“Becca!” Her assistant was sprawled facedown, blood staining her light brown curls and smudged across the back of her lab coat. The barking grew louder. Laina woofed in response, the deepest part of her inner wolf coming to the surface. All the dogs, including Milo, froze, eerily silent and intently waiting for her next command.
Unlocking the cage, she rushed to Becca’s side and placed two fingers against her assistant’s neck. A strong pulse thumped against her touch. “Thank the goddess.” She rolled her human friend onto her back and assessed her further. “Becca? Becca?”
Her assistant roused, pressing a hand to the back of her head with a wince. “Laina?”
“I’m here. What happened?”
Her eyes widened. “A man asked for you. When I said you were gone for the day, he wanted your address. I wouldn’t give it to him. He got angry.” Her eyes darted wildly, and she struggled to get to her feet. “How long have I been out?”
Laina stood. “What did the man look like?” She helped her friend out of the kennel and settled her into the chair near the workstation.
“Tall but skinny. Wavy dark-blond hair. Rough around the edges, you know? I thought he was looking for the soup kitchen up the street when he first walked in.”
Could be Jonah, Laina thought.
Becca raised a shaking hand and pointed over her shoulder toward the observation window to the surgical suite. Laina’s gaze followed. The over-table surgical light was on. “Still here,” Becca murmured, eyes widening.
Placing a finger over her lips, Laina retrieved the scissors she’d dropped and tiptoed to the stainless-steel door that led to her operating room. The surgical light only illuminated the table, leaving the corners of the room dark enough to hide an assailant. Something was on the operating table, a box of some sort, but she couldn’t make out any details.
She slipped inside the door and fumbled for the light switch, scissors raised and back pressed against the wall. The floor was sticky under her bare feet, and the stench she’d smelled from the office was overbearing now, a mixture of blood and antiseptic. Her fingertips caught on the plastic nub. When the lights clicked on, she gasped into the back of her hand.
No one was inside, but she’d found where the white wolf had been murdered. Her operating room was coated in blood. The floor, the walls, the bindings used to torture the creature still secured to the operating table. But her eyes had not deceived her. At the center of all that blood was a…gift.
She approached the table, shaking. The box was wrapped in newsprint, the headlineRandom Act of Terror Kills Eightcentered along the top. She carefully unfolded the article, her fingers cold and numb as all her blood seemed to rush toward her pounding heart. She already knew what it said—the newspaper story about the night her parents and Cameron’s parents were murdered. She tossed it aside, eyes burning with unshed tears. Tears wouldn’t solve anything. But resistance was futile once she opened the box. Inside, the white wolf’s heart lay in a pool of congealed blood. A gift card rested on top —You’re next.
ChapterSix
This was a first. Kyle could honestly say he’d never been stood up before. Not like this. Sure, one time in high school, Juliette Freeman had said no when he’d asked her to make out behind the bleachers, but never before had a woman so enthusiastically agreed to a date and then ghosted him.
Lainahadbeen enthusiastic, hadn’t she? He thought back to the way she’d leaned forward, licked the bottom lip of her nervous smile, and toyed with her hair. If that hadn’t been flirting, Kyle was way off his game.
A waitress, not his, slid up to his table and handed him a folded paper napkin. Her phone number. She winked at him over her shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen.Fuck that. He wasn’t off his game.
He needed an explanation.
The only phone number he had for Laina was Four Paws, and the line had been consistently busy for the last two hours. He’d waited for her at Valentine’s Restaurant well past the time they’d agreed to meet. So long that the owner, a guy named Logan who seemed to sense he was having a bad night, talked him into a burger and some chocolate cake. The good eats barely numbed his annoyance. Once his plate was empty, he should have paid the bill and headed back to his hotel.
But he hadn’t. After losing his dad and gaining a dog the size of a small truck, he needed closure on this. Had she figured out who he was and ghosted because she was turned off by his public persona? That would be understandable. Although plenty of women were members of Hunt Club, if that was the problem, he could accept it. He’d go on his merry way.
Only, he’d felt a connection with Laina almost immediately. She set off bells and whistles inside him he hadn’t known he was packing. One look at her and something in his chest…moved? Loosened? He couldn’t even describe it. What he knew for sure was what it wasn’t. This was no simple lust or sexual attraction. Something else. Something more.
He had to know for sure. What was the worst that could happen? Maybe she’d tell him she wasn’t interested. Big deal. He’d take Milo and leave for home. Resolved, he tore out of Valentine’s like his ass was on fire and headed straight for Four Paws.
All speculation came to a chilling halt when Kyle pulled his rented SUV into the parking lot of the veterinary clinic and slid into a space next to a silver Audi he suspected was the doctor’s. The door to the building was hanging open, and inside, the place looked like it had been hit by a hurricane—papers strewn across the floor, file cabinets ransacked. His heart broke into a gallop.
“Laina?” he called.
When there was no answer, he strode toward the back, then saw her through a window to the surgical suite.
“Jesus Christ.” He shoved his way through the door and into the blood-splattered room. Laina looked like she was catatonic. Her face was stark white, and she was clutching the blades of a pair of scissors in her hand, tight enough to hurt, the steel biting into the edge of her palm. “Laina?”
She didn’t seem to hear him. He took a few more steps toward her.
“Dr. Flynn, are you all right?” he asked more forcefully.
That seemed to shake her out of whatever shock she was in, and her eyes met his. “Kyle?”
She wavered on her feet, and he rushed forward to pull her into his arms.Fuck, in the back of his mind, a tiny voice said he should call the police. But no way was he doing anything until he knew for sure that none of this blood was hers. He ran his hands over her head, her back, her arms. “Are you hurt?”
