by Amelia Jade
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Green Bearets: Gabriel
Base Camp Bears #6
By Amelia Jade
Green Bearets: Gabriel
Copyright @ 2017 by Amelia Jade
First Electronic Publication: March 2017
Amelia Jade
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the author’s permission.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The author does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.
All sexual activities depicted occur between consenting characters 18 years or older who are not blood related.
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Green Bearets: Gabriel
Chapter One
Stephanie
“This is Stephanie Holmes from Channel 22 News at the sixth annual Pet Fashions Gala saying so long, but where are all the fish?”
She shuddered as the video ended. The line was so cheesy, a play on a popular book. Though to be fair, there hadn’t been any fish at the show. Not that she thought anyone would want to see fashion for fish. If such a thing existed.
Look at the world you live in. Of course such a thing probably exists.
A finger reached out and hit the End button. The screen went blank as Andy McDwyer sat back in his chair. Tall, thin-faced, and with a scraggly beard that he was far too proud of, Andy regarded her with his watery blue eyes.
“Well?” she prodded after a moment.
“Not bad,” he shrugged. “The reporting was so-so, but excellent sign-off. That part was good. You should try and make all of your broadcasts that good.”
I would if you would give me better assignments than a fucking pet fashion show, you asshole.
But Stephanie didn’t say that out loud. There was no point. She could see it reflected in Andy’s eyes. He knew what she was thinking, knew that she wanted more, that she wanted a better life than what she was currently getting. And he also didn’t give a shit.
So instead of starting up an argument she was destined to lose, she sat back as much as the rigid metal chairs in his office would allow. It wasn’t much. Andy hated it when people overstayed their welcome, so the chairs were unpadded and with some of the most awkward ergonomic form to them that she’d ever encountered. Not that she was about to give him the satisfaction of seeing it though.
The rest of his office, on the fourteenth floor of the skyscraper that Channel 22 News occupied, was actually rather nice. Rich wooden desk and bookcases, well-framed front pages of some of the bigger stories that Channel 22 had reported on over the years. Soft white light washed over them from above, nothing like the harsh glare that the rest of the offices of CH22 had to deal with.
Not like I have an office here where it’s a problem. Or a desk even.
No, Stephanie had to share a desk between her and the three other part-time reporters. It was just a waste of time; she never used it. Someone was always trying to hog it, to assert power over the others and therefore prove to anybody who was watching that they were apparently worthy of a permanent seat somewhere.
Stephanie had learned early on that not only was nobody watching them, but none of them actually gave a fuck about the part-timers. They existed simply to do bitch-work and to cover the stories none of the legit reporters cared to do. When Stephanie had first been hired, that had been exactly what she was looking for. A way to stick her nose in the industry and gain experience, until she could translate that into a career either with CH22 or another network. She didn’t care which.
That had been five years ago, and she’d done nothing to improve her situation during that time. There was a door open for advancement, she knew that. Andy had made that quite clear to her about three weeks into the job. She’d been at the office extra late working on a story, trying to impress her boss. But he hadn’t been interested in the news at all that night.
She tried not to shudder now as the memory of his hands on her shoulders came flooding back to her.
Creep.
“I did what you wanted, Andy,” she said into the silence that currently reigned in his office. “So where’s my check?”
He looked at her for several moments, then leaned forward and punched a button on his phone. “Cheryl, cut a check for Ms. Holmes please. The usual amount.”
“I want one and a half for having to do this shit-show,” she said immediately, pointing at the screen on the wall to her left, where her exposé on the pet fashion show had been running.
“No,” he said immediately.
“Fifty percent bonus,” she argued.
“Five.”
“Forty.”
“Seven and a half.”
“Thirty,” she replied instantly.
“Ten.”
“Twenty-five, and I’m not going any lower,” she said, sitting back and crossing her arms.
Andy glared at her, but reached forward and punched the button again. “Cheryl, add a twenty-five percent bonus to Ms. Holmes’s check please.”
Stephanie nodded. She needed the extra money to buy herself a new pair of shoes. Her work ones were wearing out.
“Now, get out,” Andy said, making a shooing motion toward the door.
“I want another assignment,” she stated. “And something a little higher up the ladder of importance this time.”
Andy just snorted.
