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Tess had just paid for a coffee, which she needed on the way in the next morning. She hadn’t slept much and had to be to be sharp for the interrogation.

Too many dreams about a man she’d sworn not to think about again. Seven years should be long enough to forget him.

Her phone buzzed. Finding a place to drop her purse and drink, she took the call. “I’m on my way in, Brantley.”

“We’ve got a problem. Our wolf shifter changed into his animal and went wild. He attacked two of our staff.”

All her sympathy for that shifter went right out the window. She would not tolerate an out-of-control animal, be it natural or part human.

She pushed speed limits, hurrying to the facility located outside of the metro area, not stopping until she reached Colin’s door. When she looked through the glass observation panel, she gasped.

The stretcher had been wrecked along with all of the IV set up, but it was the walls that raised her horror.

Deep claw marks gouged the cosmetic wood panels layered over the titanium reinforcement, and blood splatters covered everything as if a crazed artist had created macabre abstract art.

Her phone buzzed with a text.

Brantley’s message said the wolf had been sedated and moved to their secure shifter cell.

She looked back at the room.

How long had that massacre gone on?

Any compassion belonged to those who had been harmed.

Turning around, she got her second workout of the morning, hurrying to the elevator to take it to the basement floor. Good thing she’d worn jeans and sneakers. She called them running shoes to give the impression she exercised, which would only happen when ... never.

She couldn’t equate the man who had touched her so gently with one who shifted into a monster, but that was clearly the reality.

At the bottom level, she walked out of the elevator and turned left at the first corridor. The ones on the right were for minimal threats.

The left wing had two holding cells where the most dangerous beings were held.

After seeing Colin’s infirmary room, she had no doubt where he’d been taken.

Was that even his real name?

Fishing out her access card, she swiped it over the security panel next to a steel door with a titanium core. When the door clicked open, she hurried in and quickly found Brantley standing on an observation deck in front of six narrow vertical windows protected by a four-inch thick, acrylic-type material that had been fabricated with fine titanium wires  woven through the panels. Even if a shifter managed to break these windows, the openings were only a foot wide by four feet tall.

Glancing over his shoulder, Brantley waved her over.

She had a moment of hesitation.

Would Colin finally reveal his face or look like some werewolf creature from a B movie?

Not that any shifter had looked like that yet, but her imagination had been running freely since she got the call half an hour ago.

Crossing the room, she eased up to the observation window as if looking into a snake pit. She hated snakes, especially the idea of seeing more than one.

But when she leaned forward, she didn’t see a snake ... or a wolf.

Standing defiantly on the opposite wall from them was a naked male wearing a full iron head mask. She’d forgotten about those, having never seen one used until now. A thick, six-inch chain at the back of the full-face head cover was bolted a foot into the titanium wall. No room to maneuver, and shifting while wearing the mask would very likely cause death.

A space in the mask had been left open for his eyes. One slit under his nose plus another oval opening at his mouth allowed a prisoner to speak.

She felt like a voyeur, but turning away to protect Colin’s privacy would play into Brantley’s hand. He’d love to point out that, as a woman, she wasn’t cut out to do this type of work. He was too smart to voice it out loud and make himself a target for a sexual discrimination complaint. But the wrong reaction would provide him a reason to suggest in a closed-door meeting that she couldn’t handle the job.

If she were honest, she couldn’t move her gaze from the most magnificent male body she’d ever seen.

She didn’t know any woman who could objectively look at Colin’s fit body and turn away. He surpassed any model she’d ever seen in an underwear ad. Speaking of underwear, nothing even slightly snug could hide how well he was endowed.

Damn, this was so not professional.

Eyes above the waist, Tess.

Like that downplayed his body one bit? Look at the guns on that man.

If she didn’t get a grip and keep her face completely void of any reaction, Brantley would have some serious ammunition to use against her.

She would not give him that. She’d just do her best to pretend she wasn’t looking at some Adonis. Could she help that she hadn’t been up close and personal with many men in the last few years?

Witnessing shifters turn into naked men came with the territory of studying them, but this was the first time she’d had such a primitive reaction to one.

