GRAY Wolf Mate: League Of Gallize Shifters Read online

Light flashed in his right eye.

  He squinted hard to block it out. Who would do that to a shifter with sensitive vision?

  The irritating glow went away.

  Maybe that hadn’t been intentional. Maybe he’d just opened his eye at the wrong time. What about his other eye? He couldn’t open it or move either arm to lift his hands and feel his face. He couldn’t move his legs either.

  What had happened?

  His mind threw jumbled visions at him. He swam through the confusion, hunting for something he could grasp.

  Slowly, it started coming back to him. The warehouse. Sonic. The bomb.

  Damn. He might be too fucked up physically to fix.

  How long had it been since the explosion?

  Where was Gray Wolf?

  Cole’s head pounded and his damn skin was on fire. His claws extended. Maybe he could shift.

  Sharp points pricked his skin and he was hit with a load of electrical power. Pain shot through every part of him. He howled, then drifted into oblivion again.

  The next time Cole surfaced, agony and aches shuddered through his body with every beat of his heart.

  He’d been taught how to endure pain. Where?

  The military. Back when he ran missions with his team.

  He sucked in a deep breath.

  Oh, fuck, that hurt. Stick to shallow breaths.

  Gray Wolf came alive inside him. Making sounds, but not making sense. Still, Cole could tell Gray Wolf was worried and wanted to heal him. That was a welcome change from his beast’s constant battling against him of late.

  Cole didn’t have the ability to fight his animal in this condition. He needed to shift and heal, but he didn’t want Gray Wolf running free with no way to pull his wolf back from harming someone. So Cole just lay there like a corpse and waited for the change to come over him once Gray Wolf realized he could force it. Cole hoped he’d regain consciousness quickly once he shifted and had a chance to prevent Gray Wolf from tearing into someone.

  Seconds passed.

  Nothing happened.

  His wolf gave a little push, then gave a mournful howl when he couldn’t break out, then just stopped trying.

  Why wasn’t his wolf mad with rage and taking advantage of Cole’s inability to stop the shift?

  Back during the first year with Gray Wolf, Cole had no chance of preventing the change when he’d been badly injured in training. Gray Wolf might be difficult, but he had never failed to take over and heal Cole in dire circumstances.

  This definitely qualified as dire.

  With the unstable condition his wolf had been in right up to the explosion, Gray Wolf wouldn’t be slumbering now.

  Cole waited, fighting to stay present and breathe softly.

  His wolf ... was subdued.

  Gray Wolf had never been what anyone would call calm from the moment Cole had first shifted, but now? His beast had settled down significantly.

  This was monumental, but was it a good thing or a bad thing?

  Could the explosion have altered Cole’s mating curse?

  That didn’t make sense at all, but he wouldn’t complain about the pain if getting a grip on his wolf again was a side effect of almost dying.

  He could figure it out once his head stopped feeling like someone was using a pile driver on it. Worse than that was the searing pain in his face that had him wanting to claw the skin off.

  Yeah, that would convince everyone he was stable. Suck it up. Mind-over-matter exercises, Cavanaugh. He’d been taught how to focus through pain in the early days of training to control his wolf. He should concentrate on his chest and shoulder injuries first. They weren’t as demanding of his attention as the pain in his face and left side. He tried to curl his fingers and call up his wolf to heal, but his hands were wrapped.

  Bandaged?

  Now that he took inventory of his body, his head was wrapped up, too. Left eye had been completely covered. The other felt too swollen to open.

  Why would anyone wrap up a shifter?

  He could heal faster with no bandages.

  Couldn’t he?

  Was he so close to death he couldn’t shift or heal?

  Gray Wolf, Cole silently called to his animal.

  His wolf began vibrating inside of him and Cole finally realized the wolf was not in a normal state, but ... stressed about Cole. Had Cole’s inability to shift frightened his animal?

  Or ... shit ... had he forced his wolf to stay inside for so long he’d damaged both of them severely?

  The Guardian had warned all the Gallize shifters about making time for their animals to run free. That hadn’t been a possibility for Cole in the past two weeks, because he’d feared Gray Wolf breaking free of Cole’s control and attacking anything he perceived a threat.

  He forced his breathing to smooth, focusing on how he wanted to feel, instead of the fact that he hurt all over. After a bit, his headache dropped from DEFCON One to DEFCON Four.

  Better.

  Now he could force his mind to work on other issues like his surroundings. He started listening and searching out scents beyond the antiseptic odor of an infirmary. It actually smelled as if all the scents had been wiped away. Even so, if he could get down and sniff closely, he could still pick up the scent of anything living that had passed through here.

  Hold everything. An infirmary?

  Hot damn. He had to be in one of the Guardian’s facilities, which also meant Cole’s team had gotten him away from the scene.

  His heart took a badly needed break at that realization. If the Guardian thought Cole needed bandages, then so be it, since the Guardian was the pinnacle of shifter knowledge for the team.

  As a massive, sea eagle shifter who had flown over the world for three centuries, the Guardian guided all of them through the ups and downs of being Gallize shifters.

