by Alisa Woods
Daniel snorted—his derision was a lot more familiar. “You just broke in, didn’t you? Nice.” He shook his head like she was a delinquent teen he didn’t know what to do with. “Look, big sister—why don’t you just use your fancy spy skills to figure out the big conspiracy about where Noah’s been reassigned and let the rest of us sleep?”
“He’s not just on an op somewhere!” Piper shot back. “He would have told me.” Plus this MWR thing was ramping up her nerves. Why would Noah say that… unless he expected to go dark for some reason? And why not tell her? Warn her, at least. So she didn’t panic. Like she was. Right now.
Daniel gave her his best impression of their father—all authority and derision toward the little girl who was such a disappointment to him. “Maybe he found something better to do than chat with his sister. Or they confiscated his phone. Or maybe, just maybe, he dropped that extremely expensive satellite phone you gave him in the latrine.”
His smirk and his words were just making her stomach wind tighter and tighter. All that was possible… but she didn’t believe any of it.
“Right,” she huffed. “Has to be a phone down the crapper. Because nothing else ever goes sideways in Afghanistan.” Her glare darkened, and if she didn’t know Daniel could easily take her in a fight, she was tempted to shift and give him a face full of claws for not showing more concern about his little brother. Because something could be very wrong, and as far as she could tell, he cared more about giving her crap than he did about Noah’s safety. Daniel was more a junior version of their dad each time she saw him. It had been a year since the last time—obviously nowhere near long enough.
Daniel just held her glare, not backing down.
“You know what?” Piper hissed. “You’re right. This was obviously a mistake.” She turned on her heel and got halfway to the door before a hand stopped her with a gentle tug on her elbow. Daniel knew better than to touch her, so she reeled in her instinct to whirl with a handful of claws out.
It was Jace. “Hang on,” he said, glancing back at Daniel. “If Noah’s missing, I meant what I said about finding him. We went after Cassie and brought her back. We’ll do the same for him.”
Piper pulled her elbow out of his grasp, but gently. “I know. I’m not entirely out of the Wildling pack loop. I heard about what you guys did for Cassie.” She glared at Daniel. “There are a few Wildings who still think I’m worth talking to.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “Oh, for the love of God!” He pointed a finger at her. “You were the one who decided to leave—”
“As if you even noticed—”
“How could I not notice? You stormed out like a class five Hurricane!”
“You don’t have to deal with the almighty Colonel—”
“I deal with him all the time. Somehow, it’s never a problem.”
“No, it wouldn’t be, for you, now would it?”
“Whatever!” He threw out his hands. “It’s never you, is it, Piper? You’ve always done exactly what you—”
“Enough!” Jace’s voice cut through their squabbling like an alpha command—Piper winced, but she noted with satisfaction that Daniel did, too. And that tone… it sent a thrill through her wolf that had her lady parts a-flutter again. Piper shoved that aside. This wasn’t an alpha thing, she told herself. It was an age thing—Jace was twenty-eight, according to his bio, and Piper was only twenty-five, Daniel a mere twenty-three. Noah was just a baby at twenty-one, which was why she had looked out for him her whole life—because no one else did, and he was just a kid when their mom died.
No one deserves to grow up completely without a mom—one of the many reasons she’d decided never to take a mate.
Jace was staring them down, each in turn, and Piper’s insides were warring as to whether they liked that commanding look or hated it. Probably both. And she hated that she liked it, so that was mixed in there, too. Gah! She was a freaking mess with this. Piper backhanded her wolf’s hungry pant for more of Jace’s commanding touch, in words and flesh. Her wolf went off to sulk in the corner.
Jace let out a low, long breath of patience. “I do not give a fuck what your family problems are,” he finally ground out. “But I care very much about whether I’ve got Army shifters going missing. Or not. Both of you need to knock this shit off and work together to figure this out. Then you can go back to whatever passes for family relations in the Wilding pack. But not before we get solid intel on whether your brother is missing.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t know my sister like I do, Jace. She lies for a living now, but she’s always been a manipulator. You can’t trust her.”
