Khaki nodded but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to hear her heart rate pick up to know she was nervous. The look on her face said it all. He wanted to say something comforting, but was worried it might come off the wrong way. If she were a man instead of a woman—one he was seriously attracted to, at that—he sure as hell wouldn’t coddle the guy. Of course, if she were a man, he wouldn’t be having these thoughts in the first place.
Xander forced himself to ignore her racing heart and concentrate. “The hardest task for a newbie to learn in SWAT is how to move as part of a team. There are a lot of theories on how a three- or four-person team is supposed to move through a building, clearing each room in a schematic manner, covering each other’s blind spots and making sure you don’t miss anything, but they’re just that—theories.”
“And crappy ones at that,” Alex added. “Most of the people who claim to know how it’s done have never had to actually do it.”
Xander couldn’t disagree with that, but he still silenced Alex with a glare.
“The typical way a SWAT unit works a new member into the team is to train a lot,” Xander continued as he turned back to Khaki. “But even with weeks of hard training, you can still end up with a collection of individuals instead of a team. Luckily, you have an advantage that the average SWAT newbie doesn’t have.”
She thought a moment, then her lips curved. “I’m a werewolf.”
Her smile provoked a powerful response in him he hadn’t anticipated. Any attempt to maintain his stern, detached demeanor failed miserably and he found himself grinning.
“Yeah, you’re a werewolf. But more importantly, you’re a member of a pack of werewolves. You’re genetically designed to mesh perfectly into a pack. All you have to do is let it happen.”
Her smile faltered, which confused the hell out of him. He’d essentially told her she didn’t have to do anything other than simply let loose and be a werewolf.
“Trevor, Becker, Max, and Hale, you guys’ll play suspects and hostages.” He gave them a nod. “Go ahead and take up positions inside. Just basic stationary threats to start with.”
They went inside, leaving him, Khaki, Alex, and Cooper. Normally, he’d pair Khaki with a senior member of his team, like Diego Martinez. But Diego wasn’t in his squad anymore. The idiot had gotten into a brawl a while back and Gage had transferred his stupid ass to Mike’s squad as punishment. That was how Xander had ended up with Max, which was a crappy swap. Not that there was anything wrong with Max, but the guy was young, with less than a year in SWAT. Losing somebody with Diego’s experience and getting a pup who was barely more than a newbie himself was tough to deal with. And to make matters worse, as part of that same brawl, Gage had also partnered Max up with Hale, another senior guy. It probably wouldn’t be a permanent situation, but for now, those two were tied together at the hip.
That left Trevor as the only senior team member left, and right now Trevor still had his hands full with Becker. Becker was a good cop, but he had his own way of doing things, and sometimes he liked to color too far outside the lines for Xander’s liking.
Xander glanced at Alex and Cooper, watching as they showed Khaki how to operate the paintball guns they’d be using for the exercise. He briefly debated the pros and cons of pairing Khaki up with one of them, but decided against it. While both men had the experience and patience to train Khaki, Xander’s gut told him neither one would be a good fit with her.
And he would be?
“Khaki and I will take the right side of the house while you two guys cover the left,” he told Alex and Cooper before he could change his mind. “We’ll start at a crawl and speed up when she’s ready.”
Xander took the paintball gun Cooper held out. If he stayed focused, he should be able to pull this training off without a problem. After all, he’d trained all the other members of his squad. But then Khaki stepped closer and her scent gently wafted over and punched him in the gut.
He clenched his jaw as he loaded paintballs in the gun, then slipped it into his thigh holster. “Here’s how this is going to work, Khaki. I’m going to be at your right shoulder as we move from room to room, guiding you the whole way. Just relax and let your wolf senses guide you.”
She nodded. Her face might be calm, but her body vibrated with excitement.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded again, then turned to face the heavy wooden door, leaving herself enough room to rear back and get a good kick in. Cooper and Alex moved in close, and Xander could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up as he felt all the energy pouring off the three other amped-up werewolves.
Xander placed his left hand on Khaki’s back, as Cooper did the same to Alex. Xander almost jumped from the electrical shock that coursed through him from the contact. He covered it by tightening a strap on her vest, but he had to shake his head to refocus.
“The moment you go through the door, stay low and clear the area just inside the door to the right,” he instructed, trying not to breathe in her intoxicating scent. “I’ll cover everything farther into the room. Cooper and Alex will worry about everything to the left of twelve o’clock. No matter what threats you see in the room, you have to clear your sector. You have to trust that everyone else will do their jobs. You have to trust us with your life.”
Xander rested his hand on her back again. He felt the tingle but was prepared for it this time.
“On my mark,” he said. “Go!”
* * *
As Xander’d expected, Khaki was a fast learner. And as expected, he found it difficult to focus on the task at hand, especially when he spent so much of the time with his body in contact with hers.
Schematically clearing a building typically required a lot of body contact between team members, with every instruction being communicated almost entirely through hand signals and taps on the other person’s shoulder or back, a gentle nudge here or there, a brief touch on the arm. Then there were the moments when all four of them were pressed close together, as they initially moved into a room or headed up a stairwell. Then his whole body was touching hers, and he was practically on fire.
Xander didn’t know how it was possible, but being this close to Khaki for so long had made him more aware of her then he’d ever been aware of another person—or werewolf. It was beyond picking up her unique scent. Now, he swore he could literally smell her emotions. She was so excited as she moved through the building that she bordered on being giddy. He’d never experienced anything like it in his life, and it was freaking him out.
Then there was her heartbeat.
All werewolves had good hearing, and picking up someone’s heartbeat when they were excited wasn’t all that special. But he wasn’t only hearing the rapidthud-thudof her racing heart; he was feeling it as well. Right there in his own chest, almost as if he had a second heartbeat.
