Chapter 2

Zak was flipping through digital pictures on his laptop when she climbed in the news van. He took a lot of shots of the on-scene lieutenant and the uniformed cops running into the building, then coming out with the hostages and the handcuffed bank robbers. He even had some pictures of the SWAT team coming out. But he wouldn’t send those in. Her boss considered it bad policy to print pictures of cops if it tied them to specific crime scenes. He thought it might lead to retribution against them. Mac wasn’t sure if she always agreed with that, but she abided by it.

He glanced at her, his eyes full of amusement behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “I thought I was going to have to bail you out of jail.”

She made a face at him. “Very funny. I’ll have you know I got an invitation to visit the SWAT compound this afternoon.”

His eyes went wide. “Seriously? You think that invite includes me?”

She considered that. Dixon hadn’t specifically said to come alone, but she didn’t want to press her luck by bringing her photographer. Especially since the SWAT commander wasn’t crazy about cameras. “Probably not right away. Let me work my magic on Dixon first.”

Zak looked bummed at that, but nodded as he went back to surfing through his photos. “So, did you enjoy being carried to the operations vehicle like a sack of potatoes?”

Mac’s face heated at the memory. Damn, she should have known Zak wouldn’t have missed that. She gave him her best I’m-offended-by-that-comment look. “I was not carried like a sack of potatoes. Officer Danner simply escorted me to the operations vehicle to meet with the commander of the SWAT team.”

Zak snorted and spun his laptop around so she could see the screen. There was a picture of Officer Danner running across the street with her in his arms, his hand over her mouth. Her color deepened. He kind of was carrying her like a sack of potatoes. God, that looked bad.

“Maybe you could keep that one off the shared drive?” she asked Zak.

He laughed. “Sure thing. But it’s definitely going on the Best of Mac Stone disk.”

Mac stuck her tongue out at him. Zak loved reminding her he had visual evidence of all of her most embarrassing moments—and that she shouldn’t forget it.

He was still flipping through photos when something caught her attention. “Stop. Go back a couple pics.”

Zak didn’t ask why, but just scrolled back a half dozen pictures.

“Stop,” she said. “Go slow from there.”

He clicked one picture at a time, giving her a chance to look at each of them before moving to the next. She studied each SWAT officer’s photo as it filled the screen. Zak had captured them coming out of the brick building. They had their ski masks pulled up, and under their helmets, each man’s handsome face was covered with a light sheen of glistening sweat.

Zak moved from the SWAT guys to random pictures of hostages, EMTs, and bank robbers. When he got to the end, she had him back up and scroll through the same pictures again.

Mac leaned closer, focusing on the photos of Martinez, Delaney, Taylor, and Riggs. She didn’t know what it was, but something was gnawing at her.

Then she had it.

“These were taken the moment the SWAT team first came out of the building, right?”

“Yeah. I was focused on those doors from the moment the cops and EMTs ran in until you came out of the truck. That’s where all the action was.” He frowned at her. “What’s up?”

Mac studied the pictures one more time, just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything. But she hadn’t. None of the men were holding anything other than their weapons. And none of their tactical vests had pouches that could hold what she was looking for.

Zak looked from her to the photo of the four highly trained officers coming out of the warehouse, then back to her. “What is it?”

“They shut down the power to the building before they went in. It was pitch-black in there. I saw it on the monitors in the truck. But the SWAT guys aren’t carrying any night vision goggles.”

Zak glanced at the picture again. “Maybe they left them in the warehouse?”

She shook her head. “No way. Those things cost a fortune.”

“So, what are you saying? That these guys can see in the dark?”

Mac didn’t answer. Thinking the SWAT officers could see in the dark without the aid of night vision goggles would make her sound crazy, especially since she hadn’t told Zak about the drug angle yet. But what if Marvin was right and the SWAT guys were using a performance-enhancing drug that let them see better in the dark? Crap, that was even more outlandish than a drug that made them crazy strong.

