To Love a Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  Since the device had blown into the lobby instead of all over the grass and pavement outside, the FBI had chosen to set up a temporary collection area in a conference room off to the side of the bomb scene. They’d move everything to the forensic labs later, but right now, they were hoping to get lucky and stumble over something that would wrap this up fast and tight.

  Even though he was in uniform, Cooper flashed his badge as he walked into the conference room. The female agent glanced at it, then handed him a pair of gloves.

  Every inch of the big table in the center of the room was covered with metal and plastic fragments. Dennis wasn’t there, but there were three other feds looking at evidence with magnifying glasses and writing down notes. They glanced up as he snapped the gloves on and walked over to the first table, but didn’t say anything.

  He surveyed the twisted bits of metal, melted hunks of plastics, and random pieces of glass and wood from the lobby. He immediately found the key fob circuit board rigged to initiate the device. Beside it was a rudimentary, delay arming circuit. He picked it up with a frown. It looked like something a twelve-year-old would make from an old Radio Shack hobby kit.

  While everything indicated this bomb had been made by the same guy, the design was poor and the work rushed. The first device had probably taken him months to make. This one had taken hours.

  Cooper set down the arming circuit and slowly moved around the table. The fed there gave him a look that said he’d checked and hadn’t found anything, so Cooper didn’t have to. Cooper ignored him and looked anyway.

  He frowned as something caught his attention. It was a bent piece of metal from a dog tag. He picked it up to study it more closely with a magnifying glass. There were a few letters stamped into it. Twisted, smeared, and impossible to read, but letters nonetheless.

  “Hey, you find something?”

  Gut twisting, Cooper lifted his head to see Dennis coming into the room, an expectant look on his face.

  “What?” he asked, stalling.

  “Did you find anything? You were standing there with a really serious look on your face, so I thought you’d made a big discovery.”

  Cooper opened his mouth to tell Dennis about the dog tag, but nothing came out. He gave himself a mental shake and tried again. If the FBI could recreate the name or social security number on that tag, it would almost certainly lead them directly to the bomber, he was sure of it. Then why were his werewolf instincts shouting at him to keep his damn mouth shut?

  He knew it was crazy, but he’d spent the past four years of his life trusting those instincts, and they’d never let him down before. So he pushed down the human side of himself that was telling him he was being a dumb-ass and gave Dennis a shake of the head.

  He set the piece of dog tag on the table. “Nothing worthwhile beyond the fact that it’s the same bomber and that he made this one in a big rush.”

  Dennis nodded. “Pretty much the same conclusion my guys are coming up with. Didn’t hurt to have you take a look anyway. I’m going to talk to Arnold Braun, Triple S-I’s owner and CEO, and see what he has to say. Want to join me?”

  Cooper stripped off his gloves and followed him out of the room.

  Dennis led the way back through the lobby and into an area filled with a maze of cubicles, until they reached a big corner office in the back of the building. The gray-haired man seated at the fancy walnut desk was on the phone when they walked in. Thanks to his keen werewolf hearing, Cooper could hear the person on the other end of the line giving Triple S-I’s CEO a rundown of the injuries sustained by the employees who’d already been taken to the hospital.

  When he was done, Arnold Braun dropped the phone back in its cradle with a heavy sigh. Dennis introduced himself, then Cooper. While Braun answered their questions, he was too upset to be much help. Cooper wouldn’t have been surprised if the man broke down and started crying.

  “Why would someone attack my company like this?” he asked. “We’re not a weapons developer. We don’t even have any security-related contracts. We handle minor support contracts for our deployed forces, like food, supplies, construction, and administration services. Nothing controversial. We feed and shelter people, do the little things so the soldiers can focus on their work. Why would someone bomb us and hurt so many innocent people?”

  Dennis didn’t have the answer to that question, and neither did Cooper.

  “Did you or your employees get any emails or threats from service members or people who recently got out of the military?” Dennis asked.

