Page 37 of Wild Wolf

“If you zap me, you finally might get tired enough to pass out for a while. Then I’ll toss you in with Amber and we’ll enjoy some quiet for five whole minutes.”

According to Nicolina’s expression, Richard’s lifespan would extend for no more than ten more minutes at most. “Care to repeat that?”

Richard grabbed the cushion from my rocking chair and prowled towards his wife. “Go to sleep.”

Desmond rubbed his forehead. “Things like this make me question why I keep wanting more children. You would think after they grew up and were independent adults, life would become easier. But no. I worry my daughter might kill her mate whenever he decides to be assertive. Or worse, suggests she should be quiet for a while. He’s not wrong about that, but there are some things we don’t say to our wives, and that happens to be one of them.”

“Father,” Nicolina growled.

Richard pounced, and pressed the cushion against his wife’s face. “Go to sleep, my beautiful. Sleep.”

She turned her head, and she giggled, pushing her husband away. “Don’t smother me, you bastard.”

“I wouldn’t be trying to smother you if you’d just go to sleep already.”

The two settled into their scuffle, with Richard making mock attempts to smother his wife while she struggled against him. It took all of a minute of observing them to realize neither had any interest in winning.

Desmond scooted away from the pair. “When she finally passes out, don’t be alarmed, Declan. He prefers to fight with her before giving her a nip. It’s our version of what Dante did to you when we were getting growly before.”

I nodded, regarding the earth witch with a raised brow. “What do I have to do never to have you do that again, by the way?”

“Behave,” he replied. “If you furballs behaved, we wouldn’t have to put you in your place. It just happens Richard is a pain in the ass, so I used too much force with you. If it makes you feel better, Sara hates when I do the same thing. Every Omega I’ve had to handle goes down like a rock. Your wolves just don’t put up a fight like pigheaded Alphas.”

“I resemble that remark,” Nicolina complained, and she grabbed hold of her husband’s wrists in her effort to contain him. Richard grinned, jerked free, and snatched her wrists in retaliation. Ignoring her struggles, he transferred both of her wrists to one hand before pulling her onto his lap. “Damn it, Richard!”

“I know the flight was hard on you, and I know you’ve been worried about Amber, but you need to calm down. I know your wolf is probably upset Amber isn’t in our pack, but she’s better off with your father right now. Declan and his wolf will keep Amber’s wolf calm, and that means she can heal and rest. Dante and Elliot can handle you if you have problems with your wolf, too. You’ve been doing a lot better on that front lately, so you’ll be all right. You don’t have to let her go quite yet, but it’s Amber’s turn to fly for a while. I know change is hard, and chances are, Amber will end up floating between Yellowknife and Seattle, but this is really for the best.”

With a sigh full of pain, Nicolina nodded. “I know, I know.”

“Declan promised he’d give me his brownie recipe.”

“You can’t have it. Declan, don’t give it to him. If you have the brownie recipe, you have to bring Amber home often so I can have your brownies.”

Under no circumstances could I laugh at the woman, not when her voice wavered and her eyes teared up. “I promised him my brownie recipe, but I have other treats that are even better than my brownies, so you can pick one of those that I will hold close to my chest so you have excuses to invite Amber over. And isn’t she still your witch?”

Nicolina’s shoulders slumped, and she relaxed in Richard’s hold. “She won’t be allowed to work with anyone for at least a few years. Learning to live with the wolf can be hard, especially for the witches. We got lucky her witchcraft didn’t go off and start a bad fire.”

“It wasn’t luck, my beautiful. Her witchcraft was failing, and she didn’t have any reserves to start any fires even if she wanted to. The ritual itself was smooth. Declan might have had something to do with that, but I’ll take whatever I can get. It still hurt, but Amber accepted the wolf without reservation, and the wolf didn’t spend long thinking about it. They’re a good match. Declan, what do you think about Amber’s wolf?”

“She seems curious.” I shrugged. “I didn’t get any sense of malevolence. She didn’t want to hurt Amber, and I don’t think she liked some parts of the ritual.”

“The bite’s mandatory. Hopefully, her wolf won’t object to Amber’s role in the Inquisition. It’s pretty violent,” Richard murmured, glancing over his shoulder in the direction of my bedroom. “In a way, I hope her wolf is more of the tranquil kind. She deserves a life of peace.”

Elliot waved his hand, although he did glance towards my bedroom. “I have already been making plans to transition her. Will she continue to work ops? I expect so. Operatives don’t transition well, especially not operatives with her experience. Amber isn’t quite as old as Vicky, but the world has changed a lot since they were young. In some ways, I think Amber adapts better than Vicky does, but this lets me move her into what she likes doing best, which is training. And if her wolf is peaceful? Training new Inquisitors will be perfect. And Declan? I’ve gone over his file. Training is perfect for him, as are rescue ops. Amber and Declan working together on rescue ops? They’ll be unstoppable.”

My wolf’s interest surged at the mention of rescue ops. “What sort of ops? Like that damned castle in France?”

“Things like that aren’t common, but yes, things like that. Fenerec are tougher than humans, and we can send Fenerec on rescue missions that humans would likely die doing. Sometimes, you will be rescuing people from a rogue wolf—like this potential rogue killing people here. You’d hunt the wolf and deal with him. Or her. And if someone made the wolf go wild on purpose, you’d deal with them while trying to save as many lives as possible. Sometimes, the Inquisition is asked to rescue kidnapped victims or hostages, although that’s touchier. Once again, your speed from what I was reading in your file.” Elliot scowled. “Your file pisses me off, frankly. Bluntly spoken, your handler heavily abused your abilities. We do not do that to our operatives.”

“Do what?”

“Try to kill you off repeatedly, underfeed you, and generally treat you like you’re expendable. When an operative takes on a dangerous job, they know it’s potentially a suicide mission, they are compensated accordingly, and if they do die as a result of the mission, their family is compensated. Yes, we’re sometimes executioners, but we try to be fair. We can’t afford to let rogue witches or wolves kill Normals. The Normals can’t defend themselves. And silver bullets? They’re an expensive bitch to make. Silver is not a good metal for ammunition. Silver bullets tend to, frankly, suck. Can it be done? Yes. Barely. But the cost is ridiculous. Are they effective?” Elliot turned his glare to Richard. “If I ever catch wind of you playing with silver bullets again, you will discover how nasty I can get.”

Richard huffed and refused to look the witch in his eyes. Nicolina fought to free her hands, and when she failed, she bit her husband’s shoulder and growled at him.

“I take it Richard has been shot with a silver bullet before?”

“Yes. It was an accident in that case, but he should have known better than to approach someone armed in a catatonic state.” Elliot’s glare turned on Nicolina. “Don’t even get me started about you.”