Wild Wolf Mate: League Of Gallize Shifters (The League Of Gallize Shifters Book 5)

by Dianna Love

  Tarski said, We will be the bait.

  Jaz got nothing past that wolf. Yes, they’ll come back and there will be no other female shifter. If it turns out to be a bust tonight, we’ll have to leave and hunt for a new lead on the kidnappers.

  Her wolf suggested, The red wolf found us. He could help.

  Tarski was spot on.

  She’d bet Adrian and his wolf had been a deadly pair when tracking an enemy, but she couldn’t pull him into something that might require going against his rules. He had been military a long time, which meant he would not break laws.

  She would never kill without reason, but ... she would not allow the Blood King to keep Daisy and the other kidnapped women if she found them.

  Time had been ticking along faster than she realized. She hurried to leave the apartment and get moving. She could make a mile or so to Thea’s place, which was supposed to be a duplex down the road. It couldn’t be that hard to find in a small town, then she’d hurry back to scent around the bar.

  She stepped out to a clear blue sky and comfortably cool temperatures. When she started down the steps, Tarski shouted, Shifters!

  Jaz didn’t have a chance to search her surroundings before four large darts struck her stomach, arm and thighs. She caught the sound of the weapon at the same time. Not silent, but that same dulled-ping sound of the one suppressed last night.

  She’d been hit with a load of tranquilizers. The drug blasted into her blood stream. She called up her energy, but the drug interfered, blocking the flow.

  Had more than tranquilizer been in those darts?

  Gripping the rail, she couldn’t lock her knees that turned to jelly. Her body folded like a bumped house of cards and the world turned on its side.

  Her fingers relaxed and slid off the rail.

  She tumbled head first down the steps, unable to break her fall.

  A male voice yelled, “Get her!”

  She hit every step like a dog’s toy tossed down the stairway.

  When the sickening movement stopped, her head fell to the side. She couldn’t lift it or open her eyes.

  Noise scuffled near her. “Fuck. Think we broke her neck?”

  “Maybe. Can’t deliver her like that. We’ll end up dead.”

  They kept talking, but she slowly sank into a gray fog with Tarski yelling garbled words at her. She moved her lips, but the whispered words weren’t even loud enough for her ears. “I’m sorry I’ll never see you again, Adrian.”

  Chapter 17

  Adrian parked in the first spot he found inside the Gallize two-story Spartanburg headquarters built a long time ago. The location provided parking out back, but the Guardian liked his people to park inside the compound for multiple security reasons.

  A burden had lifted off his soul now that he no longer felt conflicted over being true to Leonard and fair to Jaz.

  You abandon golden wolf! Mad Red shouted in Adrian’s mind for the zillionth time. Adrian had given up answering the wolf. Every word he said got cut off.

  Why did his wolf care about Jaz’s when he’d been willing to kill every other shifter animal?

  But his wolf had been calm and nice to Tarski last night after Jaz’s wolf knocked some sense into Adrian’s wolf.

  His wolf shouted, Go back to golden—

  Adrian’s head ached and he missed Jaz.

  He gripped the steering wheel to keep from bashing a window and yelled back telepathically at Mad Red. Shut up, dammit. What the hell do you care about another wolf when you’ve tried to kill the animals of our friends? Not just my friends, but yours too. Shifters who watched our back in dangers places overseas.

  Obstinate silence filled his mind for the first time in over an hour.

  Adrian should be thankful for the mental break, but he felt as if he’d just failed his wolf again.

  He hadn’t wanted to leave Jaz either.

  Having his wolf remind him nonstop of how much it hurt to walk away from her drove him to the end of his patience. He couldn’t live this way when every day got worse.

  Jaz’s words came back to him. “... accept that healing is within reach. Your bond is damaged, but just think back to when you first met your wolf and how you built that bond. Start with one step at a time. Don’t expect to heal overnight. Give if you hope to receive. Show your wolf you still care and tell him how you need his help.”

  He’d left late from her apartment, but made up time while driving. He still needed to be upstairs in less than two minutes, but this internal battling had to end.

