Author: J.D. Tyler

One

The white wolf scented the air, searching for her prey.

The commander hadn’t ventured into the forest lately, but that would change. Sooner or later, the traitorous bastard would come out of his stronghold, venture beyond the protection of brick and mortar, past the magical boundary erected by the Sorcerer.

He’d put aside the shadows on his soul, even if temporarily. He’d forget that his ability as a Seer was severely hampered when it came to his own impending death. Longing for solitude, to feel the wind in his face, his toes digging into the soft earth, he’d let his wolf loose. Go for a run.

And if all went as planned, he would never return.

Settling in, she watched. Waited. She burned to see the expression on his face when he realized his past had finally come to call. That, in a great twist of irony, he had sired his own executioner, and his sins would be paid for with his blood. It was all that mattered, all she lived for.

Soon, her father would die.

“The vampire problem is becoming increasingly unstable,” Nick Westfall said, face grim as he studied each member of his Alpha Pack team of shifters. “If we don’t get a handle on the rogues, they’re going to end up exposing the entire paranormal world to the human race.”

Resting his elbows on the conference room’s table, Zander Cole struggled to understand his commander’s briefing. It wasn’t as if he was completely deaf anymore. When he was a kid, he and his friends would while away the summer at the local swimming pool. Sometimes they’d entertain themselves by yelling to one another underwater and trying to decipher the messages, to little success and a great deal of laughter. His current predicament was like that—without the amusement.

But over the past few months, he’d gotten better at reading lips. As long as he was looking directly at the speaker and concentrating hard, he could catch most of what was said.

It was a vast improvement over the total deafness he’d been left with after the Pack’s Sorcerer had created an explosion of lightning that had literally rocked the earth. Progress, yes—but a long way from being healed.

Because his brain injury had left him to contend with so much more than just his hearing being shot to hell.

Despair swelled in his chest, and he fought it down yet again. The blinding headaches were as bad as they’d been in the beginning. Maybe worse. Every day, the feelings of helplessness, uselessness, got harder to take. He feared he was no longer an asset to his team, but a burden. A waste of space.

Sort of hard to swallow, considering Zan was the Pack’s Healer. His Psy gift allowed him to heal everyone except himself, and even that was in jeopardy of failing him altogether.

For years, his Pack brothers and their mission of battling the world’s most dangerous paranormal predators had been his whole life, and now his future wasn’t looking too bright. His days on the team appeared to be numbered, and rejoining the “normal” human world wasn’t an option.

Where that left him was a very, very frightening place in his head.

Shaking himself from his misery, he forced himself to focus again on what Nick was telling them.

“. . . capture one of them alive if we can. Find out why there’s so goddamned many of them lately.” Pausing, he consulted some notes in his hand. “Our latest report cites a rogue problem on a ranch in Texas.”

“Texas?” Zan mused out loud. He glanced around and saw the same curiosity reflected in his brothers’ faces before returning his attention to Nick.

“Not their usual stomping ground, for sure. They normally keep to big cities, where it’s easier to blend in and feed and where one more dead homeless person will hardly be noted. But for whatever reason, it seems we have a group targeting a ranch in East Texas. The owners were shocked last week when a couple of hands found two cows with their throats slashed and only a minimal amount of blood around their bodies when the ground should’ve been soaked.”

There was a murmur around the room as Nick went on. “We know vampires will drink from large animals if they’re desperate for food. What’s unusual is that the animals were killed during the daytime.”

A loud exclamation came from Zan’s right, and he needed no clarification to interpret it as a curse. Glancing over, he saw Aric Savage lean forward in his chair and rest his elbows on the conference table. The redhead looked pissed as he pushed his long hair from his face.

“The bastards are walking during the day now? How the hell are they managing that?”

Nick shook his head. “No idea, which is another reason we need one of them alive.”

“I doubt this reached your desk because of a couple of dead cows,” Zan said, working to enunciate clearly. He hated how his voice must sound to everyone, strange and flat, and tried hard to ignore the gazes that swung in his direction. “There must be more.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t the cows that got our friends in Washington moving—it was the dead cowboy who was found this morning, throat slashed and body drained. He went out early to check the cattle, and his horse came back alone. Our contacts were already aware of the slaughtered cattle, so when this news came over the wire, Grant called me while the government sent in a couple of suits to keep local law enforcement at bay.”

General Jarrod Grant was an old friend of Nick’s and one of the only allies in Washington whom the Pack trusted. If Grant was involved, the rogue situation was serious.

Zan snorted. “I bet that went over well. When do we leave?”

Nick paused, giving Zan a searching look, and a lead ball formed in his gut. For one excruciating moment, he feared the commander would order him to remain behind at the compound, despite their previous talks. Even Packmate Micah Chase, with his nightmares and heavy meds, was now allowed to join their missions. If Zan had to stay behind, confirming his status as useless to everyone, he’d crawl under a rock and die.

Then the man nodded at him slightly and said, “Thirty minutes. We’ll take a couple of the Hueys.”

