It started to rain an hour out of Denver, the clouds lowering and the skies opening up like they were angry. Brody drove with the wipers on full blast, the phone beeping on the passenger seat next to him until he finally turned it off.

He couldn’t talk to anyone. Not while he was doing this. Because he’d have to lie, and he didn’t want to lie anymore.

He couldn’t bear to think of Alison, her lovely face, her gray eyes, her perfect skin. That red hair that he’d seen spilling over the backs of his hands. She’d been excited to go to Pierce Point, her eyes sparkling. And her text this morning: You’ll be so proud of me.

He hadn’t been able to answer. Because he was proud of her. But he had the feeling she wouldn’t be proud of him if she knew what he was doing right now.

Still, he argued with himself. This had to happen. It had to, and it had to be him that did it, no one else. This was part of what an alpha did for his pack—saved lives, prevented war, even if he had to sell his own soul to do it. His soul wasn’t worth much anyway.

It’s worth something to me, Alison said in his head.

And this, he wasn’t used to. Since he’d become alpha, he’d only ever considered himself and the pack. Nothing else mattered. But now Alison mattered, more to him than either of those things, and he didn’t know what to do about it. Didn’t know what to do when what was best for the pack was not the thing that Alison would want.

He solved the problem by avoiding her, avoiding his brothers, and driving to Denver with his phone off. He was saving their future. So why did this feel like the most cowardly thing he’d ever done?

Inside him, his wolf howled. For perhaps the millionth time in his life, Brody wished he could cut into himself and excise his wolf, cut it out like a cancer and throw it away. He wished he could be whole, like other people. He had no idea what it felt like not to be at war with yourself, not to be fighting yourself day and night. Because his wolf wanted to kill Carson Dunne. His wolf was ready. In fact, his wolf relished the job.

This is not sport, he reminded himself. This is not a hunt. This is the pack’s future, and nothing more.

His wolf panted for blood and ignored him.

As the rain pounded harder, he drove on.

* * *

It wasn’t hard to find where Carson lived; the case had been a high profile one. He was in a gated community outside of Denver, on a big house built into the side of a hill. Brody parked his SUV in a construction site nearby, where they were building yet another gated community. Humans, forever building themselves fortresses to keep each other out.

It was dark now, full night. Brody took off his shoes and socks, dropped his baseball cap onto the driver’s seat. He got out of the car and walked through the driving rain and construction mud to the chain link fence a hundred feet away. He vaulted it easily and walked into the woods, climbing the hillside and approaching the house from the trees.

He could have done this as a wolf, but his wolf body wasn’t right for this work. He needed stealth, the ability to climb and open windows. He needed not to be naked. And, truth be told, if he was going to end a man’s life, he wanted to look that man in the eye as a human. It only seemed right.

He’d looked his father in the eye, after all.

Carson’s house was surrounded by a high wrought iron fence. Inside was a guard dog, a big Doberman, whip-fast and mean. It barked once when it sensed Brody’s approach on the other side of the fence, then went silent when Brody raised a finger at it. Quiet. The dog backed up, retreated, then lay on its side, belly exposed in complete surrender.

Quick and quiet, Brody shimmied up the wrought iron fence and over the top, dropping down in a soundless jump, his bare feet hitting the soggy lawn. Drenched now, he eyed the house. There was a light on in an upstairs bedroom, the flicker of a TV. No other lights. Brody rounded a corner, used a drainpipe to pull himself up the side of the house, and stepped out onto the roof of the back patio, moving until he had a view of the bedroom with the light in it.

A TV, playing to no one. A bed, the covers rumpled. A glass of water on the bedside table, half full. Someone had been in here, and then left. Which meant Carson knew he was here.

Still, it didn’t matter. He forced open the bedroom window and stepped in, the soaked cuffs of his jeans dripping onto the fine carpet. The first seconds inside the room told him everything he needed to know. This was Carson’s room—it smelled of him. There was a medicinal smell beneath the human smell that Brody didn’t understand but filed away for later. Carson himself was in the hallway, giving himself away by his scent, his heat, and the faint creak of a step. Over the noise of the TV, Brody was so attuned he heard Carson’s inhale of breath.

He took a step forward, then another. Walked to the bedroom doorway. Raised a hand and intercepted the baseball bat that was coming down toward his head. Wrested it from Carson’s grip, let it drop to the floor, and pinned Carson against the wall, his wrist up between his shoulder blades, his body unable to move.

“Was it the dog that gave me away?” he asked.

