Shifter's Diligence (Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite Book 6) Read online

  Shifter’s Diligence

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 6

  Sammie Joyce

  Contents

  Shifter’s Diligence

  Sammie Joyce

  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

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Get the Prequel - Shifting Seasons Series

  About Sammie Joyce

  Copyright © 2021 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 Diligence

  Wolf Pack Special Ops Elite - Book 6

  Sammie Joyce

  Prologue

  Dice

  Time had lost all meaning for me, the ins and outs barely registering as I tried to keep up with the changes occurring around me. On some level, I comprehended what was happening but not enough to draw me out of the darkness in which I had found myself. My senses were heightened in a way I didn’t really understand. Everything in my nostrils seemed sharper, the scent of the people in my midst piercing my brain. I heard them in my mind’s ear, but I couldn’t see them, not yet. Something was happening, but nothing I could dictate on a conscious level. Bits and pieces of the event coursed through my mind, but when I tried to capture whatever it was that was trying to escape me, the thoughts dissipated, vanishing through the sea of confusion that threatened to overwhelm me.

  I was there but not there, hovering and yet painfully in places, like my body had been split in two, and I had become separate entities in the blink of an eye. I pondered, as I floated through this abyss. I had to concentrate, to find out what was really going on.

  I saw the flash of fur, the memory of the attack coming and going like I was on a boat, and the waves were snatches of the recollection. Sprays of memory hit me, but as I tried to taste the salt of it, they were gone again.

  I saw myself at a table with Alder and the others, chattering about something…was it Slater? We were in the Raven, discussing what to do about him, the general. I knew this conversation. It was one we’d had before, but it was becoming more prominent as the days passed. Is that why I was struggling in that moment? Did Slater find out that we were marking him?

  No, that didn’t seem quite right. Yes, Slater had been our discussion, but something else had happened after that, something to distract us all.

  I forced myself to focus, to think.

  The Raven, the Shadows…a discussion about Slater and then…?

  I saw them with blinding clarity and felt my pulse begin to race. The couple appeared, dishevelled and terrified to announce the terror awaiting outside.

  I remembered. I didn’t want to remember, but it was all coming back now.

  I shouldn’t have gone outside with them, a voice told me irrelevantly now. I should have waited inside where it was safe.

  I had been warned to stay behind by someone—had it been Alder? But I wasn’t going to be stopped, not when the rest of my team was running toward the danger, whatever it was lurking in the lot beyond. I couldn’t imagine hanging back while the others fought my fight, even if I knew that they would understand. I was a Shadow, too, even if I didn’t possess the same powers that the others in the Relief Division did.

  Or did I now?

  I was too discombobulated to make sense of what was happening. Just when I thought I had clung to a proper thought, I was driven into a sense of confusion again, the reality slipping through my fingertips. I had the sense that I was losing my mind, assuming I had any left to start with.

  A voice grounded me, if only for a minute.

  “How much longer is he going to be like this?” someone asked. The tone was familiar, like I was listening to him speak through a headset. It might have been Mason or Trevor. He sounded far away, and yet I knew he was at my side somehow. He wasn’t the one floating around. That flight was reserved for me.

  Truth and illusion blended together, making me feel as though I was monitoring a mission and not fighting for my life.

  If I didn’t know for sure who spoke, I knew certainly it was one of the twins who responded. Their voices were similar but deeper, gravely, as if perpetually ready to roar with their wolf heritage. Being the only naturally born wolves on the team, they had a power that none of the others could boast.

  Why are you thinking about the twins’ DNA right now? How is that possibly relevant to sorting out your own mind?

  I silenced my inner voice to listen to the ones around me.

  “It takes as long as it takes, and asking every two seconds is not going to make things go any faster. There’s nothing we can do but wait.” The irritation in this brother’s voice told me that it was Zeus. He was much quicker tempered than Darric, and entertaining questions was not something he would do without grumbling.

  Was this a mission? Was I in the control room, listening for action? Had I just nodded off with exhaustion?

  Have you ever nodded off in the middle of a mission?

  The question was rhetorical and sarcastic. Of course I hadn’t. Slater would never stand for that level of incompetence. I would never have fallen asleep in the middle of monitoring, and snatches of the events that had brought me there were fighting to swamp my conscious mind.

  If only I were fully conscious.

  “We’ve been waiting! There has to be some way to end this! I can’t just sit here anymore!” It was Mason this time, I was sure. The fog was lifting in my psyche but not enough that I had a good hold on what was happening yet.

  Yet.

  In and out of his headspace, the voices floated. I couldn’t be sure if minutes or hours passed, but slowly, painfully, I began to recall how I got where I was—wherever the hell that was. And as I retained the knowledge of what had come to pass, I wished I had not.

