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  Jared (River Pack Wolves 3)

  Copyright © 2015 by Alisa Woods

  November 2015 Edition

  All rights reserved.

  Sworn Secrets Publishing

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author. For information visit:

  Alisa Woods

  Cover by Steven Novak

  Jared (River Pack Wolves 3)—New Adult Paranormal Romance

  He was broken by the war. Her secret could destroy her family.

  Ex-Marine sniper Jared River left the war, but the war never really left him. He’s a broken wolf who’s only good for one thing now—killing men. And he’s peering down his scope at Senator Krepky, the anti-shifter politician about to ruin the lives of all the shifters Jared loves.

  Grace Krepky is the daughter of the Senator, a good girl with a passion for her father’s politics and who’s earned her way into being his campaign manager. Only problem? She’s secretly a shifter… and the clock is ticking until her own father inadvertently forces that secret into the open, ruining both their lives.

  Jared’s all set to pull the trigger when he sees something shocking through the Senator’s glass walls—his daughter is a wolf. Jared puts his gun aside to go after the fleeing girl, but he already knows this can only end in one of two ways—either he’ll convince her to reveal herself to the Senator and stop his anti-shifter legislation, or Jared will have to assassinate her father.

  If only she wasn’t making him come alive again…

  Jared had killed men before.

  One more shouldn’t make a difference.

  He sighted down his scope, peering through the darkness at the tremendously lit-up house of Senator Krepky. The good Senator had a palatial estate on top of a mountain above Bellevue. It was beautiful—Jared could tell precisely how opulent the interior was because he could see everything. The exterior walls were mostly comprised of glass. The floor-to-vaulted-ceiling windows revealed the natural woods, polished granite surfaces, and sophisticated decor inside. With all that light blasting out, it was a good thing he’d brought his day scope and not just his night vision optics. But it was an easy target from his position across the ravine—he was lying on a bed of ferns under the drooping boughs of a pine tree with his M40A6 sniper rifle, complete with tripod mount and suppressor. Jared’s skills were sufficient to achieve the kill, even at nearly a thousand meters to target. The 50mm bullet would not only travel the distance, punch through the plate-glass window, and vaporize the Senator’s skull—it would finally bring Jared a kind of redemption. Or, if not that, at least an end to the meaningless days and tormented nights.

  He wasn’t a Marine anymore, and this wasn’t Afghanistan: he would go to jail for this. And killing a sitting Senator? Death penalty for sure. Probably lethal injection, although Washington was the only state where hanging was still legal. But that didn’t matter—he would find a way to die before he was locked up, waiting for his executioner.

  One of the Senator’s two personal security guards looped to the back of the estate, glancing over the expanse of lawn between the house and the forest. Jared flicked a glance at the guard, but the man just returned to the front. The wind gusted slightly, bringing up a fresh whiff of the creek at the bottom of the ravine. Updraft. About every three to five minutes. Avoiding that would keep his shot true.

  Jared had been lying under his tree for an hour. The deed would have been done already, except the Senator was arguing with a young woman in his living room. She was a willowy, almost painfully thin girl, with long brown hair that fell in waves to her waist. Jared couldn’t hear their argument, but whatever it was, the girl was giving the Senator hell. Jared stretched his leg muscles, relieving the cramping while still keeping his eye firmly on the target. He was really just watching them now—he had already decided the girl was the Senator’s daughter, and Jared wouldn’t kill him in front of her. It was one thing to hear the shot and find the body. She could choose not to look, if she wished. She might agonize about their last conversation being an argument—probably something pointless like the boys she was dating or the size of her trust fund or whether she could take out one of the five Jaguars the Senator kept on display out in front of the estate.

  It was another thing entirely to watch her father’s head explode.

  Jared was a stone cold killer—he knew that, and there was nothing he could do to change the things he’d done in the service—but he sure as hell wasn’t going to make a girl watch her father’s brain splatter all over the living room. He knew the kind of nightmares that induced, the dead emptiness it settled deep in your bones, and he wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Even the pampered princess of a senator who needed to die.

  And Senator Krepky definitely needed to die.

  The girl threw her hands in the air and turned on her heel. Jared held his breath, thinking she might leave, but she just whirled back again, having another go at the old man.

  He let out the breath, slow and measured, just like he would when it came time to take the shot. He could wait. Waiting was all he did these days, one hollow day after another. The world kept buzzing around him, relentlessly moving on while he stood still.

