Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  Even more terrifying than shifting into the wolf again, which she’d managed to avoid ever since those first nightmare days.

  She had definitely shocked the hell out of everybody listening. None of the guys had anything to say. For people who’d been so threatening and so macho only minutes earlier, they had certainly changed their tune in a hurry. Sledge ran a hand over his hair, scowling. Braxton looked around, hands in his pockets, grimacing like he knew something should be said but didn’t know what it was. Zane looked sympathetic—he struck her as a sweetheart, maybe more empathetic than the rest of them.

  She realized she only cared what Logan thought. What had her little revelation done to him?

  The first thing he did was hand her the bottle. “Here you go.” Their fingers brushed when she took it, and she wondered he felt the little electric charge that resulted from the brief contact. It was probably all in her head. Maybe those pills left her deluded—this was the first prolonged contact she’d had with men since coming home with her father.

  And even then, none of the men she never knew came close to these guys. Even the strongest, most powerful men she’d known were like little boys compared to Logan.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, holding onto the pill bottle like it was a talisman, like it would keep her safe somehow.

  “Do you hear her?” Jace tapped the side of his head. “Or is she quiet now too?”

  “My wolf? I mean, she’s there. I feel her, but I’ve learned to ignore her. It’s like there’s a padded wall between us, sucking up any sound and muffling it. So I hear a noise, but it’s not distinct. More like a distraction I can easily push to the back of my mind if that makes any sense.”

  Braxton blew out a low whistle, shaking his head. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished there was something that could help me do that. It can be deafening sometimes, being in my own head.”

  “Just the same, I don’t know if I would want to abandon my wolf,” Sledge murmured.

  “I haven’t abandoned anybody,” she argued, drawing herself up a little taller in the chair.

  He had the decency to wince. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out that way. You do what you have to do.”

  “Sure,” Zane added. “It’s easy for us to sit here and judge when we were never given a choice. Maybe, if we’d be given a choice in the beginning, we might’ve chosen to take the pills. I remember how terrified I was when the shift first took over. I didn’t have the first idea what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to be, how I was supposed to live in the world. And without you guys?” He looked around at the rest of his team. “Honestly, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

  “I agree.” Logan nodded firmly, and for some reason, that single little gesture gave her more hope than she’d felt in a while. He understood. He could relate, could put himself in her shoes. She never could’ve hoped for this.

  Not for the first time did she wish she hadn’t been alone through this whole ordeal, that she had at least one person by her side who understood. She could’ve come to accept what was done to her, could’ve learned to thrive in spite of it.

  Then again, there wasn’t much thriving to be done when she was the full-time caregiver for her helpless parent.

  “You take care of your father now, don’t you?” Logan looked sympathetic.

  “What gives you that idea?” She couldn’t help it. After so many years of lying, of doing whatever she could to protect herself, it wasn’t in her nature to offer a response without at least making a person work for it.

  “Unless you were willing to fabricate another identity for him, he would be easy to find in the healthcare system, and if you’re trying to hide him, you wouldn’t want to run that risk.”

  In spite of everything going on around her, in spite of the painful, horrific memories stirred up by what she had just described, she couldn’t help but smile. “You’re pretty quick.” To her surprise, he smiled back. It seemed to be a day for surprises. For both of them.

  For all of them.

  Three women came out from somewhere in the back where she guessed they’d been hiding in case things went south. She recognized the strawberry blonde as Aimee and nodded in recognition. The girl with the brown hair was Marnie—Jenna had seen her picture, had done a ton of research on her.

  She didn’t know the pink-haired girl with the braids, and she had never met the baldheaded guy who walked in behind them. For a perfect stranger, he bore a sympathetic sort of look. In fact, they all did.

  Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “You have this room rigged for sound, don’t you?” she asked. “Everybody heard what I had to say.”

  “You don’t have anything to hide from us,” the baldheaded guy assured her. “We’re all a team here.”

  “No offense, but I’m not part of your team. At least, there was no induction ceremony or anything.” Besides, she didn’t know if she even wanted to be part of their team or any team. A hacker’s life wasn’t exactly social. Even if her life hadn’t led in the direction it did, she would still have been a solitary creature.

  Even so, there was something inside that wanted her to accept them as allies, maybe even more than allies. She’d been alone in this for so long. Maybe it was her wolf, subconsciously directing her. Maybe the wolf was glad to have finally found the rest of its pack.

  And it freaked her out, to put it mildly.

  She jumped to her feet, looking around. “I have to go. I have to take care of my father. I probably already stay too long.”

  Logan was quick to follow her as she hurried for the door. “Wait a second. When are you coming back?”

  “I never said I was coming back,” she reminded him over her shoulder. “So you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Wait a second.” His hand closed around her arm, turning her in a half-circle to face him. “It doesn’t work this way. You can’t just walk out without another word.”

  “I have responsibilities,” she hissed. “I thought I just told you about that.”

