Wolf Under Fire
by
Paige Tyler
Blurb ~
For the cases no one else can solve,
they send in the Special Threat Assessment Team
Supernatural creatures are no longer keeping their existence secret from humans, causing panic around the globe. To investigate, monitor, and―when necessary―take down dangerous supernatural offenders, an international task force was established: The Special Threat Assessment Team.
STAT agent Jestina Ridley is in London with her team investigating a suspicious kidnapping. Over her radio, Jes hears her teammates being savagely attacked. She runs to help, but she's too late. The only survivor, Jes calls for backup and gets former Navy SEAL and alpha werewolf Jake Huang and his new pack. Convinced that the creature who butchered her teammates was a werewolf, Jes doesn't trust them. But if they're going to uncover the facts and make it back home alive, she'll need Jake's help. And with everything on the line, Jes will have to accept Jake for who he is, or lose the partner she never expected to find...
Supernatural creatures are no longer keeping their existence secret from humans, causing panic around the globe. To investigate, monitor, and―when necessary―take down dangerous supernatural offenders, an international task force was established: The Special Threat Assessment Team.
STAT agent Jestina Ridley is in London with her team investigating a suspicious kidnapping. Over her radio, Jes hears her teammates being savagely attacked. She runs to help, but she's too late. The only survivor, Jes calls for backup and gets former Navy SEAL and alpha werewolf Jake Huang and his new pack. Convinced that the creature who butchered her teammates was a werewolf, Jes doesn't trust them. But if they're going to uncover the facts and make it back home alive, she'll need Jake's help. And with everything on the line, Jes will have to accept Jake for who he is, or lose the partner she never expected to find...
*Released 5/26/20 ~ Paranormal Romance
~ Excerpt ~
Jes sprinted down the
hall without giving it a second thought. Grabbing the last man through the door
by the collar of his jacket, she yanked him backward, flipping him over her hip
and slamming him to the floor before he knew what was happening.
Balling her hand into a
fist, she punched him in the throat hard enough to stun him, then ripped his
pistol out of his grasp while he was gasping for air. Refusing to think about
the brutality of the situation, she placed the barrel of the large-caliber
automatic against the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger. In this position,
the recoil of the big weapon was ferocious, but she ignored it—and the
resulting blood—focusing instead on snagging the extra magazine from the man’s
underarm holster.
Getting to her feet,
she approached the room carefully. The last thing she needed was to catch a
stray round from one of the guards—or Jake.
Pressing her back
against the wall outside the open door, Jes darted to take a quick look inside.
The room was filled with acrid smoke from the flashbangs, but she could still
see the dead bodies strewn across the floor. Jake and Misty were nowhere in
sight and something told her they’d taken cover behind the heavy desk that was
flipped over.
The piece of furniture
was thick enough to stop the spray of bullets the men were popping off, but the
gunfire was so intense Jake couldn’t even try and get off a shot in return.
Since the bad guys were already spreading wide to circle around and come at the
desk from both sides, the situation was only going to get worse.
What if Jake had
already been hit?
That thought scared the
hell out of her. She’d heard a werewolf could absorb a lot of damage, but how
much was too much?
“Backup’s arrived,” Jes
announced loud enough for Jake to hear her in his earbud, even over the
gunfire, then took aim and started shooting.
The moment the men
realized someone was coming at them from behind, they turned their weapons on
her. At the same time, Jake popped up from behind the desk and began blazing
away with the automatic in his hand. Bodies started dropping under the combined
effort.
Jes was sure they’d
gained the upper hand, but then a flashbang came at her through the light haze
of smoke still filling the room from the previous ones. Cursing, she leaped
back into the hallway to keep it from blowing up right in her face. She hit the
floor hard, the air getting knocked out of her. Ears ringing, she scrambled
around and lifted her pistol, knowing a bad guy would be coming to finish her.
But no one did. A
moment later, the shooting stopped. It was immediately replaced with a roar and
a growl that seemed to echo through the house and make the entire third floor
vibrate.
Jes quickly climbed to
her feet, only to fall on her butt again as Jake and Damien crashed through the
wall. Somewhere along the way, they’d lost their weapons and were now locked in
hand-to-hand combat, like two enraged monsters. Jake wasn’t the only one with
claws, either. Damien had them, too.
Jake had been sure the
creature that had attacked Jaime and Neal wasn’t a werewolf, but seeing Damien
fight, she was beginning to think Jake had been wrong.
Jes got up on one knee,
trying to get a shot at Damien, but he and Jake were moving way too fast as
they smashed each other into first one side of the hallway, then the other,
fists slamming into their opponent so hard she could hear bones break.
