Gage chuckled, his dark eyes full of laughter. “It’s nice to finally have some good news for a change. It’s been a long time since we’ve had something as happy as a new baby to celebrate around here.”
Rachel expected her boss to immediately get into why he’d wanted to see her, but instead, he turned his attention back to what he’d been doing before she walked in, scribbling something on one of the police department’s official forms.
She sat patiently for a few minutes before nerves got the best of her. “Xander mentioned you wanted to talk to me about something?”
Gage nodded. “I do. But we’re waiting for a few other people to join us.”
His tone suggested this meeting had serious implications, almost certainly for her, and just like that, her mind immediately took off running in the worst possible direction. Gage had somehow found out about the nightmares and the rest of the problems she’d been having. As crushing as that was, it was even worse thinking about how he’d learned about them.
Only three people knew about her secret—Khaki, because she’d figured it out on her own; Diego Martinez, the teammate she’d shared a hotel room with in LA who’d witnessed her nightmares firsthand; and Zane, because Rachel had broken down out there and told him everything. And she did mean everything, right down to the haunting scents, bizarre images hovering on the edges of her peripheral vision, and the hunter she’d let escape.
She knew there was no way Khaki had told Gage, which meant it must have been one of the guys. If Diego had talked to Gage about the nightmares, it would be bad, but if Zane had told their boss everything she’d confided in him, she was beyond screwed.
Rachel clenched her teeth to keep from hyperventilating. Unfortunately, that did nothing to keep her fangs from extending and pulse from racing. The big problem with that? Gage was an experienced werewolf with exceptionally keen hearing. Easily good enough to hear her heart pounding like a drum.
He stopped scribbling to look at her. “Is something wrong? You seem tense all of a sudden.”
Rachel considered shaking her head and waving off his concerns, but she knew that would never fly. Now that she had his attention, Gage wouldn’t stop pushing until he had an answer. But she had to be careful with what she said because he was a walking lie detector. Distressed breathing patterns, spikes in her heart rate, even something as simple as wetting her lips would give her away.
“Are you going to eat that donut?” she asked, deciding to avoid the issue of answering his question entirely. “Because if you aren’t, I’ll take it.” She hurried on before her boss could recognize the ploy for what it was—a blatant distraction. “Boston creams can get mushy if you let them sit around too long and I wouldn’t want it to go to waste.”
Gage laughed and nudged the napkin with the donut toward the edge of his desk. “We wouldn’t want that. Go ahead and have it. I prefer plain glazed anyway. There are always lots of those left over.”
Rachel reached out and snatched the baked goody, taking a big bite. There was the perfect ratio of cream to dough, meaning more of the former than the latter, and she closed her eyes as she chewed, indulging in all that sweetness. There was no way Gage could expect her to answer questions now, even if she wanted to. Her mouth was full. Besides, eating donuts always calmed her down.
Best. Comfort food. Ever.
Gage turned his attention to his form, leaving Rachel to finish her donut. Of course, the minute she was done, she went right back to worrying about who else was coming to the meeting and what they were going to talk about. She was still fretting over it when someone knocked on the door. She glanced over her shoulder to see Diego standing there all freshly showered and looking like he’d hardly taken time to brush his dark hair.
At six foot even, Diego was the shortest male alpha in the Pack, but what he lacked in height he more than made up for in width. Seriously, the guy’s shoulders were as broad as a barn. But even though his size could be intimidating, he’d always been awesome with her. Those three weeks they’d spent sharing a hotel room in LA under the guise of being a couple, when nightmares had her waking up screaming every night, would have been a lot worse without Diego there to talk to. He’d never once asked what the dreams were about, as if knowing she didn’t want to talk about them, but instead, sat up with her watchingVikingswhile they ate cheeseburgers from the fast-food place down the street.
Diego gave her a smile before turning to their boss. “The chief just got here and everyone else you asked to see is in the bull pen. You ready to meet with us?”
Gage clicked his pen closed with his thumb and straightened the papers he’d been working on, then got to his feet. “I’m ready.”
Rachel stood and turned toward the door, wanting more than anything to bolt. But she forced herself to take a deep breath and stay where she was.
Diego entered Gage’s office, followed by team medic, Trey Duncan, and Rachel’s squad leader, Senior Corporal Mike Taylor. Tall and muscular, Trey had dark-blond hair while Mike’s was close cropped and black. A moment later, a woman in DPD dress blues walked in carrying a thick file folder that looked similar to a personnel record.
Rachel’s heart began thudding all over again. She suddenly had a sinking feeling this meeting had nothing to do with her nightmares but everything to do with the hunter she’d let get away.
Tall with medium brown skin and black hair swept back in a sleek bun, Shanette Leclair was the new chief of police, recently lured away from Detroit to take over for the current acting chief, Hal Mason. Everyone on the SWAT team had hoped Mason would be able to keep the job full-time, since he already knew they were werewolves, but the city council wanted someone from outside Dallas to come in and change the perception of the office, so Mason was back to being deputy chief. Rachel supposed she couldn’t blame them, since the optics of the previous chief of police aligning himself with the people who’d attempted to kill off his own SWAT team was something of a public relations nightmare. Not as bad as her nightmares, but bad enough.
Leclair had a good reputation, both as a cop and a leader, but she was also known to be demanding as hell on the officers who worked for her. The fact that she’d chosen to meet with Rachel as well as some of her pack mates, instead of the entire SWAT team, for her first visit to the compound had to mean something significant. But if a reprimand was coming down, wouldn’t Leclair want to meet with her alone?
Rachel relaxed as she realized that made sense. Maybe this meeting wasn’t about her issues at all.
Then Zane walked in.
The sight of the tall, dark-haired Brit made her head start to spin. Like the others on the team, Zane was a friend as well as a pack mate, but right then, all she could think was that he’d told Gage about the hunter.
Crap.
She remembered that night clearly. Like mere minutes had passed instead of two months. Her pack mate Max and his bride Lana’s wedding had been beautiful and the reception at the compound was the best party Rachel had ever been to. Then the hunters had attacked and everything went to hell.
Over the past year, hunters had become the boogeymen of the werewolf community, tracking down and executing their kind indiscriminately, as well as any humans who happened to be in their way—friends, loved ones, even kids. They were bloodthirsty and ruthless. It wasn’t until Rachel and the guys had gone out to LA that they’d learned the hunters were hired by the vampires, employed to rid the world of werewolves.
Rachel had been outside the reception tent when a dozen hunters had stormed the SWAT compound and, in seconds, turned the place into a war zone, explosions and gunshots filling the night. She’d immediately pulled her gun to engage them, only to come up against a hunter pointing his weapon directly at her head. She’d barely started squeezing the trigger when the man collapsed face-first to the ground, shot by someone. To this day, she still didn’t know who’d saved her life that night.
