Chapter Thirty-One

Night of August 8, first night of the full moon

We’d set up a bait trap before the sun went down, raw meat and fish within a small clearing of trees near enough to town for the werewolf to find it after the turn, but far enough away to not alarm the humans below.

Tranq guns used no gunpowder, so that helped, too.

We’d climbed the trees to get out of sight and above the slight breeze, and waited.

Our coats were left at home for ease of maneuvering.

If the wolf came into this clearing, we all had clear shots.

Amelia was back in town.

“All that rotting meat stinks,” Fifteen complained.

“That’s the point, doofus. Smellier the better,” Five retorted.

“Silence!” Thirteen barked. He was situated farther up the game trail to give us a head’s up on the wolf’s approach.

I thought back to the lesson on hunting and tracking in New York. It could take hours to find your prey or to wait for it to come to you. We had to have the patience to endure the passage of time because lives were at stake if we failed. So I sat on this branch still and quiet, alert to the forest.

From my position, I could just barely make out where Thirteen was hiding. The plan was to let the werewolf pass him and no one react until it chowed down on the bait.

He made all of us repeat it back to him.

Lev had created a sniper nest before we set up the meat trap. With his climbing ability, he’d gone higher than the rest of us and he was our backup in case something went wrong.

Fifteen sat catty-corner to me, swinging his feet in boredom. I didn’t know why Thirteen brought him along. He was wearing generic black tactical gear, not the protective suit of Agents, and likely to give us away with his immaturity.

“Freeze,” Thirteen whispered on the comm. I tuned my senses in his direction.

“Shit,” Lev murmured above. What did he see from his vantage point?

“Two, I say,” Thirteen relayed, barely audible. “Repeat. Two wolves.”

The sweat on my back went cold and not from the night air.

We weren’t expecting two.

The forest was silent. Animals had fled from the presence of two supernatural predators.

I heard the faint crunch of dead pine needles being stepped on with padded feet. A wolf’s pads were silent on a smooth surface, but not crunching leaves. Across the clearing, I saw the whites of Fifteen’s wide eyes. Five was to my left and behind, his tree the end border. It was his job to make sure it—they—didn’t run past us.

The footsteps came closer. The wolves were approaching cautiously.

A werewolf was more humanoid than a real wolf but way more wolf than any human. They could stand on their hind legs but ran on all fours. Hair was the same color as whatever natural tone the human had, but no matter what the human’s eyes were, the werewolf’s was always bright yellow.

With no dense underbrush, I saw them before they entered the clearing circle. A male and female by the sizes, the bigger one was gray and the smaller a reddish brown. They carried their heads low, scenting for the meat. I’d been trained to breathe silently and keep my heart rate under control, but their sensitive ears would hear the thumping of four human pulses. We were counting on them being too hungry and distracted by the meat to search out the source of the sound. The male went straight to a dangling T-bone, but the female was hesitant.

If we shot the male now, she’d either bolt or attack.

Fifteen shot the gray wolf.

It yelped at the sting of the dart. The female growled and whirled on the direction of the insult. She lifted her head and rushed the trunk of his tree.

Lev’s original curse was appropriate.

She couldn’t jump high enough to reach Fifteen, but he panicked anyway and teetered off the branch. His hands caught it before he fell to the ground, but now he was dangling above a very pissed off she-wolf defending her mate.

The male was wobbling on his feet and hadn’t passed out, yet.

“Help me!” Fifteen shouted.

Thirteen came running.

“I can’t get a clear shot at her, she’s moving too much,” Five said.

The woozy, frightened male blocked Thirteen’s entry, snarling and growling with an unearthly rumble.

Dammit. She was close to biting Fifteen’s feet and he couldn’t hold onto that branch forever. If she got him down, she’d maul him dead. I didn’t have a good shot at her from here, either. So I took the only option left.

I dropped down from my tree.

“Hey, bitch!” Female dog, not the curse.

