Morgan felt like he had been kicked in the head. His mouth tasted bitter, like chemicals. His face pressed against something smooth, like paper. The rumbling and movement suggested he rode in the back of a truck. He blinked, attempting to bring focus to his eyes. Nothing.

He closed them again and tried to shift his position. His hands were tied behind his back. He tried to rotate his wrists, straining with his fingers to feel what bound his wrists together. Whatever the binding was, it was just out of reach. He pulled his wrists apart, expecting to break through his restraints. In his weakened condition, all that motion did was hurt.

He tried to open his eyes again. Dark. Some filtering light. He blinked and let his eyes adjust to the lack of light. A flat expanse blocked part of his vision. He leaned, face first against a cardboard box. Morgan used his shoulder to right himself to a more comfortable sitting position. Comfortable was subjective. Now that he could see, he realized he sat on the sheet metal flooring of a panel truck.

Morgan assessed his situation, reviewing everything he knew. Which wasn’t much. His driver had been shot. He had been drugged. His head throbbed. He was now in the back of a cargo truck, not too big from the dimensions, so not a semi, and they were moving. From the constant and continuous rocking, Morgan surmised they were on a freeway, headed away from the Bay Area and its constant traffic jams. The aftereffects of the drug left him groggy and weak. There was little for him to do except sit and wait.

The truck pulled off the freeway and stopped once briefly before getting back on the road. The rocking motion and lack of sensory input lulled Morgan to sleep. He awoke as the back door to the cargo area rolled up with a clatter. Morgan squinted at the back-lit figure that stepped up into the cargo hold. Night. A fluorescent lit marquee advertising cigarettes and beer. They were stopped at a gas station.

Morgan turned his focus to the man in front of him. He tried to open his senses to identify who had kidnapped him. Nothing. He quickly assessed his captor’s physical appearance. The man wasn’t overly tall and had a military-style buzz cut. Morgan considered neither piece of information to be useful.

“Who are you?” Morgan asked gruffly, his words mere mumbles of sound.

His answer was a blow to the head and a sharp needle prick in the side of his neck. The man shoved Morgan away, so he landed with his face against the flooring of the truck. The lights outside of the truck blurred out of focus seconds before Morgan blacked out again.

* * *

Morgan groaned. His head felt like he had been hit repeatedly. The constant frantic throbbing in his temples wasn’t helping any. A sharp slap stung the side of his face. A second slap was followed by a kick to the ribs.

“Wake up,” a voice growled.

Morgan slowly moved his pounding head. Consciousness flooded him. Thumping that didn’t originate inside his head assaulted him. The rapid thud of helicopter blades created the backbeat to the pain in his skull.

Keeping his eyes closed, Morgan assessed his predicament. He was no longer in the back of a truck—that much was certain. He sat upright in an upholstered swivel chair. Pounding, aching head—check. Bitter chemical taste combined with morning-after mouth, demon breath, and fuzzy teeth—check. Wrists bound behind back—check. Weak as shit—check. He opened his senses to gather more information, this time with a little more success. A human pilot sat behind him—that meant he was rear facing. A wolf-shifter in front of him. A not-quite-human who didn’t smell right—sick or drugs, Morgan couldn’t hone in on the smell. It was being masked by the unmistakable cloying stench of French designer aftershave on another human.

His lids still clenched, Morgan let his eyes open enough to let light flood his brain. He closed his eyes again and breathed. Slowly, he opened his eyes again, letting his vision focus on the man directly across from him. Wolf. A Japanese man with short black hair and black eyes stared back at him. Next to the wolf, in a separate captain’s style chair, sat an extremely pale man with a military haircut. Morgan recognized his shape as the one who’d stuck a needle into his neck earlier.

“Good, he’s awake.” A familiar snide voice pierced Morgan’s brain. That explained the cologne, Morgan thought. He turned to face the man next to him, his entire chair rotated.

Morgan huffed. “What the fuck are you doing here, Maplecourt?”

“I should ask you the same thing.”

“I’m the one with his hands tied behind his back. So I get that you think I have some information you want or need. Let’s start by asking me something I might actually know?”

“Why do they think you have any power? You’re a construction worker.” The confusion in Maplecourt’s tone told Morgan the man was out of his league, and he didn’t know who, or rather what, he was keeping company with.

“Again, try asking me something I might actually know, Maplecourt. Last time I was awake, I was in traffic headed for the Bay Bridge. Now—” Morgan swiveled his chair away from Maplecourt, looking out of the helicopter window as they passed over a ski lift and treeless side of a ski slope. “—we appear to be flying over the Sierras. Maybe your new friends here could help you out?” Morgan nodded to the wolf. “What do you say, fellows? Want to fill Maplecourt in on what’s going on so that I can get out of here?”

They stared back at him enigmatically.

“Nothing?”

