Twice the Pups: Paranormal SEAL Second Chance Surprise Baby Romance (Shifter Squad Nine Book 4) Read online

  Twice the Pups

  Shifter Squad Nine

  Anya Nowlan

  Contents

  A Little Taste…

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Prologue

  1. Amy

  2. Price

  3. Prowler

  4. Prowler

  5. Amy

  6. Amy

  7. Price

  8. Prowler

  9. Amy

  10. Amy

  11. Prowler

  12. Amy

  13. Price

  14. Amy

  15. Amy

  16. Price

  17. Amy

  18. Prowler

  19. Amy

  20. Prowler

  21. Amy

  22. Price

  23. Amy

  Epilogue

  The Darkest Dragon Excerpt

  Want More?

  About the Author

  Thank you for reading!

  A Little Taste…

  She twitched visibly in her seat when she heard Prowler’s laugh. It had a ghostly quality to it that she hadn’t heard ever before and it made her turn around to look at him.

  It was only the wolf twins who were walking in. She’d been expecting to see Dice with them, or the rest of the squad, but a quick calculation in her head told her that those two were really the only ones she could have expected.

  The squad’s sniper had skipped the safehouse way before the rest of them got in, having rushed home because of his kid’s ear infection with the first transport that headed toward California. Dice was probably strewn up somewhere, sleeping off his painkillers. That only left the lion twins, one of whom had suffered serious injuries and the other one had to be by his side to help with the healing.

  “Look here, it’s the cavalry,” Price called, spreading his arms in a welcoming fashion. “Boy, were we glad to see you guys.”

  The sarcasm was dripping off his tongue as he pulled up a chair and plopped down next to Amy, Prowler finding a seat to the right of Tatiana. Amy conjured up a smile, ignoring the twisting in her stomach that seemed to arrive right along with them. She wasn’t sure what it was about those two, but even when she’d read their files for the first time more than a year ago, she’d gotten a feeling about them.

  Somehow, they were different, and it bothered her that she didn’t know why they made goosebumps appear on her skin and her throat to go dry when they were around.

  It can’t be just because they’re hot as hell, she mused quietly, letting her eyes roll over the twins as they poured themselves and everyone else at the table another round of shots. I mean, they’re smoking, sure, but I’ve seen better.

  It sounded like she was trying to convince herself of something that wasn’t entirely true. In fact, the more she looked at them, those devilish grins and those pale green eyes, the more she began wondering if they were in fact the hottest men she’d ever seen. Being a career soldier, first serving in the Navy and now in The Firm, she’d seen a lot of delectable men in her time.

  These two? They seemed to stand head and shoulders above the rest for some reason. Another thing that she couldn’t put her finger on.

  Though I’d love to run my fingers all over these guys, she thought, biting down on the inside of her mouth to keep from blushing.

  “What about it, Marguiles? Will you drink with us? For saving our asses?” Prowler asked, raising the glass in toast.

  He didn’t sound quite as ironic as his brother had and with a sigh, exchanging glances with Roy and Tatiana first, Amy took the glass and held it up. Nothing quite like some alcohol to burn the memories of a shitty day out of her head.

  “Salut. And here’s to hoping I never have to bail another Shifter Squad Nine out of some deep shit,” she said.

  “Here’s to hoping you do,” Price added with a shit-eating grin that got him a quick punch in the arm by Roy.

  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.

  Twice the Pups

  Shifter Squad Nine

  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

  Prologue

  Price

  Eight years ago…

  “We’re not getting out of here, you realize that, right?”

  “Shut up, Jackson,” Price growled, crawling on his belly across the few feet of space that separated him from the edge of their makeshift foxhole.

  The moment he got his helmeted head over the line, a barrage of gunfire whined over his head, making him duck down again.

  “Told you,” Jackson snorted.

  “We’ve been through worse,” Price said, trying his damndest to sound nonchalant.

  It was getting more difficult by the moment. Their squad leader was lying in a pool of his own blood about twenty feet out of the hole Price and Jackson were cooped up in. Andrew, the medic, had died about an hour into the firefight. Price hadn’t seen Prowler in at least forty minutes now and though he was sure his twin brother wasn’t dead yet, it was beginning to look drearier by the second.

  “It’ll be an easy mission, they said. In and out in half an hour, they said,” Price snorted, bringing up his rifle and reloading it.

  They’d been cooped up in defensive positions for twelve hours now. Night was falling quickly around them and the whole squad was thrown over a large swatch of land. Price had lost count of how many men had already died or were so badly wounded they would likely not make it back to the transports.

  Frankly, if anyone was going to make it out of the goddamn jungle alive, it would have been a win for the good guys. Which, currently, was supposedly his squad.

