Special Ops Shifters: Dallas Force: The Complete Series Collection (Shifter Nation) Read online

  But that was all right. He knew what his mission was, whether he agreed with it or not. Max knew this mission was a futile one, and that was precisely why they'd chosen him for it. As a Night Stalker, he was one of the most talented helicopter pilots the U.S. Army had on hand. They knew he could cut low and fast over the dangerous sands of Iraq, deploying the soldiers that were needed for the mission.

  He just had to wonder if the soldiers in the back of the bird had any idea what they were getting into.

  The situation was a critical one. Max had to get them in and get himself out before the enemy forces had any clue what was happening. Max adjusted the throttle and control stick. "We've got a strong crosswind," he said through the headset. "We've got to do this as quickly as possible."

  There were several noises of affirmation from the back.

  Pulling the chopper into a hover, he gave the sign that they'd reached their destination and were ready to go. The open side of the craft gave easy access for the men as they leaped out into the darkness. Max watched them go, sliding down the line and disappearing into the vast space beneath him. It could've been a few feet or a mile; only the instrument panel would tell him the truth. Max dusted the display with his thumb. Everything there was so goddamn dusty all the time! But he still couldn't read the numbers behind it. He rubbed harder, but the digits only blurred.

  Panic bloomed in his chest. "Something's wrong. Abort!"

  But it was too late. The cargo area was empty, and he was alone in the sky. Max reached for the switches that would fire up the spotlight. He had to find them and get them back! But that would only kill him, and there was nothing he could do. He'd dropped them off to their deaths. They wouldn't be coming back home. Theirs would be the faces that all of America would see on the nightly news in several weeks. Max wouldn't see it, stuck in the hellhole of the world as he was, but he would know. He was the one who'd gotten them killed.

  The gasp that filled the room startled Max until he realized it was coming from his own throat. He launched himself away from his pillow and, just as quickly, turned around to punch it.

  Another fucking dream, he thought. Will they ever end? He grabbed his phone to check the time. 5 a.m. Great.

  He fell back into bed, his pillow giving a soft whiff of protest, and tried to close his eyes.

  But the images were still there. It didn’t matter that he was awake now. Max could reason with himself all he wanted, explaining that they were just old memories twisted by his dream-state into even worse visions. He rolled onto his side, frustrated.

  The truth was they hadn’t been so dissimilar. Max had flown on numerous missions during his time with the Army, and they blurred together. It wasn’t a surprise, considering they were always quick assignments completed in the dark over strange places, and they were all of the utmost importance. His schedule was rarely ever explained to him ahead of time. His commanding officers expected him to hop up and do whatever he was asked, whenever he was asked. Max had flown missions on Thanksgiving, sending heavy fire into enemy territory. He’d worked many Christmases, which always carried a special sense of loneliness, even when he was surrounded by his comrades. It was one hell of a way to live.

  And now, even safe in his apartment at the Special Ops Shifters headquarters in Dallas, far from the war of his past and everything he’d experienced there, he knew he was still living with it.

  There was no way he was going to sleep now. His eyes refused to shut without replaying those old scenes again, and his limbs twitched with the need to do something useful. He shoved himself up and out of bed, yanking on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Within a few minutes, he was outside and on the sidewalk.

  Dallas was quiet for a big city, especially at this time of night. Anyone sane had long since gone home, locked the door, and shut the curtains. But Max had always known he was a bit different, and this place was a playground compared to where he’d worked overseas. The worse he might run into was a drunk who hadn’t managed to stagger back to his house earlier. Max knew he could easily outrun or outfight anyone who wanted to give him hell. The problem was that he longed for the chance.

  His feet hit the concrete hard as he watched the sun rise over the city he’d come to know as his home. Max knew he needed far more sleep than he was getting, but rooting himself in the reality of this place was much more helpful than tossing and turning in his bed. He focused on the way the darkness shifted, melting away from the buildings and streets it’d claimed during the night in favor of the sun, which shimmered in triumph on the glass windows of various office and apartment buildings. The sun captured them from top to bottom, warming the roofs before sliding down to the cold concrete of the sidewalks and ushering the occupants from their beds.