And she’d certainly never had this tingling in her core—the same tingling she’d felt last night at Colin’s side—but the freaking buzzing was also back in a serious way.

Determined to put on her future-SCIS-director face, she asked her partner, “Has he spoken?”

“Not yet.”

“When did he shift?”

“Around two this morning. Maybe a little after.”

She’d gone home close to nine. “What happened between when I left and then? Did the medics do anything?”

“I entered with them right after I saw you and took a minute to ask his name. He said he’s Colin O’Donnell.”

She fought a moment of disappointment over Colin giving Brantley his full name, but had to pay attention to what her partner was saying.

“The shifters on the medic staff came in to take his vitals. They said Colin’s body was healed enough to shift, in fact the bones in his right arm had mended, which was a surprise.”

She didn’t say a word about touching Colin, just kept giving Brantley her undivided attention.

He said, “The jackals said at that point he would just be suffering the longer he was held back from shifting. O’Donnell said he wanted to sleep some more, so I told the jackals to check back after midnight.”

That fit what Colin had told Tess about wanting to sleep more and that her people were basically torturing him. She asked, “What happened next?”

“Two of our shifters returned just after midnight. One of them texted me that they planned to give Colin the protein stimulus and they would stay long enough to see that he was able to shift fully into his wolf. Standard Operating Procedure.”

True, but she still had a hard time understanding how Colin, who had sounded so calm and in control, would have done this when he knew he couldn’t escape. He had to know that attacking the jackals would pretty much condemn him to imprisonment.

She asked, “Are there any videos of what happened?” There were no observation cameras that ran continually, but those rooms were outfitted with equipment to film interactions with patients or prisoners.

“No. I didn’t think we’d need it filmed. Did you?”

She shook her head.

He huffed a tired sigh. “All I know other than that is I got a call around two this morning that the jackals had failed to check in on their hourly rounds. That’s when staff looked in Colin’s room and saw the walls painted in blood. A giant gray wolf stood in the middle of the massacre, baring his fangs at everyone.”

“Didn’t either shifter use a stun gun?”

“Yes, one of the stun guns had been discharged. It was set on a full takedown blast. Evidently, that didn’t work. Our sniper on staff was called. He opened a panel in the door and the wolf lunged at him, but our guy shot the wolf with our strongest shifter tranq. Even that didn’t take effect as quickly as expected. Both of our jackal shifters were taken to ICU. I transferred them to their pack house as per their contract if they were badly injured. They don’t trust being around any shifters when they can’t defend themselves.”  

She clutched her throat, envisioning the attack and the bloodbath. Colin, or whoever this guy was, would not walk free after harming those two.

Brantley hadn’t taken his eyes off of the naked man as he continued. “I didn’t want to call you sooner since I figured it would take time for O’Donnell to begin waking from the tranq and shift back, if he was going to return to human form. I let you know as soon as he woke and our staff got the mask in place.”

“Liar.”

Colin’s voice boomed even inside the enclosed room.

She flinched and cursed silently, then lifted the microphone. “What?”

Silence answered her.

She cut her gaze at Brantley, who gave her the look he did every time he reminded her that these shifters were barely a step above wild beasts. She didn’t agree when it came to the entire population, but now was not the time for that conversation, especially if this shifter was listening in.

Returning to the microphone, she said, “You clearly heard everything said, so my question is, why did you attack our people, Colin?”

The iron mask lifted to face her. When it did, piercing blue eyes studied her so hard she had the urge to back away.

Not happening.

No one, not even a shifter, was going to make her run.

His skin was still pink along the left side where he’d been burned, and his right arm that had healed last night now appeared swollen. None of that stopped him from curling both hands into fists, which indicated he had use of them.

The gouges in the walls of his room had been enough to show he was physically fit to fight.

Colin spoke in a smoother voice now that he’d healed significantly, but it had an odd quality from being filtered through the speakers. “I have no control over what my wolf does when I’m given drugs I didn’t request or approve.”

She heard something familiar in his voice but couldn’t put her finger on it. How many people had she met over the years? Thousands, especially during her research days. His voice must remind her of someone else.

