Page 5 of Chased

Career soldiers, their violence and ruthlessness kept in check with rules, discipline and regimentation. Kind of like the Renards, but without the suits and civilized veneer.

The difference was, she would be a civilian employee. She didn’t have to follow their rules. Best of all, no one would expect her to get mated to one of them.

Not that she wouldn’t consider hooking up with a buff soldier, if he wasn’t a complete dick. But as far as relationships—well, a tight-assed buttoned-down rule-follower who probably killed people for a living? As the HR departments liked to say, Thanks but no thanks.

Chapter 3

Call him crazy, but Gabriel Sanchez loved getting ambushed. Nothing beat the adrenalin-spiked high of taking out overconfident bad guys just when they thought they had you where they wanted you.

Riding the edge between life and death and coming out on top made him feel alive. Like he was doing the thing he was meant to do—the thing he’d been made to do—and doing it better than anyone else.

Tracking down bad guys. Distributing justice.

And saving the victims, of course. But that part wasn’t really his gig. Sanchez didn’t save people; he just made space for the hero guys to do it. He was their tracker and their weapon: the bullet from their gun, their teeth and their claws, their Hail Mary move.

Whatever it took.

Right now, at this remote cabin in the woods, it was going to take Sanchez springing the ambush and taking point so the Outlaw Ridge strike team could extract a female kidnap victim from the upper floor. College-age daughter of a business tycoon who pissed off the wrong people.

He could see the lighted window, easily reachable from the porch roof. Too easy—had to be at least one enemy combatant waiting in there. Didn’t mean Sanchez couldn’t still catch them off guard, though, if he moved fast enough.

The bad guys thought they were ambushing the tycoon’s personal security team. They didn’t know he’d hired a pack of wolves to get his daughter back.

Surprise.

Sanchez waited, hidden in the trees, as the mission commander counted down in his earpiece. “Three. Two. One. Hounds: go.”

Sanchez’s two cousins, Cisco and Matéo, burst out of the woods in wolf form, howling and snarling and heading straight for the enemy guards stationed at the front of the building. Attacking with wolves instead of soldiers bought the team a couple vital seconds of what the fuck from the enemy.

Sanchez was already moving with shifter speed, mission adrenalin pumping through his veins and muscles. Sprint across the side yard through the outdoor spotlights, jump and grab the edge of the porch roof, kick off the railing and swing his legs up.

Roll to a crouch, draw his weapon and spring for the window. Shock and awe, coming up. Making a space for the heroes.

Blam. Blam. Two bullets shattered the window from the inside, hitting him in mid-spring and burying themselves in his Kevlar vest. The momentum slammed him to his back on the porch roof, the air leaving his lungs with a whoosh.

Sanchez snarled, his wolf face starting to burst out. Now they’d made him mad.

He sucked in a huge painful breath, rolled back to his shoulders and kicked up to his feet just as the gunman came to the window for the kill shot.

Sanchez just kept the forward momentum going. One huge step and he dove through the window, bringing the enemy down. He slammed his elbow into the guy’s throat and followed up with a gun butt to the skull.

Another shot whistled past his head from a second enemy in the corner. Sanchez rolled over once, took aim from the floor, and took the fucker out.

The girl was gagged and duct-taped to a chair, her eyes wide with terror. No wonder. Blood, death, and a guy with a half-wolf face. Somebody was going to have to erase that shit from her memory.

The upper floor was a loft, and he crab-walked across to the low wall by the stairs, checking out the stairway and the room below, weapon at the ready.

Clear. Sanchez could hear wolves baying and the rattle of gunfire outside as the Outlaw Ridge soldiers engaged the enemy ambush. According to the radio reports coming through his comms, there were more enemies than anticipated, but the strike team was holding their own.

He needed to get down there, only nobody had come in behind him to take the girl.

He tapped his earpiece and spoke, his voice harsh and slightly garbled through his half-changed muzzle. “Second floor clear. Victim unharmed, but freaked out. Where’s the fucking extraction team?”

“Having a beer,” Dobe snapped in his ear. “What the fuck do you think they’re doing?” A grenade exploded somewhere outside, shaking the cabin. “Rex is on his way with the rescue chopper, but he can’t land here, and the rest of us are pinned down for the moment. You’re gonna have to get her to the roof.”

Fuck. Me. Sanchez tried to will his face back to human, but his wolf was too close to the surface. Always was lately, when things got hot. And whenever he got all revved up.

The last thing this girl needed right now was Wolf Man in her face. But when you were tied to a chair in the middle of the forest, you had to take what you could get.