  “You did, but you have a responsibility to yourself too.”

  Her eyes went wide, registering her surprise before she could stop them. She didn’t like leaving herself open like that, conveying through her expression what she was thinking. He knocked her for a loop, and that couldn’t be hidden.

  He pulled her just a little closer, the scent of his cologne and the warmth of his body playing on her senses, threatening to drain every last bit of common sense because if he didn’t back away from her, and quick, she might end up making a mistake she couldn’t recover from.

  Something flickered in his eyes, and he let her go. She almost regretted the absence of his hand and cursed herself for it. She was weak, lonely, but that was no reason to let herself act like an idiot.

  “I understand what you’re trying to say,” she whispered. “We can do this separately. There’s this thing called the internet, and we can message each other on it.”

  “I’m glad you think this is funny,” he muttered, leaning against the wall. “But I don’t share your opinion. Sure, we could do this virtually, but doesn’t that leave us open to all sorts of trouble? What happens if somebody like you manages to intercept our communication?”

  “Nobody like me will because I will be the one setting things up. No offense to your man Hawk, but I trust myself more than I trust him.”

  “I still don’t like this. You’re too cocky.”

  “Thank you,” she smiled. “That’s a nice compliment.”

  “When are you going to take this seriously?” he barked.

  “How dare you suggest I don’t take this seriously already?” she barked, and his head snapped back a little like he was surprised. Good, let him be surprised. Let him keep underestimating her. Let him keep thinking he was the big, strong, brilliant man in charge of everything.

  If anything, it was his attitude that would lead to somebody getting hurt, not hers.

  She ran a hand over her f
ace, beside herself. “Sorry. I don’t normally lose my temper like that.”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for—well, if you wanted to apologize for hacking us, I’d be willing to accept that.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Big surprise,” he snickered.

  “Why should I? I already told you I had to know I could trust you guys, that you were the ones who ran from the lab. I’ve been looking for you for such a long time. It’s almost unnerving, finally being face-to-face with all of you.”

  “And now that you found us, you want to run away.”

  “Now that I found you, my objective is the same: to protect my father and myself. He would protect me if he had a chance—God knows he tried to, even if he wasn’t successful. I won’t blame him for that. I blame him for what he did, but not for what he tried to do once he saw the error of his ways. That’s why I’m wary of spending time with you guys. I took a huge chance coming here today, you know.”

  He laughed. “Please. We both know why you came here. You wanted to rub it in our faces that it was so easy for you to find us.”

  “I wouldn’t call it easy,” she corrected with a wry smile. “Believe me, it took me a long time. Your guy really does know his stuff. I’m sure that unless a person had as much to lose as I do, they would’ve given up a long time ago.”

  “It’s a shame the people we’re after have a lot to lose,” he mused with a frown.

  “Yeah. It is a shame.” She checked the time again, wincing. “I do have to go, though. He can generally take care of himself, but God forbid…”

  She half expected him to try to stop her again, but he didn’t. He stepped back, nodding. “Do what you have to do. Just don’t disappear on me—I mean, on us.”

  She told herself it was just a mistake, that there was nothing behind his choice of words. How pathetic would it be if she let herself believe there was anything more to it than that?

  “You’ll hear from me. I promise. Tonight.” Then, she practically fled from the building, jogging to her car and throwing herself behind the wheel. The more distance she could put between herself and that man, the better.

  Was it the wolf making her feel this way? How did the whole thing work? At least they had each other to help them through it—just another reason for her to envy them in a way. They had a pack. They were together. What had she ever had?

  The bottle in her pocket was what she had. It was what she’d always had. At least she’d been granted a choice of how she wanted to live, if only for a short time. That was more than they’d ever been given.

  For the first time, she found herself wanting to share the pills. Would they accept?

  And would they help her through the inevitable shift that would come if she stopped taking her daily dose?

  Chapter Nine

  Tonight. She was going to get in touch with him tonight.

  Unfortunate, then, that tonight was so vague. What time tonight? Early in the evening? After supper? Midnight? There were too many hours to stare down from behind his desk where he looked over the files Jenna had already managed to review.

  Their records. The proof that they existed, that they’d served their country.

  He could still remember the day they escaped and how important it had seemed at the time for him to get his hands on their files. Sheer instinct had driven into it, and he had never regretted it. Nobody could erase them. Nobody could silence them.

  It was like looking through records of complete strangers, including his own. A thousand years might as well have passed between then and the current moment in his office. They were all innocent back then, completely unaware of the sort of life they now lived. Assuming that while shifters existed—at least in legend—they would never be touched in their personal lives.

  How naïve. He couldn’t even blame that old version of himself, however, because there was no way he could’ve known. If anything, he pitied that kid. He’d only thought himself to be a man back then.

  Jenna. What was her last name? Val had already started a search on all service members with that name, but he suspected the girl in question wouldn’t come up in the search results. She probably hadn’t thought to take her file from them upon leaving the lab. They could’ve erased her, pretended she never existed.