  “Who’s squad lead at the moment anyway?” he asked, tossing Jackson a look.

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “You’re the idiot keeping track of comms, that’s how,” Price growled, feeling his grip tighten on his rifle.

  Tempers flaring was nothing new during missions when men were being pushed to their breaking points. He and Jackson had a good camaraderie outside of missions usually and Price was certain they’d play nice if and when they got out of this particular rendition of hell. Until then, he was going to be as snappy as he goddamn needed to.

  Where the fuck is Prowler? he thought, wanting to crawl up again to take another look but knowing damn well that he’d only lose his head for it.

  They were stuck in the middle of the South American jungles. This time, they hadn’t even been told where they were getting dropped. Some maps were shoved into their hands during mission briefing, marking gathering points and entrance vectors and that was that. That had happened sixteen hours ago. They were supposed to be back at the base at least eight hours ago now.

  So far, it didn’t look entirely promising that they’d get out of there before dawn, if then.

  “Um, Price?”

  “What now?” Price growled, staring at the line behind him where they
’d come from in loose formation twelve hours ago.

  They’d barely moved ten feet forward since the initial attack that wiped out close to half the squad. It was feeling more like Vietnam than a casual raid on a terrorist cell, which was supposed to only take a couple of rounds and some good ol’ US Navy SEALs moxie.

  “I think you’re the current squad leader,” Jackson offered with a frown.

  “What?” Price barked, snapping his neck to stare at Jackson. “There’s like six people who should be ahead of me.”

  “Well, they’re all either dead or close to dead, so, tough fucking luck,” Jackson snarled back.

  They may have been at one another’s throats but it had little to do with their mutual feelings. Price’s gut twisted just like he knew Jackson’s was. Those six men weren’t only their superiors, but their friends, brothers and family. Any Navy SEAL lost was a hit to the whole force, but if they’d lost that many high-ranking officers already, then that meant that there really couldn’t have been much left of the squad altogether.

  “Right,” Price said, letting out a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. “So I guess we need to get the fuck out of here, then.”

  “That’d be advisable, presumably,” Jackson snorted back in a mocking tone, though they were both keeping their voices low.

  The enemy had somehow surrounded them completely. What was left of the squad had found cover amid the tall trees and the slight sloping dips in the ground left by a dried up river. Any time someone tried to poke their head up to return fire, another guy would end up getting wounded.

  So what are my options?

  Backup was virtually out of the question. They were so far from the nearest base that it would have taken hours for another squad to arrive and as far as Price knew, they were the only ones in South America at the moment anyway. The best they could hope for was some scrub-team flying in to collect their bodies before those terrorist chumps paraded their corpses around on the internet.

  The mission was supposed to be so deep undercover that none of them was wearing any identifying tags or gear. Everything was scrubbed camo, devoid of identification. If they got pinned down and died and their bodies couldn’t be retrieved, then they’d be added to a painful list of Missing In Action names, their families never to know what happened to them.

  Andrew had two kids, Price thought bitterly. Snap out of it.

  He shook his head, taking a deep breath. This was no time to get emotional. He had to think, keep his head on straight.

  The transports were too far. He was one of the pilots so he knew well enough where the damn choppers had been left. When they’d flown in, he had been joking that it would be easier to just carpet bomb the whole place. They had the firepower.

  Price was beginning to think that his instincts had been more right than he could have assumed.

  Night was falling fast and visibility was falling by the second. Price pursed his lips, taking another deep breath. He wasn’t afraid, just angry. Angry at the friends he had already lost and the ones he would lose over the course of trying to get the hell out of that damned forest.

  If I never see another jungle for the rest of my life, I’ll be perfectly happy with it.

  “Okay. Here’s what we do,” Price said, looking at Jackson. “Get everyone on the radios that you can.”

  He explained his plan briefly and Jackson nodded, relaying the message to the rest of the men, cooped up in their holes and hideouts. Price’s words echoed back to him in his ear, the in-ear radio links having several channels – one for general chatter and then others for specialized fire teams, etc. Jackson had been communicating over the radio ops channel before, but now he was broadcasting Price’s orders on the general line.

  The number of confirmations Price received back made his stomach lurch. There weren’t a lot of them left anymore.

  “Wait a bit more,” he told Jackson as the man was rechecking his assault rifle for the umpteenth time. “We have the upper hand in the darkness.”

  “Unless they’re all shifters,” Jackson growled back.

  Price shrugged. It wasn’t unheard of, and they hadn’t been told much. Mission briefing had detailed an outpost that needed to be wiped from the face of the earth, claiming that the men who ran it were dealing with some serious genetic engineering and mutation research that could become a major issue if they weren’t shut down fast and hard.