  Braun shook his head. “No. I go out of my way to hire as many former military men and women as possible. I like to do whatever I can to help those who’ve served.”

  Dennis nodded. “Can I get a list of the employees who typically arrive early for work, and maybe arrange to meet with the senior ones?”

  Cooper knew exactly where Dennis was going with that. If there was someone pissed at an employee, it was most likely going to be a supervisor. Dennis might be completely wrong, of course, but it was a good place to start, especially if one of those supervisors turned out to be on the list of people who’d been in the parking garage around the time of the first bombing.

  “I’ll have my assistant get it for you,” Braun said. “As far as meeting my senior people who come in early, I’ll arrange that, but it might take a little time. Most of them are at the hospital right now, either getting their own injuries tended to or helping others who were hurt.”

  The meeting with Braun ended shortly after that, and Cooper spent the rest of the day at the crime scene helping collect evidence and move it to the FBI lab facilities. Before he left for the day, he got Dennis to promise he’d call once the FBI had the meeting set up with the senior members of Triple S-I. He wanted to be in on that.

  As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road, he tried to understand for about the hundredth time that day why he’d lied to one of his best friends about something as important as that dog tag. He didn’t like the idea that he was protecting a killer—even if it was a fellow soldier—no matter what his inner werewolf demanded he do. Hopefully, Dennis and his forensic team had already found that scrap of dog tag and were tracking it back to the person responsible for the bombings even now. That didn’t do much to calm the confusing twist of emotions roiling through his gut, but it was something.

  Cooper was so distracted with those thoughts that he didn’t realize he was on his way to Everly’s until he pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. His mouth curved. His inner werewolf might be wrong about concealing evidence, but it was right on target when it came to Everly. She had a way of making him forget everything but her, and right now, he could use a little work-related amnesia.

  Cooper was still thinking about Everly as he strode up the sidewalk. As sweet as the distraction was, it was why he didn’t notice the tingle in his senses that normally alerted him something was wrong. By the time he heard rapidly approaching footsteps, the attackers were already on him.

  He spun around just in time to see Armand Danu swinging a baseball bat at his head. What the hell?

  Cooper blocked the bat with his left forearm, but the bone cracked under the blow. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch, but he couldn’t think too much about the pain because Giles, Claude, and Tristan converged on him too, swinging and bashing with three more baseball bats, like they were trying to kill him.

  He kept one arm up to protect his head and face, but that left his back and ribs exposed, and they weren’t shy about taking advantage of his vulnerability. His first instinct was to draw the Sig .40 at his belt, but he clamped down on that thought. He didn’t know what the fuck was going on here, but he couldn’t just shoot Everly’s brothers.

  A bat came down hard across his back, cracking ribs and hurting like hell. The pain brought on an involuntary shift, and Cooper felt his fangs and claws start to extend. He retracted them with a snarl. The werewolf inside him might want to rip the four men apart, but he didn’
t. But just because he didn’t want to kill them didn’t mean he was going to stand here and let them beat him to a pulp.

  He caught the bat that Giles was swinging in a pretty good imitation of Babe Ruth. The business end smacked hard into his palm, cracking a few bones and tearing some ligaments. The stab of pain made him grit his teeth, but he held on and jerked the weapon away from Giles, then reached out and grabbed him by the arm, tossing him into the shrubs a couple yards away. He could have easily smashed the jackass into the nearby building, but he knew Everly would be upset with him if he did—even if these shits deserved worse than that.

  He turned to see Armand coming at him, ready to tee off. Cooper stepped into the man’s swing, lifting his left arm and letting his upper ribs and lat muscles absorb the brunt of the impact. It still fucking hurt like hell, but without the added force of a full-arm extension behind it, the blow didn’t do a lot of damage.

  Cooper clamped his left arm down, trapping the bat beneath it, striking out with the heel of his other hand at the same time. Armand went flying back with the force of the blow, air whooshing out of his lungs.

