Only to meet a gaze that didn’t challenge me, but also never wavered.“That’s what the humans say about us.‘That thing,’ ‘those beasts,’ ‘that brute.’I’ve heard the names all my life; so have you.About our wolves—”
“That’s different—”
“Is it?”He got up and walked over to hug me.Touch, so soothing to our kind, especially from a mate.But not enough; not tonight.“I don’t know,” he said honestly.
“But it will wear off,” I said, clutching his arm.“I’ll go back to normal, so will Sophie.It hasn’t even been a day yet!And she could have misunderstood her Cat—”
“She could.”
I stopped, my heart in my throat, because that had been Cyrus’s noncommittal voice.He wasn’t a guy who liked hedging, and he did it badly.And once more, I felt fear grip me.
And then he confirmed it.
“Lia...There’s one more thing.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acouple of hours later, I slammed into the lobby at HQ, still boiling mad.I’d have been there earlier, but I’d run farther than I’d realized, and Cyrus and I had taken almost half that time just getting back.And then I’d had to find some clothes and eat something, because he had all but shoved a sandwich into my mouth—ham and cheese, my favorite, but I didn’t want it.
I’d just had dinner, damn it!
But I’d eaten it anyway, because I wanted a full belly for this.It kept the wolf down, kept her quiet, and I needed calm.I intended to very calmly rip Hargrove’s freaking head off!
The pack was on my heels, even though I’d snarled at them to let me handle this.They hadn’t argued, because one did not argue with one’s Lupa when she was on a tear, but they were tagging along nonetheless.Cyrus had come, too, hanging back, letting me take the lead, but there as backup if I, I don’t know, Hulked out and ate my boss’s goddamned head!
Which was a distinct possibility.
I don’t know what I looked like, but people scattered out of my way as soon as I burst through the front doors, as if I had a boiling black cloud around me.Which...yeah.Honestly, it would have matched my mood.
But there weren’t many people here tonight.It was after ten P.M., and the day’s rush was long since over, with only a few scattered souls at the service windows on the right-hand wall, getting weapons permits or whatever.I barely noticed, because I was headed for the doors to the lower levels, where the boss was holed up.
Caleb had told me that much when I got back to the house.He hadn’t wanted to leave until he knew I was okay, and then he definitely hadn’t, because I was not.He was back there somewhere, too, tagging along to try to salvage my career or maybe to protect the boss, I wasn’t sure, and didn’t care.
BecausefuckHargroves, I was going to—
Stagger back from the door to the main staircase going down, which had just been flung open hard enough almost to knock me over.
At first, I thought someone was being careless, maybe a clerk working late and tottering under a mountain of paperwork.But no.That had been deliberate, like the gun now being pointed in my face by some suicidal asshole, who seemed surprised when I grabbed the barrel andsqueezed, rendering his weapon useless.
“Corps!”I snarled at him, although I wasn’t sure he understood, as my voice was almost completely in wolf speak.For once, my wolf and I were on the same page, and she was so close to the surface and so hopping mad that it felt like I might Change at any moment.I’d worn old clothes this time, just in case, but my badge was clipped prominently to my waistband, so this unobservant asshole was about to—
Change, but not into a wolf.
It took me a split second to realize three very bad things.One, the asshole wasn’t some clueless trainee or civilian adjutant, failing to see my badge because it was late, he was tired, and probably clandestinely watching a game on his phone.Two, the bastard wasn’t alone, because I could scent the others now that I’d shoved my way into the stairwell, what smelled like a whole pack of the rank bastards, none of which should be here, none of which should beanywhere, because nature had selected them for extinction millennia ago.And three, that my little pack had just stumbled straight into a Relic raid on HQ and was about to be—
“Run!”My wolf and I snarled together, right before I was grabbed by a giant maw and dragged down into the gloom of the stairs.
And itwasgloomy, so much so that even with my owl tat, I couldn’t see the walls I was painting with my blood as whatever-it-was banged me back and forth in between them.I would have already died if not for my shields, which had slammed into place a split second before the teeth did, because my training was just that good.But it wasn’t good enough, because this Relic wasn’t based on a wolf; the best I could tell, it was based on a crocodile, if one five times the usual size, with that huge maw trying to close on my head and shoulders and trying hard.
And crocs, even the regular old boring variety, have an unbelievable bite force, and this one was an order of magnitude above that.Maybe several orders, because my shields were already buckling, my wolf was howling and coming out, and my hugely elongated and hideously distorted hand was grabbing the bastard off me and slammingitinto the wall and floor and ceiling for a change, because it wasn’t my wolf who had just emerged.
It was its big sister, and she waspissed.
For a second, the croc creature and I looked at each other, and its tiny eyes widened.And then I ate them, along with the rest of its head, sans the teeth.Not that my alter ego couldn’t have digested them, too, but she needed her mouth free—
For that, I thought, as another Relic jumped me.
This onewasa wolf, and it was huge.And savage.And just as blinded by fury as I was, and there were more behind it.
