Wolf Hunt

by Paige Tyler

  So they’d spent an hour at the pistol range, where Sabrina had each of them blaze through almost five hundred rounds of ammo with their issued sidearms, then come over here to the shoot house.

  “You’ll be doing a scenario involving a hostage,” Sabrina explained.

  Alina glanced up from loading another paintball. The black-and-silver gun had a long, slender barrel sticking out the front, a plastic tube full of bright-pink paintballs attached to the top, and a small bottle mounted below the handgrip. It looked like something out of a Star Wars movie and probably cost more than her car.

  In all the time she’d been in the CIA, she’d never fired a paintball gun as part of her training. Hell, while she’d done a lot of tactical room clearance, she’d never taken part in any kind of hostage-rescue training either. That wasn’t part of her normal CIA mission, so she’d never spent any time on it.

  “Jaxson and Jake will be playing the part of the opposing forces,” Sabrina continued. “You’ll need to deal with them as well as any pop-up targets in the house in order to reach the hostage. The pop-up targets will make the alarms on your vests go off if you fail to take them out in time.”

  Trevor snorted, earning him a frown from the training officer.

  “Something funny?” Sabrina asked.

  He shrugged as he slipped a few extra tubes of paintball ammo into the cargo pocket of his uniform pants. “You realize I’m a shifter and that I can get through this scenario easily, right?”

  Sabrina’s lips curved. “Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see. Besides, the objective for this training is for both you and your partner to make it through and rescue the hostage. If you get through but Alina doesn’t, you start over. Teamwork—remember?”

  Trevor scowled at that but didn’t say anything.

  “I’ll be watching from the overhead catwalk,” Sabrina called over her shoulder as she headed into the house. “The training event will start when the alarm rings the first time. If you haven’t completed the course before it rings a second time, you fail and have to start over.” She gave them a pointed look. “By the way, keep your goggles on at all times. I wouldn’t want anyone to lose an eye in there.”

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t going to like this woman, Alina decided as she slipped her goggles down from her forehead. She got the feeling Sabrina had a trick or two up her sleeve for dealing with Trevor and his shifter abilities.

  At first glance, the building looked like a normal, everyday house, albeit in need of a fresh coat of paint. Then Alina realized there were no windows on the second floor and that the glass in the first-floor windows was bulletproof. The walls were probably reinforced as well. She hadn’t seen many tactical training shoot houses in the CIA. This kind of stuff was normally reserved for special operations forces. At least she and Trevor weren’t using live ammo. That would have been a little crazy. Then again, crazy seemed to be kind of the norm around here.

  After Sabrina disappeared inside, Alina turned to Trevor and held up the paintball gun. “What the heck do I do with this thing? I’ve never fired one before.”

  If Trevor was surprised by that admission, he didn’t let on. “The gas pressure bottle under here propels the paintballs when you pull the trigger,” he said, pointing it out with his finger. “The tube on top holds ten paintballs. Think of it like a magazine and reload accordingly. People who do this paintball stuff seriously use containers that hold fifty to a hundred at a time, but the training officers rarely let us get away with that.”

  “I don’t know why,” she quipped. “I personally always like to have a lot more ammo than I think I’m going to need.”

  Trevor smirked but didn’t laugh. “This is the safety. It operates just like the one on your normal sidearm. Just take the weapon off safe and pull the trigger when you’re ready to fire.”

  Without another word, Trevor turned and headed for the door of the shoot house.

  “Don’t you think we should talk about how we’re going to do this before we go in there?” she asked, hurrying to catch up with him. “This could get ugly if we don’t have a plan.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll take the front of the room as we go in. You cover me and deal with the back side of the room. It shouldn’t be that complicated. I’ll be able to smell and hear Jake and Jaxson long before we get to them.”

  Alina opened her mouth to ask what the heck he expected her to do while he was sniffing around like a bloodhound when a loud buzzer went off.

  Trevor lifted his foot and kicked in the door with the heel of his boot.

  Alina cursed and followed him inside. The first room had three doors leading off in different directions but was otherwise empty. Before she could even begin to wonder which room they should start with—or why the hell the place smelled like a litter box that hadn’t been cleaned in a week—loud music filled the house.

  She did her best to ignore both the blaring techno beat and the god-awful stench, moving quickly to cover the blind spots to the left and right of the door they’d come in. It would have been a lot easier if she’d been working with a partner who was interested in communicating—and working as a team.

  Fortunately, the first room was clear, so the fact that she had no idea which direction Trevor was going to move as he crossed the threshold didn’t come back to bite them in the ass.

  Alina shook off her irritation, waiting for Trevor to figure out which direction he wanted to go. He paused, and she assumed he was sniffing for a clue. There were three doors to choose from. But then she realized he was standing there with a pissed-off look on his face.

  “What’s wrong?” she shouted.

  Trevor cursed. “It’s Jake. The damn guy knows exactly how shifters work—me especially. Between the loud music and cow piss he dumped all over the place, he’s taken away any advantages I have. I can’t hear or smell a damn thing.”

