Page 14

“ D amn, what a woman!” Peterson muttered.

Van chuckled and held out a folded paper towel from his pocket. “You’re bleeding.”

Peterson took the paper towel and pressed it under his chin where Jayden’s lance had pierced his skin. He looked at the red spot against the white and grinned.

“She drew first blood.”

“Something tells me it won’t be the last. If there was any doubt, which there wasn’t, that she is perfect for us, it has disappeared. We should have pushed things sooner,” Van murmured.

Peterson shot him a look of disbelief. “You had doubts? Is your wolf not going as crazy as mine?”

Van scowled at him. “Yes, my wolf is going nuts, and no, I didn’t really have doubts. This encounter just reenforced that she is perfect. She’ll keep us on our toes and in our place if we get too arrogant.”

“Arrogant? I’m never arrogant,” Peterson scoffed.

Van raised his eyebrow. “Says the wolf-shifter who insulted his mate, wants to kidnap her, and is bleeding for it.”

“She didn’t hear the kidnapping part,” he defended.

“Doesn’t matter. We need to be smart about this.”

Peterson stared in the direction Jayden had disappeared. A perplexed frown creased his brow as he tried to figure out what they were going to do next. He probably shouldn’t have come on so strong. When he had caught her scent, it was as if his brain had stopped functioning.

So much for being charming.

He winced when his wolf snorted at his thoughts. Sometimes it really sucked having a sarcastic other half that knew what he was thinking. It was almost as bad as dealing with Van when he was on a roll.

“What now?” he asked with a sigh.

“We hope she sees common sense and changes her mind by the end of the week.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Van shook his head. “I don’t know. We’ll figure it out.”

“Did you hear the news?”

Bishop Foxworthy didn’t turn around. He continued working on unloading the boxes of food from the delivery truck. His partner, Carter Stout, a warthog-shifter, paused beside him and leaned against the back of the box truck.

“Yes, I heard. They are moving all of them at the end of the week to the permanent compound,” he replied.

“You gonna let the boss know?” Carter asked.

Bishop grunted as he tossed a heavy box onto the trolley. Carter should be the one unloading the damn boxes. Warthogs were short, stout, and could lift a pallet of the damn crates. As a fox-shifter, Bishop was tall, lean, and used to using his brain.

“What do you think?” he snapped.

He didn’t add ‘if you could’ to the end of his sentence. There was no sense in pissing off a warthog if you didn’t have to. They also tended to have very thin skin when it came to insults in regard to their intelligence.

“I was just asking in case you wanted me to put the call in. No reason to get bent out of shape,” Carter grumbled, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Bishop gritted his teeth. “It’s possible that I’m upset because both of us are expected to unload the truck to maintain the illusion that we belong here.”

Carter gave him a confused look before his expression cleared and he grinned. “Oh, yeah. Right, delivery guys. I forgot.”

Bishop shook his head in irritation at Carter. “You finish unloading this stuff and take it to the kitchen.”

“Where are you going?” Carter demanded.

“We need to find out where this compound is, remember? That is one reason we were sent here,” he answered.

“Oh, yeah. Right. I forgot about that, too.”

Bishop mouthed a silent expletive about dumbass warthogs and turned away.

He moved between the box truck and the wooden and canvas structure that served as a temporary kitchen for the humans.

Pulling his t-shirt over his head, he stripped out of his clothing and tossed them through the open driver’s window.

He shifted and disappeared behind the kitchen. A temporary fence had been erected around this compound and bordered the woods. He kept to the shadows, using the undergrowth and canvas tents to hide his movements.

He was making a wide arc around the camp when he caught the scent of two wolf shifters. Ducking under a military truck, he peered out from behind the broad, off-road back tire. The men were talking to a human female.

He crouched and crawled to the front tire.

From this angle, he had a better view of what was going on—and it surprised him!

The female was holding a long, wooden pole that had been sharpened on one end under the jaw of the red-haired wolf.

He recognized the man as Peterson Redfoot.

Amusement pulsed through him at the sight.

She has good taste, and a lot of balls, to be sticking a wolf.