Carson’s hair had gone partly gray, that salt-and-pepper look that some women liked. His face was heavier, the beginnings of jowls along his jawline. Carson was tall, naturally beefy, and in his grip Brody felt the same strength from old times, layered over by a little age and fat but still vital. If Brody had been any human, his head would be split in half right now.

“Hello, Brody,” Carson said, his cheek pressed against the wall. “And no, it was the security cameras. Barnabas is just extra protection.”

“You thought a dog would be protection against an alpha wolf?”

“No,” Carson admitted. He was calm, considering the situation he was in, but then he had spent many years in Charlie Donovan’s pack. “Barnabas guards against the reporters and other riffraff. I like her. You didn’t kill her, did you?”

“No.” He’d never kill a dog. He’d kill a man, he’d kill Carson, but he’d never kill a dog. It didn’t make sense, but there it was. “You know why I’m here,” he said.

Carson huffed a laugh, which came out strangled due to his position. “I always thought it would be Devon coming after me,” he said. “Charlie’s big, mean enforcer. I didn’t think it would be precious Brody. Though I should know better. You always did do your own killing.”

Brody wrenched Carson’s arm higher between his shoulder blades, making him moan. “The cops in Pierce Point,” he said. “What did you tell them?”

“We had a nice talk,” Carson said. “We got along like a house on fire, Brody. Turns out the mayor has a thing about shifters. The sheriff, too. They’d both like to do you in. A few little charges are nothing to them. They’ll make them go away. So I told them there was a plan to take them over. You should have seen their reaction. They practically creamed their pants.”

“That was Charlie’s plan. Not mine.”

“Who cares?” Carson said. “Not me, and not them. You’re Charlie’s son. To them, you’re no different. You’ll just carry on Daddy’s legacy. An animal is an animal to them, especially in the middle of the election campaign. They can sell it—and believe me, they will.”

“You’re full of shit,” Brody said. “And you’re a drug dealer. Why would they believe you?”

“Because they know my history. They know I spent all those years with Charlie. Poor Charlie, who lay down to sleep one night and never woke up. Everyone was so relieved that no one questioned it.” He grunted, struggled, but Brody held fast. “Well, they’re going to question it now.”

“And you don’t think there will be blowback to you?” Brody said. “You falsified a postmortem, Carson. That makes you an accessory. You really think those particular charges are going to go away?”

“I’m safer in prison than out here with wolves.”

“You get me sent in with you, you won’t be safe there either.”

Carson laughed softly, the sound dark in his throat. “You don’t care about that,” he said. “You don’t care about your safety or your life. You never have. I know you too well, werewolf.”

Brody gritted his teeth and said nothing.

“You’re not here to save your own skin,” Carson continued. “You’re here for your precious pack. Those piece of shit brothers you call kin. You’re trying to save them, when every single one of them would let you die without thinking twice.” He laughed again. “You always were the sensitive one. Ever since that day with your mother. Poor sweet Brody, living alone and moping. The only thing that can make him mad is a threat to his precious family. Charlie always did know how to keep you in line.”

“Yeah, well,” Brody said. “He didn’t keep me in line in the end.”

“You don’t care about dying,” Carson said. “You think I care about dying? Use that precious brain of yours, son, and think.”

Brody ran through it in his mind. Carson was getting at something, which meant there had to be something different, something he’d missed. The medicinal smell—it was the only unfamiliar thing. He could smell it even more powerfully this close, and he understood it. “You’re sick,” he said.

“Dying,” Carson Dunne agreed. “Cancer in the prostate—and I tell you, I’d give a million fucking dollars to have a shifter’s immunity. But I don’t. I’m dead meat, Donovan. You doing what you came here to do—that just does me a favor.”

Brody yanked him back from the wall, then slammed him into it again, hard enough to make the plaster crack. Kill him, his wolf growled. Kill him, kill him. “Why?” he shouted at Carson, his voice hoarse. “Why are you doing this? Why go to the police with all of those old crimes? Why dig up Charlie’s ghost again? Why are you making me do this? What the fuck do you want after all these years?”

“Do it, Brody,” Carson said. “Kill me.”

He squeezed Carson’s hand, nearly hard enough to break the wrist. Carson moaned in pain but didn’t move. Alison, Brody thought. I have to do this, Alison. I have to.

No, she said in his head.

It’s only my soul. That’s all.

Too high a price, she replied. She was watching him, her gray eyes unwavering. Don’t pay it. Find another way.

I have to. I have to.

“You should have sent Devon,” Carson said, reading every second of Brody’s silence. “Devon wouldn’t hesitate.”