Brantley snorted at Colin’s comment and muttered, “Typical.”

Colin’s gaze hardened to a frightening intensity and turned to Brantley. “What’s the point in asking me questions when you’re going to lie to her?”

Tess looked over for Brantley’s reaction, but there was none. Her partner sighed and lifted the microphone, “You clearly don’t need me to use a mic, but this ensures that everything we say is on record so no one can claim you weren’t given a fair chance. I’ve run a background check on Colin O’Donnell, which shows that you were a child of the state in Dublin, Ireland. Then you fell off the map for a few years before surfacing three months ago. You don’t even have an Irish accent.”

Colin crossed his arms which only accentuated his guns. He was clearly comfortable in his own skin. If not for the situation, she’d call him sexy as hell, and so dangerous ...

Tess swallowed and forced herself to watch his arms, shoulders and head.

Nothing below the arms. Nothing.

Think about that wrecked room and ripped-up shifters.

That threw a load of ice water on her crazy hormones.

With only a slight pause, Brantley continued. “The thing about that kind of background is that it’s a little too perfect, because we find nothing during the missing years. Where were you?”

A slight smirk lifted Colin’s lips. “Not that you’ll believe me, but I was living on the streets.”

“You’re right. I don’t believe you, so let’s get down to business now that you’re healthy enough to answer questions and no longer taking drugs.”

“More like having them forced on me.”

Tess wanted to have what Brantley said verified.

What if someone had loaded Colin’s IV with too much medication? Why would anyone on staff do that without authorization, though? She hated that her gut was yapping at her to consider Colin’s side of this, that he might not have had control of his wolf due to the drugs.

Brantley shrugged. “We could have let you die.”

“And give up a golden opportunity for a scapegoat? No, that wouldn’t happen.”

Ignoring that comment, Brantley asked, “What were you doing at the food bank building Monday night?”

“Told you I was walking by.”

Even Tess thought that answer came too quickly.

Sighing, she spoke into the mic. “Don’t you understand the trouble you’re in? Being obstinate is not working in your favor,” she said with a hard voice she hoped got through.

All she received in return was a sad pair of eyes shifting to meet hers.  

Tapping an index finger against the throat of the microphone, Brantley said, “Just tell us what you know about the Black River pack and we’ll go easy on you. That’s a fair offer.”

When Colin replied, his voice packed sarcasm. “There’s not a damn thing fair about your operation. You’re using jackal shifters as staff. They’re mercs who kill for money. You have no reason to hold me, just circumstantial evidence. But you’re still going to lock me away forever. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

Tess crossed her arms to hide her own fingers curled into fists. Why couldn’t Colin just give them a straight answer?

Brantley turned to her. “It’s your call. You’re the lead on this.”

Oh, so now she was the lead?

She lifted her head and found Colin staring at her now with a look of concern.

Never leaving his gaze, she told Brantley, “Call in the transport.”

Colin’s eyes seemed disheartened, as if he’d expected more from her. He didn’t even know her. How could he make her feel guilty when he was the one who had mauled two shifters?

For now, they had to move him to a better holding cell, much as she hated it. But no one would agree to keeping him in this facility. While he was gone, she’d do a thorough investigation of what happened last night and withhold any judgment until then. But for now, she had injured staff to worry about.

Colin said, “Don’t do this.”

She didn’t even pick up the mic. “Not putting you into a holding cell to begin with was my decision and now two shifters are paying the price for my trying to allow you to heal. I have a duty to protect everyone in this facility, which includes any contract SCIS staff regardless of your assessment of our shifters. I will not allow another person I know to be harmed by an out-of-control shifter.”

Turning away, she led Brantley out of the room.

A mournful howl rose from the room behind her.

Her chest ached as if someone had reached in and gripped her heart.

What the devil was going on with her?

She didn’t know, but the farther she moved from Colin, the more pain settled in her chest. Not enough to prevent her from functioning, but real enough to make her hurry to put distance between that wolf shifter and her.

After today, she wouldn’t see him again unless he decided to tell the truth about the bombing, which she seriously doubted.