Never Underestimate a Wolf [Shape-Shifter Clinic 5] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)

by Cara Adams

  But what was the link to George Thorne? That was the main question. Nailing these punks was all good, but George was the person they needed out of the picture. Right now, all he had to do was hire a different gang of punk kids and they’d be inundated with more trouble.

  Harry also had to decide how to work with Jayden and keep Tegan out of the picture. If there was even the slightest risk she’d run to George with what they were doing, she couldn’t be kept informed about any developments at all. And how was he going to organize that with them all living in the same room twenty-four-seven.

  He could plant a bug on her car so he’d always know where she was. That would be easy. Bugging her cell phone was going to be a lot harder. Bugs were pretty small these days, but so were cell phones. In the old days of landline telephones, there was ample room inside the headset for a bug or two. Nowadays not so much.

  He might be able to look at her laptop and check all her e-mails while she was asleep. That was a possibility. If she was playing a double game, here he’d get her. He would absolutely catch her even if it took all his time for the next week. Then when he had her he’d get George.

  Finally the police released them and they went back to the clinic. Harry stopped as soon as Jayden let them through the gate, parked his car, and got out. He waved to Tegan to follow him. Then he leaned against the wall beside the gate and said, “We’ll work eight-hour shifts on the gate. Since you’ve taken the first shift, Jayden, Tegan can relieve you at midnight. I’ll take over from eight tomorrow morning. At the end of every shift we’ll meet here at the gate to exchange where our investigations have led us. We don’t want to be doubling up, repeating each other’s searches. Why don’t you report first, Tegan?”

  * * * *

  Jayden was surprised that Harry had given Tegan the night shift, but he guessed things would be very quiet tonight. Hopefully the kids would either be still locked up from today’s trouble or at the very least staying close to their own homes tonight. Likely that’s why Harry had made the decision. It’d be the quietest, easiest, safest shift.

  “I’ve been checking stolen property reports. Mostly I was looking for the caltrops and the mattress, but also to see if other things attracted my attention. Stolen property that might give us a clue as to what George planned to do next. I came across a report of a stolen car, which is when I realized the gang had to get here somehow, and I went looking for their transportation and found the stolen car.”

  Jayden nodded. She’d more or less told him that already. He was still pleased she’d found the vehicle though. That was a great achievement. Hopefully it’d be covered with their fingerprints and that would be something the police definitely had on them.

  Harry looked at him. Jayden took a breath and said, “I’ve been finding out what I can about the gang, the punks, whatever you call them. Various people had different little snippets of information, and I’ve been compiling it into a dossier on each of them. None of them are juveniles, though most of them are young. Adam’s the oldest and he has a criminal record, but mostly he’s gotten off with a slap on the wrist each time. He’s very good at staying in the background out of trouble, and so far none of his gang has been brave enough to name him to the police when it counts.”

  “Building dossiers sounds very good. Let’s get all our information in one central place so we can cross reference everything and see what links up to what else. I’ll start uploading information on George Thorne. Just as with the young men, there’s bit and pieces of data all over the place. Likely if we get it into one central file, something will leap out at us to research. I want you both to e-mail everything you’ve got to me and I’ll act as the backup for it.”

  Jayden nodded. That sounded sensible to him.

  “Have you eaten, Jayden?”

  “Not yet.” And he was damn hungry, too.

  “I bought us some streak sandwiches. Of course, they’ve long since gone cold.”

  Jayden didn’t care. He was about ready to eat the cow raw he was so hungry. “Cold is fine, thank you, Harry.”

  Harry handed him a couple of sandwiches and a can of soda, then said, “Tegan will relieve you at midnight. Come back here at eight tomorrow and we’ll talk about how the investigation is going. Tegan, you’d better go take a nap before your shift.”

  Tegan nodded and climbed back into her car, driving up to the staff parking lot. Damn but her ass looked good as she bent over and climbed in her car. She was a damn fine-looking woman. Tall and lean, with an innate strength and grace. She had to be a wolf. She hadn’t said anything, but Oscar had asked for her and he was working with the wolf pack.

