“Got it,” Tess murmured. The chunk of lead clattered into the basin of a stainless steel bowl. “That was the worst part. The rest of the procedure will be a piece of cake.”

Brock grunted. He could bear the pain easily enough. Hell, a gunshot wound and patch-up was standard issue just about every night for one or more of the warriors coming off patrol. But Jenna hadn’t signed on for this shit, ex-cop or not. She hadn’t asked to be part of the Order’s battles, though why that should matter to him, he didn’t know.

He was feeling a lot of things he had no goddamned right to feel.

Hunger still stirred in him like a tempest, rising up from two powerful, equally demanding sources. Giving in to either one would be a mistake, especially now. Especially because the object of his twin desires was a woman the Order needed to keep safe. To keep on their side, at least until they could determine what she might mean to their war with Dragos.

And yet he wanted her.

He felt protective of her, even though he knew he was unsuitable for the job, and even though she seemed to balk at the idea of needing help from anyone. Lucan had made her his responsibility, but Brock could hardly deny that she’d become his personal mission even earlier than that. From the moment he first laid eyes on her in Alaska, after the Ancient had tormented her for days in her own home, he’d been emotionally invested in keeping her safe.

Not good, he chided himself. Bad fucking idea, letting himself get personally involved where his business was concerned.

Hadn’t he learned that lesson the hard way back in Detroit?

Getting personally invested in any mission was the fast lane to failure.

Minutes must have passed as he contemplated the years that stood between that dark chapter of his life and the place he stood now. He was dimly aware of Tess operating in attentive silence, Renata standing by with the needed instruments and supplies as they were requested. It wasn’t until the final suture was in place and Tess had walked to the sink to scrub up that Brock realized he was still touching Jenna, still caressing the line of her carotid with the pad of his thumb.

He cleared his throat and pulled his hand away. When he spoke, his voice was a raw scrape of sound. “Are we finished here yet, Doc?”

Tess paused at the sink, turning to look over her shoulder at him. “What about your injury?”

“I’m good,” he said. He had no intention of sticking around any longer than necessary, and besides, his Breed genetics would heal him in no time.

Tess gave him a faint shrug. “Then, we’re finished.”

On the table beside him, Jenna’s gaze found his and held, steady and strong. Her lips, still pale and bluish from shock and cold, parted on an expelled little puff of air. Her throat worked as she swallowed and tried again. “Brock … thank—”

“I’m out of here,” he snarled, knowingly harsh. He took a step back from the table, then, with a self-directed curse, he pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the infirmary.

CHAPTER

Seven

Brock swung the black Rover out of the Order’s estate and headed into the night alone. Normally the warriors ran their patrols in teams, but, frankly, he was feeling like piss-poor company—even for himself.

His veins were throbbing with aggression, and the hunger that had sunk its claws into him in the infirmary with Jenna wasn’t doing anything for his attitude, either. He needed to feel the pavement under his boots and a weapon in his hand. Hell, at the rate his night had been going thus far, he’d even welcome the nut-freezing chill of the early December wind that he normally despised.

Anything to distract him from the need that was raking him raw.

To help on that score, he pulled his cell phone from the pocket of his fatigues and speed-dialed Kade.

“Sunshine Cleaning,” the warrior answered wryly. “How are things back at the ranch?”

Brock could only growl.

Kade chuckled. “That good, huh? When’s the last time someone brought a bleeding human into the compound? Or any human, for that matter.”

“Things were a bit tense for a while,” Brock admitted. “Fortunately, Tess stepped in and patched Jenna up. She’s going to be okay.”

“Glad to hear that. Alex would never forgive us if we let anything happen to her best friend.”

Brock really didn’t want to discuss Jenna, or the responsibility of keeping her safe. He scowled as he headed deeper into the city, his gaze scanning the streets and alleyways, on the lookout for thugs or assholes—any excuse to pull over and engage in a little hand-to-hand. Human or Breed, he could give a shit, so long as they put up a decent fight.

“What’s the status of the location in Southie?” he asked Kade.

“Like it never happened, my man. Niko and I got rid of the bodies, the broken glass, and all the blood. The meat chiller where they held Jenna looked like it had been used for a fucking slaughterhouse.”

Brock’s jaw went tight as he relived the moment he’d found her in a flash of vivid recollection. His temper flared even hotter when he thought about the two bastards who’d harmed her.

“What about the witnesses?” In the long half second of silence that answered him, Brock ground out a curse. “The two guys who picked Jenna up outside the compound and brought her out there—I left one of them semiconscious in an office outside the meat chiller, the other hightailed it after he shot me and caught a glimpse of my fangs.”

“Ah, fuck,” Kade said. “There was no one in the building except the corpses we disappeared. We didn’t know about witnesses, man.”

Yeah, right. Because in the heat of the moment, with Jenna bleeding and shivering in his arms, Brock neglected to mention that fact.

“Goddamn it,” he ground out, slamming his fist against the dashboard of the Rover. “It’s my fault. I fucked up. I should have told you there were live ones that needed to be contained.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Kade said. “We’re not that far away. I’ll tell Niko to head back. We can have another look around the place, chase down your two runners, and scrub their memories of the whole thing.”

“Not necessary. I’m already on it.” Brock hung a sharp left at the nearest intersection and gunned it for Boston’s South End. “I’ll report in once I have the situation contained.”

“You sure?” Kade asked. “If you want some backup—”

“I’ll call in when it’s handled.”

Before his brother-in-arms could comment about the lethal tone of Brock’s voice, he clapped the phone closed and shoved it back into his pocket as the Rover barreled into the underbelly of the city.

By the time he reached the neighborhood of the meatpacking plant, his pulse was hammering with the need for violence. He parked the vehicle on a side alley and trekked through the snowy lots so that he came up behind the building. Lights burned inside, and through the brick and mortar of the place, he could hear the muffled rumble of raised male voices, both of them heavily accented and one of them verging on hysteria.

Brock leapt silently onto the roof of the old building and made his way over to a snow-crusted skylight that looked down into the plant below. The two assholes he wanted to see were roaming back and forth among the hanging sides of beef, sharing a fifth of cheap vodka and smoking cigarettes held in shaking fingers.

“I’m telling you, Gresa,” shouted the one with the broken nose. “We need to call the cops!”

The shooter—Gresa, evidently—took a long swig from the bottle, then gave a stern shake of his head. “Tell them what, Nassi? Look around you! Do you see any evidence of what we think we saw in here tonight? I say, nothing happened. No cops.”