Authors: Paige Tyler
The end of the live-fire lane—the base of a squat, wooden tower atop the shallow hill where the machine gunner was positioned—was only forty feet away. A couple more sprints and they’d both be there.
Maybe this would turn out okay after all.
Suddenly, the ground in front of them exploded.
Clayne leaped for the next covered position before the pressure wave of the detonating plastic explosives reached him. Tanner didn’t react as fast. The blast hit him right in the face, throwing him back on his ass. The demo charge had been small, probably no more than a quarter pound, and it had been buried several feet off the course for safety, so while the explosion might not technically have been dangerous, there was nothing like having shit blow up right near you to convince you otherwise. Even Clayne’s heart was thumping pretty hard now.
From his crouched position, he leaned forward to take a quick look around the sandbags and saw four enemy combatants coming his way. Guess Todd had decided it was time for the hand-to-hand portion of the exercise.
This was one of those training scenarios you didn’t see anywhere but in the most serious special ops organizations, like the SEALs, Special Forces…and the DCO. Because combining live weapons, live explosives, pumping adrenaline, and hand-to-hand fighting was usually a recipe for disaster. People were known to get killed doing this kind of shit.
As if on cue, Tanner let out a roar. It wasn’t the sound a soldier made as he readied himself for a charge. It wasn’t even the growl a shifter made to intimidate an opponent. It was the sound a hybrid made when he lost his freaking mind.
Clayne spun around to see Tanner throwing someone—one of Maxwell’s team members, former Navy SEAL Jake Basso—fifteen feet into the woods. In a fraction of a second, Tanner turned and casually blocked a flying kick from another opponent—this time Air Force Pararescue Jumper Ed Vincent—then swatted the man like a cat taking down a humming bird. Ed hit the ground hard and didn’t get up.
Tanner stood over him, his claws shoved out so far his fingertips were bleeding from the force they’d exerted as they ripped through his skin. His upper canines were extended an inch beyond his other teeth, which had grown as well. His freaking jaw had actually pushed out to accommodate the sudden growth spurt. And his eyes were glowing scarlet.
Clayne had seen plenty of shifters change, but never like this. Tanner wasn’t a man shifting into a lion. He seemed more like a lion that was trying to claw its way out of a man. And the result was freaking creepy.
Tanner reached for Ed Vincent, fangs flashing as if he intended to eat the guy.
Clayne ignored the DCO agent who was supposed to be his enemy in the exercise, and instead launched at Tanner. If he didn’t jump in, somebody was going to get killed—probably more than one somebody. He could have shifted, too, extending his claws and fangs to gain an advantage, but he resisted the urge. Two shifters going at each other was never pretty. The end result would only be bloody. And that’s what he was trying to avoid.
He hit Tanner as the shifter was about to sink his claws into Ed’s chest. Clayne was the biggest shifter in the DCO next to Declan MacBride, but when he slammed his shoulder into Tanner’s ribs, the hybrid barely noticed. Clayne wrapped his arms around him, hoping to take him down that way, but Tanner only shrugged like he was trying to brush off an irritating mosquito.
Clayne ground his jaw. He hadn’t wanted to get rough, but Tanner wasn’t giving him a choice. He balled his hand into a fist and punched Tanner across the jaw with everything he had. His hand felt like he’d rammed it into a brick wall, so Clayne knew Tanner had to have felt it. But while Tanner’s head rocked back, it didn’t seem to have fazed him. He glared at Clayne, then took a swipe at him. Clayne ducked just in time. If Tanner’d raked anything important with those long-ass claws, the DCO would be looking for a new wolf shifter.
Clayne punched Tanner hard in the ribs, then danced out before the counterstrike came. That was when the cavalry arrived. Trevor jumped on Tanner’s back, while someone else got him around the knees. The next thing Clayne knew, there were a half-dozen men piling on top of the enraged hybrid. But Tanner still wouldn’t go down.
