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A n hour and a half later, I sat in the living room, Avery at my side and the guys scattered around the room.

On the opposite couch, the chief of the county police sat, glaring at me in irritation.

Jonathan Milbanks and I had gone to high school together.

Back then, we were friendly, but right now he was looking at me like I’d totally ruined his day.

The front door opened, and a harried-looking man stepped in. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a tucked-in polo that didn’t hide his pudgy belly. His thinning hair looked windblown.

“I’m here,” the mayor said as he stomped across the room. “What the fuck is so important that I had to leave the tournament?” He glanced around at all of us, a red flush creeping across his cheeks. “And why the hell are we meeting here?”

“Mayor Spencer,” Milbanks said. “Have a seat. We need to show you something.”

Huffing, the mayor sat on the couch beside Chief Milbanks, who pulled out a tablet and handed it over to the mayor. A few minutes later, the flush on Mayor Spencer’s cheeks had faded to a pasty pale shock. When the video was done, the mayor looked up.

“What is this?” he asked dumbly. “I’m assuming since you’re showing this to me, this man is not a shifter?”

“He’s not,” Milbanks said. “Human.”

The mayor swung his gaze toward me, and Avery’s grip on my hand tightened. “What the hell did I just see? How is this possible?”

“Sir,” I said, “this is a long story.”

The mayor lifted his arms and let them flop back down. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my plans for the day now revolve around you. So, let’s get to it. Why and how did a human in my county get turned into a wolf?”

Between me, Langston, Avery, and Trent, we laid everything out for him—the will and my father’s financial mistakes, Ashton’s kidnapping, Chuck’s murder, and discovering the strange drug or serum Kyle had that could turn a human into a wolf.

When we were done, Spencer and Milbanks stared at us all in horror.

“Let me get this straight,” Milbanks said, resting his elbows on his knees. “You had a murder and a kidnapping, and you didn’t come to the police?”

“Sergeant,” Langston said placidly, “say Cole had come to you. What would the official department policy have been once you knew that both the perpetrator and the victim were shifters?”

Milbanks looked taken aback. “Well, that’s… uh, as you know, shifter packs are given special consideration. I guess you could say that?—”

“Nothing,” Langston cut him off. “The official policy is to do nothing as long as humans are not affected. Is that or is that not correct? Pack alphas are expected to handle pack matters and pack punishment. At least that’s the way it is where I’m from. I assume it’s the same here, right?”

“Hang on, now,” Milbanks said. “That might be the official stance, but I should still know when a resident of my county has been killed.”

“Stop posturing,” Mayor Spencer growled, nudging the chief with an elbow.

“You and I both know he’s right.” The mayor turned his attention to me again.

“Tell me, Cole, how in the blue hell did this Kyle Alexander person get this drug? I’ve never heard of or seen something that could turn a human into a wolf. ”

“That’s where it gets murky,” I said. “Kyle has a scientist working with him or for him. He created the drug, and Kyle is using it as a way to consolidate his power. Like we said, he’s basically taken control of North Crest. Harbor Mills is next.”

“This seems far-fetched to me,” Spencer said. “I know the mayor of the neighboring county. We belong to the same country club, for God’s sake. That’s where North Crest is, and he’s never mentioned any issues with a mob boss or whatever you want to call Kyle.”

“If you thought you might end up with a bullet in the back of your head, would you say anything?” Avery asked. “Even to your friends?”

Spencer chewed on that statement, then grudgingly nodded his head. “I suppose you’re right.”

“What’s the plan here?” Milbanks asked.

“Right,” Spencer said, pointing at me. “What are you going to do to fix this?”

“The town is already in a panic,” Milbanks added. “Rumors already started swirling that Kolchak was bitten by a shifter, and that’s how he turned.”

“What?” Trent barked in shock. “That’s not even physically possible. We’re not werewolves out of a movie.”

“I get that,” Milbanks said, “but you know how people can be, right? The man’s wife is hysterical, and no one knows where the hell he ran off to. The rumor mill is only going to get worse until this is handled.”

“We’ve been working on a plan,” I said, “but it’s taken a little longer to implement than we’d hoped.” I gestured at my friends and Avery. “It’s only us working on it.”

“That’s all I need to know.” The mayor turned to Milbanks. “You give them any assistance they need. I don’t care what it is. We can’t have this psychopath creating his own little kingdom here. Whatever it takes to get this handled quickly. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said, though he sounded less than enthused about the prospect.

“We appreciate that,” I said.

“What can me and my men do for you?” Milbanks asked.

“First things first,” Langston said. “As dangerous as Kyle is, this scientist he’s working with is possibly worse. His experiments need to be stopped before he comes up with something worse than what he used on that guy today.”

“And do we have any clue where this man is?” Milbanks asked.

“Our information says he’s operating out of a secure facility in the basement of Kyle’s mansion,” Langston explained.

Milbanks nodded. “Got it. So, we need to figure out a way to get some sort of legal warrant to inspect the house.”

Langston caught my eye and shrugged almost imperceptibly before looking back at the police chief. “That would be amazing, actually.”

“I can’t make any promises,” Milbanks said. “If this house is where I think it is, it’s not in our jurisdiction, but I’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the mayor said as he stood. “I need to go. I’m sure I’ll have lots to deal with after this disaster of a day. Keep me in the loop.”

