Alpha’s Mission: A Special Forces Shifter Romance Read online

  Alpha’s Mission

  A Special Forces Shifter Romance

  Renee Rose

  Lee Savino

  Burning Desires

  Copyright © July 2018 Alpha’s Mission by Renee Rose and Lee Savino

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published in the United States of America

  Renee Rose Romance and Silverwood Press

  Editor:

  Sandy Ebel, Personal Touch Editing

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book contains descriptions of many BDSM and sexual practices, but this is a work of fiction and, as such, should not be used in any way as a guide. The author and publisher will not be responsible for any loss, harm, injury, or death resulting from use of the information contained within. In other words, don’t try this at home, folks!

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Alpha’s Mission

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Alpha’s Temptation (Bad Boy Alphas, Book 1)

  Alpha’s Danger (Bad Boy Alphas, Book 2)

  Alpha’s Prize (Bad Boy Alphas, Book 3)

  Alpha’s Challenge (Bad Boy Alphas, Book 4)

  Alpha’s Obsession (Bad Boy Alpha’s Book 5)

  Alpha’s Desire (Bad Boy Alpha’s Book 6)

  Alpha’s War (Bad Boy Alpha’s Book 7)

  About Renee Rose

  King of Diamonds - A Dark Mafia Romance Excerpt

  King of Diamonds - A Dark Mafia Romance

  Want FREE Renee Rose books?

  Also by Renee Rose

  About Lee Savino

  Also by Lee Savino

  Alpha’s Mission

  THE MONSTER WANTS HER. HE WON’T BE DENIED.

  I've become a monster.

  I hear blood moving in people’s veins. Scent their emotions.

  I want to feed. To hunt. To mate...

  I'm no longer a human—my life is over.

  I've left everyone I love. I've gone rogue from the CIA.

  My only hope is my handler.

  Annabel Gray is tough enough to face my monster. If I lose control, she won't hesitate to take me out. But I'm not the only predator out there. Someone's hunting Annabel.

  She needs my protection.

  But if I don’t get my animal under control,

  I may be her biggest threat yet.

  Prologue

  Appalachian Mountains, Kentucky

  Full Moon, 1993

  Charlie

  A coyote howls and the hair of the back of my neck stands up. My grandparent’s cabin creaks in the wind. I’m spending the night with them like I always do on weekends when my mom is in town tending bar.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s a wolf,” Grandma says, dusting flour off her hands. “But Kentucky hasn’t seen wolves in over a hundred years.”

  “I’ve seen a wolf.” The moment I say it, I wish I hadn’t although I can’t understand the twisting in my gut. All I know is that huge silver wolf—the one I’ve come to think of as mine, the one I often feel watching me—doesn’t want to be talked about.

  My uncle snorts.

  My grandfather looks at me sharply. “Where’d you see a wolf, boy?”

  Now I really wish I hadn’t said anything. I shake my head. “Nowhere.”

  My grandfather gets up from his chair, brows down. “Don’t lie. You said you saw a wolf. Was it big and gray?”

  I swallow and nod.

  “Somethin’ unnatural about it? Somethin’ strange? Like it was too big for a wolf?

  Again, I nod.

  A howl sounds again, this time closer. My grandfather picks up his shotgun from behind the door. My two uncles get up and do the same.

  “Harold, no,” my grandmother cries.

  My grandfather ignores her and opens the door to our cabin, stepping outside into the moonlight. “It’s time we take these woods back,” he says, rough determination in the set of his shoulders.

  I scramble up to follow them, picking up the BB gun he’s already taught me how to use and following them out. Grandpa always lets me go with him—I’m pretty much his shadow when I’m at his place, so I’m surprised when he turns and holds up a hand.

  “No. You can’t come this time, Charlie. Get in the house and protect your grandma.”

  My shoulders draw back at the directive protect your grandma, and I run back inside to sit by the window with the BB gun across my lap.

  I don’t know how much time passes before I hear a shot not far from the cabin. I leap to my feet and run to the back door, the direction it came from, throwing open the door.

  “Charlie, don’t come out here,” my grandfather warns in a low voice. He’s twenty feet away, standing with his back to me. My uncles stand beside him, blocking my view of whatever they’re looking at on the ground. There’s something in his voice that frightens me—like he’s afraid. But that doesn’t make sense, he’s never afraid.

  “Did you get it, Grandpa?”

  “Yeah, I got somethin’ all right.” Again, he sounds strange. “You get in the house and tell your grandma to call Devon.” Devon is Grandpa’s brother who lives on the property next door. I relay the message and position myself in the open door. Grandma crowds up behind me, but there’s nothing to see. Grandpa’s already dragging something away from the cabin through the woods. I start to go out, but Grandma catches my shoulder.