  At the sound of a door swishing open, Cole jerked back to the present. Damn. Fighting the pain must be wearing him out, because he’d been drifting again.

  Gray Wolf came to sharp attention, but with no hint of wanting out. Curious.

  If Cole couldn’t shift, his wolf couldn’t harm anyone. He wanted to give in to the heaviness weighing on him and the need for sleep, but a scent tickled his nose.

  A sweet smell he recognized.

  His mind gave up on sleep, because this scent had belonged to a human. Someone from long ago. Pain of a completely different kind seared him now.

  At one time, he’d associated the smell with good times, great sex and plans for his future.

  Mate. Gray Wolf had the same visceral reaction to the scent, but his wolf was wrong. Cole had thought of Tess many times while learning how to shift. When the word ‘mate’ was tossed around, he’d immediately think of her and spreading her favorite lotion across her amazing skin and making love to her.

  Gray Wolf persisted. Mate.

  Cole couldn’t explain why that wasn’t possible to his animal. The wolf associated that scent with the woman Cole had obsessed over during his early days with Gray Wolf. That had been back when Cole first met the Guardian, their powerful leader who’d called up Cole’s wolf, then proceeded to teach him how to be a shifter.

  That was also when Cole realized the woman he’d loved in college could never be in his life.

  Not a human woman.

  That particular woman wouldn’t be anywhere around the Guardian, which meant the scent did not belong to her. His boss did have some humans in the operation, but they’d been with the Guardian for decades before Cole showed up. This person was probably a female medical specialist who liked the same lotion. Not an easy product to find, because it was made in France and sold in the US by a small cosmetics group.

  His throat ached when he swallowed, remembering how he’d tracked it down and wrapped the pretty bottle as a birthday gift. The memory threatened to drag him away from consciousness again, back to a time when he’d been happier than any man deserved. In college with her.

  He’d never smelled that fragrance
on another woman.

  His heart twisted at the memories.

  He could deal with the physical pain and healing, but one deep breath of that scent and he suffered an emotional pain that drilled deep into his chest.

  Gray Wolf moaned a sorrowful sound.

  More than ever, Cole needed to shift and run hard.

  Go anywhere to get away from the reminder of all he’d had at one time and lost forever.

  Mind over matter.

  Screw this. He pulled inside himself and let the darkness suck him into a deep sleep again. He went to a place of peace where he was alone without his wolf.

  The place he’d been taught to access when suffering the most excruciating pain.

  No physical injury had ever equaled losing her.

  Chapter 4

  Tess Janver should be home in bed this late at night. Or rather, early in the morning, since it was now after midnight. She’d thought by this time Wednesday morning, their patient would be awake.

  She’d sat with him all Monday night until she had to go home and shower. Exhaustion had hit by lunch yesterday. She’d locked her office door and asked her assistant to not allow anyone to interrupt. She’d managed an hour of sleep that way, enough to keep her on her feet through the past evening, but she had to go home soon.

  This visit would have to be short. She wouldn’t be able to function without a night of decent sleep, but she had so many questions for this shifter.

  Standing next to unconscious John Doe, she studied the partially disfigured body retrieved from the failed food bank bust on Monday.

  How could anyone, human or not, have survived being so close to that explosion?

  John Doe was a wolf shifter, based on what the jackal shifters on staff said. After the initial intake, Tess had kept those jackals away from John Doe.

  Some of the jackals working on staff for SCIS, Shifter Criminal Investigation Service, had been known to lose control around an injured shifter. They’d change shape and attack. Sometimes the agency’s powerful tranquilizer dart guns didn’t work quickly enough. That meant using deadly force to protect the wounded shifter, who was defenseless.

  Even if they maintained control, she didn’t trust the jackal shifters on the SCIS payroll.

  They treated her with respect, but instinct warned her not to end up alone with any of them. She’d researched all forms of shifters while gaining her master’s degree on the topic. One of the first to complete a program formed when mainstream universities scrambled to form viable think tanks, Tess had been in on the earliest stages of studying shifters. Once shifters were revealed as undeniably real, professors and institutions of higher learning reached out to available resources they would once have shunned as non-science.

  Combining her existing law degree, her unusual credentials, and a buttload of hard work and determination, Tess earned her reputation as a top legal expert on shifters. That was how she’d landed this position investigating Black River Wolf Pack crimes committed in the southeastern district of SCIS.

  She’d become the liaison between SCIS and all human law enforcement agencies.

  Jackals working for SCIS weren’t her responsibility.

  But John Doe was.

  This guy was her best lead on finding the grizzly bear shifter responsible for the Nantahala Honeymoon Massacre, as that case had been nicknamed in the press. She still hadn’t figured out why the Black River wolf pack had a bear with them. Wolves particularly did not like other animals in their packs, but the Black River wolf pack’s calling card had been found near the murder scene.

  Literally, a card, but oddly ... there was no scent.

  She’d fought for this SCIS position so she could take down the Black River pack for their many crimes over the past seven years, including her mother’s death. Now that SCIS had captured one of their wolves, she had a real chance at making some headway.