  He pushed himself harder. If he was going to be out there, then he was going to get in one hell of a workout. That was one consolation of insomnia, and he was determined to take advantage of it. It also helped ease his inner tiger, which demanded to come out far more than was reasonable for city life.

  Once he’d returned home and showered, Max headed to work at Luxury Air Tours. He tried to head straight out to the hanger to start his pre-flight check, but a heavyset man intercepted him before he could make it.

  “There he is! And bright and early this morning, too!” George Stephenson was more round than anything else, and Max liked to joke to himself that the man rolled instead of walked. But he was the one who’d started up this business, and his signature was on Max’s paychecks. “I wanted to talk to you about your flight logs last week.”

  Damn it. “Yeah, I’ll get them finished.” But his boss was waving him into the office, and he had no choice but to follow.

  George sighed as he closed the door behind them. “Max, you’re one of the best pilots we’ve got. No, I take that back. You’re the best pilot we’ve got, and I think you know that. But you can’t just get by on talent alone. There’s a protocol to contend with here, and that includes filling out your flight logs and not pissing off the clientele.”

  So that was what this was really about. George didn’t usually say much if the flight logs weren’t perfect. He was the one who set up the tours in the first place, so he knew exactly where all the choppers were going and at what time. Max slumped down in the ripped chair in front of George’s desk. Luxury Air Tours might be all about the amenities for their clients, but not for themselves. “All right. Who was it this time?”

  “Biff and Muffy Burns.” His thick eyebrows raised as he looked up at Max, like a father reproaching his errant son.

  Shit. “Yeah, I guess that’s a big one, huh?”

  “A big one? Considering how much business they send our way and how many connections they have? Hell, Max. I’d hardly have a company here at all if it weren’t for their money and the fact that they spend it like water.”

  George’s tirade continued, but Max wasn’t listening anymore. He looked through the large window on the side of the office that looked directly into the hangar. The machines were bright, beautiful, and agile, things of art and style made to appeal to the wealthy. A gust of wind from the wrong direction would send them tumbling. Max always felt that something was missing when he looked at these particular helicopters: guns.

  It was impossible not to compare his current life with his former one. There were still choppers, but they were completely different. Even the people who piloted them weren’t like the Night Stalkers he’d known when he was actively serving. Some of them were just yuppies who wanted their pilot’s license because they thought it sounded cool and ended up with a job. One guy had been a chopper pilot for a news program on the East Coast before transferring there. His coworkers weren’t bad people, but they had a different mannerism about them. They didn’t take things as seriously as he and the rest of the 160th did.

  And then there were the passengers. If anything had changed the most, it was them. Max was used to carting around highly trained men and women who knew their duty and were willing to give the
ir lives for it. They faced disaster right alongside him. Sometimes, they had to do things they never would’ve done if they’d been stateside, but it was different when you were on a mission.

  Now, he was carting around the rich and famous who wanted to see what their new hotel complex looked like from the air. He was taking honeymooners out over the city because George had created special packages in the hopes that they’d come back and pay for another tour. Once, he’d even picked a guy up because his limo was stuck in traffic, and he “just didn’t want to deal with it anymore.” And of course, there were people like Biff and Muffy Burns, the richest, snobbiest, biggest wastes of space he could have ever imagined.

  “Max? Are you even listening to me? This is serious stuff this time.”

  He blinked, once again back in the chair in front of George’s desk. “Yeah. Sorry.”

  “Look, I know you’re not great when it comes to customer service. But you’ve got to get your head in the game, both for your sake and mine. I have to officially write this one up, considering how many I’ve let go on the wayside. Sound reasonable?”

  “Sure.” Max knew he should be glad he could use his skills in his post-military life, but sometimes he thought it only made things more difficult. The tourism business was a shallow one compared to the old days.

