Wolf Hunt

by Paige Tyler

  Interesting. Was Thomas Thorn the man Trevor had been talking about? The one John Loughlin had been trying to put in jail for years? If so, no wonder Trevor hadn’t wanted to say anything. The previous director of the DCO had been chasing a man who was not only the CEO of one of the biggest and most politically connected defense contractors in the world, but also a former senator? There was something scary big going on here.

  She was still thinking about that interesting tidbit of information when she realized Trevor was asking something else. Alina forced herself to focus on what her partner was saying.

  “You mentioned that you were near the admin building forty-five minutes before the…incident…getting coffee. Did you see anyone else around at that time?”

  Larson thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I mean, it was still dark at that time, but I saw three or four people around the main building.”

  “Did you recognize them?” Trevor asked.

  “I hadn’t worked there long enough to learn almost anyone’s name outside the IT section,” the man said. “Sorry.”

  Trevor frowned, but Alina wasn’t ready to walk away from the potential clue just yet. “Do you think you could ID the people you saw if we gave you some photos to look through?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Larson said. “But do you think you can bring the photos here or email them to me so I don’t have to leave Cody with my mom?”

  “Of course,” she agreed.

  While Alina added his name and email to the contact list in her phone, Trevor scribbled something in his notepad. She thought he was writing down notes on what they’d talked about, but then he tore the paper out of the pad and held it out to Larson.

  “Give this guy a call in a few days,” Trevor said. “I think he can set you up with some IT work you can do from home. Tell him I sent you. I put my number on there, too, just in case you need anything.”

  Alina glanced at Larson’s little boy as she stood. “Bye, Cody.”

  Since Cody didn’t look up from his coloring book, she thought he hadn’t heard her, but just as she and Trevor followed Larson to the front door, the boy jumped up and ran over with one of the pictures he’d made. When he held it out to her, she saw it was the one he’d been working on when she and Trevor had first gotten there, the one with the yellow sky and the orange clouds. She took it very carefully.

  “Is this for me?” she asked.

  Cody didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned and went back to his coloring book, starting another page.

  “Thank you,” she said, but he was already lost in his work.

  She glanced at Trevor as they headed outside to their SUV. “What was that all about?”

  He pushed the button on the key fob to unlock the doors. “What was what all about?”

  “That number you gave Larson. Do you always give suspects the name and number of prospective employers?”

  Trevor shrugged. “I think it’s obvious that guy isn’t a suspect. He’s just someone who might have seen something. Besides, he could use a little help.”

  Alina couldn’t argue with any of those things. “It was a nice thing to do.”

  He only grunted in answer.

  They didn’t talk much as they headed north on Highway 2 back toward Fredericksburg and the interstate. It wasn’t dark yet, but the sun was low on the horizon. It would be nightfall by the time they got back to the DCO complex.

  As the last few beams of the sun’s light slipped through the trees lining the road, Alina replayed the day’s events. To say she was confused about everything she’d seen and learned was an understatement. Her new partner wasn’t anything like Dick had described. Other than the fact that he was very closed-mouth when it came to sharing information, Trevor seemed like an okay guy. Well, there were the fangs, claws, and glowing gold eyes. Those were going to take a while to get used to. Even so, she wasn’t ready to brand him the traitor the director of the DCO claimed him to be—yet.

  Chapter 3

  “Keep your eyes closed and just relax.”

  Tanner Howland frowned even as he said the words. He wasn’t sure he was the best person to help another hybrid get a handle on their inner animal, especially since he was still trying to figure it out most of the time himself, but Sage Andrews, the woman the DCO had rescued from a lab in Tajikistan a while back, was in a really bad way. Besides, he couldn’t say no to anything Zarina Sokolov asked him to do. Meeting the beautiful Russian doctor had been the only bright spot in his dark existence since he’d been captured and turned into a beast over a year ago. If not for her, he probably wouldn’t even be alive right now.

  He, Zarina, and Sage sat on the floor in the small living room of Sage’s dorm room/prison cell on the DCO complex while two armed men stood guard outside the door.

  “That’s it,” he said. “Breathe in and out, nice and slowly.”

  As Sage inhaled and exhaled, Tanner looked for any sign that the beast inside her might take over and she was about to lose it. Beside him, Zarina did the same. He would have preferred her to watch this exercise from farther away, like on a closed-circuit television in another room. But Zarina insisted she needed to be close in case Sage lost control.

  When he’d tried to argue, Zarina had folded her arms—a sure sign he wasn’t going to change her mind no matter what he said. “Who taught you how to control your inner beast?” she asked. “Me, that’s who.”

  But while that was true, Tanner didn’t like the idea of Zarina putting herself at risk. He’d been watching out for her ever since she’d saved his life in Washington State after a pair of psycho doctors had injected him with a serum that turned him into a hybrid like Sage. He wasn’t about to stop now.

  Across from him, Sage’s brow knit, like she was fighting for control. Tanner tensed, but after a moment, she relaxed again. While he’d had more than his share of episodes since being turned into a hybrid, sometimes it seemed like Sage was more beast than human. If there was any doubt of that, all a person had to do was take a look at Sage’s living arrangements, and the truth was obvious.

