“What can I get you guys?” Jacee piped up.
“Beer for me,” Zan said.
“Make that two.”
“You’ve got it.” She moved off, leaving them alone for a few moments.
A sudden attack of conscience hit Selene, and she regarded her new mate steadily across the table. “I feel I have to warn you that Jacee there, she knows about the Alpha Pack.”
That shocked him. His eyes widened. “What? How?”
“Jacee is the one who told me you guys hang out here. She keeps her eyes and ears open. And she’s not human, herself.”
“Shit.” He glanced toward the bar, where the woman in question was drawing their beers. “What is she?”
“Coyote.”
“Damn, I never scented a thing!”
“That’s because she keeps her scent masked. In my world, coyotes are akin to parasites. Not that I feel that way about Jacee, because I don’t,” she said quickly. “She’s nice enough. In fact, I don’t believe in putting someone down because of their breed.”
“I’m happy to hear you say that, because I feel the same way. Our world has enough prejudice in it without shifters adding to it.”
“True.”
The object of their discussion returned with their beers and set them down. “Anything else?”
“Nothing for me right now,” Selene said.
Zan shook his head. “Maybe later.” After the bartender had gone, Zan spoke quietly. “By the way, Jacee used to hook up with my best friend, Jax. So, when you meet Jax and his mate, Kira, you might not want to mention Jacee.”
“That could be awkward. Don’t worry. Mum’s the word.”
“Thanks.” He took a draw of his brew.
She did the same and then waved a hand at him. “So, I answered your question about being a born shifter. You were turned, right?”
“Yes, along with almost all the rest of the team I’m with now. We were Navy SEALs in Afghanistan when we were attacked by rogue werewolves.”
“That must’ve been horrible.”
“It was. More than half our unit was killed.”
“Would you mind telling me the story?” she asked. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to share something so personal.”
“We’re going to continue to share a lot more than stories if I have my way,” he said with a smile. “So, sure.”
She blushed to the roots of her hair, something that hadn’t happened in a long time. Not one to embarrass easily, that remark, and the pure sexuality behind it, had caught her off guard.
Then his tale unfolded, taking her back to the awful day when the Alpha Pack came into existence—and life as they knew it was never the same.
Six years earlier . . .
Zan hated Afghanistan.
The days were sweltering, the nights cold as a brass witch’s tit. There were no such things as good food, rest, or comfort for the body or mind. He couldn’t wait to leave this hellhole. He was marking the days—twenty-eight more days and his six years of service were done.
He was going home, to Atlanta. To his grandmother’s kitchen, where he’d let her smother him in all the motherly love he’d been missing for the past few months. Hell, since his mother had died of cancer years ago. Granny was always there for him. He couldn’t wait to give her a big hug.
And hang up his dog tags for good.
“Jesus Christ, I’m rank,” Raven bitched, scratching at his crotch. “When I finally get to change this underwear, it’ll probably walk off.”
Micah grinned. “With assistance from the crabs you caught from that hooker last month.”
“Shut up, needledick. She did not give me crabs.”
Zan snickered. The banter of his teammates was just about the only positive that got him through the long days and nights in the arid terrain of this shitty country.
“Hold up,” Jax whispered, coming to a halt. Tensing, he studied the mountain forest around them and frowned.
Zan listened. Somewhere hidden in the brush, a footstep crunched to their left. Another to their right. More from behind. He saw Ryon and Micah exchange a fearful look. He knew this area was supposed to be clear, and they couldn’t have reached their target’s stronghold already. In that instant, he knew they were toast. Their enemy had them surrounded.
Then the forest went silent. Never, ever a good thing. Because when the smaller creatures went still, that meant they were hiding from something much bigger and hungrier than themselves.
Thud, thud, thud.
The ground trembled and the leaves shook. Zan thought distantly that he’d seen and heard this very thing in a movie long ago. When a deep-throated roar split the air, Aric jumped, pointing the muzzle of his M-16 into the trees, hands rock steady, a bead of sweat dripping off his nose.
“Fuck,” Micah whispered. “What the fuck is that?”
Zan stared in stupefied horror. The thing that broke through the foliage to their left stood erect on two legs and was more than seven feet tall. Covered with a thick mat of grayish brown fur, it had a long torso, two arms, muscular shoulders, and a head sporting two upright ears and a long, snarling snout full of sharp teeth.
It looked like a creature that was half man, half wolf. He and his team stared, mouths open, fingers frozen on their triggers.
The situation might have been salvaged, disaster averted. But their buddy Jones started screaming, pumping bullets into the beast’s chest. After that, everything went to shit.
The creature staggered backward and then rallied quickly, rushing Jones. With a swipe of a paw the size of a dinner plate, the big bastard ripped out Jones’s throat, tossing him aside like a twig. Then it pounced on Raven, biting into the vee of his neck and shoulder as the man screamed.
They opened fire just as several more of the beasts emerged from the forest. It quickly became apparent that while their bullets could wound, it would take something with far more power to kill them. He saw Aric drop into a crouch and palm a grenade as his friends fell all around him, waging a battle they couldn’t win.
The creature who’d killed Jones shook Raven like a rag doll, released him, and ran toward Aric, who let a grenade fly. It hit at the target’s feet and exploded, sending the damned thing to hell. But more and more of them took its place.
Micah went down, his knife in hand, slitting one’s throat. But another jumped on him, and his struggle was short-lived, his scream terrible. Jax fell next, then their CO, Prescott, Nix, and so many others. All of them, one by one. Dead or dying.
As Aric unsheathed his knife to fight one, a beast rushed Zan. It hit him with the force of a runaway truck, knocking him backward and sending him skidding along the ground. He rolled to avoid the claws that swiped down at him, but they raked his side, splitting him open through his camos. There was no time to acknowledge the fiery pain spreading through his torso. He kept moving, dodging several blows.
Suddenly, he heard a cry in his head.
Help me, somebody! Oh, God—
Nearby, he saw Ryon fighting with a creature of his own and losing. Had the plea come from him? Or was it a figment of Zan’s overwrought imagination? The beast plunged its claws into Ryon’s stomach, and the man screamed, a horrible sound.
Aric dispatched it, but it might have been too late.
Zan scrambled backward, trying to put enough distance between him and the beast to level his weapon and fire. But he hardly had the barrel lowered before the beast slammed the gun out of his hands. Zan quickly drew his knife and went on the offensive, running into the beast’s body rather than away.