In the Company of Wolves(13)

Cooper had been trying to talk to him privately ever since they’d gotten back to the compound this morning, but they hadn’t had a chance to slip away until a few minutes ago. When you worked with fifteen other werewolves, all of whom had incredibly good hearing, finding a little privacy could be tough.

Becker wasn’t surprised that everyone was losing their minds. It wasn’t every day they got into a gun battle with another pack of werewolves. And while Xander’s squad had technically won—taking down five of the nearly psychotic werewolves from the mob pack—nobody was in the mood to cheer. Their success had come at a cost. Hale Delaney, along with Max and Alex, had been hit with multiple rounds from the other pack’s submachine guns. If they hadn’t been werewolves, they’d all be dead. As if that weren’t bad enough¸ Khaki had been bitten. Seriously…bitten. She’d shot one of the enemy werewolves eight times, and the guy had still been able to get his fangs latched on to her shoulder. Khaki would be fine, but Xander was still so pissed that no one could even look at him without earning a snarl.

Becker leaned back against the counter separating the weapons and ammo area from the front of the building. “Do about what?”

Cooper looked at him like he was insane. Even Tuffie’s jaw dropped. Hell, maybe he was a little nuts. After nearly half a day to think about it, he still had no idea why he’d behaved the way he had around that female werewolf. Not only had he not arrested her, but he had hidden her in a box so no one else could either. That wasn’t exactly normal.

“You’re joking, right?” Cooper said. “You know you have to tell Gage and Xander about that female werewolf. You got a good look at her face. If we can ID her, she could lead us to the rest of her pack.”

Becker’s gut clenched. Some part of him knew it was the right thing to do. Shit, her pack had nearly beaten those poor security guards to death. On top of that, there were at least six other werewolves out there besides her, all probably just as insane and out of control as the ones they’d killed at the warehouse. But he couldn’t betray her. He didn’t understand why, but he couldn’t.

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“Why the hell not?” Cooper demanded. “She’s a criminal. Shit, Becker, she pointed her automatic weapon at you.”

“But she didn’t pull the trigger,” he argued. “She could have, but she didn’t. She’s not like the others. She’s not a criminal.”

Cooper snorted. “How can you know that?”

Becker knew his friend was just trying to get him to see reason, which normally would have been a good approach. But as far as this woman was concerned, reason didn’t enter into the picture. For the first time in his life, he was making decisions based purely on instinct and emotion. He was usually linear and calculating. This should have been freaking him out, but the funny part was that it felt right.

He ran a hand through his short, dark blond hair and sighed. “I can’t tell you how I know…I just do. She’s different. You have to believe me when I say that. And whatever you do, you can’t tell Gage or anybody else about her.”

Cooper pulled a tall metal stool out from behind the counter and sat down. Tuffie left her place by the door and moved closer, as if she really wanted to hear the next part of their conversation.

“Becker, you’re asking me to lie to Gage and the rest of the team about something that could get a lot of people killed, so no bullshitting. You need to be completely honest with me on this.” Cooper pinned him with a hard look. “Are you doing this because you think a woman you’ve known all of sixty seconds could be The One for you?”

Ever since Gage had met Mac, the rest of the SWAT team had been seeing The One in every woman who gave them a casual glance. After Xander met Khaki, it had only gotten worse. It was the number one topic of conversation whenever they had some downtime. Hell, even when they were on incidents. Becker was just as guilty as the other guys when it came to wondering if there was someone special out there for him.

Right now, though, his first impulse was to say Hell no! He’d exchanged half a dozen words with her in all of thirty seconds. It’s not like he was in love with her or anything like that. He was asking Cooper to lie for him because he thought she was innocent and because…well, she seemed nice.

Shit, that was lame.

The longer he stood there trying to come up with an answer, the longer Cooper’s theory had to sink in. Was his friend right? Was the reason he’d reacted so strongly to this beautiful werewolf because they were somehow linked together like Gage and Mac, and Xander and Khaki?