He departed, leaving us to say our goodbyes to the police chief. Milbanks shook my hand at the door.

“I wish this had been under better situations, Cole. Been a long time,” he said.

“Yeah. Sorry to throw a wrench into your day,” I said.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said as he slipped his sunglasses on and walked down the porch steps toward his car.

I looked at Langston. “You know what we need to do now, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Find the wolf?”

“Exactly.”

We dropped Avery at Stormy’s house, leaving Porter and Zayde with them as security detail, then Langston, Trent, and I departed. Instead of heading straight for the forest, we went to the intersection where the transformation had happened.

“You catch a scent?” I asked, looking at Langston and Trent.

Trent nodded. “I think so. Smells weird. Not like a shifter or a human. Sort of like some combination.”

Langston agreed. “Yeah. Strange.”

“Same here,” I said.

The streets were quieter than usual. People had vanished.

It reminded me, disconcertingly, of North Crest. Perhaps they were afraid another shifter would come by, bite them, and turn them into a wolf, too.

I cursed Kyle, and my wolf growled. I didn’t want him to turn my town into another version of North Crest, but it looked like it was already happening.

“Let’s follow the trail to the woods,” I said. “Then we can shift and try to catch up to him.”

The scent led down the street, through an alleyway, across two parking lots, into the rear of a small neighborhood, and then finally to the edge of the woods that surrounded Harbor Mills. We shifted and sprinted into the forest, noses low to the ground.

The deeper into the forest we went, the easier it was to track him. The scents, sounds, and smells of the town faded, leaving behind the green, musky smells of wilderness. Langston and I took the lead. As alphas, we had a stronger sense of smell.

A while later, I noticed a much stronger smell. The same human-shifter combination we’d first caught back in town. It was mixed with the smell of running water. I made a chuffing sound and picked up the pace, leading the other wolves onward as they fell in line behind me.

Following my senses, I led us down an embankment. We were on the right track. Both smells were getting stronger, and I could make out a whimpering sound not far away.

A few yards farther, we found our quarry. A wolf sat shivering against a rotting tree beside a small creek. When he saw us, his entire body jerked, and he stood on four shaky legs, baring his teeth and growling.

Langston shifted back to his human form, and this time the wolf yelped in terror.

“It’s okay,” Langston said, holding his hands up, palms out, in a show of peace.

Trent and I shifted as well. The wolf’s eyes darted between the three of us, trying to figure out who was the biggest threat.

I stepped forward, crossing the tiny creek in one step. The wolf huddled closer to the downed tree, eyeing me suspiciously.

“We aren’t going to hurt you,” I said, talking to it like a man. “We came to help.”

The closer I got, the more I realized how wrong this was.

His eyes weren’t the same as what you saw with wolves or shifters.

No, they were still the bright, introspective eyes of a human.

The soul inside hadn’t been destroyed by the drug.

Gabe Kolchak was still stuck in there, trapped in the body of the wolf but with the mind of a man.

If that was true, then maybe I could communicate with him. Taking a chance, I said, “Gabe? Are you in there? Can you hear me?”

The wolf gazed at me for several seconds before it lowered its head and brought it back up—a clear nod.

Turning, I caught Trent’s eye. He looked as shocked and surprised as I did.

Shifters held a bit of their human side at the ready when they were in wolf form and could do some very minimal communication like this, but they were shifters.

The fact that a human could be transformed into a wolf and still maintain their soul, consciousness, and wits was astounding.

Langston’s phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket.

“Zayde was able to clean up the video and enhance it,” he said.

“It looks like the guy who passed Gabe on the street had some sort of injection device hidden under his arm. Like a dart gun. There’s only so much Zayde can get off the footage. ”

Glancing back at Gabe, I knelt, trying to appear as peaceful as possible. “Gabe, if you can understand me, do you remember what happened on the street? Did you get poked or stabbed or injected with something?”

The wolf nodded again.

“Did you see the face of the person who passed you?” I asked the wolf, then looked over my shoulder at Langston. “Can Zayde get an image of his face?”

Langston shook his head. “He already said he couldn’t. The guy kept his head down. Like he knew there were cameras around.”

“What about you, Gabe?” I asked. “Did you see him?”

Another nod.

Then Gabe moved his paw forward and began to dig in the mud beside the creek.

My mouth dropped open as the jagged lines formed two words.

He was obviously not used to the body yet, and was having a hard time making his brain and paws do what he wanted.

For a moment, it looked like simple gibberish, but upon closer inspection, I managed to make sense of the jagged, squiggly lines.

It was two words: Human again?

“Aww, shit,” Trent cursed under his breath as he read the words.

“Gabe,” I said, looking into his eyes, “we will try everything we can, but I can’t make you any promises. I have to be honest about that.”

It killed me to say it, and the raw sadness that fell over him tore at my heart. This guy was as innocent as could be, a bystander caught in this weird war between me and Kyle. Guilt gnawed at me, and my wolf whined in agony. Regardless of what anyone else said, this was partly my fault.

One emotion did rise above the guilt, though.

Rage. Blinding, white-hot rage. My vision nearly went red.

Another innocent person hurt. Another life ruined, and all because of one man.

This needed to end. If Kyle wasn’t going to come to me, then I’d go to him.

I would put a stop to all of this one way or another.