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It’s never a good thing when your boss pokes his head out of his office and says, “I need to speak with you.” Especially when said boss has a grim, mildly annoyed expression on his face.

Without waiting for me to respond, Declan jerked his head, motioning for me to come inside.

I looked over at Rose, his assistant. She shrugged.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “He hasn’t told me anything.”

“That somehow makes it worse,” I muttered, glancing at Declan’s open office door. Whatever was going on, I got the sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t going to like it. “Wish me luck.”

“Look at it this way,” Nolan said, clapping me on the shoulder as he gave a broad smirk. “Even if it’s something bad, there’s no way Mira will let him kill you. Perks of being the alpha’s brother-in-law, eh?”

“Not really comforting, you know,” I fired back.

Nolan just responded with one of his trademark self-amused grins.

Shaking my head, I brushed past him and headed into Declan’s office.

“Close the door,” he said.

“You know this is getting more and more ominous as it goes on, right?” I said jokingly as I shut the door behind me.

“I just don’t want this to get out unless it’s necessary,” Declan replied. “You know how quickly gossip spreads in this town if you don’t keep it contained.”

“It doesn’t help that all of us Gold Wolves are notorious gossips when we’re bored,” I pointed out.

“Might not be bored for much longer,” Declan said. He leaned forward, propping his forearms on the desk.

I groaned. “I know that look. It’s the ‘I have a mission for you’ look.”

“That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. I just got a call from the Wolf’s Council. They want us to look into something for them,” he explained.

The Wolf’s Council was the group that oversaw all the packs in North America, the shifters who ensured peaceful interpack relations and ran the military. So, effectively, they were our old boss from when the Gold Wolves were spec ops.

Emphasis on “old” and “were.” Or at least, so I thought.

“Do they not understand how retirement works?” I groused.

“Apparently not. Their excuse is that it should be a minor thing, and we’re already in the general area. I think they’re just trying to pull us back into the job any way they can.”

“Jameson did warn us that the spec-ops life always found a way of coming back,” I mused, thinking back to the alpha of the Silver Wolves, another semi-retired black-ops group we had worked with before. “I just thought he was bullshitting us.”

“Apparently, he was right.”

“Seems like it. And I’m guessing that we don’t really have an option in any of this.”

At Declan’s “no shit” expression, I took a deep breath. “Right. Well, it was worth a shot. What’s the job?”

“It’s nothing major. Should only take a couple of us, to be honest. But they want us to look into a pack nearby. Apparently, their alpha, Reacher, has been throwing his weight around a little too much. The council’s been hearing whispers that he’s been using extreme tactics to keep his guys in line.”

I nodded, folding my arms as I shifted on my feet. It wasn’t the first time an alpha over-asserted his authority, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last, either. Sometimes they just needed some strong encouragement to knock it off, and that was the end of it. Others could be a lot more problematic. But it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before.

“What’s the pack name?” I asked.

“Blood Moon. They live in Rowen. It’s not too far from here.”

My brow furrowed. Something about the pack and town name sounded familiar, triggering some old distant memory that I couldn’t place. I could have sworn I’d heard the name before, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out when or where.

“Have we ever dealt with them before?” I asked.

“Not to my knowledge. Why?”

I shook my head. “No reason. Keep going.”

“Anyway, I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind overseeing this,” Declan continued. “It should be pretty cut and dry. Check out the town for a day or so, see if there’s anything amiss, try to get the locals to talk to you, that sort of thing. I’m too swamped here to get away.”

“Are you sure you’re swamped, or you just don’t want to go?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Declan’s lip tilted upward. “I’m going to ignore that one,” he said. “Anyway, are you good to go?”

I let out a long breath, chewing the inside of my lip as I considered. To be entirely honest, I didn’t want to go. I was enjoying not having to deal with black-ops jobs after years of constant fighting and moving from town to town, from mission to mission. There was a reason I’d retired.

“I don’t know, Declan,” I said. “Are you sure the council can’t get one of their non-retired units to look into this?”

Declan cracked a grin. “I asked them that almost verbatim,” he said. “Apparently, all of them are busy at the moment, and they want this checked out sooner rather than later. Just in case it is something to worry about.”

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. The truth was, I didn’t want to go. It was inherently selfish, I knew, but I was perfectly happy staying in town and helping out with running things on this side.

Declan seemed to read my mind. “Look, it’s not fun, and it isn’t what any of us had in mind when we quit. But at the same time, we still swore an oath to protect others. That oath doesn’t die with retirement.”

Sure, but I had assumed the days of being shuffled around from place to place, often finding nothing, were long behind me.

“Let me think about it,” I said.

Declan gave a curt nod. “That’s all I wanted to hear,” he said. “I know it’s not convenient, and honestly will probably be an incredibly boring job, but it is a necessity.”

“Yeah,” I said, strolling toward the door. “I’m coming over to visit Mira tonight. I’ll let you know what I’ve decided then.”

Walking out of the office, I gave a short nod to Rose, then tilted my head. “How many of them were listening in?” I asked, raising my eyebrow.

“Three of them,” she said with a knowing quirk on her lips. “Will was the only one who didn’t.”

I sighed. “Sounds about right.”

“They ran off that way.” She pointed down the hall in the direction of an open door. “Dipped into the break room.”

Snorting, I strolled in that direction. When I rounded the corner to enter the break room, the remaining ex-members of the Gold Wolves looked up at me.

