Page 2 of What a Wolf Wants
After tonight though, Ethan was retiring, at least on the books. He’d already put in his thirty years, and he was ready to retire, yet his boss, Barney Grainger, had a solo deep undercover mission for Ethan to take and he was already set up to move into the new home the agency was providing for him in Oyster Bay. He just had this one last job in Portland tonight, and he was looking forward to making a big bust and taking down two of the men who had been involved in killing his parents a year ago.
Everyone on the team was eager to move into the drug house and take the perps down. At Ethan’s command, they busted through the front door and headed through the two-story house. Ethan at once smelled the scent of a red wolf—female type—and he was immediately alarmed. If she was involved in all this, he couldn’t arrest her because she was a wolf. His own wolf pack would have to deal with her. He smelled other scents: male, female, all human. What he didn’t smell? Any sign of drugs. Or scents of Kroner, Oakley, Thor, or Benny or any of the other guys that Ethan was after. His team always kidded him that they didn’t need to take drug-sniffing dogs on these cases because he could find the drugs no matter where they were hidden.
With a sinking suspicion they had the wrong house, he moved up the stairs without backup to confront the she-wolf before his men got involved. He immediately heard water running in a bathroom. New age music was playing loudly over the sound of the shower, which could be a ruse. Hewasn’t sure what he was going to do with the she-wolf, but he had to come up with a plan of action quickly.
“Clear!” “Clear!” his team members were calling out as they searched the rooms downstairs.
Ethan moved quickly but quietly toward the room where he heard the water running. The door was open to the master bedroom, and he went inside and headed for the bathroom. Again, he smelled the female red wolf’s scent in the bedroom, and he wondered if his informant had steered him wrong. Man, would Ethan be pissed. This was his last night on the job in the city of Portland, and it would be a bust, instead of him busting someone for dealing in drugs. But more than that, he’d have to leave without taking down the men responsible for murdering his parents.
He cautiously stepped into the large master bathroom and saw the she-wolf in the shower stall in all her naked glory, wet red hair curling over her shoulders, her eyes wide as she gawked at him through the shower glass. He couldn’t see the color of her eyes because of the steam and the fog on the shower glass. But he could see her shapely figure and rosy-peaked nipples. She threw the shower door open, and though wolves were used to seeing each other naked when they shifted, he expected her to scream, grab a towel, cover herself up, and yell at him to get the hell out of her bathroom..
But she did the unexpected—shifted into her red wolf as soon as she smelled he was one—and bit him on the arm!
He cried out in shock and surprise. Hell, he wished he’d controlled his reaction a bit more. He certainly hadn’t wanted to alert his men he was in trouble.
Then she shifted back, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around herself just as two of the men on his team raced into the bedroom to come to his aid.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” she asked, furious, her green eyes flaming with fire.Nowhe could see their entrancing color.
“I’m DEA Special Agent Ethan Masterson,” he finally said as the two men came up behind him with their weapons aimed at her. “We had word that this was a drug house.”
She tilted her head to the side as if she was mocking his ineptness. He was a wolf. He could smell there were no drugs there.
“Did you find anything?” Ethan asked his men, casting the words over his shoulder while not taking his eyes off her for a second, afraid she might shift and bite him…again. He was certain his men hadn’t found any drugs, but he had to ask.
DEA Special Agent Renault Green hurried into the bathroom then, his eyes widening—almost in recognition—when he saw the woman clad only in a towel, her skin and hair dripping wet. “No, sir. We had an agent question your contact again, and Ferret said that he told us the address is 101 White Birch Road, not 101 White Pine Road. But we know Ferret mixed it up either accidentally or on purpose and now he’s trying to cover his ass.”
“I recorded his words. I know he told us this address. All right. I’ll be right down to give the next orders,” Ethan said to Renault.
Agent Manx Ryerson, one of the other men on his teamthat was right there, snickered, and Ethan cast him a cutting look. Agent Pete Cohen slapped Manx on the back, like he felt the same way as his pal.
“Yes, sir,” Renault said, and he and the other agents headed out of the bedroom, into the hall, and descended the stairs. “Wrong house,” he told the other men downstairs.
“I’m sorry for the mix-up.” Ethan’s arm where she’d bitten him was throbbing like crazy now and he noticed some blood staining his shirtsleeve. He knew she’d broken the skin, but a wolf could have done a lot more damage—like crushed the bones in his arm or ripped away at the muscle. She had only reacted out of anger and frustration, and he didn’t really blame her.
“I hope you’re going to take care of any of the damages.” She didn’t say it in a way that said she was hopeful, but more that she expected it.
“Uh, yeah, I’ll have some red wolves take care of it within the hour.” Ethan would make it up to her as quickly as he could, though he also had to go after the men who had killed his parents. But he couldn’t leave her in a lurch like this either.
She quirked a brow.
“We have a wolf pack out of Portland that I belong to, and they help with any issues we have with our wolves.”
“Good. Then they can deal with you too.”
He fought smiling at her comeback. She was feisty and he liked that about her.
He was damned glad this was his last job in Portland. Yeah, he really had wanted it to go well, but man was itending on a sour note, even if he took down the bad guys after this fiasco.
“I’ll, uh, let you get dressed and you can tell me what needs to be repaired.”
“Thanks for letting me do that.” She didn’t sound thankful but annoyed to high heaven. Then she reached into the shower stall to turn off the water.
He inclined his head, feeling like he was standing two feet tall. It didn’t seem like anything he said to her was going to make it right with the wolf. She wasn’t in their wolf pack, or he would have known her. He was surprised he hadn’t known anything about her. Maybe she had just moved here, and no one had met her yet. The news would have been all over the pack already otherwise.
He hurried off and when he was downstairs, he talked to his team members. “All right, we’re going to the correct house this time, but I need to inspect the damages here and make sure I can get someone out here to replace the owner’s door and the frame.”
The men looked disgruntled about that when they were eager to do this drug bust.