  “Cow urine?” Frowning, she looked around and realized the floor and walls were suspiciously wet. “Okay, that’s officially gross.”

  “The clock is ticking, people!” Sabrina called out from the dark catwalk above them. “Get a move on before you get the hostage killed!”

  Alina looked questioningly at Trevor.

  He shrugged. “I guess we do this the old-fashioned way.”

  Heading for the closed door on the far side of the room, he kicked it open, leaving her no choice but to scramble to catch up. She turned her attention to the right side of the room just as a man-shaped silhouette popped up from the floor with the picture of a bad guy with unkempt hair on it.

  Alina aimed her gun and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession, popping the target right in the center of the chest with pink paint. She was thinking the gun was surprisingly accurate when two more colorful splats hit the same target, even though it was her responsibility.

  She threw Trevor an irritated look just as a green paintball exploded in the center of his chest. She spun in the direction the shot had come from, only catching a brief glimpse of a dark-haired man as he jerked back around a corner and disappeared. A split second later, she felt something smack into her upper back.

  Crap on a stick.

  She didn’t have to see the green paint dripping on the floor to know she’d been hit. All because she hadn’t been paying attention to anything except how annoying Trevor was. Her new partner had gotten her shot!

  “Don’t bother starting over!” Sabrina shouted. “You haven’t made it far enough even to count as a good beginning. Keep going.”

  Trevor growled and wiped his hand across the green dye painted all across his chest. His eyes were blazing yellow, and she could see the tips of his fangs extending over his lower lip as a rumble of anger continued to vibrate out of his chest.

  He slammed his foot into the center of the next door, completely ripping it off the hinges and sending it flying across the next room.

  Alina blinke
d. Apparently, Trevor had a temper. Well, at least after getting hit with a paintball in the chest. She couldn’t blame him. She was damn pissed—not to mention embarrassed—they’d been taken out so easily.

  She followed him but was once again forced to scramble to try and cover her partner, knowing the whole time she probably couldn’t trust him to do the same for her. Instead of working as a team, they were two people trying to work through a shoot house scenario completely on their own.

  As expected, the results were a complete disaster.

  Alina and Trevor moved from room to room, so worried about Jake and Jaxson they missed nearly every pop-up target in the house. The damn alarm buzzer on her vest rang nearly nonstop, and on those rare occasions when she was able to focus on her surroundings enough to hit the targets, Jake or Jaxson would pop out of the nearest doorway and smack them with a green paintball.

  “You two are never going to make it through this house unless you start to work as a team!” Sabrina cajoled from the catwalk. “You need to stop worrying about your own butt long enough to cover your teammate’s back. That’s the only way this is going to work.”

  Even though Alina knew Sabrina was right, she still had the urge to shoot a few paintballs in the woman’s general direction on the off chance of hitting her.

  On the upside, Sabrina didn’t tell them to go back to the start. Why bother? They were doing so poorly, it wouldn’t have helped anyway.

  As she and Trevor continued to move through the house, they did a better job of shooting the targets, but when a flash of movement from the left caught their attention in the fourth room, both of them turned that way, leaving their right flank wide open again. Jake stepped out and popped both of them, then darted out of sight before either of them could react.

  Alina let out a sound of frustration that rivaled Trevor’s growls. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Sabrina called a halt to the exercise.

  By the time they reached the room where the hostage dummy was seated at a table with a picture of an angelic little kid taped to its face, Alina was more than ready for the training to end. She and Trevor needed a reset. Hell, they needed to get outside and talk over the possibility that they might be the worst team in the history of covert operations.

  Alina was so focused on that, she didn’t see Jake until he slipped up behind her and draped one arm around her shoulder and neck, yanking her back against him. At the same time, he put the barrel of his paintball gun against her head.

  “Drop your weapon, Trevor,” he called loud enough to be heard over the music. “You two are toast.”

  Trevor spun around, pointing his weapon in her direction. For a moment, Alina thought he was going to say the hell with it and start blazing away. But before her partner could decide one way or the other, Jaxson slipped into the room behind Trevor and pointed his paintball gun at Trevor’s back.

  “Drop it, Trevor,” Jaxson said. “Seriously. It’s over.”

  Trevor’s eyes blazed bright with fury. He wasn’t the only one. She’d never performed this poorly in any training she’d ever attempted, not even when she was a rookie going through the academy at Quantico. She hated getting beaten like this, all because she and Trevor didn’t trust each other.

  This crap had to end.

  Alina caught her partner’s eye and held it. She and Trevor hadn’t been working together long enough for him to read her body language, so she hoped he realized what she was doing. Because she flat-out wasn’t going down without a fight. She was about to do something crazy, and if he didn’t play his part, she was going to get a splat of bright-green paint to the side of the head.

  She relaxed against Jake, like she was giving up. At the same time, she tossed her paintball gun to the floor, slightly to her left. Far enough away that it was out of easy reach but close enough for her to get to it when she had to.