  Since she was prone to violence, staying in one of the normal dorm rooms like he did was out of the question, so John Loughlin had turned one of the outbuildings into a small efficiency apartment of sorts. Her bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room took up the back half of the building while the front was part medical facility, part guard station. In between the front and back sections was a wall of steel bars as thick and heavy as anything you’d expect to see in a real prison.

  It wasn’t the nicest way to treat a woman who’d never asked for any of this to happen to her, and Tanner hated it more than anyone, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. Sage gave in to her animal rages once every few days. The deep scratches along the walls and floors were a testament to that. A petite, slender girl with long, wavy, dark hair and expressive gray eyes, she looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly. But when the animal inside took over, Sage turned into something extremely dangerous.

  That was why Dick kept two armed guards there 24-7. Currently, both men were standing outside the steel bars of Sage’s cell watching them, disdain on their faces. They both hated and feared Sage. The only reason they treated her halfway decently at all was because the DCO might be able to use her later. That said, the thought of Sage escaping and going on a rampage through the training complex terrified the new director.

  Honestly, it terrified Tanner, too. If she got out of here, it would be up to him to stop her, and he wasn’t sure if he could stop a raging hybrid without losing control of his own inner animal.

  “We’re going to do the door exercise again, Sage,” he said quietly. “Just like we’ve been doing for the past few weeks, okay?”

  Sage gently wrapped her graceful fingers around the silver cross on a chain around her neck, her lips moving in a silent prayer. She’d told Tanner that she had gro
wn up in a very religious family and that her father was a pastor of a church back in her hometown. In fact, the first things she’d asked for after she’d calmed down enough to talk to anyone were a cross and a Bible.

  After a few moments, Sage nodded, letting him know she was ready.

  “I want you to imagine that you’re standing in front of a door in a dimly lit room. It can be any kind of door you want. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something you can easily remember.”

  She frowned, then relaxed again.

  “Do you have the door set in your mind?” Tanner asked.

  “Yes,” she said, the tips of her fangs clearly visible.

  “Relax, Sage,” he said softly. “We’re in no rush. Take a minute and center yourself. Concentrate on the door as you breathe in and out.”

  That was the thing with Sage. All it took was a word or a noise or a bad memory, and the beast was off and running.

  “Can you describe the door for me?” he asked.

  Sage nodded. “It’s a white door with a pink unicorn hand-painted in the middle like the one to my sister’s bedroom. I can see it so clearly I feel like I can reach out and touch it.”

  Tanner glanced at Zarina. She looked just as concerned as he was about Sage’s choice of imaginary doors. This wasn’t the one Sage usually described.

  He didn’t know much in the way of details when it came to what Sage had been through during her captivity, because she refused to talk about it, but he was almost certain she’d watched her younger sister die a painful, horrible death as a result of being injected with a previous version of the hybrid serum. Focusing on her late sister’s bedroom door probably wasn’t a good idea for a hybrid who wanted to stay in control, but there wasn’t anything Tanner could do about it now. With the image already in her head, there was no way Sage would be able to forget it, even if she wanted to.

  “That’s good, Sage,” he told her. “Remember that on your side of the door, you have a handle that you can open or close. On the other side, there is no handle. That’s where the beast is. It can’t get through the door unless you open it. You’re in charge, okay?”

  Sage nodded.

  “Can you feel the beast on the other side of the door?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her fingers tightening around the cross. “It’s always there.”

  “It’s okay,” he said soothingly “You’re in control. And to prove that, I want you to open the door a crack.”

  Sage tensed visibly but kept her eyes closed. “I thought you were going to show me how to keep it locked away forever?”

  “That’s not something I can do,” he said. “You need to learn how to get the beast under control.”

  “I can’t,” she said brokenly.

  “Yes, you can.”

  Sage chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe we should wait until Derek is here.”

  Staff Sergeant Derek Mickens was the Special Forces soldier who had risked his life to save her from a burning building in Tajikistan. She only seemed truly in control of her animal side when she was with him or even talking to him on the phone. But Derek was deployed more than he was home, and he couldn’t be around as much Sage needed him. Even calling regularly could be difficult as hell for him.

  “Sage, you need to learn how to do this on your own,” Tanner said gently. “Derek can’t be with you all the time. Now that he’s on deployment, he might not be back for a long time.”

  Tanner realized he shouldn’t have said that the moment the words were out of his mouth, but by then, it was too late to do anything about it. Sage’s heart rate spiked immediately, and her body went as rigid as if she’d been hit with a live electrical wire.

  Oh shit. She was going into full hybrid mode.

  “Zarina, get out of here!” he ordered, jumping up.

  Across from him, Sage did the same, claws out and eyes glowing bloodred.

  “I can help,” Zarina insisted, getting to her feet.

  “Get out,” he growled. “Now!”

  He hadn’t intended the words to come out that way, but knowing Zarina was trapped with him in a prison cell with an out-of-control hybrid made his control slip a little.