  He swallowed and took a breath.

  For Red and Jaz, he’d try what she’d suggested. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to look her in the eyes again and admit he hadn’t put forth any effort to fix his bond.

  That would be the same as saying his wolf didn’t matter to him. Jaz would interpret that as Adrian unable to step up and be the man he wanted her to see in him.

  Calming his inner voice, he told his wolf, Please believe me when I say I want to go back this very second. I will go back and help them. No, we will go back to help them. Jaz believes there’s hope for us if we mend our bond. I ... want that more than you can know.

  Swallowing a thick lump in his throat, Adrian’s voice broke when he said, I miss you ... Red. I miss what we were before. We did our job and saved that hostage. I know you blame me for us ending up in that cage, but I would never do that to you. If I could have kept you safe and free, I would have willingly given myself to the enemy. I’m sorry. We can’t change what happened. We’ll always carry the scars, both of us, but we could try to survive for Jaz and the golden wolf, Tarski.

  His wolf said nothing.

  That hurt, but Adrian would be strong for both of them as long as he could.

  Maybe Mad Red needed time ...

  No! His wolf’s name was Red. From this minute on, Adrian would only call his wolf by the name his wolf had earned through love and friendship.

  He and his wolf had survived many harrowing situations.

  Why had he given up on them this time?

  Adrian knew the answer. He’d been too mired in his own misery and just as angry at what happened in that cage to see Red’s rage as his wolf needing him.

  Jaz had opened his heart and his mind. She had some serious mojo healing, but she could only do so much.

  She couldn’t heal someone unwilling to heal himself.

  From this minute on, he wanted a chance to live for Jaz and his wolf. He had to earn that future. She’d laid the responsibility at his feet to mend the bond with Red, and, hell ... she’d been right.

  It was Adrian’s place, as the human expected to be in control and to have his animal’s back in areas that would be unfair to expect of his wolf.

  Like repairing their psyche.

  A sense of calm came over Adrian. He now had a purpose when he’d been wandering around aimlessly, waiting for the end.

  He accepted the challenge of saving his wolf and himself, regardless of how Red reacted.

  Jaz’s words grew and expanded in his mind. Give if you hope to receive.

  He had to be the one to show patience first. It wouldn’t be easy and he might not succeed every time Red yelled at him, but he had to try to bring his wolf back.

  If not, they would both lose.

  Slamming his car door, he rushed inside, pausing to confirm his identity since only his recent teammates knew him by sight.

  He caught surprised looks as he passed open doors on his way to the mission room. He’d never been to this new building. It even smelled new, but still looked pretty old on the exterior.

  He doubted the building had multiple below ground floors back when the two-story structure had first been erected.

  Slowing when he neared the door to the room he believed to be the correct place, Adrian prepared for whatever waited.

  Stepping inside, disciplined energy reached out to his in a non-threatening way. He still felt it thump his chest. A ferocious power that had been around for at le
ast three-hundred years both tested his and welcomed him.

  And that jolt was nothing compared to what the Guardian kept in check.

  His boss stood at the end of a long conference table where the room expanded to Adrian’s right.

  Grizzly shifter and good friend Justin looked up from the computer he’d been bent over. No one doubted he had a massive bear inside that linebacker body. He folded his arms ripped with muscle and leaned back, smiling. “Hey, bud.”

  Adrian sent his friend a nod, but his nerves got to him. These people expected the best for him and from him. Pressure piled back on his shoulders. Jaz remained front and center in his mind. He should be thinking of his team first, but she’d taken up residence there and everyone else followed. Still, he didn’t want to let his team and Guardian down.

  Not that he liked the idea of being caught between his people and Jaz, but he would not turn his back on her.

  Is this how Justin had felt when he tried to defy the Guardian to get to Elianna? That bruiser had been smiling at something when Adrian walked in. Being that Justin was recently mated, Adrian would bet the joy in that smile had been for his mate, Elianna. That had worked out, but Justin had been willing to face anything to keep her. He ended up detained in Wyoming with Adrian and Rory while the Guardian fulfilled his promise to her father by delivering her safely to Justin’s old bear clan in Louisiana.

