Shifter's Purpose (Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite Book 1) Read online

  Shifter’s Purpose

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 1

  Sammie Joyce

  Contents

  Shifter’s Purpose

  Sammie Joyce

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Get the Prequel - Shifting Seasons Series

  About Sammie Joyce

  Copyright © 2020 by Sammie Joyce

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by JJ's Design & Creations

  Shifter’s Purpose

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 1

  Sammie Joyce

  Chapter One

  Mason

  Time stopped, frozen and still as I perked up, my heart in my throat. I could feel the tension mounting all around me and I poised my body, ready to spring.

  He’s there. Right…

  I whirled about as a blast of heat overcame me from behind but as I turned to confront it, I saw nothing. Something was undoubtedly there and a scuffle of movement whipped me in the other direction, my eyes shooting through the dark to take in the threat around me. In my earpiece, I heard someone whisper, “Behind you, Rowland. Pay attention!”

  For an instant, I wasn’t sure if the voice came through my headset or if it was one of the unspoken words of a teammate that I was hearing but for a third time, I spun. This time, the flash of movement I saw was unmistakable. He was there now, undoubtedly, and I needed to react. I bared my teeth to attack but something inside me refused to move.

  Come on! I urged myself. Do it!

  Yet my own motivation was useless. I couldn’t do anything. I knew what it was that was holding me back but no amount of logic would urge me forward. There was going to be hell to pay for this. Slater would not be impressed. I could feel his eyes on me already although that might have just been my guilty conscience speaking.

  “Now, Rowland. NOW!”

  There was no doubt about it—the voice was coming from my headset. I had a small window of opportunity but my legs refused to comply. It was as if all my training, my years of Special Forces and intense drilling, had never existed. Suddenly, I was Mason Rowland, human. I was transported back to a place where I was weaker.

  If I were a human still, I could do this.

  For a long moment, my eyes locked on the emerald green of my opponent’s. If time had frozen earlier, it seemed to be going backward now. I half expected the beast before me to start moving in rewind but he did not. The target was there for the taking, as surprised as I was to see him, but neither of us moved.

  He’s one of us. I can’t in good conscience go after him. Why are we being asked to go after other shifters?

  Another motion attracted both our attention and a figure flew through the air, landing on my mark. The low growl and gnash of teeth told me what was happening in front of my face. A pair of hands yanked me back into the thick of trees and I landed on my buttocks, my body half-shifted as I glowered at my rescuer and my tail folded beneath me. The landing was nothing short of painful and I cringed for more reasons than one.

  I knew there was going to be a reckoning for this. I turned to look at my savior but he didn’t want my gratitude.

  “What the hell was that?” Darric hissed at me but I turned my head away, refusing to meet his gaze. I was sure my guilt was painted on my face. It hadn’t been my intention to put the team in danger but that was exactly what my hesitation had caused me. Darric grunted at my lack of response. He tugged on my arm.

  “Come on before you screw up the entire mission.”

  His tone left no room for argument and I did as I was told, lugging myself after him through the brush. I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder but even with my stellar night vision, I couldn’t make out what had become of my earlier target, but I had a feeling I knew what his fate had been. We had been given explicit instructions. None of the targets was to be left behind and we weren’t taking any prisoners. If it had been daylight, I’m sure I would have seen a literal litter of bodies in our wake.

  “Meet back at the site,” Slater growled in my earpiece but it was a message to all of us. Our mission had either failed or was completed. I’d find out when we regrouped but I was sure I knew what the outcome had been. We were the Shadows. We didn’t fail, not under Stephen Slater’s rule. His reputation preceded him and we were the best of the best. My only hope was that the General hadn’t witnessed what I had just done… or rather, what I’d failed to do. There was no room for insubordination or second-guessing commands.

  Until that day, I’d never had occasion to entertain the thought of either.

  I finished morphing back into my human form, melting away into the darkness as I followed the sound of Darric’s feet sliding over the foliage. He was a few feet ahead and making a good path for me to follow but even without it, I would have made it through. We had been working together long enough for me to fully sense the comings and goings of my unit. We knew one another almost as well as we knew ourselves.

  I couldn’t wait to get out of the bush, my anxiety mounting as we continued forward. We’d already been there long enough in my opinion but I dared not say anything like that aloud. We would be there as long as it took, just as always. That was nothing new but that mission hadn’t felt right since the start and my gut told me that things were going from bad to worse.

  Suddenly, the silence around us was deafening and I knew we’d done what we’d come to do. There was no more movement, stealthy or overt. All the targets had either been eliminated or had fled. I hoped for the former and the latter simultaneously. If they had been eliminated, there would be no need to stick around but I couldn’t help but hope that some of them had gotten away. They were shifters, after all. They were just like us. Why were we hunting them?

