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“I don’t blame you for being angry. Hell, spitting mad. We dumped all this on you and didn’t so much as give you a chance to breathe.”

“I don’t need help to breathe,” Mo snapped. “I can breathe just fine. What I need to do is get back to what I should be doing.”

Zack looked distraught and Mo got it. He understood their apparent motives but he couldn't be caught up in all this shifter stuff. “You have Mattie,” Mo said softly. “He has to come first with you, and I wouldn’t expect it any other way.”

“I don’t know what to say, what to do,” Zack whispered, “but please take Victor with you. These shifters are playing for keeps. You need him.”

Mo hesitated. “I don’t know.”

The door opened and Victor prowled in. He seemed to read the room. “What?” he asked, but Mo saw his dark gaze fall on Mo’s pathetic bag of borrowed belongings.

“I’m going to find Khloe,” Mo said, glancing at Victor. Victor frowned, shot Zack a look, but nodded.

“With me.”

At least he hadn’t fought him over it. Mo looked at the bed. “None of this is mine,” he mumbled and walked to the door.

“Mo,” Zack whispered and moved toward him. Mo took a step back, but this time instead of hesitating, Zack kept going until they were standing almost face to face. Even if Mo had to look a long way up. Any other second in time and that would have been funny, or incredibly hot. Zack took Mo’s hand and drew him closer. “Don’t ever think that I don’t want to fight for you. That I want nothing more than to walk out that door with you.”

Victor glanced at him. “Go,” Zack choked out, stepping back. “He needs protection.” Victor strode toward Zack and wrapped one big hand around Zack’s neck, dipping his forehead to Zack’s, and Mo took the hit like a blow. “You should stay here with Zack.” At that moment they looked like they needed each other far more than Mo needed them.

But Victor didn’t even answer Mo. He addressed Zack. “I know this is killing you. I’ll keep him safe.”

But that meant Mo was splitting them up. What a mess.

“Zack? Mo?”

Hearing Riley shout, Mo opened the door and walked down the stairs. Daniel was standing at the entrance to the kitchen. “I have news,” Daniel said and walked into the kitchen with the expectation he would be followed.

Mo was glad to see just Riley and Daniel when he followed them in, but was surprised to see Alex come in behind Victor and Zack, who had followed him. “He’s watching a movie with Tyler, and he can't hear,” Alex said at Riley’s eye-brow lift, “but I want to hear this.” Mo knew who Alex was referring to, which was the main reason Mo had to take his problems elsewhere. Daniel leaned back and eyed the seventeen-year-old, who seemed like he was going to be a powerful alpha from what Mo had heard yesterday. “This affects my school, Daniel. I have the right, and you know you can trust me.”

Daniel's smile was slow in coming but it did, and he glanced at Riley half in amusement. “Good luck.” Riley just rolled his eyes and Alex grinned, battle won, and went to make coffee.

Daniel turned his attention to Mo. “We have eleven more missing teenagers.”

Mo gaped.

“What the hell?” Zack said, straightening up. “Since when? Where?”

Daniel held a hand up. “Not in this area but close. That’s why they haven’t come to my attention, and,” he sighed, “three have turned up dead.”

Riley leaned forward. “This is on top of the ones we already know about?” Daniel nodded, then thanked Alex for his coffee. Alex delivered some more and plonked cream and sugar down so everyone could help themselves.

“Yes,” Daniel said shortly. “But they weren’t immediately claimed, which is why I didn’t know.”

“What do you mean?” Mo asked, equally horrified and confused.

“When shifters die, they revert to human,” Victor answered. “There is nothing on any sort of post-mortem that can identify them as shifters.”

Mo felt sick. The poor kids.

Daniel turned his gaze on him. “Over the years, our main fight has always been about discovery. That if certain human governments knew about shifters, we would be forcibly weaponized. We’ve been lucky so far in the fact that the humans that know are as protective of us as a resource as we are ourselves, but that could change any day with any election, and we are trying to put policies in place that will protect us when that happens.”

Mo couldn’t imagine. No, unfortunately he could, and he reached out without thinking and grasped Zack’s hand. Victor hadn’t sat and was too far away, or he’d be holding onto him too. “Last year,” Daniel continued, “a maniac tried to make his own shifters by transferring the shifter’s animal to a human by force. I lost my cat when I was taken and it’s only because of Luke that I got a wolf.” He shrugged and smiled. “Took a little adjusting.”

Mo gaped, then realized what he was doing and closed his mouth on a snap. “Luke is the one who can create shifters?”

Daniel hesitated. “You understand how vital it is that he’s protected.” Daniel didn’t phrase it as a question, as if there was any doubt.