A united shifter force c.., p.1
A United Shifter Force Christmas, page 1
A UNITED SHIFTER FORCE CHRISTMAS
TERRY SPEAR
CONTENTS
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Epilogue
Author Bio
Also by Terry Spear
Wilde Ink Publishing
A United Shifter Force Christmas
Previously published as part of the Shifters and Mistletoe Anthology.
Copyright © 2021 by Terry Spear
Cover Copyright by Terry Spear
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Discover more about Terry Spear at:
http://www.terryspear.com/
Print ISBN: 978-1-63311-083-0
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63311-082-3
Ashiline Chand, thanks so much for giving my wolf books and jaguar shifters a try! Hoping you always have plenty of fun stories to read!
SYNOPSIS
Rowdy Sanderson, a special agent for the United Shifter Force, a group of jaguars and wolves who aid shifters in trouble and deal with those who are trouble, isn’t even one of them. But he wants to be a wolf in the worst way. When a special agent needs help at her USF branch in Ely, Minnesota, he volunteers because he’s the only one in Houston without a family for the holidays. Maybe he will still get his Christmas wish—to be a wolf shifter like some of his friends and coworkers so he will have their “superpowers” to do his job.
Justine Winters is grateful the director of the USF is sending a special agent to her branch in Ely to aid her if she gets swamped. He’s really hot, according to the photos the director sent her of Rowdy, but is he a wolf or a jaguar? Preferably a wolf. But then she learns he’s human! No one’s supposed to know that shifters exist. No way will he be able to sniff out shifters and assist her. She reluctantly agrees to accept him—figuring she’ll have to put him on desk duty.
All that changes when she meets the real man—who desperately wants to be a wolf, who grows on her just like the director said he would, who risks his life for shifters, who she defends to others of her kind for working with the USF. But being the one to bite him has consequences and nothing’s turning out the way she planned.
1
“As you know, we started a United Shifter Force (USF) branch in Ely, Minnesota,” Martin Sullivan said to the gathered wolves and jaguars of the branch in Houston, Texas. The jaguar shifter was the director of the special elite force of the jaguar shifter force known as the JAG or Golden Claw. When they began having issues with wolves and jaguars working together in criminal pursuits, he formed the United Shifter Force and was also the director over that.
“We need to loan out one of our special agents from this location to assist the lone agent up there until we can hire someone more permanent. I thought we would be able to hire an agent before this, but I haven’t had any luck, especially during the holidays. The jaguars with our organization prefer to stay more in the south. The wolves and jaguars have family here and have plans to spend Christmas with them,” Martin said.
Rowdy Sanderson figured something like this might happen when Martin couldn’t hire another shifter to help the agent out, and he raised his hand. “I volunteer.” He was the only human who worked for the organization, and he had no family to spend the holidays with.
Formerly a homicide detective, he was from Bigfork, Montana, when, during his investigations, he learned both wolf and jaguar shifters existed. Normally, someone would have turned or eliminated him, but for helping them solve a case, they allowed him to join the organization.
For the winter, he would love working in the north instead of Texas. With volunteering to go to Minnesota, he was looking forward to seeing some snow.
One of the jaguar families had invited him to join them for Christmas Eve dinner, and one of the wolf families wanted him to have Christmas dinner with them. They truly were like one big shifter family—despite his being a human in a mix of shifters.
Otherwise, he was free to help another agent in the USF who needed his assistance.
“All right. Thanks, Rowdy. You’re always great for stepping in to help us out,” Martin said, looking vastly relieved that he didn’t have to “volunteer” someone else for the assignment.
Rowdy didn’t mind, though he thoroughly enjoyed working with the shifters here and they understood his desire to be one of them, body and soul. A wolf though, not a jaguar. He thought he would blend in better as a wolf in most places, and he just had an affinity for the wolves, more so than with the jaguars. He had solid friendships with the jaguars too, but he wanted to be a wolf versus a big cat. Though he had to remind himself the jaguars had no shifting issues with the full moon phase like newly turned wolves did. And he could still shift during the new moon, unlike with new wolves.
Still, working with someone up north who had no knowledge of his situation as far as him being human could be a problem. The shifters used their heightened senses of smell and hearing and night vision to work on their cases, all of which he was sorely lacking. Their missions were to help shifters in need of assistance and incarcerate or eliminate those—depending on the severity of the situation—who were causing trouble.
He felt he had to stay in their good graces because their motto was to turn someone who knew what they were or eliminate him. None of the lupus garou wanted to turn Rowdy and have to babysit him when he would have shifting issues during the full moon phase. And nobody wanted to terminate him because he really was good at his job.
“When did you need me up there?”
“Yesterday.”
Rowdy smiled. “Yes, sir. Merry Christmas, everyone. I’ll see you when I return.”
