Undercover Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  STAT had dealt with some tough situations before, but this time, they might be in over their heads.

  As they moved through the hallways, the four of them covered each other like they’d been doing it for years. From the corner of her eye, she saw Erin watching Caleb’s back. Man, she was so damn happy the woman had decided to come back. Harley had to admit she hadn’t been so sure when Erin and Elliott had first walked into that microbrewery, but seeing Erin fight to protect Caleb now, she knew it had been the right thing.

  She prayed Jake knew where the hell they were going because she simply went into point-and-shoot mode, the MP5 she was carrying firing out regular and rhythmic three-round bursts as targets appeared around her like she was in a video game. Some part of her wondered how a wannabe-school-teacher-turned-werewolf had gotten so natural at pulling a trigger, but then more bullets came her way, and she stopped thinking completely.

  As they continued through one corridor after another, Harley heard voices coming through her earpiece—Jes shouting they were encountering stiff resistance in their efforts to reach the explosive-laden vehicle along the backside of the complex and Rory saying they were having problems getting Misty to disconnect from the computer system.

  She strained to hear something from Sawyer, but nothing came. She told herself Rory would have said something if Sawyer had been hurt. Still, she couldn’t help but worry a little, even if there was a little voice in the back of her head assuring her she’d know if he was in trouble. Sawyer was her soul mate, even if they hadn’t gotten around to talking that much about it. She would always know if there was something wrong with him. Of that, she had no doubt.

  Harley was still lost in thoughts of her soul mate, reloading and firing her weapon on automatic pilot, when the four of them rounded another corner and found themselves in front of a big glass wall, a room full of computers and control panels on the other side.

  The reactor control room.

  Harley took in the scene in the room. Yegor yelling, Seamus and Batu standing there expressionless, a man in black tactical gear shoving his weapons against the side of Kristoff’s head, Adriana standing by herself near the wall of control panels, sparkling so bright it was like she was glowing from within even as lightning streaked between her and the control panels.

  They were too late.

  In the second it took for that thought to flicker though Harley’s mind, it happened. Adriana seemed to…erupt. Jagged lines of raw, white electricity ripped through the air, hitting the wall full of computer equipment and one of Yegor’s goons who’d decided to stand too close. Both the panels and the man exploded. Fire, sparks, and pieces went everywhere.

  Time seemed to stop as Harley and everyone else froze.

  When it started again, Adriana was tumbling to the floor, Kristoff diving forward to catch her. Emergency alarms started ringing throughout the facility, immediately followed by flashing red-and-blue lights mounted to the ceiling. Just when it seemed that it couldn’t get any crazier, Caleb let loose a growl and dumped an entire magazine of 9mm rounds into the window in front of them, throwing shards of glass everywhere.

  Then Seamus disappeared from inside the room, reappearing at almost the exact same moment, his knife coming at Harley’s chest.

  Chapter 19

  Misty went from tranquil and catatonic to screaming in the space of a single heartbeat, and it was the most blood-curdling sound Sawyer had ever heard in his life. Rory must have thought so, too, because he stumbled back with a wide-eyed expression of near panic on his face.

  Sawyer had no idea what the bloody hell had happened, but he leaped forward all the same, catching Misty as she collapsed sideways out of her chair. He eased her to the floor as the sound of intense gunfire filled the air. Shouts over the radio confirmed the situation in the control room had gone completely pear-shaped. Adriana had apparently fried the computer system that controlled reactor number five.

  While Misty had been in there.

  He had no idea what that meant, but if the scream she let out was any indication, it couldn’t be good.

  Sawyer shook Misty’s shoulder as Rory moved over to the door, keeping an eye on the corridor outside in case Misty’s screams brought someone running. But from the chatter over the radio, the alarms, and the chaos of gunfire coming from multiple locations around the complex, Sawyer was confident worrying about screams was pretty low on the bad guys’ priority list.

  When shaking her shoulder didn’t wake Misty up, Sawyer shouted her name as loud as he could. If the scream hadn’t given them away, this probably wouldn’t, either.

  He called her name for the fifth time when Misty’s eyes suddenly snapped open, confusion and pain reflected in violet irises that were no longer milky and glazed.

  “Ugh. What the hell happened?” she asked, slowly sitting up with a little help from him, shaking her head like she was trying to clear out some cobwebs.

  “Adriana fried the computer system that controls reactor five,” he said. “I was worried you’d gotten trapped in there.”

  Misty shook her head again, wincing in discomfort as she pushed herself up off the floor. “I almost was.”

  Helping Misty, he gently nudged her toward Rory. She still looked unstable, but they didn’t have any more time to waste. He needed to get to the reactor room and those magnets. Rory got an arm around her shoulders to help her walk.

  “Were you able to do anything to help the situation while you were in the computer?” Sawyer asked as he led the way out of the security room. He replayed the maps of the power plant through his head, trying to remember the shortest route to reactor five. It was going to take forever to get there with Misty in this condition.

  “No,” Misty said. “I’d just made it through the security firewalls and was about to put the reactor into emergency shutdown when a wall of electricity came racing toward me. I barely made it out before my brain melted.”