  Whereas Harry had brought him into the job and he was human, but someone Harry had hired in the past. Oscar asking for Tegan by name made Jayden think she wasn’t just damn good at her job, which she’d already proved by finding the spiders, then the getaway vehicle, but that she was a wolf.

  But how could he ask her? Jayden didn’t want to seem rude or impose on her personal space, and some shape-shifters were really private about their heritage. So many humans didn’t even believe shape-shifters existed. They thought they were just something from the movies, and there were plenty of shape-shifters who deliberately kept it that way. If they didn’t exist, no one could harass them or persecute them. Maybe it’d be better if he said nothing. After all, if she wanted him to know, likely she’d give him a clue.

  But he liked her body. Human or wolf, she was graceful and pretty, and he longed to see some of her skin. Of course she’d proven to be damn smart as well. He liked brains in a woman. It made the getting-to-know-you side of things much more fun. He could just see himself getting to know Tegan better. Much, much better.

  * * * *

  Tegan ate a microwave meal while making a few notes about the stolen car, packed up her laptop, and put it and her boots at the foot of one of the beds. She set her cell phone alarm for ten minutes to midnight, then lay down. After years of working as a security guard she was used to falling asleep in strange beds and with lights and noises on around her, so she drifted off to sleep very quickly.

  She was awoken by rough hands pulling at her arm. Without even opening her eyes she lunged backward into the attacker and rammed her elbow as hard as she could into the person’s body. She used the momentum to spring out of the bed onto the floor, opening her eyes, flicking her hair back off her face, and wishing she was wearing her boots all in the same second.

  Harry was standing there, his face a reddish purple, his mouth wide open, dragging harsh, labored breaths into his lungs. She spent perhaps two seconds wondering if she’d elbowed him in the throat, then asked, “What did you do that for?”

  “I was waking you up. You’re due on duty at the gate in ten minutes.”

  “I set my alarm for ten before. It would have woken me up just fine.”

  “Your alarm?”

  Just then her cell phone beeped. The first few beeps were soft, but they grew louder quite quickly. She pulled the phone out of her pocket and showed it to him, before hitting the alarm off button. “Now it’s ten to twelve,” she said.

  Tegan sat on the end of the bed, put her boots on, collected her laptop, and nodded to him. His face was still quite red, but he was breathing more easily. “I’ll see you at eight for the meeting.”

  Tegan wondered if she should have apologized, but hell, he should have known better than to touch her. Why hadn’t he just called her name if he thought she needed to be woken up? In fact, why would even think that? She wasn’t a little kid about to miss the school bus.

  She moved as silently as possible down the stairs and out the staff entrance, not wanting to wake up the patients so late at night. Then she jogged down to the gate.

  Jayden was leaning against the wall, his hands in his pockets, the gatehouse lights off.

  “Hi, Jayden. How’s it been?”

  “Dead quiet since the staff shift changed over and the night nurses arrived.”

  “Quiet is good, I
guess. Thank you for having the lights off. I need to get my night vision working as fast as possible.”

  He shuffled his feet, and she knew he was trying to think of the best way to say something to her. She waited silently, until he was ready.

  “That’s the problem about working on our laptops at night. To do that we need to be sitting in the office with all the lights on. If something did happen along the wall, we wouldn’t be able to see it. I figured my primary responsibility was the gate, so I concentrated on that after dark. Once it gets light, though, we can do both.”

  “That’s a good point, Jayden. I think having our night vision is important, too. The other stuff will have to wait until daylight.” But how will Harry feel about that? Will it make him cross that we’re not moving as fast as we should be to find the link to George Thorne? Well, too bad. I agree that the immediate security of the property is the primary goal right now.

  Jayden smiled at her, then said, “We’d better exchange cell phone numbers in case we need each other.”

