Undercover Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  “Wait. What?” Harley looked around the table to see if everyone heard the same thing she had. “Soul mate?”

  Caleb opened his mouth to answer, but Jake’s phone rang, interrupting him. Jake pulled it out, grimacing when he saw the screen.

  “It’s McKay. Hopefully, he’ll have more info for us on Yegor than he did last night,” he said, pushing back his chair. “Let me know what I miss.”

  Caleb speared a piece of chicken, then added a tomato to the fork, shoving both in his mouth. “There’s something incredibly ironic about the fact that out of the three werewolves on our team, I’m the only one who knows anything about soul mates. You guys realize I’m an omega, right? The antisocial one with poor pack instincts. Yet I’m the one who had to tell Jake about The One when he met Jes, and now, I’m gonna have to tell you.”

  “The One?” she repeated, a little dazed.

  She’d thought when he said those words before that it was in a casual way, but considering the rest of her friends were grinning like idiots, she realized there might be more significance to them.

  “Yeah—The One,” Caleb said in exasperation. “As in The One-in-a-billion person you’re meant to be with for the rest of your life. Your soul mate. Our inner werewolves instinctively know who we’re supposed to spend the rest of our lives with the moment we meet them, even if it sometimes takes our human side a lot longer to figure out.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  “Beats the hell out of me. Who knows how our inner werewolves know half the crap they do?” He shrugged. “Look, I’m not saying for sure that Sawyer is The One for you—only you know the answer to that question—but it definitely explains why you’re falling for him so fast.”

  The idea that she might have to rely on her inner werewolf for something so important scared the hell out of her. She hadn’t exactly been on the best of terms with her furry side. Could she truly trust it?

  “What if my inner werewolf is wrong and Sawyer isn’t The One for me?” she asked. “Worse, what if Sawyer is The One for me, but not the other way around? Is that even possible?”

  The idea suddenly made it hard to breathe and she gasped for air. If she didn’t calm down, she’d be hyperventilating in a minute.

  “You need to stop freaking out before you pass out,” Caleb said, devouring another kabob. “You’ve found someone who’s perfect for you. Stop thinking so damn much and enjoy it.”

  Jes nodded. “He’s right.”

  On Harley’s side of the table, Misty and Forrest nodded, too.

  “Okay.” Harley took a deep breath. “So if Sawyer is The One, then making a long-distance relationship work shouldn’t be that difficult, right?”

  Then why did the thought of not being in the same zip code as Sawyer make her want to freak out again?

  Caleb shrugged and started in on a chicken pita. “Hell if I know. But if he’s The One, you’ll figure it out. You might want to start by telling Sawyer how you feel about him.” He grinned. “Then again, I’m an antisocial omega, so what the hell do I know about talking and feelings?”

  Harley would have laughed, but just then, the scent of cinnamon coffee cake hit her nose. A split second later, the front door opened and Sawyer walked in. His blue eyes immediately locked on her and he grinned. Heart doing a somersault, she smiled back. Suddenly, every doubt she had a few minutes ago disappeared and everything felt right in her world again.

  “Hey,” he said, giving her friends a nod in greeting as he made his way over to the counter to fill a plate with food.

  “How was your call with Weatherford?” Harley asked.

  He helped himself to three pitas and four kabobs, skipping the salad but grabbing some baklava. “Better than I expected.”

  She exchanged looks with her teammates to see that they looked as surprised as she was. “MI6 is okay with you being a werewolf?”

  “They don’t know.” He carried his plate over to the table and sat down beside her. “Erin and Elliott didn’t go back to headquarters. I’m hoping that means they’re having second thoughts about leaving.”

  Harley hoped so, too.

  As she started on her salad and Sawyer dug into his own lunch, everyone debated why people had started calling “kabobs” by the more recent and now widely accepted “skewers.” It was a silly conversation for sure, but also fun, and Harley was struck by how well Sawyer got along with her pack and vice versa. It was ridiculous how happy that made her. If he liked her friends and they liked him in return, that had to be a good start, right?

