Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel by KL Mabbs Read Free Book Online Page A

The client had them studying these men for a reason. But it wasn’t just the men he was watching. There were other conditions to the contract.
    “Not since last time you asked.”
    “Then find me the classified ones. And that includes all news footage that’s been blocked.”
    “That would be . . .”
    “Just fucking find them.”
    Gerund studied the satellite feed again. One minute there was a woman in the trees with Michael, the next a wolf. The change had been somewhat hidden by the trees overhead and Jacob’s extrapolation was as narrow as his view of the world. But, since humans couldn’t change into animals it had to be something else.
    Hillman's certainty blossomed. Michael had a military version of a P.A.C.
    Gerund wanted Captain Scott to live, needed him to, since it meant what he thought. As he kept studying the images before him, Gerund wondered how difficult it would be to change the encryption on a military P.A.C. To accept a new owner.

Chapter 9 Michael
    When Michael Scott was sixteen, he brought a woman home for the first time. Gwen. He would have described her as winsome. She was the one to take his hand first, so sure of what she wanted. Michael liked the attention.
    She looked at him a bit funny when he walked around the house, shushing her, as if he was trying to hear something. She giggled when he looked through the windows, searching for his father. She squeezed his hand and grabbed his arm at the same time, resting her head against the firm muscles of his shoulder.
    “Michael, isn’t your dad at work?”
    “I never know where he is. His work . . .” Michael stopped at that. His father had cautioned him about his work. Not even the army should know about this project. So Michael shut up.
    The kitchen door opened easy, and the fridge too, after he had popped it open a millimetre and peered in, looking for the thin, almost translucent wires his dad had started using. Gwen walked in, carefree, her skirt swaying as she walked.
    “Come on , Michael, show me your room.”
    He saw the glint of the wire as she walk ed through the living room arch, imagining the way it would press against her ankle as the pressure built up, the skin indenting, knowing it was too late to stop her from triggering it. There was only one hope. He stepped from beside her to in front of her, pressing her against his chest. Gwen thought it was play and she kissed him, her eyes open and wanting to see his face as she pressed her tongue past his lips. Something one of her girlfriends had told her about.
    The bang wasn’t very loud. Michael was used to that. Training wasn’t supposed to alert the neighbo urs. The steel pellets, though, they hurt as they punched past his clothing, the same way a dog’s bite will, not marking the cloth at all. His flesh would be peppered with heavy bruises by morning. A hard knock on his skull told him how lethal this trap had been.
    Gwen screamed.
    Blood trailed down her face, one beautiful eye burst open and ragged, that part of the body too soft and fragile. The guilt sat in his chest just as battered as the orb in her face.
    He stayed with her, all the way to the hospital.
    The doctors commended him on his triage. Told him he had saved her eye with the speed and care with which he had applied aid.
    He didn’t tell them it was his fault. Didn’t explain that it was training for his way into the army , or that his choices could have possibly killed someone.
    He knew that . Saw it in his mind every time he passed Gwen in the halls at school after that.
    She never smiled at him again.
    That hurt more than anything else did.

    Michael stumbled into the house with Faelon at his side, holding him up and guiding him to a seat. His breath was ragged from the exertion and the high altitude, and he didn’t have any more medication. Somewhere along the half a klick back to the house, she had shifted into her human form. One second she was a wolf—then, she wasn’t. It had been as fast and as