She was busy examining the photos for the missing night vision goggles when something else caught her attention.

She pointed at Diego Martinez’s right hand. “What does that look like to you?”

Zak leaned close to the computer screen. “What the hell?” He fiddled with the keyboard, zooming in on Martinez’s hand. “It looks like blood.”

“That’s what I thought.” She turned to look out the window at the big operations vehicle just in time to see Martinez and Delaney climbing into the cab. Was Martinez holding his arm a little funny?

“Did we just see an injured police officer drive off when there are half a dozen EMTs who could have looked at him?” Zak asked.

“I think we did.”

“Why the hell would they do that?”

“I don’t know…yet.”

But she was damn sure going to find out. She had a sneaking suspicion it was because Martinez was worried about whatever drug he was on showing up in his blood. If she was right, then there really was a story here.

***

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m sure,” Gage said. “Martinez was barely scratched by that bullet. He can get patched up at the compound.”

Xander swore. “That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.”

Gage waited until the news van drove away before he turned to his senior squad leader. He knew Xander wasn’t worried about the minor graze wound Martinez had sustained during the entry. It was almost closed up already and would barely leave a scar if they took care of it right. But Xander definitely wasn’t too thrilled at the idea of having a reporter—a woman reporter at that—sticking her nose in their business. Gage hadn’t expected him to be. Xander didn’t like outsiders in general, and female outsiders in particular. In his opinion, both were bad for the Pack. And if something was bad for the Pack, Xander was never shy about letting him know it.

Gage glanced at his other squad leader. “What do you think, Mike?”

The big man shrugged. “I gotta agree with Xander on this one, Gage. You know Mackenzie Stone has a reputation for digging pretty hard to get the story she’s after, right?”

Gage went out of his way to let his two assistant squad leaders have a say in how the team did things. But when you lead a group of alphas the way he did, it wasn’t possible for everyone to agree on everything all the time. And that’s when he had to pull rank.

“I know all about her reputation,” he said. “She isn’t looking to write a fluff piece on how we do our job. If she’s sniffing, it’s because she thinks there’s a story here. And if she thinks that, she isn’t going to stop looking just because we make it hard on her. If anything, that will only make her dig deeper.”

“So what, we just make it easy for her?” Xander demanded.

“No, we don’t make it easy,” Gage said. “We bring her in and control the flow of information she receives. We show her what we want her to see, when we want her to see it. We make sure she gets the message—and only the message—we want her to get.”

Mike raised his brows. “You honestly think that’ll work? She doesn’t come across as the kind of person you can mislead easily.”

“I’d rather have her where I can keep an eye on her instead of constantly worrying about where she’s going to show up and what she’ll find on her own.”

Mike regarded him thoughtfully. “You sure this is just about keeping an eye on a possible threat?”

Gage pinned him with a hard look. “Meaning?”

Mike didn’t back down. “Meaning, I couldn’t help but notice how nice the inside of the operations truck smelled when we walked in. In fact, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say Ms. Stone has a scent our kind might find irresistible. Sure that doesn’t have something to do with your sudden interest in her?”

Gage did his best to keep his face unreadable and his heartbeat steady, but it was damn tough. Mostly because Mike was right. Gage had noticed how good Mackenzie Stone smelled. Her scent was so intoxicating, he’d almost groaned out loud when she stepped into the operations vehicle. It wasn’t some expensive perfume she’d been wearing, either. Just good old-fashioned, feminine pheromones. Luckily, he wasn’t ruled by his nose—or other parts of his anatomy—when it came to making decisions. Especially decisions about the Pack.

He knew the threat Mackenzie Stone presented. He’d been on guard from the moment he’d spotted her at the compound in her undercover news van two days ago. Hell, he’d been on alert ever since the public relations department told him she wanted to do a story on SWAT. He’d turned down her request for an in-depth interview and ride-along, hoping she’d take the hint. He should have known better. After the stunt she pulled today, he figured the only way to get rid of her was to give her the interview she wanted.