She turned, barked angrily, and ran at me. I had to time this right or I’d be mauled.

Thirteen yelled my name.

I aimed for her breast as she leapt at me and the dart hit true. She yelped and her paws flailed, claws ripping into my armor as I rolled out of her way. She rebounded and charged me again and there was another yelp. She collapsed a foot from me, awake but immobile.

Five had shot her. I waved at him.

Another minute and the drugs would render her unconscious.

A glance told me Thirteen had downed the male.

Fifteen dropped to the ground. “Thanks, cutie—” His stupid comment was cut off by my fist hitting his chin. He fell.

“Don’t ever defy orders like that again or next time I’ll let the wolf eat you.”

A hand landed on my shoulder and I shrugged it off.

Pride injured, Fifteen walked to the she-wolf and kicked dirt on her. “Not so tough now.”

Her neck suddenly jerked and she bit his ankle. He screamed. She didn’t have enough strength to do more than nip, but her sharp teeth had easily punctured his pants and skin.

“Fuck,” Thirteen said. “Five, tie a tourniquet above that bite. Eleven, get down here.” He took out the sat radio. “Thornhill, we have a situation. Two wolves showed up and we have injured. Fifteen was bitten. Need extraction now.”

Fifteen held his leg to his body and cried. Wailing.

Pathetic drama.

Five grabbed Fifteen’s foot and used a battlefield tourniquet to block the werewolf’s saliva from flowing through Fifteen’s bloodstream. I secured restraints on the wolves, cuffing their legs together and putting muzzles over their jaws.

“Hey. You hurt?” Thirteen asked me. His brows were furrowed together.

“Scratched, maybe. The armor took the brunt of it.” Only the bite infected humans, so I was in no danger on that point.

“That was ballsy. And stupid. But good work.” He gave my shoulder a friendly shake.

“I don’t feel one ounce of sympathy for him.”

The corners of his mouth turned up. “Neither do I. But we still have to get him home.”

Amelia brought the SUV up the nearest trail. We loaded the wolves into the back, then Lev and Five carried Fifteen to lay on the back row. We squeezed into the second row, Thirteen climbed into the passenger seat, and down the mountain we went.

Amelia dropped us off, then went straight to the airport. Our pilot had to fly Fifteen to the nearest werewolf treatment center. Could they prevent the virus from taking hold if it was caught this early? I didn’t know.

Would serve him right if he was cursed the rest of his life, though.

“What do we do with the wolves, sir?” Five asked.

“Keep them asleep until morning. We need to know who these people are and what their story is.”

The pair was carried in and laid in a corner.

“We’ll take shifts watching them. See their eyes open before dawn, dose them again.”

I needed to assess the damage to my suit and body and went into the bedroom.

My armor was gouged and there were tears in the suit here and there. She’d nearly landed on me, so the sharp claws had been effective. I got all the armor pieces off, then unzipped the cat suit. Pulling my arm out of a sleeve, I hissed. My upper left arm had received a deep cut. With no compression, blood poured forth. Crap. I hurried to the first aid kit and grabbed a gauze pad, then carried the kit to the bathroom.

Thirteen followed me and winced as the light came on. “You need stitches.”

“I’m not so sure.” I started cleaning it.

His fingers brushed my back. My skin broke out in goose pimples. “There’s a scratch on your shoulder blade.” He picked up an antiseptic wipe.

I was pressing gauze on my arm to staunch the bleeding, so I couldn’t object to his help. His touch was gentle. I watched in the mirror as he finished with the pad and grabbed a bandage.

“There. Where else did she get you?”

“I don’t know.” I indicated my arm with my head. “This caught my attention.”

He reached for the zipper and I stepped away.

“Sorry.” Holding his hands up, he added, “Call if you need me,” and left, closing the door.

Uh, yeah.

My heart beat fast enough from the adrenaline come-down. I didn’t need my crush undressing me, too. Last thing I needed was for Amelia to walk in on that!