  They did that, then he nodded and walked slowly up the driveway. I expect he’s tired. He’s had a long day. At least I got to nap for a few hours.

  Which brings me back to Harry’s actions. What’s wrong with the bear? He’s grumpy and snaps at everything. Is it because he’s a bear? He’s sure grizzly enough for one. But I’ve never heard people say that about him before. They’re usually very positive about how helpful he is.

  Tegan put her laptop on the little desk inside the gatehouse. Gatehouse sounded like a building or something grandiose from an old-world manor house. The gatehouse was simply a tiny box right beside the gate. She thought likely it was originally built to provide a shelter from the weather for someone opening and closing the gate before it was electrified. The tiny box held a small table and a single chair. There was an electrical outlet and a light and that was it, apart from an old-style wall-mounted telephone which connected directly to Ambrielle’s office, and a huge flashlight sitting on the table.

  Tegan walked from the gate along the edge of the wall, heading north, first scanning the ground for any signs an intruder may have left, such as broken foliage, and looking at the top of the wall for anything caught in the broken glass embedded up there. Now she had her night vision, it was surprising how much she could see. She thought even quite small things caught on glass might be noticeable if they moved with the tiny breeze which was blowing. She also kept sniffing, inhaling to try to catch any scents which didn’t belong in the garden.

  That was one of the advantages of being a wolf. Her sight, hearing, and sense of smell were all enhanced by her wolf genes.

  When she’d walked for five minutes, she turned around and walked back, still scanning the ground and the wall as before. Sometimes coming from a different angle exposed things that seemed invisible on the first pass. But nothing struck her as out of the ordinary.

  Tegan stood at the gate for about ten minutes then repeated her wall check to the south. Later she walked up the driveway a way and back, repeated her march beside the wall, and even climbed a large tree to use it as a look-out point.

  Nothing, nothing, nothing. The very best kind of shift, where everything was quiet and peaceful.

  After six, as dawn was streaking the sky, the gate became busier with the day shift staff arriving, then the night shift staff leaving. A group of wolves ran past her, racing along beside the wall, chasing each other and enjoying their run. For a brief moment she wished she could run with them, but then decided she could go for a run anytime she was off duty. This was a wonderful place to run in. She thought she might head for the lake when she got the opportunity.

  Just before eight she saw Jayden and Harry coming toward her. They were chatting, so it looked as though Harry hadn’t startled Jayden awake. Likely he was a fast learner. Or maybe Jayden had been awake already.

  The idea that Harry was in a good mood fled as soon as he reached her and opened his mouth. “Report in, Tegan.”

  “Nothing happened until a little after six when the day staff arrived, then the night staff left. Nothing to report.”

  “What about your search on stolen items?”

  “I didn’t work on it. I didn’t want to lose my night vision by putting the light on when it was dark, and since dawn, there’s been a steady stream of people coming and going.”

  Harry’s lip curled as he sneered at her. “Don’t you mean you slept the night away and have no idea what may or may not have happened until about six. You were sound asleep, weren’t you? Weren’t you?” he finished on almost a shout.

  Inwardly Tegan recoiled in shock, but she forced her face to stay calm and answered him quietly. “On the contrary. It happened exactly as I told you. If you don’t believe me go and check along by the wall. You’ll find several sets of my boot prints from where I walked up and down, and on top of my prints you’ll find the tracks of the wolves who went for a morning run.”

  Harry turned and began to walk a couple yards out away from the wall. At one point where the ground was a little damp, he kneeled down and looked. She knew she’d told the truth, and if he was honest he’d admit the evidence proved it. But why was he so antagonistic to her? Was it her? She’d never done anything to him. Did he dislike women? Or was it just that he hadn’t chosen her. Had she taken the place on the team from someone he’d prefer to have. Well, he just needed to build a bridge and get over it. The team had been chosen by Oscar, who was paying them. Their job was to prove George was acting illegally to disrupt the work of the clinic.

