She saw his dark hair first. Thick and a little too long. Then her gaze fell to his strong cheekbones, knife sharp. She recognized the hard blade of his nose, but his eyes were closed, so she didn’t see his normal bright blue stare.
Duncan?
“Get back,” Pate ordered the other agents as he lifted his hands. “Clear the room so she can work!” Then Pate’s fingers curled around her elbow, and he leaned in close to her. His voice lowered as he whispered, “You keep him sane.” An order. Or a plea?
She stared down at Duncan’s powerful body. Blood was all over him. Already drying on his ripped clothes. On his neck. His arms. But even as she stared at him, the long, thick gashes on his body were closing before her eyes.
Werewolf healing. That was some kind of magic.
“He’s going to be very strong,” Pate murmured, the soft words just for her ears. The other agents had already backed up. Backed up, but she noticed that Duncan’s partner, Elias, still had his gun out.
And aimed at Duncan’s unconscious body.
She moved her own body a few inches, deliberately putting herself in the line of fire. You aren’t shooting him!
“We can use him,” Pate said, his body brushing against hers. “If we can control him, then this could be our chance.”
This wasn’t a chance. It was a man’s life.
She reached out her hand to touch Duncan’s skin. Even through her latex glove, she could feel the heat pouring off his body.
“Clear the room!” Pate snarled again. Because the other agents were lingering. She didn’t blame them. One of their own had just been taken down in a way that was no doubt a nightmare fear for them all.
“But, sir…” Elias stepped forward. And he still had his gun out. “He’s too dangerous to leave alone with her! He could attack—”
Pate’s shaking head stopped his words. “He’s not going to wake up for hours. And by then, he’ll be collared.”
Collared. When werewolves were brought in for containment at the facility, the first order of business was always to suit them up with a silver collar. The collar controlled them. Kept them in check every moment. If the werewolves tried to attack anyone, then silver was automatically released from those collars and injected into their blood via tiny needles.
The collars themselves were unbreakable, mostly because they were made of silver, and no werewolf had ever been strong enough to fight the silver and escape.
The old story about silver being the weakness for the wolf? Luckily for humans, that story had turned out to be true. If the werewolves hadn’t been given some sort of weakness, the humans would be screwed.
But the idea of Duncan…collared like that…
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.