Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  After what had happened earlier, she wouldn’t take another chance. Not for anything.

  Anyway, she could see out from where she stood. The surf was rough, choppy. There was a storm coming, a big one. Even though the skies were clear, it was on its way—she’d seen reports of it on the news at the safe house.

  The safe house. It wasn’t so safe anymore, thanks to her. What a dumb thing to do, starting her laptop. Like she needed to check email right now. Work had essentially ended, and it wasn’t like she’d be paid the balance due even if there was anything more to be done. They’d already compiled the data and were putting the finishing touches on their action plan when this whole nightmare had begun.

  Action plan. What a joke. As if the people running the project were interested in an action plan. They’d only cared about their work, their findings, getting all the data together and moving on.

  She realized then that the rough surf matched what was happening inside her. She might as well have been battling a storm in her head, her thoughts dark and twisted and full of self-reproach. Guilt. Loathing.

  “You’re upset.” Sledge’s voice was low, soft. He sat on the bed—queen-size, big enough for two; she couldn’t help but imagine being in it with him, which was why she kept her back to him rather than risk him seeing her blush.

  “Yeah. I am. Wouldn’t you be? Am I not allowed to be upset?” She held herself, hands cupping her elbows, wishing she could go back and undo the harm she’d done. The thought made her snicker at herself.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You don’t have to talk to me like you’re afraid I’ll break,” she sighed. “Honestly. I won’t break. You don’t have to treat me like I will.”

  “I’m only—”

  “I know. Only trying to be good to me. Only trying to make me feel better. Only making sure I don’t think you blame me for totally upsetting your whole safe house situation.”

  “Well. Yes.”

  “I get it. I even appreciate it. But I don’t like being talked to like I’m either going to shatter at any minute or explode. I don’t want to feel like, you know, you see me differently or whatever. Or like you need to be inauthentic with me because you’re afraid of throwing me off-balance. Okay? Please.”

  “Okay. I get it. But I still wanna know what’s so funny.”

  She barely remembered why she’d snickered at all, and that alone made her laugh helplessly, hopelessly. She turned to face him, wiping tears from her cheeks. “God, this is all so messed up. Now I remember. I was snickering at myself because I wanted to go back in time and fix things.”

  “That’s nothing to snicker at. We all wanna do that at some point—and no, I’m not patronizing you,” he vowed.

  “But it’s a waste of time thinking that. It goes without saying that everything would be so much better if I hadn’t accepted the contract with these murderers or if I’d taken the threat seriously when Michael died, when Carla died.”

  She sank to the bed, close to where he sat, though there was room between them. What she wanted more than almost anything besides the chance to go back and fix things was to curl up in his embrace, to shelter against him. He’d protect her from the storm raging all around.

  She wouldn’t throw herself at him. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. What if he tensed up? What if he moved away?

  When he opened his arms and whispered, “Come here,” her heart was his. Completely, totally. It was the perfect thing to do at the perfect moment. She needed him desperately, needed the solid certainty of his embrace, and he’d offered it without being asked.

  He was there to protect her from an assassin, but there was no protecting her from him.

  They stretched out on the bed, side-by-side, fully clothed. She rested her head against his chest and let out a long, soft sigh when his arms closed around her. It was heavenly. The strong beat of his heart was music under her ear.

  “It isn’t a waste of time to imagine what things would be like if you could go back and change them,” he murmured. His mouth was near the top of her head, his breath enough to stir her hair. “It’s a way of coping when life gets to be too much. Believe me, I know how it goes.”

  “You keep talking about knowing things and having been through things, and you keep telling me you’ll share everything later. When the time comes. When’s the time going to come? I don’t know anything about you except you were in the military.”

  “I was.”

  She waited a moment for him to continue. When he didn’t, she prodded. “Well? What else is there?”

  “Sometimes it feels like that’s all there was. My life before I enlisted is shadowy. I barely remember it. It wasn’t very memorable. I didn’t have a choice but to either enlist or end up in jail, probably.”

  “What? You?”

  His chuckle was deep, rumbling in his chest. “Yeah. Me. I wasn’t somebody you’d wanna know in my youth. I had no discipline, no drive. I thought hating authority figures made me edgy. Like I was unique because I didn’t like being told what to do.”

  “Yeah, not very unique,” she grinned, looking up at him without lifting her head.

  “Like I said, I was a mess. You wouldn’t have liked me.”

  “Okay, so you joined up. I’m glad you did if it put you on the right path and kept you out of jail.”

  He should’ve agreed with her right away. Why didn’t he agree?

  She soon found out. “It… changed me. That time in my life. I came back a completely different person.”

  “I’m sure you did. I can’t imagine what it must’ve been like. Thank you for everything you did out there.” Her cheeks went warm. “I hope that doesn’t sound corny.”

  “It doesn’t,” he assured her. “Don’t ever avoid thanking a veteran. We might not be proud of everything we’ve done, but it’s nice to know people appreciate the time we spent out there. Anyway, there were things that happened to me. To all of us—that’s how we met. Logan and all of us.”