  Cooper tossed Armand’s weapon aside just as Tristan came in swinging at his head like a madman. Shit. Not even a werewolf would survive an impact that hard.

  His hold on his inner wolf slipped a bit, and even though he fought it, Cooper couldn’t stop the low growl that erupted from his throat. At the same time, the muscles of his shoulders and arms began to twist and flex. If he didn’t end this shit soon, his body might shift solely in order to protect itself.

  While Tristan’s swing was aggressive, it was also out of control. Cooper easily ducked under it and came up with his hand around the youngest brother’s throat. Claude tried to dive at him, but Cooper lashed out with a roundhouse kick to the man’s chest, sending him to the ground.

  For the first time since the assault had started, he was blessedly clear of his attackers.

  Cooper tightened his grip on Tristan’s throat, lifting him two feet off the ground and giving him a shake. “What the fuck is wrong with you people? Are you seriously trying to get yourself killed?”

  He didn’t expect Tristan to answer since he was gasping for air at the moment, but before he could put Everly’s youngest brother back on the ground, he sensed movement off his right shoulder. He looked up, expecting more trouble—and found it. Armand and Claude stood there holding two large caliber pistols pointed right at his head.

  “Let him go, or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” Armand ordered.

  Cooper ground his jaw. He dropped Tristan none too gently, feeling a perverse sense of pleasure when the man stumbled backward and fell on his ass. Then he turned to face Armand and Claude. He let his legs start to shift, feeling the power trembling through him as he prepared to strike. This was no longer a game—if it ever had been one. A head shot would kill a werewolf. Period. The end. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

  He moved a bit to the left, putting Armand between him and Claude. He didn’t want to kill Everly’s two oldest brothers, but if they pulled the trigger, he’d be forced to move. He liked his odds of ducking Armand’s first shot. And before he could get off a second, Cooper would be on him. Claude would be forced to hesitate for a fraction of a second or risk hitting Armand. That would give Cooper all the time he needed to reach him too.

  He waited, listening for the sound to start everything and end it—for some of them. But the sound never came. The two men just stood there, their weapons pointed at Cooper. Apparently, they weren’t ready to kill him in cold blood. So, what exactly were they doing?

  “Seriously, guns?” he finally asked as Tristan slowly climbed to his feet. “Don’t you think you’re carrying this overprotective brother thing a little far?”

  “This was a warning. Stay away from our sister,” Armand said, as if Cooper hadn’t spoken. “Or the next time we come back, we’ll kill you.”

  Cooper stared at Everly’s oldest brother, his inner wolf telling him the man was speaking the truth. Even so, he had the craziest urge to tell Armand he could have just called him with the threat. Or texted. This was the twenty-first century, after all.

  Wisely, he let that urge pass without comment.

  A moment later, the four brothers turned as one and walked away. Cooper watched them go, wondering what the hell had just happened. Was this some kind of French thing he didn’t understand?

  The Four Brothers Stupid drove out of the parking lot in one of Armand’s minivans. The irony of four toughs escaping justice in a frigging minivan was not lost on Cooper. He chuckled, which only reminded him he’d just been beaten by four grown men with baseball bats. He hurt all over. He’d heal, but they’d busted up a few bones and bruised up a lot of real estate.

  That was about the time he realized he was bleeding all over the sidewalk. Shit. So much for spending the night with Everly now. He’d better bail and call her, saying he had to work late. He’d be more presentable by tomorrow. That would also give him time to come up with a convincing explanation about any scratches and bruises that might remain. He sure as hell didn’t want Everly finding out he’d gotten in a fight with her brothers. She’d blow a gasket for sure.

  Cooper was about to head to his Jeep when Everly walked up onto the sidewalk from the parking lot, her arms full with grocery bags.

  “Was that my brothers in Armand’s minivan?”

  She looked over her shoulder, standing on her toes to get a better look at the road exiting the apartment complex. When she turned back around, she was close enough to see his face and reacted exactly how he expected—she freaked.

