by Milly Taiden
ALSO BY MILLY TAIDEN
Sassy Ever After Series
Scent of a Mate Book 1
A Mate’s Bite Book 2
Unexpectedly Mated Book 3
A Sassy Wedding Short 3.7
The Mate Challenge Book 4
Sassy in Diapers Short 4.3
Fighting for Her Mate Book 5
A Fang in the Sass Book 6
Also check out the Sassy Ever After Kindle World on Amazon
Shifters Undercover
Bearly in Control Book 1
Fur Fox’s Sake Book 2
Federal Paranormal Unit
Wolf Protector Book 1
Dangerous Protector Book 2
Unwanted Protector Book 3
Black Meadow Pack
Sharp Change Book 1
Caged Heat Book 2
Paranormal Dating Agency
Twice the Growl Book 1
Geek Bearing Gifts Book 2
The Purrfect Match Book 3
Curves ’Em Right Book 4
Tall, Dark and Panther Book 5
The Alion King Book 6
There’s Snow Escape Book 7
Scaling Her Dragon Book 8
In the Roar Book 9
Scrooge Me Hard Book 9.5 (not full-length)
Bearfoot and Pregnant Book 10
All Kitten Aside Book 11
Oh My Roared Book 12
Raging Falls
Miss Taken Book 1
Miss Matched Book 2
Miss Behaved Book 3
Fur-ocious Lust - Bears
Fur-Bidden Book 1
Fur-Gotten Book 2
Fur-Given Book 3
Fur-ocious Lust - Tigers
Stripe-Tease Book 4
Stripe-Search Book 5
Stripe-Club Book 6
Other Works
Wolf Fever
Fate’s Wish
Wynter’s Captive
Sinfully Naughty Vol. 1
Don’t Drink and Hex
Hex Gone Wild
Hex and Kisses
Alpha Owned
Bitten by Night
Seduced by Days
Mated by Night
Taken by Night
Match Made in Hell
Alpha Geek
Contemporary Works
Lucky Chase
Their Second Chance
Club Duo Boxed Set
A Hero’s Pride
A Hero Scarred
Wounded Soldiers Set
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2017 Milly Taiden
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477848623
ISBN-10: 1477848622
Cover design by Eileen Carey
To my family. For believing in me and always having my back.
Tito, Aiden, Julie, Alan, Angie, and Mom. I love you all.
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
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
Fellowship agent Devin Sonder stood in his sweatpants staring out his apartment’s kitchen window at the scene in the park next door. The coffee mug in his hand started to burn his fingertips, but he was too intrigued in the police activity to notice. Until his panther pawed at him. Put down the cup, idiot human.
He did. “Yeah, yeah. If our mate was out there, you wouldn’t notice the pain either.”
But she isn’t. She doesn’t exist.
Devin sighed. He almost believed as his animal did. If a mate for them existed, wouldn’t they have met by now? But he still hung on a thread to the words his mother had always said: “She’s out there; be patient. Fate will guide you to her. Have faith.”
His faith was shattered not too long ago when his stepsister and her son were killed because of him. It was his fault. He wasn’t there to protect them and they were too weak. He would never again make that mistake, never again get close enough to love someone only to have them ripped away when he wasn’t looking.
He often wondered how he could have a mate if he was never loving anyone again. His panther said if they did find her, they were taking her, weak or not, so he needed to get over it. Devin snorted. They’d see who won when it came to keeping their mate safe. If she existed.
Picking up his coffee mug, he headed to the bedroom to change into pants and sports coat, badge in pocket, before crashing the party in the park. In the short amount of time he’d been in Shedford, Oregon, he’d met a few of the local police and actually liked them.
The small town was almost the polar opposite of Los Angeles. He’d been in the LAPD for so long he’d forgotten there were nice people who cared about others. In LA, most of those kinds of humans either had moved away a long time ago or had been killed. Being undercover in the dregs of society had a tendency to jade even the strongest of shifters. Then to have your family taken and tortured—
He stopped those thoughts in their tracks. That time in his life needed to stay in the past. He wouldn’t let it overwhelm him as it had before. This was his new start, his second chance.
He opened his closet door. All his pants were pressed and draped over coordinated hangers on one side while starched white shirts neatly hung from the other side. Black socks, all coupled with one tucked inside another, were stacked in the drawer. The Sock Monster did not live in his dryer.
But he did have one weird habit that constantly baffled him. He liked everything in folded order, except his few tighty-whities. He saw no purpose in folding those since they were yanked out of a drawer just to wear under workout clothes. He was a boxer guy, through and through. But when jogging, his boys appreciated a bit tighter fit since they weren’t attached by bungee cords.
