Page 51 of The Healer and the Wolf: Part One

She sighed. “I’m saying there will be no massacre. You can’t go in there and just rip and tear through anyone you find. Not just because you could hurt innocents, but because you could die. You said these brothers were incredibly powerful, and the last time you took them on, you had three whole groups of shifters fighting together. You, as incredible as you are, are justyou.I don’t mean to be rude in any way, but you’re not even fully you yet. If you want to do this, we need some sort of strategy to ensure your success, and that also means a whole lot more research.”

My inner wolf was getting riled up in a way I wasn’t used to it. It was demanding actionnow.I was an alpha, after all. It was my job to be strong, to fight, and to give my life for my pack. I wasn’t supposed tostrategizelike a weakling.

I shook my head, surprised at those vehement thoughts. Strategizing wasn’t a weakness. Hell, I had used it to defeat two of the seven brothers, and we wouldn’t have succeeded without it. The chemical and emotional rush from suddenly regaining my memories had made my inner wolf more than a bit agitated. It had gone from being solely in control with no humanity to hold it back, to me not having shifted since Ven had kissed my nose and broken my curse. She still didn’t believe it was her who had done that, but I knew it without a shadow of a doubt.

“What would you suggest we do then?” I asked.

“Give me one week. I have some time off coming up, and I’ll research until then. With a record that long, I’m willing to bet I’ll be able to find where this guy is staying.”

“And then I?—”

“No, that does not mean you just go straight there and rain down hell. We need to do reconnaissance. Maybe I can get hired as a cleaner or even a gardener.”

I blinked at her slowly. Ven was amazing, but even she had her limits. “I’m really skeptical that it would remotely work out.”

“Hey, if it doesn’t, we can go with your plan. But when it comes to plants, no one has shit on me.” I still wasn’t certain, even with the earnest way Ven’s dark eyes bored into mine. “Please, just give me a week to get more info.”

“What if this crazy getting hired plan lasts longer than a week? Can you afford to miss any time at work?” I hated to bring money into it, especially since I wasn’t earning any, but I remembered enough about currency and the economy to know Ven wasn’t exactly well off. In fact, it was quite the opposite. It was one of the reasons I wanted to get back to being able to shift without worry. I was well aware that the amount of food I ate was putting a strain on her budget, and if I shifted, then I could hunt for her.

“Honestly, if I get hired, I’m sure this kingpin-wannabe will pay better than my job at the grocery store.”

Still, I didn’t like the idea of her putting herself in danger, and honestly, the whole thing seemed entirely ludicrous. But after everything Ven had done for me, surely I owed her at least the week to do her research.

“Fine,” I agreed after a painfully long pause. “But the moment things go wrong, we do thingsmyway.”

“Deal.” Ven extended her hand, and I took it, giving it a firm shake.

Clearly determined, she turned back to her computer and started typing furiously. I continued to sip at my tea, trying to capture the ghosts of my past and resurrect them into memories.

19

VANESSA

“This is where you’ll watch your last orientation video now that you’ve made it through your probationary first week,” the administrative assistant said as she led me to a side room barely bigger than a broom closet. “It will take approximately two hours. We will know if you end it early, so please be professional.”

“No problem,” I said, tipping my head. “I just got this gig. I have no desire to ruin it already.”

“Good. Keep that attitude and you might go places here. Our patron values hard work.”

Oh, I was sure he did, but only when other people were doing it for him, never actually doing any sort of work himself.

Honestly, I was shocked my plan had worked at all. It had only taken me three days to find out where our target was staying because several animal rights activists had been arrested for trespassing. They claimed he had an illegal zoo full of neglected animals, but the authorities claimed to have investigated and found that to be untrue.

I knew better, however. When I saw the massive compound was seven hours south of where I lived, I did everything I could to find out every single possible detail about the building and landscape layout.

I’d never done anything like that before, but I’d become a woman possessed. I looked up real estate records, permits, even YouTube videos of a few influencers who had rented out the place and shot a touring video like they actually lived there. That had beenimmenselyhelpful—probably not what the creators had intended.

Leo was still incredibly reluctant to follow our haphazard plan, but at least he didn’t argue with me. That was a huge relief, because when he first talked about massacring the entire campus, I was horrified.

I wasn’t an idiot. I realized shifter life had different rules and morals than my human one, but it was still quite jolting to hear him talk so casually about murdering swaths of people. I tried to chalk it up to him not realizing how many auxiliary personnel there would be in such a large place. After all, he’d been a wolf for so long, he didn’t think about cooks, maids, nannies, drivers, groundskeepers or the like. What had worried me most was that he hadn’t thought about any prisoners either, which went directly against his own experience.

Still, I tried to be understanding. I would never understand what it was like to go through what Leo had gone through, and I could afford him a little bit of grace.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the administrative assistant said blithely after hitting play on the remote.

I settled myself in for a banal onboarding tape and used the time to collect myself. I had been going nonstop ever since Leo and I had made the deal. Although I’d found out about Chadwicke’s ostentatious lair far sooner than I’d expected to, it had taken a lot of planning to put things in motion, including getting a fake ID.

For that, I’d had to reach into an old bag of tricks. Back in college, I used to go to bars with the upperclassmen, watch them get sloshed, then drive them home before I walked back to the dorms myself, so I’d needed a fake ID. It had been a bitch during the winter, but it had paid well enough to keep doing it and had helped me get through the year and a half of schooling I managed before it was all too much.

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