Chapter Four
Blake
It took everything Blake had not to leap over that desk and answer the call those slitted amber eyes issued. He smelled the heat coming off her. It rolled over and through him, pushing him past his limitations.
But he really needed her to cooperate. If she didn’t… well, there was the job, of course, but more importantly, there was a missing nine-year-old out there. And every hour that slid by lessened the cub’s chances of coming home.
She looked away, lowering her eyes. He could see the strain in her face, the tension in her jaw. “There’s nothing that I can do to help you, Blake.”
He shook his head in disbelief. Was she utterly heartless? “Did you not hear me, Krista? There’s a little boy missing. I need your help.”
She threw her hands up in frustration.“You know, you’re easy on the eyes, but apparently, you’re hard of hearing. They would not greet me with open arms. More like bared fangs.”
“You’re still the best lead I have.” She was theonlyone he had.
But hereallydidn’t want to blackmail her. If he played that card, he couldn’t undo it. Any connection they had, even if it was fated to be, would be undone.
“I have a practice. If I thought anyone would talk to me, I’d go with you in heartbeat, no matter how chilly the welcome. Hell, I’d even go by myself, if I thought it would help, but I’m not ditching my patients for a fool’s errand.”
“You’re one person on a team of people. There are other doctors here, other nurses.” But no one who did whatshedid. He knew that. Oh, Krista was discreet about the remedies she prescribed under the table to her shifter patients, but he and his team had been gathering intel on her for weeks now, and they were good at what they did.
She shook her head and tapped a stack of papers on her desk. “No. If I go with you, I’ll actually risk making things worse. I’m sorry. You’ll just have to find someone else.”
Why was she making this so hard? “The DEA is already investigating the Reed family. The people who took you in when you left home.” Which was true. It was in the file he’d glanced at before he’d come in. “One call is all it would take to have them arrested.”
She snorted. “You think I don’t know what they do? Believe me, I know better than anyone. They know the risks. They know the damage they do. And they choose to do it anyway. I came to terms with that a long time ago—I had to. So have fun with that. And you’re bluffing, anyway. If the DEA had hard evidence, the Reeds would already be growling through the bars of a prison cell.”
He felt a flare of anger—tempered with sympathy. His instincts told her she was a good person at heart, which meant that whatever had left her this bitter about her hometown must have been pretty devastating.
But that meant he had only one card left to play. Blake thought of a missing cub, hopefully still alive somewhere, and he stiffened his spine. No more Mr. Nice Wolf.
“I know why you’re so popular with the patients.”
She went completely still.
Here was the point of no return. He met her gaze and clenched his teeth, fighting his wolf as he forced the words out of his mouth. “I know about the special medicine you use.” After Stef had assigned him to investigate her, he’d hung around the clinic, eavesdropping with his superior shifter hearing. He’d lurked outside her office window, his wolf howling to be close to her, and heard her telling her patients about the medicinal plants that would cure their ailments better than conventional medicine. “If you don’t come with me, I will be forced to turn you in.”
All the blood drained from her face. “You rotten, flea-bitten mongrel.”
That hurt worse than a bullet—not the words, but the rage behind them. He ground on relentlessly. “You’ll lose your place here, your license. There’s a good chance that the entire clinic will go down with you. Your patients will be forced to go back to real doctors who can prescribe them real medicines backed by the FDC.”
She was so pale he was afraid she was going to faint. He felt like a complete and utter bastard. But he met her gaze squarely, refusing to show how conflicted he felt inside.
Fury flashed over her features. “You’re really going to go there?”
“There’s a little boy’s life at stake here, Krista. I think you’ll find there are more than a few lines I’m willing to cross to make sure he comes home safely.”
She rose to her feet and stalked towards him, her amber eyes flashing with heat, but not the good kind. He found it even more intoxicating, but he didn’t think that telling her she was beautiful when she was angry would go over too well right now.
“Do you think I’m lying when I tell you that I’m not welcome there anymore?”
“I know that if you put your mind to it, you could find a way back in. Otherwise, your family wouldn’t still be visiting you from the holler.”
“Hattie is the only one visiting me, and her belfry is short of a few bats on a good day. If I went home to my family shindig, they’d tolerate me because it’s tradition for everyone to attend, even the black sheep. It’s fine for me to drive straight to the reunion and then straight back to the city. But me poking my nose around in the holler, asking dangerous questions? That’s a whole different game. That’s the kind of thing that is likely to get both of us very, very dead. Which won’t help the cub at all.”
Krista growled with frustration. The sound made lust curl down his spine even as fury flashed in her eyes. “And how could you threaten my patients like that?” she raged at him. “Do you haveanyidea what their lives will be like if I lose my license?”
In the civilian world, he’d been told he needed to blend in, to be softer, but this woman drove him crazy. His wolf was already biting, gnashing to get out. Besides, he’d tried the soft approach, and his attempt at seduction had fallen flat. He was just more of a brute force kind of guy. He stepped in closer again, telling himself he was trying to intimidate her with his size—not get closer to her, to breathe in her intoxicating scent. “You don’t have to lose your license. It’s your choice.”