  All I knew for certain was that no one was tracking us and nothing fluttered in the leaves to indicate we were being watched. In my ear, there was quiet, indicating that we faced no more danger. Our mission was accomplished—or rather, this mission was accomplished. There would always be another one, another fight, another target.

  But for the moment, we were done. Or that was my hope. I would have to wait on the final word from Slater.

  No thanks to me that this is almost over, I thought tersely, grinding my jaw as we neared our base. That wasn’t true either. I’d done my part. The preliminary intelligence was the most important part of any operation and I had certainly had a hand in that. Maybe I wasn’t as fond of the act of killing as some of my teammates but they had more experience in these matters than I did. It was different being born into the life than being turned, something that I was still coming to terms with, even if I sometimes forgot. I was newer to all of it than they were, even if I played it off like I’d been at it for centuries. Some things were harder to fake than others.

  Is killing just an inherent trait, something that all wolves know how to do?

  It was one of those philosophical questions that kept me
awake at night, one of which I would never really have answered, I was sure.

  The hidden base appeared before me and I made my way to the entrance that only our team knew was there. General Slater stood inside, shocking me slightly. His intimidating presence never ceased to stun me, no matter how many times I set eyes on him. There was just something about his towering height, penetrating onyx eyes, and silvery hair that never failed to alarm me, if only in some minor way. It was as though he knew secrets about all of us that we would never know.

  For a long moment, he said nothing, his gaze fixed on me, and I balked under his intense stare. We waited for him to ask what had happened out there, why I hesitated at such a crucial moment, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned to Darric, eyes narrowed.

  “Where’s your brother?” the General demanded. The younger twin seemed surprised by the question but Darric shrugged in his nonchalant way, unperturbed by Slater’s no-nonsense attitude. It was just one more thing that the rest of the team was better at enduring than me.

  “He’ll be here,” Darric assured our leader. I saw the corners of Slater’s mouth twitch, something I knew was not a good sign. I wished Darric wouldn’t so brazenly antagonize Slater but it was a futile hope. In his own way, Darric seemed to get off on annoying the General, as if he had a stronger death wish than the average being in our unit. In some ways, I envied his courage. In others, I thought he was dumb as a pile of bricks. Time would tell which was true, I supposed.

  “I know he will,” Slater snapped back. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I’m here, General,” Zeus announced, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, as if on cue. The twins often moved like that, a choreographed syncing of ebb and flow, feeding off one another’s energy. He winked at me like we were sharing a secret and I swallowed a groan. I realized that it was Zeus who had taken out my target when I’d hesitated.

  I guess it’s better Zeus than Darric. Darric would never let me live it down and he’d probably sell me out to Slater too.

  I was sure that wasn’t true either but sometimes, when tensions were running high, it was hard to know which side Darric stood on. I was fairly confident that Zeus wouldn’t bring it up, not to me and likely not to Slater either. Worse things could have happened. There could have been a casualty or fatality on our team. As far as I gleaned, we had come out unscathed as usual.

  “Washington?” Slater continued, looking about the abandoned cave. “Where’s Washington?”

  “Here, General.”

  The blond wolf bounced inside, flashing a charming smile as if we’d been at a social gathering, not a slaughter.

  Don’t be dramatic, I warned myself. This was a necessary mission. No one here likes the missions.

  Trevor’s lightheartedness didn’t fool me. I knew that he despised the killings as much as I did. He was just better at handling it than I was.

  “Let’s move,” Slater said, his voice low as he gestured for us to follow. Without a word, we filed through the dank cavern, heading out the back entrance. The General knew the area, like he’d been there a thousand times before. For all I knew, he had. There was so much about Slater and the team that I didn’t understand, after all, so much that I wanted to know, but even after all the years we’d been together, I had so much to learn. I also realized that the only way to learn was to watch, not pepper everyone with unnecessary questions.

  The chopper waited in the clearing, Sully pacing before the silent vessel. The craft gleamed against the black of night, oddly out of place in all the greenery. The pilot’s eyes lit up with relief when he caught a glimpse of us moving toward him. He jumped to attention when Slater nodded at him and in seconds, we piled into the cargo bay and waited for Sully to get the helicopter in gear. Without a word, the team was reassembled and working on our exit strategy but no one was stopping us. There would be no difficulty getting out. I exhaled with relief. We were finally going home.

  Mere minutes later, the almost-silent blades whipped up air and we rose above the trees. The chopper, like all of our other equipment, was state-of-the-art. Soon, I wouldn’t be surprised if we had an invisible plane but I’d settle for the relative silence of the helicopter as we ascended. Every mile we flew higher gave me a better sense of peace.

