Pushing Up Daisies Read online

  WEREWOLF FOR HIRE

  BOOK 1:

  PUSHING UP DAISIES

  by

  Melanie Thompson

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  Published by

  TORRID BOOKS

  www.torridbooks.com

  An Imprint of Whiskey Creek Press LLC

  Copyright © 2015 by Melanie Thompson

  Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 (five) years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

  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 permission in writing from the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-63355-592-1

  Credits

  Cover Artist: Susan Krupp

  Editor: Fran Mathieson

  Printed in the United States of America

  Other Books by Author Available at Whiskey Creek Press:

  www.whiskeycreekpress.com

  Erotic Flights of Fantasy Books I and II

  Saga of the Steampunk Witches

  Book 1: Flight of the Zeppelin

  Book 2: Flight of the Crow

  Book 3: Flight of the Phoenix

  I couldn’t have written this without the advisement of Bill Davis, and the help of my daughter Melanie Fraser.

  Chapter 1

  The sky was filled with stars but no moon. Thomas Wolfheart, call-sign House, glanced at the six remaining members of his team and slipped behind a rock. He stripped off his khakis, black shirt, ammo belt and armor plates in a flash. His skeleton contorted, his flesh stretched and black fur sprouted to cover his body. He gazed at a world as bright as day through silver eyes. House was a werewolf, black as the night; a huge, two-hundred pound apex killer.

  In a single bound, House cleared the boulders hiding his team. Dropping into a stalking crouch, he slunk down the hill toward the insurgents. He scented them before he reached them. Two were smoking cheap Turkish cigarettes; they smelled like a mix of goat, garlic and shit. The entire country smelled like goat and shit. House had traveled a lot for the Company and discovered every country had its own peculiar odor.

  It was hard to control the urge to kill when he was a wolf. He knew his mission, but he craved the hot sweet taste of blood.

  There were twenty Afghani men of all ages in the group waiting for his team to walk into their trap. The two standing guard were smoking. He slunk up behind one wrapped in a checkered head scarf and pounced. His huge jaws clamped around the man’s head. He felt his fangs sink into soft human flesh. Blood spurted as he crushed his victim’s skull, filling his mouth with the vibrant taste of the kill. The last sound his victim emitted was a whimper. His friend took one look at House, shrieked like a frightened girl and ran for his comrades.

  The gigantic wolf crouched over the dead Afghani, panting and dripping bloody saliva as he glared at the group through a red haze of blood lust. Once released, his inner demon was impossible to stop. He leaped into the middle of the ragtag group with a huge growl and tore into them. They screamed and called for their god to help. As they fired their weapons in all directions, he dispatched them with terrible efficiency. The ones who didn’t die took off down the mountains screaming high-pitched wails of pure terror. House heard them. They thought a demon from hell had descended on them from the night sky. In a way, they were right.

  Problem solved, House bounded up the hill, morphed back into his human body, and dressed. Daisy waited at the edge of their small hole in the rock-covered slope. “Heard them screaming. You get ’em all?”

  He grinned. Alexandra Lopez, call-sign Daisy, was hot and she was a warrior. It was a dynamite combination. She had to be the most desirable woman he’d ever met, but Daisy liked girls almost as much as he did. “Nah, I think I killed five or six. The rest will still be running tomorrow.”

  “Scared ’em, huh?”

  “Out of their ever-loving minds.”

  After his team had finished their mission, they’d picked up a tail and were chased out of the Taliban-controlled town of Dahaneh. House and his six remaining men were trapped on the side of this mountain with no way to reach the pickup point below. And to compound matters, they had two KIA with them. On House’s watch, no one got left behind. House had handled the threat. The Taliban men were gone now and they were clear for the morning pickup.

  They had begun this mission as an eight-man team working for Gray Thunder, soldiers for hire doing the business of his country without any atta-boys, medals, purple hearts or thank-yous. But what else does a soldier do when he’s forced to leave the Seals due to a serious injury, and fighting is all he’s ever known and the only skill he has is killing? Joining the Company was the logical choice. House still defended his country, still fought, still killed bad guys. Only difference was…he received better pay.

  On this mission, they’d removed an important Taliban leader. It was supposed to go smoothly but not much ever did when you were dealing with the Taliban. They had ended up in a fire-fight and lost their designated shooter and their demolition expert.

  Daisy was the only member of the team who knew what he was. He was the only member that knew what she was. Werewolves just naturally fit into the warrior life of a mercenary.

  The first rays of the sun on the eastern horizon signaled the beginning of a new day. Almost immediately, House heard the familiar sound of the Little Birds, two of them. The sound meant safety and the end of the mission.

  Jason Poole, call-sign Gopher, the unit’s communications expert, picked up his M-4 and his bag containing their sat phone and tracking gear. He lifted an eyebrow when he saw House and Daisy. “Heard all the screamin’,” he said in his Texas drawl. “What happened?”

  “Who knows?” House said. “They left in a hurry and we’re clear for pick-up.”

