Her Wild Hero by Paige Tyler

Her Wild Hero by Paige Tyler

Name: Kendra Carlson
Rank: Trainer, Dept. of Covert Ops
Objective: Get out of the office and into the field

Name: Declan MacBride
Rank: Tracker, Dept. of Covert Ops
Status: Bear Shifter
Objective: Protect Kendra at all costs

The steamy Costa Rican jungle brings out the bear in Declan MacBride when he and new operative Kendra Carlson are ambushed.  In the midst of relying on each other to survive, and fighting his explosive attraction to Kendra, this shifter is about to lose control...

Kendra has been itching to get out into the field ever since she helped Ivy and Landon with the shifters in Washington...she is getting her chance when Declan's team is scheduled to go to Costa Rica to help train some local policemen.  While Kendra is only going in an observational capacity, it's closer to the action than she has officially gotten before...it isn't long before Kendra is hoping for a little less action as her entire team is soon overrun by shifter hybrids.  When the team loads two helicopters for evacuation, the helicopter Declan and Kendra are on crashes, causing them to have to evade hybrid capture on their own.

Declan has crushed on Kendra for seven years and has finally decided enough is enough.  It figures that as soon as he is ready to move on, Kendra might just be noticing him, however, before either of them can do anything about it, they have to figure out how to survive against overwhelming odds.  Declan uses all of his skills as a former forest ranger and as a bear shifter to hid from the relentless pursuit by the hybrids.  He is pleasantly surprised by Kendra's capabilities but that doesn't mean that they are home free.  Being prey doesn't sit well with Declan, who will have to combine both his brains and his brawn if he is to get himself and Kendra out of this situation alive.

Declan and Kendra have been in the background for a couple of books now and I was really cheering for them from page one.  Unfortunately there are a lot of things against them including poor timing, a previous relationship that has left Declan gun shy, copious amounts of hybrids trying to kill them, and Kendra's past infatuation with Declan's colleague Clayne.  What these two really need to do is sit down and talk honestly but finding a safe place and enough time to do so is tough when you are running for your life in a jungle.

Lots of secondary characters come back in play when a rescue mission is mounted.  When questions regarding this new generation of hybrids arise, the smell of corruption gets thick and the question of who can be trusted puts pressure on many to find out who is selling out the DCO.  Trusting the wrong person(s) could put shifters and humans alike in the cross hairs of an increasingly dangerous enemy.  With all of this going on, it would have been easy to lose track of the romantic thread in the book but Paige Tyler kept a tight focus at all times keeping the pacing and tension just right and the balance of action and romance both believable and enjoyable.