  What a shame it would’ve been for that girl to never live. The world would’ve been a much darker, sadder place without her.

  He shook his head at himself, snickering. What was he thinking? He wasn’t some romantic hero, some schoolboy with a crush, and she wasn’t the girl to fall for either—not her, not with her baggage and her trust issues, her complications. Yes, that was it. She was too complicated.

  And if anyone on his team heard him say that out loud, they would’ve laughed themselves sick. Hadn’t they already been through it? Hadn’t he watched them fall in love with completely improbable people? For God’s sake, Zane had fallen for an assassin, somebody who had literally been hired to kill him.

  There was a gentle rapping at the door, and he looked up to find Val observing him with what looked like pity. “You look exhausted,” she muttered.

  “You’re such a sweet talker. No wonder Hawk fell for you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “She rattled you, didn’t she? And don’t even pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  “Little chance of you talking about anybody but Jenna since she’s the only outsider we had here today.” He leaned back in the chair, sighing. Yes, he was exhausted, his body heavy with fatigue. “And yes, she did rattle me. We never thought there were more of us, women who survived. We figured they would keep us all together, I guess, but in retrospect, that doesn’t make much sense. How did I miss it?”

  “Last time I checked, you’ve been busy with other things like building this place, leading your team, saving lives. Don’t forget that part.”

  “But this has always been there hanging over me, hanging over us. There was no reason for me to not see it, and I guess I’m just disappointed in myself. Just like I assumed that the hacker was male, I assumed there weren’t any more of us.”

  “Okay, maybe you need to stop assuming things, but I still don’t think you deserve to blame yourself for anything.”

  “You’re only saying that because I’m your boss.”

  She snapped her fingers. “Darn it. You got me.” Then she backed away. “I’m going home for the night. You should do the same.”

  “Is that an order?”

  “You know it. Just ask Hawk what happens when he doesn’t obey my orders.” She dragged a finger across her throat with a menacing expression, yet somehow it only made him laugh. She was good at that.

  Yes, he should go home. If Jenna was going to reach out to him, she could reach him on his cell or on his laptop. He would take it with him. If he had to look at these four walls any longer, he would lose his mind.

  It was after eight o’clock by then, and he wondered if he would ever get used to the shock of stepping out into the actual world after leaving the seclusion of their offices. There were no windows—at least, no windows that weren’t covered in steel to lessen the chance of theft or attack. Thanks to the way they were tinted, the casual passerby wouldn’t notice the fact that there was no seeing inside the building.

  It was dark, reminding him that summer was coming to an end. The air was humid but not hot or thick. Another reminder. It could’ve snowed six feet, and he wouldn’t know until he opened the door.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d shut the world out, was it? He’d been shutting it out for years.

  He settled in behind the wheel of the truck, starting the engine. The GPS screen flashed to life, and when he glanced over at it, he was surprised to find a red, blinking dot on the screen.

  “What the hell is this?” he whispered, expanding the location of that dot. It was roughly five miles away, and he realized the location was a little restaurant. When he tapped it, an online entry for the location popped up—a greasy spoon on a b
ack road used mostly by truckers trying to avoid traffic as they followed their route.

  He couldn’t help smiling, even if he couldn’t figure out how she’d done it. Somehow, Jenna had hacked into his car’s GPS and planted the address there. Did this mean she would meet them there? Had she been waiting for him all this time? No, because she would’ve had to leave her father home alone for all those hours.

  There had to be a way for her to know once he started the car, then. Maybe she got an alert when his GPS pinged. Either way, he had to give her credit.

  Of course, he didn’t have to follow her orders. He could go home, spend the rest of his night doing normal things like making a crappy little dinner for himself and watching crappy television, alone.

  Or he could engage in yet another verbal sparring battle with a woman who’d been through unspeakable horror just like he had.

  Damn his lonely heart. Damn his weakness too. He turned the truck in the direction the GPS set for him, following the route.

  I was fifteen minutes before he reached the diner, and he was relieved to find only a pair of cars in the parking lot. It was probably a little late in the evening for the dinner crowd if they ever even got one. Did Jenna live around here? That would explain why she’d know a safe place for them to meet.

  He would have to ask her himself since sitting around playing guessing games wasn’t getting him anywhere.

  When he entered the restaurant, however, he realized with a sinking heart that she wasn’t there. Was this all some sort of game, just another of her jokes? He found anger rising in his chest, resentment, disappointment in himself.

  Until the door to the ladies’ room opened and she strode out. “Took you long enough,” she grinned. She’d changed her clothes, now wearing a T-shirt with the band Queen on the front and a pair of jeans. Her hair was out of its ponytail, hanging loose over her shoulders. She wasn’t wearing a drop of makeup—in fact, her face looked freshly scrubbed, practically glowing.