Clayne slammed his shoulder into Tanner’s solar plexus with enough force to send the hybrid tumbling to the ground. He grabbed a fistful of Tanner’s long hair and twisted, doing everything he could to keep those fangs away from anything soft and squishy. On the other side of him, Maxwell was using all his strength to keep one of Tanner’s arms pinned to the dirt. The other men were wrestling to hold his legs down. Even with all of them, Clayne wasn’t sure they were going to be able to restrain the DCO’s pet hybrid. Tanner was insanely strong, and it was damn near impossible to stop a guy like that when no one wanted to hurt him. But it was starting to look like that wasn’t going to be an option for much longer.
Someone else jumped on Tanner’s chest. Clayne caught a glimpse of blond hair and realized it was Zarina.
“Dammit, Zarina!” Clayne snarled. “Get back before you get yourself killed.”
Instead of obeying, she put her face close to Tanner’s and whispered softly to him. Clayne could barely hear anything over the growls, grunts, and cussing going on, but when he finally tuned his exceptional hearing in to what she was saying, he realized the doctor was speaking Russian, which he didn’t understand a lick of. Although
cooing
was probably a better word for it. Like she was comforting a child. Whatever she said, it worked. Tanner relaxed and stopped struggling. The red eyes, the fangs, and the claws—along with the really bad attitude—disappeared.
Clayne wasn’t ready to release him yet, though. The other DCO agents holding him down clearly weren’t, either. If anything, they used the opportunity to get a firmer grip on Tanner.
“You can let him go.” Zarina’s voice was almost as soft as it had been when she’d comforted Tanner. “He won’t hurt you.”
Clayne hesitated. Tanner seemed as if he were back in control of the beast inside him. Besides, they couldn’t sit on him the rest of the day. Hoping he was doing the right thing, Clayne relaxed his grip and sat back on his heels. The other men looked unsure but slowly did the same. Clayne frowned as they checked each other for injuries. Jake seemed to have gotten the worst of it if the way he was holding his side was any indication. He had broken ribs for sure. Ed was standing a little funny, too. Maxwell was the only member of his team who looked like he was still in one piece. No surprise there. Shifters didn’t go down easy.
Clayne turned his attention back to Tanner. If the look of horror on his face was any indication, the man was torn up over what he’d done. Clayne knew where he was coming from. There’d been a shitload of times in his life when the animal inside him had taken over and he’d been forced to live with the consequences afterward.
As he watched, Zarina gently brushed Tanner’s hair back from his forehead, completely unconcerned that moments ago he’d been a raving monster. She seemed to be the only one who could control Tanner—or at least get through to him—when he went into a rage.
“You injured, Buchanan?”
The question came from Todd Newman. Clayne had been so focused on Tanner he hadn’t even heard the training officer walk up. He shook his head. “Nah. Not a scratch on me.”
“Good. Because John wants to see you.”
Clayne started to ask what he wanted, but Todd turned and walked away before he could. If the director of the DCO wanted to see him, Clayne had either done something to piss someone off or John Loughlin had a mission for him. Since Clayne didn’t remember pissing anyone off lately, it was probably the latter. John liked sending him on short-notice jobs that required little planning and a whole lot of direct action. It usually meant dropping what he was doing and leaving right away, but that suited him just fine. He much preferred punching things to sitting in meeting after meeting, planning shit.
He turned to leave, but Tanner’s voice stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said. “About losing it like that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Clayne told him. “No one got hurt. It’s all good.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” Clayne cut in. “Keep working on staying in control and you’ll get there. You were ninety percent done with the course before you blew a fuse. That’s better than you would have done two months ago.”
When Tanner opened his mouth to say something, this time it was Zarina who interrupted him.
“I told you so…”
Clayne practically ran into Kendra Carlsen as he walked into the administrative building. The behavioral-scientist-slash-training-officer stumbled back a few steps to catch her balance. He almost reached out to steady her, but thought better of it.
“Sorry about that,” he mumbled.