His ears twitched, listening to their conversation. A minute later, the human stepped back and walked away. A sly grin curved Bishop’s mouth when Peterson shouted after her.

So, she doesn’t want to go to the new compound.

He had taken over the mission of discovering where the humans were and what was to happen to them after Hyder pulled out.

If possible, Isabella Wyland had instructed him to pluck one or two from the group.

Isabella hadn’t told him what happened to Hyder, only that the hyena was lying low for a while.

Bishop wondered if it had anything to do with Lucien disappearing.

He hadn’t been able to contact the cougar-shifter in weeks.

His job was to pass the information along to Isabella.

There had been no talk of retrieving one—at least not with him.

Still, if the opportunity presented itself with a minimal amount of danger, he wasn’t opposed to taking it.

After all, a human female would bring a lot of money on the black market.

What Wyland doesn’t know won’t hurt.

He waited until the two wolf-shifters turned and walked away before he darted out and followed the female. Scurrying between buildings, he slipped under the one to the left. It was the one the human female had entered.

Each building was raised off the ground.

The newer canvas units were attached to a raised platform that stood close to two feet off the ground.

In his fox form, he had no issues moving under the structures.

He paused and sniffed the flooring, trying to gauge which building it was.

The faint antiseptic odor told him this was the medical unit.

He angled so he could peer through the cracks between two of the boards. He glimpsed the female. She was rummaging ‘round in the medical supply cabinet. He twisted around, tracking her movements, when she walked over the boards he was looking through.

“Can I help you?”

The deep vibration from a man’s voice caused the hair on Bishop’s neck to rise. His lip curled to reveal sharp white teeth. His fox scurried back several feet to the edge of the structure.

Lion-shifter!

Foxes held a strong animosity towards lion-shifters. The beast in the shifters was as sly as any fox-shifter, and deadly. They were also deceptive. Just when you thought you were safe, they could explode and slice through you with sharp claws as if they were batting a fly.

Bishop had seen his fair share of lion-shifters enraged. The females were worse than the males. They traveled in packs whereas the males were also solitary creatures.

“I’ve got what I needed,” the human female replied.

“Are you hurt? I don’t remember seeing you before when I was doing the routine exams of the other humans. I’m Brennan Shortclaw, by the way. I’m the new PA. I work with Doctor Lyon. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Yeah. I was just grabbing a band aid. I’ve got what I needed, so I’ll be leaving.”

“Why don’t you let me take a look at your wound? If it will make you more comfortable, I can ask Tracy to come in. She’s Ty’s?—”

“I know who Tracy is. I don’t need her or you,” the female interrupted in an impatient tone.

Bishop caught Brennan Shortclaw’s startled expression. It was apparent that the female’s animosity had taken the new PA by surprise. He waited with bated breath to see what happened next when Brennan’s easygoing expression changed to one of clinical determination.

“It’s regulation that all humans be evaluated for any medical issues and be given vaccines to prevent the spread of any communicable diseases before being moved to new the compound. I’ll need to make sure that you have all your shots.”

The female scoffed. “Lucky for you, I’m not going to any compound. You can keep your medical evaluation and vaccines for someone else.”

Brennan stepped in front of the female when she tried to move past him. Bishop didn’t have a clear view of what happened next, but the low moan of pain and the heavy thud of knees hitting the wood made him wince.

He fought against a sneeze when fine dust rained down. Another thud, this one a little more controlled, blocked his view. He realized he was staring at the thick, coarse hair of the new PA.

“Son-of-a—Damn, but that hurts. No one told me that humans were dangerous,” Brennan moaned.

Bishop backed out from under the building in time to see the human female running across the complex. A thoughtful expression darkened his eyes as he studied her gazelle-like flight. He would be running like hell too if he had just put a damn lion-shifter on the floor.

The sound of muttered curses and heavy feet on the wooden platform warned him that Brennan had pulled himself off the floor.

He darted behind a crate when the door of the tent slammed back against the canvas.

Brennan was holding onto the frame with one hand and his balls with the other.

Amusement swept through Bishop when Brennan drew in a long, painful breath before he shuddered and released it.

“Damn humans,” Brennan muttered before he looked in Tracy’s direction with a determined glare.