Guard Wolf (Shifter Agents Book 2)

by Lauren Esker

  "I have an apartment," he said. "I live alone. Uh, I don't smoke."

  "That'll have to do." She unloaded her burden of now-sleeping puppies into his lap and stood up. "I'm going to put together a package of supplies for you. Formula, bottles ..." She was talking to herself now, more than him, as she found a bag under the sink and put items into it. "They will need to be examined medically, but that can wait for morning. They seem healthy enough, no visible signs of abuse."

  Avery set his jaw, swallowing his protests. "Is there anything I need to know? Specific stuff—uh, I don't even know how much to feed them, or how often."

  "At that age, they'll let you know." At least, so her sister used to claim. "Giving them a bath when you get home might be a good idea—it'll settle them down and help them sleep. In the morning I'll call around for a proper, certified foster home. Oh, and if any of them shifts, call me immediately."

  "Why?" Avery asked anxiously. "Does it mean there's something wrong?"

  "No, it means you'll have a child whose presence in your house you can't explain. That's for your protection as much as theirs. No one is going to ask questions if you show up with four puppies. Four toddlers is something else."

  "These children are as entitled to the protection of the law as any other child—"

  "Of course they are, Avery, but if they were human, I could place them with a human family. We're in a legal gray area, and we're going to have to use it because we don't have a choice."

  "You've done this before," Avery said. He sounded thoughtful, drawing his hand down the back of one of the sleeping puppies. His blue-gray eyes were steady on her.

  Cop's eyes.

  A shiver ran down her spine. She straightened her back defiantly. "I do what needs doing to keep these kids safe. And I know full well you boys and girls over at the SCB bend the law however it suits you. Because you can't exactly take shifter criminals to trial in a regular courtroom, can you?"

  Avery regarded her without a change of expression. "There are safeguards in place—"

  "And so there are, but at the end of the day, you do the best you can in an imperfect system. Am I wrong?"

  The corner of his mouth quirked up faintly. "You're not wrong."

  They began gathering up the drowsy puppies. When Avery went to put them back in the box, Nicole stopped him with a hand on his arm. She remembered how much trouble he'd been having, stopping them from climbing out. "That's not a safe way to transport them. Let me see what I can find."

  She rummaged through the storage space until she found what she was looking for, a large airline kennel for transporting pets. A baby blanket from her crate of baby things made a serviceable bed.

  "Are you serious?" Avery stared at the kennel in open dismay. "They're not dogs. They're kids."

  "Yes, I know, and in a perfect world they should be strapped into child restraints, but I haven't enough to give you. Besides, could your vehicle accommodate four restraints? Car seats, that is."

  "No," Avery admitted. "But this doesn't seem right."

  "They'll be all right with the blanket for padding, even if you get into an accident. Just make sure to restrain the carrier itself."

  He clearly didn't like it, but he passed her the puppies. However, when she swung the door shut, Avery caught it before it could latch. "They can't get out."

  "That's rather the point." She firmly removed his hand and snapped the door into its latch holes.

  "But they can't get out," he said again, helplessly. "What if something happens and they need to get out?"

  "They're children. They need to be restrained for their own protection." But she had to admit that closing the kennel door on them felt a bit too much like putting them in a cage. Particularly since the puppies didn't seem to like it either. They were starting to stir out of their food coma, and broke into a chorus of tiny whines. One of them started barking, high squeaky alarm barks.

  "See? It's hurting them!" Avery all but tore the door open, and pulled the puppies out, piling them into his lap. They climbed over each trying to get away from the enclosed space.

  "The only person alarming them is you," Nicole snapped, exasperated. But then she took a closer look at him. He was pale, with fine beads of sweat along his hairline.

  This isn't about the puppies, is it, Agent Hollen? This is about you.

  The puppies settled and calmed in his lap. Nicole crouched next to him.

