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  RARE

  Jaxson’s Justice

  Dawn Sullivan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission from the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are fictitious in every regard. Any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or featured names are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement of any of these terms used. Except for review purposes, the reproduction of this book in whole or in part, mechanically or electronically, constitutes a copyright violation. Published in the United States of America in February 2019; Copyright 2019 by Dawn Sullivan. The right of the Author’s Name to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with The Copyright, Designs, and Patent Act of 1988.

  Published by Dawn Sullivan

  Editing: CP Bialois and Jamie White

  Cover Design: Dana Leah- Designs By Dana

  Photographer: Shauna Kruse-Kruse Images & Photography

  Model: Brennan Szumowski

  Copyright 2019 © Author Dawn Sullivan

  Language: English

  Contents

  RARE: Rescue And Retrieval

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  A Note from the Author

  About the Author

  Other books by Dawn Sullivan

  RARE: Rescue And Retrieval

  Extractions

  Angel: RARE alpha, wolf shifter, strong telepathic

  * * *

  Nico: Angel’s right-hand man, wolf shifter, telepathic, has the ability to see glimpses of the future

  * * *

  Phoenix: Human turned wolf shifter, telepathic, complete badass, loves anything that goes boom

  * * *

  Rikki: Human, kick ass sniper, touches objects that others have touched and gets visions of the past, present, and sometimes the future

  * * *

  Jaxson: Wolf shifter, telepathic, RARE’s technology expert

  * * *

  Trace: Black panther shifter, telepathic, badass sniper

  * * *

  Storm: Wolf shifter, strong telepath, has the ability to see into the future

  * * *

  Ryker: Bear shifter, telepathic

  * * *

  Flame: Telepathic

  * * *

  Bane: Wolf shifter, telepathic (other gifts unknown at this time)

  * * *

  Sapphire: Wolf shifter, telepathic, has the ability to see into the future (other gifts unknown at this time)

  1

  “You need to eat something. Please,” the soft voice whispered. “You haven’t had anything in days.”

  She didn’t want to eat. She was so tired of the existence she led. Tired of the agony she lived in constantly. Of the fear that plagued her when she thought of what could happen next, because she never knew what would be waiting for her on each new day. She was just so damn tired.

  “Think about your family. You love them. You need to survive, for them.”

  Her family. The parents who had sold her so long ago to the Colombian drug lord, Philip Perez, who had tortured her, putting her through hell, and then sold her to the devil himself. She hated her father and mother with a passion above all else. What kind of people sold their child, knowing they were giving her a death sentence? Because that’s what it was. She wasn’t going to make it out of her prison alive.

  “You’ve told me of your brother. He’s a great warrior. One who fights for your king! You know he will come for you. And your sister. Your twin. You have a bond like no other. They will come, Raven. You need to trust in that.”

  She wanted to believe her brother and sister would come for her, she really did, but she’d waited so long already. Where were they? Why had they left her there to die?

  “Eat, Raven,” the voice coaxed gently, as a spoon was once again lifted to her lips. “You need to stay strong. You need to keep fighting. One of these days, you will be free again!”

  Strong? It had been so long since she’d felt strong. So long since she’d soared above the clouds, wonder and joy flowing through her as she spread her wings wide. She’d always lived in the moment, happy and carefree, but she’d also been trained by her brother in the arts of a true dragon warrior. She was a shifter, a powerful dragon, deadly in her own right. How had she allowed herself to be captured? To become the victim of a sadistic bastard, who made her feel weaker than she’d ever felt in her life?

  She was so lost. So afraid. Utterly exhausted. She wanted to close her eyes and slip into sweet oblivion. Needed to find peace in the savage world she now lived in.

  “No! I won’t let you!” that soft voice cried in despair. “I won’t lose another person I care about to my father. I can’t! Please, Raven. Please, you have to fight!”

  She slowly raised her head and looked at the young woman who knelt before her. So sweet, kind, gentle. The complete opposite of her father, the bastard who held Raven prisoner. Amber tried to save the lives the General was determined to destroy. She snuck them food and water when the General starved them, tended their wounds when she could without any of the guards or scientists finding out, brought them comfort when they had none. There were even rumors that she had managed to save some of them, liberating them from the bastard who held them. She was the true fighter.

  “I’m tired,” Raven rasped through dry, cracked lips, allowing the tears to slip free for the first time in months. She never cried anymore. Refused to give the General the satisfaction of seeing her misery. But he wasn’t here to watch her now. Amber always managed to do something to the video feeds when she came to visit, making it look as if she and the others were huddled in their cells, alone. She trusted Amber. The irony of it. Satan’s daughter was her only friend in the world. Without her, Raven would have lost her sanity a long time ago. She was the only reason Raven was still breathing. Still clinging to the Hell she called life.

