Alpha Defenders-Rescue Read online

  When they stopped to stand near the other agents, Joe heard Trav Savage telling them to get comfortable because it could be a while before they’d make their move. It looked like the other agents were armed minimally. All the agents they worked with closely were involved this time. Joe saw that their friends, Casey Wilder, Grayson Lyon, Dan Roper, and Wes Lawson were there looking ready and able.

  Suddenly, the sound of rustling in the bushes near the hot springs drew their attention. Joe and his friends turned that direction, instantly ready for danger.

  A gang of nasty-looking thugs rushed their group as the roar of a wild animal blasted from beyond the trees to the north. The sheer numbers of the gang threatened to be overwhelming. Fearing Valerie was in mortal danger, Joe took her arm nearest his side and pushed her toward their truck.

  “Get inside and lock the doors, babe. This could get nasty.”

  Valerie took one look at the other agents and hurried beside him with Chris on her other side. Joe noticed Trav escorting his girlfriend, C.P.O. agent Jen McClain, toward their truck.

  For once Valerie didn’t argue, and Joe helped her into the front seat and closed the door. Chris shouted to her to lock the doors. She did so, and Joe turned as the roar of a second part of that gang came closer to the hot springs, chasing Trav’s other C.P.O. partner, Roger Masterson, and his group of men who had evidently been searching for Wra.

  Joe and Chris and their buddies raced to help protect Roger and his group. They were all quickly surrounded by the murderous gang. The force of their numbers pushed Joe and Chris farther away from their truck and Valerie. Pummeled on all sides, Joe could hardly move against the crush of bodies. He looked toward Valerie in their truck just as a couple of the bastards reached it and began banging on the windows.

  “Valerie!” he shouted, terrified the monsters would get her.

  Joe couldn’t free himself from the snarling press to get to Valerie. He saw that Chris was surrounded, as well. The sound of breaking glass stabbed him with fear, and then Valerie was dragged from their truck through the opened door.

  “Chris,” he shouted. “They’ve got Valerie!”

  Joe fought like a berserker, pounding and shoving as hard as he could against the gang members who surrounded him. He had to get to Valerie. He heard Trav’s horrified voice as he yelled for Jen. The entire outlaw gang moved north, with Valerie and Jen in their midst and held tight, even though they fought the gang. Desperate, Joe met Chris’s determined gaze.

  “Shift!” Chris shouted to him over the roar of the fighting.

  “We’re going after Valerie and Jen with you,” Joe shouted to Trav.

  They shifted to their wolf forms, their silver-gray fur blending into the background as they joined Roger and Trav. They raced to free Valerie and Jen. They had to fight Wra’s gang members as they made headway. As they fought to reach the thugs holding the women, Joe heard Trav shouting to Roger to get the women out of danger and catch Wra. The deafening roar of wolves, panthers, C.P.O. agents, and Alpha Protectors rose with fury. Joe saw Trav leap onto boulders near them and run along the tops of the boulders. Joe and Chris joined him at the same time. He heard the confused shouts of the gang behind them as their friends continued to battle the bastards.

  Ahead, Joe saw Wra join the few gang members, who now held Valerie and Jen in their nasty grips. One of the evil bastards had a hand on Valerie’s lower belly. From his peripheral vision Joe, noticed Wra change to a huge bear form. Joe fought to get to her and kept his eyes on Valerie, who was fighting her captors without stopping. He saw Wra move closer to the women. Shit. Joe and Chris had to get to her first.

  The gang members held the women in front of them as they shielded Wra, who was now running to get away. The evil scum holding Valerie had a hand between her thighs even though she fought him like a wildcat. Joe wanted to rip him to bloody shreds.

  More gang members caught up with them and pummeled Roger and Trav as Wra moved away from the fight. Other agents joined the battle in their shifter forms. Joe slashed at the thugs who tried to keep him from reaching Valerie and Jen. He and Chris fought like crazed wolves to get to her. The snarls and howls of the wolves were almost deafening.

