Shifter's Redemption (Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite Book 4) Read online

  Shifter’s Redemption

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 4

  Sammie Joyce

  Contents

  Shifter’s Redemption

  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

  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 Redemption

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 4

  Sammie Joyce

  Chapter One

  Darric

  Dumbest thing ever. What the hell am I even doing here?

  The question bounced around harmlessly in my head but by the time I had downed my sixth pint, the query was almost accusing, daring me to do something that wasn’t usually in me to do. Going to the Raven was one of the worst ideas I’d had in a while, even though it hadn’t really been my idea. The way I’d been feeling, heading out to our local watering hole with my team and their mates only made my stomach churn. I should have refused, but like some glutton for punishment, I tagged along with my twin and the others, gritting my teeth beneath my painted-on smile.

  At first, I focussed on downing my beers, one after the other, moderation escaping me for the moment, until suddenly I was bleary-eyed and lightheaded. I had drunk too much, too fast. I looked around in a haze, and what I saw did nothing to clear my mind.

  Everywhere I looked, I encountered their happy faces, Mason and Holly at the bar, Trevor and Jane at the opposite end of the counter, their heads bowed as they whispered some silly secret to one another. I couldn’t look away because, right before me, directly in my face, my brother and Lori sat, equally doe-eyed and enamored with one another.

  Alder was there too, but somehow, he didn’t shine as brightly as my brother, Trevor and Mason.

  Like having mates makes them more special somehow, and Anders and I just don’t show as well.

  The thought that I was upset to see them together bothered me. I really wasn’t a miserable bastard, no matter how much I felt like one, especially these days. The truth was, I wasn’t sleeping well, and the missions were taking a bigger chunk out of me than anyone knew. We all had our demons to slay, our crosses to bear, but it seemed to me that I was feeling it much deeper than anyone else. Or at least everyone else was hiding it better than me. Seeing my team’s happiness when I was in such a dark place only fueled whatever chaos was brewing inside me.

  I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t bitterness sneaking into my veins, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it couldn’t really be anything else. It crept up on me slowly and without warning, seeping into my bloodstream like a poison and overtaking me before I could really do anything about it. I did my best to hide it from the others, but of course Zeus noticed, and he couldn’t help but ask me about it every time he saw me. It was a catch 22. If I didn’t attend social functions with them, they called me out on my antisocial behavior. If I did, Zeus noticed my attitude. I could not win.

  I really should not have gone out that night.

  “Are you all right, dude?” my twin wanted to know, finally raising his head away from Lori. She almost seemed surprised that I was still sitting there, like she’d forgotten where they were.

  Do people really like one another that much? I found myself wondering, partially amazed, partially disgusted. It seemed impossible that the rest of the world could be so easily disregarded when there was such a din around us.

  “Dare?”

  Oh. He’s waiting for me to answer.

  “Of course I’m all right,” I snapped with far too much irritation. “Why are you asking?”

  Zeus shrugged but didn’t back down, his gaze fixed on me with too much interest.

  “You look…I dunno, pissed or something.”

  I raised my head from my beer and met his eyes squarely, deliberately leaving Lori out of my line of sight.

  “Do I?” I asked archly, my usually intense expression tenfold as my eyes bored into him. “Do I really?”

  It was such a dumb question for him to ask me, particularly when he of all people should have guessed, if not known, what was wrong with me. He was my twin, after all. We were connected. My sarcasm spoke for itself.

  “Do you want another beer, Darric?” Lori asked nervously, sensing my mounting unhappiness even if my own brother didn’t.

  “If I wanted one, Lori, I would get one,” I shot back, keeping my eyes locked on Zeus as if she wasn’t even there. Zeus did not like the way I spoke to her.

  “You don’t have to be a prick about it, Dare,” Zeus growled, sitting forward, his own eyes narrowing. “She was just being nice.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said through clenched teeth, still not pulling my eyes from my twin. “Thank you, Lori, but I’m fine.”

  “I-I’m just going to go to the bathroom,” Lori decided, standing quickly as if she realized that she might be the cause of the tension. Neither of us spoke until she was out of earshot.

  “What the hell is wrong with you lately, Darric? You’ve been an absolute asshole every time we’ve gone out for weeks! And not just to me. Everyone’s noticed.” The words fired out like tiny bullets to my face the second Lori had disappeared.

  Had they? Interesting how no one had bothered to bring it up to me.

  “Interesting,” I retorted, rolling my eyes.

  “Dude, if you have something to say, I suggest you say it,” my brother hissed at me. “Or else, take your attitude somewhere else.”

  For a moment, I contemplated doing just that, rising, knocking over a glass and storming from the bar.

