Page 5 of The Enforcers: NOAH

Chapter 3

Noah woke to the smell of humans and antiseptic, feeling hungover as hell.

Which was wrong, because he was still furry, and his wolf was never hungover.

He was lying on the floor of a metal cage. There was some kind of quilted blanket under him, and it smelled clean. He felt groggy, like his limbs wouldn’t obey him, and his mind was fuzzy.

His right hind leg was sore as shit, too.

Fuck. The trap.

His stomach lurched at the memory. The crunch of his leg bones as the metal teeth clamped shut and splintered them. The blood from his mangled leg soaking into the ground. The sinking knowledge that his leg might be permanently wrecked, even with his shifter healing.

The realization that whoever set that trap might not let him live long enough to heal.

And then the human woman—an angel in camouflage and night vision goggles, coming along just in time to save him.

The adrenalin shot from his remembered fear helped clear the fogginess out of his brain. He stretched out his injured leg tentatively. There was a splint around it, so he couldn’t bend it, but it felt like everything was back in working order.

He felt a rush of relief so strong it made him dizzy. An injury that severe wouldn’t heal right, even for a shifter, unless everything was realigned and sewn back together. Somehow, even though he was stupid and careless and hammered out of his mind, for once he’d had a massive stroke of good luck.

The woman had managed to get him to her truck after all. He was impressed—he weighed well over two hundred pounds in both his wolf and human forms. She’d taken him somewhere and gotten his leg repaired. A vet?

Shit. That brought a new raft of problems.

He opened his eyes and raised his head.

What the—?

Around his neck was a freaking stupid-ass plastic cone. He was lying in a cage in some human vet’s clinic with a cone around his neck like a pet dog who’d just been neutered.

Oh, fuck no.

A quick check told him all the jewels were firmly in place. That was a relief. Not that being neutered would make a damn bit of difference—he was probably never going to find a mate. No female would accept him after the mental instability Selina had caused.

Whoever it was might as well have cut his balls off, for all the good keeping them was going to do him.

Slowly, feeling like a complete idiot, he rose to his feet. He had to figure a way out of here, and he had to do it soon.

He’d already fucked up beyond belief. Getting epically drunk. Starting a fight with Tyrone. Letting his demons get to him—again. Running through the woods like a lunatic cub without paying attention to where he was going. Being stupid enough to step in a damned bear trap, and then following it up by getting tranked by a human, hauled off and caged.

What was next? Animal Control?

Fuck.

He craned his neck, trying to see as much of his surroundings as he could. He was definitelyin some kind of clinic. There were a couple of other cages along the wall, both empty. Through a door to his right, he could catch a glimpse of an operating room; through another door just ahead of him he could see an office area, with filing cabinets and bookshelves.

Ears pricked for the sound of anyone approaching, he shifted his front legs to human and ripped the cone off before changing them back. Some of his humiliation went with it, but not much.

He examined the cage. It was heavy wire mesh with holes about three inches square, and simple bolts holding the door shut. It would be easy to get out of in human form; even in wolf form, he could tear his way out pretty easily.

The problem was what happened after that. He didn’t know what lay between him and the outside, and he didn’t know where he was. He could be in the middle of downtown Nashville, for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t see out any windows from this vantage point, but from the angle of the sunlight on the floor in the office and his growling stomach, he figured late afternoon.

He’d have to wait until tonight, when everyone was gone and there was no chance of someone inexplicably finding a naked man in the clinic, and no wolf.

He heard the rustling of papers in the office area, and the squeak of wheels as someone moved an office chair.

Then he heard footsteps, and a delicious scent wafted through the office door. He recognized it immediately—it was the scent of the woman from last night. Mango and cherry and earthiness and a hint of musk. Despite himself, Noah’s ears went up. She smelled awesome. He wanted to bound over to her and lick her and fill his nostrils with that scent, and…