Page 33 of Fated to the Lone Shifter (Curse of the Lunaris Alpha #1)
Chapter thirty
Return of the Pack
SERA
T he second I step outside the police station, the night hits me—cool, sharp, and crawling with unease. The streetlights buzz overhead, casting halos that feel too bright, too exposed. I reach for my phone and text Tori again.
Where are you?** ETA? They’re getting out.**
Her reply comes fast.
Already there. Same spot as before. Added a few extras. You’ll need them.
Good girl.
I hop in the car and head back to the fire station, prepared for a long night ahead.
Ever since Bode and his pack walked out of the police station, I’ve been on edge.
I can feel the shift in the air, thick with anticipation.
Not the good kind. The kind that makes your neck prickle and your magic rise before your brain catches up.
Bode’s release on bail was a disaster in the making, and I knew it.
We all did. So when I hear over the radio that his entire crew is packing up and peeling out of town in a caravan of blacked-out SUVs, I’m not surprised. But something inside me freezes anyway.
It’s a major violation of their bail agreement—but who’s going to stop them tonight?
A big part of me hopes they’ll vanish for good. Just drive off into the night and leave us the hell alone. But I’m not that naive. They have a pattern. Every full moon, they disappear. And when they do, people die. And this full moon, they have specific targets they want to take out.
The only good news this month is we’ve planted bugs in their vehicles—Ember and the FBI made sure of that. We’ll be watching them every step of the way. Hopefully, it’s enough of an advantage.
And still…
There’s a part of me that prays they don’t get caught.
Because if they’re exposed—if the FBI makes our world public—it’ll mean the end of everything. For witches. For werewolves. For us.
My mind is buzzing with Bode’s expression—that flash of primal fury when he saw the three of us together. It wasn’t just possessiveness. It was recognition. Like some part of him had finally figured out that I wasn’t his. That I never had been. Just like Noah’s mother before me.
An internal voice shrieks Beware the betrayed alpha!
Agent Leighton had felt the wrath of a betrayed and cornered wolf. And now I had done a real number on the biggest and baddest of them all, Bode Lunaris. God, how I wished Agent Leighton was here to share his wisdom with me, although, in truth, only another supernatural stood a chance against Bode.
But Leighton’s instincts were always superior…unfortunately for him. If they hadn’t been, maybe he never would have ended up in Lolo in the first place. Or maybe he never would have traced the clues back to Bode and his pack, launching the arsons that had destroyed so many and so much.
Even so, those instincts were among the things I valued most about him—they were what set him apart and what first made me believe I could trust him. When I was getting my start, he was the one who gave me a shot. He saw me. Not the cover identity. Not the polished Bureau mask. Me.
He trusted his instincts, not the agent’s instruction manual.
And those instincts were razor-sharp. Leighton could walk into a room, scan a case file, and find the one piece everyone else missed.
That’s why I respected him. That’s why I trusted him.
And I’d like to think that’s what he saw in me.
That extra something that made me special.
He just didn’t know it stemmed from my being a witch.
Our relationship was never soft. He wasn’t warm or overly protective.
That wasn’t his way. But he treated me like a partner, even when the Bureau didn’t.
We were both outsiders—agents who noticed the cracks in the story and weren’t afraid to dig deeper.
He followed patterns the others ignored: wildfires that behaved too strangely, victims who looked…
mauled, not murdered. Even without knowing about the supernatural, he sensed it and sought it out.
He didn’t have magic, but he had a mind that didn’t require easy answers.
And that made him dangerous. Especially to the monsters hiding in plain sight. Many of whom worked for the Bureau.
He was the one that taught me to distrust everyone, even our handlers and administrators. “Even me,” he had said.
The last time we spoke, his voice was tight. Paranoid. Focused. He’d found something. Or someone. And I think he knew he wouldn’t get a second chance to say more. I remember him saying, “Lyra, if anything happens to me, trust your instincts. You are ready.”
That scared me. He didn’t ruffle easily.
When he went dark, I felt it in my gut. Not an accident. Not random. Leighton was too damn careful for that. I read the report, of course—said all the right things to Ember and the department heads. But I already knew: he didn’t just disappear. He was taken out. Erased.
And my gut led me to who did it.
Bode.
I try to imagine what Leighton must’ve felt when he realized he had his man, and he wasn’t a man at all.
Something wasn’t right. The way the shadows followed too precisely.
The way the forest grew quiet—not calm, but tense.
Like it was holding its breath. He wouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.
He’d stay rational. Methodical. But deep down, I know he would’ve felt it in his bones—that primal kind of fear you can’t explain.
Because Leighton was a hunter. A trained investigator. And I think, for the first time in his life, he realized he was being hunted.
By something ancient and angry, fast and cruel—and smart enough to silence him before the truth could spread.
The thought guts me.
Because Leighton didn’t just die. He knew .
He figured it out. The Bureau ignored him, the system dismissed the signs, but he saw the truth for what it was.
He knew something darker was stalking the edges of our world, and in the end, no badge or gun or logic could save him.
No lone shifter, let alone a lone human, has the skills to fight that kind of darkness alone.
And now he’s gone.
The last thread allowing me to flourish in a human institution. The only person who believed in the impossible without needing proof. Without needing me to explain.
And the worst part? His killer is now after me.
Fate has determined that I’m next. And so is Noah.
And the bonfire will be existential.
As I near the firehouse, I know it’s time I get my head back in the game. Tonight there is no room for error.
I am grateful for the bag Tori prepared for me in the woods as backup. Tools of survival. Weapons for when words and spells aren’t enough. Insurance against betrayal and subterfuge.
I stop at the last stoplight heading out of town.
The moon is halfway up the sky in the East, midway to its midnight apex.
I can feel it in my bones—the crackling of magic rising like static across my skin.
The wolves will shift soon, whether they want to or not, and the pull of this celestial body will be even stronger on them.
We’ve got only a little time left. Just enough time for them to go wherever they go before their full moon hunt and inferno..
Their power will be at its peak. And if we’re not ready, the entire town is going to burn.
At the firehouse, I run smack into Captain Greene on the way in from the parking lot. He’s got everyone on high alert. All firefighters are bunking down in the house for the night. I cringe, considering Marcus and his transition.
The Captain addresses me. “Agent. Are the authorities ready?” “As ready as they’ll ever be,” I respond. He shakes a scolding finger at me. “I knew you were up to something. I’m just glad it wasn’t arson. It would have been a shame to lock a pretty young thing like you up.”
I smile despite my desperation. “Captain. I’m sorry for your loss. Agent Leighton.” He shakes his head from side to side, no stranger to the reality of life and death. “He was my mentor at the Bureau and a stellar agent,” I share.
Greene echoes. “And a stellar ranger.” We both take a beat in honor of a great man.
“I was wondering,” I continue, “what case was he working on when he was here? Did he happen to tell you?”
There’s a brief pause as he decides whether to confide in me.
“Ah, what’s the harm now?” he says. “Al had re-opened the house fire case of Noah’s parents.
Apparently, he had found some connection between recent arsons in nearby states and that one.
I never had details, but I knew he was getting close. ”
“Apparently, too close. That’s when the first wildfire broke out here, right?”
He nods.
That clarifies a few things. “Thank you for telling me.”
I have so many other questions, but the siren screams. We get the call we’d been expecting.
And the similarity is too eerie. There’s a fire at the Benson’s house.
Bode is after Noah’s parents again.
And I pray we can keep history from repeating itself.