  But I was a soldier. I had self-control and the ability to communicate with my team. I knew I wasn’t being fair, expecting Zeus to read my mind. Inhaling, I blurted out what I had to say.

  “Maybe that’s because I’m sick of always being the fifth wheel. Does every night have to be date night with you two?” I barked back without thinking. Zeus’ eyes widened. Instead of taking the words as a bridge, he responded defensively.

  “Lori and I are together,” he reminded me as if I could have possibly forgotten. “You have a problem with that?”

  “I have a problem with the entire unit going to shit over their women,” I hissed, rising to slam my fists down against the table. Suddenly, I forgot who I was and about my self-control. “I barely see you when you’re not on official training.”

  “Uh, yeah. Because I moved in with Lori, and I’m not chained to the base anymore.”

  “You should be focussed on the team, not your makeshift family,” I snarled. I knew I was being unnecessarily nasty, but I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. For weeks I’d been holding onto the resentment, letting it fester inside me.

  He asked. If he didn’t want to know, he shouldn’t have brought it up.

  “Why don’
t you tell me how you really feel?” Zeus taunted me, but I saw his eyes flashing. I was getting under his skin too. He didn’t like being called out on his relationship. Up until Lori had come along, he had been just like me, committed only to the team and the other wolves.

  “Whatever, man,” I snorted, reaching for my wallet to throw some money on the table for the beers I’d consumed. “Keep playing games with the team. It won’t be so amusing when you get killed out in the field, will it?”

  I stormed off before he could respond, purposely avoiding Mason’s eyes at the bar as I moved. Holly called out to me, but I ignored her too. I needed to be alone before I really erupted on someone.

  I didn’t want anyone to confront me and tell me that I was being overdramatic either, but I knew I had been. I just wanted to get far away from the bar, where I should never have gone in the first place. I vowed that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  It was cold now, even for Savannah, but I barely noticed it. I was so incensed, my body was ready to shift into my wolf form, but I dared not since I was so close to the city. Once I got back to the compound, I could go for a good run if I wanted but not before. Not that shifters were an uncommon sight in Savannah. It was just a rule I had with myself, like the one on the compound. Shifting was only for the woods, out of sight.

  And it proved that I had a modicum of self-control, even if I’d blown it inside the Raven.

  “Darric!”

  I turned without thinking and stifled a groan when I saw Lori rushing toward me, her expression drawn and upset. I should have known she would have tried to make things right with us.

  “What is it?” I demanded, stifling the urge to turn and flee like a sullen child.

  “You tell me,” she said flatly as she neared me, her breaths slightly uneven. “What is happening with you lately?”

  I bristled at the new attack.

  I should have just shifted and run off.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lori, and you really don’t know me well enough to make assumptions about my personality,” I shot back haughtily. My tone did nothing to dissuade her from pushing.

  “Are you jealous?” she shot out unflinching. I gaped at her and laughed, but the sound was hollow, and she heard it.

  “Jealous? Of Zeus?” I choked dubiously. “You really don’t know me at all.”

  “Of me.”

  I stared at her, my mouth agape as I tried to think of a caustic answer, but as I did, I realized that I couldn’t come up with anything at all. I could only stare at her and realize that she was probably onto something.

  “Why would I be jealous of you?” was all I could manage.

  “Maybe because I took your brother from you, away from the compound?” Lori said softly, drawing closer. Her eyes were soft and kind, and I felt like a complete ass for behaving the way I was, but even so, I couldn’t bring myself to apologize.

  “I know that’s it been you two against the world for all your lives,” she went on. I hated that she knew that much about me.

  Yeah. I’m a little jealous, I thought, but of course I would never admit the words aloud. I wasn’t even sure I could come to terms with it myself, even if Lori’s words resonated with me too strongly.

  “I don’t know what you’re going on about,” I snarled, whirling away. “I have no reason to be jealous of anyone. I’m glad Zeus found you. You two deserve each other.”

  I meant for the words to sound as scathing and rude as they did, but when I darted away from the Raven, feeling Lori’s eyes on my back, I was ashamed of myself.

  The fact was, it wasn’t just a simple matter of missing my brother or the others. It wasn’t as cut and dry as wanting to spend time with them. I was beginning to feel like nothing was the way it had been before at the beginning, and that troubled me.

  Once upon a time, it had not just been me and Zeus against the world, but the team too. We had relied on one another and on Slater to guide us through our missions. But subtly, slowly, things had changed, and I wasn’t exactly sure who to blame for it all.

  More and more, I felt like I was being ripped apart from the only sense of self that I’d ever known. The Relief Division was the only real home that I had ever understood, and now, there was just too much change. Of course, I didn’t expect Lori to comprehend that. It wasn’t even fair of me to ask her to understand that. She had found a mate in my brother, and I should have been happy for both of them.