The Japanese man pulled a cell phone from his pocket and placed it up to his right ear. He nodded as he listened. He placed the phone back into his pocket.

“Morgan Palatine,” the wolf-shifter began, “our Lordship has a proposition for you.”

“Lord? God told you over the phone to offer me a job? No thanks, I have one.”

“Shut up!” Maplecourt hissed.” You don’t know who these people are. They are very powerful. If you don’t accept their offer, they’ll kill you.”

Morgan caught a whiff of adrenaline and fear under Maplecourt’s assaulting aftershave. He was nervous, excited, and clearly in over his head.

“I get the feeling—” Morgan addressed Bryce directly, “—that you don’t really know who these people are either. Do your friend’s at Cyan Group know you’re here?” He needed to keep the man unbalanced before he figured out it was his job to kill Morgan.

“Cyan Group is a bunch of daisy scouts.” Maplecourt scoffed. “They act all tough like they’re Russian mafia or something. They don’t know shit. They don’t have real power.” He gestured towards the men sitting across the luxury passenger cabin. “Their Lordship has real power, controls real money. This—” His gesture included the helicopter. “—is not even a show of the magnitude of his wealth.”

“What have you gotten yourself into?” Morgan asked. Cyan Group was definitely an or something and more frightening than the Russian mafia. This helicopter was for show. It wasn’t a personal vehicle. Morgan had picked up on the little nuances from the interior that gave it away as a chartered ride, little stickers of communication that someone who rode in this cabin frequently would know and remember, and have removed.

“I’ve gotten into the real game, real wealth, real influence. And Cyan Group won’t be able to touch me, not with what I have on them. If they make one move I don’t like, I’ll go public with my information, and they’ll be out of business and in jail. They won’t even get to enjoy watching it go viral.”

Morgan shook his head. Real stupid and real dead. Maplecourt was proving himself to be an idiot. A dangerous idiot. He turned back to the Japanese man.

“What does your boss want from me?”

“Bring down the alpha of the Aventine pack.”

“Nature is already doing that. His wife is dying of cancer. He no longer pays attention to his family or his business.”

“Take out the second, the son.”

“Why? To what end?”

“Destroy the Aventines.”

“And if I refuse this offer?” Morgan’s eyes cut away from the Japanese man, quickly glancing at Maplecourt. “He’s supposed to shoot me?” Clearly, this was a set-up. Maplecourt needed to prove his loyalty to the new master so they’d let him into their little club. Have him kill someone in front of witnesses, and they would have Maplecourt by the balls for the rest of his life. At this rate, it was going to be a very short life.

Maplecourt chuckled. “Do you even know who they are talking about? Aventine Industries is a bigger conglomerate than that paltry little get-up you work for. Taking them down will cause a disruption in the market. Not ripples, but a tsunami. A tidal wave I plan to surf to financial glory.” Maplecourt turned to face the men opposite. “I told you when he was unconscious, he’s a nobody, a construction site manager. I don’t know why he’s in a suit. Must have been meeting with the boss, and you grabbed the wrong guy. He’s not who you think he is.”

Maplecourt was an even bigger idiot than Morgan thought moments ago. How many meetings had they had and he still thought Morgan was the site manager. He let his gaze rest on the pale man. This one hadn’t said anything.

“He’s a real moron, isn’t he?” Morgan asked, inclining his head towards Maplecourt. The other man grimaced, flashing his teeth. Naturally sharpened canines. A daywalker. That explained why Morgan couldn’t figure out the man’s scent. They never smelled right, and if he was drugged, that would explain why Morgan couldn’t identify his smell earlier.

Daywalkers were the biological offspring of mated vampires. Vampires were not exactly the undead of legend, but close. They had fangs and a physical need to consume blood. They possessed extreme strength, had proclivity towards psychic abilities, and developed extreme burns when exposed to sunlight. Unlike their progenitors, daywalkers’ fangs were neither as large or retractable. The need for blood also differed in daywalkers. They did not need to consume it for sustenance; however, they required infusions of clean blood on a regular basis. With comparable strength but without the need to avoid daylight, daywalkers tended to be the assistants and henchmen in the vampire world. While vampires tended to have a higher occurrence of telepaths in their ranks, the mental development of daywalkers leaned towards the unbalanced. Daywalkers were beneficial to vampires because they didn’t have to avoid the sun which had fatal consequences for vampires.

Morgan stared at the daywalker. What would make a daywalker and a wolf work together? Typically, the two groups couldn’t stand each other. The rivalry that made the centuries-long feud between the Palatine family and the Aventines look like the petty corporate squabble between Coke and Pepsi. And why did they want him?

Morgan addressed the wolf. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why me? What purpose will killing Aventine serve?”

“It will serve our Lordship’s purpose. That is all that concerns you. If you do not comply, our friend here will shoot you.”