  And lately, all that activity had taken a turn for the dangerous. Shifters being kidnapped off the streets of Seattle. Assholes in the government conducting medical experiments. Men like Senator Krepky who didn’t blink at the lives they wasted in pursuit of their wet dreams of power. Jared and his brothers, Jace and Jaxson, along with the rest of the River pack, had done what they could to stop it. They’d managed to liberate a ton of shifters from the horror show that was their government-sanctioned medical prison. In the process, Jace’s mate, Piper, had discovered the Senator’s plan for a new registration law for shifters... this was the same government that had already authorized medical experiments upon them.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out where that was going. Not only would it be stupid-easy for the government to round up shifters, but shifter-owned companies like the private security firm Jared owned with his brothers, Riverwise, would go out of business. The public feared and hated shifters, which was why most stayed undercover, hidden just under the skin of Seattle. The military had discovered Jared was a shifter when he enlisted, but they kept that shit private precisely because they wanted shifter talent in the armed forces. And getting a job after the service would be next to impossible if they were outed as shifters. For most civilians, no one outside their family and their pack knew. And their lives would all be ruined by Senator Krepky’s new law. Even proposing it would declare open season on shifters everywhere.

  Jared wouldn’t allow that to happen.

  Krepky had to be stopped, and Jared was the only one for the job. His brothers had duties to tend to, a business to run—they weren’t broken, like him. And now they both had mates to care for, families to start. Things were good for them.
Jared would be happy for his brothers, or possibly jealous, but his chest had been a dark cave of ice far too long for feelings like those. There was a reason he spent most of his time in the mountains or on the shooting range. He was only good for one thing now—killing. He could shoot anything, at any distance, under almost any conditions. He knew how to compensate for wind speed, direction, elevation, gravity, and spin of the damn planet. His shifter senses helped, but it was massive amounts of training that made him what he was. That, and a long list of confirmed kills.

  But he wasn’t a sniper for the Marines anymore. He’d done his job well, then walked away before he put the gun to his own head. At the time, that seemed sensible… but ever since he took that honorable discharge, he’d thought maybe that was a mistake. Maybe he should’ve stayed overseas until the war took him out. Easier that way. Better than walking around the streets of Seattle, surrounded by civilians living their ordinary lives, acting like he wasn’t already dead inside.

  Then this thing with the Senator came along. If Jared could stop Krepky from enacting a law that would destroy countless shifter lives… there wasn’t even a question. It was the thing he had been waiting for—the reason he kept trudging on, day after day. He had something left to do, some purpose or reason why he was still alive, only he hadn’t known what it was until he heard the Senator’s plan. Then it became clear—this was for him to do and no one else.

  Jared pulled in a deep breath of fresh mountain air, the pine scent calling to his wolf. The beast rose up under his skin and tuned his senses even tighter, sniffing the air and sensing the wind direction and speed. His eyesight sharpened as he peered through the scope once more.

  It was entertaining to see the girl give shit to her father, but Jared knew his focus would wane with fatigue. Her finger-pointing and fist-clenching and red-faced fury needed to burn itself out soon, so he could get down to business and end the Senator’s plans once and for all.

  It only took a few more minutes of waiting to get his wish. The girl threw up her hands, turned on her heel, and this time, stormed away. She disappeared down the hallway for a moment, but then reappeared in what must be her bedroom, slamming the door. All the drama was exposed to him with those wide, glass windows. Speaking of people who lived in glass houses and the things they ought not do—the rock the Senator planned to throw at shifters was going to bring his glass house crashing down very soon.

  The girl raged around in her room, and Jared took a moment to watch. She was delicate-boned and young—probably only twenty-five. Not really a girl anymore, but twenty-five felt insanely young compared to his nearly thirty-two. Of course, his mileage far outweighed his years. Her youthful, passionate anger took a long time to cool. In fact, it seemed to be going the opposite direction. She banged on the door and threw things around her room. He watched her for a minute longer, just to make sure she wasn’t going to burst out of her room at precisely the wrong moment. But then something happened that made his mouth dropped open…

  She shifted.

  Jared squeezed his eyes shut momentarily, then yanked them back open. She was back to human, but there was no doubt she had shifted—because now she was buck naked. Small, high breasts. Delicate, narrow waist. Her abundant waves of hair covered her like a young Lady Godiva. Her fists were still clenched, and her face was still red with fury.

  Jared watched, transfixed, as she tugged her clothes back on at a furious pace. Then she bolted, straight out of her bedroom door.

  He swung his scope back to the main room where her father was mixing himself something to drink.

  She didn’t appear.

  Jared lifted his gaze and scanned the whole house, but he couldn’t track her. He went back to the scope, but she was gone—vanished into some part of the house that wasn’t visible from his position.

  The Senator paced his living room, chugging whatever drink he had.

  Jared should take the shot.

  That’s why he was here.

  He lined up the sight and pulled in a steadying breath that also scented the air—the updraft was gone, the gusts were low. He could hear the soft whisper of the pines across the ravine, signaling the speed. He dialed the windage adjustment, let his breath out slow… and then grimaced as he pulled back from the scope.