“No problem.” She chewed on her lip, her blue eyes looking anywhere and everywhere but at him. “Um, I gotta run. John’s looking for you by the way.”
“Yeah, I know. Todd told…”
But Kendra was already out the door. Which was kind of a relief. Because having a conversation with her would probably be awkward as hell considering the date they’d recently gone on had been a train wreck. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. It’d be more accurate to say they hadn’t hit it off, which in his book was the same thing. Why the hell had he let Ivy talk him into going out with Kendra? Because the feline shifter could be very persuasive when she wanted to be.
John was on the phone when Clayne stuck his head in. The director glanced at him over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses, motioning for him to have a seat on the leather couch. Clayne dropped onto the sofa, stifling a groan as he sat back on the soft cushions. Damn, he was sore from that impromptu wrestling match with Tanner. He needed a long soak in a hot tub, preferably with a couple beers.
“I completely understand,” John said to whoever was on the other end of the line. “I’m sending one of my best agents to help out. He’s very discreet and will blend perfectly with the team you’ve already assembled out there.” John glanced at Clayne, his mouth twitching. “Well, perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch, but he’s damn good, I can tell you that. I can’t guarantee he won’t ruffle a few feathers, but if he does, call me and I’ll smooth them out.”
Clayne almost groaned again, except this time it had nothing to do with physical discomfort. No doubt John was talking with one of the hundreds of powerful people he knew about inserting him into someone else’s operation. He hated working with other federal organizations, but that’s exactly what was in store for him. And from what John said, he’d be leaving ASAP. So much for the beers and hot tub.
John hung up and walked over to sit in the wingback chair adjacent to the couch. “There’ve been five murders out in Northern California,” he said as he handed Clayne a manila folder. “The FBI has assembled a standard serial killer task force, but our intel indicates we may be looking at a rogue shifter at work. Maybe even a hybrid.”
Clayne frowned. He wasn’t usually assigned the rogue shifter cases. He wasn’t sure why. Possibly because most people at the DCO considered him just a hop, skip, and a jump from being one himself.
“Why aren’t you sending Tate and his team?”
Bringing in rogue shifters was one of their specialties. Over the years they’d brought in ones who’d gone nuts and started killing people, apparently like this one in California, but also ones who were scared and didn’t understand what was happening to them when they started shifting. Tate Evers and his guys were good at knowing how to handle shifters. Clayne wasn’t much good at anything but the nuclear option when it came to that kind of thing.
“What? You have a date you don’t want to miss?” John asked.
Clayne shifted on the couch, trying to find a more comfortable position. “Tate’s team is just better at this stuff, that’s all.”
“Maybe so, but they’re busy.” John held up his hand. “Before you ask, Ivy and Landon are in Japan. And Tucker and Ramsey are both still in the hospital recovering from their last mission. You’re the only agent I consider qualified and available for this kind of job. This shifter’s already murdered five people, and I need someone who can track him down before he kills again.”
“How about Lucy? If you want someone killed, she can do it.”
John shook his head. “She’s busy with something else.”
Clayne sighed. Damn. She was perfect for a job like this.
“Kendra has you booked on a flight out of National. It leaves in two hours,” John continued.
“Who’s my team member?”
God, he hoped it wasn’t Foley. Or even worse, that asshole Powell.
“No one. You’re going solo on this.”
That was a first. The DCO always sent a norm along in case the shifter part of the team got compromised and had to be taken out. They must be stretched even thinner than he’d thought.
“I’ve gotten you assigned to the task force as a liaison with the Department of Homeland Security. The director of the FBI here in DC knows I’m inserting you, so he’ll cover for you as much as necessary.”
Clayne wondered if the guy had any idea who John was really assigning to the task force. Probably not. Plausible deniability and all that.
“Got it.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” John said as Clayne started for the door. “The director asked that you be as discreet as you can.”
Clayne almost laughed. John knew who he was sending on this mission, right? He didn’t do discreet.
But he gave his boss a nod. “They’ll never even know I was there.”