Zan fought to hide his relief. Nick had placed his trust in him, and Zan couldn’t let him or the team down. As the team stood and began to file from the room to make ready for the flight, he felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to see his best friend, Jaxon Law, gazing at him with a slight smile on his face, not an ounce of sympathy evident. Thank God. Jax of all people knew that pity was the one thing Zan wouldn’t be able to handle.

“You ready?” Jax asked.

“Yeah. As I’ll ever be.”

“You’ll do fine.”

“I’m not worried about doing my job,” he snapped, then immediately felt bad about it. Especially since that statement was a big lie. And because Jax was simply standing there wearing an expression of patient understanding instead of giving in to the fight Zan suddenly craved.

As though reading his mind, Jax smiled and said, “Good. Save that aggression for the enemy and we’ll both be proven right. Come on.”

He felt like an ass. His team had been nothing but supportive in the aftermath of his injury and throughout his recovery. They knew how tough these past few weeks had been for him, and nobody gave him a hard time. They didn’t dare, considering that if they were truly doing their jobs, every single one of them would end up out of commission sooner or later. The difference was that being shifters, their injuries typically healed within days.

Zan’s wounds were severe, possibly permanent.

Giving Jax a grin he didn’t feel, he nodded. “Sorry. Lead the way.”

They hurried out, taking only seconds to dash to their living quarters and retrieve the new laser guns they’d been issued, along with the big bowie knife Zan liked to strap to his thigh. Unlike Aric, he wasn’t a Telekinetic/Firestarter and didn’t have the power to hurl objects or set the enemy on fire in a fight—though that would be awesome. Being a Healer was rewarding, but it certainly didn’t give him an edge in battle, so he preferred human weapons. Teeth and claws and superior speed were cool when he was in wolf form, but the knife was just as effective in close combat.

Meeting in the hallway, he and Jax made their way through the compound and down a corridor leading to the huge hangar that housed all of the Pack’s vehicles. In addition to the helicopters, there were several SUVs, cars, and a jet, along with their personal modes of transportation. Zan’s baby, a big, macho Ford Raptor, sat on the far side of the building, and he spared it a longing glance before climbing into one of the Hueys with Jax, Nick, Ryon, Micah, and Phoenix. In the other copter rode Aric, his mate, Rowan, Kalen, Hammer, A.J. and finally Noah, a nurse who worked in the compound’s infirmary. It was quite common for one of them to need patching up in the field, and Noah’s presence was a great help to Zan these days.

Zan tried not to think about why. It wasn’t like Noah’s being around was a vote of no confidence, since one of the doctors or nurses usually accompanied the Pack on a mission. But an insidious voice inside him whispered, Yeah, but for how long? What happens when you’ve got nothing left to give?

Inside him, his wolf growled at the thought.

Once they were in the air, he lost himself to the dull roar of the aircraft and paid no particular attention to the shouted conversations going on around him. That was one dangerous thing about being practically deaf—it was all too easy for him to retreat from the world. If he didn’t look, he couldn’t participate. Both a blessing and a curse.

Eventually, however, his gaze was drawn to his Pack brothers. Especially Micah and Phoenix. It was strange, getting used to having the two of them with the team again, especially after they’d been believed dead. Zan was glad they’d been rescued from the horrible labs after being tortured for months, and wondered how they were really coping.

One side of Micah’s face was ruined, like melted wax, the result of molten silver being poured on him. God knows he had to still be in pain, but Micah claimed that his medications were helping. He’d come out of his shell in recent weeks, had stopped hiding his face. He smiled more, though the expression was still reserved. The man was a walking miracle; so what if his eyes were a bit too bright, almost feverish?

Nobody questioned it, at least not to Micah. No one wanted to risk setting back his progress.

Phoenix was a completely different story. Rescued separately from Micah, the man had come away malnourished but with no physical scars and seemed to be handling the horrors he’d been through with relative ease. Too much so, which had Zan concerned. But if he was hurting inside, he was hiding it well. Nix appeared to be quite happy lately—and even a blind man could see that it was due to his attraction to Noah.

Were those two Bondmates? A betting pool had been started, and Zan hadn’t bothered to chip in on what he figured was a yes. The great thing was, not one of the guys had expressed a negative attitude about it. In the shifter world, a man’s Bondmate just was, like the leaves on the trees or the air they breathed. If fate blessed a man with the other half of his soul, he didn’t question his good fortune. He simply seized his destiny with both hands and thanked God he didn’t have to walk through life alone.

Zan knew he sure as hell would, if he were so lucky.

Dammit. Not going to think about one more impossible dream heaped on the bonfire. The rest will be a pile of smoldering ashes soon enough.

As if to punctuate that miserable thought, Zan glanced over just in time to catch a snippet of conversation between Micah and Nix.

“Don’t know, man,” Micah was saying. “I’m not one to talk about whether he’s ready to be on duty. I mean, look at me.” He gestured to his own face, but Nix shook his head.

“Your scars don’t affect your ability to do your job, buddy. His situation is totally different. Just sayin’.”

Unable to bear witnessing another word, Zan averted his gaze and stared at the ugly gray wall of the Huey. Hurt speared him like a lance to the gut, and he rested his elbows on his knees. Was that what all of them were saying? Speculating out loud on whether he was fit to be in the field?