by April Kelley
Sometimes doing right by others means giving up on your own happiness and sometimes it’s just stubbornly resisting the best Fate has to offer.
Good things never happen in a continuous stream for Jalen Etters. He has a job he loves, a roof over his head, and all the food he could eat. He even flirts with a sexy little barista named Markie. When he finds himself hiding out from human soldiers on his construction job site, he thinks his good streak is over. Thankfully, Rico, a hawk shifter, is sent to save him, so the good streak is still intact. Then he finds out Rico is his mate but he’s in love with Markie. Maybe his good streak is over after all.
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Good Things
Copyright © 2017 April Kelley
ISBN: 978-1-4874-1444-3
Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Good Things
Roguefalls Book 4
By
April Kelley
Prologue
Rico’s heart always slowed down right before a good battle, which was how he knew one was coming. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, resting his head against the wall, taking advantage of the calm.
His bodily reaction wouldn’t last long. It would morph into a high so powerful it would make his heart race and his breathing speed up.
He didn’t have to look to know the other soldiers in the room didn’t have the same reaction. They sat with their backs against the wall, unmoving, as if some force of gravity had stuck them there. Their guns were at the ready, held to their chest. Adrenaline ran through their bodies. It was visible in their eyes and in the way they sucked in air as if they couldn’t get enough oxygen.
Crow shifters mixed in among the Rogue soldiers, holding knives and long swords as if they were ninjas. Rico had no idea why crow shifters preferred swords, but almost all of them had at least one. Not an hour before, they’d all fought their way out of a clusterfuck, so Rico got a front row seat on how well the crows used those swords.
A body shifted beside him, and he opened his eyes long enough to look at the kid sitting beside him. Okay, so he wasn’t a kid, but he looked way too young for battle, even in his black leather and with tattoos on his neck. He was just a punk crow shifter who found himself in the wrong place.
The demons were one floor down, giving them all a different vantage point. Lennix, who was a special operations soldier like him, and Team Eight were with them.
Usually crows and demons would fight each other. Rico couldn’t possibly fathom why someone would fight to the death over a piece of land, but then Rico had grown up with parents so rich they owned an entire island three times bigger than Roguefalls, so what the fuck did he know about it.
“One... two... three...” Rico took a deep breath between each number.
“Dude, why are you counting?” The kid whispered in his ear, completely breaking his concentration.
“Just seeing how long it takes to get here.”
“What takes to get here?”
“The battle.”
“How do you know the humans are close?”
“Experience.” Actually, it was the stillness in the air. Everything held its breath. Even the pigeons that usually lined the tops of the buildings were completely silent.
The streets were empty, a tension floating through. A few cars lined the pavement—people having abandoned them once the violence had started.
Certain sections of almost every city throughout the country had been abandoned and left to rot. Paranormals and humans alike fought over the unclaimed parts, wanting to control them for themselves, but in the end, no one won.
According to the crow shifters and demons Rico was holing up with, the humans wanted the territory where they’d been assigned for themselves. That bit of information didn’t set right with Rico. Why would humans want anything to do with a rundown ghetto?
The Rogue Army’s intelligence said they were breaking up a fight between crows and demons, but someone had it wrong. Very wrong. It never ended well when humans were involved.
Rico saw movement near the car that sat furthest out from his vantage point. He slowly raised his gun and waited.
His heart rate picked up just a little when he saw plain-clothed soldiers swarming the sidewalk like mice following the pied piper. He knew they were soldiers by the way they moved, lowering their center of gravity, with their guns pointing down. Very few civilians carried themselves that way.
Why were human soldiers dressing like civilians? Why the charade?
He looked at Virion across the small room, seeking his reaction, but he was handing a pair of binoculars to Christian. Christian put them to his face and studied the soldiers coming at them before he handed them off to Dylan.
Christian turned to Virion. “That’s our old unit.” His voice wasn’t above a whisper. Christian spoke the words so softly Rico wouldn’t have heard if not for his hawk shifter hearing.
Dylan shook his head and handed the binoculars to Virion. “Yep. I’d recognize Monroe’s big head anywhere.”
“This is gonna suck.” Christian shook his head and then covered his face with one hand. Shooting at guys you had once sworn to protect had to suck. Rico had been there when teammates had died. Each time left a hole in his heart that never fully filled up again. Rico had nightmares of a few of them and saw the army counselor once a month, so he had scars that wouldn’t ever go away. But he had no idea what taking a teammate’s life was like. He hoped to never know and didn’t want Christian to know, either.
Rico turned to the crow shifter beside him. “Get five of your best guys and come with me.” He turned to Virion. “I’ll go street side, take out as many as I can before they get close enough for your team to take shots.”
