by Paige Tyler
On the downside, that meant he and Cooper had to split up. It was dangerous, and Xander would have their asses for it, but it was worth the risk if they could take down this crew.
“I found the two guards,” Khaki reported over the radio. “They’re alive, but unconscious.”
Xander said something in reply, but Becker didn’t hear what it was because he was too busy trying to figure out the new scent his nose had just picked up. It was unmistakably werewolf, but unlike any werewolf he’d ever smelled before. It reminded him a little of Khaki, but sweeter.
He took a breath, then another and another until he was almost hyperventilating. Shit, he could barely hold up his weapon.
Becker shook his head, trying to clear it as he rounded the corner, and came face to face with a female werewolf so beautiful that all he could do was stop and stare. She stared back, her blue eyes as wide as saucers. Her heart beat a hundred miles an hour and there was blood splattered on the tactical vest she wore. Becker’s heart lurched at the thought of her being hurt. But one sniff confirmed the blood wasn’t hers. It belonged to one of the other werewolves with her.
He opened his mouth to order her to drop the MP5 she had aimed at him, but nothing would come out. It was like she’d robbed him of the ability to speak. But he had to get the weapon away from her. If she pulled the trigger, he’d be dead. Shooting her wasn’t an option, though. And the idea of arresting her didn’t make him feel any better.
Becker didn’t consider if what he was about to do was smart, but simply lowered his weapon and took his finger off the trigger, letting his M4 hang loosely against his chest by the strap over his shoulder. Then he slowly lifted both hands as if in surrender.
He’d done it to put her at ease, but her heart pounded even harder. Her eyes darted left and right, her ponytail swinging from side to side. And while she kept her weapon trained on him, at least her finger wasn’t wrapped around the trigger now.
Becker reached up and switched off his mic, then pulled up the black ski mask hiding his face. When he finally managed to find his voice, he didn’t want his teammates listening in.
“Relax and put down the gun,” he said, keeping his voice soft and calm even though gunfire echoed in the rest of the warehouse. “We can work this out. No one else has to get hurt.”
She didn’t say anything or lower her weapon. She didn’t run, either. That was progress, he supposed.
He was wondering if he should try a different tact when Xander’s voice came across loud and clear over the radio in his ear. “They’re bolting, so be careful. The ones left are going to fight like caged rats.”
Becker didn’t have to ask if the woman heard what Xander said. She was a werewolf like him, which meant she had the same exceptional hearing. If he needed further confirmation, the look of terror on her face would have been it. He couldn’t blame her; her pack had just abandoned her.
Off to the right, the sounds of gunfire increased, and so did the howls. Boots thudded on the concrete floor, heading in their direction.
She looked around again, trying to see every direction at once. Her grip on her weapon tightened and she swung it at whoever was coming their way.
Oh hell, she was going to start shooting.
Swearing under his breath, Becker closed the distance between them and ripped the MP5 out of her hands, tossing it aside. She bared her fangs in a snarl, but before she could get the sound out, he slapped a hand over her mouth.
“Trust me,” he said in her ear.
Coming December 2015
Order Paige Tyler's next book
in the SWAT series
In the Company of Wolves
On sale December 2015
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Now for a sneak peek at book 4 in Paige Tyler’s thrilling X-Ops series, Angelo and Minka’s story
Tajikistan
Angelo Rios glanced at his watch. The team needed to get moving or it’d take all day to get back to camp. Their A-team had been doing a recon sweep back and forth through the rugged terrain of southern Tajikistan when they heard about a small town near the mountain pass that had been hit hard by a recent storm. Repairing buildings damaged by high winds and torrential rain wasn’t the kind of work Special Forces usually did, but Angelo and the new lieutenant, Brad Watson, figured it’d be an easy way to gain a little goodwill with the locals, which definitely was an SF mission.
He squeezed the last of the cheese onto a cracker from his MRE, meal-ready-to-eat, and shoved it in his mouth, then stuffed the empty wrapper into his rucksack and swung the pack over his shoulder. The rest of the team got the message and did the same.
“So, tell me this,” Derek Mickens said as he tightened the straps on his own ruck. “What does that big bear shifter have that I don’t?”
Angelo chuckled. The guys had been ribbing Derek ever since they heard his crush Kendra Carlsen—now MacBride—was having twins with her husband, Declan. Angelo was about to point out that the DCO’s resident bear shifter had seventy-five pounds of muscle and six inches on Derek, not to mention a face that didn’t scare small children, when screams of terror from the far end of the village they’d just helped rebuild silenced the words in his mouth.
Angelo had his M4 in his hands and was running toward the sound even as the rest of the guys spread out behind him, checking for incoming threats. He rounded the corner of a dilapidated building and was heading down a dirt road lined with more crumbling buildings when a man covered in blood ran toward him. Two more men followed, fear clear in their eyes and blood staining their clothes.
At first Angelo thought it was an IED—an improvised explosive device—but that didn’t make sense. He hadn’t heard an explosion. He slowed down anyway, worried he was leading the team into an ambush.