  I didn’t remember moving, but it was clear I wasn’t outdoors anymore, the warmth and lack of echo indicating that I had been moved inside. I remembered the massive wolf outside the Raven and the surprise attack from the mutant shifter. Had he been taken down, or was he still lurking about, waiting to attack? If he was still out there, the team should be looking for him, not babysitting me.

  I didn’t need a babysitter.

  I wasn’t sure what I needed.

  I moaned once, but the sound was only in my own brain. Everything in my body was aching, including muscles I didn’t even know I possessed. It hurt badly, but it was also a relief, like my solid frame was undergoing some kind of metamorphosis.

  I’m like a butterfly, I thought drunkenly, but I was not intoxicated, not in the happy, fun sense of the word. Clearly, my wits had escaped if I was comparing this experience to being inebriated. This was like no drunk experience I had ever endured.

  “Should we call someone for him?”

  Again, it was Mason—or Trevor. Everyone was there. I could feel them intrinsically, like I was connected to them by an invisible thread somehow. I knew now that I wasn’t on any mission, monitoring the comms.

 
“Like whom?” That might have been Alder, but as soon as he asked, another voice piped in.

  “Slater?” someone else scoffed. I heard the snort of contempt as I continued to struggle for clarity. In my head, I saw the supernaturally big beast attacking us in the parking lot. What had that been about? Where had he come from? What was going on in Savanah these days, and why was I losing my sense of confidence in the Shadows?

  Once more, Slater’s face popped into my mind, but his stern expression did little to help me through the mental and physical anguish which had taken me over.

  My brain was swimming, but I didn’t let myself succumb to the dark pit which threatened to drag me down. I needed to open my eyes and deal with my team, if only to understand what was going on. Sleep wanted to claim me, and it was probably the best thing for me, but I needed answers.

  Yet I had a feeling I already knew. Above all the other pain surging through my body, the feeling of my muscles contracting and restricting, I had a feeling I knew exactly what had happened. Even if I didn’t remember every detail, the attack, the unconsciousness, and the heightening of all my senses—it could only mean one thing.

  I was turning into a wolf too.

  The idea was bittersweet, surprising and yet familiar. How many times had I wondered about being one of them, a part of the pack in every sense? How often had I wished that I possessed the same abilities as the other Shadows? How many nights had I lay awake and considered how much different my life would be if I truly had wolf blood coursing through my veins?

  It looked like I wasn’t going to have to wonder much longer.

  “Dammit, we can’t just sit around staring at him.” This time it was one of the twins—Zeus, I think. “Maybe we should call on Slater. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea.”

  There was a collective gasp of disgust. My eyes didn’t need to be open to know what they thought of his suggestion. Maybe once upon a time, they might have considered bringing Slater into the fold, but those days had long since expired. No one trusted the general, not anymore, and even if this were a desperate situation, they wouldn’t risk it.

  “Are you out of your mind?” the other twin barked at his brother. “Have you not been paying attention at all? Do you not remember what we were talking about before this happened?”

  “Do you know what he’ll do when he finds out about this?” Trevor, maybe?

  “Have you not been paying attention? Slater is not our friend.” It was a woman who spoke this time, and I tried to remember which of the females had been among us when the fight had broken out.

  Jane? She had been there, tending bar, right?

  I realized that trying to keep up with the who’s who of the conversation was only causing me more pain, and I vowed to stop attempting. What mattered was that I was among friends who were doing their best to keep me safe, feeble as their attempts might be.

  The arguments against contacting our boss far outweighed the worry they had for me. I didn’t blame them. Those days, Slater was a name synonymous with trouble. It made me feel guilty over everything else, realizing that they would think about calling on Slater. They must really be out of sorts.

  Come on, Dice, I tried to coax myself. Get up. Get moving. Show them that you’re okay before they bring Slater in. He can’t unknow when he finds out about me, and this might somehow work to our advantage.

  “Don’t be an idiot. We don’t know what he’s going to wake up like. For all we know, he’s going to be just as aggressive as that wolf at the Raven,” Zeus snapped. “And then what will Slater do?”

  The question lingered uncomfortably, even in my ears.

  “Or he might not be a wolf at all,” Mason volunteered. “I mean, maybe he managed to survive the bite without being turned. Stranger things have happened.”

  “He’s a wolf.” Three other voices spoke in unison, and I would have nodded if I were able. I had no doubt that I had been transformed although to what level, I couldn’t say. I understood their fears, that I would wake up swinging, but even as I lay, conscious but not, I knew that wasn’t really my problem.

