Page 1 of Shifter and the Succubus (The Pack #1)

Jason Watson sucked in a harsh breath as he pressed his back against the alley wall of the dilapidated building, checking to see if anyone followed him.

He cringed at the thought of his leather jacket touching anything in this alley.

The faded bricks were damp and the smell surrounding him was a combination of—well—he didn’t want to think about it too much. But it made his eyes water.

What the hell had gone wrong? This was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission.

He and his demon teammate Misha had broken into the warehouse where they thought the smugglers would be meeting to record the exchange.

But catching the smugglers was only part of the plan.

They needed to catch the bastards who were willing to purchase the supernatural contraband as well.

Before they could plant the bugs, the smugglers showed up. Misha and he had split up and escaped out separate doors. Hopefully without detection.

Jason had been in sticky situations in the military, but working for the Bureau of Supernatural Relations was a never-ending roller coaster of bizarre.

Their job was to solve supernatural crimes while keeping the existence of said supernaturals (aka supes) a secret from humans (aka norms).

Which was a good thing since he knew firsthand that humans would freak if they found out the truth.

He was the poster child of freaking out.

Until a few years ago he naively thought that demons, vamps, and shifters were Hollywood make-believe.

He learned the truth in an exceedingly bloody way, leaving him with the impression that all supernaturals were evil killers.

So he took it upon himself to go full vigilante and take on the bad guys, until he met Misha and his other teammates in the process.

And surprise, surprise, not all supernaturals are bad, and his newfound teammates saved his life in more ways than one.

He pressed his finger to his ear, but he still only heard static through his earpiece.

He gripped his gun tighter and took another breath to calm his speeding heart.

Where was Misha? He was built like a linebacker.

How had Jason lost track of him? Hopefully Misha had gotten word to their vampire teammates Jean Luc and Talia and they were hauling ass to pick them up.

A noise sounded to his right, and he spun and pointed his gun. Misha held up his hands in front of him. “You’re not going to shoot me again, are you?” Misha whispered.

“Shut up. One little mistake and you never let me live it down,” Jason mumbled back. Okay, so it wasn’t a mistake—he had meant to shoot Misha—but in his defense at the time he thought all demons wanted to eat his entrails for breakfast.

Misha flashed a grin. “Jean Luc and Talia are on the way. Let’s get out of here.”

They headed down the alley toward the main street. Jason sensed something before he saw the flash of metal out of the corner of his eye. Shoving Misha out of the way, he returned fire just as the shot tore into his stomach like liquid fire and he flopped down on his ass.

Misha flicked his wrist. The smuggler flew into the air and slammed against the wall. Why couldn’t Jason have cool telekinetic powers like that?

Jason clasped his hand over his stomach and groaned. Damn it. Stomach wounds were bad news. Misha stuffed Jason’s gun into his waistband, picked him up like he was a toddler, and ran down the alley.

“What were you thinking?” Misha hissed, his Russian accent growing stronger in his panic.

“I was thinking that I owed you one.” He bit his lip to stop moaning at the rapid motion.

Gray fuzzed his vision, and some time later he heard the squeal of tires as a van pulled up in front of them. The back door flung open. Talia cursed as Misha set him on the seat and jumped into the van.

She pulled out a handful of gauze from the first-aid kit and pressed it to his stomach. The burn ignited again. Jason moaned.

“I’m sorry,” Talia said.

He nodded, unable to form words. Maybe this was it. Karmic payback for when he’d attacked Misha and other supes in the past.

“Go!” Misha bellowed.

Jean Luc tore away from the curb. “The closest medical facility is the Shamat clan hospital.”

Jason pulled in a shaky breath. Would Sabrina be there? He would have laughed if he wasn’t afraid it would hurt like hell. He was bleeding out in a van that his four-hundred-year-old vampire teammate drove like a NASCAR wannabe, and he was worried about seeing Sabrina again.

He needed more help than extracting the bullet from his stomach. Maybe they could take out his brain while they were at it. Then he wouldn’t think about her all the damn time. Or maybe his heart, so he wouldn’t feel. That would be better.

He closed his eyes and let the grayness take him.