  A force to be contended with, Elianna made good on her deal with her father and still figured out how to end up with Justin.

  “You coming in or going to stand there the whole time?” Hawk called out from the closest end of the table, close to a box of donuts. Not a Gallize, Hawk still shifted into his namesake, a supersized Swainson’s Hawk. He lifted one covered in powdered sugar that sprinkled the table as he took a bite around his grin.

  In human form, Hawk claimed to be six foot, and no one called him on the lie. He topped out at no more than five-eleven, if that. But he packed plenty into that frame and above his ears. He had a perpetual could-give-a-shit attitude on a face that saved him from being bored or alone when they had time off overseas. He flew anything asked of him from airplanes to helicopters. From what Adrian had seen of maneuvers the guy executed overseas, Hawk could probably pilot a space shuttle.

  “Sorry. Glad to be back.” Adrian walked over and took a seat across from Hawk. He glanced past Justin to another wolf, based on the scent.

  The Guardian gaze tracked along with his. “Adrian, this is Vic, a recent addition to our team here in Spartanburg.”

  Vic had to be wolf, but something told Adrian it was more than wolf. At six feet, maybe an inch over that, this shifter had no smooth spot on him, as if someone had sculptured him with an axe and hammer. Plenty of muscles, but a casual observer might underestimate his lanky body. No nonsense short brown hair and steel-blue eyes that gave nothing away. Adrian would bet this guy’s happy and pissed expression couldn’t be told apart.

  Adrian and Vic exchanged nods, the general salutation of males who didn’t know each other.

  Hawk slid the box of donuts to Adrian, who hadn’t eaten anything this morning, but Vic snaked a hand out fast and reached past him to yank out an iced donut with speckles.

  “Where’d you get your manners?” Hawk grumbled. “I gave that to Adrian, then he gives it to you? That’s how it works around a table. Got it?”

  Vic answered by shoving the entire donut in his mouth and chewing it in silence.

  Adrian snorted and lifted out one for himself. “Thanks, Hawk.”

  “Custard? Nobody eats those,” Hawk complained.

  Justin asked, “Then why bring it? You’re the one who bought them?”

  “Watching bad personal choices amuses me.”

  The Guardian cleared his throat.

  Along with the rest of the guys, Adrian’s attention went immediately to their boss, whose eyes showed a strained look of patience.

  When silence fell, the Guardian said, “Thank you for coming in right away, Adrian.”

  “As if I would ignore your call?” He smiled at his boss, unlike the last time he met with the Guardian and Justin. Those days in Wyoming seemed a long time ago even though he’d only recently been freed. But for the first time in months, he felt like a Gallize. Like he belonged again.

  The eagle shifter almost smiled in return. “I hate to call you in when I agreed to allow you time to help your friend. But there have been three missing women in the Hickory area in the past weeks and one in a town called Clarenceville.”

  His boss walked down the long side of the room through a wide space left between the table and the wall. “Human law enforcement reported the disappearance, then canceled the missing persons alert. The woman in Clarenceville left a voice message with her employer at a bar indicating she had left due to being pregnant. When SCIS could find no leads on two missing female shifters, they began reviewing human missing persons reports on the chance that a lone female shifter might have been hiding among humans, which would make them an easy target.”

  Adrian fought not to react to hearing the name of the town where he’d found Jaz. Volunteering anything right now would end with him having to explain about Jaz.

  Until he had reason to bring her up, he’d keep her out of this. He asked, “When did that woman at the bar go missing?”

  Justin spoke up. “Ten days ago.”

  Jaz talked as if she’d just arrived in Clarenceville.

  Adrian’s shoulders dropped with relief. He saw no connection there.

  Take his usual place at the head of the table, the Guardian said, “SCIS thinks it could be a Black River pack abduction. We’re developing a relationship with SCIS via Cole’s mate, Tess, but she’s not back at work yet. She’s just relaying messages. I’d like you to take Vic and Hawk to investigate all these disappearances, Adrian.”