Piper cringed—partly because it was true, but mostly because she was afraid it would turn Jace against her just as he was starting to come around. He turned back to her, doubt creating shadows on his face.
“Soldiers get reassigned all the time,” Jace said, carefully. “Maybe he’s just gone dark for a mission. What makes you think he’s gone missing?”
“Because I talk to him every day.” She lifted her chin to Daniel. “We have an actual relationship, unlike this hot mess.” Back to Jace, with a lowered voice. “He wouldn’t just go dark with no warning. I swear. Something is wrong.” That much was the God’s honest truth. She prayed he would hear it in her voice.
Jace frowned and nodded. “All right.” He took a breath. “In the morning, we’ll discuss this with my brothers and make a game plan—”
“Morning?” Piper’s voice hiked up. “Why do you think I’m here in the middle of the night? We need to get on this, like yesterday!” She tried to bring her voice back down to reasonable. “Daniel has access to the Joint Base. He’s got clearance. I can’t even get on site, but he could get in there anytime and access their records, see what’s happened—”
Daniel’s mouth fell open. “You want me to hack the Joint Base records?” He acted as if she’d asked him to streak naked across the base. Actually, no—he would have laughed at that. This was worse. Much worse. This was their father’s territory, and she was asking him to piss all over it.
“Daniel’s right,” Jace said, his voice calm. “You can’t go blustering into—”
“Blustering?” She completely failed to keep her voice down. “I could do it with my hands tied behind my back. Even this blundering amateur—”
Daniel growled at her. “I’m not risking my security clearance for this!”
“It’s a bad idea, Piper,” Jace said, but his voice was strained again. “We know from when Cassie was taken that they are government types involved in this, but we don’t know how far it goes. Let me and my brothers handle this from the outside, so we don’t tip them off.”
Dammit. He wasn’t going to help her after all. “Sure. Let’s take our time. Meanwhile, Noah’s in a dark cell somewhere being tortured.” She could hardly keep the tremble out of her voice.
“We don’t know that!” Daniel protested.
“You’re right,” she spat back. “He could already be dead.” She was seriously going to give him some facial scars as a souvenir before she left.
“Okay, okay!” Jace threw his hands up, holding Piper and Daniel apart. “Let’s cool this down a bit, shall we?” He pointed to Daniel. “You sit tight and think about what we can do for intel. And stop being an ass.” Then he turned to Piper. “You get a guest room and park it for a while. And stop assuming the worst before we know anything at all, okay?”
Her breath was heaving, and she wanted to tell him to fuck off—it wasn’t his brother that was possibly being tortured to death. Instead, she did a quick scan of the room. Daniel had always been a neat freak, and the Army had just reinforced those habits. Everything was neatly put away, including a light-weight jacket hanging on the back of the bedroom door.
She looked back to Jace’s questioning expression and wrestled her voice into a semblance of conciliation. “All right. We’ll talk about this in the morning.” She turned her back on him and strode to the door, counting on him
to take a moment to talk to Daniel before they left.
“We’re going to work this out,” Jace said to her brother.
She took that instant to slip her hand inside her brother’s jacket and get the one thing she really needed. Then she pulled open the door and marched into the hallway, covering the sway of the jacket with the motion of the flung-open door. She slipped her prize into her front pocket as she went.
Jace’s footsteps followed quickly after her. “Hey,” he said, catching her by the elbow again. “This way.” He nodded down the hall in the opposite direction.
She swung around and followed him down a couple turns in this gigantic estate of his to a room similar to Daniel’s but smaller. Jace opened the door and gestured her inside.
“It’s going to be all right, Piper.” His voice was gentle, and the fire in his eyes had softened. “Hopefully, Noah’s completely fine, just holed up somewhere. And if not, we’re going to find him.”
