by Cara Adams
Shape-Shifter Clinic 5
Never Underestimate a Wolf
Tegan Carter’s been hired as a security guard for the shape-shifter clinic. Harry Harrison’s certain she’s useless. Or a spy. Or both.
Jayden Powell’s convinced Dr. Oscar Thorne would never make such a mistake. Besides, Harry’s a bear. A grumpy grizzly bear. But George Thorne is still determined to attack the clinic and anything could happen.
Everything Tegan does incites Harry’s anger. When she solves a problem, he’s even more certain she’s on George’s team. When she doesn’t, it proves she’s a useless female. And when he rips her shirt off to check she’s not wearing a wire, Tegan attacks him back.
Jayden tries to be the voice of reason between the wolf and the bear, but he wants her too, yet Harry’s his Dom and his friend. The passion between these three is as incendiary and explosive as anything that might happen to the clinic.
Genre: BDSM, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Shape-shifter
Length: 35,973 words
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A WOLF
Shape-Shifter Clinic 5
Cara Adams
MENAGE EVERLASTING
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www.SirenPublishing.com
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NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A WOLF
Copyright © 2013 by Cara Adams
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-972-1
First E-book Publication: May 2013
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
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NEVER UNDERESTIMATE A WOLF
Shape-Shifter Clinic 5
CARA ADAMS
Copyright © 2013
Chapter One
Harry Harrison leaned his six-foot-four-inch, two-hundred-twenty-pound frame against the car and stared at the woman. Oscar had hired her? A woman? Well, he’d soon fix that. He’d give this little gal some jobs that would send her running home to Mommy in ten seconds flat.
“You do understand that there are spiders—poisonous spiders—on the loose and that’s what you’ll be looking for? In among the trees and shrubs. They’ll get down the neck of your shirt, maybe inside your bra—” he suggested, staring her right in the face.
“They might bite you on the breasts, but they won’t get near my skin. I’m wearing a wet suit under my jeans and knee-high boots. I’ve got a cap to put on as well. Besides, I’m not arachnophobic.”
The green-eyed blonde was giving him back as direct a look as he sent her. Harry stood up straight and rolled his shoulders. “Just leave your car here in the driveway. Round back’s still rather a clusterfuck from the break-in.”
She jumped from the car, pushing a cap down in the back pocket of her black jeans, beeped the vehicle locked, and pushed the keys into a front pocket. The jeans were skin tight. He couldn’t imagine how she could fit even such small things as she had into her pockets.
Determined to scare her off, he simply nodded at her and said, “Come on.”
He walked fast, deliberately taking long steps as he headed for the lake. She lengthened her stride and kept up with him. Well score one for her for not running, he supposed. “I’m glad you mentioned the wet suit. The lake is one place no one has checked yet for the spiders, and since they can swim, we need to do that,” he said, watching her out of the corners of his eyes.
He didn’t get any aura of fear from her. Maybe she was telling the truth and wasn’t scared of spiders. Anyway, he’d been tasked with ridding the property of the shape-shifter clinic of as many of the spiders that idiot Adam Roth had released as they could find.
Harry stood back when they reached the lake. She moved slowly, looking along the edges of the water and checking the soil of the narrow beach.
“I don’t see any holes where they might have burrowed down,” she commented.
He followed her around to the rear of the lake and helped her scan the rocky little area there. Together they lifted the lower rocks and checked underneath them for nests, but there was no sign of spiders at all. Finally he decided their search was complete. “Okay, come back to the clinic and I’ll get you a container and send you in among the trees.”
Once again she kept up with him on the half-mile walk back. He had to admit she showed no signs of tiring yet. Maybe she would be useful after all. But he’d hold that thought until after he’d seen her with a few spiders.
“So, Tegan Carter, tell me about yourself.”
“I’ve been working as a security guard and in protective services for five years now.”
“And?”
“And what? That’s all you need to know about me. Dr. Thorne wants some people to help protect Thorne House Clinic. He chose me as one of them. End of story.”
