots—a lot of gunshots. She whirled around to see Cooper and Becker falling to the ground, blood staining their uniform shirts. More gunfire echoed as whoever was shooting riddled the SUV with bullets.

  Mac froze for a moment, then sprinted toward the downed SWAT officers. But she didn’t make it more than a few steps before someone grabbed her and dragged her across the parking lot to a four-door sedan that squealed to a stop.

  When the guy tossed her in the back, she immediately lunged for the opposite door, but a second man jumped in, trapping her. The man who’d first grabbed her shoved her back against the seat as the driver punched the gas.

  “Yeah, boss, we have her,” the man in the front passenger seat said, turning to give her a smirk.

  Roscoe Patterson. Mac would recognize that smug face of his anywhere—even with bruises covering half of it. There was a soft cast on his right wrist, too. She wondered who had beaten him up.

  “She ran straight to the hospital, just like you said,” Patterson continued. “We put down three of those fucking SWAT assholes, too. Told you there was no reason to bring outsiders in to deal with this. We’ll be at the hangar in thirty minutes.”