If a wound can clot, it should after six minutes, so I sat on the toilet lid and held firm on my arm. The side of my thigh stung. Leg armor pieces protected the front and back where you were most likely to have an artery punctured or a tendon severed, so there was a gap on the sides. Scratch probably came from the hind legs as I dodged her attack.

I gently pulled the gauze away from my arm. It didn’t gush. I wrapped it.

Amelia could look at it later.

Next, getting my boots off and the suit.

The thigh cut was shallow and wouldn’t need more than bandages. Down to my sports bra and boy shorts, I pivoted in front of the mirror to see as much of me as possible. The pain in my arm distracted my body from feeling much of anything else, so I had to do a visual inspection. With the rest of me clean, I picked up my stuff and left the bathroom.

Only Thirteen glanced at me. “She lives.”

“For at least a little while.” I continued into the bedroom.

Tank top, shorts, socks, and shoes. The suit was laid on the bed for Amelia to inspect. Now to eat. The rush of a hunt left me starving.

The boys had had the same idea. Thirteen sat with a gun aimed at the sleeping wolves, but the teens were in the kitchen. They’d changed into tees and shorts while I was in the bathroom. The house was still warm from the ninety-five degrees we’d suffered through earlier.

“Pig out, boys. Amelia won’t want to leave a mess for the owners to clean up, so don’t leave anything in the fridge except breakfast.”

“Maybe you can convince Seven to make fried chicken,” Thirteen said.

I glared at him over my shoulder.

“You know how to make it from scratch?” Lev asked, eyes wide with hope.

I groaned. “Every time I begin to like you…” I directed at Thirteen. He winked.

Five, I could’ve said no to, but Lev was such a sweetheart, I didn’t have it in me to turn that look sad. Sighing, I searched to see if Amelia had even stocked the ingredients, and found a package of chicken thighs in the freezer. Date was recent, so if it wasn’t from her, then from the previous tenant. I needed to thaw them first, so into the microwave it went.

Oil, the biggest pan, flour…the cabin actually came with a spice rack…ingredients collected, I prepared the dredge while the chicken defrosted.

“You’re bleeding through your bandage,” Five pointed out.

Thirteen stood. “I told you that needed stitches.”

The front door opened for Amelia. “The boy is sorted.” Her eyes fell on me. “What happened to you?”

“Her arm needs stitches.”

She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the bathroom. “I’ll take care of it.” Inside, then she shut them out. “Let’s see the mess you’re in.” She cut the bandage off.

“It started bleeding again with my moving around the kitchen.”

“Which wolf clawed you?”

“The female. It’s not her fault. Fifteen is an idiot.”

“We’ll discuss how it happened later.”

She cleaned the blood away, then unwrapped the needed tools from the kit. They were set out on a clean strip of toilet paper, then she used a numbing spray on the wound.

Tapped the skin at the edges of the cut. “Feel that?”

“Not much.”

“Then we’re ready.”

She didn’t sew like a seamstress, but stitched my skin together like a doctor would. This was the first time she had to render much first aid to me since my graduation. Her work was neat, the stitches tiny. Her delicate hands had a good use for something besides turning pages of old books. Once she finished, the wound was cleaned, ointment spread, then a bandage applied.

“Thanks,” I said.

“It’s what I’m here for,” she softly replied. “Seven…I know we have our difficulties, but my aim is to make you the best Agent out there. As young women, we’re at an automatic disadvantage in the eyes of the less…enlightened, so—”

“Amelia, I only want you to trust me. Because I’ve earned it. You can’t question how hard I’ve worked or my motives, so if you want this to work, be my partner. No one will replace you as long as you do that.”

Her lashes fluttered behind her glasses. “Understood.”

Good. Finally.

She cleaned up the first aid supplies and I opened the door to return to my chicken.

The boys had turned on the TV. I smiled.

With everything how I left it, I put my mind on cooking and heated the oil.

We were still starving.