  "Avery," she said gently, laying a hand on his arm. He flinched slightly when she touched him, but didn't try to shake her hand off. "They're going to be fine. If we let them fall asleep and put them in gently, they won't even notice they're confined. And you can leave the door open so they can leave if they want to, okay?"

  She left him petting the puppies, calming both them and himself, while she went to log off the computers and close things up for the night. When she came back, the puppies were back in the carrier, napping in a heap. The door was swung gently to, but not snapped into its latch holes.

  "I was thinking," Avery said, looking up at her, "maybe we could secure it with a piece of tape? So it won't swing open, but if they need to, they can get out. Like, what if I'm in an accident, and the car's on fire, and they can't escape?"

  They wouldn't be able to escape from a burning car either, but she decided humoring him was easy enough, and better than fighting. "I think that sounds like an excellent idea. Just a minute, I'll get some tape."

  A couple of long strips of Scotch tape secured the kennel door. Avery stood up by hand-over-handing himself up the cabinets. Nicole picked up the box to throw it away, but he called, "Wait, don't take that. I need it."

  "It's trash," she said. The cardboard was soft and damp, the bottom of the box soiled from the puppies' messes.

  "No, it's evidence. I need to take it in so Forensics can look it over."

  "Do you think there was a crime?" She carried the box and the bag of infant supplies, while he picked up the puppies' carrier. He limped heavily, but seemed to be able to handle it okay, resting a hand occasionally on the wall or countertops to steady himself.

  "We found them on the street," Avery said. "At the very least, we're looking at child abandonment, possibly kidnapping. So, yes. Crimes."

  "I'm glad that's your area and not mine. I just take care of them after the bad thing happens."

  She rested the box between her hip and the wall while locking up the office door.

  "I can take that," Avery said, reaching for it.

  "I'm going down to my car anyway. I may as well take it down for you." She thought he would be able to steady himself more easily if he had a hand free to rest it on the stairwell railing. Not that she was going to say so out loud.

  They went down the stairs slowly, for Avery's sake, but in a companionable sort of silence. Nicole rarely made it out of the office when her co-workers left, so she was used to walking to her car alone.

  Avery was short, for a man. Nicole herself was 162 centimeters tall—5'4", to Americans—and she guessed Avery was about four inches taller. It meant she didn't have to tilt her head back and look up to talk to him. She liked that.

  "I'm sorry about dropping these kids into your lap like this. I know it's an imposition. I wouldn't do it if I had any other choice. I'll start working on getting them into a foster home first thing in the morning."

  "I know," he said. "It's really okay." He hesitated, then said, "You have an interesting accent. I hope you don't mind if I ask, but I can't place it."

  Americans, she'd found, usually couldn't. They were so used to the broad Crocodile Dundee accent that they wouldn't know an authentic Australian accent if it bit them on the nose. The fact that she was of mixed European-Chinese ancestry threw them off still further.

  "It's Australian," she said. "That's where I'm from."

  "Where in Australia?"

  "Brisbane—well, a suburb. I've lived in the U.S. for almost a decade now, though." To head off the next question people usually asked, she added, "My dad was
white and Mom was Malaysian Chinese. In case you were wondering."

  "I figured you were married."

  It took her a minute to understand the relevance—oh, her last name, which was very clearly not an Asian name. "No, I'm not. That's Dad's name."

  They were outside now, on the sidewalk. Avery started to turn toward the one car remaining at the curb, a Prius gas-electric hybrid, then paused when he realized she wasn't following.

  "I'm the other way," she said, jerking her head to indicate the direction. "In the parking garage there."

  She held out the box and the bag of supplies, then helped him juggle his burdens, tucking the bag into the box so he could carry it and the puppies' kennel. "Oh," she said, "my card." She tucked one of her cards into his bag. "That has my personal number on it. Please call me if you have any problems."

  "I will. It was really nice to meet you, Nicole from Australia," Avery said, smiling.

  "You too, Avery from the SCB."

  She turned and began to walk briskly toward the parking garage, but she couldn't help looking over her shoulder after a moment. Avery had the trunk of his car open and was putting the box into it. The airline carrier sat on the pavement beside him.

