GRAY Wolf Mate

by Dianna Love

  Sweat beaded on Cole’s neck, but he trusted these two with his life.

  Justin clamped one hand next to the other at the last links of the chain before they disappeared down the corner tubing. Being a grizzly bear and a Gallize, he was the strongest of the three.

  Rory fired up the torch and started cutting.

  Cole held both arms dead still, wanting this to work.

  When the chain broke, Cole almost fell toward the opposite side, but Rory immediately clamped onto the manacle on his wrist, holding him in place.

  Minutes later, Cole walked out of the cargo bay to find the SCIS transport truck inches from the edge of what had to be a five-hundred-foot drop-off.

  That would have been a Super Bowl finish of sudden death.

  Not the kind he’d have cheered for either.

  “Thanks, guys. Why didn’t you call out before cutting through?”

  “We didn’t know if this thing was rigged with any kind of transmitter that would pick up voices. Figured we’d wait until we got the door open to confirm there were no bugs inside.”

  “Good thinking. I got questions, but they’ll wait until you get this fucking helmet off me.”

  “It’s welded on.”

  “I know.” Cole would find Brantley and make him pay for every second of misery he’d been put through. “Cut it off.”

  “I’ll end up burning you.”

  “Can’t be any worse than what I just went through.”

  The usually jovial Justin looked miserable. “We had no idea what had happened to you until we got around the building after the explosion. By the time we figured out who had you, they’d vamoosed. Guardian told us to follow and extract you. That would have been possible if they hadn’t airlifted you.”

  Just as Cole had thought. He lifted his hand with the chain still dangling. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters. Let’s cut this thing off me.”

  The back of his head took a beating again. Cole was tired of asking his body to keep taking so much abuse. Water leaked through holes in the helmet as Justin doused the metal, trying to cool it to lessen the burns. When the welds finally loosened, Cole reached up and grasped around the back next to his neck and ripped it apart.

  He threw it into the cargo area.

  The sound of a helicopter approaching pulled all three heads around to the east. Cole yelled, “We got incoming. Who’s flying our chopper?”

  “Hawk,” Rory answered, grabbing the torch and turning toward their bird.

  Justin was right behind him, then Cole.

  Hawk was indeed a big hawk when he shifted, but he was also a lunatic chopper pilot they’d met in the military. Not a Gallize shifter, but one of the Guardian’s men now.

  “Got a bird coming in hot from the east. Those jackals might have had a panic button or your captors had a tracking system on the truck,” Justin was calling back over his shoulder as the rotor blades spun up to full power.

  Cole dove in as Hawk lifted off. That pilot would make you hang from a skid if you didn’t get your ass inside when he was ready to go.

  Pulling on a set of headphones so he could communicate with everyone, Cole snagged a pair of binoculars to look out the open door. Hawk whipped the craft around in one of his gut churning maneuvers.

  Cole shouted, “Are the jackal shifters still alive?”

  “No,” Justin and Rory replied as one.

  Cole warned, “We shouldn’t leave any trace of you two—”

  The business end of an M-32 grenade launcher shoved past Cole’s face.

  Rory sighted in on the van and shot two 40mm, high-energy rounds.

  The approaching helicopter bore down on the truck just as the armor-piercing grenades blew it to pieces.

  Justin shoved over next to Cole. “Damn I love that shit.”

  When the smoke cleared, the other helicopter had spun away from the billowing fire. Dialing in the lens of a high-powered spotting scope, Cole caught the gold-and-black SCIS scales-of-justice insignia on the side of the chopper.

  Brantley would not be happy about losing his captive.

  Cole had no doubt that the Cadell had been behind the detour to this cliff road, but that left a bigger concern. How would Brantley react at losing Cole? Tess had no idea she was working in the middle of a viper nest.

  Justin shouted, “The Guardian wants us in for debriefing.”

  Cole wanted to head back to SCIS and yank his mate away from danger, but he couldn’t do that without explaining where he’d gone years ago, and how he knew she was in danger.

  Mate? What was he thinking?

  Gray Wolf vibrated with anger. She is our mate.

  Like Cole could tell her that?

  Trying to explain to Gray Wolf that she could never be their mate was impossible. The wolf only knew they had to protect her no matter what.

  For once, Cole was in complete agreement with his wolf.

  Chapter 14

  Tess waited for Brantley to get over his rant. She wanted to shove him out of her office so she wouldn’t show a crack in her armor in front of him.

  She was doing a hell of a job just by not throwing up.

  He complained, “This is going to cost us our funding.”

  She didn’t snap back at Brantley, but this was his fault. He was the one who’d ordered the truck and sent the two shifters to deliver Colin.

  Now Colin was dead.

  Even he couldn’t have survived the burned truck. The brutal containment system in the cargo area would have ripped him apart as soon as he tried to escape.

  All of this was Brantley’s doing.

  He’d been so excited to send Colin off in his new toy that it made Tess sick.

  She faced Brantley’s anger and unleashed some of her own. “You have yet to tell me what your driver and guard were doing on an unmarked road in the mountains, going in the wrong direction.”