  They were talking about British versus American English when Jake walked into the kitchen. The scowl on his face made Harley think his conversation with McKay hadn’t gone well. Everyone else must have thought the same thing because they all fell silent.

  “What’s up?” Jes asked as Jake sat down beside her.

  “McKay still won’t sign off on letting Brielle and her brother go free in exchange for information.” Jake glanced at Sawyer. “He wasn’t too happy with MI6 trying to pressure STAT into giving her a deal. He was even less thrilled when I pushed him to do the same thing. As far as the brass is concerned, having someone like Brielle at their beck and call is more important than anything Yegor has planned.”

  Sawyer frowned but didn’t say anything, and Harley wondered what he was thinking.

  “According to McKay, a transport team is coming in from DC tonight to escort Brielle and her brother back there,” Jake added, then quickly brought them up to speed on what else their boss said, which wasn’t much since they still had no leads on Yegor. When he was done, he looked at Sawyer. “How’d Weatherford handle finding out you’re a werewolf?”

  Sawyer told Jake the same thing he’d told the rest of them—that MI6 didn’t know—then shrugged. “They’re bound to find out at some point, and something tells me that when they do, I can kiss my job there goodbye.”

  Jake glanced at Harley before looking at Sawyer again, his face thoughtful. “You know, if that ever happens, you’re always welcome at STAT.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Harley saw her teammates smiling as discreetly as they could. She tried to hide how giddy she was at the idea, but the moment Sawyer’s gaze met hers, she couldn’t help grinning. The prospect of working with Sawyer was too perfect for words.

  Sawyer opened his mouth to say something, but Jake’s cell rang. A split second later, Sawyer’s rang as well. Harley heard Tessa shouting something about Yegor’s crew attacking the abandoned hospital to Jake even as Rory did the same to Sawyer before gunfire drowned out both of them and the phone connections went dead.

  Muttering a curse, Jake relayed what Tessa said for their non-werewolf teammates who didn’t have ears keen enough to hear what she said, then they were all heading for the door. Unfortunately, whatever Sawyer had been going to say would have to wait until later. Harley only prayed they got to the hospital before the assholes who worked for Yegor killed everyone in it.

  Chapter 16

  It took them eight bloody minutes to get to the abandoned hospital. Sawyer knew for a certainty because he’d kept one eye on the digital clock in the dashboard as he drove. He’d sped like a madman the entire way, and it had still taken too long.

  He was shocked there wasn’t any local law enforcement in the parking lot of the converted hospital when he slid to a stop against the curb, Jake right behind him in the other SUV. Sawyer had no idea how Tessa had managed to keep the Athens police away from there in a situation like this, but he was glad she had. Regular humans getting involved in a situation they couldn’t possibly understand would only end up in grave danger or dead.

  Putting the SUV in park, Sawyer jumped out of the vehicle. From the passenger side, Harley and Caleb did the same. He pulled out his gun, forcing himself to approach the building slowly. They had no idea what was happening inside and running headlong into whateve
r was going on could get them—and everyone in there—killed. Harley had tried calling both Rory and Tessa the whole way over, but neither of them answered. That scared him. Almost as much as the fact that he couldn’t hear anything coming from inside the building. Not even gunfire. Did that mean the fight was over?

  The concrete in front of the entrance was covered with thousands of pieces of glittering, reflective glass, along with a sizable pool of blood smack in the middle of it all. It took a second to realize the glass had come from one of the big windows on the fourth floor. Someone had either jumped out or been pushed. A curious part of his mind wondered where the body was.

  “Watch yourselves,” Jake murmured as they all approached the double doors. “Identify your targets before you shoot. There are a lot of innocent people in there.”

  That was true enough. Luckily, that morning, STAT had moved out all the buyers who’d been at the auction the other night, as well as the supernaturals they’d been there to bid on. Well, all except the people who’d been injured, like Rory’s sister.

