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My second-in-command, Olivia Reeves, didn’t even flinch when I lost my temper. The noise from slamming my hand on the desk between us hadn’t deterred her in the slightest. She pressed her lips into a tight line, clearly not understanding.

“Today would have been a perfect day for a stocking run,” she added, “and maybe you wouldn’t be so cranky if you found a way to get laid.”

Without answering, I stood and sauntered to the window in my office, feeling like an arrow on a bowstring pulled taut. Each creak of the wooden floor sliced through the heavy silence. Emma had been into me Friday night. At least up until she had disappeared out of my truck, and I’d been irritable since. That was the closest I’d been to bedding anyone in… I didn’t know how long. There was too much going on in our lives right now.

Acheron had to be behind the random shifter disappearances, and we already knew how much he envied the collective power the shifter clans wielded. He wanted our powers and our resources for himself. As one of the most affluent packs, our pack was usually the focus for Acheron’s ire. Oh, and one my long-dead relatives had killed his mother, so that didn’t help. Acheron had been bothering our packs for centuries, never quite able to win, honing his techniques, working his way into a full-blown threat.

If we were going to beat him, we had to unite, and there was only one way the shifter tribes united: the multimorph drew them together.

Our pack lived within a stone’s throw of a dozen other shifter packs—bear shifters, big cat shifters, fox shifters, and raven shifters. The borders of our territory constantly jostled against the others, a careful, barely-there balance. Though we existed in a pseudo-peace for now, it changed often.

At least there was the prophecy of the multimorph we all shared, like some great shared historical origin story.

Yet none of it had anything to do with Olivia and her challenge of my authority.

I whirled to face her. “You don’t have to fucking understand. I am the alpha, and I am in charge.”

Instincts were a big part of how I had earned my spot at the top of the pack, and I wouldn’t tolerate herquestioning much longer. My mood had nothing to do with it.

Something was coming, and we weren’t ready. Acheron had been quiet too long. The leaders of the other shifter packs had members who had come up missing, and they all reported traces of magic around their borders, like an echo of a scent we couldn’t yet connect back to Acheron. None of them knew what was going on, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. In my gut, I knew the survival of our pack would depend on facing whatever unseen threat Acheron had conjured. Without the multimorph to unite us, I wasn’t sure how we were going to win against the growing strength of the dark mage.

I couldn’t put my finger—or my paw—on his specific ultimate plans yet, but we were all waiting, human, wolf, and shifter alike. The status quo had been going on too long, and the longer our usual kept on, the more I was certain whatever was out there was going to be catastrophic. Acheron had something major up the sleeves of his wizard robes.

“Don’t be dull-nosed, Logan. We havegotto make a trip into Willow Creek,” Olivia snapped at me. She flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder, and her gray eyes turned to slits.

“I am aware of the need,Beta, but I won’t have you challenging my decisions,” I snarled.

“When I first brought this up, we’d alreadyrun out of?—"

“Not yet,” I repeated for the third time. “We have to continue the patrols.”

“We’ve been running patrols three times a day for a week, Logan.” A growl reverberated in her throat, and behind her human face, I could almost see the sandy blonde wolf with gray eyes, so much like her human form. “There’snothingout there.”

A tingle rippled up my arms, over my head, and down my back. “There is, and it doesn’t matter if we can’t put a name or a face to it yet.”

“Thenwhat’s out there?” Olivia pushed. “There’s no evidence of anything. You can’t possibly believe Acheron would threaten us again after we beat him back last time.”

“He won’t give up until he’s dead,” I muttered. “And he’s only getting stronger.”

“Then where’s the multimorph?”

I made no sound as I turned back toward her with my upper lip peeled back to expose my canines. She remained my top advisor because shewasn’tafraid to challenge me. It was the reason I’d chosen her, though she knew never to counter my decisions in front of any of the additional members of the pack.

We faced off for long moments. Finally, I said, “I will schedule a supply run for next week. In the meantime, we’re prepared, and we’re not going to go hungry. If the pack needs to burn off some steam, organize a hunt for tomorrow night.”

“Logan.”

“Olivia, don’t make me grab you by the scruff of your neck.”

Her shoulders dipped, and she lowered her gaze, signaling her acceptance. “As you wish, Alpha.”

Her use of my pack title made the corners of my mouth twitch. She only bothered to use it when she was incredibly furious. As my right hand, Olivia didn’t always have to agree with me. That wasn’t how pack life or how pack hierarchy worked.

“I’ll be leaving for my own patrol shortly. Organize the others. You’re dismissed,” I said as regally as I could manage, intending to verbally thump her on the snout a little.

Her back stiffened, and I didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath. My words had hit their intended mark, and she whirled, stomped out of my office, out of my home, and slammed the front door behind her. The crash reverberated in the silence. One of these days, she was going to shatter that antique hardwood door or the leaded glass inside it.

I jogged to the parlor window in time to see her barking orders to a few pack members in the large lawn areas around our main compound. Those assigned to patrol would pay for the foul mood I’d put her in. Sucked to be them.