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 turned 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