He didn’t finish.The low sound of an engine thrummed into his head, vibrated through his body into his gut.He sucked in a swift breath and the scent of wolf assaulted his sinuses.Bad wolf.He spun about, staring through the door across the woman’s living room, watching as a large, black van slowed to a complete stop by the curb out the front of her house.Fuck.Spinning back to the woman, he shook his head.“Time’s up.”
“Time’s up?”Her forehead creased.“What does that mean?”
Declan gave her a level look.“It means this.Sorry.”And he smashed his fist against her jaw.
Stunned rage filled her eyes—a heartbeat before her body went limp and she slumped forward.The phone fell from her hand, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
He grabbed her and threw her over his shoulder, her unconscious frame like pliable rubber.“This isnothow I wanted to do this,” he growled, hitching her weight closer to his head and anchoring his arm snugly around her waist.He shot a look over his shoulder, blood hot with the need to transform.He stared at the van on the street through the gauzy length of curtain hanging over the living room window.Watched its doors swing open.Watched a hulking shape he knew all too well climb out of the passenger side seat.Watched the man with flaming red hair and muscles on muscles bend his short, wide neck to the side in an action designed to intimidate.McCoy.
He bared his teeth and turned back to the woman’s bedroom.In time to see a greenish-grey lizard roughly the size of a small dog, go skittering across the floor and disappear under the far wardrobe.A short, sharp snort escaped Declan.“You’re on your own, lizard.”
And without further adieu, he crossed the room, kicked out the flyscreen of the main window, leapt through it and took off across the woman’s small backyard.The sound of the van door slamming shut behind him thumped at his senses as he cleared the dividing fence in a single bound, sprinting across the neighbor’s lawn.Just a naked Irishman with a bleeding side, running through the early-morning streets with an unconscious, animal liberationist slung over his shoulder.Nothing unusual about that.
Nothing unusual at all.
CHAPTERTHREE
Peter frowned at the phone in his hand.What the bloody hell was going on?“Hello?”
Nothing.
His frown pulled deeper.The caller ID display told him it was his baby sister on the other end, but since when did Reggie think it was funny to call and not say anything?
She wouldn’t.
Unease twisted in Peter’s gut—cold and tight.She’d pulled a lab raid last night.She hadn’t told him which lab she was hitting in their last conversation but he knew when she was going in and when she’d planned to be out.He made it his business to know when she went on one of her freedom missions.No one else in the family knew what she got up to in the wee hours of the morning.Dad would kill her, even if he did agree with her motives, and Mum would chain her to the sofa, but someone had to be there for her if she was ever—God forbid—arrested, or worse yet, shot.She didn’t like it, but too bloody bad.It’s what big brothers did; they pissed off their little sisters, even if it was for their own good.
Peter placed the phone back to his ear.“Reggie?Can you hear me?”
Still nothing.Well, nothing except the irritating scratch and hum of the connection.His gut twisted again.Damn it.What if she was in trouble?
In trouble?Reggie’s always in trouble.
Peter shook his head.She’d been after someone big last night.He’d seen it in her eyes.Someone she considered the enemy.Perhaps she’d finally been caught.Goddamn it, what if she was?—
“You’re on your own, lizard.”
The muffled words, almost inaudible, fell from the phone.Male?Irish?Peter snapped straight in his chair.Lizard?Shit.Rex.“Hey?”His sharp shout lifted the heads of quite a few people surrounding him but he ignored their curious stares.They were in a cop shop, for Christ sake.Someone shouted down a phone just about every other minute.“Hey?Regan?”
Nothing.
Cold worry gnawed at him, joining the tension squirming in his gut.Fuck.
For a terrible moment, he didn’t know what to do.His gut, as churned as it was, told him to get over to Regan’s house now, but to do so meant hanging up the phone in his hand and what if his little sisterwasin her home,wason the other end trying to talk to him,needinghis help?
“Thomas?”
Peter stared at the far window, the blue, cloudless sky outside seeming to mock him.Goddamn it, what the hell should he do?Was Reggie?—
“Thomas!”
A gruff and very belligerent voice barking his name yanked Peter’s attention away from the window and the ominous thought of his sister’s silent phone.He stared up into his boss’s bloodshot eyes, unable to miss the sour expression on his round, unshaven face.“Yeah, Inspector?”
“Your wife’s been tryin’ to call you for the last ten minutes.”Tony Muriciano glared at him, leathery skin yellow and dry from far too many cigarettes.
“Ex-wife, Inspector,” Peter corrected, his grip on his phone curling tight.
Fat, nicotine-stained fingers jerked on the waistline of wrinkled chinos and Muriciano’s ample gut wobbled under his white shirt.“Whatever.Tell her next time she’s tryin’ to get hold of you to call the switch.I’m too busy to deal with her shit.”