  “What brought you together? Were you all in the same… battalion? Or whatever it’s called?”

  “No, we weren’t together originally. We were all subject to tests. Experiments. These scientists wanted to know more about the effects of battle on the body. That’s how we met. They chose us.”

  She frowned. That sounded awfully familiar. Too familiar. She kept her thoughts to herself rather than sharing them with him. Instead, she asked, “It changed you?”

  “It did. In ways I couldn’t imagine.”

  “Is that what you wish you could change? Enlisting? If you hadn’t, none of these things would’ve happened.”

  “Yeah, but who’s to say who I would’ve turned out to be otherwise? That’s the thing about wanting to change the past. There’s no guarantee things would’ve turned out any better in the long run. I don’t know if you believe in fate or what have you, but maybe some things are meant to be. Maybe we’d end up in the same place regardless. We’ll never know.”

  “I’d at least like to try to make things better,” Marnie mused. “I’d have to try to save them. Especially Beth. Is that selfish?”

  “Of course it isn’t. It sounds like she was an incredible friend. Not everybody is lucky enough to have a friend like that.”

  “It’s true. I’ll never find anybody like her again.”

  “You never know. Nobody will ever take her place, obviously, but you could find somebody important, somebody you trust, somebody who gets you. It’s a big world. There are lots of people in it.”

  “That’s true, I guess.” She snuggled a little closer as he started stroking her back. Long, slow strokes. They didn’t light her on fire the way his touch had earlier, but a steady warmth kindled in her core anyway. It spread over her, loosening her muscles until she practically melted against him.

  “I’m really scared,” she whispered. “No offense to you or the team. I know you’re good at your work. I’m just scared. What’s going to happen to me after this is over? I
won’t have my team anymore, my business. I can afford to live on my savings for a while, but it took longer than that to start building a client list.”

  “Your business doesn’t have to close down, you know. You can start again.”

  “And how long will that take? It’s all so uncertain.”

  “It was before too—right? I’m just guessing here, but I imagine it was uncertain and scary going out on your own, starting something from scratch. You won’t be starting from scratch now. You must’ve made contacts, built a network. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re way ahead of where you started out. That’s nothing to discount. I know everything seems dark right now, like you’ll never find your way out of this, but you already worked so hard and did so much. You can rebuild. You can find a new team—I know it’s easy for me to say; I didn’t know these people. I’m sure they were good people. I’m sure Beth was the best, but you can find a new team. I have faith in you.”

  “You don’t even know me,” she breathed, her heart clenching.

  “You don’t think I know you by now? We’re not strangers. I understand you—you have to feel it.”

  Did she?

  Her instinct was to disagree, to tell him there was no way they could’ve reached anything close to an understanding when they hadn’t known each other for more than a few days.

  Was that the truth? Or was it something she wanted to believe because believing it would be safe? Was she still making that mistake, thinking she needed to play it safe? Like there was any such thing. Like life couldn’t turn on a dime and leave a person shaking, wondering if anything they’d ever believed was true actually was the truth.

  What was the point of taking the safe road, then? Why waste time fooling herself into believing she could do the right thing all the time? Sure, there was exercising caution, but there was also a perverse drive to push away anything even slightly outside the norm, slightly threatening.

  Even when the slightly threatening things—like the idea of opening herself up to Sledge—were also thrilling. She felt more alive than she ever had all because of him. Just being in his arms now, in this bed while they were both fully clothed, was exciting.

  All of this went through her head in the blink of an eye. She couldn’t keep holding herself back. She couldn’t do it to herself anymore since it got her nowhere and there was no reward at the end of it. What if she died tomorrow and her entire life was spent denying herself and what she really wanted?

  “I feel it,” she admitted in the tiniest whisper. For a second, she wondered if he could even hear her.

  The tightening of his arms told her he did, and a brief pressure against the crown of her head. He’d kissed it. The tiniest gesture, but it warmed her like no fire ever could.

  “Get some rest,” he advised. “We have to get it whenever we can when things are this way.” Yes and it was now well past dark, and she’d been at her wit's end ever since having to run away from the safe house. That day might as well have been three or four days all lumped into one.

  Only she didn’t want to sleep. It would mean missing being here with him, wrapped in his arms. She had so much time to make up for, so many years of denying herself these simple pleasures.

  It wouldn’t have been nearly as sweet if she’d been with anyone but him. She knew that much.

  Her eyes slowly closed no matter how she fought against it, and soon darkness wrapped itself around her, and she floated off into a dream world.

  A world full of wolves.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  He was dreaming of his wolf.

  He knew it was a dream even as he ran through the woods. He knew he was dreaming even though he smelled the early morning air—cool, crisp, fresh. A fresh, new day too, filled with possibility. No mistakes, no regrets. Anything could happen on a day like this, starting with a morning like this when the night’s mist was still doing its best to cling to the shrubs, the ground.

  The sun was just about to breach the horizon, and he knew that if he turned to look over his shoulder, he would be treated to the sight of the first golden rays spreading across the sky.