  Six years ago, SCIS had not existed as such. But the initial investigating agency, which later morphed into SCIS, was the one that handled her mother’s death.

  Tess felt the sharp pang that accompanied any memory of her mom, a sweet, innocent human who had been caught in the middle of an early shifter battle over territory.

  Already reeling from the disappearance of the man she’d expected to marry after college, Tess had gone numb when her mother died, barely managing to get through the days by simply going through the motions expected of a grieving daughter. But two weeks after burying her mom, Tess changed her career direction from focusing only on human law. She became a woman with a mission, determined to find answers once she had the background to go looking for them. That had taken longer than she’d thought. When she landed this position five months back, she’d started quietly digging.

  And run into one wall after another.

  The court case, with all its files, had been sealed and her powerful father refused to help, demanding she leave it be. That stung more than she’d like to admit, given that she’d followed him into law and would like to think he had some respect for what she’d accomplished..

  She swung her attention back to the only case she could control right now.

  John Doe, wolf shifter.

  She took a step closer to the foot of his stretcher and her insides buzzed sharply with a sudden lurch of energy.

  She knew that energy. She’d grown up accidentally disabling watch batteries and frying small electronics just by touching them. As a child, she’d found it amusing until she realized it was truly strange. Something that marked her a freak until she’d learned to hide it.

  The buzzing energy hadn’t been this noticeable since she was nineteen, or more specifically, the night the man she loved abandoned her.

  Gritting her teeth, she silently reprimanded herself for thinking about him.

  He has no place in your life anymore, Tess.

  Got it. Get John Doe healed so he can be interrogated.

  Her gaze traveled over the still form of her burned captive. Yes, he was a captive and suspected to be part of the Black River pack, but it was hard to look at anyone burned and battered that way. She hoped the medicine they were giving him eased his pain.

  Based on her background in shifter studies, she contended this man needed to shift to promote his own healing.

  The medic working on this case had warned that would be a mistake. He claimed he’d never seen a shifter in such bad shape. He pointed out they had no idea how damaged John Doe’s wolf might be. If they used medicines to force this man to shift too soon and his wolf wasn’t up to the task, John Doe might end up stuck halfway through a shift.

  If that happened, they’d have to perform a mercy killing.

  She shuddered at the thought.

  Even as a shifter, how had this man survived such a catastrophic injury? She’d reviewed cases of others who had died from far less damage. As preternatural humans, these people were practically bulletproof, but based on how close the bomb techs estimated he’d been to the detonation, it was mind-boggling that he still breathed.

  She lifted John Doe’s medical chart and read it again. The list of injuries made her wince. She should have no sympathy for shifters who killed humans, especially after what happened to her mother.

  But her mother had been the one to teach Tess respect for all forms of nature.

  Her father preached the opposite. He believed shifters belonged in cages.

  Sighing at the internal conflict she suffered every time she had that conversation with her father, she continued reviewing Mr. Doe.

  She snorted. That sounded ridiculous.

  Like he was a gender-confused deer.

  Burns covered half of his body along the left side.

  Her gaze ran down to where a narrow band of sheet hid his hips and private area. She blushed at the memory of medics checking his naked body for injuries, but at that moment they’d been trying to determine if he was alive or dead.

  He hadn’t spoken a word.

  She’d expected him to wake up by now,
confused and shouting at everyone to explain what happened to him. Maybe start checking for body parts.

  Some men would worry about their penis before a leg or arm.

  John Doe would be glad to find his intact.

  Not that she’d been checking him out. God, no. The sad fact was that she’d only ever been interested in ogling one man and he’d loved it. That had been a long time ago when she’d let an attractive face and sexy smile steal her heart.

  That bastard had taught her how to guard against allowing anyone else in. He’d taught her not to trust men who professed to care about her and only her. Lies.

  Tough lesson at nineteen, but one that had served her well.

  Besides, this man was a shifter.

  In spite of suffering so much physical damage, once he shifted and healed, he’d have a fit body with carved up muscle. All shifters seemed to be built like gorgeous Spartan warriors.

  Not being very clinical, Tess.

  With her professional mask back in place, she replayed what she knew for the tenth time. The more she turned the details over in her mind, the less sensational these events would become, and then she could pick out inconsistencies.

  The explosion had launched John Doe across the street into a brick building. His right hand and arm had more broken bones than his left, the side that had been burned the worst.

  So he’d shoved out a hand to prevent hitting the wall?

  Why? It seemed that if he’d taken the hit against his whole body, he probably would have come out better.

  He’d landed on a terrified homeless woman who had been frantic, speaking gibberish for two minutes before she passed out.

  Poor thing. Tess had gotten her medical aid on site, then sent her to a hospital where the staff reported she’d fallen into a coma from light head trauma. Tess couldn’t question that witness yet.

  John Doe groaned all of a sudden, as if in deep pain.

  Tess jumped at the unexpected sound.

  She’d been told John Doe had howled earlier while being treated, but that he’d still been unconscious. Since then he’d remained silent. Had he howled because he’d been trying to shift before her medics had loaded him with one of their heavy-duty tranqs for shifters?