One of the men pointed behind him, shouting something in Tajik. Angelo’s grasp of the language was pretty good, but the man was speaking way too fast for him to make out what he was saying. Then he figured it out.
Monster.
He opened his mouth to ask where the “monster” was, but the man was already halfway down the road. Angelo picked up the pace only to skid to a stop in front of a mud-covered shack a few moments later. He knew he was in the right place because there was a guy who looked like he’d been sliced up by Freddy Krueger on the ground in front of it.
Angelo got a sinking feeling in his gut. He’d seen damage like this before.
He jumped over the dead guy and was through the door before he even thought about what he was doing. Thinking only slowed you down in situations like this anyway.
Angelo raised his M4, ready to pop the first threatening thing he saw. If he was right about what had attacked those men, it would take multiple shots to kill the thing.
But what he found stopped him cold in his tracks. Derek and Lieutenant Watson skidded to a stop right behind him.
There wasn’t a square foot of wall space in the one-room shack that wasn’t splattered with blood, and in the middle of it stood a pretty, dark-haired woman, gazing down at two dead men at her feet. Her shirt was on the floor beside them, one of her bra straps was torn, and her skirt was ripped. Her feet were bare and covered in dirt, and he thought there were tears on her cheeks, but he couldn’t be sure since her long, dark hair hung down around her face almost to her waist.
Angelo felt a rage build inside him like nothing he’d ever felt before, and he was torn between staying where he was and going after the rest of the men who’d tried to rape her and killing them, too.
He glanced at her hands, hoping to find a knife there and praying he was wrong about what she was. But she didn’t have any weapons. Unless you counted the wickedly sharp claws on each slender finger. And given the amount of blood in the room, those hands certainly qualified as weapons.
As if just realizing he was there, the woman lifted her head to look at him with glowing red eyes. She growled, baring her teeth and exposing some seriously long canines.
How the hell had a hybrid tu
rned up in Tajikistan? More importantly, what the hell was he going to do with her?
“What the fuck is that thing?” the lieutenant asked hoarsely even as he raised his carbine and sighted in on the woman’s chest.
The woman growled again, louder this time, and crouched down on all fours, like she was getting ready to pounce on them.
Shit. Things were about to get ugly.
But instead of leaping at them, her eyes darted around, like she was looking for a way past them. Unfortunately, they were blocking her access to the doors and windows, and she knew it. For some reason he couldn’t explain, Angelo suddenly didn’t see a hybrid monster like those he’d fought in Washington State and down in Costa Rica. He saw a woman who was scared as hell.
“Derek, get everyone outside and away from the building,” Angelo ordered softly, never taking his eyes off the woman. “We’re freaking her out.”
“Freaking her out.” Watson snorted. “Are you kidding me? She’s the one freaking me out.”
“Outside, LT,” Angelo ordered again, more firmly this time. “Trust me on this one.”
He knew the lieutenant wanted answers, but right now, he didn’t have time to give him any. Behind him, Derek was herding the officer toward the door.
“LT, remember when we told you that you’d be seeing some weird shit in the field that they never mentioned in school?” Derek asked. “Well, that weird shit just started. But trust Angelo. He knows what he’s doing. He’s dealt with these things before.”
Their voices faded as they moved outside.
The woman’s eyes followed Derek and Watson until they disappeared from sight, then slid to Angelo. He slowly lowered his weapon and carefully set it on the floor. Then he raised his hands and spoke softly in Tajik.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now. No one is going to hurt you.”
The red glow in her eyes flickered, then began to fade. Angelo let out the breath he’d been holding. Maybe he’d be able to get out of this situation without killing her. He couldn’t explain why that mattered to him all of a sudden. She was a hybrid and clearly out of control. Many might consider killing her to be a mercy, and the only sure way to keep her from killing again.
But from what he’d seen, the woman had a pretty good reason to attack those men. And more importantly, Angelo knew for a fact that not every hybrid was beyond reach. Tanner Howland from the Department of Covert Operations was one of those. Not only had the former Army Ranger learned how to control the rages that defined his kind, he’d learned to harness that rage to save a lot of people down in Costa Rica several months back. Angelo was pretty sure he wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for that one particular hybrid. If Tanner could do it, who was he to say that this woman in front of him couldn’t get herself under control too? She certainly seemed to be trying.
Angelo kept up his calm chatter, reassuring the woman that she was safe, and soon enough, her eyes turned to a normal, beautiful brown. There was still some anger there, but there was also confusion, maybe even hope.
Raised voices echoed outside, drowning out Angelo’s soft words. The villagers had worked up their courage and come looking for blood. The woman’s head snapped in that direction, and like a light switch being flipped, the veil of calmness that had descended on the female hybrid disappeared.
She tensed, and he watched her face as anger warred with what he could only describe as frustration mixed with honest-to-goodness fear. As each of those emotions ascended, her eyes changed from red to green to brown, over and over in a dizzying display like nothing he’d ever seen before.
But then, just as it seemed like she might have a chance, the internal struggle was over and the woman leaped at him.