“Watch for Seazur and Waldron. They’re supposed to be on that team,” Virion whispered.
Rico shook his head. “Clusterfuck.”
“Yep.”
Rico met Christian’s gaze. He saw the resignation in his eyes. “I’ll make it as painless as possible.”
Rico stood and made his way down one of the flights of stairs. Five crow shifters followed behind him.
There were more of them than there were on Rico’s side. Rico shifted into his hawk, taking to the air to see if another wave of humans headed their way.
Bodies lay all over the streets, paranormal and human alike. Blood covered them as well as the pavement, making it look like black pools someone could fall into and reach the Otherworld. Paranormals picked up their dead. The kid who had sat beside him in the building was helping a demon lift up a dead body. Rico couldn’t tell if the body belonged to a crow or demon. Bullets
still flew, but none in the area where the bodies were being moved.
The Rogue soldiers still fought, a few demons and crows beside them, not too far away. Rico looked around the area, and everything was dark. No one moved toward the direction of the fighting who wasn’t already in the thick of it.
Rico moved to the worst of the fight, diving down on a human. His claws dug into the flesh on the human’s hands, and he dropped his gun. Rico shifted and picked up the gun, shooting the human he’d just attacked. After that, it was just point and shoot at anything human who didn’t look like a Rogue soldier.
He slowly made his way to Team Five, but by the time he did, most of the team had sustained injuries.
Virion loaded someone in a vehicle, his back to the fighting.
Rico shouted out a warning, because a human had a gun pointed right at him. Julian looked from Rico to the human. Rico stopped running and got a bullet out at the same time Julian did. The human soldier also got a shot off. Julian crumbled to the ground as if his legs didn’t have bones in them.
Virion turned just as another human came from around the side of the vehicle. They had their gun aimed at Colby, the team medic, who had run to Julian the second he saw him go down. Colby lifted Julian into his arms and carried him over to the transport. Virion stepped in front of Colby, covering him just as the human raised his gun. Rico reacted too late. He got a shot off at the same time the human did. When the shot hit Virion, he fell back into Colby, who stumbled into the vehicle, landing on Julian’s body.
Rico ran to them, but by then, Colby had righted himself. Virion’s body lay at Colby’s feet. Colby fell to his knees and pressed on his wound.
Colby looked up at Rico. “Can you lift him into the transport?”
Fuck no. Virion was as big as Rico, probably had more mass to his muscles, even. No way could Rico move him. Instead of saying that, Rico nodded, setting his gun down inside the vehicle. “Julian?”
“He’s gone.” Colby never looked up from Virion, as if he couldn’t think about the dead while he tried to save the living.
Rico bent down, lifting Virion’s big body into his arms. He grunted under the strain and staggered a bit, but managed to lift him into the transport vehicle. Virion’s blood seeped through his uniform onto Rico’s bare skin. Once he laid him inside, Colby tended to him again.
Rico scrubbed a hand down his face, then stood still. What the hell were the humans thinking? Why had they attacked paranormals?
Chapter One
Rico folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. Conference rooms always threw him off, even the one in the alpha building, where he had countless debriefings. A large portion of his childhood had been spent in large rooms with larger tables. Boring meetings and parental lectures had all been held at his father’s work place. So maybe his discomfort had to do with transferred memories or some crap.
He excelled at gathering intelligence and fighting in a battle, not sitting on his ass in an office chair. Rico unfolded his arms and adjusted his position. The wheels on his chair rolled precariously close to Lennix, who sat next to him.
Rico cleared his throat and looked at Lennix from the corner of his eyes. He looked as if he was patiently waiting for the meeting to start, but Rico saw the muscles jumping in his jaw and knew Lennix well enough to know that was a sign of his impatience. Lennix hated the meetings as much as he did, but probably for a different reason.
Delco sat at the head of the table and eyed them both. “It’ll be at least an hour before we’re done in here, so relax. Both of you.”
“Just itching to do my job, Alpha.” Lennix grinned.
Delco turned his gaze to Rico. His eye color was the same caramel tone as his skin, which gave them a piercing quality Rico never seemed to escape. Rico had spilled his guts to Delco on more than one occasion because of those eyes. They made him want to tell Delco shit only the army therapist knew.
“You’ll both be out in the field soon enough.” Delco looked at him pointedly when he said it. He wouldn’t say more than that, not in front of Lennix. Delco had a way of keeping everyone’s confidence without isolating anyone else.
Rico nodded once and purposefully relaxed his body by slow degrees.
Three guys on Team Five followed Alpha Ywain into the room. Alpha Ywain took a seat on Delco’s right. The three guys on Team Five all sat together. Virion, their leader, sat between the other two guys. One of them was Dylan, whom Rico had met a few months before when Dylan had first arrived on the island.
