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Cole Cavanaugh tuned his sensitive wolf hearing to every sound along this southeast corner area of metropolitan Spartanburg. Quiet for a Monday night, but this wasn’t exactly a party area and he was not here for social activity.

He couldn’t risk being caught off guard and blow this mission.

Time was short. For him, anyhow.

Steady rain had started coming down hours ago, before dark. Just a sign of spring showing up. It reminded him of a sweet female voice telling him spring showers would bring May flowers.

That had been back when he was human and in love with a human woman.

Not the time to dial up that memory, Cavanaugh.

Ignoring the rain, he kept scouting for other predators stalking the night who might pick up his scent in spite of the weather.

As a Gallize wolf shifter, he included himself in the category of predators. Not all Gallize were wolves, but every one was just as dangerous as Cole.

Sure, he fought with the good guys, protecting humans, law-abiding shifters and his Gallize teammates, but he was no choirboy. He’d been trained to kill from the moment he finally took control of his raging wolf.

That had been the month he turned twenty, nine months after discovering he no longer belonged to the human race.

At twenty-six, he accepted what he couldn’t change.

A sharp pain drove through his chest. He stopped short and hissed under his breath at Gray Wolf, “Back down, dammit.”

Wasted words. The beast who shared his body wanted out to prowl and hated being denied. He could hear Cole speak, out loud or silently, but generally ignored him unless they were working as one, with the same goal.

That hadn’t happened in more than two weeks and might not ever again.

Catching his breath, Cole yanked back control, gritted his teeth and continued. It would be over for him and Gray Wolf soon, but right now they had a mission to complete.

He wasn’t sure which one would be more relieved when the end came.

Water dripped off the bill of the black Carolina Panthers ball cap he’d worn for tonight. The constant drizzle muffled sound for humans, but not so much for someone like him. He wouldn’t be the only shifter walking these streets in human form this late in the evening.

Things had changed drastically in the human world from eight years ago, when an undercover reporter—a jackal shifter—exposed the preternatural community to the world. Cole had felt the same shock as every other citizen and could admit he’d experienced a primal fear when battles broke out across the US, then in other countries. Frightened humans hunted the shifters, even those who had threatened no one. Angry shifters retaliated.

Nine bloody weeks later, a ceasefire was called and parties from each group met to create a tentative agreement.

Then the Power Barons showed up.

They were five legendary mages who’d made a pact early in the game, forming political alliances with humans before their kind ended up exposed and attacked, too. The Power Barons negotiated deals with heads of the major human governments, eventually proving there could be something worse than a person who grew claws and fur.

Some days the US reminded Cole of the old west, where towns lived through a roller coaster ride of peaceful days and bloody battles.

Did the jackal shifters care that one of theirs had exposed the preternatural world, putting everyone at risk?

No. They had no conscience when it came to making a dollar, which was why most of them were mercs.

Cole hoped that jackal bastard who started this mess had enjoyed his money for the three days he’d lived after earning it before an alpha lion shifter hunted down the jackal.

Were the Power Barons all really mages? Cole had no idea, but that was the story floated through the media. Those five now formed a ruling body, which governed any non-shifter being with extraordinary powers.

The US and other national governments echoed a common message that they considered the Power Barons an ally.

Politicians would join with the devil if they thought he could guarantee they remained in office.

Humans had no idea just who could do what in Cole’s world, much less the extent of terror the Power Barons were capable of committing under the guise of playing protectors.

He and Tess had sat staring at the carnage when the first images of confirmed shifters were televised. His initial concern had been finding a way to protect the woman who was his world.

Those college days belonged to another man.

A human man.

Cole swallowed and grunted at another push from Gray Wolf.

Our mate, rumbled from the beast.

“No.” He didn’t want Gray Wolf getting worked up, so he pushed him back on track. “Pay attention or we’ll get killed.”

The beast calmed again, but for how long?

He shook off the morose direction of his thoughts and kept his head down, eyes up and alert.

If one of the Black River wolf pack caught Cole before he found the rogue pack’s meet point tonight, he’d pay the price for being a lone wolf in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As a Gallize shifter, he could handle three or four on his own.

But that was in a fair fight.

Black River pack members used the drugs they peddled, some of which supposedly enhanced strength for any type of shifter. Rumors flew that they had concoctions capable of taking down a shifter elephant, if there was such a thing. Also, the Black River pack generally operated in large groups.

Cole had two additional Gallize team members in the area, but they would be well hidden.

For now, he just needed to make the most of the tip their boss had received ninety minutes ago. He and his two teammates had been sent here to be on site and ready if the call came.

Hunching his shoulders so he appeared nonthreatening to any eyes on him, he plodded across the dark street to the next corner.