The women gave him hugs and well wishes. The guys slapped him on the back and shook his hand. He knew they were glad he was the one who was going and not any of them. He figured this was the best Christmas gift he could give his coworkers that really meant something to them.
He just hoped the guy he was going to be working with in Ely wouldn’t want to terminate him when he arrived!
Special Agent Justine Winters was thrilled Martin Sullivan was loaning her one of his agents located at the USF branch in Houston to assist her on the job at her branch in Ely, Minnesota until the director could hire someone suitable for a permanent position where she was located.
“I’ll call you back as soon as I know who I’ll be sending.” Martin hadn’t had any success so far in hiring someone and she hoped that the guy he was sending would be amenable to hanging around for a while if it took some time—though she really needed to wait to see if she and he were even compatible to be thinking such a thing.
As a gray wolf, she’d been excited to open the Ely branch, having been a former police detective in Minneapolis, civilian police department, of course. When she learned jaguar shifters were attempting to open a United Shifter Force branch in other areas, she jumped at the chance to leave the city and move to Ely where here parents still lived.
She’d already had to track down two teen bear shifters who had raided farmers’ beehives back in September. She’d thought they’d been regular bears, but she’d smelled their deodorant and shampoo when she’d investigated. Once she’d caught them red handed—well, pawed—while raiding yet another farmer’s beehive, she had turned them over to their bear sleuth leader to deal with them.
An Arctic wolf pack lived in the area too, some working as private investigators, who had kindly offered to do any investigations she needed as a courtesy to her since she was a wolf too—though a gray—and on her own.
Martin called her back. “Okay, I’ve got confirmation that Rowdy Sanderson will be heading up your way shortly. He’s gone home to pack. He’s a former homicide detective with the Bigfork, Montana police department and began working with the USF shortly after it was formed.” Martin sent her some pictures of Rowdy.
Her jaw dropped. He was drop-dead sexy, muscled, dark eyes that were alight with mischief, dark hair like hers, and he wore a trim beard—in a word, gorgeous. If she had any trouble with unruly shifters, she was siccing Rowdy on them. Muscles on top of muscles, he looked like he could handle any trouble that came his way. Though he wore a hint of a smile that was at once charming and disarming at the same time.
He was probably mated. Or a jaguar shifter.
She frowned at the rest of the pictures Martin sent to her of Rowdy where he appeared to be in the middle of survival training, shirtless in every one of them, showing off all those spectacular muscles, glistening with sweat in the sun.
“How come you don’t have any of him with his shirt on?” she asked, before she could stop herself. Not that she minded eyeing the veritable hunk sans shirt, but she just thought it odd that the director wouldn’t be sending her an official photo of him—fully dressed.
“I couldn’t find his official USF photo, just the ones of him that were taken while he was in training when he had his shirt off. I suspect one of our she-cats took the pictures and uploaded them in his personal file to tease her mate. Maybe a couple o
If they’d been humans in a human organization, they could have been in trouble for sexual harassment. But as shifters, they didn’t see it that way.
Justine chuckled. She wished, in a way, that she worked with them in the same branch since she’d heard they really enjoyed working with each other, but she loved the cold winters here. She couldn’t imagine feeling the Christmas spirit in hot Texas. Besides, she’d finally gotten a job close to home, so she was staying here.
Then she realized Rowdy had to be unmated, or the mated women wouldn’t be showing off his abs. She smiled. Hmm, maybe Justine could convince him to stay here permanently and work with her. If she liked him.
“One other thing.”
She didn’t like the ominous tone of Martin’s voice. Now she suspected he was sending her trouble. Maybe Rowdy lived up to his name and didn’t get along with the agents at the Houston branch and that’s why he volunteered to come up here. But was he a wolf? Or a jaguar?
“Rowdy is human.”
“What?” She had every reason to be shocked at the news. Humans didn’t work for the USF! She couldn’t imagine having a human working for them and they would have to hide what they were or what they were looking for—shifters in trouble or causing trouble.
“He knows about us. About wolves and jaguars and he’s an excellent agent.”
If Martin thought he was such a great agent, why was he foisting Rowdy off on her?
“Just work with him. You’ll see.”
“He can’t even identify a shifter from a human. And if I have to track down a shifter and interrogate him or her, the shifter perp probably won’t want to confess anything in front of a human and fear giving away our secrets.” She thought Rowdy could be a real liability.
“It’s your branch. You do what you want with him. Give him desk duty. We did for the first six months he worked for us for the same reason you’re probably reluctant to work with him. But he truly is damn good at his job, and he’ll be a real asset if you give him half a chance.”
Here, after seeing the pictures of the half-naked hunk, she was looking forward to taking Rowdy home to show him off to her family even. If he had been a wolf.
But he wasn’t even a shifter? What a waste of such a beautiful body.