  “And do us both a favor and keep your nose clean for a while, huh? I don’t want to have to do this again. Here’s your schedule for today. I’m sorry that it’s filled with more of the patrons you hate, but remember, we wouldn’t be in business if it weren’t for them.” He slid a printout across the desk.

  Max took it, barely glancing at it as he headed out into the hangar.

  Max swooped the chopper through the sky over Dallas. The city seemed to be made for viewing from the air, surrounded as it was by lakes. Even the corporate hotshots who owned the skyscrapers downtown had gone to the trouble of giving the buildings different colored lights to make them stand out. There was so much to see, whether it was day or night.

  But the couple that was riding along with him didn’t seem to notice. They were too busy sucking face to be awestruck by the beauty below them.

  “On your left is the world’s largest potato chip, bigger than any building in Texas. We like to do things big around here.” Max waited for them to break their liplock and search for the fictional tourist trap, but they didn’t reply at all. The only thing he heard through the mic was the smacking of their lips and moaning as they groped each other.

  He grimaced. He’d have to decontaminate the chopper at the end of the night at this rate. With a sigh, he buzzed around the city and waited for their time to run out. The newlyweds had booked a night over Dallas with Luxury Air Tours, taking advantage of the package offered along with their hotel. Max was tempted to do something really stupid and pull some maneuvers that would get him fired just so he could get the satisfaction of hearing them scream, but damn it if he didn’t need this job.

  And damn it if it didn’t remind him of the past. Max was a good chopper pilot, otherwise he never would’ve been accepted into the Night Stalkers. His military record included plenty of metals and ribbons for the missions he’d carried out successfully. There were some of them he couldn’t even tell anyone about, since they were still classified. Not that he had anyone he felt like sharing them with, anyway.

  For a moment, Max was no longer hanging in the sky over Dallas. He was over the desert, keeping the bird steady as soldiers slipped down the fast rope to their duty. There was sand in his eyes and in his hair and everywhere else, and as soon as he found the chance to shower, he’d just be full of sand again. The sun was too bright and the air was too hot, even for his inner tiger sensibilities. Bullets pinged the sides of the chopper, missing him by only a few inches.

  He sucked in a deep breath and was back in Texas again. A place that was safe, or at least a place that was supposed to be. But Max hadn’t been able to bring himself to trust anyone since his honorable discharge. There was too much going on in his head, and it was easier to just fly into the air and pretend none of it had never happened.

  An hour later, when the kissing couple had been dropped off at the helipad and had thanked him with flushed faces, even though they hadn’t seen a damn thing, Max got in his car and headed home. He wove through Friday night traffic the same way he buzzed through the air, feeling that the cars around him were too close. He didn’t trust them to follow the rules of the road, and he pressed the gas pedal a little harder until he pulled into the garage.

  “Good, you’re here!” Vance said as Max entered the common living area at the headquarters of the Special Ops Shifter Force’s Dallas unit. “I was just about to call you and tell you about your new mission.”

  “Can’t it wait until I’ve had a shower?” Max grumbled. He felt tired and dirty, and the mere memories of his time overseas made him feel like he was covered in sand all over again.

  “Not really. Let’s go to the conference room.” Vance turned and headed down the hallway, expecting him to follow.

  Max stared longingly at the door to his left that led to his little apartment. The original SOS Force was stationed in D.C., but they’d recently started a Dallas unit, and Max had been recruited to be a part of it. Since living quarters were provided for those who needed them, it’d been easy for Max to let his slummy little place on the wrong side of town go. Besides, if he was working both for Luxury Air Tours and for the Force, it made for a little less driving to stay at HQ.

  Reluctantly, he joined the others in the conference room. “All right. What’s the latest emergency?” he asked as he flopped down into a chair.

  Jack, the resident intelligence officer—and a fox when humans weren’t looking—tapped a tablet on the table in front of him. “I just finished up a call with Hudson. We’ve got an unusual task in front of us.”