Dressed and ready for the world, he had made it halfway through the park when the bright yellow crime-scene tape made its app
earance, enclosing a section of the popular jogging trail through the woods.
He smelled Detective Tamara Gibbons, one of the Shedford PD’s best. She was smart and pretty, could kick ass, and was his coworker’s mate. A grin spread over his face. When Mayer and Gibbons happened to be in the same place at the same time, they always provided such entertainment. Which mostly consisted of Gibbons shooting down every come-on and hit Mayer could throw at her.
She looked up as he walked across the grass. “Good morning, Agent Sonder. What brings you out at this early hour?”
He smiled. There was no anger or defensiveness in her voice. She understood they were team players with different cocaptains, not rivals. One department didn’t overrule another; they worked together to share info. Again, so different from LA.
“I saw the commotion from my apartment, and you know, curiosity killed the cat. So, here I am.” He grinned.
Gibbons laughed. “Well, don’t call your partner in yet. I need to get some work done here before he falls all over me.”
Devin understood what she was saying. Russel was a great guy, but his thinking head quickly went from one side of his body to the other when Gibbons was in the area.
“You mind if I nose around?” he asked her.
She chin-popped toward the scene. “Any help would be great. Don’t be too shocked when you see the vic. Messy, and going to be high-profile very quickly.” He didn’t like the sound of that. The CSI team arrived and Gibbons headed for them.
He walked toward the pair of running shoes attached to a prone body partially hidden behind foliage. The foot attire was expensive, but well-worn. A routine jogger. The male’s hairy legs were toned and long. Some varicose veins, so the victim wasn’t young.
He stopped and took in the smells. Wolf—no, wolves. Two. Plus, human blood. Lots of it. Gunpowder. His sharp shifter eyes studied the scene. The ground dirt and leaves were scattered in clumps, suggesting a struggle, or interaction between the vic and perp, at least.
Stepping around the wild brush blocking the man’s face, Devin realized what Gibbons had meant when she said “messy and high-profile.” Senator Hayseed, their local political celebrity, lay with his throat ripped out, gun in his hand.
“Oh shit,” he grumbled. “This can’t be good.” With such a well-known victim, media, not to mention other federal agencies, would all want to be in on it. His eyes roamed the ground until they stopped on a deformed-looking wolf several feet away. “What the fuck?” He wasn’t even sure what he was looking at; it was that strange.
The animal had the normal four legs and canine snout and tail, but the rest was . . . not right. Earlier he’d smelled two scents. Was the other creature dead? He lifted his nose and looked around. And now that he paid closer attention, he noted the scents weren’t exactly right for shifters or wild wolves. Something was going on here.
He followed the scent trail into the woods. After some distance, the smell faded too much for his human nose to find, even with his cat’s help. He needed to shift if he wanted to continue. Looking around to make sure no one was coming, he loosened his tie and unbuckled his pants. A moment later, he was traipsing through the woods in his panther form.
The farther it led away, the faster he moved to find the other end. The forested area thinned and opened to a space with primitive campsites sparsely populated this time of year. The wolf tracks heading this direction disappeared, but bare human footprints marked the dirt. At the edge of a gravel parking area, the footprints stopped, as if getting into a vehicle, perhaps.
Fuck! Not only were shifters involved, but it was now a homicide. He’d better get back to Gibbons ASAP to warn her to get the unauthorized out of the area.
Goddamn, this was not good. Especially after the problem this past weekend with his female coworker finding a shifter bear with amnesia, and a shifter cat woman involved in a couple of mysterious robberies. The origins of the cat shifter were still a mystery.
Back at the scene, he saw more police had arrived to hold back curious onlookers who decided to rubberneck. “Gibbons,” he called out.
The detective turned toward his voice as he hurried to her. “This has shifters all over it, and it’s now murder.”
Gibbons lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Damn. I was hoping for normal animals. Should’ve known.” She glanced up at him. “Would you call your people in? I need to get most of these men out of here before they start asking questions.” She rushed away, shouting names and orders.
Devin pulled out his phone and dialed his boss, Director Milkan. The man didn’t pick up. They had a meeting in the office in thirty minutes. He’d try calling again, but if worse came to worst, they’d talk at the office. He called the group’s veterinarian—the “animal whisperer,” as they called her, since she could “talk” to critters on four legs.
“Good morning, Devin. Everything all right?” Charli Avers asked.
“No, not really. We have a dead senator in the park with his throat ripped out, and some strange wolflike creature lying dead next to him. I’m needing your expertise.”
