Despite the fact that she turned him down, putting Lacey out of his mind hadn’t been as easy as he thought. Against his better judgment, he’d stopped by the clinic several times over the past few days on the off chance she’d changed her mind about going out with him. She hadn’t. He was pretty sure that meant Lacey wasn’t The One for him. He might be ready to give up on her, but he was running out of lame excuses to stop in and see her. He could only buy Tuffie so much in the way of food, dental treats, and chew toys. Lacey was going to think he was a stalker.
“Lacey is the new vet at the animal clinic,” he finally said. “I met her when I took Tuffie in the other day. I asked her out. She turned me down. It wasn’t a big deal.”
Alex expected the guys to say something sarcastic, maybe point out that Lacey’s lack of interest in him was likely just a sign of her good taste. But instead, they shook their heads and acknowledged how much that must suck. Too bad. He could use a little ribbing to get his mind off Lacey.
“Did you try the flowers like I suggested?” Remy asked. “Women love them. There’s, like, a direct connection between their noses and their hearts.”
Alex almost winced. He’d tried flowers, but Lacey hadn’t seemed very impressed. In fact, when he stopped to see her the next day, the flowers had been sitting on the receptionist’s desk. Lacey hadn’t even bothered to take them home.
He gave Remy a wry smile. “Something tells me that Lacey isn’t the kind of woman who likes flowers.”
Remy opened his mouth to say something but closed it again as Khaki came running down the hall. Tall and athletic, she wore the same SWAT uniform they did and had her long dark hair pulled back in a bun.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Everly was having a crisis she needed help with.”
Brooks frowned. “Everything okay with the engagement party?”
“I think so.” Khaki glanced over her shoulder at them as she opened the door to the training room and led the way inside. “Just make sure all the guys know whom they can talk openly to and whom they can’t. Even though her father and brothers know about werewolves, the rest of her family doesn’t. Everly doesn’t want one of us slipping up and exposing the existence of werewolves to one of her brothers’ wives—or their kids. She doesn’t want any of them freaking out during the party.”
“Much better to wait until the wedding for the rest of her family to find out that she’s marrying a werewolf,” Alex said sarcastically as he followed the other guys in.
“Today’s exercise is simple,” Khaki said after they had all assembled inside. “Yesterday, I gave you a few minutes to smell a piece of cloth that I’d sprayed with a particular cologne. The day before, I did the same thing with another scrap of fabric covered with a different fragrance.” She gestured to the cardboard boxes on the table along the far wall. “Each of those holds a single piece of cloth. Two are ones you already smelled. The other three are decoys sprayed with a similar but different cologne. All you have to do is tell me which two are the right ones and which cloth came from which day. There’s no time limit, so just relax and let yourself get lost in the scents.”
Alex got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Until they’d started this training with Khaki, he’d always thought his nose was as good as any other werewolf in the Pack. He could pick up on all the usual scents they ran into on a frequent basic in their line of work, like gunpowder, explosives, drugs, or alcohol. He could tell the difference between two people’s scents and easily identify if they belonged to a man, a woman, or a werewolf. He could even pick up on subtle smells, like the one a woman gave off when she was aroused. But Trey knew exactly who was at the gate of the compound before Alex even realized anyone was there. Brooks recognized the scent of each woman Remy hung out with. And Max could pick up the scent of a girl he’d danced with the night before, even when she was all the way across a crowded bar. Alex’s nose wasn’t good enough to do any of that stuff.
Khaki walked along the table, taking the lid off each box. “The scents you memorized the past two days are in your heads. You just have to figure out where you put them.”
Alex wasn’t sure he could discern one cologne from another, much less remember which piece of cloth he’d smelled before. But he leaned over the first box and took a deep breath anyway. He immediately picked up the strong smell of a man’s masculine cologne. Unfortunately, when he sniffed the second box, it smelled the same as the first one. Worse, he couldn’t say whether he’d smelled either fragrance before.
He moved to the next box, trading places with the other guys as they each took their turn, but he didn’t recognize the scent coming from there, either. Shit, he was never going to be able to get this. He glanced over at Max and saw him grinning. Clearly, his pack mate wasn’t having any problem. Alex had always been a competitive guy, and it irritated the hell out of him that his teammates could do this and he couldn’t. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t do physically as a werewolf, and when it came to tactical techniques like shooting, climbing, rappelling, hand-to-hand, you name it, he could it and do it well. But for some reason, this scent stuff seemed to be beyond him, and the harder he pushed, the worse his nose functioned.
If that weren’t bad enough, his claws and fangs slipped out. He tried to get the damn things to retract, but they refused to behave. Shit.
“You know, letting your inner wolf out isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” Khaki said from beside him. “I’ve discovered lately that the further I push my shift, the better my nose works.”
He glanced at her. “Really?”
She smiled. “Yeah. Give it a shot.”
Why the hell not? It couldn’t hurt. Ignoring his protruding fangs and claws, he leaned over the last box in the row and took a good sniff. The scent seemed richer and deeper than it had been.
“Damn, it really does work better,” he muttered.
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised. His pack mates who had a better handle on their werewolf abilities—definitely did better at this scent training stuff. The fact that Khaki, who seemed to be gaining control over her inner wolf ten times faster than anyone else in the Pack ever had, also had the best nose on the team probably wasn’t a coincidence. Alex wouldn’t be shocked if she learned how to shift into a real wolf soon.
“Can you push your shift a little more?” Khaki asked softly. “Let go and see how much it helps.”
Alex tried to follow her advice but immediately ran up against another obstacle. While he could definitely pick up scents better, he wasn’t in any more control of his inner wolf than he was of his nose. His ability to shift had always been limited to the basics. With the exception of those rare moments when he was really fired up, claws and fangs were as far as his shift went.
He growled and pushed harder, breaking a sweat as he tried to make his fangs extend further. They slid out another half inch before he ended up slamming into the same damn brick wall that always kept him from truly connecting with his werewolf nature. And while he had an inkling about which pieces of cloth were the ones Khaki had shown them earlier, it wasn’t much more than a guess.
“I think this is one of the scents you had us smell the other day,” he said, pointing at the third box.
“Excellent,” Khaki said. “How about the other one?”
Alex tried again, but he’d already lost control over his inner wolf. Just like that, his claws and fangs disappeared—and so did his improved sense of smell.
He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s gone.”