“I make decisions about pack affairs with the head above my shoulders, not the one below my belt,” he said to Mike. “If I think it’s a good idea we keep Ms. Stone close, it’s because it’s best for the Pack, not because she smells good.”

Mike shrugged. “Just checking. If you’re not interested in her that way, maybe I’ll look at her Facebook page—see if she’s available.”

Mike might have sounded casual, but he was still testing him. He wanted to know if Mackenzie’s pheromones were making Gage think with his dick instead of his head.

“You could do that,” Gage said. “But I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Mike tensed, as if bracing for a fight. Beside him, Xander did the same.

“Why’s that?” Mike asked.

“Because I don’t think she’s that into you,” Gage told him. “I mean, you’re not very attractive and you sweat…a lot. Women find that gross.”

Mike stared at him, speechless for once.

Xander laughed and slapped Mike on the shoulder. “Dude, I’ve told you that sweating thing was going to ruin your love life. Now even the boss man has noticed. You need to get that looked at.”

Mike scowled at him, his brows drawing together to make his already chiseled features look extra fierce. “I don’t have a sweating problem, you jackass. I’m wearing thirty-five pounds of Kevlar on a hot Texas day. Of course I’m going to sweat.”

“I’m not sweating,” Xander pointed out.

“That’s because you haven’t hit puberty yet,” Mike retorted. “But just wait, in another year or two, it will happen—I promise.”

Gage chuckled as his squad leaders unloaded their weapons and put away their gear. Another tense situation defused—and he didn’t mean the one with the hostages. Keeping his pack of alpha werewolves under control was just as much a part of his job as figuring out when to green-light an operation or determining the best way to enter a building full of armed thugs. In some ways it was the toughest part of the job. Because nobody wanted to have a bunch of out-of-control SWAT types running around town, especially when they also happened to be werewolves.

Yeah, they were a pain in the ass sometimes. But at the end of the day, they were his pack and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

***

“What the hell’s going on, Vince?” Gage asked as the Internal Affairs officer ran down the same list of questions for the third time.

After dropping Mike off at the compound, he and Xander had come to police headquarters for what was supposed to be a quick debriefing on what had obviously been a clean shooting. But they had already been here for almost two hours.

The gray-haired man looked at him over the top of his glasses. “Just being thorough, Gage.”

That was a crock of shit. It was standard procedure in an officer-involved shooting to talk to both the cop who’d done the shooting and his supervisor on the scene, but if this was just about being thorough, Internal Affairs wouldn’t have put him and Xander in separate rooms for questioning.

“You already have a statement from the woman Xander saved,” Gage pointed out. “She corroborated what he said—that the gunman was in the process of pulling the trigger on her. According to the other hostages in the E-Brand building and the employees at the bank they robbed, the guy had been coked up to all hell. Even his own crew admitted he hadn’t been in control. How much more thorough do you need to be?”

“Just work with me on this, okay?” Vince sighed. “Trust me. We have our reasons.”

Trust and Internal Affairs normally didn’t go together, but it wasn’t as if Gage had much of a choice. Unless he wanted to call in a union rep and really make a mess of this situation. Which he didn’t.

So, Gage leaned back in his chair and answered Vince Coletti’s questions again. God, he hoped Xander was keeping his cool in the other room. His senior squad leader was smart and had been in these shooting reviews before, so he knew what to say—and more importantly, what not to say. If the questioning seemed like it was heading in a bad direction, he was savvy enough to ask for his union rep. But Xander also had a short fuse sometimes. If IA got in his face, he might tell them to pound sand.

“Okay, I think we’re good,” Vince said after the fourth rehash of his story. “We’re going to need to talk to Corporal Riggs for a little while longer, though.”

Gage stared at the man. “Seriously?”

Vince gave him what was probably supposed to be a placating smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll have patrol give him a ride out to the compound.”