Dylan nodded to both him and Lennix from across the table.
Rico returned the greeting. “How’s your mate? We miss him in the mess hall.”
When Dylan smiled, a sparkle entered his eyes at the mention of Rudy. Being the only omega on the island had caused problems for Rudy and Dylan when they first met, but they seemed to have everything worked out.
“He’s great. Thanks for asking. You guys are welcome to come for dinner. Tonight, even.”
“We might be shipping out after the meeting, but I’ll take you up on the offer once we get back.” As soon as the words left his lips, Rico wanted to swallow them again, because Team Five knew Rico and Lennix would be investigating the humans’ attack. The memory of the battle stuck in their minds still. It had a hold of Rico too.
Dylan’s expression hardened, and that sparkle died. He just nodded and didn’t say anything else.
Virion brought a hand down on Dylan’s shoulder as if giving him comfort. “We’d like to be the ones going out.”
A vampire named Pierce sat on Virion’s other side, making a noise of confirmation.
Alpha Delco addressed Virion’s statement. “That’s perfectly understandable. Julian was family to you.” Delco sat forward, his arms resting on the table in front of him. “The humans should never have attacked.”
“They were human soldiers,” Dylan stated. He shook his head. “They might not have dressed like it, but they were. A couple of the guys shooting at us were from my old unit.”
“You stated that during debriefing.”
“I was just about the only one who fucking could debrief right after.” Dylan’s words held a bite to them, and Rico couldn’t blame him for it. Rico identified with Dylan.
“We’ll find out what the fuck happened. I promise you that, brother.” Rico meant every word. He’d be the first one out, looking for an answer if needed.
Dylan gave him a slight smile and nodded. “I know you will. Thank you.”
Delco cleared his throat and took control of the meeting. “We need information and evidence before we go to Colonel James Grant. He’ll require it. I need someone to talk to the demons and the crow shifters. I want a small team.” Delco looked at Lennix. “You’ll head the team. Pick three guys to go with you. They need to be able to talk to people about as well as you do.”
Lennix nodded.
Virion tapped a finger on the desk. “Pierce would be good for that job.” He looked over at Dylan. “And Dylan.”
“Take a medic with you. It would show diplomacy if we offered medical help for the injured,” Delco explained.
Lennix nodded and looked at Dylan. “You ready to do something different from the norm?”
Rico shook his head and smirked. The way Lennix said it implied they wouldn’t get shot at, which was a bunch of crap. Special Operations for the Rogue Army meant they wore a lot of different hats. Soldier. Investigator. Negotiator. Lennix would just be introducing Dylan to a new hat.
“Rah.” Dylan smiled and looked eager to get out there.
“Rico, I want you to go to the human army base. Investigate things from that side. The human army team came from that base, so the reason for the attack might be written down somewhere. Maybe the alpha building or whatever the humans call it would have some correspondence between their generals or whatever the hell they’re called. And find out where the hell Seazur and Waldron are. No one has heard from them since
the day they switched to the human army.” Delco looked at Ywain. “Which team was the last to train with the human army?”
“Team seven. That was a couple of weeks after we traded Seazur and Walrdon for Dylan and Christian. Since then, no new training sections have been scheduled by either side.” Ywain shifted in his chair, his expression thoughtful.
“Why didn’t we schedule anything?”
“We had teams in and out trying to contain the in-fighting. I didn’t find it feasible to do so,” Ywain explained.
Delco met Rico’s gaze and held it. He studied Rico for a long while before he spoke. “We have a few civilians who are currently working on the human army base, constructing a building. The construction company owner is a paranormal from the mainland. He’s discrete and will keep his mouth shut, even to his crew.”
Rico grinned. “So I should learn how to swing a hammer.”
“And fast. You can start tomorrow.”
“Jalen, Uri’s brother, is on the crew.” Virion scowled. “Jalen’s a good carpenter. He’ll know you’ve never worked in construction before.”
Delco nodded. “Tell Jalen about Rico. Rico can work close to him and maybe by doing so, Rico can hide his inexperience.”
Rico breathed in through his nose the second he stepped outside the alpha building. Thank the gods, he’d made it out of that conference room with his sanity intact.
Rico knew some of the guys in the Rogue Army had joined because they were kicked out of their clan. Rico could go back home whenever he wanted, just as long as he was ready to run his father’s business.
He’d never be good in a boardroom, but telling his stubborn father that was like moving the sun closer. Maybe some would consider his issue rich people problems, and they probably were, but the last thing Rico wanted was to be stuck in a world where he didn’t belong. Why his father couldn’t understand that, Rico had no idea.
