Bad Cat Baby Blues (Shifter Squad Six 3)

  BAD CAT BABY BLUES

  SHIFTER SQUAD SIX

  BY

  ANYA NOWLAN

  A LITTLE TASTE…

  Ariadne barely realized the moment when Dutch took the rifle out of her hands completely and set it down on the bunk, forgetting it there. She got the feeling that he had probably never simply left his gun like that, or been too preoccupied to pay attention to his equipment.

  Her body twisted to face him and her hands wrapped around his neck, practically pulling herself up and closer to him. He growled into the kiss and Ari had to stifle a giggle as his hands cupped her ass and hauled her into his arms. The low sound drove through her like a solid current, making everything shudder in response.

  Her legs were around his waist as he slammed her back against the concrete wall, the cool surface chilling against her slick, damp skin. Dutch’s hand was on her chin, dipping it and holding her head still so he could violate her mouth, and she loved every damn second of it. Her nails raked at his strong neck, making him grunt, and she mewled into the crushing, violent kiss, all raw emotion and desire.

  “Fucking hell, you’re so hot,” he rasped, his other hand traveling up her side, kneading her tits, making her buck against him.

  Copyright © 2016 Anya Nowlan

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Bad Cat Baby Blues

  Shifter Squad Six

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be used, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means by anyone but the purchaser for their own personal use. This book may not be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of Anya Nowlan. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover © Jack of Covers

  You can find all of my books here:

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  www.anyanowlan.com

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  A LITTLE TASTE…

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  EPILOGUE

  CATS’ GOT YOUR TONGUE EXCERPT

  WANT MORE?

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dutch

  Everything was quiet. The only things disturbing the peacefulness of the thick jungle around Dutch were the sounds of insects chittering and buzzing around in the distance. He scrunched his nose, shifting his weight on his hips a bit as he settled in on his stomach at his post high up in a thick tree.

  He’d been there for three hours and it felt like little more than a minute. It was nothing, really. The only reason he chose to move at all was because he could and he figured he might be in for the long haul, depending on how the night played out. The sniper rifle was set up, concealed by branches, and sweat trickled down his neck and back, leaving hot trails in the unbearable heat.

  They were somewhere in the middle of a South American jungle in a country that Dutch neither cared about nor remembered to name. After a few years with The Firm, all of these haunts started looking the same. The only difference was the length of the flight and what kind of a nest he’d have to pick, depending on the mission.

  Dutch scanned the compound again far below him in the dip of a valley. Small, squat buildings were nestled amongst the thick forest, almost indistinguishable from the greenery surrounding them. There were a few guards posted at the doors, most notably at the longest and the narrowest of the houses. The warehouse, they figured. Lights flickered through holes that doubled as windows, either candles or oil lamps. Nothing looked like it was meant to stay there for very long. The whole camp could be packed up in half a day and moved somewhere else if need be.

  Drug dealers. Couldn’t they pick better climates to do their shit in? Dutch pondered morosely.

  Two tours in Afghanistan had given him a strong aversion to heat. Though his jaguar seemed to be purring contentedly, ready to roll as soon as the call came, the human side of the ex-SEAL was not too happy about the wet, sticky warmth. It wasn’t as bad as the dry, suffocating scorch of the desert, but werejaguar or not, he’d come to appreciate more temperate climates recently.

  Dutch smirked to himself. If he was on the topic of weather in his internal monologue, the mission must have been dragging on for a while.

  He touched a finger to his ear, activating the comm unit. “Cat Three. All clear here. Any update on when we hit?” he asked, trying to cover the mild irritation in his voice with something more akin to eagerness.

  “Cat One. Cat Four hit a snag, will keep you posted,” Connor relayed.

  Dutch suppressed a groan. Cat Four was Tex, and if he hit a snag, it meant that one or more of the bombs hadn’t been set yet. He and Grim had been slinking around the perimeter of the campsite, setting up small explosive devices on the outermost buildings with the intent to disorient the thugs when they decided to hit.

  Taking a deep breath, Dutch reminded himself that he was a patient man. He had to be. It came with the territory of being a sniper. But truth be told, he’d lost a lot of his cool over the last few years and he wasn’t entirely sure how to regain it. Methodically, he pressed his eye to the scope again and rounded through the buildings and the guards one by one, making note of their positions in an effort to keep himself occupied.

  Whenever he was on a long stakeout like this one, thoughts started spinning in his head that he didn’t quite need. Memories, flashes, screams, promises… all things he could do without. His nightly scotch habit kept them at bay, along with a rigorous training regime and keeping good company, either his team or women, but when he was all alone up in a nest like this one, time was his worst enemy.