  Zarina looked like she wanted to argue but then turned and ran for the door. Tanner expected the guard to immediately jerk open the door, but when he glanced that way, the man was still fumbling with the keys on the ring, searching for the right one.

  “Open the door, dammit!” Tanner shouted.

  A flash of movement coupled with a growl had Tanner spinning around to see Sage rushing toward him, her curved claws ready to slash him to ribbons.

  Tanner tried to stay in control, tried to let just enough of the animal out to allow his feline reflexes to kick in, but with Zarina still in danger, that control slipped away like sand through his fingers.

  Claws and fangs coming out, he blocked Sage’s right arm, then shoved her back, knowing he had to put some distance between them before he shifted all the way and lost complete control. Sage charged at him again, rage filling her glowing red eyes as she yowled in frustration. While she would probably never hurt him, the beast in charge at the moment sure as hell wanted to.

  He blocked another slash, fighting the urge to strike back. If he landed a blow with his larger claws, he’d tear the smaller woman nearly in half. Instead, he reached deep down and found the control to retract his claws.

  Sage blinked at him, like she was almost as shocked as he was that he’d done it. He thought for a moment the move would be enough to get her to calm down and back off. But then something behind him caught Sage’s attention, and her eyes went feral again.

  Tanner glanced over his shoulder, and his heart lurched. Both guards had come into the cell, one holding a Taser, the other a dart gun that Tanner knew was loaded with a sedative. The only problem was that the idiots had left the cell door open behind them. If Sage got past the men, she’d be through it in a flash. Then the only thing standing between her and freedom would be Zarina.

  Zarina, heaven help her, was standing resolutely in the open doorway like she thought she could stop Sage by sheer willpower.

  As Sage poised to leap at the guards, the guy with the Taser froze, while the one with the dart gun was shaking so much it looked like he was about to wet his pants. Sage was going to get through those two before they could blink. Then she’d be on Zarina.

  Fury overwhelmed Tanner like a tidal wave. One moment, he was standing there, wondering what the best move would be. The next, he’d shifted completely and let out a roar loud enough to shake the walls. Claws extended to their full length, he went for Sage.

  She backpedaled, the red glow disappearing from her eyes.

  At the same time, Dart Guy dropped his weapon and really did piss himself, while Taser Man jerked back and fired his stun weapon into the ceiling, burying the high-voltage electrodes in the soft acoustic tiles.

  Sage ran for her bedroom, sobs tearing from her throat instead of growls, while both men made a beeline for the cell door.

  Zarina ran past Tanner, hurrying after Sage before he could stop her. Now that Sage was back in charge of her body, all she’d be interested in doing was hiding away from the rest of humanity in horror and shame. Tanner knew what it felt like to lose control, especially in front of people you considered friends. Hopefully Zarina could console Sage and remind her that she’d done well—right up until Tanner had slipped up and mentioned Derek.

  He took a deep breath and got himself under control. A few moments later, his fangs and claws retracted, leaving him feeling drained and weary. Outside the cell, the two guards stared at him in revulsion. Abruptly realizing he was aware of their attention, the men turned and headed outside. But the distance wasn’t great enough to prevent him from hearing what they said to each other, especially the part where they muttered about having to babysit those damn frea
ks.

  Those two might have been total d-bags, but it still reminded Tanner that in the eyes of most of the people left at the DCO, he and Sage were little better than poorly behaved animals. It made him wonder how much longer Dick would tolerate their presence.

  * * *

  Tanner was still sitting on one of the benches overlooking the obstacle course when Zarina finally came out of Sage’s cell an hour later. He’d spent the time thinking about all the ways the situation in Sage’s holding cell could have gone wrong—and there were a lot of them. Worst among them wasn’t the possibility of Sage getting past those guards but the fact that he might have been the one who put the men down—right before he lashed out at Zarina. The thought chilled him to the core.

  Zarina walked over to join him, sitting down on the wooden bench with a sigh. Some of her long, wavy, blond hair had come loose from its bun to hang down around her face, and it was all he could do not to reach out and gently take the silky strands between his fingers.

  “How’s Sage doing?” he asked.

  “She feels horrible. But at least she’s not sobbing uncontrollably now,” Zarina said. “I told her that she did very well on the exercise, but she’s still upset she lost control and attacked you.”

  He shrugged. “She got her animal side back under control pretty fast.”

  Zarina pinned him with a look. “You know that’s not true, and so does she. Sage only gained control because you roared at her. If not for that, she would have tried to attack those two guards and probably me, too. She’s terrified she might kill someone while her animal side is in control.”

  Tanner didn’t say anything. He knew exactly how Sage felt. He was afraid of the same thing.

  “It’s so strange to see the obstacle course completely empty,” Zarina said in that soft, beautiful accent of hers. “It’s like this place is falling apart in front of our eyes.”

  Tanner couldn’t help but think that there was more to Zarina’s words than the literal interpretation. While the facilities were already showing signs of neglect, it was like the soul of the DCO was rotting away from the inside out as more and more good people left to be replaced with dirtbags. Soon, there’d be nothing left to show for all the work John had put into this place. Over a decade of hard work gone in the blink of an eye.