Every instinct in Angelo’s body screamed at him to lunge for his weapon, or at the very least to pull out his knife. But he ignored his instincts and instead set his feet for impact, blocking her slashing claws with his forearm, then ducking down and tackling her. It wasn’t the nicest way to treat a woman, but considering the fact that she was trying to kill him, he decided she’d just have to forgive him.
He twisted at the last second, letting his shoulder take the impact. He’d planned to immediately roll his weight onto her, hoping to keep her from getting away by pinning her to the floor like a wrestler, but the hybrid didn’t give him a chance. She spun in his grasp, trying to break his hold on her. He wrapped his arms around her, doing his best to trap her clawed hands safely against her breasts as he pulled her back down. She twisted in his arms again, trying to sink her teeth into his shoulder. He hugged her tightly to his chest, whispering over and over that it would be okay, that she was safe, that no one would hurt her.
When she buried her face in his neck, he just about freaked, sure she was going to tear out his throat. He resisted the urge to shove her away and go for his gun, instead continuing to talk to her. Unbelievably, she didn’t bite him. She kept struggling to free herself, though. But after a few moments, she went still, all the fight gone.
Angelo glanced down at her. Her cheek was resting against his chest, her eyes closed, and her fingers curled into the front of his uniform. He wasn’t sure if she was asleep or had simply passed out from exhaustion. Either way, her breathing was rhythmic and even. The sight of her made his heart ache, and he gently brushed her hair back from her face. This close, he was finally able to see past all the dirt and blood. While he’d thought she was pretty when he first saw her, now he realized that she was absolutely beautiful—and vulnerable looking as all hell.
“Damn, Tex-Mex,” Derek said from the doorway. “You’re good with the ladies when you want to be.”
Angelo didn’t laugh. “Get on the satellite phone and call Landon. If you can’t get him, try Ivy or Clayne. Tell them where we are and that we’ve stumbled on a hybrid. We need a priority airlift to get her out of here. And whatever you do, don’t let LT get on the line to the battalion.”
Coming Spring 2016
Acknowledgments
I hope you had as much fun reading Xander and Khaki’s story as I had writing it! When hubby and I were talking ideas for the second book in the SWAT series over Spicy Chicken at P.F. Chang’s, we immediately knew we wanted to add a female werewolf to the team. The moment we broached the subject with all the guys on the team (not named Gage, of course!), everyone wanted to be The One for Khaki. But ultimately, we left the decision up to her. We think she made the right choice!
In addition to another big thank-you to my hubby, I want to also thank my agent, Bob Mecoy, for believing in me and encouraging me and being there when I need to talk, not to mention always having such great ideas; my editor, Cat Clyne, for loving this series and hot guys in tactical gear as much as I do; and all the other amazing people at Sourcebooks, including my publicist, Amelia, and their crazy-talented art department. I’m still drooling over this cover!
I also want to give a big thank-you to the men, women, and working dogs who protect and serve in police departments everywhere, as well as their families.
And because I could never leave my readers out, a huge thank-you to everyone who has read my books and Snoopy Danced right along with me with every new release. That includes the fantastic girls on my street team. You rock!
Hope you look forward to reading the other books in the SWAT series as much as I look forward to sharing them with you.
Happy reading!
About the Author
Paige Tyler is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy, romantic suspense and paranormal romance. She and her very own military hero (also known as her husband) live on the beautiful Florida coast with their adorable fur baby (also known as their dog). Paige graduated with a degree in education, but decided to pursue her passion and write books about hunky alpha males and the kick-butt heroines who fall in love with them. Visit www.paigetylertheauthor.com.
She’s also on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest.
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Her Perfect Mate
X-Ops
by Paige Tyler
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
He’s a high-octane Special Ops pro
When Special Forces Captain Landon Donovan is pulled from an op in Afghanistan, he is surprised to discover he’s been hand-picked for a special assignment with the Department of Covert Operations (DCO), a secret division he’s never heard of. Terrorists are kidnapping biologists and he and his partner have to stop them. But his new partner is a beautiful, sexy woman who looks like she couldn’t hurt a fly—never mind take down a terrorist.
She’s not your average Covert Operative
Ivy Halliwell is no kitten. She’s a feline shifter, and more dangerous than she looks. She’s worked with a string of hotheaded military guys who’ve underestimated her special skills in the past. But when she’s partnered with special agent Donovan, a man sexy enough to make any girl purr, things begin to heat up…
Praise for Her Perfect Mate:
“A wild, hot, and sexy ride from beginning to end!” —Terry Spear, USA Today bestselling author
For more Paige Tyler, visit:
www.sourcebooks.com
Her Lone Wolf
X-Ops
by Paige Tyler
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author
Leaving him was impossible…
It took everything she had for FBI Special Agent Danica Beckett to walk away from the man she loved. But if she wants to save his life, she has to keep her distance. Now, with a killer on the loose and the stakes higher than ever, the Department of Covert Ops is forcing these former lovers into an uneasy alliance…whether they like it or not.