  Don’t go there, he reminded himself when the corners of his vision blurred a bit and he felt his finger itching to hit the trigger.

  So he counted. Two guards at the center building. Two at the warehouse door with a third circling around it. Three more in rolling rotation, walking around and looking like they thought they knew what they were doing. Probably a few more hidden by the other buildings, and countless more in the houses, as their recon over the past three days had told Shifter Squad Six.

  Taking note of their gear, Dutch felt a familiar feeling of unease. These guys were armed to the teeth, and with good stuff. They weren’t loaded up with discarded AKs and a mishmash of handguns Dutch was used to seeing on drug-running scum, but new stuff. Clean, orderly, well-kept.

  The guys wielding them looked like they were doing their best show of slumming it, but a man couldn’t really hide prowess and capability well for too long. These guys were jacked, on edge. Careful. They weren’t regular fumbling muscle, sent out into the jungles to get themselves killed over a deal gone bad.

  And yet, when Connor had relayed t
his to command, they’d gotten a deadpan reply about it being “just a drug cartel” and “the mission is the same—clean out the group.” It had caused a round of eye rolls in the bunker and more than a few uttered obscenities at the guy delivering the news.

  Spade. Somehow that motherfucker was always involved when things started to look weird. It came as no surprise to anyone that this was another one of these occasions and that getting information out of him was like pulling teeth at the best of times. After the little debacle with Tex and Thatch and their wife Madeline, Dutch wasn’t the biggest fan of Spade to begin with.

  But they did what they were told to do, as always, but perhaps with a bit more caution this time. Which was probably why Connor was not rushing them along, taking several days to stake the place out instead of their usual one and giving Tex plenty of time to set up. All of them wanted to be in and out as cleanly as possible. There’d been too many dirty, unexpected fights lately, and Dutch knew he spoke for everyone when he said that a sensible mission would be most welcome for a change.

  So it made him hiss in annoyance when he suddenly saw commotion down in the camp, as one of the guards yelled something and pointed at the darkness around the perimeter.

  Shit, Dutch thought to himself, recognizing the area he was pointing at as one of the locations Tex was to set up an explosive.

  Sure enough, a low whine reached his ears, subtle but present. Perimeter guards, laser-tripped. Probably set so low that Tex didn’t know he was close to one before it went off like an air horn.

  “Cat Four has been made,” Dutch growled into the comm, taking aim.

  “Lock and load,” came the familiar reply, Connor’s voice as tight as Dutch’s.

  Everything went to hell in a second. Tex must have hit the remote detonation triggers the same moment that Dutch pulled on the trigger of the gun for the first time, dropping the guy screaming with a clean hit to the head. The four buildings went up in a brilliant display of sparks, flames, and explosions so loud they could make a man deaf at the distance Dutch was located.

  Dutch instinctively closed his eyes, the explosions flashing hard even through the protective goggles he was wearing, which were set for low light and quick adaptation between illumination levels. Still, his hands were already adjusting the rifle, the barrel moving only inches in the direction his mind knew the next two guards would possibly be running from.

  When he opened his eyes, he grinned to himself as the hair trigger aligned perfectly on a camo-clad beast of a guard running toward the area where Connor and Thatch would enter. The man dropped to his knees a millisecond later, clutching his throat, and then the one behind him went down just as easily.

  Dutch reloaded quickly, slamming three bullets into the rifle. His heart was beating fast, adrenaline thrumming in his veins. He hated chaos. Despised it with a passion, to be perfectly honest. Nothing pleased him more than an orderly, well-executed maneuver, and this was far fucking from it.

  There were people piling out of the burning buildings, some ready to fight, some just ready to die. He heard gunfire starting to rattle the jungle below, a clear sign that the rest of Squadron Six was moving in. This wasn’t like it was supposed to be. This wasn’t perfect.

  But that’s how their missions rolled sometimes. He had to be prepared for anything, and spirits above, he was. Nobody said Dutch had to like it, though.

  “Movement in the warehouse,” Grim’s voice came over the comm, and Dutch turned his attention toward their main target.

  Usually, they were tasked to take out every person there by either wiping them out or bundling them up for local authorities. Local authorities, of course, meant some rich prick who had paid them to take out some competition more often than not. Ultimately, Dutch didn’t care too much. His morals had been shaky for years and at the end of the day, any piece of shit that wasn’t roaming the Earth possibly killing innocent people anymore was a victory in his book.

  This time, though, there were strict instructions not to leave anyone standing. It was unusual, to say the least, but not unheard of. The Firm was known for taking on jobs that weren’t completely kosher, and Squad Six knew about this first-hand.

