Free Timber Valley Pack: Lynx On The Loose( A Paranormal Romance With Shifters) by Georgette St. Clair

jumping at every noise. 
                  He had half his men here with him. He wished that he could hire more men, but he didn’t dare trust anyone new at this point. From what he’d been told about the raid on the lab, two of the newer mercenaries that he’d hired had betrayed him, shot his own men, and helped the shifters break out. He had a pretty good idea how they’d gotten the fake credentials that led to their hire.
                  Nicholas Almassy.
                  He blamed Zador for this. The stupid bastard. Unfortunately, he still needed Zador if he wanted to be able to continue to work with the arms brokers – for now, anyway.
                  Zador should have warned him about Almassy. How much he hated Zador, how he’d never stop hunting him, which meant that everyone associated with Zador was in Almassy’s crosshairs as well.
                  It was all right. Once Zador had developed the formula, Bradwell wouldn’t need him any more.
                  A sound outside the cabin made him start. A wolf’s howl. It was long and high and eerie, twisting up through the air.
                  Bradwell tensed and glanced at Alan Robinson, one of his mercenaries.  Alan met his gaze, chewing on his lower lip. They were both thinking the same thing.
                  Shifter, or just a wolf? It was impossible to tell.
                  He cursed his luck. He’d fled his home and was hiding in this remote cabin in Idaho for two reasons.  Firstly, it came with its own private landing strip, and secondly, because it was too dangerous for him to stay in any city, even under a fake ID. The advantage of being here was that there were no prying eyes out here, nobody to stumble on him accidentally, but the disadvantage was that the woods were crawling with wildlife.  It meant that he never knew if the animal sounds that tormented him came from a human or a shifter. It was still possible that they could find him out here. The shifters had turned out to have access to technology and tracking skills that he never could have dreamed off.
                  He still had a couple of spies in the shifter community, and as far as he knew the shifters still didn’t know where he was staying. 
    He was paying his shifter spies massive bribes to keep the information stream flowing to him.  Once the lab had been raided and he’d been forced to go on the run, they’d jacked their price up outrageously. It infuriated him. Some day, he would have them killed, but for now he needed them.
                  Another howl drifted through the air, long and drawn out. He groped at the AK-47 that lay on the table near him, clutching it for reassurance.
                  “I doubt it’s a shifter,” Alan said. “They’d have attacked us already…wouldn’t they?”
                  “Maybe not,” Colonel Bradwell said, panic swelling in his throat. “Maybe they’re gathering their forces.”
                  Alan swallowed hard, his face pale. He wasn’t a coward, but the prospect of going up against dozens or hundreds of enraged shifters was enough to frighten even the most stalwart soldier.
                  He grabbed his walkie talkie. “Delta Echo 3, this is C1, are you hearing that wolf howl?” he radioed, talking to one of the men they had stationed outside.
                  “C1, I hear it, but I’m not getting a visual. If it turns out to be anything I’ll give you a holler. Over,” the man replied.
                  Alan stifled a yawn. He hadn’t been sleeping well either, obviously.
                  “I’ll go brew us some coffee,” he said.
                 
     
                 
    * * *
                  As they jogged through the woods, headed back towards the rendezvous point, Dash