Which was IA’s way of saying he didn’t want Gage hanging around because it was going to take a hell of a lot longer than a little while. But getting into it with Coletti wasn’t going to help. While he might be more than ready to rip someone in half right now, Gage reined in his inner wolf. He jerked open the door and stormed out of the interrogation room, almost running over his boss, Deputy Chief Hal Mason. If he didn’t know better, he’d think Hal had been waiting for him.

“Why the hell is IA grilling my senior corporal?” Gage demanded.

Hal waited until Vince had gone into the room where they were questioning Xander before answering. “IA is just doing their due diligence on this shooting, that’s all. They aren’t trying to screw Corporal Riggs, you have my word on that.”

Gage snorted. “You could have fooled me.”

The way his boss was looking at him made Gage think Hal wasn’t telling him everything, but the deputy chief only sighed. “Go back to work. I’ll make sure Riggs gets a ride out to the compound when IA’s done with him.”

Gage hated the idea of leaving Xander with IA, but Coletti could have him in interrogation the rest of the day, and he still had to tell the Pack about Mackenzie Stone—who’d be at the compound in a little over an hour.

Shit.

“Tell Xander I’ll see him back at the compound.”

Hal nodded. “I will. And Gage? Good job out there today.”

Gage grunted.

Luckily, there was no sign of Mackenzie Stone’s news van in the lot when Gage arrived at the compound. He parked the SUV, then went around to the training building, figuring that’s where everyone would probably be.

He heard the sounds of growling before he even opened the door. Officers Landry Cooper and Eric Becker were sprawled on the couch in the dayroom watching TV and eating popcorn.

“What the hell’s going on back there?” Gage demanded, jerking his head toward the rear of the building.

Cooper, the team’s explosives expert and coincidentally—or maybe not so coincidentally—the most laid-back, in-control member of the Pack, shrugged. “Martinez and Delaney came back a little fired up from today’s action,” he said in his southern drawl. “They got into an argument with some of the other guys and now they’re just working it out.”

Which was code for going at each other like a couple of MMA fighters.

Gage swore. Sometimes he felt more like a damn school teacher than the commander of a team of highly trained police officers. “And Mike didn’t think it was necessary to break it up before they destroyed something expensive?”

Cooper grabbed a handful of popcorn from the big bowl Becker was holding. “Domestic abuse call came in about an hour ago. Mike took Duncan and Boudreaux with him.”

“Didn’t you consider that maybe you should step in and do something?” Gage all but snarled.

Cooper didn’t take his eyes off the TV show he was watching—a damn G.I. Joe cartoon, for crying out loud. “Not my argument.”

And sometimes it felt like he was in charge of a day care center—for out of control werewolves.

Gage didn’t waste his breath asking Becker why he didn’t do anything. The surveillance expert was one of the newest members of the team. He might be as big and tough as anyone in the unit, but they weren’t going to pay attention to anything he said. Besides, Gage didn’t think he could pry the tech and electronics experts away from their tub of popcorn.

He headed toward the back of the building, wincing at a particularly loud thud. There was always a little roughhousing after a mission. It was how werewolves dealt with stress. But usually he, Xander, or Mike were around to keep things from getting out of hand. And when you had sixteen oversized alpha wolves in one pack, things could get out of hand pretty damn quick.

He noticed a couple broken chairs and a crushed desk as he passed the classroom. The disagreement must have started there, then moved to the back of the building where the weight room and gym were. He hoped they were in the gym instead of the weight room—not only was there less stuff they could break, but there were also fewer things they could use as weapons.

But while three members of the team—Senior Corporal Zane Kendrick, Senior Corporal Trevor McCall, and Officer Alex Trevino—were in the gym tossing around a basketball, they weren’t the source of the racket he’d heard.

His nose confirmed the identity of the men in the weight room before he got there. All six remaining members of the team were in the weight room. Damn it.

On the bright side, only four of the men were fighting. Two of them—Senior Corporals Jayden Brooks and Carter Nelson—were doing their best to keep the other cops from grabbing anything they could use as weapons while at the same time working just as hard to keep them from destroying the workout equipment.