“Sure.” She tried to sound positive, but her skills were failing her—too much personal entanglement was eroding her ability to do her job. Once she found Noah, she was going to take that assignment in Bolivia she’d been avoiding and get lost in hot Latin men for a while. Get back to her normal state of not giving a shit about anything except work. And her baby brother.
Jace frowned. His eyes were deep brown, like Noah’s, and filled with a genuine concern that made her face heat. Like he saw right through her, which somehow both thrilled and terrified her. Plus the scruff on his face, at least a day’s worth, and the bed-tossed hair standing on end just made him insanely sexy in the moonlight. Her wolf wanted nothing more than to drag him into the room with her and spend the next couple hours finding out just how delicious Jace River’s body could be. But she had a mission—a brother to find, alive or dead—and taking Jace River to bed wasn’t going to help with that. At least… not anymore.
“We are going to find him,” Jace repeated, softly, reassuring. “I’ll come get you when everyone’s up.”
“Okay.” She schooled her face to hide the roiling emotion under her skin.
He nodded and turned to leave.
She almost called him back to thank him—for caring, for putting Daniel in his place, for trying to reassure her—but she held herself in check. Wouldn’t matter anyway.
She didn’t plan on seeing him again.
Chapter Three
Jace finished the last bite of his sandwich just as the sun came up.
The warm glow spilled through the windows of the great room and painted the kitchen’s stainless steel appliances rosy red. The house was just now starting to stir—which was remarkable, given that Piper, Daniel, and he had practically brawled over rescuing her brother Noah—but the sounds of people awakening upstairs meant his time was running out.
He’d been using his tablet to search for possible disappearances of military grunts like Noah, but the information he could access publicly from the safehouse was extremely limited. His office at Riverwise was better equipped—there he had access to a couple private military networks where he could scan the back-channel chatter. Nothing that was security-related, but if there were suddenly a lack of communication from a lot of personnel, that would show up. Once his brothers, Jaxson and Jared, rolled out of their respective beds, the three of them could form a plan on how to tackle this. Maybe a trip to the office for more extensive research. Or maybe Daniel could get them into the Joint Base. They might have better access there if they could get away with it. The trick would be poking around without tipping their hand to Agent Smith—or whatever his real name was.
Just as Jace was stowing his now-clean sandwich plate and trying to decide whether to barge in on Jaxson and Olivia’s post-mating honeymoon, the pair stumbled into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and smelling of the hot sex they no doubt had been having all night long.
“Hey, you two,” Jace said with a growl. “Can you wipe off the smiles? The rest of us are trying to have a miserable morning.” He couldn’t help the twinge inside when he thought about Jaxson finally finding his true mate. Olivia was wonderful, and Jace didn’t begrudge his brother a second of their happiness, but it was hard to look them in the face and know they had something he never would.
At least now their pack had a fully mated alpha to lead them and lend them strength. Jace could have filled that role, except for the glaring fact that he couldn’t shift—not without endangering the very people he was supposed to protect—and due to that, he could never mate. Other than that, he was the perfect candidate! The truth was, Jaxson was the right brother to be their pack alpha, but Jace hadn’t, technically, even submitted to him—at least, not since Jace was discharged. He had pledged his allegiance in human form, but that meant no magic bond to strengthen his alpha and his pack as a whole. If he had been able to take a mate, that bond would have been even stronger.
Just one more way Jace was unable to fulfill his duties.
He shoved those thoughts deep into the dark place where his inner wolf stayed locked away, at least during the daylight hours. He needed to stay on task, and right now, that meant helping Piper find her missing brother, Noah.
“Good morning, brother!” Jaxson declared with excessive joy, his hand tucked at Olivia’s waist and a smile wide on his face.
She gestured to the window behind her, with its view of the blue-tinged mountains, now turning hazy with the pink dawn and early morning mist. “How can you be miserable on a gorgeous day like this?” she asked.
“Some of us didn’t enjoy the night quite as much as others,” Jace said with a smirk.
Olivia blushed, but her smile and glowing happiness stayed strong.