  He'll be fine, she told herself. And so will they.

  But she couldn't get the memory of that smile out of her head.

  Chapter Three

  Despite Avery's misgivings about the kennel, Nicole was right. The puppies slept peacefully through the drive to his apartment.

  He lived on the second floor of an apartment complex in Lake City, a short drive north of Seattle proper. The building didn't allow pets, something which he hadn't thought about until he got out of his car and opened the back door to take the kennel out. Yeah, nothing screamed I am sneaking animals into this building like hauling in an airline pet kennel. He considered carrying the puppies up to the apartment individually, but then thought about multiple trips up the stairs with his leg, and ... no. He'd just have to be quick and sneaky.

  Unlike the box, the kennel could be carried with one hand while he used his cane with the other. It was still a hassle to wrestle up the stairs, but luck was on his side and no one came down while he was going up. He set his burden down gently just inside the door of his apartment, and opened the kennel door so the pups could get out if they wanted to. Then he shed his clothes and thought wolf.

  As he collapsed into his wolf body, the entire milieu of his apartment remapped itself. Sight faded to a muted palette, while sounds sharpened and a whole universe of smells leaped out at him. Including the smell of the kennel. He had to fight down a surge of nausea. He hadn't realized it would bother him that much, but as a wolf, his sharp sense of smell could pick out everything: the distinctive scent of the rugged plastic, the cleaning chemicals, and, underneath it, the ingrained urine and dirt and despair that human senses were too feeble to read. He retreated as quickly as possible to carry out the rest of his usual homecoming inspection.

  Avery's shifted form was small, for a werewolf, and jet black from his nose to his low brushy tail. He could move more easily as a wolf than as a man. By long habit, he let the paw of his bad leg brush the ground, with the leg pulled up slightly, and supported himself on the other three while he limped around briskly.

  The place was a one-bedroom apartment, so it didn't take him long to prowl the whole thing, poking his nose into corners. He wasn't worried about intruders—at least, not consciously. He wasn't scared. He just needed to do this. He'd long since given up worrying about whether this was a werewolf thing or an Avery thing, i.e. a form of mild neurosis. The important thing was that the house needed to be checked out before he could feel safe there.

  With the apartment certified safe, he shifted back and reached into the kennel, grasping the first round little puppy body his hand settled on. He could just barely tolerate having the pups in the kennel for transporting them, having them actually sleep in it, like dogs—no. Hell no.

  And even if he left the door open, someone might shut it and then they'd be locked in and—no. Just thinking about it was making his hands shake again.

  He wasn't quite sure what to do with them, so he decided to put them on the bed for now. Soon he'd transferred them to a heap of small fat puppy logs in the middle of the bedspread. They were sleeping deeply enough that none of them stirred, except to squirm a bit and kick their legs until they were packed together into a tight little bunch.

  Avery left them there and turned out the light. His apartment was too small to have anywhere to put the kennel that he wouldn't have to look at it, so he settled for an inconspicuous corner of the living room, as far away from him as possible.

  His leg, meanwhile, was making itself known in its most insistent way. He'd been ignoring it for hours: carrying around twenty pounds of puppies without his cane, twisting and contorting into different positions. Now the muscles knotted and burned, and it threatened collapse with every step. He collapsed onto the couch and let his head slump onto the back. He knew he should probably eat, but pain gnawed through the hunger. It wouldn't hurt to sit for a little while ...

  Someone knocked on the door of his apartment.

  "Who is it?" he called, struggling to get up before someone barged in.

  "It's Casey," the person on the other side called back.

  Casey McClaren, his best friend Jack's girlfriend. Having Casey here without Jack was unusual. "Is everything okay?"

  "Yes, basically, but do you mind if we don't have this conversation through the door?"

  "Right." He dragged himself off the couch to let her in.