Sabrina Miller rubbed her eyes when the medical chart blurred on her computer screen. She’d been spending way too much time in the clinic lately, but what else did a workaholic Succubus doctor with no life have to do anyway?

Now that the hospital had started settling down for the evening, the normal cacophony of energy she felt from the staff and patients had dissipated. She could relax the constant need to have her protective walls up to block the invasion of said energy.

She pushed her chair back from the desk and rolled her head from side to side to relieve the tension in her neck. When that didn’t work, she pushed the swirling energy that normally resided in her own chest up into her neck and let it pulse along her vertebrae like a warm massage.

A group of one hundred demons had just immigrated from the demon realm.

Which meant making sure they were all healthy and adjusting to their new lives on earth.

An important, fulfilling job, true, but also tiring and seemingly never-ending considering the fact that there were thousands more who still wanted to come to earth.

But she had learned over her long, long, long life that important things took time. She’d been a doctor for centuries and seen the evolution of medicine. From leeches to MRI machines, medicine had improved dramatically but still had a considerable way to go.

Especially for her own clan. For all the medical knowledge she had amassed over the years, she hadn’t been able to cure her own people of the disease that took them—which was the reason she had become a doctor to begin with.

And the reason she had separated herself from them as well, a thought that threatened to reopen a wound full of painful memories.

She rubbed her fist in a circle over her heart to stop the pinching.

“I knew I’d find you working,” a voice admonished from the doorway, stopping Sabrina from stewing over her regrets, which was neither healthy nor productive.

Sabrina dropped her hand and turned to Kyle, her teammate and friend. Kyle wore her normal work clothes—jeans, T-shirt, and black work boots, the steel toe of one boot tapping impatiently as she glared at Sabrina. With Kyle, the more she glared, the more she loved, so Sabrina counted herself lucky.

“Of course I’m working, and I have you to blame.”

Kyle’s eyebrows rose. “How am I to blame?”

“You were the one who convinced the Demon Council to let the realm demons immigrate to earth.”

Kyle shrugged. “Someone needed to do it. That doesn’t mean you’re the only one who can run the medical part of things on top of being the BSR’s medical examiner. There’s a thing called delegation. You might want to look it up.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Why do I put up with you again?”

Kyle smiled. “How could you not with this sparkling personality?”

“Why aren’t you and your sparkling personality somewhere wreaking havoc with the rest of the team?”

“They’re trying to track down that smuggling ring we just heard about. I’m going to catch up with them at Misha’s house later. I told him I would try and convince you to come join us.”

Someone was plotting again. Kyle, Misha, or both were trying to get her to spend time with Jason. But that wasn’t a good idea. She needed to stay away regardless of her feelings for him. Or more accurately, because of her feelings for him.

Time to evade. “Why aren’t you with them kicking smuggler ass?”

Kyle’s cheeks pinkened. “Dalton had to head out of town on a case, so I wanted to spend some time with him before he left.”

Sabrina loved that Kyle still blushed when she talked about her mate who worked for the FBI.

And that whenever Dalton’s name came up, Sabrina could feel Kyle’s energy circle around her friend like a warm embrace.

Normally Kyle’s energy felt like static electricity, especially when she got worked up.

Kyle’s phone buzzed, and she looked at the screen. “Speak of the devil. It’s Misha. He wants to know if we’re still at the medical center. They’re on the way here.”

Sabrina sighed. “Tell him yes. Ask him which one of the twins he’s bringing in.” Misha’s eight-year-old adopted twin sons could not stay out of trouble, which meant at least one of them visited Sabrina on a weekly basis to be patched up.

Kyle frowned as she read her text. “It’s not the twins. It’s Jason.”

Sabrina stood, her heart rate jumping. “What happened?”

Kyle’s face drained of color, and her energy crackled. “He’s been shot.”

Sabrina heard the words, but they sounded far away. Jason had some shifter DNA, but he was human and therefore fragile compared to her demon, vampire, and shifter patients.

She had to shut her emotions down. Lock it all away for later.

She was a doctor, and Jason needed her to stay calm.

Her walls shot up, stopping the pinpricks of energy shooting from Kyle.

“I need you to get as much information as you can from Misha while I call in Dr. Jones.” Thank God they had turned the infirmary into a full medical center with an operating room.