Page 33 of No Harm No Howl

A million thoughts flew through her brain, like who the hell and what the fuck, and many more, but she didn’t have time to ask a single question.

“Hey!” Gia shouted, but the sole word came out more like an exaggerated “heeey” as the drug began to take effect immediately. Her arms and legs felt like jelly. Her brain felt like mush. Whatever it was the woman had injected her with had a particularly nasty bite to it.

She wished she’d listened to Gerri and called Russ to get to the bottom of whatever was going on. Why she couldn’t remember hardly anything at all about the night before, about the missing time, and where the hell she had been. But, no. She just had to continue her stubborn streak.

Now it would be the death of her.

Russ!Gia called out through her mating connection as the darkness began to creep in. She’d give anything to see him again.

Hang on, beautiful. I’m coming!

Gia tried like hell to fight the darkness, rallying her wolf to take charge. She dropped to her knees as her bones started to break. Pain shot through her body, making her cry out in agony. What was normally a quick, pain-free process turned into an excruciating ordeal for both her and her wolf.

She glanced up at the woman standing above her, smiling as she typed something into her phone. Gia pushed harder for her wolf to complete the transformation faster, but the drugs were slowing her down more than she cared to admit.

The woman’s phone rang, and she walked across the room to answer it, leaving Gia alone.

Come on!You have to do this. She is going to kill us if we don’t find a way to take her out first. We have to fight off whatever the hell this damn drug is,Gia said to her wolf, trying to get her to snap out of the drug-induced haze.

The woman paced back and forth in front of the windows as Gia’s metabolism burned off some of the toxins. Her wolf finally started to rally against the drug, and she finally completed her shift.

“How the …” the woman shouted, but it was too late.

Gia bounded toward the woman, taking her down immediately. The woman swatted at her trying to get Gia off her. Too bad she was only a frail human who had no shot of beating a shifter in a one-on-one fight … let alone hand-to-hand combat. Or, in this case, claw-to-hand combat.

One swipe of Gia’s claw against the woman’s throat was all it had taken to end her life. Blood sprayed against Gia’s face and body, coating her fur in the warm red liquid.

Gia tried to hold on to her wolf form as long as she could, but the drug was kicking her ass. She crawled to the door and kicked it shut. Once she heard the deadbolt click into place, Gia let the darkness pull her under.

TWENTY

RUSS

Russ crouched as low as he could behind the rocks, making sure fuckhead number one couldn’t easily spot him. Just as the man came in line with his hiding spot, he sprang from behind it, knocking the man to the ground.

“Fuck!” Brady screamed, trying to free the arm that Russ held down with his paw. He already had his finger on the trigger, and a shot rang out.

Thankfully the shot flew in the opposite direction, hitting a stray cactus. Russ didn’t waste another second biting down on the soft spot on the man’s neck. He hopped off him, barely missing the spray of blood. The man grabbed at his neck, trying to find a way to stem the flow of blood.

The static from the radio broke the man’s gurgling.

“Brady, come in. Brady?”

Considering the fact that Brady’s eyes were wide open and lifeless unless Russ shifted back to his human form to answer Colton, no one was going to do it. That was fine with him. He wasn’t about to give his enemy any advantages. Let Colton guess as to what happened to his partner.

Taking on Colton would be a bit trickier. He needed to keep him alive if he wanted answers about who had hired them and why they wanted him dead. This shit needed to end. He was done looking over his shoulder, wondering who was going to come after him next.

“Brady!” The radio crackled once again.

Russ fought the urge to shift and tell the dude to go fuck himself and that he’d killed his friend and he would be next. Instead, he turned the volume on the radio down and listened for the clicking of the other radio to determine Colton’s location. He crept forward slowly, carefully staying behind rocks in order to keep hidden. He had absolutely no intention of making himself an easy target.

Colton lit up a cigarette and took a few puffs. The smell drifted immediately to Russ’s nose. Anyone hunting a shifter should know better than to give away their position, whether by noise or scent. It was a rookie mistake.

Idiot,Russ said to his wolf, quickly picking up the new scent. It was a dead giveaway as to where the asshole was set up, hoping to ambush him. How quickly the tables had turned. But then again, they weren’t really fair to begin with. Two humans versus one shifter. The shifter usually wins … especially when said humans are as dumb as a box of rocks.

Seriously. Could these guys be any dumber?

Russ didn’t bother answering the question. Not when the answer was as obvious as the snout on his face. He took off, racing out around his target, keeping a wide distance between himself and Colton. The element of surprise was crucial if he wanted to keep the fucker alive, so he could extract the information he needed to get to the bottom of this latest attack on his life. And by the sound of it, on Gia’s life.

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