“I completely get why you want to kill this man, Ashley. I just met the guy today, and I already want to kill him, too,” Tate said. “But unfortunately, we can’t let you do that. So maybe we can all calm down and figure out a way to deal with this situation.”
Ashley stared at him for a few seconds before turning her attention on Chase, who was climbing to his feet and heavily favoring his left side. Then her gaze dropped to Mahsood, and the expression of distaste that crossed her features didn’t do anything to make Tate think she was ready to give up her prey. She growled and extended her claws.
Shit.
“Ashley, don’t do it,” he said softly. “Don’t make me kill you, not over this piece of crap.”
She tensed but didn’t retract her claws. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Chase drawing down on her, too. Tate really didn’t want to have to kill her.
Just when he was sure Ashley was going to take a swipe at the doctor and tear his throat out, she jerked her head up and sniffed the air. In a blink, she turned and darted off to the side, disappearing into a thick stand of evergreens.
“Okay, that can’t be good,” Chase murmured.
Tate was thinking the same thing. He spun in a circle, trying to see which direction trouble was coming from, when he heard the first gunshot. He barely registered the sound when the bullet ripped a chunk of bark out of the tree where his head had been two seconds earlier.
Cursing, he shoved Chase and Mahsood behind the nearest group of trees, tackling them to the ground as dirt erupted around them in a hail of bullets. He didn’t need to see who was shooting at them to know the people after Mahsood had finally shown up.
Chase rolled over onto his back, pulling a spare weapon magazine from his equipment belt and holding it ready for a quick change out. Tate did the same thing. Shit. Things were going to get really bad in a minute. To say they were outnumbered was an understatement. That wasn’t even taking into account the whole machine gun versus pistol thing. That was almost unfair.
Oh yeah, and there were still the two shifters somewhere around here, too.
Mahsood cowered between him and Chase. If the guy hugged the ground any tighter, he was going to start digging in like a hermit crab.
“Now probably isn’t a good time,” Chase said casually as guys with guns circled around to the left and right of them. “But are you ever going to tell me what the hell DCO stands for? Is that who you really work for?”
Tate took aim at some bushes off to his side that were starting to shake suspiciously. “What makes you think that?”
“Nothing specific,” the deputy murmured, most of his attention focused on the mercenary in black who was low-crawling behind a fallen tree on their right. “But I couldn’t help noticing that what we’re doing now sure as hell doesn’t show up as a typical Homeland mission on your website.”
“I see your point,” Tate said softly, waiting for the person behind the bush on his side to pop up and start shooting. “It’s kind of complicated—and classified—but since we’re both likely to be dead in the next few minutes, I can’t see an issue with telling you.”
“If not telling me will improve our chances of survival, feel free to keep the secret to yourself.”
Tate chuckled. If he had to be in a situation like this without Declan and the rest of his old team, he couldn’t ask for a better person than Chase. Tate appreciated people who were cool in the face of impending doom.
“The DCO is the Department of Covert Operations,” Tate said. “It’s a classified organization buried in the guts of Homeland. Few people know it exists, and even fewer realize the government uses shifters for classified intel work.”
Chase took the announcement in stride. No shock there. Nothing they’d been through had affected him yet, so why would hearing there was a secret government organization using shifters be any different?
“You don’t have a shifter you usually work with?” Chase asked, poking his head around the tree to see where the bad guys were.
Tate shrugged. “I had one, but his wife had twins recently, and now he’s home helping her take care of them. They’re trying to find me another partner, but shifters don’t grow on trees, you know?”
“Twins, huh?” Chase nodded. “That’s cool.”
Tate would have agreed, but that’s when the mercenary guy on his side popped up and started shooting. It must have been the signal for all the others, because all hell broke loose after that.
The guy on Chase’s side opened fire, too, while the two shifters—who’d quietly worked themselves all the way around until they were in front of them—jumped up and came racing at them full speed through the brush. The feline shifter had blood on his face and neck, as well as the front of his uniform. He seemed to be moving slower, too.
Tate ignored the two pissed-off shifters heading their way and instead focused on the man coming at him from the right. It was one of the guys who’d been on the stairs at Joanne’s house.
Tate was still lying on his back when he remedied that problem by putting two bullets through the man’s chest. The guy looked shocked for a second, then tumbled to the ground in a twisted pile of arms and legs.
Tate came up on one knee, his weapon swinging around fast to engage the feline shifter who was closing quickly on them. Even as he squeezed the trigger, he knew it was too late. The shifter was going to take him out before he got a shot off.
Then, out of nowhere, Ashley smashed into the feline shifter