  “What?”

  “Did I mince any words?” she snapped. “I want to know what that truck was doing so far off track.” To avoid wasting time arguing whether the information was accurate, she added, “I received a report that firefighters and police were sent to a burning truck in the mountains north of here. They traced the vehicle VIN to SCIS.”

  Brantley glared at her. “How should I know what happened? You were standing there with me when I sent them off. Someone clearly sabotaged the transport. My best guess is that we have a mole, someone sympathetic to shifters. I’m thinking the Black River pack hijacked the truck and it went bad when our people fought back.” He paused with a thoughtful expression. “Or maybe that freaking wolf shifter tried to escape and somehow caused the truck to wreck.”

  “Colin? You think he did all that while he was stretched like a guitar string?”

  Cocking his head to look at her hard, Brantley said, “Don’t tell me you’re defending him?”

  Careful, she warned herself, but she was not backing down. “I’m not even going to acknowledge that ridiculous comment. This is huge. We will lose funding if they think we can’t maintain custody of someone that important. I’ll be facing the congressional committee to convince them SCIS is making progress. O’Donnell was the closest we’ve come to anyone who might be able to tell us about the Black River pack—”

  “No, we’ll be facing that committee and O’Donnell was with the Black River pack even if he didn’t admit it,” Brantley said, cutting her off. “I know you think that tensioning system in the truck was an inhumane way to transport him, but it was the best plan my security team had come up with to manage someone like Colin. I hadn’t planned on using it yet, but seeing what he did to our two jackals when he shifted changed my mind. I agree that he couldn’t have gotten himself out on his own, but that leaves the Black River pack behind this. If that’s the case, we have a hole in our security. There’s no telling what happened until I get a team out there to investigate.”

  She understood the words coming out of Brantley’s mouth, but her gut screamed that he had edited out
a few significant things.

  He was hiding more than he was telling.

  Only a few people had known about this transport and they were all security.

  Who on Brantley’s team would undermine him?

  Or had he set her up to take the fall for losing Colin? All failure for today would fall on her head. Because while she believed in sharing success with everyone, even giving Brantley credit at times he hadn’t exactly earned it, the responsibility for failure belonged to her. That’s how she operated as a leader, plain and simple.

  That driver and guard had been in on it, but she’d get no answers from them. Why had they gone into the mountains if the Black River pack was behind all of this?

  If none of that was true, then who had ordered Colin’s death?

  She looked hard at Brantley.

  Would he actually go to the extreme of killing people to force her to step down so he could take over her position as lead on this investigation?

  Okay, she was starting to sound paranoid even to herself.

  She’d known, as a woman entering a primarily male work arena, that she’d be up against prejudice. She’d been prepared for those challenges, and always wanted to believe that working with professionals meant a level playing field once she’d proven her worth.

  She agreed with Brantley on one point.

  They had a mole. She had to figure out who it was and follow that trail to whoever was pulling the strings.

  Killing to get ahead was cold-blooded murder, even if some thought less of a shifter’s death than a human’s. During the past months of working with Brantley, she’d seen his true colors about women in his field, but otherwise, he’d been professional, if annoying, with his innuendos. When she’d rebuffed his attentions though, he’d been pleasant about it and never acted as if he intended to make her pay for rejecting him.

  She couldn’t equate that man with one who would kill just for professional advancement.

  He stopped his pacing and huffed out a deep breath. “Sorry if I’m ranting at you when this is not your fault. I’m just sick over losing a major prisoner, two of our staff and that new truck, which I’d hoped would prevent deaths. I feel like we’re losing ground with the Black River pack.”

  Now she felt like a slug for being so suspicious of him, but she actually hurt over the thought of what had happened to Colin. She couldn’t explain the odd connection she’d made with the wolf shifter, but right now she had a difficult time holding back her emotions.

  She would not crack. Not here.

  Colin had died a horrible death and it was as much her fault as it was Brantley’s.

  She had final say. She could have refused to send Colin to the holding facility chained that way, but a sense of duty had forced her into what she’d thought had been the right decision.

  Then Colin had said he forgave her even before all this happened.

  How could he forgive someone who had sent him to his death? He’d predicted it, in fact. Had known he was going to die.

  Her head felt like the ball at a national ping-pong match with so many conflicted thoughts slamming back and forth. She’d figure it out later. For now, she still had an investigation to see finished.

  Feeling as if she had to extend an olive branch to Brantley, she said, “I share your frustration and we’ll keep pressing harder on the Black River pack.”

  So much for taking time off.

  She mentally ripped up the form she’d been planning to submit today for a four-day weekend. She needed to know more on Colin for any hope of putting this behind her.

  Ready to forge ahead, she said, “I sent Colin’s DNA to be matched in the shifter database, but it could take days or weeks. In the meantime, let’s offer a reward for anyone who might have recent information on a rogue wolf in the area. Did we get any facial shots?”

  “Nope. The team who put the mask on him didn’t waste a second after seeing what he did to the jackals.”

  “I understand.”

  Brantley perked up. “We should offer a reward, though. Those people will sell out their own mother with enough incentive.”