  The acrid odors of smokeless powder and a recent fire were heavy in the enclosed space of the lobby, along with the sickening stench of blood. Sawyer tried to analyze the different scents, hoping to pick up Rory’s and anyone else’s he might know, but it was no use. There were simply too many competing smells.

  They found four bodies a few meters into the entryway—two bad guys and two STAT support agents. Misty and Forrest immediately crouched down to check them for a pulse. Sawyer could have told them it wasn’t necessary. He would have heard a heartbeat if either of them was still alive. They got to their feet with a shake of their heads, confirming he was right.

  Jake pointed at Sawyer, Harley, and Caleb, then gestured toward the stairs, indicating he wanted them to check the upper floors. Sawyer gave him a nod, heading toward the stairwell with Harley and Caleb, while Jake, Jes, Misty, and Forrest spread out to clear the smoke-filled first floor. Sawyer fought the urge to stay downstairs and search for Rory. There was no way Rory would willingly have left his sister alone, and her room was on the ground floor along with every other injured person who was still recovering. Sawyer had to trust Jake and his STAT teammates would find him.

  They found two more bodies on the steps leading up to the second floor, a STAT agent and one of Yegor’s goons. Since the second and third floors were where the buyers and supernaturals had been, clearing them was quick.

  “Thank goodness Tessa got all of the supernaturals out of here before Yegor’s goons showed up,” Harley whispered as they continued up to the topmost floor. “Do you think that’s why he was here?”

  “Maybe. But I think it’s more likely he was here for Brielle.” Sawyer glanced over his shoulder as they neared the fourth-floor landing. “She knows too much about Yegor’s operation.”

  When they got to the top of the stairs, Sawyer opened the door carefully. Three dead bad guys were lying on the floor, the front of their tactical uniforms stained with blood from gunshot wounds. Sawyer picked up the murmur of voices coming from down the hall and he took a careful peek around the doorjamb only to duck back inside as a bullet slammed into the wall near his head.

  “Don’t shoot!” he shouted. “We’re the good guys!”

  He heard Tessa mutter something that sounded like, “About damn time,” then shouted for everyone to hold their fire.

  Sawyer darted a quick look out into the hall again to see Tessa and three other STAT agents using the old nurses station and pieces of furniture as protection so they could cover both the stairwell and the elevators. Tessa and another guy were holding STAT-issued handguns, but the other two had MP5 submachine guns like the guy at the bottom of the stairs. They must have picked the weapons up from some bad guys they’d taken out.

  He, Harley, and Caleb stepped around the bodies on the floor and into a combat zone. The nurses station, along with the surrounding walls and floor had been shredded by small arms fire, what looked like hand-grenade blasts, and scorch marks that could only have come from Adriana’s lightning. Most of the ceiling tiles had been blown out and were either hanging loose by their metal framing or lying in a smoldering mess on the floor. Half a dozen additional bodies were strewn along the floor, both Yegor’s men and STAT agents.

  The air held a burnt-ozone smell, again probably courtesy of Adriana, making Sawyer’s nose sting. The damage wasn’t limited to the area around the nurses station, either. Several sections of the wall along the corridor seemed like they’d been smashed by a charging rhino. Some of the holes were so big he could see into the rooms beyond, where wounded agents scrambled around trying to help others who were hurt even worse.

  Harley swept around him, hurrying to Tessa’s side to help steady her. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s over.”

  But Tessa—dazed and looking like she was having a hell of a time staying upright—shook her head. “It isn’t over. Seamus was here. He got away with Adriana and that boyfriend of hers. They were both fighting right beside me, and he showed up out of thin air and took them.”

  * * *

  “Not that anyone was asking for confirmation,” Rory said, slowly walking into the conference room and sitting down at the table across from Sawyer with a groan. “But Caleb and I searched the whole building again and Adriana and Kristoff are nowhere to be found.”

  Everyone had filtered into the conference room a little while ago and, after righting chairs and moving broken ceiling tiles out of the way, took seats at the table. Sawyer knew it was a long shot to hope Adriana and her boyfriend had gotten away from Seamus and were hiding somewhere, but they’d wanted to check anyway.

