Page 32 of No Harm No Howl

“Copy that. I just can’t believe how easy this has been. Mags was right. Her plan worked like a damn charm. All we had to do was separate the two of them, and boom.”

“Yeah, well, we gotta kill him first. So, how about you shut the fuck up until the job is done and we get paid.”

“Fine. You’re a dick. You know that, right?”

Russ’s heart stopped. Gia was in trouble, but he couldn’t do a damn thing to help her if he didn’t make it out of there in one fucking piece.

She’s a shifter. She can take care of herself,his wolf said.

Doesn’t matter. We have to get to her,Russ replied in a panicked voice.

He was surprised that his wolf was taking such a lax attitude when it came to the safety of their mate.

Is that what you think I’m doing? Fuck you! We have to get our asses out of here before we can save her! Concentrate on what needs to happen now to survive this. We will get to our mate and kill anyone who lays a fucking finger on her.

His beast’s words calmed his mind and focused Russ on what needed to be done. His wolf was right. He couldn’t help Gia if he couldn’t save himself first. He found an outcropping of rocks and tucked himself behind them, waiting for whoever it was to make their next move.

“Where is that fucker? He should have walked past me by now,” the man said over the radio.

“He should be coming along any second. Make sure you’re ready for him. We’ve got one shot to pull this off,” the other man replied.

Russ held firm, denying the men the ambush they’d so clearly hoped to pull off. After a few minutes of complete silence, the men started getting antsy.

“You should go chase him out, Brady,” one man said.

“Fuck that. You do it. You know I hate it when we have to deal with shifters. I don’t mind shootin’ their asses and wiping them off the face of the earth, but that’s about it. I don’t trust the bastards as far as I can toss them. They’re not natural. Just somethin’ wrong with ’em. You are such a pussy, Colton,” Brady said. “Fine. I’ll push him out of his hiding spot. You better be ready to shoot him.”

“I ain’t never missed. I ain’t gonna start now.”

“Fine. Then cover my ass. I’m going out there.” Brady moved from the perch he’d been hiding on.

Russ spotted him instantly. He was less than twenty feet away and heading in his direction. With his gun pointed right in front of him, Russ was going to have to time his attack just right, or the other idiot was likely to get a shot off, and it would be curtains for Russ.

NINETEEN

GIA

“Room service,” a woman called out before knocking on the door.

Gia’s stomach growled the instant the smell of the food wafted through the door to her nose. “I’ll be right there,” she said, grabbing a twenty-dollar bill for a tip and pulling the door open. The food had taken longer than she expected, but whatever, it was there now, and she was going to devour every single bite.

“Here you are. I hope you’re hungry,” a woman in her mid-forties smiled at her as she wheeled the cart into her room.

“Starving. It smells so damn good,” Gia said, her mouth salivating.

The tiny hairs on Gia’s arm stood on end, warning her that something was off and she needed to be on high alert. Her wolfy sense had been going haywire ever since she had gotten out of the shower. She didn’t know if it had something to do with the fight she’d had with Russ, the mating she couldn’t remember, or what the hell it was.

Gia had tried to stay calm after her call with Gerri, but her friend’s warning popped into her head.“Don’t let anyone into your room other than Russ. No one.”

Surely that hadn’t meant hotel staff, right? The room service woman was fine, right? The smell of something odd reached her nose, but she had no idea what it was. It smelled off … kind of like a chemical almost. One she couldn’t easily recognize.

Her head snapped up, but it was too late. The woman who was standing beside her suddenly had a wicked look on her face. She planted her feet and lunged at Gia.

Gia stumbled backward as the woman jabbed a needle into her neck and pushed down on the plunger, shooting the liquid into her body. The liquid began to burn as soon as it entered her body. It felt like someone had stabbed her with a hot poker. She cried out in pain.

“That should take care of you,” the woman sneered at Gia and pushed her away.

Gia crashed into the cart of food and sent it flying across the room. Glass dishes crashed to the floor along with a carafe of hot coffee, making a huge mess in the otherwise pristine room.

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