by Paige Tyler
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Copyright © 2015 by Paige Tyler
Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Dawn Adams
Cover art by Craig White
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
A sneak peek at book four in the X-Ops series
A sneak peek at Wolf Trouble
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
With special thanks to my extremely patient and understanding husband. Without your help and support, I couldn’t have pursued my dream job of becoming a writer. You’re my sounding board, my idea man, my critique partner, and the absolute best research assistant any girl could ask for.
Love you!
Prologue
Silver Butte Lookout Tower, Douglas County, Oregon, 2007
Declan MacBride gazed through his binoculars at the rolling mountains stretching in every direction around him. Nothing out there but fresh air, wild animals, trees, and solitude—make that lots of trees and lots of solitude. And that was exactly the way he liked it.
When he’d told his boss at the regional U.S. Forest Service office in Portland he was fine with a full-time post out here, the guy had looked at him like he was insane. Silver Butte was the most isolated fire tower in the area—no one wanted to get assigned here. There weren’t any trails nearby, so you could easily go days without seeing another human being. It was also too far from civilization for the ranger on duty to go home between shifts, which meant you had to stay out here for the entire tour of duty—usually a week at a time. Put those two things together and it was a tough place to keep manned, even during the critical days of fire season. The only forest rangers who got sent here were the newbies and the screwups.
Volunteering to stay at the tower for the rest of the summer had confused the hell out of Declan’s boss. But the man wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. As soon as Chet made sure Declan knew he wasn’t going to get any bonus pay, he’d given the okay. The other rangers thought he was nuts, too. They couldn’t understand why anyone would willingly isolate themselves from human contact. But Declan had his reasons, and he didn’t care to go into them.
Declan moved around the interior of the tower, scanning in all directions for any sign of trouble. Fire was the big concern at this time of year, but he was looking for anything out of the ordinary: poachers, circling buzzards, campers in distress.
He’d just set down his binoculars and grabbed his book when he picked up the sound of footsteps approaching the tower. He sniffed the air before he could stop himself, then bit back a growl. He rarely relied on his sense of smell. It was better than a normal person’s—way better—but he went out of his way to ignore what his nose told him. He didn’t feel comfortable experiencing the world that way. It made him feel too much like an animal.
Fortunately, his sense of hearing—which seemed far more acceptable to depend on—was good enough to compensate for refusing to use his nose. And right now, his ears were telling him there was someone about five hundred feet to the north of the tower and moving this way.
Declan sat down and went back to his book. It was probably just an adventurous hiker who’d wandered off the trail. Once the guy saw the chain across the bottom of the stairs with a sign saying the tower was off limits to the public, he’d go on his way.
A few moments later, boots were pounding up the steps. Declan frowned. What the hell?
He tossed his book on the table and walked outside to look over the railing. “Sorry, Mister, but this tower is government property. It’s off-limits to the public.”
The man glanced up as he climbed, grinning at Declan. “I’m well aware of that, Mr. MacBride. That’s why I got permission from your boss before coming out here to see you.”
Declan did a double take. How the hell did this guy know his name? More importantly, why hadn’t Chet called him on the satellite phone to tell him the guy was coming out here?
“Nice to finally meet you, Mr. MacBride,” the man said when he got to the landing. He held out his hand. “I’m John Loughlin.”
Declan tried to ignore his nose as he shook the man’s hand, but it was hard—Loughlin’s clothes smelled like they’d just come off the rack at the nearest outdoor store. His boots weren’t even broken in for Pete’s sake. If the brand-new duds weren’t enough to tell him the guy wasn’t a hiker, the fact that he wasn’t carrying a pack would have been a dead giveaway. Who hiked all this way without food or water?
“How do you know my name?” Declan asked.
“I know a great deal about you Mr. MacBride.” Loughlin smiled up at him. “Though I have to say your personnel record doesn’t do you justice. You are a very large man.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like anyone knowing too much about him. “You mean my Forest Service records? How did you get access to those?”
Loughlin motioned toward the tower. “Perhaps we could sit down and talk about this inside? It’s rather complicated and might take a while.”
Declan didn’t like the sound of that. But he led the guy inside the tight area that served as both an observation tower and living space. He grabbed a bottle of water from the small camping fridge that ran off rechargeable batteries tied to the solar panels on the roof and held it out to the man.
“Okay, so talk,” he said. “Who are you, how did you get into my personnel records, and what do you want with me?”