  “If your grandpa told you to stay in the house, you need to stay put.”

  I reluctantly let her lead me back inside and shut the door. She turns the television on for me, but I have no interest. I stay at the windows, watching Grandpa and my uncles moving about, talking. I slide the window open to listen.

  “It was a wolf. The big gray one—the one Callie saw when she was a teen,” my grandpa says.

  Callie’s my mom. I have a daddy, but he doesn’t come around much. He comes by on my birthday, brings me gifts, but she won’t let him come in, never lets him take me anywhere. She seems afraid of him although I’ve never seen any reason for it.

  “Well he ain’t a wolf now, Harold,” Devon says. There’s doubt dripping in his words like he doesn’t believe what my Grandpa saw. “You know who that is, don’t you?”

  Who, not what.

  “I know.”

  A chill runs through me. Did my grandpa kill a man?

  Will he go to jail?

  “Go get the shovels,” my grandpa says to my uncles. “We’ll have to bury it out here on the property.”

  “Come away from there, Charlie.” My grandma slams the window shut. “It’s long past your bedtime. Go brush your teeth.” I hear fear in h
er voice, too, which is why I don’t argue. I put the gun up and go to bed.

  It will take years for me to realize my father’s disappearance from my life coincided with that night.

  1

  Charlie

  Blood in my mouth... not mine.

  Tastes… so good.

  No. Not good. Wrong.

  Change back, dammit.

  Shift.

  When nothing happens, I tear up the mountainside, through the trees, leaping over fallen logs and boulders. My white paws are huge on the soft pine needles.

  What’s that? Movement in the bushes. I leap and twist in the air, take off after the running jackrabbit.

  It doesn’t stand a chance. I’m too fast. Too ferocious.

  More blood fills my mouth, hot and thick. I gobble down the rabbit’s flesh like a starved dog.

  Then I trot down to the creek and drink from it.

  When I see my reflection in the water, I bite at the big, silver and white wolf.

  Shift, you monster. Shift.

  I don’t even know where the fuck I am. How to get back. My brain doesn’t work right. I have no control over my body. My... urges.

  I turn and trot in the direction I’m pulled and somehow, miraculously, end up in front of my truck.

  The desire to get in that truck and drive off this mountain, away from what happened here is so strong, I sit and whine at the door handle.

  Shift back.

  What did Jared say to make me change back in Honduras? Just shift back. I cast my mind to that moment, seeing my white paws for the first time, the heat and rearranging of my cells, and suddenly, I’m on my side, naked, panting.

  Human.

  Thank fuck.

  I’m human again. Eighteen hours I’ve been roaming this mountain trying to figure out how to change back.

  Coming here and letting the monster out was a mistake. I wipe my mouth, disgusted by the taste of blood. When the memory of what I ate comes flooding back, I heave behind the car.

  Christ. It’s not like me to not have my own body under control. This sack of bones has been a machine for me from the moment I entered the Army and got out of Kentucky at age eighteen. I can kill with my bare hands, escape any danger. I work best under pressure.

  This is no time to get sensitive.

  I just can’t stand feeling out of control, not knowing what I’m going to do next. The way I succumbed to the animal’s need to hunt—I couldn’t control it. The way the waxing moon brought me out here last night.

  Shit. What time is it?

  I grab the keys I hid on top of the driver’s side wheel and open the truck.

  Twelve-fucking-thirty. I missed a meeting with my handler. I’m so fucked.

  I yank on my jeans while I call Agent Annabel Gray.

  “Dune, what happened to you? You’ve been off the grid for twenty hours.” She’d checked my tracking device. I only keep it on when I’m on an active mission.

  Do I hear relief in her voice? Was Ann Gray worried about me? It’s an odd thought, but my relationship with her changed last month when I asked her for help tracking the… werewolves. Now, I know what they are.

  What I am.

  Anyway, there’s trust between us. She did me a favor, said I owe her one in return.

  That piece of information has had me mulling over what I know about her. What could she possibly need from me?

  “I’m sorry,” I say, pulling on my shirt and getting behind the wheel. “I missed our meeting.”

  “Is everything okay?” There’s an awkward hesitation in her voice. It is personal.

  “I’m not hurt.” That much is true. For some reason, I don’t want to lie to her, and I’m definitely not okay.

  Finding out I’m a werewolf—having my werewolf genes triggered or activated by seeing others of… my kind—definitely threw me for a loop. I question my sanity on a daily basis. But more importantly, I question my efficacy. My senses are in overdrive. I hear too much, smell too many scents, crave meat like I’m going to die if I don’t kill something. If I can’t control my animalistic urges, what’s going to happen when I’m on a job? When lives are at risk?