  Finally, the gang broke from the fight. Those holding Valerie and Jen shoved them toward the agents. Joe and Chris forced their way side by side toward Valerie and Jen, shifting to their human forms as a roar of rage blasted with an ear-shattering sound. When Jen was freed, she hurried into the arms of Roger who was nearby. Joe and Chris caught Valerie as she raced to them. They wrapped their arms around her to protect her. She was shaking. Joe wanted to shift again and rip that murderous gang to pieces with his sharp wolf canines.

  Joe noticed Wra moving toward Trav. Wra’s mob turned and joined him in their dark-gray wolf shapes. Trav leaped for Wra’s throat and held on to him with his canines grasping his neck. The bastard’s roar lessened in volume as his windpipe was obviously squeezed. Even though Wra swiped at him with his huge bear claws, it was useless as Trav held on to him. When the monster slumped to the ground, Trav released his neck and leaped out of the way and then shifted to his human form.

  Joe realized the gang members had fled the scene.

  Suddenly, Wra shifted to his human form again and raced up the rocky hillside along a ridge. He was heading toward the top of the red rock hill.

  “Get him,” Roger shouted, running after him.

  Joe and Chris held Valerie tight in their arms as Trav and Jen ran after Wra. Roger followed with more agents and joined them. They all disappeared from view over the ridge. Dark clouds gathered. Thunder cracked. It felt like they waited forever.

  Suddenly, Wra came back down the hill but in bad shape. Some agents close by Wra grabbed him and held on to him while a couple others cuffed his hands and ankles so he couldn’t escape again.

  Soon Trav and Roger motioned the agents closer. They thanked everyone for helping. Then they told everyone to head home and rest.

  Joe looked over Valerie and Chris and saw the exhausted looks on their faces. “Let’s go home.”

  Everyone walked back to their vehicles and drove away.

  Joe, Chris, and Valerie were tired but had a satisfying feeling for having finally caught Wra, who was now headed to jail.

  “Hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of that criminal and his gang,” Chris said.

  “I certainly hope so,” Valerie said as she pulled Joe and Chris closer to her.

  Joe pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek just as Chris did on her other cheek.

  “I feel like relaxing in a nice shower,” Joe suggested.

  “Sounds perfect,” Valerie agreed.

  * * * *

  Joe, Chris, and Valerie had been working together since Valerie joined C.P.O.

  Joe paced in the spacious bedroom while he and Chris waited for Valerie, their treasured partner. After the three of them had gotten their showers, she’d stayed in the bathroom with the door closed. He could hear the water still running in the sink. She was taking longer than usual. Had she been hurt badly in that nightmare battle with Wra’s gang? She had been so quiet as they drove home after the battle. They’d caressed her, but she had seemed to act a little shy. What was wrong?

  Flames of anger burned through Joe with the fury still churning inside him for the now incarcerated Wra and his wolf shape-shifter gang members. The terror he’d felt when that gang had carried Valerie away from their truck before Joe and Chris could reach her slammed him in the gut even now. Thank God, they had her safe in their house and hopefully would continue to protect her. He met Chris’s angry and worried looking aqua-colored eyes as his best friend adjusted the towel he’d wrapped around his hips and took a long stride toward Joe.

  Joe couldn’t ask for a better friend than Chris.

  He knew he could trust Chris with his life and the life of their trusted third partner at C.P.O., Valerie. As members of C.P.O., with him and Chris using their wolf shapes on occasion, their friendship had helped t
he three of them in deadly situations.

  Even so, Joe felt like he had been knocked off a cliff and was falling without a safety rope as guilt punched him again. Sleep often eluded him at night as stark visions filled his mind of his dead climbing friends, killed by the fall down a sheer cliff in that massive cavern. Chris insisted what had happened back then was not their fault, but Joe worried that the climbers might have been saved if he’d reached them sooner. They might still be alive if he’d been more careful about their hike that day and realized where they were headed was a risky climb and they could be threatened by Wra’s gang.