“All right? He’s on his way, eager to help, but he’ll understand if you don’t feel you can trust him right away and sideline him for a while.”
“Why are you sending him and not a wolf? Or a jaguar?” She had to keep reminding herself they were a united shifter force of the two and that even Martin was a jaguar himself and had hired her.
“All the other agents are married and it’s getting so close to Christmas that they’re spending the holidays with family. Rowdy doesn’t have any family.”
Now she felt like a real heel.
“I needed someone to volunteer. We don’t know how long it will take before we can hire another shifter to work with you. So in the meantime, Rowdy volunteered. We can always swap him out with someone else after the holidays.”
Justine chewed on her bottom lip. “All right.” She should be grateful Martin was sending her anyone to work with her this close to the holidays. Rowdy could answer the phones and do investigations from the office.
“What cases do you have right now?” Martin asked.
Martin didn’t normally ask her about her caseload though it was important to know how busy she was really going to be to justify having another body working in the office. “I had a case of some people stealing Christmas trees, but when I looked into it, they were human, and I turned them over to the police. I’ve got to meet with the bear sleuth leader over the issue of the teens breaking into beehives in September and see how they’re doing. I’ve had a lot of random cases that have been keeping me busy but not overwhelmed.”
“Okay, good. So you’re really not swamped with cases right now.”
“No. Just a few minor incidents have arisen, but I’m managing. At least for this week.” But she and Martin knew that what was fine right now could turn into a disaster if she didn’t have help and she got a couple of bad cases. Like she had last week. But she couldn’t quit thinking about Rowdy and how he knew about the shifters, and he hadn’t been turned or terminated. “So about Rowdy, is he afraid one of you might turn him?”
“No. He wants to be a wolf and have superpowers.”
“Superpowers.”
“Yeah. Our increased longevity, quicker healing abilities, and how effective our senses are compared to humans. He feels he would be much more of an asset if he was a shifter like us. But he prefers to be a wolf. Of course it all depends on if a wolf is willing to turn him.”
“Well, if you, or he, have any notion I’m going to turn him, you both can forget it.”
“I’m just sending him up there to help if you need it. He’ll have lodging at one of the hotels that the USF will pay for, or he might stay at a wolf-run cabin, his choice.”
“Thanks. I’m grateful, truly.”
“You’ll like Rowdy. Even though he’s a human, he grows on everyone. I’ll check in with you later, or if you really don’t suit, just send him back to us.” Martin didn’t say he’d send anyone else to replace him, she noted.
“Right.” No way would she send him packing. She’d put him to work and make do somehow just in case the workload picked up and she was swamped.
2
Two days later, Rowdy arrived in Ely at White Birch Resort on the north shore of Birch Lake, everything covered in about a half a foot of snow. Several of the trees, all the cabins, the main house, and the lodge were decorated in Christmas lights at the wolf-run resort. It really was cheery to see it after the long drive up here. He figured he’d enjoy the lake at night after he finished work, if he was off. In this business, he never knew what the situation would entail. He wished he was a shifter so he could take care of cases on his own. Instead, he was dependent on the shifters to tell him who was one and who required assistance or who needed to be taken into custody and charged with a crime.
He dropped his bags on the cabin’s wood floor and saw a Christmas tree decorated in wolves and bows in the living room. He smiled, then called the USF office here to talk to the agent running the branch. “Hi, this is Rowdy Sanderson, ready to report for duty.”
“Justine Winters, your temporary boss. You must have driven hours and hours yesterday to get in by lunch today.” She sounded surprised.
“I did, but I wanted to be here if you needed me. No sense in prolonging the journey.”
“You’re not a workaholic, are you?”
“A bit of one.”
“Okay, well, if you haven’t had lunch, eat, and then join me at the office.” She gave him the address, though Martin had already given it to him.
“Thanks. I’ll run to the store and get some things to stock the kitchen and be at the office in a little while.”
“All right. No rush. I’m going to have some lunch at home, and I’ll see you when you get to the office.”
“See you then.” Rowdy ended the call and headed to the store. He had been trying to get a read on Justine while having the brief conversation with her. Martin must have told her he was human. From the tone of her voice on the phone, she seemed all right with it. Not overwhelmingly welcoming, but he figured he would have to prove to her he could do the job, just as he had done with the others he had worked with. It didn’t sound like she had anything pressing to take care of and that was good while he got settled in. Though he was always ready to work on a mission at a moment’s notice.
At the grocery store, he grabbed several items to set up housekeeping, a couple of choice steaks, and a microwave lasagna to make for lunch, then returned to the cabin. He loved the cabin and setting. From the back windows, he could see the lake, and though he felt it was too cold to sit out to eat—he needed to become acclimated to the colder winter up here—he could enjoy the vista from the living room.
