Sliding behind the wheel of the black Hummer H1 Alpha, Duke started up the engine, while Brick threw their luggage into the back.

Brick opened the door and wedged himself into the passenger seat. At 6’6” and around 270 pounds, he was a difficult man to accommodate in a world built for smaller males. Even among his own kind, he towered over them, which served to support his authority.

As leader of the Cross Plains pack, the responsibility of searching for the book had fallen to Brick after his father’s passing. His mother had died shortly after giving birth to him, her body torn and bloodied from his size. Other clan females took over feeding him in his infancy and fretting and fawning over him as he grew.

One in particular, Ruth, had been a stern disciplinarian, scolding him when he misbehaved and praising him when he followed the rules. But rather than shying away from her, it was into her arms that he ran as a child, clutching her to him in a fierce hold. She was the one he considered his mother, spent most of his time with, and told he loved.

And it was that woman he grieved and would avenge.

As Duke drove them back to the main base of operations, he recalled the horror that drove him to find that damned book.

“A nything you want me to pick up from the grocery store, Brick?” she’d asked, as he was bent over the table, focused on his homework.

“Some of those chocolates.”

Ruth had gone to where he was seated with his school book open, scribbling on a piece of paper. She leaned over, reading first the questions and then reviewing his answers.

“You’ll have to do better than that to get sweets. And watch your penmanship. I can hardly make out what you’ve written.”

“Okay. I will, Momma.”

She bent down and pressed a kiss into his hair.

“I know you will, my boy.”

Tall and gangly at 12 years old, he lifted his head, took her hand, and rose, meeting her eye to eye.

“I should go with you. There’s talk of the TMD in the city.”

“I haven’t heard anything about that, and I would know.” She pointed to the chair he’d been sitting in. “You, focus on your studies. I’ll be looking it over when I get back. Your grades need to improve, Brick.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After following her to the door, he watched, as she got into the cab of the rusted truck, and he waved as she backed away.

That was the last time he saw her... until hours later, when her broken, shifted body was discovered in a stream 25 miles from their land. Whoever had killed her had tried to remove her pelt but must have been interrupted, as it was mostly intact. Members of the clan had brought her remains back to the compound and removed the bullet that contained the serum that was holding her inside her wolf. They waited to bury her until she returned to her human form.

Obsessed with what had happened and not knowing who murdered her, Brick signed into the Shifter’s Brigade at the youngest age possible, 14. Rising in the ranks faster than any recruit in the past, he led not only his pack, but also a squadron of elite fighters, The Enlisted.

Despite the myriad resources at his disposal—reports, recorded interviews, dossiers—he’d yet to find who had killed his beloved Momma Ruth.

“Maybe it’ll be the real deal this time,” Duke murmured.

“We’ll see.”

After a few fill-ups at gas stations and driving for most of the night, they arrived at the Cross Plains Command Center and were quickly ushered inside to the conference room.

When he entered, his soldiers stood at attention with their heads raised high, baring their most vulnerable part, their throats, to their alpha.

“At ease,” Brick said, as he passed their line. He took his seat at the end of the table, as Duke sat in the one to his right, while the other leaders joined them. “What news do you have?”

“Excuse me! Pardon me!”

From behind the broad backs of two of the men still standing, a smaller, scrawnier guy emerged, carrying a laptop, as his glasses slid down his nose. He shuffled over to Brick and set it down in front of him, while tiny tufts of tawny and white fur shot up from his ears.

“Still working on managing your wolf, Rex? The transformation?” Duke asked the Omega with a smile. “Using those tips and tricks you and I trained with?”

“Oh, yes! I’m getting better. Thank you! I know it’ll happen correctly one day, and I’ll be the shifter I should be,” he replied, switching his attention to the monitor.

As Brick gestured to the screen, he asked, “What am I looking at?”

