Her Rogue Alpha (X-Ops Book 5) Read online

  Ignoring the stool, Jayson stood beside the table instead and broke down the 9mm by habit. Maintenance was usually the part most people hated about target shooting, but he didn’t mind. It was cathartic in a way. And outside of pricks like Powell and Moore, he got to spend a good deal of his time working with field agents who actually cared about being able to shoot straight and hit what they were aiming at. It was damn tough training people to go out on missions when he’d never get a chance to go himself, but it was better than not being involved in anything important at all.

  At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

  The continuous throbbing in Jayson’s back as he stood at the worktable cleaning the Beretta reminded him that he’d pushed himself too hard today—again. The little railroad spike of pain when he’d bent over before was just the frosting on the cake. He was going to pay for all of it tonight. Usually, if the muscles in his back tightened up this much by noon, it almost guaranteed they’d be spasming uncontrollably by the time he went to bed that night. He wouldn’t be sleeping much, that was for sure. No matter what he did, he was in some kind of pain. It was like a shadow that followed him wherever he went.

  Fucking great.

  He had no one to blame but himself. Even though he was walking better now, his doctors warned him to use his cane as much as possible, but he hated leaning on the damn thing when anyone was around. He didn’t want to look weak in front of people, especially assholes like Powell and Moore. Of course, he rarely used his cane at home either, at least not when Layla was there. Of all the people he hated looking broken in front of, she topped the list. Unfortunately, when he pushed himself too hard, he ended up limping a lot, which made him look weak anyway.

  Jayson set down the slide he’d just cleaned and ran his hand through his short, dark-blond hair with a sigh. He still did all the physical therapy as well as the breathing and visualization techniques he’d learned, but those things didn’t mix well with a full-time job. Truthfully, it was getting harder and harder to find the motivation to keep doing them anyway. On good days, he wondered if he was going to be living with the pain for the rest of his life. On bad days, he wondered if what he had could even be called a life—and why he even bothered getting out of bed.

  It was during those dark times that he was glad the doctors had pulled him off the heavy-duty narcotics. He didn’t want to think about where his head would be if he had access to bottles of the mind-numbing crap he’d been living on before he’d met Layla. Right now, he was making do with over-the-counter painkillers and prescription muscle relaxants.

  And Layla’s constant support.

  He wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to last since he seemed to be blowing the only chance he had with her. When she walked out of his life… Well, something told him he wasn’t going to last too long.

  Jayson swallowed hard and picked up the barrel of the Beretta, practically attacking it with the cleaning cloth. He could see himself pushing her away even while he was shouting at himself to stop messing up the only good thing he had going in his life. Yet he couldn’t seem to stop.

  He didn’t understand what the hell was wrong with him. He was in love with Layla, had been since the moment they’d met. He loved every inch of her, from her feline grace and beauty to her quiet strength and patience. But every time he opened his mouth to tell her that, the dumbest shit possible came rolling out. And when he wasn’t saying something provoking and hurtful, he was ignoring her.

  A few months ago, when Layla had first confessed she was a shifter and worked for a secret organization called the DCO, they’d been on the verge of sleeping together. These days they barely talked, much less touched. He hadn’t kissed her like a man was supposed to kiss his girlfriend in weeks.

  He knew she was just about at the end of her rope with him. He was surprised she’d put up with his childish crap this long. On good days, he was an angry, broken man without much of a future. On bad days, he was barely tolerable, even to himself. Why the hell a woman like Layla hung around with him in the first place was a mystery to him. Sooner or later, she was going to wise up and figure out he was a lost cause, then leave his ass.

  The mere thought of the one bright spot in his life not being there was depressing as shit. Having Landon and John Loughlin, the director of the DCO, help him land this gig had given some purpose to his life lately, but there were days having a job involving open access to loaded weapons didn’t seem like the best thing for a guy like him. All he had to do was pick one up and put it to his head…

  He determinedly pushed those thoughts aside, refusing to let his mind even go down that path. He knew from experience—in his first few months after coming back from Afghanistan—that depression was a self-fulfilling prophesy. The more you thought about how shitty things were, the bleaker things looked.

  He finished cleaning the Beretta and moved on to the other weapons that had been used this morning. He kept everything carefully segregated as he pulled off the slides and took out the various parts, checking each piece for damage and unusual wear marks as he did so. He was so lost in the rhythm of it that he didn’t even realize someone had come into the building until he heard the sound of footsteps on rough concrete. He looked up and saw Dick Coleman, the DCO’s deputy director, standing there.

  “Thought I’d find you here.” Dick smiled, nodding at the disassembled weapons on the table. “You want some help with these?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he took off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a nearby stool, then rolled up his sleeves and began cleaning one of the Colts. Jayson wasn’t surprised. While Dick might be the second most powerful man in the organization, he was easy to talk to and always willing to lend a hand as well as an ear. The guy was a good thirty years older than Jayson and had the gray in his hair to prove it, but they never had a problem finding something to talk about.

  Dick held one of the .45 barrels up to the light to inspect the chamber area, his gray eyes narrowing as he checked it for wear. “I didn’t notice you in the cafeteria for lunch, so I thought I’d come down and see how you’re doing.”

