Claimed (The Lair of the Wolven #1) by J.R. Ward

“I found what you’re looking for,” he said. “This way.”

Eastwind turned and cut into the forest—and there was no question that she was going to follow him. Fortunately, she kept up easily, even though his stride was long and he never misplaced his feet on the rocky, uneven ground.

“Will the wolf survive?” he asked as they wound around pines.

There was no reason to ask how he knew another one had been found. “We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours. At least that’s what Rick says.”

“Was it one of yours?”

“It was tagged, yes. A male. He was magnificent—is magnificent, I mean.”

There was no more talking until the sheriff stopped and pointed. “Over there.”

The instant Lydia focused on what he’d found, she jumped ahead, shoving boughs out of the way. The bait trap was chained to a sapling, the stainless steel box vented and open at the top. Inside, remnants of meat secured by a wire had dried out.

“Motherfucker,” she whispered as she knelt down and tested the links of the chain. “I need to take this with—”

“Come stand behind me.”

Looking up, she saw that Eastwind had unholstered his service weapon and was holding it by his thigh.

“Don’t shoot me,” she said.

“I won’t.”

Hustling out of the way, she put her arms over her face—which was a little ridiculous—

Pop!

As the bullet hit the chain, there was a clang and a pfft of loose dirt, and in the pause afterward, a crow flushed from a branch, squawking as it flew off.

Going back to the trap, Lydia uncoiled the links from the trunk, and hefted the thing up onto her shoulder.

“You know they’re killing the wolves on purpose,” she said. “To protect people who haven’t been bothered by animals that have more right to be here than we do.”

“I’ll take you back to your headquarters.” He pivoted and started to walk off. “My vehicle is this way.”

“You can’t let them do this.” Lydia stayed put. “I know that resort is bringing jobs here, but they’re too expensive on the wildlife.”

The sheriff just kept going. “I’ll get Alonzo to trailer your ATV back.”

“They’re taking what does not belong to them,” she called out in a voice that cracked.

When Eastwind continued to ignore her, she glared across the valley at the construction site. That fucking hotel and its five hundred acres of “serenity and rejuvenation.” If she could have blown the place up, she would have lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite right this second.

It was the first time in her life she’d seriously considered murder.



The Wolf Study Project’s facility was located at the head of the preserve, just off the county road that wound its way around the base of Deer Mountain and the shores of Lake Goodness. The parking lot was just packed dirt with an overlay of gravel, and the building was a modest sprawl along the landscape, one-storied, cedar-shingled, hidden by hemlocks. As Lydia and Eastwind pulled up, there was a Jeep and a sedan in place, plus Lydia’s hatchback and a WSP truck that had last worked back when Clinton was president.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said as she opened her door.

“You’re welcome.”

With a grunt, she dragged the bait trap out of the wheel well. As she slung the weight over her shoulder, she went to shut the door—

“Lydia.”

She stopped and leaned back into the SUV. “Yes?”

Eastwind’s dark eyes were grave. “I don’t offer to help you with that only because I know you’ll say no.”

Looking down, she shook her head. “I need you to take care of our problem across the valley. That’s the only thing I need you to do. Stop protecting the powerful, it’s unseemly in a man of what I’d always assumed was your kind of honor.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She just closed things and strode off, not to the front of the building, but to the back clinic entrance. As she stepped through into an open area full of vet supplies and tracking devices, she smelled antiseptic cleaner and blinked in the glare of the fluorescent ceiling panels. Rick’s exam rooms, where injured wolves were treated and released, and healthy ones were examined and tagged, were completely isolated from the administration part of things.

“I saw you on the monitor,” Rick said as he came out of a room. He stopped in the process of drying his hands. “What is that. And no, you don’t know that whatever was in there was—”

“Is he still alive.” She held out the trap. “And of course this is what poisoned him—”

“Do we have footage of the wolf taking—”

“Test what’s left! Jesus Christ, Rick, I’ll get you the video—”

“Shh, keep your voice down.”

Lydia looked away. Looked back. “Please. I just … is he still alive?”

“Yes, but it’s going to be a fight.”

Lydia shoved the trap into Rick’s hands and went to the open doorway of the exam room. In the center of the tiled space, on a stainless steel table, the wolf was intubated and limp, his side pumping up and down thanks to a machine. An IV ran into a shaved portion of his foreleg and soft beeping tracked a sluggish heart rate.