Devon had hesitated. He’d been Charlie’s enforcer, but privately he’d warned most of his targets to leave town before he could get to them. Devon looked like a killer, but secretly he’d saved a dozen lives, maybe more.

Unlike Brody, who looked like he wasn’t a killer—yet had taken his father’s life.

“Shut up,” Brody said to Carson. He passed their words through his mind again, again. This was too important. “You’re lying about something. There’s something you’re not saying. Tell me, or I’ll make it slow.”

For the first time, Carson looked uncertain, like he was about to make a gamble he wasn’t sure he would win. “I might be willing to back out of the deal with the cops,” he said. “For the right price.”

Brody stared at him in shock. “Money?” he said, incredulous. “After all this, you want money?”

“I have a daughter,” Carson said, surprising Brody again. “She’s fourteen.” Carson was at least fifty, and had never been married that Brody knew of. There was certainly no scent of a woman in this house. “Her mother and I… It’s complicated,” Carson explained. “Laura barely knows me. The money isn’t for me—I’m dead anyway. It’s for her. That’s why I was dealing the drugs—money for her before I die. But the cops took everything. Set her up for life, Donovan, and I’ll shut up. I’ll say it was all a mistake. The cops will never hear a word from me again.”

Brody hesitated. Was this a lie? He wouldn’t put it past Carson, but it didn’t seem like it. He didn’t feel the usual tension you could feel when a human was lying.

“Laura Willcreek,” Carson said, following his train of thought again. “She lives at 2321 Fraser Avenue in Boulder with her mother, Theresa Bailey. My former housekeeper.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Couldn’t keep it in my pants, Brody, unlike you. But now that I’m dying, I can’t say I regret it.”

“All of this money, this huge house, and you can’t fucking support her?” Brody said.

“The house is underwater,” Carson said. “Everything is credit cards and lies. I have nothing. And she’s smart.” His voice cracked. “She’s so fucking smart. I want her to go to college, get a Ph.D. Do anything she wants. Make something of her life, unlike me.”

“I’ve got no guarantee from you,” Brody said. “You’re blackmailing me, Dunne. Blackmailing the pack. I give you money, you just ask for more and more. Is that how it will go?”

Carson opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t speak. Downstairs, there was a crash.

“Police!” a voice shouted. “Drop your weapons and surrender!” Heavy footsteps approached the stairs.

“Sorry,” Carson said, his voice cold. “Didn’t they tell you I was under house arrest? The cops have been watching this place twenty-four seven. Looks like we’re done.”

For a second, Brody stared at Carson. Fuck, he thought. It was now or never. He could just put his hands on Carson’s jaw, jerk it exactly the right way, snap his neck, and all of this would be over before that cop climbed the stairs.

Do it, his wolf said.

“Do it,” Carson whispered.

He raised his hand, positioned it.

No, Alison said.

And the moment passed.

“Let him go!” The cop was at the top of the stairs now, in the hallway with them. Brody turned his head and saw a man of about twenty, in uniform, his gun out and aimed at Brody. “Let him go and stand back!” he said. “Hands behind your head! On your knees!”

“Officer,” Carson shouted. “He’s a werewolf!”

Brody let Carson go and stood back. More cops came up the steps, and he could hear motors outside, voices.

Run, his wolf said. You are an alpha. Kill them all if you have to. Run.

Brody put his hands up, locked them behind his head.

Carson had pushed himself away from the wall. “You can’t shoot him,” he said to the cop, his voice an exasperated snarl. “Do you understand? He won’t die.”

“On your knees!” the cop shouted.

Brody stayed still.

“Son of a bitch,” Carson said. “What a bunch of fools.” He shouted louder to the cop. “He’s playing with you. He’s playing with all of you. You can’t kill him, you idiots. You don’t know how.”

“Sir,” the cop said, “please stand back and put your hands behind your head.”

“It’s you or me, Carson,” Brody said from where he stood, his voice soft. “Which of us is it going to be?”

“You got my money?” Carson said.

“I can get it.”

“Then fuck it,” Carson said. He stepped forward, wrested the gun from the cop’s hand, cocked it. “Get him in the eye socket,” he said to the cop. “He might not die, but he’ll be plenty fucked.” He turned and aimed the gun at Brody.

There was a single shot, and Carson fell.

A second cop came up behind the first one, aiming his gun at Brody now. “On your knees,” he said in a shaky voice.

Brody looked at the body on the floor. Then he slowly got to his knees.

It was over.