She was about to say
the hell with it and take a shot at Damien regardless of the risk, but then he
slung Jake bodily across the hall, bouncing him off the wall. Even though it
had to hurt, Jake immediately jumped to his feet and kicked Damien in the
center of his chest, shoving him halfway down the hallway.
Jes didn’t waste the
opportunity. Lifting her weapon, she emptied the remainder of her magazine in
the man’s chest. Damien flew backward from the impact of all those rounds
hitting, slamming into the floor so hard she felt it. She didn’t give a crap if
he was a werewolf. That many bullets through the center of his chest had to mean
he was freaking dead.
Dropping the spent
clip, she quickly slammed a new magazine in and chambered a round. The son of a
bitch had killed Jaime and Neal and tried to do the same to Jake. It took
everything in her not to put all the bullets in the fresh magazine into him.
The only thing stopping her was the knowledge that she might need them if they
had to fight their way out of the manor.
She was so focused on
keeping her weapon trained on Damien where he lay on the floor, she didn’t even
realize Jake had disappeared back into the room until he ran out with a limp
Misty in his arms. Jes’s heart sank like a stone.
“We need to go,” Jake
said, striding past her and heading down the hallway away from the steps.
“We’re about to have more company.”
Jes didn’t ask how Jake
knew that. She simply chased after him.
The fight with Damien
must have caused him some serious damage, but Jake carried Misty without
slowing down. They were almost at the end of the corridor when she heard the
thud of footsteps on the stairs behind them.
Jes glanced over her
shoulder to see at least ten armed men reaching the third floor. That was bad
enough. But then Damien sat up, shirt covered in blood and looking pissed as
hell…and not nearly as dead as he should be. Suddenly, the group of armed men
didn’t seem like a big deal. Damien worried her way more.
Turning, she sprayed
the men—and Damien—with half the rounds in the magazine just to make them duck,
then ran after Jake again. She expected him to seek refuge in the last room
along the hallway. Instead, he yanked open the french doors at the end of the corridor
with one hand, exposing a small Juliet balcony.
What the hell were they
going to do with that? It wasn’t like they could hide out there. The balcony
was too shallow. Besides, Damien and the rest of Darby’s men had already seen
where they were headed.
Jes was about to ask
Jake as much when he gently placed Misty on the floor. Before she could
question the move, he turned, put both hands on Jes’s waist, then swung her
over the metal railing of the balcony, holding her by one wrist and dangling
her like a toy.
“When I let you go,
grab the railing of the veranda below us,” he said, dark eyes intent on hers.
Wait. What?
Jes opened her mouth to
tell him he was insane—that she wasn’t a werewolf with superstrength and
animallike reflexes like him—but she was already falling. She released the
pistol she didn’t even realize she was holding, somehow miraculously grabbing
the railing on the second-floor veranda before she fell to her death.
Crap. It felt like her shoulders were being ripped out of
their sockets.
She was never doing
that again.
Jes was still hanging
there in midair when she felt as much as heard Jake leap past her. She looked
down just in time to see him land on his feet on the lawn below her, Misty
wrapped firmly in his arms.
He’d jumped from the third
floor of a building—with someone in his arms—and landed on his feet.
Double crap.
Setting Misty on the
ground, he scooped up the automatic pistol Jes had dropped, firing it at
something above her. She flinched when the bullets struck the metal balcony,
but then felt like cheering when the men up there grunted as other bullets
struck flesh.
“Let go!” he shouted to
Jes before shooting another volley at the floor above her. “I’ll catch you.”
That idea was even
crazier than the first one, but Jes did it, falling at a dizzying speed. She
opened her mouth to scream, unable to stop herself, but then strong arms
snatched her out of the air before setting her on her feet. She barely had a
chance to catch her balance before Jake grabbed her hand and dragged her away
from the manor.
He scooped up Misty in
one arm on the way even as bullets kicked up the grass all around them. Seconds
later, the big Rolls-Royce SUV was barreling across the lawn toward them,
Harley at the wheel. The moment it skidded to a stop, Forrest jumped out of the
passenger seat to take Misty from Jake while Caleb got out of the back and
fired a MAC-10 machine gun at the remaining men on the third floor. Jes wasn’t
sure if he hit anyone, but they sure as hell ducked.
Jake led Jes past Caleb
and practically shoved her into the backseat, then jumped in after her, deftly
climbing over her to take the window. The big omega followed, sitting on the
other side of her and yanking the door closed as Harley floored it, tearing the
grass to all hell as they sped away.
About the Author ~
Paige Tyler is a 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.
She is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan.
She is represented by Courtney Miller-Callihan.
Author Contact Links ~
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