They were only marginally successful at both tasks.

Gage ducked to avoid a forty-five-pound weight someone threw across the room. It smashed against the wall of mirrors on the far side of the room, completely shattering the floor-to-ceiling piece of glass. Shit, he’d paid for those out of his own pocket.

A low rumble erupted from his lips. This was the reason alpha wolves rarely ever got together in a group—it was damn near impossible to keep them from fighting. But when he’d taken over the SWAT unit eight years ago, he’d made the decision to seek out the best cops in the country and get them on his team. If that meant bringing in other werewolves, that was what he did.

But days like today made him wonder if it was worth it.

Martinez and Delaney had squared off against Connor Malone and the newest member of the team, Max Lowry. Their claws were out, their canines were extended, and their eyes gleamed gold. All they’d done so far was slash each other up, but their faces and jaws were changing shape even now, which meant bites would be coming next, and they were much tougher to recover from. Worse, Malone’s back was already starting to bunch up in that way it did before a full shift. And if Malone shifted into his two-hundred-and-forty-pound wolf form, someone was probably going to get killed.

Gage let out a deep growl and waded into the midst of the brawl, letting his fangs slide out in a partial shift as he started laying backhanded swings that sent people flying. The moment he had them separated, he grabbed Malone by the shoulders and yanked him off his feet, then slammed him against the remaining mirror hard enough to shatter it like the others. Then he bared his teeth and let loose a snarl loud enough to be heard well outside the compound. He didn’t care who heard—he wanted their full attention and he wanted it now.

Malone immediately relaxed in his grip while Martinez, Delaney, and Lowry took a few steps back.

Gage held on to his lead sniper until the man had completely shed any vestige of his wolf form. By the time he turned to look at the other three, they had shifted back, too. There was no evidence of the werewolves they’d been—except for the bloody claw marks covering their bodies and shredding their uniforms. Gage didn’t shift back. He wanted them to get a good look at his yellow-gold eyes and gleaming fangs.

“What the hell is wrong with the four of you?” he demanded. “I walk in here expecting to find a team of professional cops, and instead I find you acting like a bunch of freaking out-of-control Chihuahuas.” He pointedly looked around the room at the broken mirrors, crushed weight benches, and torn mats. “We paid to renovate this weight room out of our own pockets and you’ve wrecked it with your bullshit. Somebody here better start talking fast or I’m going to give in to my first instinct and have you all transferred to bicycle patrol handing out parking tickets downtown.”

“They started it, Sarg.” To his credit, Delaney actually looked a little chagrinned at all the damage they’d done. “Martinez and I were talking about him getting shot in the arm, and Lowry said it happened because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing.”

Gage stared menacingly at Delaney. “The four of you tore up pack property because the new guy was trying to get under your skin?”

“That’s not the way it went down, Sarg,” Lowry protested.

“No?” Gage hoped like hell this new pup wasn’t about to say something that was going to get him buried. “So, how did it go down? Please tell me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Gage saw Brooks and Nelson exchange a worried look. Like they thought he might snap someone’s neck. He’d be lying if he said the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. He’d never do it, of course.

Unfortunately, these kinds of brawls happened a lot. Regardless of the formal rank structure placed on them by the Dallas PD, his wolves were constantly challenging the pecking order within the Pack as each cop tried to outperform the other and each squad tried to make its group look better. With all the new guys he’d brought in over the years, he shouldn’t be surprised the issue had come to a head again. Well, he was going to nip this competition shit in the bud right now. His team would be one, well-oiled unit, or he’d tear it down and start over.

“So?” he prompted Lowry again.

Lowry swallowed hard. Gage knew the man wasn’t actually afraid of him, but he was the unchallenged alpha of the Pack, and whether the younger guys knew it or not, that position came with a certain amount of inherent control over the other pack members. Standing this close to his pissed-off lead alpha, Lowry probably felt seriously uneasy for the first time in his life. Gage hated making any of his men feel that way, but he’d learned he had to either lead them by force of will or learn to live with chaos.

