Title: X-Ops
Exposed
Author: Paige
Tyler
Series: X-Ops,
#8
Pub Date: April
3, 2018
Genre: Paranormal
Romantic Suspense
HE LEFT TO KEEP HER SAFE
Believing
he’s too dangerous to be among people, feline hybrid Tanner Howland retreats
deep into the forests of Washington State—with no choice but to leave behind
the woman who’s captured his heart. What he doesn’t know is that she followed
him…
SHE WOULDN’T STAY BEHIND
Heartbroken
and determined, Dr. Zarina Sokolov tracks Tanner into the wild. Her presence
unleashes Tanner’s protective instinct—big time. Locals have been disappearing
and he is desperate for Zarina to leave. As the kidnappings escalate, Tanner
must embrace the dangerous instincts he fears so much. But with Zarina at his
side, he’ll have to learn to control his animal impulses, or lose himself—and
the woman he loves—to the beast within.
EXCERPT:
Knowing she wasn’t going to get away, Zarina slid to a stop
and spun around, ready to shout at the beast that wanted to kill her. She’d
seen Tanner let out a roar that could paralyze almost anything crazy enough to
attack him, so perhaps she could do the same thing.
But her cry of defiance died in her throat as she came
face-to-face with a gigantic grizzly bear. The beast reared up on its hind
legs, towering over her for one heart-stopping moment before dropping to all
fours and roaring at her so loud, her bones felt turned to jelly.
She vaguely remembered the store clerk in town trying to
sell her a can of bear repellent. If she wasn’t so terrified, she’d laugh at
the idea. What the heck would a can of pepper spray do to something this big?
The bear took a step in her direction with another roar, showing
off fangs large enough to bite right through her.
For a split second, Zarina considered running again, but it
would be pointless. She’d never outrun a bear.
Rabbits get eaten.
So instead, she screamed as long and loud as she could.
The grizzly looked shocked for a moment, but instead of
scaring the animal off like she’d hoped, all it did was seem to make him mad.
Head low, the bear started toward her.
She was going to die.
But suddenly, the bear stopped, a look of what could only be
confusion on its face as it focused on something behind her. A second later, a
roar ripped through the night that shook the ground. She jerked her head
around, almost collapsing in relief when she saw Tanner standing there in the
dark, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his eyes glowing vivid red, fangs bared
as he let out a roar that sounded exactly like that of a lion. Which made
sense, because those were the DNA strands blended with his own.
Zarina stood transfixed. Tanner’s fangs were longer and
looked more terrifying than the bear’s.
The rage and anger on his face must have been enough to
scare the grizzly, because the huge animal gave one more halfhearted chuff in
Tanner’s direction, then turned and scurried back into the pitch-dark forest.
To her right, she caught movement. Crap, Tanner was going
after the bear. Not because he wanted to hurt the animal, but because by
running, the grizzly had become the prey, and Tanner’s lion half simply
couldn’t stop itself from hunting the animal down now that the rage had taken
over.
“Tanner,” she said softly. “Let the bear go.”
He stopped like he’d hit a brick wall, then stood there,
unmoving, for what felt like forever, facing away from her and staring off into
the darkness in the direction the bear had run. Not that it was probably all
that dark for Tanner. With his animal-enhanced eyesight, he could probably see
the grizzly’s big, fuzzy rump bouncing off into the woods. And if his eyes lost
the creature, then his keen sense of smell would fill in the details. Which was
a good thing, since she’d have probably been a bear treat if it hadn’t been for
that nose of his.
After what seemed like an eternity, Tanner turned and looked
at her. His fangs and glowing red eyes were gone now, replaced by a mesmerizing
blue gaze and a ruggedly handsome face that had made her heart almost stop
beating the first time she’d seen it. He had a bit more dark-blond scruff along
his jaw and chin now. Actually, a lot more. Maybe it was because she’d grown up
in a cold-weather environment where the opposite sex went all caveman in an
attempt to stay warm, but she wasn’t usually a fan of facial hair. On Tanner,
though, it looked incredibly scrumptious.
His T-shirt clung tightly to his chest and shoulders,
showing off all the muscles he had upstairs, while his jeans fought to contain
thighs that looked poised to tear their way out at any moment. Had he actually
gotten more muscular since he’d been out there?
Zarina almost ran to him right then so she could throw her
arms around him and hold him tight for the rest of the night. But she didn’t,
because she knew he wouldn’t be ready for that. Not after she’d showed up in
the forest out of the blue and almost gotten eaten by a bear.