  Not even wanting to think about that, Sawyer stopped midstride, turning to her and Rory. “If we keep going at this pace, we’ll never make it to reactor five in time to help.”

  Misty opened her mouth to say something stupid about leaving her behind, but Sawyer cut her off.

  “No way. Rory’s staying with you and that’s final. The only thing you get to decide is whether the two of you are going to follow or head for the rooms holding all the plant employees. Those are closer, so that would be my choice.”

  Then, before either of them could argue, he turned and ran, the muscles of his legs and back twisting and spasming as he partially shifted to give him all the speed he could manage.

  Even though it took him less than a minute to run from the security office to the corridor outside reactor five, it felt like forever. He reached the intersection that led to the reactor room, having every intention of heading that way, but then the incessant chatter on the radio broke through. Harley, Jake, and Erin were shouting back and forth as they tried to protect themselves from Seamus and all of Yegor’s men, while Caleb contended with the big shifter, Batu.

  Sawyer didn’t consciously decide to turn and sprint toward them instead of going to the reactor room. Something inside him wouldn’t give him a choice. After the conversation he and Harley had about The One, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what instinct was guiding him. His soul mate was in danger and his inner wolf demanded he go after her.

  The scene at the control room looked like something from a nightmare. Bodies covered in blood littered the floor, along with endless shards of broken glass as men in black tactical gear fired automatic weapons at everything and anything that moved. Kristoff was in one corner of the room, Adriana pale and unmoving in his lap. Caleb and Batu were smashing each other back and forth across the space, tearing each other to shreds. Yegor was yelling at his men to keep fighting as Seamus popped in and out of existence with his knife.

  Jake, Erin, and Harley w
ere all bleeding from multiple wounds. As he watched, Harley stepped in front of Erin, purposely taking a bullet meant for his MI6 teammate. A split second later, Harley snapped her head around until her beautiful, blue eyes met his, as if somehow, in all the madness, she’d known he was there.

  Words couldn’t convey all the emotion that passed between them in those few seconds of eye contact. All he knew was that when he got the chance, he was going to tell Harley how much he loved her. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid not to admit it before, out in the middle of that field at the microbrewery.

  Growling, Sawyer lifted his weapon and started shooting. Most of Yegor’s goons had their back to him, but he didn’t care. He simply emptied the magazine from his MP5 into the center of them, then quickly reloaded and repeated the process. There was hardly anyone left standing by the time they even realized he was there.

  Seamus popped up to his left, slicing open Sawyer’s shoulder on that side before disappearing again. He cursed, knowing the bastard was likely going to come at him again any second. Sawyer forced himself to remain calm, reaching out with his ears and nose, praying he could somehow pick up something that would clue him in on which way the man was going to attack from.

  Tingles ran across his body as Seamus came at him again, first from the right, then again from directly behind. Sawyer ignored the rapid strikes, his attention snagged by the little tingles he felt right before each attack. With a start, he realized this wasn’t the first time he’d felt the sensation of pins and needles. He’d felt them back on that mountaintop in Greece, right before Seamus stabbed him in the chest.

  Hoping he wasn’t imagining things, Sawyer relaxed and let his inner wolf guide him, listening to whatever the tingles were trying to say to him. A second later, when a line of sensation zipped down his right side, he spun that way without thinking, squeezing the trigger on his submachine gun before he even saw anything.

  He wasn’t sure if he hit Seamus when the guy materialized on that side because the supernatural disappeared again too fast to be sure. But he’d definitely freaked the bastard out enough to make him think twice before charging at him again.

  Taking advantage of the momentary reprieve, Sawyer fired a dozen or so rounds at the last of Yegor’s men, then popped off a few at Yegor, wanting the wanker to know what it was like to duck and bleed like everyone else. When he was out of bullets, he dropped his submachine gun and took off running straight toward Caleb and Batu.

  Based on the way all of their previous run-ins with the huge, green shifter had gone, it seemed obvious that bullets didn’t bother him that much. Caleb’s werewolf claws, on the other hand, definitely seemed to be capable of penetrating that thick, scaly hide. Knowing there was no way they’d get to Yegor without taking down his two lieutenants first, Sawyer decided to try something out of the box.

  Caleb’s eyes were glowing vivid omega blue, a clear sign he’d lost nearly every shred of self-control he possessed and was fighting on pure animal instinct. But when he caught sight of Sawyer, he seemed to still have enough presence of mind to keep Batu’s attention focused on him long enough for Sawyer to get a shot at his exposed back.

  Sawyer stiffened his fingers and rammed his claws straight into the shifter’s lower back, aiming for the thing’s kidney. Then he wrapped his free arm around the shifter’s neck, yanking him backward as he continued to shove and twist with his claws.

  The shifter howled in pain and rage as Caleb began to rip and tear at his exposed stomach and chest. The sound was loud, echoing off the walls and drowning out even the blare of the alarms. It was so deafening Sawyer almost missed the tingle running along his back.

  Almost.

  Trusting his instincts again, Sawyer heaved, twisting his body and dragging the shifter around to use him as a shield for the attack he knew was coming at him from behind.