  She cringed at the ‘those people’ shifter reference for now, but she’d have a conversation with him soon about the need for everyone on their team to at least show a modicum of respect for all people ... and sub-species ... once things settled down. This conflict had to end or she’d need a new supply of aspirin.

  Her assistant knocked on the door, then opened it to say, “We just got an initial police report about the destroyed truck.”

  Tess steeled herself for the news. She’d been prepared to accept that she’d never see Colin again, not alive, but hearing someone verify his death would carve up her insides.

  Brantley asked, “What’d they say?”

  “The bodies of our driver and second guard are being sent to the coroner, but there’s no sign of the prisoner’s body.”

  Tess stared in shock.

  Brantley snarled, “What? How’d he get out?”

  “They didn’t say. The only detail they gave me was that the chains in the back appeared to have been cut with a torch.”

  Regaining her composure quickly, Tess fought to keep her relief from showing, but it wasn’t easy. She wouldn’t wish death on the two jackal shifters, but Colin ... might be alive.

  Her relief took a swift nosedive when she realized she would have been better off facing the committee with his death than with his escape.

  Chapter 15

  Five hours after his harrowing escape from death, Cole entered the elevator with Justin and Rory, all of them headed to the penthouse to see the Guardian. Cole kept his hands in the pockets of his cargo pants to hide the claws that kept poking out of his fingers.

  He had to keep this from the Guardian for a little longer.

  This had been the longest day of his life since becoming a shifter, but he’d survived Brantley’s death-by-transport-truck plan.

  He should have known this morning that bastard Brantley wasn’t sending him to any SNR location.

  Gray Wolf had been anxious since Cole’s rescue and angry about their not going to claim Tess, but somewhat manageable. Cole didn’t know what had taken the worst of the edge off his wolf, but the ongoing battle to keep his claws retracted and his head from changing shape meant he still had to face the mating curse.

  He’d expected his wolf to choose a mate at some point, since that’s how it apparently worked for some Gallize, but he now realized that had never happened because Cole had chosen Tess first.

  He didn’t understand Gray Wolf’s interest in her when she wasn’t a wolf shifter or a Gallize female.

  Tess was human.

  If Cole took even a non-Gallize shifter mate and bonded with her, he’d share telepathic communication in wolf form, plus the supernatural powers they each possessed would grow stronger. As he understood it, only a shifter female or a Gallize female could handle bonding with his power.

  Ideally she would be a Gallize female shifter, but finding a unicorn would be easier. The Gallize women had not been as fortunate as the males, who had a guardian watching over them. Their female guardian had vanished along the way and not been replaced, which was why Cole and his Gallize brothers had no clue where to find a woman who could handle their power.

  In the past, a Gallize shifter who bonded with a human had killed his mate the minute the power rushed inside her.

  Even if it had happened only once, Cole would not risk it with Tess. Nor would he trust his wolf around her. Gray Wolf might think he could change Tess into a wolf with a bite, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Cole would protect Tess, even from himself.

  Gray Wolf snarled at him. Our mate.

  Cole silently snarled right back. Tough shit.

  When the elevator stopped, the doors opened into a living area. He followed Rory and Justin through a tastefully decorated room designed to be minimal and efficient, then out to the balcony atop a forty-three-story building in Baltimo
re.

  The apartment would be impressive enough without adding in the fact that their boss owned the entire building, plus a few others that Cole knew about. There could be more real estate, considering the man had lived so many centuries.

  After Justin sent word that Cole needed a safe place to shift due to the drugs forced on him and Gray Wolf, the Guardian had authorized the team to take Cole to a private reserve to shift so he could heal completely before coming into Baltimore to meet. Between that shift being uneventful and a hot shower, Cole had a new burst of energy.

  Gray Wolf did too, but Cole had regained the ability to keep his beast in line. For now.

  Stepping outside, the air cooled significantly from when he’d stood on the busy street way below. The moderate wind buffeting the building was noticeable at this height.

  Neither Rory nor Justin had any news to share on the Guardian’s reaction to Cole being inside the food bank building when the bomb detonated.

  Their boss had issued one order. Do whatever it takes to find Cole and bring him back.

  That’s why everyone on the Gallize team would do anything asked of them. It was understood that they took care of their own.

  The Guardian stood at the far end of the wide balcony with his back to them. He appeared to be nothing more than a physically fit, well-groomed businessman staring at the city, preparing for his next major venture. Cole had never seen him in anything except suits, which might be from having lived through eras when men of substance dressed accordingly.

  But when the man turned around, his eyes bore the shape of a sea eagle’s. He was centuries older than the mid-forties suggested by a touch of gray hair at his temples. His skin belonged to someone more like thirty and the rest of his dark brown hair could be mistaken for black at first glance.

  Rumors floated around about a few Gallize who lived beyond the expected one hundred and fifty years, give or take a few, but their boss, though Gallize, was more than just a shifter. Cole had heard that the ancient guardians who watched over the Gallize joined so closely with their animals that at some point, their eyes changed from human to those of an eagle.