Harry had expected to find out a lot more about her than that. Evidently she wasn’t going to be a chatty sort of person. She was proving to be far more complicated and a whole lot harder to intimidate than he’d expected. Although he still couldn’t believe s
he’d really be an asset to the clinic. He’d been looking after security for the place almost since it began, and they did need more manpower. But that was exactly it. Manpower. Some big, tough shape-shifters and humans who could deal with anything. Not a fucking female they’d have to look after themselves.
Harry took Tegan to where Adam had thrown the glass container of spiders from the roof. The glass had been cleaned up, although there might still be a few fragments in the grass here and there. The spiders, too, were long gone and that was the problem. Although they’d managed to catch a lot of them, the thought of them making nests and multiplying so very close to seriously ill people was quite worrying. The occasional spider was fine. Whole colonies of them, not so much.
Sitting on the concrete path was a pile of buckets, Ziploc bags, and small shovels. Harry handed her one of each. “People have already been looking, but of course the spiders may still be running around, so just because anyone has checked a particular tree or area of dirt once, doesn’t mean the spiders won’t be there now. If you find a nest or colony come back to the clinic and we’ll get the bug people out to remove them all professionally. If it’s just a handful, catch them yourself. Okay?”
“No worries.”
She put the equipment on the ground before fiddling with the neck of her shirt, releasing the hood of the wet suit. She piled her hair onto the top of her head and then pulled the neoprene hood over her head, completely covering her neck and hair. She slapped the baseball cap on top of the hood, then buttoned her shirt tightly around her neck.
Next she took latex gloves from the pocket of her jeans and pulled them over her hands, tucking the ends of the gloves inside the sleeves of the wet suit. When she’d finished she buttoned her shirtsleeves tightly.
Harry stared at her. All that remained of her skin was the center of her face. Everything else was completely covered. The spiders would have a hard job indeed finding some skin to bite. If she even found them of course. Harry was convinced there were still a lot of spiders running loose. It’d be interesting to see if little Miss Tegan found any of them. And if they made her scream. He liked the idea of her running into his arms, screaming her head off.
* * * *
Is he always like this with new members of staff? Does he hate women? Or is it just me?
Tegan had heard lots of stories about Harry Harrison, and none of them fit the way he’d just behaved. The stories about him being enormous were true. That man had to weigh over two hundred pounds, and she was willing to bet her new iPod that every ounce of it was muscle. He was a bear shape-shifter, and right now he was acting as if it was past time for him to hibernate. Except shape-shifters didn’t hibernate.
But grumpy as all hell was the only way to describe him. Whereas, she’d heard plenty of people say how kind and helpful he was. Well, not today, sister. Or not to me, anyway.
She’d just have to find the damn spiders and show him she could do the job. Not that she was used to searching for spiders. Searching for drugs or concealed weapons was more her standard line of trade. But if spiders were what he wanted, spiders she would find. Thank God she wasn’t a nervy kind of person.
Tegan lived in the building in town known among the shape-shifters as “Wolf Central.” She was a security guard there for some of the stores on the first and second floors, but she also did some private jobs as a personal security guard. There was a growing group of rich men in their thirties and forties who liked to have a couple of obviously large, hulking security men, then someone else as well, someone unexpected, as backup. Someone who wasn’t a man wearing a black suit and size-twenty shoes. Frequently it was her. She’d be dressed in a stunning gown, hanging on Mr. Rich and Important’s arm, and slapped on the ass playfully while they danced. But the money she was paid for such jobs was astronomical, so it was all good as far as she was concerned.
Right now Tegan was happy to be wearing a wet suit rather than a borrowed Vera Wang gown. She was almost certain no insect was going to be able to crawl inside and bite her. All she had to do was find the little fuckers.
Tegan looked assessingly at each bush before she passed it. It seemed from the quick search she’d done on Google that wolf spiders’d be more likely to be low on the ground, under leaf litter or rocks, maybe even burrowed into the soil, rather than up in the trees among the branches. Which was good because she was wearing sturdy boots to stomp on the insects if necessary.
The entire werewolf community was one hundred percent behind Dr. Oscar Thorne’s shape-shifter clinic. Shifters healed faster than humans. Their metabolisms were different, too. Also, often transforming and running in their other skin helped them heal. All of this meant that having their own clinic was a wonderful aid to them healing faster and with more freedom than in a regular hospital. Yet, for an unknown reason, Oscar’s cousin George was violently opposed to him having the property. George had even said in front of a judge that he was determined to take the property away from Oscar.