  “Oh my God!” She dropped her bags where she stood and ran over to him. “What happened?”

  Cooper gave her a smile. Or tried to, anyway. His jaw didn’t feel like it was working quite right. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  Her eyes widened. “Nothing?” She looked over her shoulder at the parking lot again, then back at him. “Oh, hell no! My brothers did this, didn’t they?”

  “It was a misunderstanding—” he began, but she cut him off.

  “Misunderstanding! Landry, they beat you up!” She lifted a gentle hand to his face, her eyes bright with fury. Muttering something that sounded like, “I’m going to kill my brothers,” she dug her cell phone out of her purse. “I’m calling the cops. I’ll have those idiots arrested and put in jail until they’re a hundred.”

  Cooper gently took the phone away from her and slipped it back in her bag. Then he took her hands in his and held onto them tightly.

  “You can’t call the police on your brothers,” he said. “I’m a cop, and they came at me with weapons. If you have them arrested, they’ll go to jail for a long time. No joke, Everly. They’d be looking at decades in prison.”

  She opened her mouth then closed it. Finally, she nodded. “Okay, I get that. And even though I’m so mad right now I want to scream, I really don’t want my brothers in jail.”

  “Exactly.” He brushed her hair back from her face. “I’m going to head home so I can fix myself up. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Everly’s eyes widened. “Hell no, that’s not okay. There’s no way I’m going to let you go home and take care of yourself. You’d probably do something stupid and medieval like trying to cauterize your cuts with a hot butter knife. We’re going up to my apartment where I can take care of you.”

  Cooper would have preferred to deal with his injuries on his own. The last thing he needed was for Everly to notice that his cuts and scrapes had magically closed by the time they reached the second floor. But what could he say? She was so damn cute when she was feisty.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll come upstairs with you on one condition.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “What’s that?”

  He motioned over his shoulder. “We go back and pick up your groceries first. I saw a bag of Doritos in there.”

  Chapter 12

  “Mia isn’t home?” Landry asked. He was seated at th
e kitchen table while Everly collected what little she had in the way of first-aid supplies from the bathroom. Well, at least she had some antiseptic spray. Unfortunately, Everly didn’t have any medical gauze, but hoped her makeup remover pads would work in their place.

  She had nearly lost her mind when she saw Landry standing there covered in blood. She’d just been daydreaming about how much fun they’d had the day before, laughing and dancing at the wedding, then making love all night. When she’d seen all the blood, every romantic image in her head evaporated in a wave of fear and anger.

  “Mia went out with Joseph again. Something about going dancing with the Scooby Gang,” she murmured distractedly as she walked into the kitchen and piled her stuff on the table.

  She couldn’t help looking at the police belt he’d hung over the back of the chair. The holstered gun seemed so much bigger now that he wasn’t wearing it. Her idiot brothers could have gotten shot attacking him.

  Landry smiled. “Mia and Joseph really seem to have hit it off. Maybe we should find out where they went and join them.”

  Everly gave him her best are you kidding me? frown. He still had dried blood crusting on a cut along his jawline. The outside of his left arm was covered in more blood from elbow to wrist, and a rip across the back of his SWAT T-shirt told her he’d been hit there too. And he was suggesting they go out clubbing. She should have learned from growing up with four brothers that men were stupid.

  “Why haven’t you taken off your shirt like I asked?”

  He shrugged, wincing a bit as he did. “No need to do that. Like I said, it’s just the scratches you see.”

  She pinned him with her gaze until he relented with a sigh.

  “Fine. But I’m sure it looks worse than it is.”

  When he yanked the dark blue shirt over his head, it took everything Everly had to not cringe in horror. “I’m going to find all four of my brothers as soon as I get a chance and remove their balls with a pair of rusty scissors.” She swore as she cataloged his injuries. “I can’t believe they did this to you.”