by Meg Ripley
“I’m hoping you haven’t lost your touch, either. You were quite the golden boy back in the day, Jack. I’m sure you haven’t forgotten, with all those medals hanging on your wall. That’s got to feel pretty good.”
Jack frowned into his beer. Winston wasn’t entirely wrong. He’d joined the Army right after high school. He’d wanted to go into IT, but his parents’ income was too low to pay for tuition out of pocket, yet too high to qualify for most student loans and grants. That problem had been taken care of when a local recruiter showed up at the high school to administer the ASVAB test. Jack had done well enough that the recruiter specifically sought him out to talk about his options, and as soon as he’d dangled that college tuition carrot before him, Jack had been sold.
There was no doubt that Jack had enjoyed his time in the military. He’d found a sort of camaraderie that he hadn’t experienced in high school. The training—both physical and mental—was stimulating and inspiriting. He’d been convinced he’d found his true calling in life when he’d begun working on antiterrorism with the department. Before he knew it, he was helping to lock away some of the world’s greatest enemies.
“I don’t exactly keep them on display,” he answered. “It was nice to be acknowledged, but that’s not why I did it.”
“Oh, of course not.” Winston waved a hand in the air. “You did it all because of that sweet, noble heart inside your chest. Blah, blah, blah. You’re so boring, Jack.”
This was typical Winston, and Jack refused to be offended by it. He knew the game. “All right. Just tell me what you want.”
“Who says I want anything? Maybe I just called an old friend to catch up. The world is a lonely place these days, with everyone staring at their phones instead of actually talking to each other. People don’t have real relationships anymore, you know.” Winston poured himself a shot of whiskey and sipped it.
Jack let out a short laugh. “And if someone has a relationship with you, how do they know who they’re actually with? I don’t think I’ve seen you look the same way twice.”
“Don’t flatter me. You’ll make my head explode.” He took another sip and let out a sigh as it burned. “Tell me what you’re up to these days, Jack.”
“A little of this, a little of that. I stay busy.” The truth was that Jack had been recruited to the Special Ops Shifter Force, an elite group of veteran Special Ops soldiers who also happened to be shifters. Their true animal instincts were a major factor in their successes as they tackled problems that the human world usually didn’t know about and the rest of the shifter world wasn’t able to handle. It’d been a good transition for him, one that had allowed him to use his natural talent for intelligence as well as belong to a group of men just like himself.
“Well, that’s vague.” Winston frowned as he poured himself another glass of whiskey. “Does staying busy involve any real work? I have this dreary vision of you sitting behind some desk in a corporate cubicle somewhere, answering tech questions over the phone from housewives who just don’t understand how the internet works.”
“I’m not just a knob turner,” Jack replied. “I know my way around plenty of gadgets, but I’ve got more of a life going on than that.”
“A girl?”
“Not exactly.” Life with the SOS Force didn’t give him much time for dating, or at least that was what he told himself. He simply didn’t have the chance to get out and meet anyone when he was busy taking down the rogues of the shifter community.
Winston stuck out his bottom lip. “Poor little Jackie is all alone? That’s sad.”
Jack gave him a punch in the arm. “You’ve always been a pain in the ass, Winston.”
“But you love me for it. Seriously, Jack. I think it’s about time you settled down.” He put his glass on the bar with a gentle thunk and looked his former comrade in the eye. “After you help me out, that is.”
“I knew there would be something,” Jack admitted. “There’s always a catch with you.” He said it good-humoredly, though. That was just the way Winston was, and Jack had come to accept it a long time ago.
“I do have that favor to cash in, you know,” the bartender reminded him.
“Damn. That must mean this is a doozy.” Jack instantly knew what he was talking about. The mission was supposed to be a straightforward one: a simple extraction of an ambassador that would have gone much more smoothly if they could have done it without a show of force. Things had gone sideways, though, and Jack had soon found himself stuck behind military lines. With the small contingent he had with him, their limited weapons, and the surrounding forces, there was little hope of getting stateside again. Winston had shown up as the sheik himself, ordering his troops to stand down and giving his blessing for the ambassador and his entourage—Jack included—to leave.
“You could say that. Just a sec.” He skulked back to the other end of the bar, this time to serve a few cheap beers to the older men, taking his time and making Jack wait.
“Before you go into too much detail, you should know that I’ve already got a job,” Jack said. He didn’t mind helping an old friend, but he couldn’t abandon the Force. They were a small unit, and even if they went on solo missions, they always relied on the others for backup.
“Don’t turn me down before you’ve even heard me out.” Winston pushed another bottle of beer at him. “There are plenty of times I could’ve called in this favor, but I was waiting for something I really needed you for. Something that required your specific skills, not just any old intelligence officer.”
Jack finished off the first beer and reached for the second one, suspicious but intrigued. “I might regret it, but I’m listening.”
Winston smiled. “I knew you would. I’m working with the Department of Homeland Security now. Still the same sort of stuff, keeping track of all the would-be terrorists and knocking them out as soon as we have enough proof to justify it. You know the drill.”