Clayne stifled a yawn as he sat back in his chair and surveyed the conference room in the FBI’s Sacramento field office. Thanks to the time change, he’d gotten there early enough to make the scheduled afternoon task-force briefing, but between the o’dark-thirty start that morning for the training exercise and the flight out from the East Coast, he was dog tired. If it wasn’t for the caffeine he’d been mainlining since getting off the plane, he probably would’ve been asleep right in his chair.
He sipped his coffee, watching people filter into the room and take their seats. A few of them glanced his way but didn’t come over to introduce themselves. He ignored them and reached for the folder John had given him. He’d already reviewed the case file on the plane, but it was either that or sit there and try to figure out who was FBI, who was from the state’s Bureau of Investigation, and who was Sacramento PD. And he didn’t give a rat’s ass.
As he opened the folder, his shifter senses suddenly heightened. He didn’t know why, but damn, he felt twitchy. Like he’d left the stove on at home. But he hadn’t turned his oven on in forever, so it wasn’t that. He swept the room with his gaze to see if someone was giving him the evil eye, but no one was looking his way. And since he was sitting in the back corner of the room, he didn’t have to worry about anyone behind him. Maybe he was just more exhausted than he’d thought.
He dismissed the funny feeling and started reading. Over the past month, the killer had kidnapped five men in the Sacramento area and torn them to shreds. The coroner had mistakenly called the first three murders animal attacks. Looking at the photos, Clayne could see why. And if the bodies hadn’t been found within the city proper, maybe he’d cut the coroner more slack for the error. But when three bodies showed up on your slab, all killed in the same manner with similar ligature marks around the ankles and wrists, even the most incompetent coroner should be able to see those men hadn’t been savaged by an animal. At least not the four-legged kind.
The first two bodies had been discovered at construction sites, while the third had been found on a loading dock behind a convention center, and the fourth in an alley behind a club. Even though the file didn’t have any details on the fifth murder, Clayne was willing to bet it’d been a body dump as well. Most wild animals Clayne knew didn’t go to that kind of trouble to cover their tracks.
The coroner was obviously an idiot. It was bad enough he’d missed the body dump angle, but he should have at least noticed that none of the victims had been fed on. No wild animal goes crazy and kills without taking a nibble here or there.
Thank God some curious reporter had started nosing around when the fourth body showed up or the governor’s office might never have stepped in and asked for FBI assistance. Who knew how many more murders would have gone unnoticed?
Of course, it would have been nice if the Bureau hadn’t spent nearly a week putting together a task force just in time to find the fifth victim. Now the other media outlets in Sacramento had gotten wind of the story and were sniffing hard. Grisly murders like this were exactly the kind of thing that got a place spattered all over the national news for all the wrong reasons. The governor would be thrilled.
Clayne looked up just as a thin, balding man in a gray suit stepped behind the podium. About damn time they got the briefing started.
“Afternoon. For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Senior Special Agent Roger Carhart, and I’ll be heading this task force. We’ll get into the reason we’re all here in a minute, but we have some administrative things to cover first.”
There was a serial killer out there and this idiot wanted to talk admin crap? Clayne smothered a curse as Carhart launched into a presentation about reimbursable expenses, which forms to use for filing situation reports, how to file for overtime, where to park, which kind of gas to use in the federal vehicles and where to buy it. The list of asinine topics never ended. The guy even had freaking PowerPoint slides to go with the briefing.
After that, Carhart moved on to the task force’s command structure, then went on to introduce the members of the Bureau of Investigation, several detectives from the local PD, and a lieutenant in charge of the patrol officers assigned to the task force. Who was next, his mother?
Clayne didn’t bother remembering anyone’s name. He wasn’t going to be around long enough to need that information. He’d find this killer, figure out if the guy was a human, shifter, or hybrid, then deal with him accordingly. Without a lot of talking and thinking, and sure as hell without filling out expense reports.
He was just about to walk out and get more coffee when Carhart motioned to someone standing in the back on the opposite side of the room.