Gage didn’t like chaos.

“It’s was nothing, Sarg,” Lowry finally conceded. “We were just messing around and things got out of hand. It won’t happen again.”

Gage held him there until he was sure all four of them had firmly received the message. Then he lowered Delaney to the floor.

“No, it won’t happen again,” he agreed. “Because I’m breaking up your teams. Lowry, when Mike gets back, let him know you’ve been reassigned to Xander’s team, and that Delaney’s going to be your entry buddy. I want him to put you two shoulder-to-shoulder on every mission from this day forward.”

Gage ignored the look of shock on Lowry’s face and turned to look at Martinez. “I assume you got that arm looked at before you decided to get in a fight?”

The stocky man flexed his injured arm. “Yeah. Trevino fixed me up the moment we got back. It’s fine.”

“Good,” Gage said. “Because you’ll be taking Lowry’s spot on Mike’s team. Same thing applies—you’ll be tied to Malone every time the two of you walk through a hostile doorway.”

Martinez opened his mouth to argue, but Gage silenced him with a glare. Malone, on the other hand, was too fuzzy from his recent near-shift to keep his trap shut.

“But, Sarg, I’m your best sniper. I don’t usually go through doors.”

“You do now,” Gage told him. “So, I suggest you spend a lot of time with your new entry buddy and learn real fast.”

“Sarg, you can’t do this,” Delaney said. “We know we screwed up and we’ll fix everything, I swear. But you can’t break up Martinez and me—we’ve been on the same team for more than three years.”

“Then you’ll be able to bring Lowry up to speed on Xander’s tactics.”

“But Sarg—”

“Have you ever seen how tight the shorts are on those bike cops?” Gage asked.

Delaney snapped his mouth shut.

Gage looked at Brooks and Nelson. “Next time I expect you two to get in the middle of a fight and break it up—or you’ll be wearing the bike shorts. And I’m not sure they make any in your size, Brooks.”

The big African American shifted from one foot to the other. The ex–college fullback was probably envisioning himself in tight blue shorts and perched on a bicycle. Apparently, it wasn’t a very pretty image.

“Sure thing, Sergeant.”

“Good.” Gage jerked his head at the four junior officers. “Make sure they get those wounds cleaned up right before they start to heal. And make sure Martinez didn’t rip his open again.”

All he needed was for Martinez to be the first werewolf who got an infection. Going to the hospital really wasn’t something werewolves preferred to do.

Gage started for the door, then stopped and turned back to them. “And get this mess cleaned up. I want everyone in the classroom in fifteen minutes.”

He didn’t need to see his men’s scowls to know he wasn’t their favorite person right now. It made him wonder what they were going to think of him when he told them about Mackenzie Stone.

***

“Xander isn’t getting jacked up,” Gage said for the third time.

He’d started their all-call meeting with a quick briefing of the hostage situation earlier, then touched on the detailed level of questioning he and Xander had gone through downtown. At least he’d planned on it being brief. He wanted to get to the real reason he’d called everyone together—Mackenzie Stone—but he couldn’t get the team to focus on anything other than Internal Affairs grilling one of their own.

“Then why is IA still questioning him?” Remy Boudreaux asked, a trace of his Louisiana accent coming through.

Gage suppressed a growl. Sometimes his guys were bigger conspiracy nuts than Mulder and Scully. “They’re just going over his statement to make sure there aren’t any inconsistencies that could end up in a lawsuit. They’re trying to help him, not screw him. Besides, he’s probably already on his way back.”

“Then if you didn’t call us here to talk about Xander, what’s this about?” Martinez asked.

Gage was pleased to see the cop sitting beside his new best buddy, Malone. On the other side of the room, Delaney and Lowry were doing the same. Maybe they had the ability to overcome their petty squabbles faster than he’d given them credit for.