John took a deep drink of water, then saluted Declan with the bottle and sat down in one of the room’s two chairs. “As I said, my name is John Loughlin. And I didn’t look at your Forest Service records. The organization I’m with has its own folder on you already. To put it simply, I’m here to offer you a job.”
Declan leaned back against the wall and folded his arms. He had a feeling this conversation wasn’t going to take nearly as long as Loughlin thought. “Someone sent a headhunter all the way out here to scoop up a ranger from the Forest Service? I didn’t realize we were in such high demand.”
He didn’t bother to hide the sarcasm.
&
nbsp; John laughed and took another swallow of water. “I’m sure you’re a very good forest ranger, Mr. MacBride, but those skills aren’t the ones my organization is interested in—as I’m sure you know.”
Declan swore under his breath. He should have known. The guy had “corporate manager” written all over him.
“Sorry you wasted your time coming all the way out here, Mr. Loughlin, but if you’d dug a little deeper, you would have learned I never finished that engineering program I started—or the design from my thesis you’re so interested in.” Damn, he hadn’t thought about that part of his life in a long time. “Besides, I’m not involved in that kind of work anymore. I’m a forest ranger. If you leave now, you can probably get back to your car before dark. Feel free to take another bottle of water with you when you go.”
Declan started for the door when Loughlin’s voice stopped him cold.
“Your engineering acumen—even if garnered at MIT—isn’t the skill set my organization is interested in.”
Declan wasn’t sure why, but alarm bells went off in his head. He eyed the door. There was nothing between him and that exit. And for someone his size, he could be damn fast when he wanted to be.
But he didn’t run. Instead, he turned to face Loughlin. Clearly, the man was more dangerous than he appeared. “What other skills do you think I have?”
Loughlin slowly put the cap back on the plastic bottle. “My organization is very interested in your talents as a shifter.”
Declan had never heard the word shifter, but it wasn’t hard to connect the term with the monster he had inside him. The only confusing part was how the man—and his organization—had learned about his secret. And what they wanted from him.
He glanced at the door again. It didn’t sound like there was anyone else nearby, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone out there—just that they were being careful. Declan might be a fast runner when he wanted to be, but he couldn’t outrun a gun.
Declan swung his gaze back to Loughlin, looking for a distinctive bulge that told him the man was carrying a weapon. He didn’t see anything, but…
“I’m not carrying a weapon, Mr. MacBride, if that’s what you’re concerned about,” he said as if reading Declan’s mind. Loughlin motioned his head toward the door. “And there’s no one waiting below with a weapon, either. I’m not here to harass you, hurt you, or try to force you into anything you don’t want to do. I simply want to talk to you about a job that can put your unique abilities to good use—in a place where you won’t have to feel like you have to hide who you are. If you’re not interested in my offer by the time I’m done, I’ll walk out of here and forget I ever saw you. I’m just asking for a chance to talk to you.”
Declan didn’t answer. He hated that Loughlin had walked out of the woods and screwed up the carefully constructed facade that was his so-called life, but curiosity kept him from telling the man to get the hell out. Declan needed to ascertain just how much Loughlin and his organization knew about him. He’d likely have to leave Oregon as soon as Loughlin hiked out of here anyway, of course. Which really sucked because he liked it here.
He sat down on the stool by the map table. “How did you find out about me? Was it Marissa?”
“Your former fiancée?” Loughlin shook his head. “No, we’ve never talked to her. We didn’t think you’d appreciate that.”
That was true. Declan didn’t want to think she’d rat out his secret to strangers, but then again, things hadn’t ended well with his former fiancée—hence the former. If the organization Loughlin represented hoped to employ him, using the woman who had ripped out his heart probably wasn’t a smart way to gather information on him.
“So, how did you learn that I’m a…monster then?”
Loughlin unscrewed the top from the bottle and downed the rest of the water in a few deep gulps. “First off, you’re far from a monster—”
Declan snorted. “Marissa would disagree with you on that.”
“Probably,” Loughlin agreed. “But that’s only because, for all her intelligence, Marissa couldn’t have known your talents are purely the result of a genetic mutation that occurs in an extremely tiny portion of the population. In your case, the blending of human DNA with that of an ancient member of the genus Ursus. As far as how I found you, it wasn’t easy. But if a person knows what to look for, he can pick up on little clues here and there. Physical feats you demonstrated through middle and early high school, the way other animals react around you, police reports that read just a little too strange. From there, it was a matter of getting some of your DNA and knowing what to look for.”