  What they’d neglected to mention was that the outpost was one of three in the area and while the defenses had been described as ‘weak to nonexistent,’ in all actuality, Price’s squad had been met with overwhelming firepower and ambushed nearly a mile outside of the outpost borders. Whoever they were after had known that they were coming.

  Price had barely gotten a look at them. The one man he’d stared down, and ultimately shot, had had bright blue eyes and blond hair to accompany his farmer’s tan. They obviously weren’t local, but apparently that information was another one of the Navy’s ‘on a need to know basis’ little tidbits.

  Price breathed in slowly, willing calm to spread through him as thoroughly as he could. His wolf had been snarling and scratching at the borders of his consciousness for hours now, demanding to be let out and getting shoved deeper and deeper down again whenever it did so. Price would have loved to let the animal loose on his foes, but as the situation stood he was more likely to get shot in wolf form than he was in human form.

  Pretty damn hard to miss a large, mostly white but black-marked wolf with golden eyes running around in the goddamn jungle. At least in his human form he had camo to help him blend in a little.

  When the sun dropped behind a nearby mountain peak, Price counted seconds for the darkness to engulf the forest. It came rapidly, like someone had thrown a blanket over them. Just as Price was about to give the order for everyone to move out, to take flanking positions and to retrieve the dead, a hail of gunfire whined over his head.

  “Shit, are they coming?” he hissed, flipping around and crawling up a bit in an attempt to see what was going on.

  “I don’t think so,” Jackson replied. “They seem to be shooting at something to the left of us.”

  “I thought we were the furthest left,” Price said, frowning.

  A moment later, his question was answered when the tall, broad body of his younger brother came diving into the foxhole, landing right across Price and Jackson with a thud, laughing his ass off. Prowler’s ghostly, unnerving laugh sounded hollow and mirthless. It always had this certain manic tone to it, but Price had never heard his brother sound quite so… haunted.

  “What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?” Price snarled. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “Could I have?” Prowler asked, meeting Price’s pale green gaze with his own. “I thought we were generally doing a pretty good job of that. But if you think I deserve a gold star for it, I’ll of course accept the laudation.”

  “Shut up,” Price said with a sigh, his soft, melodic voice a stark contrast against his twin’s.

  Prowler was about ten minutes younger than Price. The Renard twins were the firstborn sons of the Blood Moon Alpha couple, the first and the last. Their mother died during childbirth and their father soon after during a power struggle between the neighboring packs.

  The twins had managed to stay together, being raised by remnants of their once proud pack first, and then by the state later.

  After one too many run-ins with the law, they’d received the charming ultimatum that many young hoodlums did. Face charges and land in jail or go into the service. They’d chosen the military and so far, it had been the one thing they’d managed to get right in their lives.

  At times like these, though, Price had to wonder if their choice had been the correct one.

  “Where were you?” Price asked as Prowler wiggled between him and Jackson, cradling his rifle like it was a lifeline.

  “Oh, well, I was hanging out with Mackey until he bit the dust,” Prowler said, his voice pe
rfectly conversational. “And then I found Joe, and well, then he died. And then I heard your little plan and I figured I’d come find someone who isn’t dead yet so I’d have some company when the next one bites the bullet.”

  “Aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Jackson commented, his voice far flatter than Prowler’s sing-songy rendition of what he had been doing for the majority of the day.

  Price cast him a look, their pale green eyes meeting once, with Prowler’s flashing gold for the slightest moment before he broke the exchange.

  I know how you feel, brother.

  “So, are we gonna go or what?” Prowler asked after a second of tense silence.

  “Guess now’s as good of a time as any,” Price said with a shrug. “Call it, Jackson.”

  The moment they burst into movement, Jackson got taken down like a pigeon on the first day of open season, his head exploding like a watermelon being dropped on concrete.

  Prologue

  Prowler

  Eight years ago…

  This is going great, Prowler mused darkly as he followed in his brother’s path, ducking and rolling between shots and taking cover behind trees when he could.

  They were trying to make it back to the helicopters. Within the first thirty seconds it had become obvious that no matter what plan they concocted, their enemy was hell-bent on making sure that not a single US Navy SEAL got out of that jungle alive that day.

  Snipers had trained their sights on every single one of the foxholes that could be identified and dropped most of the remainder of the squad with their first shots. Price and Prowler had gotten ‘lucky’ because Jackson had taken the first bullet. The second one was lodged somewhere in Price’s ribcage and the third was embedded nice and deep in Prowler’s thigh.

  Then again, Prowler also had a gaping wound from a grazed bullet running across his abdomen and he couldn’t be sure but he thought he had another round in his shoulder blade. That, or he’d simply lost the capability to raise his left arm higher than shoulder height all of a sudden.