Free The Wolf Within by Cynthia Eden

bullet—covered with her blood—was in his hand. “Did anyone see?” Holly whispered.
    What she was—it was their secret. One they’d protected the entire time she’d been working in the unit.
    He shook his head. “I carried you inside. No one saw anything.”
    Good. “What happens now?” She’d slipped up. Made the mistake that she’d always feared. Pate had been so confident that no one would ever learn about her. That she’d be safe, as long as she had access to the doses she needed. And in her own lab, a place guarded by a dozen agents, he’d promised that she’d have the security she wanted.
    Only she wasn’t safe anymore. Neither was he.
    I had Duncan’s blood.
    “Nothing happens. We continue just as before.”
    Her jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious! I almost killed you.”
    His fingers closed over the bullet. “And I did kill you.”
    Only she hadn’t stayed dead. She couldn’t. That was the way with her kind. As long as a wooden bullet was in her heart, her body would mimic death. Once the bullet was out…she came back to life, so to speak.
    The real truth was that she’d died a year ago.
    “Go home. Sleep. Wash away the blood.” His words were clipped, and they were also no longer given in the softer tone of a brother, but rather in the more demanding snap of a boss. “Then you come back here tonight, and you carry on the same as before.”
    She rose to her feet. She was already stronger. Thanks to the dose.
    The dose…call it what it is…the blood.
Though often, the blood was combined with a special drug mix that was supposed to keep her urges in check. “We can’t keep on like this.” She was fighting her instincts. Trying to be something that she wasn’t.
    Human.
    “We’ll keep on until you find a cure.”
    There was no cure. He didn’t get that. It wasn’t that she was sick. She wasn’t human anymore.
    “Go home,” Pate ordered again as a muscle jerked in his jaw. “Everything will be better soon.”
    Pate. So wrong. So lost.
    He blamed himself for what she’d become.
    Sometimes, late at night, she blamed him, too. That was her shame.
    “If you can’t come up with a cure, then I’ll get another doctor in. You know I can pull any damn strings I want, and I heard that Forbes was in the area.”
    Jonathan Forbes. The name had her tensing. He was good with DNA. He was also a prick. And her ex-fiance.
    They’d split when she’d suddenly developed an appetite for blood. “Jonathan is more interested in slicing and dicing paranormals than he is in helping them.” That had been one of the main reasons she ran from him.
    She hadn’t wanted to wind up as one of his experiments.
    Silence. Then, “But he
can
do the job. There aren’t a whole lot of doctors in the know when it comes to the paranormals.”
    No, there weren’t.
    Pate continued, “I’ll make sure that he monitors Duncan.”
    While she—what? Hid in the shadows?
    “I’m not telling you this as your brother. I’m giving you an order as the senior agent for this unit. You’re to stay away from Duncan McGuire from now on.”
    Easier said than done. She could still taste him, and she was…craving him. “You sent him out there, all alone, to fight the Seattle alpha?”
    “He
is
an alpha.”
    “What if he gets killed?” Didn’t Pate get it? Duncan didn’t want to be a werewolf. Maybe facing off against the other alpha was his way of making sure his death wish was granted.
    I won’t let that happen.
    “We’re tracking Duncan through the chip in his collar. If necessary, we can send backup to him.” Pate shook his head. Narrowed his eyes on her. “Go home, Holly. Just…
go
.When you’re back in control, then you can come back to the lab later.”
    In control. Right. Because she always had to stay in control. Always had to be so careful.
    Maybe she was tired of being careful. She stared at her brother. Saw all the secrets he carried in his eyes. He’d told her the unit was necessary. For the