But damn, it was hard.
Tanner looked better now than when he’d been living in the
dorms at the DCO complex. He had been put up there since the agency’s covert
agents had found him out here all that time ago. Even the stress lines that had
been etched into his features had completely faded. It almost made her sorry
she’d come out here to disturb the serenity he seemed to have found. But she
couldn’t stay away, not with the way she felt about him. And especially not
when she could finally help him.
“What are you doing here, Zarina?” he asked bluntly.
So much for him sweeping her into his arms and saying he was
happy to see her. Clearly, he wasn’t. She tried not to let that hurt too much.
“I’m here to help you,” she said, equally blunt.
She’d learned a long time ago that dancing around a subject
wasn’t the way Tanner did things. It wasn’t the way she did, either, so that
was okay. She didn’t bother mentioning that his disappearance had caused her
more sleepless nights than she could count and had nearly driven her insane
with worry. That would have been emotional blackmail, and she wasn’t going to do
that to him.
His jaw flexed. “I don’t need any help. I’m doing a good job
of controlling my hybrid impulses all on my own.”
She looked pointedly in the direction the grizzly had run.
“It doesn’t seem like it to me.”
Tanner flinched, and she immediately regretted her choice of
words. Dammit, she was out here to help him, not push him further away.
“I haven’t lost control in the two months I’ve been out
here,” he said through clenched teeth. “Not until you decided to do something
stupid like wander through the middle of a grizzly’s territory by yourself.”
Zarina wanted to point out that she hadn’t planned to be out
here this late and that there was no way she could have known she was in a
bear’s territory. But she bit her tongue and focused on trying to defuse the
situation.
“I’m sorry I made you lose control again,” she said. “But
I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen again…ever.”
She waited, expecting Tanner to ask her what she meant by
that, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there regarding her and looking way
better than any man should considering he’d been camping in the woods for two
months. She had met plenty of guys who couldn’t pull off his level of masculine
perfection after primping in front of a mirror for an hour. That was one of the
other things she’d learned about Tanner. He didn’t have to work hard at being
so amazing. It came naturally to him.
After another minute of silence, Zarina accepted that if
they were going to talk, she was the one who would have to get the conversation
started. “I finished the hybrid drug antiserum that will return your DNA back
to what it was before Stutmeir’s doctors experimented on you. You can be a
normal human again.”
She waited for some reaction—relief, doubt, elation.
Something. But Tanner looked as interested as if she’d told him it might rain
tomorrow.
“I’ll never be normal again,” he finally said quietly.
“Yes, you will.” She stepped closer, anguish coursing
through her when he immediately took a step back. “I worked on the antidote
every minute since you left. It will work. It will keep the beast from ever
slipping out again.”
“I don’t want it, dammit!” he shouted, making her jump. He
cursed and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice
softer. “For yelling at you. And for making you come all the way out here and
hiking halfway across the Wenatchee Forest to find me. But I don’t want the
antidote. Just go home, okay? Leave me out here where I can’t hurt anyone.”
Zarina’s heart tore in two at the pain in his eyes. She had
no idea why he was turning down her offer, but she wasn’t leaving without him.
“I’m not going home,” she said, standing her ground and
leveling her gaze at him.
Having this conversation would have been a lot easier
without holding a flashlight. Then she could have folded her arms to emphasize
her point.
“Then you’d better have a lot of books on that e-reader of
yours, because you’re going to get bored damn fast waiting for me at whatever
hotel you’re staying in.”
“I’m not going to a hotel,” she told him. “I’m staying out
here.”
Red flared in his eyes but faded just as quickly. “Like hell
you are.”
“I’m not leaving,” she said firmly. “You can run off into
the woods—we both know I can’t keep up with you—but I still won’t leave. I’ll
keep walking all over the forest looking for you.”
His eyes flickered red again, and he muttered something
under his breath she couldn’t catch. “You irritate me like no one else on the
planet, do you know that?”
“Yes,” she replied, even though it was a probably a
rhetorical question. “So, which way to your camp?”
Paige Tyler is
a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of sexy,
romantic fiction. Paige writes books about hunky alpha males and the kick-butt
heroines they fall in love with. She lives with her very own military hero
(a.k.a. her husband) and their adorable dog on the beautiful Florida coast.
Find Paige Online:
Website: https://paigetylertheauthor.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PaigeTyler
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