The Wolf Within (Purgatory 1)

Then she was running out of that containment area. Hurrying for her office, and she knew that Pate had just wanted to get rid of her. He hadn’t wanted her to hear what was coming. She could have argued, could have stayed, but if some of the guards were still alive, she had to help them.

And she had to leave Duncan behind.

***

Pate took Duncan into his office. Duncan had been in Pate’s office before, plenty of times, but this was the only time that he’d ever felt like he was a suspect.

Pate locked the door behind him. “We don’t have a lot of options here.”

What was with the “we” business? The last time Duncan had checked, Pate was still human.

He was the one sprouting fur and running on all fours.

“The moon rises in a few days. If your wolf is taking over, it’ll happen then.”

A few days wasn’t exactly much of a countdown. Duncan turned his head, and his gaze raked suspiciously over the guy who’d been his boss since he’d joined the unit. “Did you know?”

Pate’s blond brows rose. “Know that we’d get attacked this morning? That my men would be slaughtered? Hell, no, I didn’t—”

“Did you know that I could change into a werewolf?” Because when he’d joined the team, Holly had been one of the first people he’d seen. She’d drawn his blood and performed a slate of tests on him. Procedure, or at least that was what Pate had told him.

But now he wasn’t so sure if it had just been pure procedure. Had Pate been screening the recruits? Checking to see if any of them had DNA that would make them susceptible to a werewolf’s bite? Had he looked to see who could possibly change? “Did you know?” Duncan gritted again because the tight knot in his stomach wasn’t easing up.

“I knew.” Quiet.

Duncan’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t expected Pate to confess to the truth so easily. Duncan crossed his arms over his bare chest and waited to hear the rest.

Only Pate didn’t speak.

Jaw locking, Duncan asked, “Did you want me to become a werewolf?” That wasn’t the question he wanted to ask. He wanted to know…Did you set me up to become a monster?

He was starting to think his boss just might be cold-blooded enough to have done so.

“I wanted you to be an agent on my team. I wanted you to do your job and take out the monsters that were preying on humans.” Pate stalked toward him. “Every member of my team goes through testing because we have to be prepared for any eventuality. If there’s a chance that a team member will turn, I have to be ready for that situation.”

“You didn’t tell me. No one bothered to share any test results with me. Don’t you think I had a right to know?”

“And if you had known?” Pate threw right back as he squared off against Duncan. “Would you have turned down the job? Not gone out and hunted because you were afraid of the risk? Dammit, man, you’d already had run-ins with werewolves just working as a Seattle detective. You could have been bitten at any time. It wasn’t the unit’s fault that you changed.”

It wasn’t mine.

Those were the words that Pate didn’t say, but they still seemed to hand in the air.

“And if I go f**king crazy?” Duncan wanted to know, because, yeah, that was a real possibility. One that no one could sugarcoat for him. Some newly transformed wolves couldn’t handle the beast within them and they went mad. “When that moon rises and my beast takes over, what then?” The full moon would be the most dangerous time. The telling time. If the beast was going to be too strong for the man in him to control, then madness could take him then.

But Pate was shaking his head. “I’ve already got it figured out for you.”

Right. He just bet the boss did.

“You just need an anchor,” Pate said. “Something to hold you in check.”

Duncan laughed. “Let me guess…Holly’s got a little drug for that?” He knew that she and Pate had been the ones to design the silver collars, an invention that the Powers-That-Be in the FBI loved. Pate did the gadgetry, and Holly did the science. Together, they were supposed to be unbeatable.

Good for them.

“Holly may have something for you, yes,” Pate said softly as a furrow appeared between his brows.

The faintest flicker of hope lit within Duncan. “Don’t bullshit me.” If there was a chance that he wouldn’t go crazy, that he wouldn’t turn on the humans…

Then I don’t have to die. Because he’d been ready to meet death if it meant he’d spare innocent lives.

Pate’s stare was clear. “If I’d thought there was no hope for you, I would have let Elias put his gun to your head.”

Fair enough. The hope kept growing.

“Like I said, Holly may be able to help you. She’s a woman with surprising resources.” Duncan’s gray eyes narrowed at that. He wasn’t the only agent there who’d wondered about the rather…close…relationship between Pate and Holly. What was going on with those two?

Were they involved?

They’d better not be.

“But before we get to the moonrise,” Pate continued, seemingly oblivious to Duncan’s glare, “we have to deal with the other alpha. I don’t think he’s just going to let you live peacefully until then.”

Highly doubtful, and Duncan didn’t want more human guards getting caught in the battle. Unfortunately, Saul and the other wolves in containment weren’t talking. They were too afraid of the alpha. They feared him more than they feared death by silver.

Duncan exhaled slowly and glanced down at his hands. The claws were gone, for the moment. He hated that they seemed to spring out on their own. As soon as he got angry—bam, there they were.

Pate said, “Our intel indicates that he moved into town about eight months ago.”

“Then the murders kicked up,” Duncan muttered. The wolves had begun to kill, not caring if they drew attention from the humans.

“We know the guy is in his mid-thirties. He blew into town, seemingly with no past, and the guy likes to stay hidden.”

When you had a pack eager to obey you, it was easy enough to hide behind them.

Pate’s eyes narrowed. “I think it’s past time we find the bastard’s hiding place. We’ve got the perfect bait back in that containment area. Bait that can lead you right to the alpha. We can take him out, and, without him to follow, the wolves in this city will splinter.”