He’d like to be excited about gaining a break in this case and at the chance to find his missing teammate, Sammy Dubois, but concern clawed across Cole’s neck over one small detail of the tip.

Their resource claimed Sammy had been fingered for a recent double homicide—the murder of a honeymooning couple.

Cole had known Sammy for seven years. They’d fought side by side for six of those years, putting their lives on the line for humans.

Sammy had been his Gallize mentor and was a deadly bear shifter.

Now Sammy supposedly had turned into a murderer overnight and joined up with the Black River wolf pack that made and sold dangerous synthetic drugs in the US.

Neither of those two things fit the man Cole knew. Plus, wolf packs didn’t take in other animals.

But Sammy had gone missing four days ago, right before a young couple hiking in the Nantahala National Park was found ripped to pieces by a grizzly, based on forensic evidence. Justin “Herc” Labeau, another grizzly shifter on their team, had confirmed the scent on the bodies as Sammy’s. But Justin quickly pointed out that the scent hadn’t been as strong as he’d expect.

As Gallize bear shifters, Justin and Sammy had been friends a long time, which had to make this just as hard for him as for Cole.

Had the Black River pack set up Sammy for the killing?

Just one more in a long line of questions Cole had about Sammy joining a wolf pack.

A voice coming through Cole’s comm unit broke into his thoughts. “Smokey in place and eyes on the picnic.”

That would be Justin letting Cole know he was in a high point position where he could watch the roof of the warehouse being used as a food bank.

Cole replied, “Copy that.” He kept strolling slowly, waiting for his other team member, Rory Wallace, to check in.

“Hobbes on site and eyes on the porch.”

That meant Rory was set up on the backside of the building, but as a jaguar shifter, the only thing he had in common with the cartoon tiger was claws and a tail.

If they were in animal form, they could communicate telepathically. For team communication while in human forms, their Gallize tech department had developed unique radio systems that transmitted their words mixed with a loud, irritating noise intended to damage an eavesdropping shifter’s hearing.

Cole and his team wore headgear that filtered out everything but their words.

Just before the next corner, he paused at the sight of a homeless man tucked into the narrow doorway of a closed business. The balled up human shivered in spite of the moderate temperature. The skinny old guy’s threadbare shirt and pants were no defense against a bone-chilling rain. His baggy pants were soaked all the way up his thighs.

One sleeve had ripped half off, exposing the tattoo of an eagle, a world globe and an anchor on that bicep.

US Marine Corp.

It didn’t matter which division of the military this guy had come from. He’d served his country and deserved better.

Seeing the poor soul in this condition gutted Cole. He’d fought alongside soldiers who hadn’t known the special unit supporting them had been made up of shifters with a better chance of surviving if someone had to take a bullet.

Many times he’d wanted to inform them, but the military leaders who knew about shifters did not want their identities known.

Terrorists were better accepted than shifters.

Those human soldiers had raced into danger, knowing it might be their last day on earth.

Shit. Cole couldn’t stay to get this guy help right now, like so many others he’d gotten off the streets, but neither could he leave him in this condition. He dug out cash from his jeans and shoved it into the pocket of his custom-designed windbreaker, then shrugged out of the garment.

The boss would dock his pay for it and chew his ass for taking it off.

Fine.

Cole draped the temporary cover over the old guy and whispered, “I’ll be back later.”

He hadn’t expected a reply and didn’t get one.

Rain quickly saturated his dark T-shirt and jeans, but his body ran hot thanks to Gray Wolf. To be honest, he welcomed the cool relief on his skin. He’d been ordered to wear the windbreaker because it had an inner liner similar to Microlattice, a synthetic, high-tech material constructed of very small, interconnected, hollow tubes. The lightest metal developed, supposedly, and impervious to a tactical blade.

Created in a similar fashion, the middle layer of his windbreaker was intended to prevent sharp claws from slicing open the arms and chest of a human body.

That wouldn’t be a problem as long as Cole didn’t actually engage with shifters while in human form.

If he did, well, he wasn’t just a shifter and Gray Wolf wasn’t just a wolf. Gallize shifters came with a few extra bells and whistles. In Cole’s case, he had the ability to push his preternatural power to an even higher level for a short period when needed for battle.

You can still die if the enemy rips out your heart.

Sammy’s words bounced around in Cole’s head, reminding him that while the Gallize were harder to kill than most shifters, they were not immortal.

A harder downpour slapped the street and sidewalk by the time he reached the last block leading up to the building. Pathetic light from streetlamps managed to poke through the weather.

Keeping his voice soft when he spoke into his comm, Cole said, “Big Bad with eyes on the cottage,” letting his team know he was in place. From this side of the street, he could observe the overhead door used for truck access.

Rory confirmed then said, “No lights on the porch.”