“I mean it, Andy,” she said, her voice hardening. “I’ve been working for you for five years now, and not once have you given me anything but the shit assignments. I’ve done your stupid-ass pet fashion shows and birthday parties and all kinds of other horseshit for five fucking years. And not only that, but I’ve done a damn good job on them, and you know it. So give me a shot,” she said evenly. “I blow it, and you send me back to Cats ‘n’ Hats.”
Her boss looked up as she spoke, regarding her intently. Stephanie had no idea whether he was going
to relent, or fire her. Internally she had even odds on either situation.
Finally Andy sat back and looked at her. “You want a challenge? Something to prove yourself?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said, rolling her eyes in a mimicry of him earlier. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know that. You might be an ass, Andy, but I know you aren’t stupid. So don’t patronize me, and I won’t treat you like the shit you are.”
He grinned.
Why is it that men like him always like when you call them out on their tactics? Why can’t they realize they’re a waste of air and just cut it out? Ugh.
“Okay, I got something for you.” He pulled out a file folder and pushed it across the desk at her. It was far thicker than anything she’d received before.
“Nobody else wanted this?” she asked, picking it up and setting it onto her lap on top of her black skirt.
Andy just smiled. “Here you go, Pippi,” he said, a reference to her—dyed—red hair, and the fact that she had it in pigtails today, even if they stuck out more to the side as opposed to falling to her shoulder blades. Her hair just wasn’t long enough.
She hesitated.
“Take it or leave it,” he said. “You don’t want it, I give it to someone else, and you stay where you’re at.”
She snatched it away without a second thought.
“But you fuck this up, and you aren’t going back to parties. You’re done.”
She heard the glee in his voice. Andy had been looking for a reason to fire her ever since she’d turned down his rejection. But he also knew good help when he found it, and so he hadn’t let her go. But this was going to be the do or die moment.
Stephanie glanced at the folder’s name.
Cloud Lake.
“Where the hell is Cloud Lake?” she asked.
“Small town, three hours east of here,” Andy said flippantly. “You mean you haven’t heard of it?”
She snarled at him. “You know I’m not from around here, ass.”
Andy just grinned.
Stephanie just gritted her teeth and flipped it open, trying to ignore how much she hated her boss.
Her heart sank.
“Shifters?” she asked, a black cloud of hopelessness descending over her. “You know getting anything about them is never going to happen. They hate the media, refuse interviews. Hell, they never let anyone inside their borders.”
Andy smiled. “Cloud Lake isn’t inside their borders.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s a human town. One that seems to be infested with shifters. You remember that story about some of the world’s militaries blockading one of the shifter nests a few weeks back?”
She nodded. It had been on another continent, but it had made the news.
“Turns out they were actually at war with the shifters east of us.”
“There are shifters east of us?” she asked in surprise.
“Do some fucking research!” Andy said. “Don’t be so pathetically ignorant of your surroundings. This is why you’ll never make a good reporter.”
Stephanie remained very still, letting her anger wash through her before she responded. But Andy didn’t give her a choice.
“Anyway, get over there, find me a story. Something good, something juicy. It had better be fucking awesome, and not some namby-pamby piece about how cute the shifters are. You wanna fuck ‘em while you’re there? Go for it, especially if it gets you the damn story. But this needs to be something good.”
“Fuck you, Andy. I’m not some sort of whore.”
He smiled. “And that’s why you’re a temp.”
Her anger came roaring back, but she didn’t cave into it, instead harnessing it, keeping it locked away. “Get bent,” she snapped, standing up.
“Don’t fuck this up, Pippi,” he called as she stormed out.
Stephanie didn’t reply, besides slamming the door behind her, letting the glass insert rattle satisfyingly as she headed for the elevators. The most direct path there took her through the maze of cubicles and past some more offices. Including Chelsea’s.
Tall, blonde, big-boobed, shapely-legged, openly flirtatious, and very sexy Chelsea.
The exact opposite of everything that Stephanie was. Chelsea was the prototypical news anchor, exactly what people like Andy wanted to hire and have on the air. It wasn’t a surprise; Stephanie had known that going into the business. But she just didn’t expect the field to be so arrayed against her. Harder, perhaps, but not actively opposing her.
“Awhooooooooooooooooooo.”
She paused mid-step as the howling sound came from within Chelsea’s office.
“Awhoooooooooooooooooo!”
Stephanie stepped slightly closer, and this time could pick up some snickering coming from within.
“Very funny,” she snapped.
“Oh look everyone,” Chelsea said, opening the door fully to reveal a handful of the other full-time news reporters. “Stephanie has another assignment.” She snorted. “This place really is going to the wolves.”