  “And?” Max pressed. He just wanted to get this over with. He felt restless and cagey, and it was easy to imagine how his cousins who lived in the zoos must feel.

  Vance leaned back in his seat. “You’re wound up tonight.”

  Max heaved an impatient sigh. “It’s just not a good night for me. I’d like to wrap this up sooner than later if you don’t mind.”

  Jack looked up from his tablet. “You could say we have a private client. There’s a rather affluent shifter in Fort Worth who’s a major witness in an investigation being conducted by the local conclave. I guess there have already been some incidents that have made her believe her life may be in danger until this trial is over. We’ve been asked to protect her.”

  Max scowled. “So now we’re just really well-trained babysitters?”

  “Think of it as a bodyguard mission, man. She lives in a penthouse apartment with a helipad on the roof, so that’ll make it really easy for you to chauffeur her around to work, her appointments, and the court hearings,” Jack continued. “The rest of the time, we can take turns guarding her.”

  “Right. Okay. No different than what I do all day anyway: hauling around rich-ass folks who think a normal car isn’t good enough for them. Just give me the info and let me know when I’m supposed to pick her up.”

  Jack consulted the tablet and gave him the address. “Tomorrow afternoon, actually. The name’s Sabrina Barrett.”

  Max’s vision turned black around the edges, and his tiger surged as he focused solely on Jack. “Sabrina Barrett?” he said hoarsely. It could be a coincidence. Surely, there was more than one Sabrina Barrett on the planet. And the one he’d known hadn’t been such a rich bitch as to need a helicopter to take her out on errands. He swallowed the thickness that was building in his throat. “What, uh, what does she do for a living?”

  Jack frowned at the tablet. “Says here she’s some hotshot cosmetic surgeon.”

  Shit. Shit shit shit. If the client had been some financial advisor or movie star or something, he’d have felt a lot better. But it seemed clear he wasn’t going to be able to escape his past the way he’d wanted to.
/>   “You all right?” Vance drawled.

  “Yeah. I’m fine.” Max pushed himself out of the chair, his body feeling too heavy. “Just tired. I’d better get some rest if I’m going to fly tomorrow. We done here?”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  He stumbled down the hallway, running his hand through his dark hair and wondering how he was going to manage this. It was one thing to play air cabbie for some snob.

  It was a completely different thing to do for the woman he’d practically left at the altar.

  2

  “All right, everyone. Almost done here. I’ve just got to get this closed up, and then we’ll be good to go.” Sabrina Barrett’s fingers moved almost automatically as she carefully stitched up the incision. She remembered a time when she’d had to work much harder to make the stitches even and perfect, reducing the amount of scarring that would be left behind. Of course, it was much easier thanks to finer needles and the right fibers.

  She’d spent the last few hours lost in the world of surgery, and the hours before that had been consumed with other patients. Now that her shift was nearly over, she could feel the ache in her feet and lower back from standing on hard linoleum all day. Sabrina shoved the pain down a bit longer. It was nothing a little yoga wouldn’t fix later.

  Twisting the forceps to create the final knot that would fix everything in place, Sabrina set her instruments on the waiting tray and stepped back from the table. “That’s a wrap. You guys have been great. Thanks again.”

  She sighed to herself as she stepped out of the OR to clean up. She could feel eyes on her, even there at work. The operation had been consuming enough to help distract her, but now it was impossible. He was there again.

  She began to peel off her gloves. It’d been a long day, and she was eager for it to be over. What’d made it even longer was the fact that she didn’t find much satisfaction in the work she’d just completed. Although Sabrina knew she’d done an excellent job with the rhinoplasty, it had felt empty. So what if another Hollywood housewife (the Dallas version, anyway) would have a tiny new nose to show all her friends at brunch in a few months over mimosas? So what if that same spoiled woman would give Sabrina’s contact information to all her friends who wanted implants, lifts, tucks, and complete remodels of their faces and bodies? Sabrina was good at her job, but her heart just wasn’t in it.