“It’s all very simple, really,” Rex stated, as he pushed his glasses up. “You see, I was brainstorming about the book and the searches performed in the past. I reviewed the history of them, and they had a common pattern of keywords and phrases, with only the slightest of changes. What is it they say, sir? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity?”

“Yeah.”

“So, I made it rational.”

As Rex began typing, his fingers flying over the keys, Brick saw the coding come to life in scrolling lines moving up the screen.

After a moment, Rex straightened, as the monitor brought up the topography of the country and then began to populate, pinpointing locations across it with bright lights.

“All of these are spots where the book could be, but there are still too many variables.” He pressed a thumb drive into the laptop side, navigated to an executable file, and double clicked. “And now, I activate my culling creation.”

As the minutes passed, one white dot after the other faded away, until only three remained.

Rex tapped the screen.

“I am confident that you will locate that damned thing at one of those locations.” Rex went to a desk across the room, opened a drawer, and withdrew a map. He took it back over to the table and laid it down. “I’ve marked on here where you need to go. One is a residence that you may need to either break into or figure out another way to gain access. The other two are a market and a business selling antiques and oddities.”

“Do you have the names?”

“Yes, the estate here,” he said, pointing, “is owned by the young daughter of a dairy magnate. He passed ten years ago, and she’s taken over the operations.” Rex clicked the mouse and brought up a picture of a bosomy blonde at a party, red-eyed and holding a beer in a plastic red cup. “Her name is Carla Dyer. Twenty-eight and...” He coughed, with a knowing look to his commander. “...single.”

“No B & E required. That one’s in the bag.” Brick smirked with a roll of his eyes and fist-bumped Duke. “Next.”

“Should that venture not be successful—in the discovery of the book, I mean—then I suggest moving on to the Artist’s Alleyway.” He cocked his head in concern. “Be warned. The cove is described as sketchy. And I don’t think they mean like Da Vinci’s early drawings.”

Duke snorted and said, “Brick took down an entire battalion of the TMD singlehandedly, so I don’t think we have anything to worry about with a group of painters and the like. What’re they gonna do? Throw their brushes at us? Slam us over the head with their canvases?” Duke drawled and then yawned. “It’s getting late. Move on, Rex. I wanna get a hunt in before I go to bed.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Brick said with a laugh. “Hey, don’t forget about the squadron you killed. You saved many of The Samaritans who had been captured.”

“How could I?” Duke replied to Brick. “I was picking bone out of my teeth and gums for a week. Goddamned splinters.”

“If it’s not at the other places, it must be at Penwell’s Peculiars.”

Brick asked, “So, what’s the deal there?”

“Nothing, sir. It’s a simple establishment, catering to the rare find. Recently sold to a new owner who may have no idea what’s in their storeroom.”

“Plan the fastest route to the three, Rex. We’ll visit Carla first.” Brick slapped Duke’s booted heel on the table and then stood, as he stripped. His flesh started turning to fur, and his voice devolved from human, as his body transformed seamlessly to a wolf that was black with splashes of white. Just before he released his hold on his human side, he growled, “We leave at dawn.”

At his commanding howl, the others in the room shifted, rending their clothing asunder, and dropped to their paws, answering the call of their alpha.

Everyone except Rex.

With an extended nose, legs thickened and covered with fur, he watched the others, while his torso retained his manly form, white dress shirt and necktie intact.

“Have fun, guys!” Rex shouted, while some members of the pack ran out, yipping to each other.

Both Brick’s and Duke’s wolves faced Rex, demanding a different response.

He chuckled, looking down at his legs, his body and voice a mix between human and animal.

“I see I got it half-way.”

Duke rumbled in his chest, lowering his muzzle, eyes pinned on Rex, as he sent mental support to one of his brethren. But it was Brick’s thunderous alpha roar that propelled the small man into the last stages of his change. Rex’s shirt tore apart, and his front paws slammed to the floor. Duke slunk over to him, hooked a claw underneath the tie, and yanked it off.

The three ran into the night.