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BOAZ

“We have a problem.”

Alpha ended the call in his typical abrupt fashion, but he’d said all he needed to, and I had to hotfoot it to pack headquarters.

My mind whirred as I jumped in the car. Passing the bakery which my former lover owned, I spied him through the window, grinning at his new husband. I was happy for him because what we’d had… well, it’d scratched an itch. I wasn’t looking for a mate, and being a pack Beta, I was awaiting my fated.

And the baker? He was human and had been looking for a good time. It wasn’t a big deal when we stopped seeing one another, and I was glad he’d found a guy who loved him, something I wasn’t capable of.

But as I zoomed past a set of lights when they turned amber, my mind switched from a former bedmate to business. Whatever was going on, Alpha wanted me to handle it.

Unlike my brothers, I was a company man in that I was pack, through and through. They were in the private sector, even though they were still part of the pack and always would be. Unless they did something so horrendous, something that went against everything we stood for, that violated our pack code and Alpha kicked them out.

Knowing my bros, I doubted that would happen. They were argumentative, creative, sassy and forward-thinking, but they obeyed and stayed within the boundaries of what was acceptable to the pack, sort of.

Again I quashed thoughts of my family and concentrated on getting to headquarters. If humans were aware shifters existed, they’d probably imagine us meeting in a dingy alley or a cave in the woods. But our pack, Crescent Moon, owned a spanking-new building, all five floors.

Alpha was standing in the boardroom studying a laptop balanced on one hand. Unusually for him, his hair was in disarray and one button on his shirt was undone. He must have been shifting, likely outside the city, when he got a call or message, and he’d come straight here rather than going home.

“Boaz, what took you so long?” Alpha hadn’t glanced up, but he had scented me. He turned the laptop toward me, and I scanned the text and the accompanying images. There was a sharp intake of breath—from me—as I peered at the gruesome scene.

“Shifters?”

He nodded.

Not surprising. Unless shifters had been involved, Alpha would not have called me.

The photos were from Pulsepoint, a club that shifters frequented. I’d enjoyed evenings there, but I hadn’t been much since I was promoted to Beta.

The grotesque images were of men and women, their faces frozen with exaggerated expressions, reminding me of gargoyles, arms and legs at awkward angles and the skin around their throat and mouths gouged as though they had been clawing for breath. A pinkish foam circled their mouths, and they were drenched in blood

My belly churned, and I told my wolf to control it because I couldn’t throw up in front of Alpha. Later, when I was alone, I’d grieve the loss of my fellow shifters.

“This isn’t the bear shifters, is it?” The bear den, formally headed by Alpha Germaine, sold weed. Or used to. They’d ordered the hit on my now brother-in-law, Rhodes.

“No. Some new group who arrived in town recently, and they’ve been pushing sales at nightclubs.” He continued by saying other Alphas in town had reported their members being offered this new wonder drug. “But until now, it was just another recreational drug joining the buffet of what was already available.

“Someone laced it or swapped it to hurt shifters specifically.” It wasn’t a question. I’d leaped to the conclusion, and until I was shown evidence that contradicted it, I was sticking with the theory.

Shifters had lived in harmony with humans, mainly because humans weren’t aware of our existence. But if they stumbled onto our kind, would they be so threatened they’d kill us? It was a possibility.

But my theory was a drug so potent that it would fell a shifter and quickly had to have been created by other shifters. Why? To start a war? Because they wanted to destroy us? There were numerous possibilities, but people other than me could figure that out.

Even without Alpha issuing an order, I understood my purpose: to hunt down and eliminate the culprits. Alpha hadn’t asked the other Betas because I was his chosen successor, though I wouldn’t be if I messed this up.

“Find who did this and end them.”

I had the night, any longer and Alpha might assign someone else to do the job. But I had a fire in my belly, a rage that was intensifying by the minute, and when I found the perp, I’d kill him or them slowly, making sure they were conscious for each bone-breaking, blood-spattering second.

After sending a brief text to three of my people, I drove to the nightclub, and not bothering to park, I braced myself because the scent of death strangled me so I gasped for breath, and it pushed me back against the car. My body sagged as the stench clogged my nostrils.

Taking deep breaths got more air into my lungs, but I sniffed my clammy skin. The air reeked of blood, and I imagined microscopic pieces of shifter flesh filtering through the air. Gods, I couldn’t throw up, not as my men pulled up and jumped out of the car.