  The girl was a damn shifter!

  The slow gears of his mind were winding up, cranked by that revelation—the Senator’s daughter, for fuck’s sake. What was that about? And where did she go?

  A flicker of movement outside the house caught his attention. The guards were private security—Garrison Allied, one of Riverwise’s competitors; Jared had checked out the company ahead of time, of course—but their patrols were all on the front side of the house where the winding driveway climbed the mountain to reach the estate. The back of the house opened up to the national forest, and that’s where the movement was.

  Jared swung his scope and scanned the darkened tree line—he caught sight of her just as she disappeared into the forest. Fully clothed. Running like the devil was on her tail. The Senator’s daughter just… ran away.

  What the hell?

  The rest of the house was quiet. Her father was slamming back a second drink.

  No one had noticed.

  Jared gritted his teeth and tried to concentrate… but even before he lined up his scope again, he knew it was no use. His wolf was whining his ass off—Jared would have to go after her to make sure she was okay.

  And then come back to kill her father.

  Jesus, he was so fucked up.

  He abandoned his rifle, leaving it set up under the tree, and shifted to his wolf form. The ravine between him and the house was long and deep. It would take forever to get through the underbrush as a man, but his wolf was strong and had four times the leap. He charged down the slope, using all his senses to navigate the complicated, dark terrain.

  What the hell he was doing?

  This wasn’t the first time he’d had that kind of thought—sometimes he wondered if the frontal lobes of his brain were actually functioning anymore. He seemed to move on instinct more and more often. There were whole days he lost in the Olympic forest when he let his wolf take control, just as he was now. It was freeing—as if being wolf was a more innocent state. The sins he had committed were done by human hands. His wolf’s paws hadn’t pulled the trigger, again and again.

  There were days when he thought he might go lone wolf. Never turn human again. Forget all the things that had happened, the mate he’d lost, the people he’d killed. But he knew that was just a fantasy. He could only be free of the nightmares in brief snatches when he was absorbed in work or exhausted by training. Or when he let his wolf run free like he was now, chasing after this girl.

  This wolf daughter of the shifter-hating Senator.

  It was hilarious and so fucked up. And it had derailed him completely. He shouldn’t care about her—he should focus on the mission—but his wolf had latched onto her like she was suddenly everything that mattered in the world. Even the man in him couldn’t just let her run off and get lost in the woods. Or hurt. He frowned with that thought and put more power into his stride up the far side of the ravine. He gave wide berth to the glass house and caught her scent not far into the forest bordering the Senator’s house.

  Then he stumbled upon her clothes.

  She had shifted again, leaving her jeans and t-shirt just inside the edge of the forest, where they wouldn’t be visible from the house. This girl had done this before, running off into the woods to be a wolf. Maybe. Her shift before had seemed… accidental. Maybe she had barely made it to the trees before losing control.

  He scooped up her clothes in his mouth, which made it difficult to pick up her scent. He was overwhelmed by the blueberries-and-cream mixed with angry-sweat smell that permeated them. He dropped her clothes again, padded away, found her scent-trail, retrieved the jeans and t-shirt, and charged off through the forest. He had to repeat that little routine a couple more times, but eventually
, he broke out into a meadow in the moonlight. It was really just a small clearing, crowded at the edges by overgrowth from the forest, but it was open enough to easily see her prancing in the tall grass—not least because her wolf’s brilliant white fur shone like a small moon had dropped down to play in the meadow. A light, growling sort of sound accompanied her dance. He couldn’t decide if she was angry or just frustrated. Or maybe she was singing. It had a lyrical quality to it, almost like she was talking to herself. In wolf.

  It was kind of adorable. Deep in his chest, a humming sound started, matching hers—like a growl but not quite—and his open mouth panted as he watched. His wolf was reacting to her in a way he didn’t understand. He didn’t reach out to her mentally, although that should’ve been possible—they were both in wolf form. Instead, he picked up her clothes, which had tumbled from his open mouth to the grass, and trotted toward her across the small field.

  He could see the exact moment when she caught sight of him—her small wolf body jumped three feet in the air. When she landed, that white fur of hers puffed out and turned her into an extremely fuzzy version of the beautiful singing-and-dancing wolf from before. He slowed his pace. He was sure her growl was meant to be menacing, but it was about as threatening as a very small, very angry kitten.

  Then he realized: she was terrified of him. And she should be. Meeting a strange wolf in the forest was dangerous for anyone, but especially a young female wolf. Some packs stole their mates, claiming the unmated females before they could be rescued. And unless the Senator himself was secretly a wolf, he doubted this girl had a pack—which left her even more vulnerable.