Cry Wolf (Wolves of Angels Rest #7)(37)

She’d been born in this mayhem, but her only wish now was to get away.

Nothing else mattered.



***



One bright scent stood out above the others: fresh blood.

Diesel followed it, fear of what he might find choking him the way even rotted meat couldn’t. He peered around a corner, immediately sighting the downed body blocking a doorway halfway down the short corridor of oversized cubicles.

Blood had pooled across the floor, gleaming scarlet in the glaring light coming through the door.

But the figure was male, dressed in khaki.

Not Willow.

Relief and curiosity rushed through Diesel’s veins, and he approached carefully.

Two gunshots to the chest and one to the head. Very professional and neat. Well, except for the blood. The mangled wrist was less so. Very shifter, and a panicked one at that.

A muffled noise drew him deeper into the room.

On the other side of the fiendish-looking exam table huddled a younger man, staring fixedly at the boots of the body jutting toward him.

“He shot him,” the guardsman muttered. “Just shot him.”

“Who shot him?” Diesel asked gently.

“The professor shot my dad. Right in front of me.”

The stutter of shock in his voice almost moved Diesel.

Almost.

“Guess you shouldn’t have joined up with the Kingdom Guard when that’s a demonstration of their employee retention plan.”

The young man’s gaze jerked up. When he got an eyeball of Diesel’s all-black fatigues, his pupils dilated in terror. “You’re not…”

“Not one of your guys,” Diesel agreed. “You know, we would’ve helped your dad with the transformation if he was changed.” Not that there was any guarantee the wolf would’ve passed with one glancing bite, but anyone who turned had a chance to be born again. Even Kingdom Guard.

The young man shook his head. “He wouldn’t have wanted that.”

Diesel shrugged. “His choice. Although it doesn’t look like he got any choice, did he?”

The guardsman’s gaze wandered back to the boots.

So much for making any sort of connection. Diesel strode toward him, grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and pulled him to his feet.

The young guardsman whimpered. He was clutching a cattle prod, but he made no attempt to use it.

So at least the kid wasn’t a complete idiot.

“Look here”—Diesel glanced down at the guardsman’s lanyard—“Junior.” He gave the younger man a shake until the wandering eyeballs snapped up to his. “Junior, I’m going to bite you and the professor will shoot you”—Junior whimpered again so Diesel shook him again—“unless you tell me where the woman is.”

“Woman?”

Fuck, this cowardly little bastard probably didn’t even know what a woman was.

“The one whose van you stole,” Diesel snarled. “Grand theft auto. Kidnapping. Looks like torture too.” He slapped the prod out of Junior’s hands. “Focus, Junior.”

The guardsman hung limp in his grip. “She got away. She broke out of the choke pole and bit Dad. And then she ran.”

Willow savaged the dead man’s arm?

Oh god, she’d changed.

Without him there to explain what was happening.

His gut tightened with anguish for what she must’ve gone through alone, terrified, not understanding the confusion and pain of the transformation. How had it happened? She shouldn’t have entered the final stages; at most she’d been latent.

Zane had said the professor was keen to learn how to control and force the change. Kurtz must have found an artificial trigger. And used it on Willow, who had just enough wolf in her blood to be vulnerable.

Diesel wanted to rip something apart, starting with Kurtz. But it was his own fault Willow had been susceptible to the trigger. And his fault too that she didn’t know what was happening to her now. He’d failed her in all ways.

He had to find her, to make it right.

He dropped Junior, ripping the security card off the guardsman’s neck, and left.

The stench of congealing blood hid every other smell. Except the musk of angry shifters.

Diesel followed the smell down the corridor. He emerged at the end to a section of darkness A single flood light cast harsh shadows across a row of cages.

And beneath the musk, he caught a faint thread of mint julep, sultry and sweet and utterly out of place.

Not caring who else heard, he called, “Wendy!”

At the end of the barred row, a feminine figure stepped in front of the light.

For a second, his heart soared…

But she was too tall, too muscular to be Willow. His gaze fell to the shotgun she held easily across her body, and he tensed.

But as she strode toward him, the tattoos on her arms caught the light. “Fuck, man,” Gypsy hissed. “Keep it down.”

He cut her off. “Willow is here, somewhere. She’s shifted, on the run, and she has no idea what she is.”

The bartender recoiled. “Aw hell. Poor thing.” She slanted a gaze at the cages. “Kane and the black wolf”—Diesel knew she meant Zane—“are right behind me. Had to finish hogtieing a couple KGB.” When he tilted his head, she clarified, “Kingdom Guard bastards.”