There was no need for a phone call, an ID, or a punch in the jaw. One glance at us and even the lowest ranking cop, manning the line of yellow tape, let us through. I noted their trembling hands. Oh yeah, they might not know what we were but we radiated power, and no one dared stop us.

Unlike human detectives, there was no need to issue my men with a list of instructions. They knew what to do. While our eyes and ears worked overtime, it was our noses that would detect the scents, human and shifter alike, who had come in contact with the deceased. And whoever had touched the drugs my kin consumed would not escape.

I steeled myself for the dead bodies, contorted on the luxurious sofas, sprawled on the carpet, and crumpled in a heap by the long bar.

I need your help . I couldn’t do this without my beast. He had to filter out the extraneous scents and focus on what was detected on all the victims.

My team and I worked quickly, not taking notes with pen or paper or a phone, but sniffing out the culprits.

“Boss.” That was my number one man, Josh.

I held up three fingers but I had detected it or them too. Three scents, distinct from the others, that mingled with the drug of choice, possibly Duskthorn, and a chemical.

The waitstaff were cowering in a small office at the back and details spilled out of them about what they’d seen and heard.

“I scented those guys near headquarters last week.” That was Josh.

After phone calls and a couple of dead ends at a hotel and guest house, we secured an address.

While I wanted to find out the why, I wouldn’t be taking any prisoners.

We pulled up a block away from a motel. One light shone from an open door as men shoved bags in a car. They jumped in but caught sight of us as we ran toward them. The one behind the wheel reversed—he rivaled any F1 driver I’d cheered on TV—and took off in the opposite direction.

Shit! Now we had to chase them. Thank gods this was a rundown area of town, full of abandoned factories, so there wasn’t much traffic.

Josh jumped in the passenger seat while the other pair got in the second car. I put my foot down, not caring about speed limits or stop signs, and took off. Their tail lights visible in the distance enlarged as we grew closer. Josh wound the window down, and the wind whipped at his hair. He leaned out and aimed his gun. The shot rang out, bursting a back tire, and the vehicle careened across the lane to the opposite side of the road, the driver unable to right it. Another shot shredded the other back tire, and the car skidded.

Two people jumped out as the car slammed into a lamppost, leaving Josh to dispose of the driver. I charged after the other two, my men at my heels. The pair in front kept looking over their shoulders. A rookie mistake.

They veered into an alleyway. Another huge mistake because this wasn’t a thoroughfare but a dead end. Dead being the operative word because that was what they’d be, their bodies splattered over the brick walls and the potholed asphalt they treaded on.

The shrieks when they discovered there was no way out put a grim smile on my lips, and I stopped running. My wolf would take them out, and instead of pulling back as I did when he hunted, I would be at the front of his gaze as his canines tore the flesh from their bones.

“Why?”

But they took their fur, scrawny wolves who were no match for my beast. I’d get the answer somehow but not from these fools.

Not yet , I told my wolf as I stood, arms folded, not bothering to reach for the gun that was always on my hip.

My men surrounded one wolf, playing with it as a cat would a mouse, while I made the other wait. I almost wished I smoked because this would be the perfect time to light up, a nonchalant move that would create more tension and make my soon-to-be victim unsure of my next move.

Leaves on the ground rustled as the wind picked up. It didn’t rate a mention when I was about to end someone’s life except… except… the breeze brought something with it, something unexpected that turned my head one way and the other.

My beast ripped through my skin and sniffed the air.

Mate, he hissed.

No, it couldn’t be. The universe couldn’t be so cruel to show me my mate, knowing I had to kill him.

Get closer.

He padded toward the wolf as my men teased and taunted the second one until a quivering howl echoed around the alley, marking that other wolf’s death throes. He was of no consequence.

My wolf circled the beast who understood he was about to die.

Not him .

Thank gods. End this now .

With no warning, my beast flew at the remaining wolf and sank his teeth into his neck. Blood from an artery spurted over both wolves, fur and flesh flew into the air. Combined with a sickening crunch as bone splintered and what was left of the other beast splayed over the blood-soaked alley.

I took my skin and barked at my men to arrange a cleaning crew.

But I had to find my mate. He was here somewhere.