Page 2 of Wolf Revealed

The sweetest, most intoxicating lavender he’d ever smelled. It was like he’d just walked past an industrial-sized essential oil diffuser.

He glanced around to see if there were any lavender bushes nearby, but didn’t see any. The scent wasn’t coming from any of the surrounding buildings or anywhere else that he could easily pin down.

Talk about weird.

Mike wasn’t surprised his head was playing tricks on him. He hadn’t been sleeping well lately, thanks to nightmares involving endless images of an exploding home and flames that climbed high into the sky.

He had no idea why he was once again having nightmares about the death of his fiancée and child. It had been almost a decade since that night. Those memories were long buried and forgotten. Or so he’d thought. Regardless, he’d barely managed two hours of sleep a night. Between that and the extreme workload SWAT had been under lately, no wonder he was smelling things that weren’t there.

Telling himself he’d worry about it later he focused on the building in front of him. Hostage situation first. Sleep deprivation issues later.

“Stop right there!” someone shouted from inside the building.

The warning jerked Mike back to the present, reminding him that if he didn’t get his head screwed on straight, he was going to get it shot off.

“Not a step closer or we start shooting!”

Mike came to a stop a few feet from the building, holding up his hands in what he hoped was a placating gesture. Through the partially open door, he could make out a tall man with disheveled brown hair, along with the barrel of an AK-47 rifle. Two other men were peeking out the broken windows to either side of the door. That meant most of the Riders were watching this side of the building. Xander must have picked up on that as well because his pack mate was already relaying the details to the rest of the team over the radio.

“I’m not armed. I’m just here to talk,” Mike said even as Connor’s voice came through his earpiece saying he and the other guys were moving into the north and east sides of the warehouse.

“There’s nothing to talk about!” the guy at the door insisted, gesturing wildly with the weapon in his hand. “You and your cop buddies need to leave, or people are going to start dying!”

Mike didn’t answer right away, not wanting this to turn into a shouting match. He was trying to de-escalate this, not make it worse.

“You know that’s not going to happen,” he said calmly. “As much as you might want us to leave, we can’t. So, we’re going to have to work something else out.”

“There’s nothing to work out. It’s too late for talking!”

This time, the man’s words were almost drowned out by someone behind him suggesting they shoot a hostage to show the cops they were serious.

Crap, this was going bad really fast.

“It’s not too late,” Mike said quickly. “But it will be if you hurt any of those hostages. What happens next will be out of my control. Don’t make a bad situation worse, okay?”

Mike held his breath. He’d talked a lot of suspects off the figurative ledge since joining SWAT, but didn’t have any formal negotiator training. If he said the wrong thing now, this guy and his buddies could go off the deep end and start shooting.

“This place is a maze in here,” Hale said over the radio, frustration in his voice. “Carter and I have been running around since we entered the building and still haven’t gotten anywhere. Some of the doors are welded shut, which means we have to take the long way to get anywhere.”

“Trey and I have run into the same problem,” Connor announced. “We could bash our way through, but not without making a bunch of noise.”

The doors were welded shut? What the hell was that about? Sure, the warehouse wasn’t being used right now, but he’d never seen anyone go that far to keep trespassers out.

Mike muttered a curse at the fear-filled screams coming from inside. It sounded like they were dragging the hostages deeper into the warehouse, and they were fighting every step of the way.

“Guys, things in there are spiraling out of control fast,” he said softly into his mic. “Get inside as fast as you can. I’m going in.”

Ignoring the automatic rifle pointed in his direction, Mike lunged toward the partially open door, his inner werewolf letting out a rumbling growl. Pain ripped through his shoulder within a heartbeat of the gun going off, but he ignored the injury and kept moving fast.

Fighting to keep his fangs and claws from extending, he slammed into the metal and glass door, shattering it and ripping the frame off the hinges, sending the man who’d been standing there to the floor. The guy ended up buried under what was left of the door, too out of it to care about anything else.

Mike heard rapid gunfire from his left as he sprang to his feet. Something thumped him in the back, driving the air from his lungs, even with the tactical vest he was wearing. Any hope of restraining his inner wolf disappeared then, and when he turned to face whoever had shot at him, it was to see the man standing there in wide-eyed shock.

Guess that meant his brown eyes were gleaming a vivid gold and his fangs had extended.

But there was no going back now.

Mike covered the distance between him and the guy in a few strides, grabbing the barrel of the rifle as it went off again. He grunted as the round slammed into his chest. Even though most of the energy was absorbed by the ceramic plate in his tactical vest, it still hurt like hell.