  Casey was a short, chunky, dark-haired powerhouse. In the months Avery had known her, she'd thrown herself with single-minded intensity into getting in shape for her new SCB field agent job. She was still slightly overweight—she was just built that way, and her focus was gaining muscle, not losing fat. It was now a layer of fat over solid muscle. The difference in the way she moved was obvious, a sure confidence in her stance that had not been there before.

  When Avery had met the woman his best friend had fallen head over heels for, he'd found that she took some getting used to. She was very ... intense. Yes, intense was a good word for Casey. She also had a tendency to scowl most of the time. ("It's just my face," Avery had overheard her saying testily to one of the interns who had, rather shyly, asked if she was upset. "Why do people keep asking me that?")

  As soon as she stepped through the door, though, she hesitated as if she felt she'd overstepped her welcome, her belligerent forcefulness dropping away to be replaced with uncertainty. That, too, was very like her. "Sorry about dropping in like this. The office email doesn't seem to be working, and you weren't answering your phone."

  He'd honestly forgotten about his phone, putting it on silent and then ignoring it while dealing with the puppies. "You can thank Mayhew for the email. Jack's all right, isn't he?" The wolf in him did not like Jack being sick, even if it was only the flu. He'd stopped by Jack and Casey's place the previous evening, bringing food, and hovered until Casey had firmly but politely chased him out.

  "He's a lot better. I just had to get out of the house for awhile. Can I have a beer?"

  "Help yourself."

  Casey looked at him fully for the first time. "Avery," she said, "would you like to put on some pants?"

  Right. Clothing. "Yes," he said meekly. "That's a good idea. They're ... uh, around here somewhere."

  Casey helped herself to a beer from the refrigerator, while Avery located his discarded clothes one item at a time. "Avery," she called from the kitchen, "if I kill Jack will you help me hide the body?"

  "Things are going that great, huh?"

  Casey glowered and flopped on the couch, beer and all. "Jack is doing fine. I, on the other hand ... Let's just say that if he dies of anything, it is not going to be a virus."

  Avery managed to stifle his urge to laugh. "Yeah, I could have told you Jack's not a great patient."

  "He could be the greatest patient
on Earth and I'd still hate taking care of him. Avery, I'm a cat shifter. I'm not nurturing. I can be loving, yes. Loyal, yes. We do not nurture."

  "You're a cat shifter, not an actual cat."

  "Same diff," she said.

  "Anyway, trust me, Jack is a terrible patient. Just ask any of the medical professionals who've had to deal with him." He hesitated, a terrible thought occurring to him. "Wait, did you just come from there? Are you contagious?"

  "If you're going to catch it, you'd probably already have it. I've been sleeping with Typhoid Jack for days and I'm somehow miraculously unscathed."

  "It's not me I'm worried about. Go look in the bedroom," Avery said. "Quietly. Don't turn on the light. And don't breathe on them!"

  She gave him a very puzzled scowl, but peeled herself off the couch and went off to the bedroom as instructed.

  Silence.

  Casey came back out walking very quietly. She sat down across from Avery and stared at him.

  "Yes," Avery said.

  "Are those werewolf p—God damn it, Avery, you know what I've told you about answering questions before I ask them!"

  "Sorry. I'm a werewolf; I can't help it if I'm good at picking up social nuance. Besides, it's an obvious question. And no."

  "Are they your—Fuck you, Avery."

  He grinned. After a minute she gave him one of her tiny answering smiles. Casey was not a person who smiled much, but she was warming up and opening up to the rest of her co-workers as she got to know them better.

  "Okay, then," she said, leaning back and picking up her beer. "If they aren't your kids but they are werewolf kids, what are they doing at your place?"

  "Cho found them in a box." He filled in the rest of the story.

  "Seriously?" Casey said. "Someone put them in a box and left them for freebies like actual puppies?"

  "People are sick," Avery said grimly.

  Casey started to say something else, but she was interrupted by a high-pitched squawk and a thump from the bedroom.

  "Shit!" Avery snapped. He hadn't thought about the puppies falling off the bed.