  Amber’s eyes filled with compassion, and she set the bowl of soup down on the cold, hard floor. Sitting beside Raven, she gathered her into her arms and whispered, “I know you are. I feel your pain, your suffering. I know you want to give up, Raven, and to be honest, I don’t blame you. I can’t imagine living the life you are being forced to live right now. All I can do, is be here for you and promise you that I will get you out of here. I will set you free, if it is the last thing I do on this earth.”

  “He will kill you,” Raven protested, laying her head on Amber’s shoulder, refusing to allow her heart to fill with hope.

  “We all have to die someday,” Amber said quietly. “I think giving my life for those I care about is a good way to go.”

  Raven sighed, knowing if Amber had the courage to die for her, then she needed to be brave enough to live for her friend. “I could eat some of the soup,” she whispered softly. For Amber, she would try.

  Amber held her a mome
nt longer, running a gentle hand over the long red-gold hair that hung down Raven’s back. Hair Raven used to be proud of, but was now dirty, matted, and full of knots. “I would like that.”

  Even though it was a struggle, she allowed Amber to help her eat, managing to get half of the bowl down before pushing it away. “I’m done.”

  Amber’s eyes seemed to cloud over, but she didn’t argue. “Get some rest now, Raven,” she whispered, setting the bowl down to pull her close again. “I can stay a few minutes longer.”

  Raven closed her eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep to the sound of Amber’s beautiful voice as she softly sang a sweet song she’d never heard before. She felt safe for now, but she knew it wouldn’t last. It never did. When she woke, Amber would be gone, and there would be more pain and suffering to endure. She would get through it, though. There was no choice. As long as Amber continued to fight for her, she could do no different.

  2

  “I’m sorry, Angel. It’s another dead end,” Jaxson said with a sigh, raking a hand through his short, dark blond hair. “It doesn’t seem to matter what I do, that son of a bitch somehow evades me.”

  “He’s good,” Nico said gruffly, rising from his chair to pace around the conference room. “Hell, he’s even figured out a way to block Angel from merging with him. Sneaky bastard.”

  RARE was meeting in one of the large conference rooms in the office building at the White River Wolves compound, trying to figure out a way to track down Jeremiah. It had been months since he went off the grid, and no matter what they did, they couldn’t locate the cagey bear. Steele was the last one to see him in D.C., but since then, he’d been like a damn ghost. Even Jinx didn’t know where the General had him stationed. They were running out of options, and it was starting to piss the entire team off. His mate was lying in a hospital bed as if in a coma, even though the doctor said it was more of a resting state now, while he was entrenching himself deeper and deeper into the General’s operation.

  “Why the hell is he doing this?” Storm growled. “Rikki needs him here.”

  “He’s doing it for her,” Angel said quietly. “You have to remember, he doesn’t know what happened to Rikki recently. He has no idea she is in the hospital. He only knows what took place before he dropped off the grid. Jeremiah is going after the man who hurt her back then, infiltrating his ranks so that he can bring him down.”

  “Well, he’s going about it the wrong way,” Flame snapped, her eyes dark with fury.

  “Actually, I’m not sure that he is,” Trace cut in, leaning forward and placing his forearms on the table.

  “Why would you say that?” Flame asked, tossing her red mane over her shoulder as she glared at him. “His place is here with his mate.” When Trace cocked an eyebrow and looked at her pointedly, she flipped him off. “Screw you, Trace. My situation with Bran is different, and you know it.”

  “Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart, and maybe one of these days you’ll even believe it,” Trace replied, as the stench of her lie filled the room.

  “Fuck you!”

  “Hey,” he said with a shrug, “all I’m saying is Jeremiah is out there somewhere, avoiding Rikki, doing everything possible to bring the General and his organization down. In doing so, he hasn’t even bothered to check in back home to see what’s going on with his mate, because right now, all he can focus on is revenge. Tell me, how’s that different than what you are doing to your own mate? He suffers knowing you are out there fighting an uphill battle with us, just like Rikki would if she knew what Jeremiah was doing.”

  “Dammit, Trace! My relationship with my mate is none of your business.”

  “What relationship?” he asked dryly.

  “That’s enough, you two,” Angel li snapped, rising from her chair, placing her hands lightly on her hips as her eyes narrowed on them.

  “Fine,” Flame said stubbornly, through clenched teeth. “You can’t have it both ways. If you think avoiding his mate is wrong, then how can you say he might be going about things the right way?”

