Page 92 of Wolf Bound

“Has anyone said anything to you about what roles you’ll play in my training?” Fisher asked.

“No. The trainers will tell us when we get there.” Everett poured some more maple syrup on his pancakes. “You’ll do fine.”

After breakfast, Demetria and Everett drove Kira and Fisher over to the jaguar facilities where Fisher would take his test. The place was surrounded by pine woods, and they took quite a drive through them to actually reach a complex of buildings.

“The largest building with all the glass windows is the headquarters,” Everett said.

“The secure building off to the left is the prison. They have room for two-hundred prisoners,” Demetria said. “They only have forty-five incarcerated.”

When they arrived at the tactical training and testing facility, Demetria parked, and they all got out and headed for the door. Inside, they were met by the instructor in charge, David Patterson. “Since you are an Army Ranger and qualified with the training you had already done and after helping to take down three rogue wolves as an agent—even in your wolf coat, Martin said you only have to do the shifter testing, no training. Otherwise, you would be here for a week of the exercises.”

Fisher was glad he wouldn’t have to do all the rest of the training, so that he could actively work on missions with Kira.

“You can use the changing room and then once you’ve shifted, meet me out here and I’ll start you on your journey,” David said.

Kira went with Demetria, and Everett and Fisher went to a different group of changing rooms connected by a hallway that led to a couple of different doors.

“Wolves have trouble with some of the jaguar course, naturally, because we can leap higher than you can. When wolves began to join our forces, the headquarters added different obstacles that would allow wolves to take different paths to reach their objectives. The courses are designed to test everyone’s ability to reach their goals whatever way that works best for them,” Everett said while stripping off his clothes. “Which is just like it would be in real life.”

“Good. I’m looking forward to it.” Though Fisher loved a good challenge, he was a bit worried he wouldn’t pass the test, just like anyone might be. This would be a unique challenge that he couldn’t have prepared for, but while working on a real-world assignment, he would have just as unique challenges to accomplish.

Both men finished stripping and shifted, then headed out into a small, unfurnished room with a map covering one of the walls showing forests, houses, a river, creeks, and a few roads.

“Your mission, should you accept it, is rescuing a teen jaguar who has been taken hostage. The warehouse is a maze of rooms and obstacles, and you’ll have to use your wits to find the teen and rescue him. You have three hours to accomplish the mission.” David held a sweatshirt out to Fisher to sniff. “Parker was wearing this shirt the day before he was taken.”

Fisher realized that Everett had slipped away. Kira joined Fisher and nuzzled his nose and then she left the room through one of the doorways.

“You’ll be able to smell everyone’s scents that have been in the building or might be in the building. You’ll find water stations to stay hydrated. They are in safe places where no one will bother you. Clocks with the countdown are in every room you go into, so you can keep track of your progress. Do you have any questions?”

Fisher shifted. “Are there any penalties?”

“If you make wrong decisions, you could end up back at the beginning, or worse—failing the mission. If you don’t have any further questions, you may begin, and I’ll start the timer.”

“I’m ready.” And anxious to rescue the teen and solve the mission.

“Good luck. I know you can do it. By the way, as a wolf going through this part of the exercise, Kira has the fastest record of solving the mission. You’ll have to ask her how she did it.”

Fisher smiled. “I’m not surprised.”

Then Fisher shifted, David left the room, and Fisher saw the countdown on a clock on the wall. He headed in the direction that he’d seen Kira go and then he smelled she had gone down a hallway to a room that had four doors. Two doors were in one wall, and two more walls each had a door.

Fisher took deep breaths, smelling everyone’s scents. Everett had gone to the far-right door. And that’s the way the teen hostage had gone also. Fisher suspected he would be attacked anywhere along the way. If that was the most direct route, it could be heavily guarded. Or traps might be set. Then again, guards and traps could be all over the place.

He found Demetria’s scent at the middle door, and on the door on the wall the farthest from where the teen’s scent was, he found Kira’s scent. He figured he would have to shift to open the door Kira went through, but as soon as he approached it, the door automatically and soundlessly opened. Convenient for a shifter.

He noticed cameras were all over and figured he was being monitored to determine if he could take decisive actions under pressure.

He entered the room with a spiral-patterned, tiled floor of blues, oranges, and browns, and could smell chlorinated water beneath the floor. Up above were platforms a big cat could leap on to make his or her way to the opposite side of the room where there was another door. He suspected if he stepped on the wrong tiles, one would open and he would fall into a pool.

He carefully sniffed where Kira had gone. And smiled. She wouldn’t lead him astray. He didn’t think. He figured if he stepped on one of the tiles that would fall away, it wouldn’t move unless he put more of his weight on it. So he just carefully moved from tile to tile, sniffing each before he took a step. He hoped he wouldn’t make a mistake, wishing he could just leap across the platforms instead, knowing this was taking longer than he wanted it to. He smelled that other wolves had been this way, but their scents were fainter, as if the wolves had been there a long time ago.

When he was nearly to the floor next to the door that wasn’t tiled, strong fans on the ceiling blew across the room, disbursing Kira’s scent and he leapt to a solid rectangular blue tile in front of the door. He believed that was the safe place. When he landed on the tile, nothing happened except that the door opened for him, and relieved, he went inside the room. He wondered if the ones testing him thought that his mate was helping him, and they had to change up the game a bit by turning on the fans.

In this room, there were four doors, the one he had come through and one on each of the other three walls, all painted blue. He could smell the teen had come from the leftmost door and moved across the floor to the opposite door with two jaguars that he didn’t know by scent. Or maybe the teen had been moved the opposite way. Fisher could only smell the teen’s scent, but he couldn’t determine which way he was going.

What if Fisher was being tested on taking the most direct route to the kid? Time was always of the essence in kidnapping cases, but the path that seemed to be the most direct route didn’t necessarily mean it was. Again, he smelled Kira’s scent and she had gone straight across from the door he had entered, not through one of the two doors that the teen had traveled through. Fisher took a gamble and went through the door she had entered. He figured that the testers were probably amused that he was following his mate’s scent instead of the scent of the boy.

But it would be too easy just to do that, he thought. He raced across the floor to the other door and entered. Here, there was a narrow set of stairs, and he went up them. At the landing, he found a narrow walkway suspended two stories high, the chlorinated water rippling way down below. He could imagine falling off the walkway into the water and failing the exercise. He saw a clock telling him twenty minutes had passed. He felt he was wasting too much time, and he began to run across the walkway, feeling surefooted, but then he realized as soon as he did, it started to sway. He lost his balance, his feet slipping, his heart skipping beats, and he nearly fell below the ropes holding the platform up. He had to be more careful and slowed way down.

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