“Now I’d like to introduce Danica Beckett, one of the lead agents on the case. She’ll brief us on what we know up to this point in the investigation.”
Clayne stiffened at the name, sure he must have heard wrong. But then he smelled a scent so familiar, so intoxicating that he knew he hadn’t. The air left his lungs and he suddenly couldn’t breathe. He gripped the folder in his hand in an effort to keep his claws from coming out. Danica-freaking-Beckett. He felt as if he’d just been kicked in the balls.
He didn’t dare look at her as she walked to the front of the room and took her place at the podium, afraid if he did, he might completely lose it. Not that he needed to look. He knew every inch of her body from her full, luscious lips to the tiny beauty mark on her right hip, and everywhere in between. Her face had haunted him every moment of every day and night for the past two years until he thought he’d go insane.
But one memory seared hotter than all the others. When the woman he’d loved more than life itself had looked at him with cold, hard eyes and told him she never wanted to see him again.
“Thank you, Agent Carhart.”
Her voice might as well have been that of a siren’s call for all the power he had to resist it. Unable to help himself, Clayne lifted his head to look at her. She was dressed in a dark pantsuit with a blue blouse underneath, her silky brunette hair up in that twist thing she always did when she was working.
It had been two years since Danica had dumped his ass, and she looked even more beautiful than she had the last time he’d seen her. That only made it worse. It would have been easier if she’d let herself go to hell. It hurt to gaze at her. Getting away from him had clearly done wonders for her.
She nodded to whoever was manning the projector, and the screen changed from the dumbass authorized gas locations to a photo of a man with claw marks on his chest and his throat ripped out.
She slowly scanned the room, making momentary eye contact with each person as she told them about the most recent victim.
“Tom Robbins disappeared from a gym parking lot approximately forty-eight hours before his body was discovered at a warehouse this morning, but according to the coroner, he’d only been dead for six hours by the time we found the body. We have no idea where he was during those missing hours, and no idea where he was murdered.”
When her gaze met Clayne’s, her eyes went a little wide, but her voice never wavered as she described the number of lacerations the victim had sustained. Obviously, she wasn’t as affected by seeing him again as he was seeing her. No surprise there. He knew firsthand what a cold bitch she could be.
Clayne barely listened to the briefing she gave. Torn-up body with over thirty slashes ranging from minor surface penetrations to cuts all the way down to the bone. The FBI had no idea what kind of weapon had caused the wounds, but they appeared to match the previous victims. They had no worthwhile forensic evidence so far, no idea why the men had been murdered, no obvious connection between the victims, and no idea when the killer would strike again. They hadn’t even generated a profile of the killer or his victims yet.
When Danica was done, she took questions and gave detailed answers to each one, regardless of who’d asked it or how stupid it was. Clayne didn’t want to listen, but he couldn’t resist losing himself in the sound of her husky voice. The soft tones and the way she drew out certain vowels—her northeast upbringing coming through—had always gotten to him.
The longer he sat there inhaling her delicious scent, the more pissed he got. She had no right to make him feel like this, dammit. She’d dumped his ass and had made no secret about why. She’d gone out of her way to end their partnership in the most complete and total way possible. He should be thinking of all the different ways he could make her suffer, but instead he was remembering what it had felt like to hold her in his arms and make love to her. And that pissed him off even more.
Something else pissed him off, too. Something that made him want to get up and walk straight out of the Sacramento field office and right back to the airport: John had set his ass up. True, John hadn’t known he and Danica had been sleeping together—at least Clayne didn’t think so—but he’d known their partnership hadn’t ended on a good note. Understatement there. John had to know Clayne would rather take on a whole pack of hybrids by himself than work with his old partner again. There was no way he didn’t know Danica was on this case. John clearly wanted them working together again. But why?
Clayne didn’t know, and he didn’t care. The blatant manipulation was enough to make him unleash his inner animal right there in the middle of the conference room, witnesses be damned.