  “That’s where the two of you are different,” Trace told her. “Everything he is doing, he’s doing out of love for Rikki. He’s trying to protect her, trying to make it so that the General never gets a hold of her again.”

  “How is that different from what I’m doing?”

  Trace sighed, leaning back in his chair as he looked at her, shaking his head. “You still don’t get it, do you, Flame? Jeremiah isn’t running from his mate, denying the bond. He is protecting her because he loves her. Not only that, but he also has the training to do what he’s doing.”

  “I’m trained!”

  “No, you are in training. You don’t have the years of experience under your belt that Jeremiah does. Not only that, but you are doing what you are doing for all the wrong reasons.”

  “He killed my baby!” Flame screamed, and Jaxson watched in fascination as her eyes began to glow. Slamming her fist down on the table, she cried, “That son of a bitch killed my son! He is going to pay for that!”

  “Exactly,” Trace said quietly. “Everything you are doing is out of rage and revenge. Everything Jeremiah is doing is out of love.”

  Flame’s chest heaved, her body shaking as she glared at him. “Mine’s out of love, too! Love for my baby who was taken way too soon from me.”

  “It’s not the same thing,” Jaxson said, interrupting the conversation. “Yes, you loved your child. No one here is saying you didn’t. But everything you are doing is a product of the anger you feel, and the hatred. Hatred for the General after everything he’s done to you.”

  “How is that different than any of you?” Flame demanded, her hand clenching tightly into a fist where it lay on the table.

  “Because we aren’t fueled by that hatred, Flame,” Angel said, walking over to kneel beside the woman. “It doesn’t consume us every waking minute like it does you.” Covering Flame’s hand with one of hers, she went on, “The team is worried about you. You’re family. This is not the time or place for this discussion, but we will have it. Soon.”

  Flame’s eyes filled with tears, and she glanced around the room. “I don’t know how to exist without the hatred,” she admitted softly. “If I don’t feel it, I don’t know if I can keep going, keep fighting.”

  “Trust me,” Angel assured her, putting an arm around Flame’s shoulders and pulling her close. “The drive to hunt down the General and take him out will still be there, no matter if you let go of the all-consuming rage and hatred you have for the man or not. We just don’t like to see it eating at you every day. We don’t want to see you ruin the life you could have here with the pack and Bran over it.”

  Jaxson’s computer dinged, and he tore his gaze from the emotional scene in front of him to read the notification. “Shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “Looks like the General is up and moving again,” he growled, his eyes skimming the report sent by one of his contacts who had been keeping an eye on anything that had to do with the General for him. “He’s out of his coma. Expected to make a full recovery.”

  “That’s what we wanted, right?” Storm asked, even though he could hear the trepidation in her voice. “What Jinx wanted?”

  “For now,” Angel agreed, slowly rising to her feet. “Only for now. Until he can figure out who the ring leader is in the whole operation. Taking out the General will do us no good at this time. They will just bring in someone new to run his operation.” Standing with her hand on Flame’s shoulder, she told them, “It’s late. Go home. Get some rest. We will meet again tomorrow at noon.”

  “Here?” Jaxson asked, shutting down his laptop and standing, raising his arms high to stretch the kinks out of his back. He’d been sitting in the same damn chair for at least six hours now, and his wolf wanted a good run.

  “Yeah. With the General back in action, I don’t want to go far from my family, unless we are out on a mission.”

  “You got it, boss lady,” Phoenix said, ma
king his way to the door. “I need to stay near Serenity, too. I’m not letting the bastard get a hold of my family.”

  Jaxson nodded in agreement. Serenity was valuable to the General, especially with the secret she held — the small baby growing inside of her. And Hunter, the poor little bear cub had spent his life growing up in a cage. He wasn’t going back to that. No one was going to get near Phoenix’s mate or children.

  Leaving the building with his team, Jaxson said his goodbyes and followed Trace to one of the apartment buildings, grateful that Chase had given him his own apartment to use when he didn’t want to go back to his place in Denver, over half an hour away from the compound. He was exhausted and didn’t want to make the drive. His wolf was going to have to wait to stretch his legs, too. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t even have the energy for a short run.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jaxson was showered and in bed, slipping into sleep. At first, the dream came to him the same way it always did, seeping slowly into his mind. Whispers of pain and agony. Misery and suffering like he’d never felt before. The feeling of defeat was there. Of wanting to give up so the pain would go away. Suddenly, he heard a voice.

  I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I am so exhausted. It hurts so much. Why is he doing this to me? Why?