Page 22

QUINN’S WOUND was completely gone by morning thanks to his shifter healing, though he’d never healed so quickly before.

He’d been shot in the leg once. It’d taken two days for the wound to heal, and he’d been tender there for a week.

He was sure it had something to do with binding Max, but whether it was simply from having a mage bound to him, or because Max was so powerful, or because the three of them had bound him, he had no idea.

Not that he was complaining about a boost to his abilities.

Honestly, some of the best things about being a shifter were the enhanced senses and healing.

He’d seen men die in battle from a GSW to the chest or stomach.

Sometimes he wondered how humanity had survived to become the dominant species when it took them months to heal a broken bone, or a single virus could wipe out a fifth of the world’s population in the same amount of time.

Not that the population couldn’t do with a bit of trimming. Magic could only do so much to curb the damage people were doing to the planet.

Fuck, he was grim today. He decided to blame it on Lukas and his weird mood the last couple of days. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought Lukas was jealous, but Lukas had never shown any interest in him. Certainly not like he had Rían. If anything, he was probably jealous over Max.

Quinn was starting to think Lukas had a thing for mages.

With a groan, he rolled out of bed and dressed, heading upstairs for a large mug of coffee before settling at his desk to check through his alerts.

He had several deep and dark web crawlers set up to notify him if anything triggered off his few hundred key words and phrases, from anything of interest in Denver in general, to changes in political power or social status, and narrowing down to changes in shifter and mage laws, chatter about his pack, the mob, or the Order, and further down to bounties or hits put out on them .

Max’s name was still clear for the most part. However Wright had heard of him, it had to have been from direct contact from someone. Like the Order.

He switched over to his backdoor monitor in Savino’s network, but even after the attack, there was no mention of Max or mages there either.

The only thing of any interest was a brief conversation in Italian from two days ago that his system translated to needing to pick up a package. Which likely referred to Max.

Quinn cursed himself for not realizing it sooner.

Caius had made it clear they weren’t in any position to antagonize the family currently running the city’s underworld, but he saved the conversation for his records anyway.

Not that they’d be able to do anything with it.

Even if they’d had a decent-sized pack, or any standing in the city, it would take something more than an attack on his own son to finally tip the scales enough for the government to get involved.

He’d already found two cops and a judge on Savino’s payroll, but that wasn’t enough to do more than paint a target on their backs if they tried to do anything with that information either.

With a huff, he finished his coffee and went upstairs for a refill.

He paused as he found Lukas, fresh from his run, his hair plastered to his face with sweat, head back and throat working as he drained a glass of water.

He’d made no effort to hide his attraction before now, so he had no problem enjoying the sight for a moment before continuing to the coffeepot. “Uneventful run?”

Lukas grunted something like an affirmative and refilled his glass, then lingered there as if debating saying something.

Quinn watched from the corner of his eye as he doctored his coffee with too much pumpkin spice creamer.

“We should have a game night,” Lukas finally said.

He turned and nodded, far too excited for something that was usually a biweekly thing for them. “Yeah, sounds good. Just us, or Max too?” he asked casually, propping his hip against the counter and sipping his coffee.

“Max can join if he wants.” Lukas glanced at him before quickly looking away and heading to his room.

Weird, but at least Lukas wasn’t completely ignoring him. Quinn watched him go, decided not to poke the wolf, and turned to get started on breakfast. Except the early-morning light breaking over their property caught his eye, and he realized how long it’d been since he’d shifted .

The others could fix their own breakfast.

He slid the door open and tipped his head back, breathing in the crisp winter air. He shed his clothes and dropped them inside before closing the door. Then he let his shift ripple over him and dropped to all fours, giving himself a vigorous shake.

The urge to howl was strong, but he swallowed it down. They might have lucked out with finding property with a backyard tucked against a national park, but they were still close enough to the heart of the city that a wolf might draw unwanted attention.

He raced along the perimeter of the tall privacy fence.