  My eyes trained downward, looking for signs of life below us, but I saw nothing in the blackness. If I’d had any doubt about the success of our mission, they dissipated as the world below us disappeared.

  “I’d say Operation Cataclysm is a done deal,” Darric offered brightly, dropping his headset over his ears. The rest of us followed suit but I turned my head away as the others nodded in agreement. I wished he hadn’t invited conversation about the situation but that can of worms had been opened now and I was subjected to the analysis now that he had.

  “It could have gone more smoothly,” Slater replied shortly but I had expected as much. I felt him staring at me but I purposely ignored him. There was nothing I could say or do now that the damage was done. I had screwed up but I couldn’t bring myself to feel badly about it. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that we had to kill our fellow shifters.

  “We did what we came to do,” Zeus insisted, shooting me a quick glance. Why was everyone setting their sights on me? I maintained a steadfast look out of the aircraft, my head still buzzing. We’d been on the ground for five days and while that wasn’t a long time compared to some of the other missions we’d executed, it had been long enough in the elements, waiting out our targets. I was glad to be heading home, even if I knew that Slater wasn’t happy with me. I couldn’t avoid his scrutiny anyway and it was better that I dealt with it in Savannah rather than in the middle of the boondocks.

  “Where are we off to next?” Darric wanted to know, his face already lit with interest as he winked at Slater. The General scowled slightly, clearly unmoved by the younger wolf’s sass. Whatever enthusiasm Darric had for our missions clearly didn’t spill onto the General. Sometimes I wondered how Slater put up with him but I knew that Zeus tended to keep his twin in line most of the time. Still, there were occasions where I was sure that the leader of the Shadows would have happily done without Darric. I considered that Slater had really wanted Zeus but had been forced to endure his younger brother also.

  “We’re heading home, aren’t we?” Trevor piped up. I could hear the hope in his tone, not that it was that surprising. If anyone was ready to go home after a mission, it was Trevor. I could never really be sure what Washington’s deal was but if I had to guess, I’d say that he had been coerced into joining the military. I envisioned that he had lost a bet or had run away from some sordid past. I never did get the story there. For me, the army was in my blood, even before I had been turned. I came from a long line of army brats. I was predisposed to the ways of the military, even if I wasn’t always comfortable with what that entailed. It was all I’d really ever known.

  “Really?” Darric moaned. “We’re headed home?”

  “Yes,” the General assured us. “We’re heading back to Georgia. You’ve earned a rest.”

  The relief on Trevor’s face was almost palpable and he grinned at me lazily. I could see he was planning the next two weeks of his life in his head. I, on the other hand, couldn’t leave well enough alone.

  “Did we do what we came to do?” I asked into my microphone. I almost surprised myself with the question. I hadn’t realized I was chomping at the bit to speak until I’d already done it. All eyes turned to me, a collective blank expression among them.

  “What?” Darric laughed, looking at me with amusement. “Of course we did or we wouldn’t be heading home already.”

  “I know this mission is completed,” I sighed, my eyes trailing toward the General. “But what’s the bigger picture here? What are we working toward?”

  The atmosphere inside the helicopter shifted dramatically and everyone suddenly looked purposefully away from me, including Slater. No one wanted to answer my very pointed query.

  “What a
re you doing, man?” Trevor muttered, his voice audible to everyone in earshot, but he was speaking exclusively to me. “Just enjoy the victory, will you?”

  That’s easy for him to say. He’s such a yes man. They all are. They should be questioning everything more… shouldn’t they?

  “I’m just asking a question,” I replied defensively, suddenly wondering if I wasn’t overreacting. “We’re all on the same team here. I think we have a right to know what it is we’re working toward.”

  “Some of us are more on the team than others,” Slater growled back. I didn’t miss the annoyance in his tone. If I had been more like Trevor, I would have let sleeping dogs lie but I was no canine. I was a wolf, through and through, no matter how I’d come to be one. Taking a deep breath, I kept on with my argument.

  “I just want to know what the end game is,” I insisted. “I get that sometimes we have to take out some of our own—”

  “The shifters we took out were not like us,” Darric interjected, his eyes becoming slits as he glowered at me. “If they were, we wouldn’t have taken them out in the first place. Come on, Rowland. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

  “I get that,” I said quickly, sensing that I was losing any little bit of support I had before I’d opened my mouth. “But you can’t fault me for asking about an end game.”

  If Slater had been glaring before, the dark orbs of his irises were barely visible now as he leered at me from across the cargo bay.

  “Who the hell do you think you are, soldier?” he snarled. “Are you questioning my plans for this unit? Are you implying that I would lead you blindly into a war? That I would sacrifice you like pawns?”