  Gopher had been on a lot of missions with House and Daisy. His crooked smile said everything. He didn’t know what House did, he just knew his team leader had a way of eliminating opposition and taking care of his team. It made House a very popular leader.

  L.T. Williams, call-sign Superstar, was a weapons specialist. He carried an M-203, an M-4 outfitted with a grenade launcher. Barry Robinson, call-sign Blackberry, was a huge black man and an additional weapons specialist. His weapon of choice was a 50-caliber machinegun which he carried like it weighed nothing The last team member was Evelyn Azizi, call-sign Shorty. Shorty was there as a guide and a language expert. She spoke Farsi and Pashto and had been raised close by in Dahaneh in Anjirak. Abandoned as a child of ten, she was sent to America by a missionary. Her most sincere desire was to eliminate al Qaida and the Taliban forever.

  As they gathered their weapons and eased down the slope, they never let down their guard. Blackberry carried one of their dead thrown over his broad shoulder and Gopher and Superstar carried the dead demolition man. House’s policy was no man was ever left behind. If they couldn’t bring out their dead, they went back in on another mission and collected them.

  The Little Birds landed, the two dead men were loaded with care and reverence, and the rest climbed aboard. House and Daisy sat together with the dead. House, as medic, was responsible for them. He leaned against Daisy and leered at her rack. “Got plans for
later?”

  She pushed him off her shoulder. “Forget it, House. You know how I ride. I think I’ll hit the safe house in Kalarrytes. I need to run. Full moon is getting close.”

  Kalarrytes was a small town in Epirus, a mountainous region of northern Greece close to the Albanian border. The Company maintained a safe house there. It was an old three-story farm house on the side of a steep slope with olive trees and grape vines. The vines and the trees were looked after by two elderly men who never asked where their paychecks originated.

  When the choppers landed and the dead had been cared for, House had to go debrief. He waved to Daisy and yelled after her. “Hey, I’ll meet you there.”

  She waved back and gave him a thumbs up to signal she’d heard him over the noise of the helicopter.

  * * * *

  Sarah Christianson sang in a quivery soprano while she tapped out a five-beat rhythm on a batar drum. She sang as Somali children danced in a circle around her. It was a Somali folk song with the words in English. The children around her were naked or near so. They kept glancing at the truck parked in the sketchy shade of an acacia tree. Behind the truck, two United Nations workers stirred pots of rice and lentils. The children were hungry.

  After Sarah graduated from Seattle Pacific Christian College, she took a job with a U.N. sanctioned aid program, Operation Hope. She was a whiz at languages which was why they hired her and then they’d sent her to Somalia where most of the people understood and spoke English. She spoke Farsi, Hebrew, Arabic and Chinese, all languages learned from teachers hired by her father who was a diplomat.

  As a child she’d moved from one foreign country to another with him. Her mother had died in childbirth while they were in Israel, so they were close. She was learning the Northern Somalia dialect of Somali which was spoken by most of the ethnic people living in the Sanaag District where the aid program was centered. It gave her something to think about besides all the starving children.

  Every day they cooked one meal for as many children as would come. The local officials of Boosaaso frowned upon their mission. They preferred their citizens starving and easy to control. Because of this, few were brave enough to show up. But hunger is a strong motivator and parents, whether they are in America or Somalia, love their children.

  Armed U.N. soldiers accompanied them wherever they went to protect them. The atmosphere in their small group was always tense. The Sanaag region had been a hotbed of violence and pirate activity and until recently, the U.N. had not been allowed there. The residents were still frightened and leery. It would take time to earn their trust.

  The group consisted of two Swedes, a Brit, a Parisian, and three Americans. They all spoke English, but Sarah pestered the two Swedes to teach her Swedish and she was learning. The aid group was centered in Sanaag because it was the district in Somalia in the greatest need of help.

  The U.N. owned a building in the coastal town of Boosaaso and flew supplies in at the local airport, which was nothing but a couple of metal-sided buildings and one long runway with holes in many spots and clumps of sparse grass sprouting between the cracked concrete.

  When the children had all eaten a bowl of the rice and lentil mix along with a cup of milk made from milk powder they brought into the country in fifty-pound bags, the group rounded up all their bowls and spoons and climbed into the back of the truck. There were two Jeeps behind them with armed soldiers who constantly surveyed the countryside for danger. In front of their truck, another two Jeeps made sure the road ahead was clear.

  They drove down a one-lane dirt road across a desolate plain completely denuded of all vegetation. The road wove all over the place for no apparent reason. Sarah had decided the road took the path with the fewest potholes and rocks, but who really knew.

  The recent conflict between Puntland and Somaliland and the droughts had created economic disaster in the Sanaag, a region once known for its leather, frankincense and livestock production. The land was scoured clean of firewood and overgrazed which led to loss of topsoil. Nothing would grow, no trees remained. It was a hot, frightening and desolate place.

  When they entered Boosaaso, a town of low, squatty buildings made of concrete and stone, they turned right toward the Gulf of Aden. The U.N.-owned building was a remnant of the big aid projects of the nineties. It had fallen into disrepair, but they’d hired local workers to fix the plumbing and the air-conditioning and clean the place.