  “How’s Tilly?” Misty asked as Caleb joined her and Forest at the other end of the table.

  “She’s exhausted, but okay,” Rory said. “She’s back in her room, sleeping again if you can believe it. I wanted her to go to the hospital with everyone else who was injured in the fight, but she didn’t want to be that far away from me.”

  According to Rory, Tilly was a big reason none of the supernaturals who’d still been there recovering had been killed. She’d managed to get out of bed and set fire to four or five of Yegor’s men. The rest hadn’t wanted to get anywhere near her after that. But the fighting had cost the teen girl a lot and she’d been nearly unconscious by the time Yegor’s goons had taken off.

  Sawyer was wondering if Yegor’s men had intended to kill all of the supernaturals on the first floor or recapture them when footsteps outside the door caught his attention. He looked that way to see Tessa coming in. She still looked as dazed and battered as she had when they’d first gotten there and probably should have been taken to the local hospital along with the other wounded agents from the support team, but instead, she was here.

  “I just got off the phone with the admission staff at the Central Clinic,” she said, dropping heavily into the chair beside Jes. “Everyone who made it to the hospital is alive, but will be out of commission for a few weeks.”

  “How many did we lose?” Forrest asked quietly in a voice that implied he didn’t want to know the answer.

  “Eight dead. Eleven wounded,” Tessa said in a worn-out tone.

  “To be honest, when we first got up here and saw all the damage, I was surprised to find anyone alive,” Caleb admitted.

  “We got lucky.” Tessa rested her head back on her chair with a sigh. “If it wasn’t for Brielle, that big, scaly shifter would have killed us all for sure. Bullets didn’t seem to do more than piss him off, and she was the only one who stood a chance against him hand-to-hand.”

  Sawyer did a double take, not sure if he heard right. Around the table, everyone else looked just as confused.

  “Wait a minute—back up.” Caleb sat up straight in his chair and held up a hand. “That shifter outweighs Brielle by two hundred pounds. You’re saying she fought him in hand-to-hand combat?”

  “She didn’
t merely fight him,” Tessa clarified. “She pretty much kicked his ass. One second that shifter was ripping through the door into her brother’s room and attacking him, and the next Brielle was on top of him, throwing him right back out the door. The two of them went at it like animals, punching and smashing each other through walls. That’s where all those gigantic holes came from. Until Brielle picked him up and tossed him out the window.”

  Caleb looked stunned. “How is that possible? I could barely handle him and I’m a werewolf.”

  “Maybe I’m something stronger than a werewolf,” a lightly accented voice said from the doorway and Sawyer looked over to see Brielle standing there. “Batu was here to kill my brother and me. I refused to let him do it.”

  Walking into the room, Brielle took a seat beside Tessa, wincing a little as she sat down. Sawyer didn’t see any injuries, but she was clearly in pain.

  “Batu?” Harley prompted from where she sat beside Sawyer.

  “The big green shifter,” Brielle murmured softly. “Seamus was here specifically for Adriana, while Batu was here for my brother and me. Mostly me, but I imagine Yegor would have gotten an inordinate amount of pleasure from knowing I’d been forced to watch my brother die first.”

  Caleb pinned her with a look. “While I’m thrilled that we now have a name for big and scaly, I’m more interested in knowing how you were able to fight him.”

  Brielle met his gaze, giving him a small smile. “I bet you would. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s another secret you’re not getting your hands on. Not for free.”

  Caleb looked like he wanted to keep pressing her for an answer, but Jake cut him off. “You said Seamus was here for Adriana. If so, why take Kristoff? And more importantly, are they still alive?”

  Brielle flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder with a tired hand. “They’re alive. Well, Adriana is alive at least. Kristoff probably is, too, but only as long as he has some value as leverage to make her fall in line and do exactly what Yegor needs her to do. After that, he’ll almost assuredly kill both of them.”