  Should have been.

  My steps quickened like I was trying to outrun my own shadow. The desire to shift was becoming overwhelming, but I dared not, even though I was guaranteed the dimness of night, and no one really cared if another werewolf shifter was running through the streets of Savannah. I told myself that despite what lay beneath my outer skin, I really wasn’t an animal. I was civilized, a soldier.

  Even if I sometimes do uncivilized things. Even if they’re sanctioned.

  I wished I could commit to a problem.

  Was I upset I was losing my team or was I upset about the missions? I wondered if they weren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe I was worried that the team was rotting from the inside.

  Or maybe I was just losing my mind.

  “Hey!”

  The sound of someone calling me caused me to slow my gait, and it was only then that I realized I had almost broken into a run heading back toward the compound. I shouldn’t have slowed after being confronted by Lori, but I knew this voice. He wasn’t out to attack me.

  “Hey,” I said as Donovan neared me. “I didn’t know you were at the Raven.”

  I hadn’t seen him, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been there. Dice was sometimes easy to overlook, not because he was unattractive, but because he wasn’t one of us—well, at least not in the shifter sense. He was a member of the team, but he never went on missions. His job was to handle matters back at the base where he was out of harm’s way.

  “I wasn’t,” Dice confessed. “I’m on my way there now. I just saw you booking it back, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

  “Yeah,” I said with too much force, plastering a smile I didn’t feel onto my face. “Everything’s great.”

  “You sure?” Dice may not have been a wolf, but his powers of astuteness knew no bounds. “Why don’t you come back with me? I’ll buy you a beer.”

  There was no way in hell I was returning to the Raven anytime soon.

  “I’m good. Go have a beer for me.”

  I didn’t give him an opportunity to press the issue as I headed back toward the compound. It wasn’t far now. I could have done the walk with my eyes closed. The average man would have been exhausted doing the trek from the Raven to the base, but we were not average men.

  Zeus had driven us all in with his Jeep, and I wasn’t going to ask him for a ride back.

  I had thought that the walk would do me some good, help me burn off some of the energy that had been mounting inside me, and a part of me was tired as I approached the gates. The privates on guard nodded and let me through without a word, and I grunted as I made my way past them, wiping the sweat off my brow as I moved. I didn’t know them, but they seemed to recognize me and the team well enough. I suppose we were famous around the base.

  Or infamous.

  I didn’t waste any more thoughts on the team or what had happened at the Raven. A shower and a good night’s sleep were in order if I wanted to shake off this anxiety. It was the same advice I’d give anyone if they’d come to me complaining of the woes I was bickering about in my own head.

  I sprinted up the steps of my unit and threw open the door, stripping the button-down shirt from my glistening shoulders. Again, the urge to shift and run was overpowering, but I dismissed it and headed straight for the tiny bathroom, throwing the shower on full steam to fog it up.

  As steam clouded the glass, overtaking my dark, buzzed head and clouding around my intense brown eyes, I almost felt like I was looking at a stranger in the reflection.

/>   This isn’t the time for imposter syndrome, I snapped at myself, whirling away from the glass to amble inside the stand-up shower. The streams of water curling into my every crevice was momentarily relieving, and for the next few minutes, I allowed the heat to soak away my complaints until soon, I had almost forgotten what I was griping about.

  There really was nothing like a hot shower to wash away the day’s regrets.

  As the water started to turn cold, I reached for a towel and draped it over my hip, dripping over the laminate floor as I ran a hand across the buzz of my head. Droplets of water sprayed everywhere, and when I entered the bedroom, I fell face-first into the perfectly made bed, my nose almost smothering in the pillow.

  Like I had drunk a magic potion, my eyes grew heavy, and my heartrate slowed to lull me into a false sense of sleepy security. I was in dreamland before my skin had dried, but that didn’t mean anything.

  In less than an hour, I would be up, screaming and drenched in sweat and regret like always.

  Chapter Two

  Nicole

  If anyone had ever asked me, I would have said I liked my job. It wasn’t difficult in any real sense. I didn’t run laps or lift weights like the soldiers who worked around us. I wasn’t constantly being jetted back and forth between countries to keep up with the generals overseas. In theory, I suppose, it was true that I enjoyed my career. I didn’t exactly jump out of bed with glee, dancing and singing to head to the base every morning, but I didn’t despise the idea of crossing over the lines of the gate and flashing my pass to answer phones and schedule appointments for General Slater or one of the other generals if Slater was off on a mission. I belonged to the base, like a desk or ugly fluorescent lamp that only the army housed in any of their makeshift offices on the compound.