  Seamus popped into existence right there, knife already coming down. But this time, the supernatural didn’t materialize a few feet away like he had all the other times. Instead, Seamus appeared right in front of him, like he didn’t want to give Sawyer a chance to react.

  But that space right in front of Sawyer wasn’t clear any longer. And the look of horror on Seamus’s face when he realized that he had materialized in the middle of Batu’s body, was something Sawyer never wanted to see again.

  Sawyer tried to hold up both of them, but when the supernaturals began to convulse violently, keeping them upright became impossible. Seamus and Batu were screaming in anguish as they crashed to the floor.

  Just when it seemed there was no way the two supernaturals could survive another second, there was a concussive thump Sawyer felt through his whole body, and the two men were thrown violently apart, each flying ten feet through the air only to slide and roll another dozen feet across the floor before coming to a bone-cracking halt against either wall. Neither one moved. They barely breathed.

  Movement from the corner of his eye caught Sawyer’s attention, and he spun around, yanking the handgun from the holster on his thigh at the same time.

  Sawyer expected to see Yegor pointing a gun at him or one of his teammates, but instead the man was aiming his automatic at Adriana, where she still lay in Kristoff’s arms. But while the evil smile on Yegor’s face was disconcerting, it was the cell phone in his left hand that really worried Sawyer.

  “It’s over Yegor,” Sawyer said as Harley and the others spread out, each taking a different angle on the Ukrainian, lining up shots at his head and chest. “You’re surrounded and all your men are dead or dying. I know you did all this to get revenge for your family, but it stops now. You can’t win.”

  Everyone tensed as Yegor held up his phone, thumb moving over something on the screen Sawyer couldn’t see even as the smile on his face grew wider. “I’ve already won. You’re just too stupid to realize it.”

  Turning to Adriana, Yegor lifted the pistol a little, lining up for a shot at her head. Sawyer didn’t hesitate, squeezing the trigger on his own gun at the same time that four other weapons went off all around him. Yegor slowly crumpled to the floor of the control room without ever getting a shot off at Adriana. Sawyer couldn’t help but shake his head now that it was all over. The psychopath had committed suicide simply because he wanted to kill one more person.

  Additional sirens suddenly went off and from the corner of his eye, he saw the few remaining dials and LEDs on the panel that were still working beep, click, and flash.

  Cursing, Jake ran over and pulled the cell phone out of Yegor’s hand, staring at the screen before looking at Sawyer. “Did you take care of the magnets in the reactor room?”

  All Sawyer could do was shake his head as Jake turned the phone to show them the screen and some kind of app covered in words and symbols he didn’t recognize. Not that it mattered. The wailing alarms told him more than he needed to know about what was happening.

  “I think the app turned on the magnets to pull the control rods,” Jake said. “With the automated safety systems destroyed, there’s nothing to stop the reactor from going into meltdown. We need to shut down the magnets.”

  Sawyer cursed. This was on him. He should have ignored his inner wolf and headed to the reactor room. Now, thousands of innocent people were going to pay for that mistake.

  “I’ll do it,” he said.

  * * *

  “We’ll go with you,” Erin announced, holstering her weapon and already stepping forward like she was ready to run straight to the reactor room.

  “The hell you will!” Dr. Jones shouted over their earpieces. “If those rods have all been fully retracted, the radiation level in the reactor will already be at dangerous levels before you can reach it. It’s a suicide mission for whoever goes in there.”

  “Which is why I’m going alone,” Sawyer said firmly. “We all know the only person who has a chance of surviving going in that room is a werewolf, and since it was my j
ob to begin with, it might as well be me.”

  He turned and headed for the door, fully aware he’d just outed himself to everyone on the radio, including his branch chief and a nuclear physicist who almost certainly hadn’t been aware of the supernatural world. In fact he could hear both men stumbling over their words as they tried to get clarification, but Sawyer didn’t bother to answer them. It was too late to worry about crap like that.

  “I’m going with you,” Harley said, hurrying after him.

  The spike of panic that ripped through Sawyer nearly took his breath away. He stopped in his tracks, spinning around to glare at her.

  “No, you’re not. It makes absolutely no sense to risk both our lives.”

  “If it’s safe enough for one werewolf to be in there, it’s safe enough for two,” she insisted. “The longer we stand here and argue, the worse the radiation is going to get and the closer we’ll be to meltdown. So I’m going. If you’re coming with me, you’d better keep up.”

  Sawyer snarled in frustration, but Harley was already out the door and running down the hall.

  Sawyer growled and ran faster, catching up with Harley as she turned down the corridor that would take them into the heavy-duty concrete bunker that housed reactor five. The sirens were even louder in this direction than they’d been in the control room, but the moment Harley looked over her shoulder at him, all of the background noise seemed to fade away. The strobing red-and-blue lights reflected off her skin, revealing a beauty that made breathing seem like a waste of time.

  It was as if the soul bond chose that very second to click firmly into place for him. It was also the moment Sawyer knew there was no way in hell he could let Harley go into that reactor room with him. He’d just found her; he couldn’t let her get hurt. No matter how much she would hate him for pushing her away.