  The wood floor was coated in dew, and he felt it against his paws as he cut a path through the trees. It was all so real, so vivid. He could smell the pine, the squirrels and rabbits hiding from him in the trees and beneath thick shrub.

  They couldn’t hide from him because he knew everything. He sensed them, sensed everything around him. It was all so sharp, so pure, focused, not scattered and distracted as he was when he walked on two legs, his mind always split between this part of himself and the part of him that was a man, as he’d been before.

  Everything made sense now, and he was king of all he surveyed, as there was nothing in these woods stronger, faster or more fearsome than him. The thought of it brought him pride.

  Even when he knew he was dreaming. He wasn’t really there. This happened sometimes—when he hadn’t shifted in too long, when the wolf’s craving to be set free was too much. The wolf had a tendency of making things clear in the only way it could, by appearing in his dreams and living out its life.

  The sun was on the rise, yet everything around him grew dim. Clouds rushed in from the west, angry and dark and seething, climbing over each other in their race to cover the sky. They blocked out the sun, turning his idyllic paradise into something better suited to a nightmare.

  Was that what this was turning into? A nightmare? He looked around, sensing danger now. His ears pricked up at the sound of footsteps—faint but audible. Cautious steps made by someone aware of another presence, a presence they didn’t want to be noticed by.

  It was too late for that since he knew they were there. Who they were, on the other hand, wasn’t such an easy question to answer. He couldn’t scent them—no matter how he turned his head, their scent alluded him. The wind kept changing direction, leaving him unsure, and the thickening mist was turning into a fog that muffled those careful footsteps.

  His heart raced even though he was standing still, the sound of his panting filling his ears. He was panicking. He never panicked. Wolves never panicked.

  Yet here he was. Losing it. His human consciousness tried to break through, to make sense of this, to remind him that this was nothing but a dream. There was nothing to be afraid of.

  Yes, there was. He had everything to be afraid of.

  The footsteps got louder, and soon he noticed movement in the trees. He didn’t know whether to stand still and wait to see who was moving around there or turn and run. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, his fight-or-flight response revving up. His survival instinct kicked into gear too, telling him to go, to run, to flee. It didn’t matter who was up there because this wasn’t real, anyway.

  So why run? Why flee if it wasn’t real, if no actual harm could come to him?

  The wolf was afraid. The wolf feared the approaching danger. The wolf knew this danger wasn’t only in his head, that it didn’t exist only in a dream.

  A scream pierced the air, driving itself straight into his brain like an ice pick through the ear. His fur stood up, a growl already working its way out from his throat as he searched for the source of the sound. He knew that voice. It could only be her.

  He woke covered in a thin sheen of sweat, clutching the sheets. They had left the light on before falling asleep, and it still glowed on the nightstand. It wasn’t necessary anymore since the light coming through the windows was thin and gray at present. Night had passed, and morning was bringing the storm along with it.

  Thank God she had pulled away from him during the night—he would hate for her to wake up damp with his sweat. She was curled up on her side, facing away from him, and he could tell by the even, steady rhythm of her breathing that she was deeply asleep.

  Relief washed over him. She needed to rest, needed to find a way out of the horror her life had turned into, if only for a little while.

  His heart still raced like it had while he was dreaming. May
be the most vivid dream he’d ever had. He didn’t normally have such vivid dreams, didn’t normally feel and sense things so strongly. He almost never knew he was dreaming while he was dreaming.

  What was that all about? Was he supposed to take something from it? Was she in danger—worse danger than they knew? Because it wasn’t like they didn’t already know there was trouble.

  There had to be a reason why the wolf had come to him.

  He was starting to calm down, his pulse slowing until it felt at least somewhat normal. He worked his way up until he was sitting, even when he wanted nothing more than to roll over and drape an arm around Marnie’s small, soft body and if not sleep just revel in being with her, feeling her warmth, drinking in her scent, her sweetness.

  Instead, he picked up his phone and crept from the room as quietly as someone his size could. There wasn’t so much as a hitch in her breathing to tell him he disturbed her.

  No, he was the one being disturbed. He was the one whose hands shook a little as he went to call Logan. He willed himself to stay calm, not to let fear or dread get the better of him. He was a wolf, for God’s sake. He didn’t crumble under pressure the way normal people did.

  “What’s wrong?” Logan asked on answering the call.

  It almost took Sledge by surprise, that abrupt greeting. He paused, then replied, “Nothing concrete. She’s asleep. Kara is in her room, and I assume Jace is with her.” It was barely six o’clock, so there was no reason to imagine either of them being awake yet. Jace normally woke as early as the rest of them, but there was something to be said for lingering at the side of the woman he loved.

  Sledge was starting to understand a lot of things he had never given real thought to before. He craved Marnie, needed her the way an addict would need a fix. He could only imagine Jace felt the same way about his mate.

  “Then what’s up?” Logan prompted. He didn’t have to say it for Sledge to understand he’d woken him.

  “Sorry to wake you up, but I just had a dream. He was trying to tell me something. I could tell.” He couldn’t say out loud who he was talking about—there was always a chance Marnie would wake up and overhear.