Declan hadn’t realized his jaw had dropped until it snapped shut. Forget about how they got his DNA. The only thing he cared about was one word. “Ursus?”
“Yes, Ursus—a bear.” John frowned. “You didn’t recognize that when you shift, you take on certain obvious bearlike qualities? The size, the strength, the shape of your face and teeth?”
Declan shook his head. “I’ve never really seen myself when it…happens. I’ve just seen the horror on other people’s faces. I thought I was a werewolf or something.”
Loughlin laughed. “While there are a lot of wolf shifters out there, you’re definitely not one of them.”
It was Declan’s turn to frown. “There are others like me?”
“Other shifters? Yes. Several of them work for me. You’re the first bear shifter we’ve found, though. For reasons unknown to us, higher-order canids and felids seem to predominate the shifter ranks.”
Declan’s mind whirled a thousand miles an hour. He’d spent every minute of his life, or at least every moment since he was fifteen—when he’d started changing—thinking he was some kind of freaking monster. Now this guy walks in here out of nowhere and tells him that not only is there a rational scientific explanation for what he was, but there were other people like him.
“These other shifters—they work for you?”
Loughlin stood and walked over to the small fridge. He opened it and took out another bottle of water. “You mind? That walk out here didn’t look so bad on my GPS.”
When Declan shook his head, Loughlin took a long swallow, then went back to his seat.
“Yes, these shifters work for me, along with other less unique, but no less valuable people. We partner them up in small teams that accentuate the strengths and skills of each member, then have them carry out missions that best suit those skills.”
The idea of being able to work with a team of people who wouldn’t view him as a monster when they discovered his secret was damn enticing.
“Okay, you have my attention,” he told Loughlin. “What kind of work would I be doing? I mean, I might be one of these shifters you’re talking about, but I don’t have any special skills that I know of.”
Not unless you counted being able to throw someone through a wall.
“You have more skills than you realize—you simply need training to bring them out,” Loughlin said. “We won’t ask you to do anything that’s beyond your capability. Or outside the boundary of your moral compass.”
“I’m still listening,” Declan said.
“Good. Because I have a new team I’m putting together. You would be working with three other men that I consider to be some of the finest people I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.” He shook his head. “I won’t sugarcoat it. This team will have a very difficult job. You’ll be responsible for tracking down and capturing—or killing if necessary—some of the worst predators in the world. Killers, rapists, terrorists, and worse. Some will be everyday, run-of-the-mill psychopaths. But others will be shifters who have gone rogue.”
Damn. “Does that happen a lot?”
“Not too often, but when it does, the average cop, federal agent, or soldier isn’t prepared to handle it. That’s where you and your team will come in.”
Declan shifted on the stool. “I’m not sure I could kill someone—shifter or otherwise—no matter what they’ve done.”
Loughlin regarded him thoughtfully. “I know what happened the night Marissa left you, Declan. You exposed yourself to protect her, even though you knew it might cost you.”
Declan didn’t say anything.
“Something tells me you would have done the same thing if it hadn’t been Marissa—if it’d just been some random stranger,” Loughlin said. “Am I right?”
Declan didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”
“That’s all I’ll ever ask you to do—save a person you might not even know, regardless of what it might cost you.”
When Loughlin put it that way, the job didn’t sound half-bad. And maybe helping people would be a way to atone for what he’d done that night when he’d protected Marissa. He weighed the pros and cons of the job offer, going back and forth between them while Loughlin patiently sat there drinking his water. This was a big decision and he should sleep on it for a couple days, but it wasn’t the kind of choice that could be made with his head. He had to go with his gut, and it was telling him that this was the right thing to do.
“Okay,” he finally said. “I’m in.”
Loughlin smiled. “And I didn’t even have to mention benefits and pay—both of which are damn good, by the way.”
Neither of those things had even occurred to Declan.
Loughlin walked over and held out his hand. “Welcome to the Department of Covert Operations, Mr. MacBride.”
Chapter 1
Seven Years Later
After ten years of writing performance reviews, training schedules, and after-action reports, Kendra Carlsen was finally going on a mission. She was so excited, she was practically bouncing in her chair. But getting all geeked up wasn’t going to get the work on her desk done—and she had a ton to do before she left.
She was just finishing up the semiannual performance evaluation on Trevor Maxwell’s team—outstanding as usual—when intel specialist Evan Lloyd stuck his head in her office.
“Some of us are heading out for lunch. Want to come?”
Kendra was sorely tempted, but she was heading to the airport in—she looked at her watch—three hours. Yikes!
