Fighting for Wolves (Shifter Country Wolves Book 3) by Roxie Noir Page A

“Isn’t that pretty normal, though? Do most people not have kitchen knives?”
    “They’re testing them for human blood,” he said.
    “They’re not gonna find any.”
    “I know,” Dane said softly. “But it’s not up to me, and that’s why I’m in here and Ramirez is out there. He’s not a bad guy, just... thickheaded, sometimes.”
    Isaac snorted, but didn’t say anything.
    Dane knew that he could be rigid and rule bound, but he was nothing like his boss. Ramirez didn’t believe in bending a single rule, and he also didn’t believe in suspicion and circumstance, like the fact that there was almost no way a five-foot-two woman could drive a blunt kitchen knife into a man’s ribcage that many times. When Dane had pointed that out to him, Ramirez had just said, “Maybe she works out.”
    Grey moved against Isaac, bringing her left hip against Dane, and Dane bit his lip.
    She’s a suspect , he told himself. You’re already breaking protocol in a major way. You can’t touch her .
    “You were telling me about your first date,” Grey said. “I think you were trying to take my mind off of me being in jail.”
    “Technically, you’re not in jail,” Dane offered. “This is just a holding cell, we haven’t processed you or anything.”
    “Feels like jail,” Grey said, sounding a little sulky.
    “Jail is much worse,” Dane assured her. “This is a cakewalk, compared to actual jail.”
    Grey just looked at him, her eyes wide and a little nervous.
    “I’m not helping, am I?” he asked.
    She just shook her head, and Dane sighed.
    “Okay,” he said. “So we were in Sacramento, and we’d just finished our first fight.”
    It had been a strange fight, and it had taken place at a time when Dane already knew that his wolf-fighting days were coming to an end. He was good, but not great, and he was starting to feel the little effects of every fight.
    Then, he’d stepped into the ring opposite a deep brown wolf with black eyes. Both of them had frozen at the same time and just stared at each other. Dane hadn’t been able to hear anything over his heartbeat, not the crowds, not the trainers yelling at both of them.
    At last, the other wolf had shaken himself free 0f whatever was happening in his head, and he’d attacked Dane. The fight hadn’t been long, just a few rounds, some fur flying. Dane knew that it had disappointed the organizers by not being as vicious as they liked, but he hadn’t given a damn.
    Afterwards, he and the other wolf trotted to the makeshift locker room together — an area behind some sheets that had been strung up. Both of them shifted, completely stark naked.
    “Good fight,” the other wolf had said, stretching out his hand. “I’m Isaac.”
    “Dane,” he’d said. He’d felt lit up like a Christmas tree, and was almost certain that Isaac could see the electricity humming through his body, lust and desire all wrapped up in the adrenaline of the fighting ring.
    That’s when the doors had slammed open and the shouting had started. Seconds later, the Sacramento PD had burst through the sheets hanging around Isaac and Dane, guns out, and ordered them both to the floor, still naked. Dane had to talk the officers into letting them put on sweatpants and t-shirts before being hauled down to the station in handcuffs, where they’d waited in a holding cell that had looked a lot like the one they were in with Grey.
    “You remember making out in the cell?” Isaac asked.
    Dane looked at Grey, blushing a little.
    “Of course I remember that,” he said. “We were the last two they took in for processing, so we were alone together in the cell, and I couldn’t help myself.”
    “We still had handcuffs on,” Isaac said. “The cops had to beat on the bars to get us to pay attention to them.”
    “When they took him away, he just shouted, ‘I’m in Rustvale!’” mused Dane. “So then I had to come looking for him.”
    Isaac laughed.
    “It worked, didn’t it?”
    “I