It had taken him a good while to pick himself off her bedroom floor. Good thing NODEAL agents weren’t the settle-down-start-a-family types because he seriously doubted his future ability to father children.

It had been one week since he had picked himself up off Claire’s bedroom floor. Panic threatened to swallow him whole at the prospect of not finding her again. That he might have set a lycan loose on the population made him slightly ill. Clearly, this was a lesson. And physically painful as far as lessons went. He should have destroyed her that first night. He should have said something when Cooper placed him on call—five days wasted on cleanup duty when he could have been tracking the lycan who had infected Lenny.

But he hadn’t expected her to run, had assumed to find her still in denial, going about her life in blissful ignorance.

He thumped the steering wheel with his fist. That first night had been ideal. Quick. Neat. Painless. Why didn’t he pull the trigger then instead of reholstering his gun and going against everything he believed in, everything he had been taught? In one simple act, he had turned his back on the very code that had been drilled into him. The code that he lived and killed by.

Destroy them at any cost.

Sitting outside her apartment, he told himself this wasn’t a useless venture. Someone would have to see to the cat she had left behind. She hadn’t left out enough food, and he knew enough about Claire to know that she was too responsible to forget about her cat.

Gideon had no idea if her parents lived in the area. It would take him the better part of a year to contact every Morgan in the greater Houston area. And time was the thing he needed most. Aside from Claire Morgan.

In minutes Gideon could have her complete file in his hands. But at what cost?

Typing her name into NODEAL’s database would wave a red flag for Cooper. If Gideon ran a search on her name, she would automatically be listed on the end-of-day activity report Cooper reviewed. Then he’d have some explaining to do. He wasn’t ready to admit that his own stupidity had cost him a lycan. Nor was he about to sic Cooper on her. If she had to die, he would take care of it. It was only right. She was his responsibility.

“Shit,” he swore under his breath. The new moon had come and gone. Time was running out. If he didn’t find her soon, he’d have no choice but to access the database.