The Wolf Within (Purgatory #1)(4)

Her back teeth clenched.

“He doesn’t want this,” Elias shouted. That gun needed to be holstered. She was about to do it for him.

“Right now, the man doesn’t know what he wants!” Pate threw back. Holly knew Pate wouldn’t back down. He never did. “Now, Agent Lone, I’m ordering you to stand down. This isn’t your call. And it isn’t his, either.”

Because once you joined the Para Unit, your life wasn’t exactly your own any longer.

Swearing, Elias holstered his weapon. Finally. Then he turned on his heel and hurried from the room. The double doors swung shut behind him.

Holly forced herself to take in a deep breath. Duncan had been viciously attacked, and now, to come back as a werewolf? Pate had taken risks before with his agents, but there had never been a case like this.

“He’s going to be an alpha,” Pate whispered, staying close to her so his words wouldn’t carry far. She knew the other agents were waiting just outside of the medical wing. “I can tell by the speed of his healing. Hell, the guy was already starting to shift at the scene. We had to dose him three times just to stop the change.”

Three times? She’d been the one to brew that drug. Holly knew it was powerful. One dose should have been more than enough to put Duncan out.

The doors to her medical wing flew open again, and she jerked. Elias—coming back? What the hell?

His cheeks were flushed. His blond hair mussed. He pointed toward Holly. “She’s going to need a guard in here with her!” Elias called out. “The doc won’t be able to handle him.”

Shane August grabbed the guy and tried to yank him back. Elias didn’t appear in the mood to be yanked.

Pate exhaled slowly. “After Duncan has the collar on, she’ll be able to control him.” Then Pate pointed to Shane. “August, you stay in here and keep an eye on Holly until she has Duncan secure.”

Shane, not Elias. Very good choice.

Shane shoved Elias back of the room, then he stood there, near the door, with his watchful brown gaze locked on Duncan’s body.

Pate made no move to leave, not yet. “Check him out, top to bottom. Get blood work. Run your tests. Every test you can think of.”

Tests that would show them all just how deadly Duncan would become.

She nodded and met Pate’s stare. “If he—if he proves to be too much of a threat?” Because she’d seen werewolves who had no sense of humanity left in them. Beasts that couldn’t be controlled or contained. They’d all seen wolves like that. In her experience, those recently bitten were the worst.

The most dangerous.

“Then you stop him.” She noticed the emphasis he put in his command. “But that’s a last resort. I don’t want to lose him. We need him, Holly. We need what he’ll become.”

Because while the other agents thought that Pate was just a suit who never got his hands dirty, she knew better. Pate had been chosen to lead the West Coast Para Unit because he knew all about the dark side of life.

And he also believed that the best way to fight a monster was…with a monster.

That was why she was there.

“Do whatever you have to do, but make sure Duncan McGuire survives.” Then Pate was backing away. He crossed to Shane’s side, whispered to the agent, and after a moment, the swinging doors to the med room closed behind Pate.

She didn’t move from her position near Duncan. Duncan McGuire. He’d always made her nervous. Too aware.

She put on her stethoscope. Bent to listen to his heartbeat. So fast. Not weak, the way it should have been considering the amount of drugs in his system. Duncan’s heartbeat was thundering at a frantic rate.

The transformation.

Holly had been hiredto be the personal physician for the agents in the Para Unit. When you went out and fought monsters, you could return with some rather…unusual wounds. Instead of explaining vamp bites and shifter claw marks to the local hospital staff, Pate had wanted her to take care of his men and women.

He’d also wanted her to study the prisoners in containment.

Two reasons to bring her in. There were more reasons, of course, there always were. But those were the two he’d used to the FBI Brass.

And, since she’d owed Pate far more than she could ever repay, it wasn’t like Holly had been given much of a choice in taking the job.

No, she’d lost that whole choice option a year ago. When she’d lost her life.

Carefully now, she lifted one of Duncan’s eyelids. She was about to shine her light on his eye when she realized—

No need for the light.

His eye was shining on its own. The blue had lit up, streaking with gold. Already a werewolf’s sight. A werewolf’s vision was ten times better than a human’s during the day, and at night, werewolves could see in the darkness. All of a werewolf’s senses were enhanced. Incredibly amped.

She backed away from him a bit. Her gaze scanned over his body. So much blood. Her nostrils flared a bit at the scent. Considering the damage he’d sustained, it was amazing that he’d survived the attack.

And if he hadn’t? If Pate had come back to tell her that Duncan had died on his mission? How would she have felt then?

Holly swallowed. She put down the small light, and her gloved hands reached out to skim over the wound on his neck. I would have missed you.