Undercover Wolf

Kristine watched his face as Quinn squinted at the small print that came up. “Couple of agencies are involved in this investigation,” he said. “There’s some speculation about what kinds of animals could be involved. Species that still have habitats around there include foxes, coyotes, bobcats and black bears. Used to be mountain lions, too—and gray wolves.”

Wolves. The word hung in the air this time.

“Not Grace and Simon,” Kristine whispered, hoping it was true. She put her hand on Quinn’s shoulder—whether to reassure him or convince him, she wasn’t sure.

The touch was like a bolt of lightning, making her even more cognizant of his hot and alluring presence. But she wasn’t a wimp. She had courage—of all kinds. She let her hand rest there … for now.

Even when he turned his head a little and looked at her with those golden eyes.

“So what do you think?” she asked him.

“What do you think?” he countered. “You willing to go there to help me investigate—in any form I need to be? Your commanding officers—our commanding officers—apparently have to act dead set against our being there.”

He’d used the word dead. Like the two mutilated tourists.

Like Alpha Force would be, if the perpetrators really were Grace and Simon, and that got out to the world.

Kristine understood why the muckety-mucks like General Yarrow and that guy Olivante from the Department of Defense’s Defense Special Projects Agency were so concerned.

Not everyone, even in the military, knew about Alpha Force. But if it were ever shown that the killings were done by shapeshifters, and that those shapeshifters were not just part of some grotesque horror story but members of a very covert and elite U.S. military force, the repercussions could be terrible.

Terrible to the U.S. Armed Forces.

And potentially devastating—fatal—to the existence of Alpha Force.

What would happen to its members then—especially its shapeshifter members?

They’d be humiliated at the least. Outed. Paraded as absurd freaks through the media.

They would never be able to use their very special, unique and amazing abilities to help with national security ever again.

The people like General Yarrow and Team Leader Olivante would be out to do the best damage control they could.

If that meant dealing with Grace and Simon in some terrible way, they’d do it—even the general, who clearly loved Alpha Force. If they needed scapegoats—scapewolves—they’d do what they had to.

But both Quinn and she would have different agendas. His might be different from hers, as well.

She wanted to learn the truth. Protect Grace and Simon if they were innocent, which she prayed they were.

But she would protect Alpha Force, too.

Quinn? Well, his main agenda might be to help his brother and sister-in-law, no matter what.

She would work with him, at least until their agendas diverged. Then, she would see.

“Let’s do it,” she said.

“Good.” He paused, then stood. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, but it seemed challenging. With a touch of humor added? “Here’s what we’ll do, then. We’ll go to Bar Harbor tomorrow, undercover. And know what our cover IDs will be?”

“No,” she said, sure she wouldn’t like the response.

“To get the most information about our missing honeymoon couple—” he paused dramatically, then grinned “—you and I will be there on our honeymoon, too.”

“What?” Kristine froze. What was he talking about?

And why did the words send the tiniest shiver of anticipation through her?

She shrugged it off. She knew what he meant. But—

“With assumed identities, of course,” he said curtly. “Like I said, undercover.” Although when she dared to look at him she saw not only humor, but also challenge, in his expression. “That’ll help us get the most information possible as we investigate.”

“Of course. Great idea.” She attempted to sound nonchalant. “We’ll try to follow Grace and Simon’s trail as much as possible. We’ll find and clear them.

You’ll see.”

Chapter 4

The hotel was charming, a converted Victorian mansion right in the heart of Bar Harbor. From what Kristine had seen of it so far, the downtown area was a small, charismatic collection of stores and restaurants, inns and parks and churches, mostly near the water, since the town was located on Mount Desert Island.

A wonderful place for a honeymoon, she thought—if the lovers stayed in their rooms and out of trouble.

But these new, false honeymooners—Quinn and her? They would soon be out and about and looking for trouble … looking for what had happened to their real newlywed counterparts.

“You ready for this?” Quinn sat in the driver’s seat of the sedan they had rented after flying into Bangor, about fifty miles away. This was the first time she had seen him out of his uniform since the wedding … unless she counted when she had seen him in nothing at all.

The thought shot a plume of fire through her insides—from anxiety, she told herself. That was all. Before they had left Ft. Lukman, they had talked their plans over with Drew Connell. Since they were here very unofficially, he had agreed that it was better for them to really go undercover, take on alternate identities. Act as if they had nothing to do with the military. Or Alpha Force.

Honeymooners? He’d raised his eyebrows at that but hadn’t objected. In fact, he seemed to support the idea.

And despite Kristine’s deep misgivings, the pretense actually did make sense. They might get the same kinds of responses to their questions that the missing couple had been given. Be treated similarly by people they ran into here.

Learn something faster than if they pretended just to be acquaintances vacationing together.

They would therefore sleep in the same room. They would pretend, outside that room, to be lovey-dovey. Sexually attracted to one another.

One major problem, Kristine thought, was that it would be too easy for her to feign the latter …

“Sure. Let’s go in.” She responded to Quinn’s question with an assumed bravado.

She jumped out of the car, opened the door to the backseat and pulled out her backpack, which contained mostly clothes. It would have been hard to hide the Alpha Force elixir and light in carry-on baggage, so she had packed them in a suitcase and checked it. Even so, they had identified themselves as military to the Transportation Security Administration folks at the airport. These days, checked luggage screening looked for anything that could be turned into a terrorist bomb. An intense light might not get anyone’s attention, but the quantity of elixir might. So might the weapons they had packed.

They had given no explanation of their travel plans to the TSA people who had checked them out. Fortunately, no one had questioned them too closely. Not that they’d admit what they were up to—or that one of the tools they would take advantage of here, as soon as possible, was Quinn’s shapeshifting ability.

“I’ll take that, honey.”

Quinn’s deep voice behind her made her jump. Honey? The word shouldn’t give her shivers—at least not of pleasure. No, it was the harbinger of the night before them.

“No, thank you, dear.” She turned and gave him a couple of bats of her eyelashes, concurrently lifting her chin as if challenging him. “I can handle this, as long as you get our large bags out of the trunk and take care of them.”