  Harry came back still sneering. “That doesn’t prove anything other than that you walked alone there at some stage. Likely you woke up a few minutes before the wolves came past.”

  “I didn’t fall asleep. I’m a professional security guard, and I take my job seriously. I’ll work on the searches again today, or on whatever task you set me.”

  “But who are you really working for? Us? Or George Thorne? Are you a spy, little lady? Are you wearing a wire to tell your true master everything we discover?”

  George reached for her shirt and ripped it open, shredding the fabric and sending buttons flying over the driveway, exposing her bra. Reacting instinctively, Tegan slammed her knee up into his balls, took a step closer to him, got her shoulder against his ribs, and shoved with all her strength. Harry fell backward, landing hard on his ass on the concrete.

  Tegan made no effort to cover her body. “I’m sure you can see now that I’m not wearing a wire. I’m also not wearing a shirt anymore. I’ll send you the bill for that. If you aren’t prepared to trust me to do my job, I suggest you speak to Dr. Thorne about it instead of making nasty, childish insinuations about the quality of my work.”

  She stepped into the guard house, picked up her laptop, and walked up the driveway, only covering her breasts with the laptop when she got to the door of the clinic.

  She entered by the staff door, instead of the front door, hoping to get up to the room they were using on the top floor without meeting anyone.

  Ambrielle was just coming out of the staff kitchen, holding a cup of coffee. She blinked, stopped, and said, “Was it a good party?”

  Tegan couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “I wish,” she replied and headed up the stairs. She’d love to tell Ambrielle exactly what she thought of Harry and his manners, but Ambrielle was partnered to Oscar and Danny, and the story was Harry’s to explain, not hers. Although if he ever touched her again, she wouldn’t knee him in the balls. She’d cut them off with a rusty, blunt knife and nail them to the wall.

  Chapter Four

  “I know you’re my boss, but I really don’t think that was good thing to do,” said Jayden hesitantly, staring at Harry clambering up off the driveway. He swung his head around and watched Tegan walking steadily toward the clinic. Not hurrying, not hiding her shredded shirt, just walking.

  “Yeah. My brain seems to be out to lunch every time I speak to her. She just sets me off. But she could be a plant by George,
you know.”

  Jayden shook his head. “How could that be? Oscar chose her himself. He and George don’t hang together in the same group. How would George insinuate her into Oscar’s mind?”

  “It’s possible,” Harry insisted.

  Jayden dropped the conversation. After all, Harry was his boss. But it seemed crazy to him. Far more likely was that she was a wolf and that’s how Oscar knew her. If she was a wolf, she might even have been recommended by the Alpha himself, and the chances of George planting a spy on the Alpha had to be so small as to be not worth considering. But he would ask her if she was a wolf. He wanted to know, and perhaps if Harry knew it would ease the tension. Jayden didn’t fancy working with these two people constantly fighting. One of them would kill the other sooner or later, and he wasn’t going to take bets on which one would win. Everyone knew the female of the species was the dangerous one.

  By the time he got back to their office on the third floor, Tegan was wearing a clean T-shirt and eating a bowl of oatmeal. That reminded him he hadn’t had breakfast yet either. Jayden opened the refrigerator, looking at the options, then took out some orange juice, filled a bowl with Cheerios, and poured juice over them.

  “Do you know how much sugar is in those things?” Tegan asked him.

  “No, but I don’t really care. All the running around we do will burn it off soon anyway.”

  He made himself several slices of toast and peanut butter, while she went and had a shower, then settled herself at her laptop. If he wanted to know if she was a wolf, he really needed to ask her now, before she was deeply concentrating on her work. He swallowed the last of his breakfast, then spoke. “Um, Tegan, can I ask you a sort of personal question, please?”

  She looked up and at him, pushing her blonde hair behind her ears, making her green eyes look even bigger in her face. “You can ask,” she said.

  He noted that she hadn’t said she’d answer, but he pressed ahead anyway. “Are you a wolf?”