It was high enough to keep people from prying, with several passageways at the bottom for small animals.

He caught the scent of squirrels, rabbits, possums, foxes, and a skunk that had passed by recently as he patrolled.

Once he was satisfied that no threats had entered their home territory, he found the hole hidden behind two large bushes at the back and wiggled through.

He was almost too large to fit. His family had always said he was too big for a wolf, that he must have inherited some Irish wolfhound hidden in their bloodline. He’d never minded, considering he was short for a shifter in his human form. His wolf more than made up for that, dwarfing most wolves.

Then he was off, crashing through snowdrifts that reached his chest and following the scent trails of foxes and raccoons left the night before.

The scrunch-scrunch, scrunch-scrunch of fresh snow beneath his paws was one of his favorite things about winter.

The sharp scent of pine grew stronger as he ventured farther into the woods.

He lost track of time as his wolf took full rein, annoyed at being locked away for so long.

He tracked the flight of birds through the sky and turned away completely when he caught the musty scent of a bear. His ears pricked when he heard a wolf, then another answer its call, and he tipped his head back to add his own voice to the song.

He stumbled across a pair of juvenile foxes and spent what seemed like hours chasing and playing with them before he realized the afternoon light was fading.

Fuck. Caius was going to chew him out. Except there was no mission, and he had nothing planned for the day aside from game night.

He headed for home as it started snowing again. They’d definitely have a white Christmas .

They needed to get a tree. He hadn’t properly celebrated the holiday in years. Not since before he joined the Marines. He had a feeling Max hadn’t had a proper Christmas his entire life, and he was sure Lukas hadn’t either.

By the time he caught the familiar scents of the city and home, twilight had settled.

Apparently he’d gone farther than he thought.

He glanced back to make sure his tracks were being hidden by the fresh snow, then wiggled through the hidden hole into their backyard, shaking clumps of snow from his fur as he trotted up to the porch.

A breath and twist of magic and he stood on two furless feet once again, shivering from the cold bite of air as he pushed the sliding glass door open and slipped into the heat of the house.

The others were at the table, but he ignored them for the moment.

His clothes had been folded and left beside the door, and he pulled them on, feeling far more settled in his skin than he had in weeks.

The scent of burgers and fries made his stomach growl, and he turned for the table. He draped himself over the back of Max’s chair and kissed one of his red ears before snagging several fries to stuff in his mouth.

“Nice run?” Caius asked.

“Awesome. We really need to schedule pack runs from now on.”

Caius grunted under his breath, and Quinn rolled his eyes. He couldn’t blame Caius for being hesitant to shift with his injury, but all the doctors were sure it could only help with the healing process.

He dropped into his chair next to Max and snagged the last two burgers and fries. “So, game night tonight,” he said, elbowing Max’s arm. “You in?”

“Um, sure?” Max glanced from him to Lukas and back again, then to Caius. “All of us?”

“I don’t play,” Caius said.

“Don’t lie.” Quinn took a too large bite of burger, barely chewing before swallowing. “You got banished from the barracks for being too competitive.”

Max coughed in a terrible attempt to hide his laugh.

Quinn smirked in the face of Caius’ glare before focusing on his food.

He might have asked Caius to join them anyway, if Lukas hadn’t been acting so weird.

When he glanced across the table, he found Lukas intently focused on the last few fries on his plate.

Beneath the scent of beef and grease, he swore Lukas smelled anxious. Which didn’t happen .

Lukas was a fucking sniper. He was the calmest shifter Quinn had ever met, to the point he was convinced Lukas’ wolf was far closer to the surface than most. Few humans could ever manage to sit still for hours on end, waiting for one specific target to be in one specific spot.

Shifters tended to have a bit more patience than humans, even alphas, thanks to the wolf in them, but more than once Lukas had scouted a mission for twelve or more hours.

Quinn didn’t have that in him. He needed to move and burn off excess energy. The only exception was if he was on a computer or playing a game, but that was his human hyper-fixation at its finest.