  “I wanted to get these cleaned up first,” Jayson said. “I was planning to go up later to get something.”

  One look at Dick’s expression told Jayson his boss knew he was full of crap, but the older man didn’t call him on it.

  “You spend too much time down here by yourself,” Dick said. “I appreciate all the work you do for us, but no one expects you to work your fingers to the bone, you know.”

  How could he tell his boss that he didn’t like going to the cafeteria during the normal rush because he hated the idea of everyone watching him slowly shamble across the room with his tray?

  Dick picked up another barrel and ran a bore brush through it. “I see the lessons you’re giving Layla on that SIG Sauer she’s partial to are really paying off. She looks great on the training exercises.”

  Jayson grimaced. Layla’s training was a love/hate issue for him. He wanted her to succeed, but it also reminded him that she was moving toward a life he could never be part of. Knowing she was doing things he used to be able to do and couldn’t do now was hard as hell. He knew it was shallow and petty, but knowing that didn’t change the way he felt.

  Jayson hadn’t been the one who’d taught Layla to shoot though. As much as it hurt to think about anyone other than him teaching her anything, at the end of the day, he was proud of her and everything she’d accomplished. He wouldn’t dream of trying to take credit for it.

  “Nah,” he said. “She’s doing that all on her own.”

  “If you say so.” On the other side of the table, Dick didn’t look convinced. “You know, when John told me that Layla was going to train to be a field agent, I thought it was a mistake. Even if she is a shifter, she’s still a psychologist, one with nothing in her background to even suggest she’d have the skills t
o be an operative. But I was wrong. She’s learning faster than almost anyone I’ve ever seen. In fact, I heard John mention she’ll be going on a mission soon.”

  Jayson almost dropped the lower frame piece he was working on. Of all the things Dick could have said, that was the one thing Jayson least wanted to hear.

  “That’s good,” he mumbled.

  While he was thrilled for her, he couldn’t stop the nagging voice in the back of his head that kept reminding him that once Layla proved herself ready for full-time fieldwork, she’d be one step closer to the very worst part of this whole deal—getting a partner.

  No matter how proud of her he was, he was never going to be happy about her going into the field with someone other than him. It would almost certainly be a man because all the female shifters were paired up with guys who were ex-military or ex–law enforcement. Jayson tried not to be jealous and failed miserably—mostly because he knew how close DCO agents had to get to do their jobs. That’s how his former A-team commander-turned-DCO-agent Landon Donovan and his partner Ivy had ended up married, even though no one in the DCO “officially” knew it. Wolf shifter Clayne Buchanan and his fiancée Danica Beckett had gotten together as a result of some mission to hunt down a serial killer in California, while Declan and Kendra MacBride had fallen in love while on the run from crazed hybrids in the rainforest of Costa Rica. Heck, even Angelo Rios, another former Special Forces guy, and his quiet hybrid partner, Minka Pajari, had gotten seriously close during their first mission in Tajikistan.

  The thought that Layla would be out there spending a bunch of time with another man—laughing, bonding, and probably realizing she was wasting her life with him—just about tore out his guts.

  On the flip side, Jayson also worried that Layla would end up with an asshole partner who wouldn’t watch her back—like Powell or Moore. If she was paired with one of those idiots, he’d never be able to sleep again.

  “What kind of person do you think Layla would match up well with?” Dick asked, as if reading his thoughts. “As a partner in the field, I mean.”

  Jayson’s grip tightened on the slide as he tried to breathe through a pain in his chest that hurt more than any back spasm ever could. Asking him which man he thought would be a good partner for Layla was a question he couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer.

  If Dick noticed his reaction, he didn’t mention it. “Personally, I think the two of you would make a great team.”

  Another spike of pain stabbed him. He swallowed hard. “Yeah, well I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.”

  Dick glanced up from the spring he was meticulously cleaning. “But what if it could?”

  Jayson frowned. “What do you mean by that? You know how screwed up my back is.”

  Dick shrugged and went back to cleaning. “Some of our doctors have been working on a serum that might be able to repair the damage.”

  Jayson froze. His heart began thumping harder even as he told himself to be wary. “You mean a hybrid serum?”

  “Basically, yes. But it’s nothing like the stuff that was used on Tanner and Minka,” he added quickly. “While the basis for this new drug is the hybrid serum we’ve been studying, our doctors have refined it. They’ve eliminated the negative side effects, like the rage, and have optimized the serum so that the person who takes it gets the strength, speed, and healing abilities of a shifter without any of the more extreme physical attributes, such as claws and fangs.”

  Jayson stared at him, afraid to believe what he was hearing. If what Dick said was true, a serum like that could heal his injuries. “And this stuff is safe?”

  Dick nodded. “Absolutely. It’s already gone through a thorough review and animal testing. Now that we’re ready for human trials, I immediately thought of you.”

  Jayson didn’t say anything. Was Dick telling him this because he thought a veteran with a screwed-up back would be a good candidate or because he thought he was desperate enough to agree to take an experimental drug?

