Page 54 of Wolf Reborn

He hadn’t been born a wolf like Ash or earned it in blood like Dez. He’d stolen it.

Stolen it from an ancient werewolf in the desert, who for all Gavin knew, had not committed a single crime it had deserved to be attacked for. His superiors had lied about what it was, after all. Why not lie about the reason they were supposed to be bringing it back with them?

The military had mustered them out as quickly and quietly as possible after that. All honorable discharges, with tidy sums of money and orders to keep their mouths shut. The looks of suspicion and fear from their superiors made Gavin think they had an idea of what had happened.

Of what Gavin and Dez had become.

The only surprise was that they hadn’t been put in cells and dissected bit by bit, the way they’d likely intended to do to Scirocco.

So when Miles had quietly confided to Gavin in the middle of the night that he’d never fired his weapon at a person and sometimes worried he wasn’t capable of doing so, Gavin had nodded his understanding and held Miles in silence.

And most of all, he had thought to himself,good.

Good that Miles wasn’t the kind of man who wanted to hurt people. Good that he didn’t find the notion of shooting a man exciting. Good that he’d never been forced to do it.

If someone had hurt his Miles, had forced him out of that innocence, Gavin would tear them apart with his bare hands.

And unlike anyone else he knew, Gavin was capable of that, both mentally and physically. Okay, well, maybe Dez—his brother in all but blood, and in some ways even that, even more than eternally innocent Ash.

He could hear voices—well, one voice—up ahead, and recognized it as Miles. It made something uncoil in him. Whatever else was true, at least Miles was alive. Gavin was running like the wind, faster than he’d ever managed before. He had to get there in time.

It was the wolf.

Scirocco.

The East Wind.

He thought it might have been a human woman once, but he would never truly know, since he only ever saw the alpha as a half-human, half-wolf monster, bloody and feral as it had killed his men.

The roar of a bear split the air ahead of him, and everything slowed.

Miles was in imminent danger, and Lyndon too, but not from a man with a gun or any other kind of monster. From a bear. The wolf knew bears. Big, and intelligent enough, but at heart, not mere killers. Not berserkers that would attack without thought and die before retreating. There was no need for anyone to be hurt, if only he could be fast enough.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the wolf was there, in him and with him and part of him, in a way she had never been before.

Theway she had never been before.

The wolf burst forth from his mind and his body at the same time, leaving a trail of shredded denim and destroyed boots in its wake.

Those were my favorite jeans.

Hush, child. The mate and cub come first.

And he couldn’t debate that. They did, always.

He rounded a bend of rocky outcropping and came face to face with an enormous black bear. He bared his teeth at it.

Leave.

The bear, still indignant at whatever Miles or the cub had done to gain its ire, sat back on its hind legs and glared at them a moment. Then, deciding that living to see the next day trumped taking out its anger on anyone, it turned and trundled off down the side of the mountain.

Gavin and the wolf howled in victory.

29

Suddenly I See

Between one heartbeat and the next, the white wolf appeared out of the snow.

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