  Keeping his voice casual, Adrian asked, “Why me? Why not someone whose been back on the streets longer and ... hasn’t had issues?” The last time the Guardian saw him in Wyoming, Adrian’s wolf was dangerously unstable. Even so, the Guardian believed Adrian had done all he could in seclusion and put him on a team for Scarlett in a training capacity. He’d shown improvement, but he saw other options sitting around the table.

  Or had someone learned about Jaz being in Clarenceville?

  If so, had they tied him to her after she’d partnered with him to help Scarlett and Gan?

  No way would Scarlett give up Jaz and Gan put Scarlett first, as it should be with a mate.

  Still the timing of this was suspicious.

  He had to know if this involved Jaz at all.

  Justin gave the Guardian a look and received a hand gesture for Justin to take over. “The reason Tess isn’t back with SCIS yet is because she’s having bad all-day morning sickness with her pregnancy. Cole doesn’t want to leave his mate, which I’m sure you can understand.”

  Gallize mates were revered and every Gallize male shifter would put his life down to protect anyone’s mate. What would Jaz look like pregnant with his baby? Whoa. Where’d that come from?

  Shoving his wandering mind back on track, Adrian asked, “Is Tess okay?”

  “She’s good,” Justin said, laughing. “She’s probably better than Cole, but every time she has morning sickness in the afternoon he panics. He doesn’t have any idea what to do and she tries to send him to work, but he’s worthless when he’s away from her. She believes she’ll be fine once she gets through her first trimester.”

  Adrian cocked an eyebrow at him. But could he say he would be any better than Cole? No. “I wouldn’t laugh too much, bear. You’ll probably be in the same boat soon.”

  Justin cupped his forehead. “I sure as hell hope so. Eli’s all over my damn ass about getting her pregnant.”

  “Language, Justin,” the Guardian admonished, but with humor in his voice.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  The perpetually antagonistic Hawk, at least with his Gallize peeps, had a custard-covered grin. “Maybe you’re n
ot doing something right. Need some tips?”

  Justin growled at the non-Gallize shifter. “Not from you, bird boy.” Then he froze and glanced at the Guardian. “Sorry, sir, that wasn’t meant to be derogatory at winged shifters.”

  Releasing a long exasperated sounding sign, the Guardian said, “Can we please get this done?”

  “Yes, sir!” echoed around the room.

  Adrian hid his smile, but it felt good to be back among his people. Poking at Justin had released that uncomfortable tension in the air.

  Justin returned to the discussion. “What little intel we’ve received points to wolf shifters, which is why SCIS thinks it’s the Black River pack. Having you and Vic, along with Hawk for air support and observation, made the most sense.”

  “I can see that,” Adrian admitted, starting to relax a little and feeling good to once more be treated as one of the team. He didn’t kid himself. The Guardian would not send him out on a mission alone, but he was being given the lead. He could not fail his boss, who continued to believe in him.

  “In addition to that information, my mate, Eli, has had a new vision involving you.”

  There went Adrian’s happy place. “What was it?”

  “Do you remember meeting her when you were in Wyoming and the vision she had after touching your wolf?”

  “Kind of. After you left, Cole and Rory brought it up. They said she put her hands on me and calmed my wolf, then told everyone my wolf is just as screwed up as I had been saying.”

  Justin scowled. “No she didn’t, wolf. She specifically said, ‘Wolf must live so wolf save life. Must save person necessary to shifters.’ She was talking about all of us, including the boss.”

  Hearing that bear shifter call him wolf sounded like old times. Adrian appreciated that far more than everyone tiptoeing around the messed-up one in the room. He said, “I was paraphrasing Eli’s words about my wolf. Her accent is much more adorable than you trying to repeat her words verbatim.”

  “You saved yourself from having to pick your ass up off the floor by complimenting her,” Justin said in warning tone.

  “Back off, bear. Just ribbing you.” Adrian smiled.