“What’s going on?” Trent asked with wide-eyed innocence.

“Funny,” I said, giving him a look.

“We’re serious,” Chris grunted, though he couldn’t help but smirk. “We didn’t overhear a word.”

I groan. “How the hell did you guys succeed in spec ops all those years? You’re all terrible liars. Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

“In that case, does Declan know what the word ‘retirement’ means?” Nolan complained. “I can give him a dictionary for Christmas.”

“This is coming from higher up,” I told him.

Chris’s eyebrows shot up, his head tilting. “Really? That part we missed. The council’s dragging us into this?”

When I nodded, there was a collective groan from the others, save for Will, who kept lounging on the couch, watching us with silent interest.

“Honestly, we could probably tell The Council no if we really want,” Trent commented. “It isn’t as though they can do much about it if we do.”

“Feels wrong, though,” Will countered. He turned toward me. “Are you going to take it?”

Letting out a puff of air, I ran my fingers through my hair. “Hell if I know. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“Well, if you do, feel free to volunteer me to come along,” Will said. “Or if you don’t, I can lead the mission.”

I nodded, not surprised that Will was the one who volunteered to take over. He had always been the one most duty-sworn.

“I’ll let you know when I’ve decided,” I said, already planning on throwing out the suggestion to Declan. It sure as hell would make my life easier. I happened to enjoy retirement.

***

By the end of the day, I was fully prepared to tell Will to have at it. He and the others were more than capable of handling the situation without me looking over their shoulder. Hell, the only reason Declan had told me about it first was because I was his second-in-command. No one would judge me for sticking behind.

Except that every time I told myself I had decided not to do it, something stopped me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Blood Moon pack was familiar. Not just familiar—important. As if it meant something to me. Only, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what.

It was for that nagging reason that I didn’t give Declan an answer before I left, and the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I arrived at my sister’s house.

I was still trying to uncover what was nagging at my memory while I sat on the couch, playing with my nephew while Dani, Declan’s kid and Mira’s stepdaughter, played on the floor.

I bounced Alex up and down on my leg as he giggled.

“You all right?” Mira asked, studying me. “You seem off.”

I blinked, pulling myself back to the present. “Yeah, I’m fine… we just have to go on a mission soon.”

Her brow furrowed. “Aren’t you guys retired?”

My lip quirked upward as I smirked at her. “Apparently not,” I quipped. “But that’s not what’s bothering me. Does the name Blood Moon pack ring a bell? Or the town Rowen?”

I had expected her to shake her head. To my surprise, she nodded. “Yeah.”

“Really?”

“Do you remember my friend Audrey? She was in our pack for a couple of years before she randomly left without a word?”

A jolt of remembrance and guilt pierced through me. Of course I remembered Audrey. How could I not? The last memory I have of her was her running out the door, anger radiating off her. Because of me.

“Yeah, I think I remember her,” I managed to say.

“I always wondered what happened to her,” Mira mused. “She just vanished. Didn’t tell me why. Sent me a text she was leaving, and that was it.”

As far as I knew, Mira knew nothing about that night. If she did, she’d never told me as much. But there was no sign of accusation on her face, just genuine loss and confusion.

Guilt continued to gnaw at me as I focused all my attention on Alex. “Sorry, but what does this have to do with Mira?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral.

She blinked, shaking her head to clear it. “Sorry. Anyway, Blood Moon was her original pack. The one she ran away from when she joined ours.”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I stared down at Alex, who was burbling happily as he bounced up and down on my knee. Audrey. A woman I still thought about daily. I’d had a chance with her, and I’d blown it.

“You never found out what happened to her?” I asked, trying to keep my voice casual.

She shook her head. “Tried reaching out to her over the years, but I never found her.”

I hadn’t tried. Not because I didn’t care, but because I assumed she wouldn’t bother speaking to me. Not after the way things had ended between us. That hadn’t stopped me from wondering about her, though.

I’d always wondered what her old pack had been like. She hadn’t spoken about it much beyond vague terms. It had to have been rough for her to leave her parents.

It was probably even harder for her to leave your pack , a voice chided me.

I tried to ignore the stab of guilt. If I did want to know what her home pack had been like, this was my chance. Why not take it?

The door opened. “I’m home,” Declan called through the house.

Dani straightened, her eyes sparkling as she scurried toward the door. “Daddy!” she cried.

Declan strolled into the house, holding Dani in one arm, eyes crinkling as he laughed at something Dani had said. Smiling, Mira picked up Alex and walked over. Declan bent down and gave her a tender kiss on the cheek.

Seeing the four of them, a whole family, sent a spasm of longing through me that I hadn’t anticipated. I had always wanted to settle down with someone eventually. Seeing Declan with his family like this now only intensified that desire.

That, plus the overwhelming urge to see what Audrey’s old pack was like, was probably what made me change my mind.

“I’ll lead the mission,” I announced, standing.

Declan blinked, raising his eyebrows. “Really?”

I nodded, ignoring the obvious question that lingered in the single word.

“I can take Will and Trent,” I continued.

He studied me, clearly trying to figure out what had made me decide. When he realized I wasn’t going to give any explanation (partially because I could barely explain the rationale myself), he nodded.

“Let them know. You can leave the day after tomorrow,” he said. “The sooner you get there, the sooner we can put this behind us.”