  Then again, what did I know? I had never dealt with anything like this before, even in my wildest dreams. I had heard stories of humans being turned after being nicked by wolves, but this was something else. I had been assaulted by the most violent shifter I’d ever seen, and I had no idea what that could mean for me. I certainly wasn’t seasoned enough in this to guess.

  “How can you be sure?” Mason demanded, but I knew he was just arguing for the sake of playing devil’s advocate. The man knew what I was as well as anyone else around us.

  “Trust me.”

  I couldn’t keep track of who was speaking, not anymore. My head was swimming, my body expanding and contracting, muscles moving in places I had never experienced pain before. There was no doubt that I was becoming the wolf they claimed, but somehow, subconsciously, I had known that from the moment that rogue wolf had lunged for me.

  “There’s got to be some way to bring him out of it.” It was a woman speaking this time, and now I recognized Jane’s voice. “He’s been out for hours.”

  “And he might be out for days,” one of the twins said flatly.

  “You can’t rush this,” Darric conceded, sighing. “It’s a waiting game. Be patient. Rushing the process won’t benefit anyone, least of all Dice. All we can do is sit by and see what happens. We’ll need to figure out a way to cover for him if he doesn’t regain consciousness.”

  I knew I should feel grateful that I was being watched over, but I couldn’t bring myself to appreciate that I was surrounded by people who cared. All I understood was the ache in my bones and the confusion overtaking me.

  Again, their voices faded out, and this time, I fell back into a slumber I so desperately needed. I wanted to stay awake, alert, to inform them that I was still there, even though they couldn’t tell, but it was a losing battle. I had no choice but to succumb to the heaviness weighing me down like a blanket. I wasn’t going anywhere, not until the virus fully overtook me as it meant to do. There was no vaccine against this, no way to fight off the impending changes that were already occurring in my body. I had to stop resisting. I was probably prolonging the entire process with all the fighting I was doing.

  As the blackness unfolded around me, sweeping me back away from my team and their mates, I felt a pang of longing for someone of my own.

  Anna.

  The thought of her almost forced my eyes to pop open as I realized that she would never look at me the same way again.

  After all, I was a beast now. Who could blame her for running far away quickly?

  I wanted to do the same thing, but I wasn’t even alive, not in the real sense of the word.

  I wondered what my new girlfriend would think about me in my time of trouble.

  Luckily enough for me, I didn’t have time to overthink it. I was out again, and this time, I fully welcomed the blackness.

  Chapter One

  Dice

  It didn’t take a psychiatrist to see the way the team handled me now. It wasn’t quite with “kid gloves” per se, but there was definitely a difference in the way in which I was approached.

  A big part of this had to do with the fact that we had never gone to Slater in the aftermath of my turn. Of course, I had eventually woken up at Lori and Zeus’ place, sprawled out on the couch, almost two days after I had been bitten. The relief on their faces had been palpable at first, but they were walking on eggshells as they waited for me to turn so they could gauge the severity of my transformation.

  “Can you shift?” Zeus asked me bluntly, a few days after I regained consciousness. I shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, how do you do it?”

  He had sighed with disgust.

  “You either know how or you don’t,” he grumbled, rolling his eyes.

  Then I guess I don’t, I thought. Zeus wasn’t the only one treating me differently. Trevor seemed to tiptoe around me, and M
ason cast me sidelong looks like he was expecting the Incredible Hulk to burst out of me anytime. The truth was, I didn’t blame them. I had no idea what to expect either, and I couldn’t exactly fault everyone for wondering how my first shift might go.

  Not much had changed in my day-to-day work. I still did my job in communications and slept in my trailer on the compound at night, but I could feel the adaptation in the air. Or maybe I was imagining it all, like I carried a chip on my shoulder even though I knew that there was no real reason for it. If anything, I was more a part of the team now than I’d ever been before. Why, then, could I not shake the feeling that everyone was on my case much more than ever before?

  That day, I could barely wait to get back to my trailer after my shift. Slater had been breathing down my neck all day, only fueling the tension that had been growing inside me for a fortnight. It had been two weeks since that fateful bite that had turned me, and I still hadn’t shaken the feeling that I was being plagued by something unseen.

  I had no way of knowing if that was a real fear or something that my team had managed to put inside me with their own paranoia.

  Not that Slater was going to be any help with that. I wasn’t even sure if he knew I’d been turned. The discussion about not telling him had not extended past the day I had woken. I wasn’t going to be the one to inform him, but I wouldn’t fault one of the other guys for having done it. It was only a matter of time before he found out anyway. I just wasn’t in any rush to make that happen.

  “What’s going on with those comms?” the general demanded, pointing at two devices that I had forgotten in the corner. That was another issue. My focus was completely off now. Where I had once been an avid stickler for detail, I was losing my concentration all over the place.