“Sure.” That didn’t sound any different than what he had done as a Grey Fox, but it was probably a bit safer if it was taking place on their own territory. Missions in the Middle East had a whole different element of danger to them.
“There’s one we’ve been tracking in Illinois. He goes by the name of Ben Jones, but it’s just a cover. It’s the sort of situation we see all the time these days: he slowly recruits followers, builds his cell around him, brainwashes them into thinking there’s some common enemy they all have to fight against to preserve their freedom, even though they all have a lot more freedoms than most people everywhere else in the world… Same old dog and pony show.”
“That doesn’t sound like anything too extraordinary,” Jack commented. He watched as the two women left with the two men.
Winston watched them, too, waiting until they were out the door before he continued. “It’s not, except that I have reason to believe this Ben is a shifter.”
Jack set his beer down with a thump, the liquid sloshing inside. “You’re shitting me. Does the DHS know?” He was more than interested now. Jack took it as a personal offense that anyone should try to harm innocent civilians, no matter what country they were from. Knowing that a shifter was committing such an atrocity—or preparing to—was that much more infuriating.
“I shit you not, and no, they don’t know. It’s mostly my own suspicions, but I’ve seen a lot of animal traffic in the area when we’re looking for humans, if you know what I mean. Trouble is, I can’t exactly report it to upper management. I’m defying the very laws of our country by keeping this secret from the DHS, but I think you and I can both agree that the very last thing we need is for the government to find out about us.” Winston often tended toward theatrics, but at that moment, Jack could tell he was dead serious.
And he couldn’t blame him. It was a subject that had come up more than once during his time with the Army. What would happen if the military found out who they really were; if the wrong person happened to stumble upon one of them as they morphed from human to animal and
back again? Would they keep them captive for experiments? Rule them as abominations? Ban them from the country they’d been born in? It was all possible, considering everything history had taught them. All shifters, service people or not, had made an unspoken agreement that they would never reveal themselves to the wrong person.
Jack rubbed his thumb down the side of his beer bottle, thinking. “That certainly complicates things.”
“It does. Ben Jones, I believe, is not only a shifter himself, but is recruiting others. At this point, we don’t know exactly what he’s planning. My concern is that it will not only harm innocent people, but expose us.” He tapped the bar for emphasis.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “I still don’t quite see how this involves me.”
Winston slapped the dark wood. “Ah, that’s the part you really want to know. Of course. The Department of Homeland Security is determined to take this guy down. We’re convinced he’s a threat, but like I said, we have to have reasonable cause. We can’t just barge into someone’s home because they were looking up the wrong things on the internet and splatter their guts on the wall. It’ll be a scandal. So we have to be incredibly careful. We’ve got excellent people on the team, but I’ve convinced my boss that we need one more.”
“This is where I come in, I presume?”
“Yes, sir. The department occasionally brings in specialists and consultants, people who have special skills. Your track record with the Army was more than enough for me to convince them you were the man for the job.” Winston’s eyes, even with those dark contacts, were piercing.
Jack took another swig of his beer and looked around the room. The man who’d been playing darts not long ago was now swaying back and forth in front of the jukebox, dancing drunkenly by himself. He and the others in the bar had no idea that their liberties were threatened on a daily basis because people like Jack were working behind the scenes to take them out. They went to work and spent time with their families and slept in their beds at night without ever being aware of what was actually happening in the world around them. Even those who closely followed the news were only being fed the parts the government wanted them to know. They had no clue how many undercover agents were working on their behalf.
“I’ll feel a lot better knowing we’ve got a shifter on the inside,” Winston said when Jack hadn’t yet made a reply.
“What do you mean?” Jack narrowed his eyes. He knew he was being coerced, and it wasn’t that he really minded considering it was Winston, but he wanted as much information as possible. Jack had learned over the years that it was all right to walk into a trap as long as you knew it was a trap. “The DHS already has you. What do you need me for?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Your talent? Your skill? All those medals and commendations? You know I’m good behind the scenes, but I’ve already worked on this case too much. Even with my disguises, it’s time to change it up. I’ve been scouting this one out for a while, and we need to get someone different in there before we make a final move. A shifter is going to handle it a lot better than any human.” He tipped his head from side to side, as though considering all the options the future might hold. “And I think a shifter might stand a better chance of getting out again if I’m honest.”
Jack let out a long, low breath, not quite a sigh. There wasn’t a whole lot to consider. Someone was out there making threats, potentially planning to harm innocent people, and Jack might be able to stop him. “I’ve got a few arrangements I’ll have to make. I need to get back to you. How much time do I have?”
Winston frowned. “As little as possible, as always. The faster we get this figured out and taken care of, the sooner we can move on to more threats. You know there are always more, man.”
“I’m not looking for a full-time gig,” Jack reminded him. “If I wanted to dive back into the game like that, I wouldn’t have left the Army.”
“I know, I know. I’m just saying you never need to be bored.” He gave Jack a smile and a wink.