Morgan pursed his lips and looked out the window. The helicopter dipped, following the tree line down to fly low over a body of water. Lake Tahoe? He let his gaze wander around the cabin. Idiot boy Maplecourt, no physical threat, sat to his left. He probably couldn’t even aim a gun properly, let alone hit him even in this confined space.

“Don’t shoot me in here. You’ll never get the deposit back.” Morgan muttered. The daywalker sat furthest away and was buckled in. The only real threat was the wolf across from him. Morgan focused on the door and the little sticker that indicated which way the lever pivoted to unlock and slide the door open.

“I think—” Morgan leaned forward towards the wolf. The Japanese man sat back, relaxing into his cushioned seat, assured he had won. “—that will be a no.” Moving quickly he rolled back, kicked the lever then kicked a second time to open the door.

The helicopter wobbled as wind buffeted the cabin. Maplecourt let out an undignified squeal, and a shot rang past Morgan’s head as he jumped.

Another shot, and a sharp sting bit into Morgan’s arm. Adrenaline-fueled rage brought Morgan’s strength roaring back. He snapped his restraints in time to pull his arms in tight as he hit the water feet first.

Rising to the surface, Morgan searched for the helicopter. He saw it circling low ahead of him. They hadn’t seen him. Morgan gulped down air then sank below the surface of the water, striking out in the opposite direction.

He felt the fabric of his trousers tear when his knee crashed into a rock as he climbed to shore. His muscles felt shaky after the long swim. He still had the sedative in his system. It made him feel weak. Morgan looked around. The helicopter was nowhere in sight, but he could hear it.

His first inclination was to call for some backup, get Shane out here. Find out what the hell was going on. He pulled his cell phone from his jacket breast pocket. Damn. Plan A ruined by water-soaked technology. He began working on plan B: getting the hell out of there. Morgan removed his clothes and shoes, then tied them into an easy to carry bundle. He was going to need them later.

He reached out in a stretch. The muscles in his long legs and arms clenched and bunched as he willed the shift. He blinked, and his vision changed. The world shifted from flat and full color to infinite depths and details in black, white, and shades of gray. His bones shifted. He reached forward and landed on large paws. He shook as if he shook water from his dry, mottled brown fur. The sluggishness from the drugs left his muscles. The pain from the shot in his arm was now a dull, ignorable ache, as his natural accelerated healing began repairing the flesh and muscle.

A shot rang out. The psfft of a bullet sped past him. Morgan froze. Another shot. This one closer, hitting a tree less than a yard away. Morgan lowered his body and ran. Another bullet exploded into a tree as he ran past. They were in pursuit.

He hadn’t smelled them or heard them approaching. That could only mean they hadn’t brought the human Maplecourt along. Good. Then he still had no idea what Morgan was.

He ditched the bundle of clothes he carried and ran faster, circling around behind his hunters. Once downwind of them, his nose confirmed his pursuer was the daywalker from the helicopter. Morgan couldn’t smell the wolf. Maybe he had stayed behind. The daywalker stood with his back to Morgan looking in the other direction for him.

Morgan attacked.

He clamped his teeth onto the wrist holding the gun. The daywalker shrieked as the large brown wolf bit through sinew and muscle. The pistol forgotten, Morgan dropped the wrist then lunged for the man’s neck. He fought back, but not with the ferocity Morgan expected. This one was weak, all bluff and bluster. There was no fighting power in his arms. Morgan fought with teeth and claws. The man fought with knees and punches. In the end, teeth won against soft belly flesh.

The daywalker was down, possibly dead. Morgan circled back to where he dropped his clothes, picked up the bundle with blood soaked jaws, and ran back to the body.

In an instant, Morgan changed back to his human form. Momentarily, he thought about trying to hide the body, but he didn’t have time for that. He had to get out of there before the wolf showed up. He searched the man’s pockets for a cell phone. Nothing. What kind of person didn’t carry a cell phone these days? No cell phone, but there was the gun. He didn’t need that in wolf form, but he might need it as a human. He rearranged his bundle to now include the gun.

Back in wolf form, Morgan headed deeper into the forest. He had to find out what was going on. Daywalkers and wolves, and who was this Lordship guy? He also had to get back to Honey, keep her away from Maplecourt. That ass had just proven himself to be more dangerous than merely being a sadistic, abusive ex-boyfriend. They were grooming Maplecourt to be a fucking minion and he was clueless. By the time the vampires were feeding from him, he would welcome it. And worse, Maplecourt was stupid and dangerous enough they might turn him he was good-looking enough they would want him—that is, if they could control him. If they couldn’t, then that was his tough luck.

Morgan needed to speak with Cyan del Fuego from Cyan Group. See what she knew about this “Lordship” person. Morgan had an idea, but he needed confirmation. This mess came with a whole list of questions without answers. More fucking work for him, and all he wanted to do was get back to Honey and make sure she was safe.