The Wolf Within (Purgatory #1)(2)

His gun wasn’t firing. He’d used all the bullets.

More wolves were closing in…

Just as they’d closed in when he’d been four. When they’d killed his family.

When he’d lost everything but his life.

He hadn’t been able to see the wolves then, but he’d heard their snarls and his mother’s desperate cries. He could still hear those cries in his nightmares.

She hadn’t survived the attack.

He had.

Only this time, Duncan knew he wouldn’t be so lucky.

Elias was screaming. The beasts were howling.

And Duncan—Duncan was pretty sure that he was dying.

***

“I’m so sorry, man.” Elias’s voice was shaking and miserable.

Duncan opened his eyes. Pain knifed through him. Twisting. Gutting him.

He tried to move. Couldn’t.

Not because of the pain but because…because he was strapped down?

What the hell?

“I’m sorry,” Elias said again.

Duncan’s gaze flew to the other man. Elias stood a few feet away, and the faint glow from a street light revealed the haggard appearance of his face.

Why was Elias apologizing? They’d both made it out of that stinking alley, and, wonder of wonders, they were both actually still breathing. “You…owe me…” Duncan managed.

Elias shook his head. The lines on his face deepened even more.

“Get him to the containment facility,” a hard voice ordered.

Whoa…what? Containment? Containment was where his team—the Seattle division of the FBI’s not-supposed-to-exist Para Unit—sent their captured shifters and vampires for temporary holding. He wasn’t a prisoner. He was one of the good guys.

Duncan tried to lift his head. On the second attempt, he actually succeeded, and it was then that he saw the face of his boss, Eric Pate, come into focus. “I’m sorry,” Pate said, and he actually sounded like he was, odd for the usually emotionless director, “but we don’t have an option.”

Duncan jerked at the bonds holding him down. The other agents had strapped him to a gurney and were wheeling him toward a waiting ambulance.

“You were bitten by the suspect.” Real regret tinged Pate’s voice. “You know what that means.”

Bitten. No. The f*ck, no. “Kill me,” Duncan snapped. Because there was no way he’d become a monster. The werewolves only existed to torture and kill. To slaughter. Their beasts dominated. They attacked anyone and everything.

Just like they’d attacked his family.

I won’t be like that. When he’d agreed to become part of the secret division, he’d known there would be deadly risks involved in his cases. He’d known the risks, and he’d long ago decided what he would and wouldn’t become.

“No!” Elias yelled as he surged forward. “Pate, dammit, don’t! You promised—”

Screw any promises that Pate had made to Elias. Now Duncan remembered the feel of teeth tearing into his flesh. His neck. His shoulder. With all of those bites and the blood loss, he should be dead.

But he wasn’t. Because his body was already transforming.

If a werewolf’s bite didn’t kill you…if you had the DNA that would enable you to become a beast, then just one bite from a shifted werewolf would infect you. Transform you.

I don’t want to be—

“If you go rogue, I’ll put a silver bullet in your head myself,” Pate promised, green eyes glittering. Rogue. That was the term for werewolves who couldn’t maintain their control. They lost all touch with humanity. Beasts. Monsters. Pate’s gaze stayed locked on Duncan as the guy continued, “But you’re one of us, and no one is putting you down yet. We’re damn well going to give you a chance at survival first.”

Pate didn’t understand. He didn’t get it. He was a suit who saw the wolves from a distance. Duncan had seen the newly transformed up close and personal. The beast took over. It was all basic instinct. All need and bloodlust.

Pate looked up and nodded toward the agents around Duncan. “Take him to Holly. She can take care of his wounds and start to get a read on him—”

He snarled. Duncan’s body twisted and a fire seemed to burn beneath his skin. “Not…her…”

The boss didn’t know how Duncan felt for the pretty, little doctor. Holly was already his temptation with her sweet smelling skin and her f*ck-me eyes. He’d tried to stay away because he’d known she was too fragile to handle someone like him.

If she hadn’t been able to handle the man he’d been, there was no way she’d be safe around his soon-to-be-emerging werewolf side.

“He’s starting to change!” Elias’s shout. “Drug him and get the guy in that ambulance!”

A needle shoved into his arm.

Duncan kept fighting and trying to get them to understand, “Not…Hol…”

They were loading him into the ambulance. They weren’t listening to him. Holly was the last person he should be around. He wanted her as a man. He knew that a werewolf’s desires were just magnified.

And what the wolf wanted, he took.

Without thought. Without remorse.

No limits. No control. No conscience.

Just the beast.