He turned from the window, the sight of the arching Harbor Bridge in the distance catching his attention.The construction spanned the rippling channel dividing North Sydney from the commercial epicenter, another marvel of man’s engineering genius.
Huh!If the world knew whathehad achieved, these pitiful man-made constructions would be scorned for the triflings they were.If the world knew…
He ground his teeth.If the bitch who invaded his lab last night spoke of what she saw the worldwouldknow, well, begin to suspect, and that was not acceptable.He’d worked hard to present an immaculate, benevolent image to the people of this country and one little bitch could ruin it all.
A low growl rumbled in his chest and he felt his canines lengthen, digging into his lower lip.A ripple passed over his flesh.Fuck!Just thinking of the cunt and the trouble she could cause and he was close to shifting.
The drilling fire in his head flared and he growled again.Not at the pain, but at the thought of the female and the grief she could bring down on him.If she took photos while in the lab… If she had evidence…
He spun about, glaring out the window at the sublime day.“Fucking do-gooder bitch!”
He hadn’t been this angry since Aine’s death.Since the night theOnchúclan butchered her.The night his sweet lifemate was lost to him forever.
Bitter rage ripped through him, as fresh and biting as it had been over two hundred years ago.That night began a war unlike any the lycanthrope clans of the world had seen.A war led by him.His rivals had caught him off-guard once.They wouldn’t do it again.He wouldn’t let them.Any of them.
But now… Now thishuman…
He had to find her.Find her, find out what she knew and silence her.
And the second she was no longer a problem, find Declan O’Connell again.He wasn’t done with the Irish werewolf.Theconriocht.Not this close to success.Not this close to punishment.
He crossed to his personal bureau and jabbed at a key recessed in the rose-cedar surface, impatience coursing through his veins.
“Yes, Mr.Epoc?”a husky voice sounded from the wall speaker above the bureau, both reverent and submissive—the way he expected all his staff and pack members to be.
“I want the bitch brought in,” he said, canines growing longer, thicker with each word.“And I want her brought in now.”
Regan’s heart hammered.
The wolf lay on its side, taking up most of her old sofa, its eyes closed, its rib cage rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths.Dry blood smattered the grey fur on its neck, cracked and thick like black mud.The cushions of her sofa bowed and compressed under the animal’s massive bulk and, as she had in the lab, Regan wondered what species it was.None she was familiar with.
How can that be?
She frowned.She was at least passingly familiar with just about every species in existence—she had to be in her line of work.How could she not?—
The wolf whined again, softer, weaker, and Regan’s puzzlement vanished.
In a heartbeat she crossed the room and crouched by the wounded animal, skimming her hands over its body.A wave of awe rolled through the cold worry knotted in her chest.It was unwell.Its limbs trembled and each breath seemed weaker than the last, yet its feral strength was undeniable.She’d thought it a creature of primitive power back in Epoc’s lab but now, here in her room with its corded muscles under her examining fingers, itsmanaseemed almost tangible.“What genus are you, my friend?”she whispered, running her hands over steely quadriceps much bigger and longer than any wolf species she knew.Quadriceps turned to femur, femur to pelvic bone.
Regan frowned, confusion squirming in her gut.The animal’s pelvis felt wrong, like some sick bastard with a Doctor Moreau complex had taken to it with a bone grinder in an attempt to reshape it into a human hipbone.“Whathavethey been doing to you, mate?”she murmured, tracing the distorted bone.“My God, how can you even walk?”
She moved her hands up the wolf’s spine, counting vertebrae, looking for wounds or injuries.Curiosity ate at her concern.Where had the creature come from?Wolves were not native to Australia and as far as she knew, the only ones in the country were those housed in zoos and animal enclosures.For this lone wolf to be in Epoc’s lab…?
Imported illegally, perhaps?
But from where?
Her seeking fingers slid through a patch of wet fur low on the wolf’s rib cage and Regan stilled her investigation.She parted the animal’s dense coat, looking for… “There it is.”
Fresh blood, bright red and warm on her fingers, seeped from a ragged hole puncturing the wolf’s side.Regan prodded the surrounding flesh gently, worrying the bullet may be embedded in bone beneath.She’d have to get the animal to Rick.Whether the bullet was there or not, the wound needed to be?—
The wolf whined.Low.Almost human.
“I’m sorry, mate,” Regan soothed, removing her fingers from its rib cage.Chewing on her bottom lip, she smoothed her palms over its scapular and down first one foreleg and then the other.Both rippled with muscle and once again, uneasy wonderment wriggled in Regan’s stomach.The humerus seemed too close to human in structure to be possible.She ran her hands over it and it seemed to shift.Grow longer.Straighter.
Regan scrubbed the back of her hand against her eyes.She must be sleep deprived.Bones didn’t change structure.With a slight shake of her head, she went back to her examination.As soon as she was convinced the animal could be moved, she’d call Rick.He’d give his left nut to help her out, any excuse to try and impress her into his bed.But quite frankly, she had no hope of moving the animal herself, even if it would fit in her car.
Another whine whispered on the air, so soft Regan almost missed it.“Not much longer, my mysterious friend,” she whispered, letting her hands settle on the wolf’s rib cage again, careful to avoid its wound.Its coat felt like fine velvet under her palms and for a dreamlike moment, she felt like pressing her face to the animal’s side.She leant forward, sliding her hands to its shoulder joint in search of wounds unseen and her bare nipples brushed against the wolf’s chest, flesh to fur.Soft.Cool.So much more than she’d expected.So much more than any animal species she knew.