“Yeah, Sarg.” Mike was lounging back in his chair, a knowing smile on his face. “What are we here to talk about?”

Gage scowled at his squad leader. Mike wasn’t going to cut him a break, damn him. And while the rest of the guys might not know what was going on, they’d definitely picked up on the strange vibe. Well, everyone except for Cooper. He was reading a damn comic book.

“I wanted to tell you that we’ll be having a visitor hanging around the compound for the next few days,” Gage said.

“What kind of visitor?” Cooper asked, raising his gaze from his comic book long enough to show he was capable of multitasking.

Oh hell, no way to avoid this. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. “A reporter from the Dallas Daily Star—Mackenzie Stone.”

Gage waited, expecting an immediate firestorm of negative comments. But his announcement was met with complete silence. Though whether that silence was because they were stunned or just indifferent, he couldn’t tell.

“I’ve seen her picture,” Becker said. “She’s really hot.”

Okay, that wasn’t the comment he expected. Then again, this was Becker. The information tech and electronic surveillance expert always said the first thing that came to his mind. As if to prove his point, Becker pulled out his iPhone and quickly found a picture of the journalist to show the other guys. They took one look at her photo and agreed that Ms. Stone was “smokin’.” Damn, sometimes they could be so shallow.

Cooper passed the phone back to Becker. “Isn’t Mackenzie Stone known for her in-depth investigative stories, ones usually involving corrupt politicians or major crime figures? What does she want with us?”

The rest of the unit stopped debating about whether Mackenzie Stone had a boyfriend or not to give Gage a worried look. For all the trouble they caused him with the bickering, the fighting, and the constant effort to move up the Pack’s command structure, they trusted him to protect and keep hidden the one thing they cared about—their identity as werewolves. Because if they were scared of anything, it was being exposed for what they really were.

Gage sat on the edge of the desk at the front of the room. “Ms. Stone said she wants to see how we operate so she can write a story on how we work together as a team.”

“Do you believe her?” asked Trey Duncan, the unit’s other resident medic and entry man.

“Honestly? I think it’s a load of crap.” At their surprised looks, he continued. “As Cooper said, Ms. Stone specializes in digging into serious stories that grab national headlines. I doubt she’s interested in writing a fluff piece about the city’s SWAT team. I’m guessing she’s seen all our accolades and figures there’s something fishy going on. I don’t know if she thinks we’re crooked or in league with the criminals we take down or what. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what her angle is. I’ve decided the best way to get her to go away is to bring her in and let her see what we do.”

Becker stared at him in disbelief. “You’re going to tell her we’re werewolves?”

Gage would have laughed if anything about this was funny. “No, I’m not going to tell her the entire SWAT team is made up of werewolves. But I will show her how hard we work and train, how much we care about the people of this city, and what we’re willing to risk for them. I’m going to be charming and friendly—we’re all going to be charming and friendly. By the time she leaves, Mackenzie Stone will realize we’re nothing more than hardworking, dedicated cops, not a story for the evening news.”

“And what if she doesn’t buy that line?” Mike asked from the back of the room. The smile he wore earlier was gone now. “What if she keeps digging?”

Gage met his gaze. “I guess it’s on me to make sure that doesn’t happen, isn’t it?” He scanned the room. “But I need all of your help to do it. As long as Mackenzie Stone is around, you’re going to have to stay in complete and total control. No one going half wolf on me, no one jumping a wall they shouldn’t be able to jump, no one running faster than they should be able to run. And definitely no fighting. You need to look like the best SWAT team in the country. Got it?”

Slow nods came from around the room, Mike included.

Gage took a deep breath. Until now, he hadn’t realized how hard hiding their secret from Mackenzie Stone was going to be. But his pack was depending on him to keep them safe, and that’s what he’d do.

As everyone stood up to get back to work, Gage added one more thing. “Ms. Stone will be here in less than an hour. I want that weight room cleaned up before she shows up. Get on it.”

That earned him some groans, but not nearly as many as he expected. Maybe this was going to work.