Jaxson’s grin dimmed when he finally took a good look at Jace. He hadn’t bothered with a mirror this morning, or a shave, but he was sure there were black shadows under his eyes and the makings of a ragged beard. And Jaxson was always worrying about him even on the best of days.
His brother tried to resurrect his smile as he lifted his chin to Jace. “Seriously, man. Jared is the brother who’s supposed to be miserable all the time, not you.”
“Yeah, well, I need to talk to him, too.” Jace glanced toward the stairs. No one had yet wandered down, and Jared slept hard. “I’ll pay you hundred dollars to wake him. Last time, he nearly took my face off with those daggers he claims are claws.”
“Something’s up,” Jaxson said, frowning. It was a statement. Neither of them would bother waking Jared unless it was an emergency.
“We had a visitor last night,” Jace said, “and she’s still here. Daniel’s sister, Piper, crashed the safehouse at three in the morning. Says her brother is missing. A younger one, not Daniel.”
“Missing?” Jaxson’s scowl grew darker. “And you think it’s connected to the others?”
Jace shrugged. They had so little intel to go on. “I think we need to get busy and find this Agent Smith character. I hate to interrupt your honeymoon, but…”
Jaxson pulled Olivia closer to him, fingers laced together. “We’ll have a real honeymoon once this is all over, right, baby?”
She nodded, a tight smile on her face. “Missing shifters trumps everything.” She looked at Jace. “Do we know when Piper’s brother went missing?”
Jace rubbed the back of his neck. “Not exactly. Not even completely sure he is missing. His name’s Noah. And he’s an Army grunt.”
“Military shifters?” Jaxson loosened his hold on Olivia and straightened.
“Yeah, and he went missing overseas. I don’t like it, Jaxson. Could be more kinds of bad than I even want to think about. And Piper is crazy freaked out. Of course, she’s a Wilding, so…” He left that hanging because the Wilding’s really took after their pack name.
“I’ve never met her,” Jaxson said, frowning. “Is she another Terra?”
Jace huffed a short laugh. “Yeah, if Terra were counterintelligence with a penchant for breaking and entering.” He shook his head. The whole pack was clearly out there, but you didn
’t get into counterintelligence, even as a civilian, without having something on the ball.
Jaxson’s eyebrows lifted. “Counterintelligence? Alrighty, then.”
“Yeah.” Jaxson had to fight to rein in the smirk. “She’s a handful.” He’d actually had a handful of her, and his wolf wasn’t forgetting that any time soon. She was unpredictable, and she pissed him off with her recklessness, but damn, she had felt good when he had his paws on her. There were all kinds of smoldering hotness inside that short, voluptuous frame of hers, and he halfway hoped that, if they found Noah, she might be grateful the way Terra had been when they rescued her little sister Cassie. The crawling in his bed kind of grateful. Terra wasn’t his type, but Piper… Jace’s wolf surged up from the dark pit, making Jace suck in a breath. Then again, maybe not. His wolf wanted her in his bed even more than Jace. And that was flat dangerous.
Just one more thing his wolf would ruin for him.
Jace blew out the breath he’d been holding. “The thing is, I’m not entirely sure her brother’s actually missing. Have we started work on tracking down Agent Smith? I know you’ve been… busy… but I thought Jared was working intel on this last night. Do you know?”
“I’ll go boot him out of bed and get him down here. See what he’s got.” Jaxson trotted over to the stairs and headed up.
Olivia bit her lip and looked as anxious as Jace felt. He genuinely regretted intruding upon their happiness, but getting through this would require all of their pack working together—and probably pulling in help from the Wildings as well. Noah was part of their pack, after all. But all the local area packs looked to the River pack wolves for leadership on this kind of thing, given Riverwise was private security and almost all their pack had military backgrounds.
Olivia edged closer to him, anxiety deepening her frown. “I know you don’t trust witches, but I promise you, Jace, I love your brother like I’ve never loved any man on earth. Or shifter.”