  No one spoke until they got inside. Some of the tension diminished and they relaxed. With the door closed behind them and the ancient air-conditioning system groaning and wheezing out cooler air, Anna Hegstrom and Sarah entered their room and collapsed on their bunks.

  “The heat is going to kill me,” Anna moaned. She was very tall and thin and very blond. The skin showing between her khaki shirt and her hair was red from too much sun and heat. Sarah was blond as well, with blue eyes, but her skin was darker and she tanned easily. Even though her home was now in the Pacific Northwest, she had frequently traveled in the Middle East with her father and was used to the intense heat.

  “You need to drink more water, Anna,” Sarah said. “You don’t hydrate.”

  “I would much prefer a Grey Goose martini. Water tastes like…water.”

  “It’s not what it tastes like that’s important, silly,” Sarah said as she changed her uniform to a loose bright-green and purple dress she’d bought in a local market. “It’s what it does for you.”

  “I like what vodka does for me.”

  “Why are you here anyway?” Sarah asked as she strapped on her sturdy sandals.

  “The Hegstroms have always done U.N. work. It is who we are. My father and mother both work for the U.N.”

  Sarah shook her head. She couldn’t understand Anna’s attitude. She was here. She should at least try to get something out of it. “I’m taking the Jeep out to Elaayo. Want to come?”

  “They allow this?”

  “They will if I talk Sgt. Cooper into going with me.”

  “I don’t think so, Sarah. It is too hot.”

  “Elaayo is right on the water. There should be a sea breeze.”

  “Why is it you are going?”

  “It’s a huge unexplored archeological site. There was an Egyptian and a Roman city there at one time that traded all over the Middle East. There are even tombs…unexplored tombs.” Sarah added this last bit as she pulled her digging kit out from under her bunk. “Because of all the political unrest in this country, no one has opened them or explored the city. I can’t wait to see it.”

  Anna shook her head. “Take Hillary. She’s crazy for antiquities, forever pointing out old buildings and ruins.”

  “I’ll ask her.” Sarah left their room and knocked on Hillary Wilkins door. Hillary was the British member of their team. She was about Sarah’s age with thick dark hair and brown skin. Sarah thought she might have Indian blood.

  Hillary didn’t answer the door. Her roommate, the French team member, Eloise Lefavre, cracked the door and looked sleepily through the aperture.

  “We are napping,” Eloise said in her strong French accent. “The heat was unbearable today.”

  “May I speak to Hillary?”

  Eloise opened the door and Sarah walked in to find Hillary naked on one of the bunks. Her face flushed and her cheeks flamed with embarrassment when she realized Eloise had been hiding behind the door because she too was naked.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I want to go on a digging expedition. Today seemed right since we returned early.”

  Hillary smiled and waved one brown arm which caused her brown nipple to bob. “Too hot, my dear. We are resting.”

  Eloise sat next to Hillary and deliberately stroked her inner thigh, stopping inches before touching Hillary’s hairless mound. “Yes, we are resting.” She giggled.

  Sarah backed out of the room too embarrassed to reply. She was a twenty-four-year-old virgin. Her father was overprotective and she’d spent most of her life out of the country, the rest
in a Christian college.

  Once outside their room with the door shut behind her, Sarah fanned her hot cheeks with one hand. The sight of the two naked women had her disturbed. Her stomach fluttered and her privates buzzed with sinful excitement. She swallowed the lump in her throat and walked down the hall.

  She finally talked Freidrick Almquist, the other Swedish team member into going with her. He said he’d meet her out back by the Jeeps so she took off to locate Sgt. Howard Cooper.

  Sgt. Cooper preferred she call him Coop. He was short and stocky, a British member of the U.N. Peacekeeping Corps and totally in love with her. She found him drinking a beer with two other members of the military support. When he saw her, his face lit up and she smiled.

  “Sarah, how nice to see you.” He put his arm around her shoulder and guided her away from the other men. A silly grin was plastered on his freckled face and a stray lock of sandy hair lay across his brow

  “Coop, a friend and I would like to drive out to Elaayo and look at the ruins,” she said. “Would you drive us?”

  His arm fell away. “No, Sarah, I couldn’t. It would be too dangerous. You never know what’s brewing in this hell hole.”

  “It’s on the coast, east of here. There are few residents in that area. It’s very dry and full of old burial cairns and ruins. This is the first chance we’ve had to take a break, Coop. Please. What could happen? It’s not very far away, only a few kilometers? It’s right on the Gulf.”

  She accompanied her plea with a sweet look, a lot of eyelash batting and a brush of her left breast across his elbow.

  His face reflected his desire to please her and the inner conflict warring within his chest. He put his arm back around her. “I’d love to. I just don’t think it’s safe.”

  She pouted, dropped her chin and looked up at him. “I might not get another chance. We only had a hundred children to feed today. Tomorrow there could be double that amount and we could get some adults. We’ll have to work twice as long and we won’t get back until late.” She laid one long-fingered hand on his heavily-muscled forearm. “Please.”