  Jayson’s first instinct was to say hell no. He didn’t like being the crippled guy everyone stared at when he walked down the street, but he wasn’t crazy enough to voluntarily take a drug that might kill him. He’d heard what the hybrid serum had done to Tanner Howland and Minka Pajari. Besides having to fight the animal inside them for control every day, they were also subject to violent rages. He didn’t want any part of a drug like that. But as Dick went on to explain how thoroughly the new serum had been tested and how it wouldn’t merely heal the damage that fucking RPG had done to his back, but also help him get back to the man he’d been before—maybe a little better—Jayson found himself considering it.

  “At least think about it,” Dick suggested when Jayson didn’t say anything. “I won’t lie and say there aren’t any risks involved here. But you’re a soldier and you understand that sometimes you have to take some of those risks. Look me in the eye and tell me that the possibility of you walking without pain stabbing you in the back every time you take a step or covering Layla’s ass in a firefight on a mission—hell, maybe even picking her up and carrying her across the threshold someday—isn’t worth a little risk?”

  Jayson couldn’t tell him that. Because when Dick put it that way, of course the risk was worth it. But there was also the minor fact that something could go wrong when he took the drug. Then there wouldn’t be any issues with back pain or covering Layla’s ass in a firefight or carrying her across a threshold either. Because he’d be dead.

  * * *

  Layla carefully wiped the dust off the large picture frame sitting on the top shelf of the bookcase in Jayson’s living room. The photo of the tall, handsome soldier dressed in military camouflage with gleaming stars on his collar and the smiling, beautiful woman at his side was one of the few keepsakes Jayson still had of his parents. He treated it like the most precious thing in the world, so she did too.

  Jayson had told her about his parents a little while after they’d first met, back when he’d still been at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. They’d died in a house fire several years earlier while he’d been finishing up his senior year at West Point. He’d barely had the chance to process what had happened, bury his parents, and come to grips with the fact that the only family he’d ever had was gone before he had to ship out for Special Forces training less than a week later. He never talked about it, but Layla got the feeling that not having the time to grieve properly had been the hardest part of the whole thing for Jayson.

  After she finished dusting, Layla looked around, checking to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. That was unlikely considering she’d been cleaning for the last three hours. Luckily, she’d finished training with Ivy and Landon around noon, so she’d been able to come over and clean up before Jayson got home. Even though he knew she was just trying to help him out, he still got touchy about her cleaning his apartment, like he thought her doing it meant he was less of a man. Trying to make a relationship work with Jayson was harder than she’d ever imaged it would be. She’d been in love with him practically from the moment they’d met, but to say he was pushing her away as hard as he could was an understatement. She knew it was all wrapped up in a complicated knot thanks to his injuries, his lack of self-worth, and, at some level, a fear of losing her. Sometimes she expected him to come home, find her there, and tell her to get out and not come back. There were times when it was that bad. The thought of him breaking up with her brought tears to her eyes.

  Cursing under her breath, Layla tossed the disposable dust cloth in the trash can in the kitchen, then washed her hands. She was just checking the lasagna she’d put in the oven earlier when she heard Jayson’s heavy footsteps on the stairs in the hallway. He sounded like he was limping more than usual. Damn, she hated that he’d gotten an apartment in a place without an elevator, but he was so stubborn. Then again, that was part of why she loved him so much. He never let anything stop him from doing what he
wanted.

  She was still thinking about all the different reasons she loved such an adorable, frustrating guy as keys jangled in the lock and Jayson opened the door. That’s when she remembered why he’d caught her eye the first time she’d seen him, at Ivy and Landon’s wedding. He was absolutely gorgeous. Tall, with broad shoulders and well-muscled arms, he had dark-blond hair, piercing blue eyes, and a square jaw covered with just the perfect amount of stubble. Then there was his mouth… There were books written about lips that kissable.

  Layla didn’t have to fake the smile that tugged up the corners of her lips. No matter how crazy things were between them on any given day, seeing Jayson always made her happy. She hurried across the room and wrapped her arms around him in a welcoming hug. That’s when she was reminded of the second thing that had attracted her to him at her sister’s wedding—his scent.

  Shifters had a tremendous advantage over the rest of the world when it came to their senses. Since the day she’d gone through her change when she was seventeen, Layla had been able to see, hear, and smell things that the rest of humanity never even noticed. And when it came to Jayson’s scent that was a pity because he smelled better than anyone else in the world.

  As she hugged him, Layla surreptitiously buried her face in the crook of his neck and inhaled deeply. Mmm, he smelled so good. It would be tough to describe his scent to anyone else, even another shifter or hybrid. None of the workplace smells could ever cover his natural, yummy aroma, not even the metallic odor of the guns he handled or the sharp smells of smokeless powder and cleaning solvents. When she was this close to him, all she could smell was his personal musk. It was so perfect that sometimes it was hard not licking him.

  Layla hadn’t been able to do something that intimate in a long time—not since she started field training and Jayson had started working at the gun range. Hugs like this were all they managed these days. Though she had to admit, a good hug could go a long way for her.