Fang snorted. “Special fabric,” he informed me. “Brigade members frequently have to shift with little warning, so our uniforms are made of a kind of stretchy cotton.”
Huh. Fascinating but so not the reason I was hanging out the door.
“Can you take a little less terrifying form?” I asked. “Connery is hungry, but I’m really not sure that he can handle any more werewolves right now.”
“You’re taking him out of the room?” Fang asked in surprise.
“Well, I’m certainly not tying him to the bed and spoon-feeding him,” I huffed.
“Uh, did someone say you could do that?”
I narrowed my eyes. “No one said I couldn’t,” I said curtly. “Areyousaying I can’t?”
Fang cleared his throat. “No, of course not,” he said quickly, his eyes darting down the hall. “The thing is..” he hesitated and then sighed. “Look, the were that attacked him was one of the students. I’m really not sure it’s safe for the two of you to be out alone.”
Fang glanced down the hall again and looked back at me. “Let me check with Kade quickly, just to be sure there’s no danger,” he offered, “then, I’ll call for a couple more guards in human form and we’ll accompany you, okay?”
I considered his offer and nodded at the compromise. “That’ll work but can you hurry?”
“Of course,” Fang assured me. “I’ll knock on the door as soon as everything is in place.”
“That’ll work, thanks.” I popped back inside the room to find Connery standing in the middle of the floor, his hands hanging awkwardly at his sides.
“I don’t want to be a bother,” he said quietly, his eyes trained on the floor in front of me.
“You’re not,” I assured him with a smile. “Let me put my shoes back on and then we’ll forage for sustenance in the wilds of the cafeteria.”
The faint laugh that came was music to my ears.
Chapter Twenty
Chuck
Back in the conference room, I shoved my cold coffee to the center of the table and replaced it with the water bottle Jules had sent me off with.
“Now that that excitement is over, Pete, do you want to update us on your first pass yesterday?” I asked, surprised when he hesitated and exchanged a look with Colby instead of responding. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” Colby said, “but why don’t I start with what I learned on my recon before the bunnies went in? Then Pete’s part of it might make more sense.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
Colby quickly explained to those gathered that before arriving at Omega Destiny, International, he’d stashed his bike and shifted to explore the area in his wolf form.
“The Hunters we’re dealing with aren’t the usual run-of-the-mill haters,” he began. “This is a fringe religious group, they believe that they are battling on behalf of their God, which I think is why they’re confident in their freedom to try to take the compound by force.”
A gasp rolled through the room as everyone present exhaled as one.
“Exactly,” Colby confirmed grimly. “Even if we were inclined to fight them with brute force, it would backfire on us. Yes, we’d be able to force them out, but they’ll keep coming back.” He looked around the table, meeting each set of eyes individually. “You already know that they’re sneaking in under cover of darkness.”
Kade and I nodded, and he continued. “Those forays serve dual purposes. First, they are convinced that the virus is being manufactured here and used to infect the human population in covert germ warfare attacks.”
“Fucking morons,” Pete grumbled, his ears twitching wildly as he downed a slug from his ever-present flask.
Colby ignored the interruption. “The second purpose is to plot out the most effective spots to plant explosives once they have their hands on the virus.”
I looked around helplessly. “What are they hoping to accomplish? There are already several vaccines and treatment protocols. What are they expecting to do with the virus?”
Colby shook his head. “From what I overheard, the leader thinks that finding it here will give them a legal defense for bombing the grounds and give the leader the right to claim the presidency.”