Somehow, he kept it together until Danica was finished with her briefing. The moment she was done, he was out of the room and heading for the elevator. He punched the down button with his thumb, wishing he could put his fist through the wall instead. Down the hall, feds and local cops poured from the conference room. Dammit. He’d hoped to be long gone before anyone came out. And they were heading his way, too.
Shit
.
While most of them regarded him curiously, one of the suits wearing a visitor’s badge extended his hand. Clayne knew it’d be too much to hope they’d ignore him.
“Jeremy Weathers from BI,” the man said. “I didn’t catch your name.”
Because
I
didn’t give it, smart-ass.
The words were on the tip of his tongue, but Clayne bit them back. John had told him to be discreet, and even though he felt like killing his boss at the moment, the DCO director was right about playing nice with these people. Growling at them and shoving them up against the wall wasn’t going to improve this screwed-up situation anyway. So he put on his happy face and shook the man’s hand.
“Clayne Buchanan. Homeland Security.”
Weathers’s eyes narrowed. “What’s DHS doing working a serial killer case?”
Clayne gave the man a shrug. “Just lending a hand, that’s all.”
“Does DHS think the guy we’re after is a terrorist?”
The question came from a stocky blond-haired man with an FBI badge. Where the hell was that elevator?
Clayne shook his head. “No, nothing like that.”
Senior Special Agent Carhart had joined the group and was eyeing him with the same interest as everyone else.
“If the killer isn’t a suspected terrorist, why is Homeland Security wasting its resources helping us look for him?” Carhart asked.
Clayne ground his jaw. What Carhart really wanted to know was whether the Department of Homeland Security—the DHS—was going to swoop in and take over his investigation. Kind of like the FBI had done to the locals.
“I just go where I’m told,” he said.
“Is that so?” The superior look Carhart gave him probably would have been a lot more intimidating if Clayne wasn’t a foot taller and outweighed him by seventy pounds. “What exactly do you add to the team, Agent Buchanan?”
Clayne barely suppressed a growl. He’d been willing to stick to the script and play nice like John wanted, but he didn’t need some pencil-pushing prick getting in his face because he was worried someone might steal his glory. It had been a really bad day already, and it’d feel damn good to rip off this asshole’s face.
The thought made his fangs tingle in that pleasant way they did before they elongated. He still had enough control to prevent it, but that didn’t stop him from forming a nice visual in his head of making this jerk piss all over himself in fear. Then he’d see what Clayne added to the team.
Carhart was oblivious to the ass whooping Clayne was about to lay on him, but the people around them must have picked up on the hostile tension because they were eyeing him and the fed warily.
“He hunts people.” Danica’s words effectively stuck a needle in the balloon that had been the only fun this day was going to provide. That was the second time she’d snuck up on him since he’d gotten there. He was seriously off his game. “He has the unique ability to track down bad people.”
The men and women gathered around him and Carhart turned to look at her. There wasn’t a room that Danica couldn’t command when she wanted to. Clayne used to think he was the only one she had that effect on because he’d been so in love with her, until he’d seen her do it to heads of state and foreign military leaders. It obviously worked on FBI agents, too.
Carhart frowned at her. “You two know each other? I didn’t see anything in your file saying you worked interagency with DHS, Agent Beckett.”
“We worked together a few years ago,” she answered smoothly. “I think you’ll discover Agent Buchanan is a valuable asset to the team.”
Carhart’s mouth tightened. “That remains to be seen. Since you worked with Buchanan in the past, he stays with you at all times. I don’t want anyone going rogue on this task force. I don’t care what agency he works for.”
Danica looked about as thrilled with that order as Clayne was, but Carhart strode down the hall before either of them could say anything.
The elevator doors finally opened. Damn things.
Clayne would have jumped on, but the BI guy he’d been talking to earlier beat him to it. The rest of the people waiting hurriedly crowded on, leaving Clayne with Danica and a tall, dark-haired man. Clayne waited for the man to bolt like everyone else, but he stayed where he was.