Everyone was sure that the latest round of trouble with a gang of young-adult punks was orchestrated by George Thorne. The only problem was going to be proving it in court. Meanwhile the spiders Adam Roth had thrown at his sister remained to be collected. Lucky, lucky her to get this job.
Tegan grinned. She didn’t really mind. If this was how she could help her pack, it was actually all right by her.
Three hours later Tegan wasn’t feeling quite so thrilled to have been chosen for the task. Her back ached from walking bent over, staring at the ground. Her neck and thighs hurt, too. Just ahead of her was the wall surrounding the property. The wall had to be at least ten feet high, with smashed glass embedded in the top. Maybe a quarter mile away Tegan could see the pale blue of the mattress the punks had thrown over the wall so they could break in. It was still caught on some of the glass, so it was hanging half on, half off the top of the wall.
I’ll walk following the wall for a bit. Having my head up and my back straight for a while will be good.
Tegan stood still, stretching her back, arching it hard, then making a bow with it, before wiggling around, giving her muscles a rest. When she began walking beside the wall she deliberately stood about three feet out from it so she could actually look ahead instead of having to keep her neck turned all the time.
She moved very slowly checking not just for spiders, but also for spiderwebs which might indicate they were in the area. She thought that likely this was a waste of time, as wolf spiders were more generally found near the ground, but three hours of searching at ground level had gained her no results, so right now the wall was worth checking. Unless Harry was wrong and most of the spiders had been caught already. No, Dr. Thorne had sent for her so he must have thought having someone else look was worthwhile.
Hey, at least I’m not trying to walk in six-inch heels while pretending not to listen to other people’s conversations!
Besides, the land here was really pretty. There was a mixture of trees, bushes, and flower gardens, as well as lawns. It was the perfect environment for shape-shifters to go running. The high wall gave it an air of privacy, too, which was so essential for shape-shifters who tried hard to stay under the radar of ordinary society.
Tegan sighed. Wolf Central had everything possible to meet the needs of the wolf pack, including a running track. Circling the outside of the tenth floor was a rubberized all-weather running track. From the outside, the floor seemed to have a balcony all the way around it, but it was actually the track. The glass of the balcony walls was opaque, so no one could see inside. The tenth floor also contained a lap pool for swimming, a very well-equipped fitness center, and an obstacle course specifically designed to keep wolves fit.
But she’d rather run in an environment like this any day. Oh well, maybe she’d fit a run in while she was here. The Alpha had told her to work here as long as Dr. Thorne needed her.
Tegan was flicking her gaze up and down the wall, watching for any spiders, especially a trail of them, or webs, or anythin
g that might give her a clue about them. She slowed down when she was about five feet from the mattress. Was that spiders on it? Tiny black specks that appeared to move. Silently Tegan took a few steps closer, this time looking at the ground, then the wall, and finally at the mattress. She couldn’t see anything on the ground, but on the wall—maybe.
Another few paces forward and she grinned. Bingo! A steady stream of spiders was marching up the wall and into a rip in the side of the mattress. She didn’t know what they’d found—and didn’t want to know either—but she had her colony of wolf spiders. Mission accomplished. Well, almost. She just needed the bug people to come and take them away without sending them fleeing to another part of the property and having to do this all over again.
Tegan moved back about ten feet, hoping the spiders wouldn’t notice her at this distance, and thought. She could go back to the clinic and find Harry Harrison and tell him about the colony. He then could get the professionals to come look. But that would take her away from here for fifteen or more minutes. The insects could go off somewhere else in that time, especially if they were collecting food from the mattress or something like that.
She could try to catch them herself. She was pretty sure she couldn’t fit that many spiders into a Ziploc bag though. Or she could move far enough away that her voice shouldn’t disturb the creatures and call the clinic and tell them and let them decide. She didn’t know Harry’s cell phone number, but Josie, the receptionist at Wolf Central, would probably have it and the number for the clinic as well.