“Wolflike creature?”
“Yeah. Never seen anything like it.”
“I’m on the way in for the office meeting. Should I come where you are first?”
Devin gave that a thought. “I haven’t gotten ahold of Milkan yet. So I’ll have Detective Gibbons bag it along with the senator’s body for the morgue, and we’ll see what the boss wants us to do with it during the meeting.”
“That sounds like the best plan. Does Gibbons have the right crew there?”
“She’s clearing out those who don’t know about us. Their clean-up crew is sweeping the scene right now.” He wasn’t sure how he should approach this next question, so he’d spit it out and apologize later if needed. “Was Barry accounted for this morning?”
“Yes, Devin.” He heard the smile in her voice and breathed a sigh of relief. Last thing he wanted was an angry coworker. If he were in LA, he wouldn’t have cared. “My bear was with me all night and this morning with no signs of him leaving.”
“Good. One less thing to worry about.”
“Agreed,” Charli said.
He sighed. “I’ll get with Gibbons to secure the scene, then see you at the office shortly.” He slipped his phone back into his coat pocket. This was going to be another long weekend.
CHAPTER TWO
Marika Paters leaned her body against the front doors of the Fish and Wildlife Service building. Her petite frame barely nudged the hard-to-open door. She had to put some muscle into it. But with her neon-green sneakers on, she had no problem muscling her way in. The shoes weren’t neon green because she was hip and into bright things, but because her home was such a mess, she could never find her white ones.
With a spring in her step, she bounded through the front lobby. “Good morning, Ms. Paters. How are you?” the receptionist said. Marika waved back.
“I’m great! How are you this morning?”
The receptionist raised her mug of coffee. “Just a few more of these and I’ll be on your level.”
Maybe she was just weird, but she had never understood why people thought she was high on caffeine. Granted, she had a lot of pep, but most shifters did. Especially those with a smaller animal. The big bears and cats took so much energy just to get around, and when they shifted, a couple of thousand calories were burned in the process.
For her, the fox inside was perfect. The girl didn’t demand very much, was a happy camper most of the time, and always glad to lend a paw when needed. The critter was sometimes excitable too. Depended what was going on or who was going on. They were always on the lookout for their destined mate.
And it always helped that Marika loved her job. She’d always loved learning things and solving mysteries growing up. How did something work? Why was the sky blue? If she took it apart, could she put it back together without a lot of extra parts lying around? What clues existed that would link a killer to this evi
dence? The kind of questions a research scientist strove to answer.
Her area of study out of college had dealt with animal DNA and the impact of the environment on animals. That was how she teamed up with Charli. At a conference discussing new and emerging technologies in the science of animal studies, she and Charli attended a roundtable and became instant friends. When Marika was offered a job at the FAWS facility as one of the head scientists, she jumped at the chance to be near her friend.
The two were inseparable outside their work. They were two lone wolves—well, a fox and an animal whisperer—on the prowl looking for fun. As time went by, Charli opened her own vet clinic and worked more than she slept. The need for animal forensics in association with crime scenes rocketed, and when Marika wasn’t in the lab searching for evidence and clues, she was testifying in courts around the country.
That led to the need for shifter forensics. FAWS quickly became the go-to place when it came to crimes concerning shifters. Mainly because no other facilities were shifter “friendly.” Marika specialized in shifter genetics and studied all she could concerning the transitions from ancient to modern shifters. So it wasn’t surprising that she was given a special project she wasn’t to discuss with anyone.
Several men, including her boss’s boss, asked her to attend a meeting in the conference room. As far as the research and forensics teams were concerned, the conference room was where the reprimands were delivered, as well as the you’re fired speech. Nervous wasn’t the word for what she felt walking into the room.
But all turned out well. They didn’t tell her very much because they didn’t know themselves, but the boxes of files lining the side wall were to be her project until it was done. She was to go through the cryptic data and decipher the meaning to see what, or if, it had to do with creating or breeding shifters. Or other technological beings.
That had shocked the shit out of her for a second. Shifters were created. But then she thought about humans. Somewhere down the line they were “created” too. But knowing someone took notes and had a direct hand in her life was awe inspiring. Like God saying, Marika, you are life. Go forth and prosper, but stay away from the damn tree.
The boxes contained work from a highly advanced people with technology far beyond what Earth had today. There was no question in her mind that aliens were behind the science. Why those aliens had been on Earth, she had no answer, but she had the reason for the creation: protectors of Earth. The ancient aliens’ goal was to create a race of creatures that would be able to communicate with both sides of this planet—the animal side and the human side.