This time there was full-blown laughter.
“Have fun out there,” the mocking voice called to her back.
Stephanie tossed a particular finger over her shoulder.
She was going to get this story, and it was going to be amazing. Everyone was going to be jealous that they’d turned down the seemingly impossible job of getting the shifters to talk, and getting a story out of them. But Stephanie was going to do it. No matter what it took. Then she was going to take the story, cover it in dog shit, and rub Chelsea’s perfect face in it.
Stephanie smiled to herself the entire elevator ride down.
***
There were precisely four other people on the bus besides her and the bored-looking driver.
Four rows ahead of her was a couple trying to be discreet about pleasuring each other under their jackets and failing miserably. The girl’s moans could be heard half the bus away, and the guy’s hand was moving fast enough to shake his seat.
Stephanie rolled her eyes. Of course she was on the bus with them, and the chatty elderly lady three seats behind her and on the other side of the aisle. It had taken her the better part of an hour to disengage herself from the polite conversation, claiming to be tired.
The only person she didn’t hate was the angry-looking teenager sitting at the front of the bus. And that was only because the two hadn’t so much as glanced each other’s way after she passed him while boarding. The driver insisted on keeping the temperature way too cool. He claimed it was because of company regulations, but judging by the sweat stains under his armpits and across his massive belly, Stephanie knew it was for another reason entirely.
So she sat with her jacket on, eyes forward, trying to ignore the sounds of orgasm as the bus rolled along.
“Last stop, Cloud Lake!” the bus driver wheezed.
At least, that’s what she thought he said. The only reason she had any clue was because this was the stop she’d been waiting for seven hours ago when she’d boarded. The three-hour drive by car turned out to be a lot longer this way. Unfortunately, the bus was the only mode of transportation that would fit within the budget that Andy had assigned to her as part of the story.
Which, considering it was just a bit more than enough to survive, wasn’t saying much.
The bus came to a jerking halt, and the doors hissed open. Fresh air rushed inside, carrying the mixed scents of sweaty driver and sex back to her in a revolting blend. Not that Stephanie normally had an issue with the smell of sex. But when it wasn’t her, and it was mixed with “driver,” she almost didn’t make it off the bus without losing the contents of her stomach.
But as soon as she was outside, the fresh air washed over her. Stephanie stared. To the east, perhaps a half hour’s drive away, were the mountains. They were huge. She’d never actually been to them, despite knowing that they were close by. They towered above her, the tallest peaks disappearing into the white, fluffy clouds
that pushed up against the mountains.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, letting her gaze linger for another moment before she turned, ducking under the opened cargo door of the bus to grab her bag.
“Okay. I’m here. Time to drop this off, and then find the shifters.”
Stephanie grinned. This was going to be her story, she could feel it.
Chapter Two
Gabriel
He was angry.
The mountain of paperwork in front of him never seemed to shrink. Even now, two hours after tackling it, it looked like he’d barely made a dent in the fucking thing. He was the captain of Second Assault Company, one of the most prestigious units in the entire Green Bearets.
And he was in charge of a hell of a lot more men than that.
But somehow he was stuck behind a desk, reading papers. He had the strength to tear the entire building down to its foundation around him. The speed to outrun a moving vehicle. He could heal from all but the worst injuries, with a speed that defied belief. And on top of that, he could transform into two thousand pounds of growly fur, claws, and teeth. His oversized animal, more than twice the size of those native to the wild, could do all of the above and then some.
“So how the hell is it that I’m stuck behind this fucking desk?” he complained to himself, his deep basso voice vibrating the thin plaster walls of the room in the old motel that had been designated his office.
He leaned back in the chair, resting his head on the top of the seat-back and closing his eyes. A deep breath inflated massive lungs, the chair below him creaking under his weight. Gabriel was a mountain of a man, and most furniture outside of his homeland wasn’t made to support his bulk.
The flimsy little plastic chair he sat in now definitely was not. He glanced into the far corner of his office at the shattered remains of at least two more chairs. If he wasn’t careful this one would end up in the same spot. Before it did however, it would explode underneath him, depositing his supremely skilled ass on the floor without caring about his reaction.
Unfortunately, as he’d learned the first time, the sound carried enough to bring his men running, giving them the glorious sight of him lying on the ground, surrounded by the wreckage of his chair. It was not the most dignified pose for one of the supposed bad-ass captains of the Green Bearets.