  They’d talked about it more than once, but the agreement was that they could turn down anything that didn’t quite sit well with their moral compass. Ridding the world of a bunch of drug dealers was squarely in the green for Dutch, though.

  He didn’t hesitate for a second when he saw one of the burly guards running like he was chased by demons, heading straight toward Grant, who was covering Connor. Dutch let his finger hover on the trigger for a moment before pressing down, the satisfying sight of the man crumpling to the ground like a wet tissue following a second later.

  “Warehouse stable,” he noted a second later, frowning slightly as he looked at the long, narrow building.

  He knew there had to be at least five people in there, but none of them had run out yet. There were no back exits and the windows he could see showed no movement. He’d assumed that the warehouse guys would be some of the first people out, being on highest alert. But though he’d picked off the guards standing at the door, he couldn’t see anyone else trying to join the fight or make a run for it.

  “The fuck’s going on here,” Dutch mumbled to himself, pushing the tobacco he was chewing into one corner of his mouth.

  His knee throbbed with a dull ache, a present from a few years ago when he’d taken more than one bullet during the squad’s valiant show of hooking Connor up with his wife Cassie. He’d gotten caught in his nest by a wolf and it had almost killed him.

  Since then, Dutch had been paranoid as all hell about his nests. There was nothing worse for a sniper than to get picked off while their attention was on a fight going on half a mile away. But still he never allowed anyone in the nest with him, no matter what.

  “Cat Two, buildings three and seven cleaned out,” Grim called, trying to reinstate some order in the mayhem.

  “Cat Five, building two cleaned out,” Grant confirmed.

  The battle was getting more sporadic. Connor and the rest of the team had picked off the weak links and cleaned out the smaller buildings on the perimeter. The three huts that had been caught in the explosions were burning with an open flame, threatening to spread the devastation. But the would-be commandos were now nowhere in sight, sporadic gunfire from covered locations the only sign that there was anyone down there at all.

  And the warehouse still stood like a beacon of silence, no muss, no fuss. Something wasn’t right. Dutch could feel it in his bones.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ariadne

  Everything was going… exactly the opposite of how it was supposed to be going.

  Ari gritted her teeth, whiling her time away with the tiny packages of cocaine so pure she was pretty sure she could amuse half of Los Angeles with the little baggie she was packing. Sweat was rolling down her skin, licking at the delicate curve behind her ear, making it itch. She was annoyed and it wasn’t getting any better.

  Can’t believe I’m still here, she thought to herself, trying to determine what time it was.

  It had to be past three in the morning, at least. The sun would be coming up again soon and she knew she had to be done with this shipment in time if she wanted to avoid Soyo’s misplaced anger. He never got too bad, admittedly, but she’d gotten a few smacks over the past few months and it was getting tedious pretending to be hurt by them.

  “Are you about done?” she asked, remembering to flip from Spanish to English this time when addressing Roy, one of the guards who was on packing duty with her.

  “I have to be. I’m falling asleep here,” he commented blandly, his cold, dead eyes staring at his work.

  Peculiar. He’d never looked like the kind of guy who actually needed sleep. That went for most of the crew of the Silk Slayers, the dumbest name for a drug cartel she’d ever heard. But these weren’t just regular drug runners either. A good half of them were American, even though they had s
ome Latin in their blood, and English was spoken as commonly as Spanish in the camp.

  Ari had been in the business long enough to know that shit like that didn’t happen. Especially not in the middle of a jungle like this, with a big camp squirreled away like busy worker bees, everyone going through their tasks mechanically at best.

  Yes, the coke was good, that much was obvious, and yes, they did move it in large shipments, but the longer Ari was involved, the more she felt that coke wasn’t the only thing getting transported by them between obscure South American nations and the United States.

  Of course, The Firm wouldn’t listen to a word she said about it.

  “You’re two months off schedule. Find out who they work for, who the main client is, and get out of there. We’re losing patience.”

  That was the last message she’d gotten from her handler, and that had been more than a month ago. Ari figured she was lucky to still be standing. The Firm didn’t take kindly to having their orders ignored, or extended as she had done. But she couldn’t just drop the whole thing and walk out. It didn’t feel… right. There was something in the air that made her jaguar senses tingle and she couldn’t let go, couldn’t peel herself out of the operation and admit defeat.

  Ariadne Jessica Gutierrez was a covert operative working for The Firm. Having been with them for little more than a year, this was her first big solo mission—to infiltrate the Silk Slayers and find out who they were working for. With her background in the Marines and later in the Narcotics Division of the New York Police Department, going undercover and getting the job done was something that she lived for. But this time, the plan wasn’t coming together and it frustrated her to no end.