Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven 1)

The sheriff just kept going. “I’ll get Alonzo to trailer your ATV back.”

“They’re taking what does not belong to them,” she called out in a voice that cracked.

When Eastwind continued to ignore her, she glared across the valley at the construction site. That fucking hotel and its five hundred acres of “serenity and rejuvenation.” If she could have blown the place up, she would have lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite right this second.

It was the first time in her life she’d seriously considered murder.

The Wolf Study Project’s facility was located at the head of the preserve, just off the county road that wound its way around the base of Deer Mountain and the shores of Lake Goodness. The parking lot was just packed dirt with an overlay of gravel, and the building was a modest sprawl along the landscape, one-storied, cedar-shingled, hidden by hemlocks. As Lydia and Eastwind pulled up, there was a Jeep and a sedan in place, plus Lydia’s hatchback and a WSP truck that had last worked back when Clinton was president.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said as she opened her door.

“You’re welcome.”

With a grunt, she dragged the bait trap out of the wheel well. As she slung the weight over her shoulder, she went to shut the door—

“Lydia.”

She stopped and leaned back into the SUV. “Yes?”

Eastwind’s dark eyes were grave. “I don’t offer to help you with that only because I know you’ll say no.”

Looking down, she shook her head. “I need you to take care of our problem across the valley. That’s the only thing I need you to do. Stop protecting the powerful, it’s unseemly in a man of what I’d always assumed was your kind of honor.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She just closed things and strode off, not to the front of the building, but to the back clinic entrance. As she stepped through into an open area full of vet supplies and tracking devices, she smelled antiseptic cleaner and blinked in the glare of the fluorescent ceiling panels. Rick’s exam rooms, where injured wolves were treated and released, and healthy ones were examined and tagged, were completely isolated from the administration part of things.

“I saw you on the monitor,” Rick said as he came out of a room. He stopped in the process of drying his hands. “What is that. And no, you don’t know that whatever was in there was—”

“Is he still alive.” She held out the trap. “And of course this is what poisoned him—”

“Do we have footage of the wolf taking—”

“Test what’s left! Jesus Christ, Rick, I’ll get you the video—”

“Shh, keep your voice down.”

Lydia looked away. Looked back. “Please. I just … is he still alive?”

“Yes, but it’s going to be a fight.”

Lydia shoved the trap into Rick’s hands and went to the open doorway of the exam room. In the center of the tiled space, on a stainless steel table, the wolf was intubated and limp, his side pumping up and down thanks to a machine. An IV ran into a shaved portion of his foreleg and soft beeping tracked a sluggish heart rate.

As she went to the animal, she could sense Rick’s eyes on her. But fortunately for him, he didn’t say one damn thing about how she needed to be more arm’s length with the wolves.

“I’m right here,” she said softly as she stroked its shoulder. “You’re going to be okay.”

Over on a counter, a knobby fleece blanket was clean and folded. Reaching for it, she flipped the soft weight loose of its order and draped it over the lower half of his body. Then she just stood there.

Her eyes roamed around the wolf’s lean and powerful body, searching for the answer to whether he lived or died. All she got was the pattern on the blanket, an animated beagle chasing flying bones and water bowls across a faded green field. The smile on the cartoon dog’s face struck her as false optimism, something that shouldn’t be peddled to children.

But like denying them the years before adult reality hit them was any better?

“I’ll test what’s in here,” Rick said with resignation.

Lydia rubbed one of the wolf’s paws and then walked over to the doorway. “Let me know what it is?”

“Sure, I’ll give you a call—”

“I’m just in my office.” When he frowned, she tilted her head. “What?”

“You’re not going home to change?”

Lydia looked down at her running tights. “Who do I have to impress? And it’ll take too much time.”

Yeah, because fifteen minutes back to the little house she rented was something she should pack an overnight bag and a sandwich for. Leaving, though … felt wrong.

“Let me know what you find out?” she repeated.

When she turned away, Rick said, “I will.”

At the far end of the clinic area, she pushed through into the administration offices. The executive director’s door was closed—no news there. The conference room was empty. Supply closet and printing alcove were, too. But there was fresh coffee brewing in the break room, and out front, Candy McCullough’s no-shit-Sherlock voice was rapid firing something about a UPS delivery that hadn’t come yet.