Justin followed up with, “Quiet here, too. That hobo better not be playing games.”

Justin had voiced concerns about the snitch, Sonic, who was human. If Sonic had fed them good information, they’d have action in the next ten minutes.

Cole respected Justin’s opinion, but Sonic had not given them a reason to doubt him. Yet. Sonic wore a silver skull earring and sported skull tattoos all over his body. He talked a big game, which Cole attributed to Sonic’s need to hold his own with a brother who shifted into a mountain lion.

Couldn’t be easy for a human sibling.

Sonic wasn’t a bad sort and he’d come through for them more than once, especially in this area.

But no one on Cole’s team had liked Sonic’s news about Sammy.

As someone familiar with the dark underbelly of the human and shifter worlds in this city, Sonic had been the only person to discover intel about the Black River pack possibly infiltrating a local food bank. If that turned out to be true, that pack was using this food distribution point as a cover for trafficking Jugo Loco.

“You think someone’s cookin’ in there?” Justin asked.

“Maybe,” Cole allowed.

Justin was questioning whether the drug was being made here. Jugo Loco had been developed from the powerful hallucinogenic derivative of Ayahuasca, a plant grown in South America. For many years, humans had touted how a simple tea made from the plant produced shamanistic experiences.

Then a pack of enterprising wolf shifters with no morals had taken the flowering vine into a lab and developed a synthetic drug capable of jacking up a nonhuman.

That’s when it earned the street name Jugo Loco.

Crazy Juice.

As if shifters needed one more reason for humans to hate them?

Sixteen deaths had been attributed to the substance in the past eight months. Nine shifters overdosed and seven humans had been attacked by some of those shifters who had lost their minds on the drug. The Black River pack was building a powerful reputation for having a state-of-the-art medical facility somewhere in South America.

They maintained it was dedicated to shifter enhancement and healing.

That might impress some in Cole’s world, but not him.

His people believed it was an experimental lab capable of doing worse to his kind than the human scientists who were anxious to cut open shifters for study.

Moving further along the broken sidewalk, Cole found a dark cubbyhole that offered a decent view of the loading area.

He could also watch the walk-in entrance to the left of the overhead door.

Three minutes had passed when a figure stumbled along the sidewalk on the food bank side of the street.

Wearing rags wrapped around his head and more hanging from his body, he hunched against the rain. It was hard to determine much about the stranger until he paused to down a slug from a whiskey bottle.

Cole growled under his breath.

Not a good time for a civilian to step into this operation.

The homeless guy had made it to the corner near the door entrance when he sat down beside a large trashcan and practically disappeared into the night. He leaned back against the wall where the short roof overhang for the delivery entrance shielded him from the rain.

Sighing, Cole couldn’t begrudge a homeless person shelter of any sort.

A pair of large headlights pierced the rain two blocks away on Cole’s right and headed in his direction.

The truck turned out to be a food bank delivery vehicle.

Cole pulled back tight, waiting.

In thirty seconds, he would have to make a decision.

As it passed between Cole and the food bank across the street, gears groaned and squealed as the metal overhead door rolled up.

Evidently the driver had a remote control.

Or he’d called someone to tell them he was approaching. That would mean two people inside once the truck was parked.

The vagrant turned toward the noise and scurried toward the opening as the truck pulled inside. Amazingly, the shrunken guy moved fast in a stooped run and managed to get inside the building just before the big metal door would have squashed him.

Cole couldn’t believe his eyes.

First rule of a mission was if something could get fucked up, it would.

Tonight’s mission guidelines were simple. Gather intel and evidence while leaving no DNA or trail.

Their boss would then hand the information over to the specific US authorities who would make the bust.

Cole had no issue with being a shadow operator that no one knew existed. He preferred it, but sometimes things just did not work out as planned.

He couldn’t stand by while an innocent walked into danger.

The truck driver could be a Black River pack member. There could be another inside.

That vagrant might be another veteran on the streets.

Veteran or civilian, one of those wolf shifters would scent him at some point and kill the guy in the most heinous way.

The Guardian would not approve Cole’s new plan.

Their boss was not entirely like Cole and his fellow Gallize shifters, but for over three hundred years their leader had owned the title Väktare, which meant guardian.

Cole held their Guardian in the highest respect, but he had no intention of informing the boss of his plan, since doing so could not bring help in the next minute. Besides, no one on Cole’s team tonight would be in danger except him.

Rory and Justin were not putting their lives, and futures, at risk when this was Cole’s call alone to make.

His days were numbered.

That made him expendable.

They weren’t. They had a chance at mating and beating the curse.

If he didn’t survive this, he knew in his heart that his team would continue trying to locate and save Sammy.

Easing from the shadow, Cole took a step forward, decision made.