“Is this your regular side job now, slinging beer to the dregs of society? Or will I need to go talk to the head chef at a French restaurant when I need to reach you again?” Jack teased. He knew Winston loved his disguises, and not simply because he’d been able to make a living with them.
“Oui, monsieur,” Winston replied in a perfect Parisian accent. “Or perhaps you’ll head to the docks to talk to a lowly barge worker about a new position.”
“Right.” Jack’s face split in a grin. “I’ll see you around.”
Jack was the first to arrive in the conference room. He eased into the comfortable leather chair and ran his hand along the grain of the mahogany table. The TV and other equipment the SOS Dallas Force used to communicate with their D.C. unit as well as Ash Cunningham, one of their consultants in Alaska, was all top-of-the-line, provided by Taylor Communications. The conference room was part of the lavish and very secret headquarters that had been remodeled specifically for their needs. While some of the members chose to continue living in their own homes, Jack had opted for the rather nice apartments that had been made a part of the complex as well. Everything he could have possibly needed was there.
It was an opulent lifestyle compared to how he’d lived when he was working overseas. Jack had slept inside tents that were so constantly battered by the wind, they might have blown away at any second. He’d huddled in dark corners to catch a few moments of shuteye before jumping back to his feet to fight the enemy or help a prisoner escape. Even on the rare occasion when he’d managed a night in one of the reinforced tents on a base, he still had to worry about scorpions and other unwelcome critters wriggling into his bed. He’d eaten more MREs than he cared to remember, and he’d sampled some very questionable foreign food that he’d rather not know the actual ingredients of. All in all, he’d left a rough, seat-of-his-pants type of life that was hard to imagine going back to.
“You all right?” asked a low, twangy voice that jerked Jack out of his reverie and back into the present moment. “You look like you found a hole in your pasture fence.” Vance was a rancher outside of his work with the Dallas Force, and if Jack hadn’t already known, he’d have been able to tell by the dirt around the hems of his black Levi’s and the scuffs on his Ariats.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“Must be some heavy stuff.” Vance stepped over to a side table and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Need a little something to give your brain a boost?” he asked, gesturing to the pot.
“No, thanks. I’ve had enough for the day.” And he truly had. He’d slowly sipped a cup as he got ready that morning, and he’d had several more while he brooded over his options. By the time he’d gotten into the conference room, he could already feel the caffeine thrumming through his veins, and it hadn’t done a thing to help him with this decision.
Max strode in just then, holding out his travel mug. “I’ll gladly take a fill-up,” he said with a grin. “It’s been one hell of a night. Did you hear about that traffic accident out on 114? I was working it.”
Vance shook his head. “I’ve never seen anyone so happy about a car wreck.”
“You’re just pissed that no one uses horses for transportation anymore,” Max teased. “And it’s not that I’m happy about the fact that people were hurt. It’s just that working on the air ambulance team has been so much more satisfying. I’m actually doing something rewarding with my life. Luxury Air Tours and all those rich assholes can suck it.” Indeed, Max looked much happier than Jack could ever remember seeing him. There was always that grim determination he saw in any shifter’s eyes when they were working a mission, but it was like Max’s overall life had completely changed in the last few months since he’d reconnected with his mate and found a new civilian job.
“Right,” Jack said slowly. “It’s all about the job. It doesn’t have anything to do with going home and getting to play doctor with Sabrina at the end of the night.”
Max swiped a fist in his direction, mis
sing purposely. The gesture carried with it the swift and smooth movements of the tiger Max was inside, and the satisfaction in his eyes brought the same reminder. “You can make fun all you want. You’re just jealous, and I’m not going to let that ruin my good time.” He grinned again as he moved around the table to his seat. “Better than sitting at home in front of a computer every night while beating off to PornHub like you.”
Jack laughed. “Whatever you say, man.”
“What should either of us be jealous for, anyway?” Vance asked. “I’m as free as a tumbleweed, with only my ranch and this job to tie me down every now and then. I don’t need a woman bossing me around.”
“You say that, but I’ve seen you with the ladies,” Max remarked. “You want to pretend you’re some rough cowboy, but as soon as you see a pretty face, you’re running after them. Don’t kid a kidder, Vance.”
Jack pursed his lips, quickly sinking back into deep thoughts again. He wasn’t old by any means, but he wasn’t getting any younger, either. His lifestyle had stopped him from really ever settling down, not just in the sense of finding his mate, but in the sense of getting to know himself and other people. His work in the Army had kept him isolated and on the move, and the Dallas Force wasn’t much different.
The meeting started as they checked in with the D.C. unit and discussed what missions they had coming up. Jack took mental notes, trying to decide when he should broach the subject. After all, he couldn’t just ditch the Force. The Specials Ops shifters were the closest thing he had to a family those days, and disappearing for a while without explanation wasn’t going to sit well with them.
“I think that about wraps it up,” Max finally announced, tossing back the last of his coffee and standing.
“Actually, there’s something else.” Jack briefly explained Winston’s request for assistance. “It sounds like a pretty big deal, and I think I’ve got to go.”
