the village, Lincoln had discovered the wolfling scavenging in the streets. And Lincoln had been feeding him ever since.
He’d also notified his superiors of Dayax’s plight, requesting an extraction and transport to a new pack. Their negative response didn’t stop him from keeping an eye on Dayax or from planning to take the boy with him once the deployment ended. Screw HQ.
“All right,” Lila said quietly. “Let’s find the wolfling and get the hell out of here.”
Using his snout, Lincoln motioned for Damien to stand watch at the entrance. Since he’d already searched the bottom floor, Lincoln signaled Lila to follow him upstairs. Remaining in his wolf form, he hoped the wolfling would either hear his telepathic calls or see his wolf and come out of hiding.
Lincoln bounded up the mostly intact stairwell. The bulletproof vest he wore, specially fitted for his wolf, chaffed despite a thick coat of fur.
Following close on his heels, Lila, his second-in-command, obeyed orders as well as she gave them. Except for tonight’s excursion, she’d never disobeyed a direct command. But he wouldn’t fault her for this one. Loyalty sometimes outweighed a crappy order.
Together for the last five years, he would miss her support and friendship when she got her own team. He knew she would because he had been the one to recommend her for promotion.
Lincoln continued reaching out telepathically to Dayax. Silence answered, time and time again.
The worry gnawing Lincoln’s gut spread into his chest. As they carefully cleared the second floor, the probability that the wolfling had been injured in the earlier firefight or had been taken by the rebels became a clear and present concern.
“Más rápido!” Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Damien waved for them to hurry. “There’s movement down the street and it isn’t the Red Cross handing out lollipops and blankets.”
Room by room they searched. The gnawing in Lincoln’s stomach would eat through his chest before long. After seeing the cruel and evil side of man and wolf for so long, Lincoln had nearly lost hope in everything. Then Dayax came along. With his inquisitive mind, generous smile and trusting eyes, despite all he’d suffered, Dayax had renewed Lincoln’s faith. If he lost the boy now, the last threads of his humanity would snap.
“Se acabó el tiempo!” Damien yelled.
“Almost done,” Lila replied.
Lincoln exited the last room to the left of the stairs and returned to the corridor, shaking his head. He gazed out the large window into the empty alley below.
“Dayax, wherever you are, I will find you!” He sent the question telepathically in English and Somali, hoping the wolfling would receive the message and understand that Lincoln would not give up on him.
“Last one, Linc. Then we gotta scram.” Lila stopped in front of the last door to the right of the stairs.
“All right, kid. Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she said, turning the doorknob. “Hmm. Must be stuck.”
Lincoln’s stomach knotted and a horrible foreboding drove an icy knife into his gut. “Lila, wait!”
Unable to hear Lincoln’s telepathic warning in her human form, she shoved her shoulder against the door. It swung innocently open and she darted into the room.
The breath stalled in Lincoln’s chest continued on its path, though his heart still thundered.
“Vámonos!” Damien shouted, stomping up the stairs two at a time. “Vámonos!”
A flash of light accompanied a resounding boom. The percussive force slammed Lincoln against the window. Deafened from the explosion, he never heard the glass break. But the air swooshed around him and his stomach looped as he plunged downward.
He would be okay; his team would be okay. Dayax would be okay. The beautiful angel inside the thin silver case tucked in the pocket of his protective vest would make sure they were. She always did.
Nine weeks later
“I’m gonna wring his freaking neck!”
Angeline O’Brien glared at the man passed out on her brand-new leather couch, thrashing and yelling in his sleep.
She slammed the apartment door, envisioning her long fingers curling around Tristan Durrance’s throat for giving his subletter the wrong key.
Friends since they were tweens, neighbors for nearly all of their adult lives, and both relationshipphobes, Tristan and Angeline had traded apartment keys with the understanding that they would look out for each other. Angeline had expected the arrangement to continue into their elder years.
Unfortunately for her, last summer Tristan had accidentally claimed a mate and subsequently fallen in love, breaking up their platonic cohesiveness. Angeline didn’t begrudge Tristan’s happiness, but she had felt a little lonely since he’d moved out of his apartment.
But not lonely enough to play nice with a Dogman who had found his way into the wrong apartment. Everyone in the Walker’s Run pack had been anticipating the wolfan paramilitary man’s arrival for weeks. Everyone except Angeline.
Turbulent emotions rose inside her. When her first and only love, Tanner Phillips, had chosen life as a Dogman over a mateship with her, Angeline had never wanted to hear the word Dogman again. Neither did she ever want to come face-to-face with one.
So instead of welcoming this Dogman like a hero, she had a mind to toss his ass outside into the cold and slam the door in his face. Next to the two empty beer bottles on the kitchen counter, she dropped her purse and the carry-out bag from Taylor’s Roadhouse, her uncle’s restaurant where she worked part-time.
“Hey!” she snapped. After being on her feet all night, Angeline wanted a hot shower to wash away the food odors from her body and to relax in the utter quiet and comfort of her home. Alone. The sooner she got the Dogman into the right apartment, the better. “Wake up!”
Curled on his side, face pressed against the duffel bag he used as a pillow, the man gave no indication that he’d heard her. Every muscle in his body remained tightly coiled. A muscle spasmed along his clenched jaw and the deep furrows creased his brow.
Angeline’s irritation level dropped a few notches. “Are you all right?” She touched him. An unexpected electric current caused her fingers to tighten on his bare shoulder when she should’ve let go.
His large hand cuffed her wrist as he sat up. “Who are you?” he snarled. His glaring silvery-green gaze appeared to be clouded and unfocused.
“The person who owns the couch you’re sleeping on.” Angeline yanked her captive arm against his hold. Instead of freeing herself, she became more entangled with him as he rolled off the couch and stood, leaning heavily on her.
“Where’s my team?” A shag of black hair curtained his forehead, dark brows slashed angrily over his eyes and his naturally brown skin lightly glistened with sweat. “Where’s Dayax?”
“Wherever you think you are,
