“Where?”
“Industrial district.Warehouse he’s been using as a surveillance base.We’ve got eyes on him now.”
The wolf surged to the surface so fast my vision hazed red.Someone had been watching her.Someone had broken into her apartment, terrorized an elderly woman in her sleep.Someone had photographed my mate and sold those images to the press.
And now I knew where to find him.
“Don’t touch him,” I said.“He’s mine.”
I told Lena I had business to handle.Something in my voice must have warned her not to ask questions, because she just nodded, her eyes searching my face for answers I couldn’t give.I kissed her forehead, told her I’d be back before morning.
Then I drove into the darkness.
The industrial district was a maze of abandoned warehouses and rusted loading docks, the kind of place where things happened that never made the morning papers.Viktor had given me the location of a converted shipping container at the edge of the lot, lights visible through grimy windows.
I parked in the shadow of a derelict crane and killed the engine.
The wolf was already pushing at my skin, demanding release.For once, I didn’t fight him.
I stripped in the darkness, folding my clothes and leaving them on the passenger seat.The February cold bit at my bare skin for the brief seconds before the shift took me.
It came fast, fueled by rage.Bones cracked and reformed.Muscles tore and rebuilt.My face elongated, my hands became paws, and fur rippled across my skin.
Then I was on four legs, and the world simplified to scent and sound and the primal need to hunt.
His fear reached me before I reached him.Sour and sharp, cutting through the industrial stink of rust and old oil.He knew something was wrong.Maybe he’d heard my car.Maybe some prey instinct had finally kicked in, warning him that he wasn’t alone.
Too late.
I found him trying to slip out the back of the container, a duffel bag clutched in his hands.Middle-aged.Soft around the middle.The kind of man who watched from shadows because he didn’t have the courage to act in the light.
He saw me.A massive black wolf emerging from the darkness, silver streaking through my fur like moonlight.His scream died in his throat.
I shifted.
The transformation back was faster, smoother.Within seconds I was naked in the cold, steam rising from my skin, my breath misting in the air.I knew what I looked like.Six foot four of scarred muscle, eyes still glowing amber, teeth that hadn’t quite finished shrinking back to human dimensions.
He pissed himself.The sharp ammonia scent cut through the industrial stink.
“Who hired you?”
He scrambled backward, tripping over debris, his eyes wild with terror.“What the fuck are you, what the?—”
I moved before he could finish.Had him by the throat, lifted against the container wall, feet dangling.His hands clawed uselessly at my wrist.
“Who.Hired.You.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”His voice came out strangled, choked by my grip.
I dropped him.Let him crumple to the floor, gasping and coughing.Then I grabbed his right hand and splayed it against the concrete.
“In Russia,” I said conversationally, “we have a saying.Yazyk do Kiyeva dovedyot.The tongue will lead you to Kiev.It means talk will get you where you need to go.”I pressed my boot down on his wrist, pinning his hand flat.“But there’s another version we use in the Bratva.Molchaniye dovedyot do mogily.Silence leads to the grave.”
I stomped on his index finger.The bone snapped with a wet crack.His scream bounced off the metal walls.
“The woman at the hotel.You’ve been watching her.Photographing her.”I ground my heel down on the broken finger, feeling the shattered pieces shift under my weight.“Who paid you to do it?”
“Please, please, I’ll tell you everything?—”