  “I spent the night... out of the city. I can meet in ninety minutes. Give me a location.”

  She blows out an impatient breath. “Venice Beach, 1430 hours.”

  “I’ll find you there.”

  I hang up my phone and step on the gas. I don’t usually give a shit about pissed off handlers. My job performance isn’t graded on how well I interface with others, it’s how well I complete my missions. But for some reason—maybe because she sounded like she cared—I’m in a hurry to see Agent Gray face to face.

  Maybe even to apologize.

  * * *

  Annabel

  I buy an ice cream cone and sit on the wall at Venice Beach, blending in with the hordes of beachgoers. I dressed to fit in—I’m wearing a halter top and shorts with wrap-around sandals I can run in if I need to.

  I can’t believe I’m upset Charlie Dune hooked up with someone last night. Why in the hell would I care?

  We don’t have a relationship.

  I’m his handler, for God’s sake.

  Yeah, he’s hot. All the field agents I’ve met appeal to me. I mean what’s not enthralling about highly intelligent men whose bodies are trained weapons? Agents who supposedly can single-handedly bring down governments or start wars? Agents who can rescue hostages or—rumor has it—execute a kill order? I know I’ve never passed along orders like that, but my clearance level isn’t high.

  Dune, like all field agents, is built of chiseled muscle. He’s not huge or tall, they never are. They need to be able to slip in and out of places unnoticed—blend in.

  I have a thing for spies, I guess, particularly Dune. Something happened last month between us. Actually, it’s probably all in my head. Which is why I’m an intelligence analyst, not a field agent—I over-emotionalize, get personal with people and situations. I care too deeply. Despite my basic combat training, I’d never be able to pull the trigger on anyone even if my life depended on it.

  I bent some rules and put my own job on the line to get some information last month for Dune. He said he lost someone involved with the lab fires. And I probably over-personalized that. Because I know what it’s like to investigate our government’s dirty secrets when it involves a loved one.

  “Chocolate—my favorite,” a deep voice rumbles behind me.

  I don’t jump. I’m used to him appearing out of thin air. What I’m not used to is how close he comes in. If I didn’t think it was crazy, I’d swear he leaned in to inhale my scent.

  I turn and find his face too near to mine, and the green of his eyes appears to change to ice blue in the sunlight.

  Damn.

  Yeah, he’s hotter than I remembered. In a tight black t-shirt—the kind that stretches over his hard muscles—and a ball cap pulled low over his green eyes, he looks the perfect hunky, California surfer.

  He steals the ice cream cone from me and takes a big lick. Well, this is definitely different. We’re practically sharing spit.

  Is he flirting?

  Oh, that’s ripe. After he missed our morning meeting because of some hook-up he had. I never knew Dune was such a player, but it fits. Field agents can’t have permanent relationships, so they become man-whores, getting it whenever and wherever they want.

  Asshole.

  I turn to face him and watch as he completely demolishes the ice cream cone. I mean, I didn’t know you could eat a cone that fast.

  So, I guess we’re not sharing spit.

  He has the grace to look shame-faced as he licks the last bit off his fingers.

  “I’ll buy you another one.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t bother. I only bought it for cover.”

  “What’s the assignment?”

  I can’t stop my annoyance from surfacing even though he’s always all-business.

  “Your no-show this morning may have cost us t
he mission.”

  His face remains impassive, and under the ballcap, his eyes keep roving the landscape like he’s taking in every person who passes, everything about our surroundings. He’s so damn alert.

  “I’ll fix it. What’s the mission?”

  The thing is—I believe him. I’m sure he’ll fix it. He’s the kind of agent who gets results which is why he gets paid the big bucks.

  Still, I’m not over feeling pissy. I flick on my tablet and share the screen with him. “Target is Lucius Frangelico. He lives in Hollywood. Occupation, unknown. Possible mafia, possible drug kingpin. Definitely into something. They want him bugged and tracked.”

  “Why is this a CIA job rather than FBI?”

  “He has ties to Al Qaeda. Travels internationally. May be selling weaponry. This is a preliminary investigation.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “Yeah, well, he left California this afternoon on a private plane. So, now you have to find him.”

  He nods, sober. “I will.”

  I’m sure he’s right. I have complete faith in him. And I still feel like he owes me an apology for no-showing to our meeting earlier.

  As if he reads minds, too, he meets my gaze. “I’m sorry about this morning. It won’t happen again.”

  “Dune, I don’t care what you do on your off-time, but when I call you in, you show up.” I can pull a bitch when the occasion calls for it.