  With his fitful sleep and nightmares keeping him from getting enough rest since their friends had died, he worried his lack of sleep dulled his reactions in dangerous situations and would continue to put his best friends in life-threatening danger.

  Today, he and Chris had been able to save their partner, their generous girlfriend, Valerie, from the gang of wolf shifters that threatened to kidnap her. Would they be as lucky next time? He needed to stay sharp and pay attention to details and possible dangers to protect his friends on the job, but his lack of adequate sleep seemed to keep him without the edge he needed. Chris and Valerie would be safer without Joe in the mix, he feared.

  His father had always berated him for overlooking details that could trip him up and cause him, and possibly those around him, serious problems. His parents had died in an accident on a highway one night when they were heading home from visiting family. Joe hadn’t been with them that night. He’d begged off going along on the trip and had stayed home on his own. He’d been a senior in high school then. He’d always felt guilty for not going with them. Maybe if he’d been with them on that trip, it would have turned out differently.

  Today, he should have given more thought to leaving Valerie’s side when they were attacked. If he hadn’t chased after the outlaw gang of wolf shifters while he’d left her alone in their truck, maybe she wouldn’t have been caught and roughed up by the gang. He’d failed to protect her today, and there was no excuse for it.

  “That was the worst fight we’ve been in. What do you think is taking Valerie so long?” Sounding as frustrated and worried as Joe felt, Chris’s soft baritone voice drew his attention. Chris raked his fingers through his sandy-colored hair.

  “I don’t know,” Joe confessed. “I hope to hell she’s not hiding an injury. She has to be bothered by what happened to her and Jen out there today.” Jen, partner of agents Roger and Trav, had been included like Valerie in the op when the C.P.O. agents had been sent after Wra and his gang that day. The operation was declared a successful one, except for Valerie and Jen being caught and held by the bastards until Chris and Joe, along with Roger and Trav, had rescued them.

  “Maybe, when Wra’s gang members grabbed her, she was hurt in some way that doesn’t show and she hasn’t told us, yet,” Joe said. “We’d best ask her. We don’t want her suffering from a hidden injury.” The three of them had some experience working together so far with search and rescue missions, and he and Chris knew very well that lots of injuries didn’t always show on the surface. He couldn’t bear for Valerie to be injured or in pain.

  He and Chris were descended from shape-shifters who changed into their wolf bodies when needed, but Valerie was pure human and couldn’t shift. Their wolf side made a difference in a fight. If members of Wra’s gang had hurt Valerie, Joe and Chris would show the bastards what hell was like.

  Chris met Joe’s worried gaze. “I say you and I make a pact to find that gang and put them behind bars for good.”

  “I agree wholeheartedly,” Joe said and clasped the hand Chris held out to make it final. “I want to protect Valerie from that gang of evil thugs. I don’t want her to be hurt.”

  Chapter Two

  “Somehow, we’ve got to arrest this gang while we’re working on this mission for C.P.O. and keep her safe. Problem is, how do we do that?” Joe jerked the towel tighter around his hips.

  “I don’t have an answer for how to keep her out of danger,” Chris said. “She wants to be involved in this operation. I just know that I don’t want her threatened while we take this gang down.”

  “I doubt that she’d agree to step back from the mission,” Joe said.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” Chris agreed.

  The three of them had worked together smoothly. Over the last year, they’d formed a close bond that included enjoying having sex together as a threesome to relax after work. Joe hadn’t brought up making their arrangement permanent because of the danger involved in their jobs. He knew that Chris felt just as protective of Valerie as he did and enjoyed giving her pleasure when they had sex with her.

  Sometimes their work included sex-play while waiting for the miscreants they chased to come out of hiding, attracted by the three of them having pleasure. He hated the thought of those gang members watching them, especially ogling Valerie.

  But it was their mission to rid this area of the gang preying on those who lived here and raised their families in this part of Texas. He and Chris had agreed to this important job, as well as previous jobs, when they’d joined C.P.O.