  The moment she felt Jake loosen his hold the slightest bit, she moved. No hesitation, no concern for what Trevor might or might not do. She just reacted, stomping down on top of Jake’s right foot with the heel of her boot. At the same time, she brought the edge of her right hand down in a groin strike, whacking Jake in the balls. It wasn’t as hard as she could have hit him—she didn’t want the man writhing on the floor in pain—but it was enough to make him jerk away. Protecting the family jewels was as instinctive for a man as breathing.

  Reaching up, she grabbed the hand he had draped over her shoulder, twisting it away from her body and torqueing his wrist until she swore she heard it creak. He had no choice but to let her go…or let her break his wrist.

  Alina lunged forward and to the left just as Trevor’s gun went off. Hitting the floor, she tucked into a roll then grabbed her paintball gun and came up shooting.

  Jaxson had been caught off guard by her sudden move, and he wasted half a second trying to decide if he should shoot her or Trevor. That delay cost him. Alina came up on one knee and popped him three times in the chest.

  She continued moving, spinning around to face Jake, not sure what she would find. But she was delighted to see him standing there where she’d left him, a fluorescent pink paint splat right in the middle of his forehead. He looked pissed.

  She turned to confirm that Jaxson was down as well and found Trevor regarding her, his gaze both thoughtful and approving.

  “See how well it works when you trust each other?” Sabrina called from the catwalk. “Took you long enough!”

  Alina ignored the training officer, focusing on Trevor as he continued to study her intently. It was impossible to say how she knew it, but something had just changed between them.

  “Don’t stand there looking all impressed with yourselves!” Sabrina shouted. “Head back outside so we can see if you can be a team for more than ten seconds at a time. And Jake, wipe that paint splat off your face. You look ridiculous.”

  Alina and Trevor made their way toward the front door. As she screwed another pressure bottle onto the bottom of her paintball gun, Trevor motioned toward the building with his chin.

  “How about we try something different this time?” he suggested. “You take lead, and I’ll cover you.”

  She didn’t answer right away, wondering if there was going to be a catch. When there didn’t seem to be one, she nodded.

  “Okay. I can do that,” she agreed.

  Before she could say anything else, the start buzzer went off again.

  Alina shoved open the front door with her shoulder, forcing herself to trust her partner. They moved from room to room much faster this time, dealing with pop-up targets and the occasional appearance by Jake and Jaxson. Sometimes, they missed a target and got dinged for it; other times, Jake and Jaxson got them. But throughout the whole thing, she and Trevor worked as a team and covered each other. By the time they rescued the hostage, she and Trevor were that much closer to becoming a real team.

  It was crazy how good that made her feel, considering that, according to the director of the DCO, Trevor was the enemy.

  * * *

  Trevor hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he and Alina walked into the Pizza Place in nearby Dumfries and he breathed in the aroma of garlic and freshly made tomato sauce coming from the kitchen. Damn, he could eat a whole pie himself.

  He and Alina had finished up training two hours ago, then spent another thirty minutes hanging around talking with Jake and Jaxson before getting cleaned up. Alina had been fine with grabbing something for lunch at the DCO cafeteria, but Trevor hadn’t felt like sitting there while his coworkers stared at him like he was some kind of freak. Plus, this place made fantastic pizza.

  Spotting an empty booth toward the back of the dining room, Trevor pointed it out to Alina, then gestured for her to lead the way.

  The excellent food wasn’t the only reason he’d wanted to get off the complex. He also wanted to talk to Alina in a setting a little more private than the cafeteria
. This morning’s training had made him curious about her. Once again, he had this crazy feeling he’d pegged her all wrong.

  They both ordered iced tea when their server came over to drop off their menus. Alina glanced at hers for all of five seconds before looking at him.

  “You want to split a medium pepperoni?” she asked, her expression hopeful.

  “Let’s make it a large,” he said. “I’m pretty hungry.”

  Their server brought their drinks, then disappeared with their order, leaving an awkward silence in her wake. Trevor added sweetener to his tea, searching for the best way to start the conversation. Across from him, Alina suddenly seemed very interested in the old pictures mounted on the wall above the booth.

  Damn, this was so much easier when he was teamed up with Jake and Ed. Then again, training with them had been a whole hell of a lot less difficult, too.

  This morning had been ugly, at least at the start of the shoot-house exercise. He was man enough to admit that a good portion of the blame for that train wreck rested squarely on his shoulders. Yeah, he’d been thrown for a loop by Jake’s trick with the noise and cow urine, but the biggest reason they’d done so poorly was because they’d flat-out refused to trust each other. With his shifter hearing and sense of smell taken out of the equation, he’d been dependent on Alina to watch his back as they’d moved through the house, but his suspicions of her made that leap of faith impossible.

  It had taken Alina doing something extraordinary, like putting her complete faith in him and risking a paintball to the side of the head, to get him to realize he was being stupid. Dick might have hired her, but that didn’t have to define her. Maybe that’s what his gut had been trying to tell him. Maybe there was more to Alina than the job she’d been hired to do. While he wasn’t ready to trust her completely, he’d at least give her a chance.

  “I guess you like pizza, huh?” he asked lamely, finally breaking the silence that had gone from merely awkward to seriously uncomfortable.