  Their work as mountain search and rescue agents came second now. They hadn’t done much hiking or rock climbing since they’d lost their three hiking friends in the overheated depths of that nearby cave. Their climbing group included both men and women who were also trained search and rescue agents.

  Joe and Chris, and their climbing friends, felt responsible for the death of their three climbing buddies.

  Joe and Chris and the other guys had been approached by C.P.O. about becoming agents in the organization and helping to protect other folks from the outlaw gang of shape-shifters and arresting them when they caught them. Joe and Chris and their friends had signed on with C.P.O. to help make the area safe. They were eager to bring down the gang that caused the deaths of their friends in the cave.

  Joe was haunted by his belief that he missed something, a detail that should have warned him about the danger to his climbing friends who died that day. His father had accused him of being too careless, and he had warned Joe that someday it would catch up with him and he’d be sorry. Joe had tried over the years to always be aware of the details and take care of the important ones, but he’d missed the danger that day their three friends died, and he’d missed the danger that put Valerie in harm’s way today. It haunted him, and he worried constantly about being careful of every detail in their job with C.P.O. to protect others.

  Since they’d been put to work on these jobs with Valerie, catching dangerous lawbreakers, Joe had worried all the time about her safety, afraid he’d miss something that would harm her.

  He knew that Chris suffered from the guilt of being responsible for the death of their climbing friends, as well. But Joe realized by Chris’s reactions that he handled it better, or maybe differently, than Joe did.

  Now Valerie had been roughed up on one of their run-ins with the gang of shifters, and Joe was sick with guilt that he had overlooked the danger to her, and because of that, she’d been caught by the gang and almost carried off before he and Chris could rescue her.

  They hadn’t yet told Valerie about the loss of their climbing buddies. They didn’t want their guilt and sorrow over that sad event to be a burden to her or affect their close friendship with her. In fact, Joe feared if she knew about that she might leave them.

  Joe heard a soft rustling sound and turned to see Valerie entering the bedroom from the bathroom. “Are you all right, babe?” He reached a hand out to her. She took his hand in hers, and he felt the little tremors as he held it.

  “I’m fine,” she assured him. “I was just a little slower at dressing while dealing with what happened out there today.” She’d changed into her silky floor-length nightgown and soft white terry bathrobe.

  As she leaned close and tilted her head up to kiss him, her hazel eyes shimmered, sort of a golden color with her warm expression, the gentle scent of her perfume wafting o
ver Joe. He slipped his arm around her waist and eased her close against him. Her warm breasts and sweet curves felt so good against his body that his cock responded with his need for her.

  “We never should have left you alone in the truck, thinking you’d be safe there.”

  Chris held out his hands to her, and she reached out to him and moved into his arms as he hugged her. “I’m so sorry, hon,” he said softly.

  “We wouldn’t have left you alone if we’d had any suspicion that Wra would send his men after you and Jen,” Joe added.

  “I know you wouldn’t have,” she assured them, smiling. “I heard that loud, horrific roar, and I was so worried you guys would put yourselves in danger. Then suddenly Wra’s gang surrounded Jen’s truck and ours, and Jen and I were pulled out of the cabs and dragged toward the sound of Wra shouting orders to his gang. They moved so fast. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”

  Joe held back the low growl of his wolf side as he looked up and met Chris’s gaze. He heard the quiet, menacing growl come from Chris at Valerie’s words. Joe felt his fangs lengthen slightly as he fought to control his own wolf’s reaction to the fearful threat Valerie had suffered in the clutches of Wra’s gang. His hands ached as he kept his claws sheathed.

  “We saw them race off with you,” he said. “They got the jump on us and moved faster than humanly possible. Chris and I were terrified they’d hurt you.” Joe took hold of her hands and eased her back into his arms, hugging her close, soaking up the warmth of her body against his.

  “We were desperate to reach you,” Chris said. “We had to fight through most of the gang to get to you.”

  Joe met Chris’s furious gaze as he protectively held Valerie in his arms while Chris stood close behind her, stroking her arms gently. Her hair was still damp from her shower, cool and caressing under Joe’s chin.