Abraham slid in and out of the crowd gathered in front of the crosswalk, as easily and efficiently as a wolf disguised in sheep’s clothing. He emerged on the other side with his hand in his right pocket, obscuring the shape of the heavy lump there.

Behind him, the crosswalk light switched from red to green and the swarm of people, many of them tourists, started to cross the street. The people who made up their number weren’t really speaking much, not wanting to carry out private conversations so close to other people. When one man spoke, the relative silence made his voice carry.

“Honey,” he said. “Have you seen my watch? I could have sworn I wore it today.”

“Maybe you left it on the nightstand at the hotel?” a female voice suggested. “We’ll look for it when we get back.”

“I hope those damn maids don’t get any ideas,” the man grumbled. Then, the couple were on the other side of the street, their conversation turning to more normal subjects.

Abraham knew exactly where the man’s watch was. It was tucked into his pocket, where it would remain until he was sure no one could see him looking at it.

Abraham Savage had become a thief at a young age. It was habit rather than impulse, a choice instead of an illness. He enjoyed stealing pencils and pencil cases and notebooks from his classmates, watching the confusion on their faces as they searched for things that had been right there only a second ago. The confusion changed to surprise when they realized he had somehow pilfered the object from under their noses.

At first, it was funny. Then, the amusement waned and his fellow students started responding to him with annoyance. The process started over again when he entered high school, though it inevitably wound up yielding the same result.

The way he did things now, no one could ever get annoyed with him. No one realized he was the one doing the stealing, and the people he gave the items to were always glad to see him. It was a win-win situation, and today he had really outdone himself.

The watch in his pocket was Gucci. The golden tone was what had originally attracted his attention, a glimmer out of the corner of his eye as he prowled the streets in search of a mark. Tourists never learned. They brought their valuables with them everywhere, their diamond rings and fine chain necklaces, expensive watches, designer purses and wallets, their iPhones and tablets. In doing so, they neglected the first important rule of traveling: don’t bring anything you aren’t prepared to lose.

That was what happened in tourist cities, especially beach cities like Pensacola. Items were misplaced, forgotten, lost in the sand or the ocean.

Items were stolen by people like Abraham, and if he did it right, the unlucky mark would assume something else had happened to it.

He continued to walk down the street, trying to keep his pace brisk without looking like he was running from something. He wanted to put as much distance between himself and that rich couple as was possible. He’d followed them, tracked them for a good long while as he tried to figure out whether or not the watch was worth the risk.

He got close enough, and that was when he caught sight of the tiny Gucci logo on the watch face. A human wouldn’t have been able to detect that, but Abraham was more than just human. He was a shapeshifter, a wolf. His senses were far more powerful, and spying the little logo had been a walk in the park for his superior eyesight.

It had been a flawless execution. Gradually creeping up on the couple, making his progression seem natural. Finding the right moment to duck in. Bumping the man’s shoulder to distract him from the sensation of the watch latch being undone with a quick flick of nimble fingers. The watch slid free, fell into Abraham’s hand, and then he was gone.

However, as quick and easy as the theft had been, Abraham knew he wasn’t entirely in the clear. He had to get away, make sure it was unlikely as hell that he could be linked to the crime.

It was hard to act natural when his heart was pounding. His face felt flushed, the pink cast of his skin not entirely caused by the warmth of the day. His groin throbbed in time with his heart, and he had to put his other hand in his pocket to adjust himself so his erection wouldn’t show to anyone who happened to be looking a little lower.

This was what he lived for. The excitement and the heady rush that followed. The sense that he was better, that he was more than what people thought about him when they looked at him.

And there was an extra reason he was so excited this time. This was the most expensive thing he had ever stolen. Visions of sleeping on a bed of money danced in his head.

At the very least, he’d be able to afford his rent. His friends used to let him stick around for free, but that had come to a stop recently. They made him pay an appropriate fraction of the monthly rent.

Some friends.

But, this time, he wouldn’t be late, or have to borrow. He could turn this in to his fence and get enough for at least a few months. Shit, he might even be able to get his own place, if this watch turned out to be as pricey as he thought it was.

That rich couple wouldn’t miss it. They could buy another one as easily as picking up a loaf of bread at the supermarket. To them, this was nothing special.

Unless, of course, this had been a gift, an anniversary present. Maybe it was the first expensive thing they had ever been able to afford, and now it was in his possession.

Guilty thoughts like this came to him more and more lately, spoiling his fun. He pushed them away. The odds of this watch being anything other than a pretty trinket were low, and it didn’t matter anyway. What was done, was done.

As Abraham kept walking, he realized he was pretty close to the William Bartram Memorial Park. It wasn’t his favorite park, but if he ducked in there and hung out for a little while, that could only add authenticity to any future claims he had to make about not being in the area at the time of the theft.

He’d never had to make any such claims before, not in the entire time since he’d been doing this as a career, but he wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t going to get careless and risk everything by pretending it couldn’t happen to him.

That was what he’d been told by the first person he stole for, and he had taken those teachings to heart.

Or, a nagging part of him whispered, I could track them down. Give it back.

Abraham ducked in through the entrance to the park before he could change his mind and started following along the nearest walking path, which was paved with concrete, more like a glorified sidewalk than anything else.

Bartram Park was relatively small, though close to the water. Even on the most humid of Floridian days, cooling salt breezes stirred through the trees, refreshing the soul.

The lay of the land was mostly flat, though there were a few hills here and there when a person headed deeper into the trees. The grass was neatly trimmed and the perfect green one might find depicted in a child’s drawing. Abraham passed by many park benches and picnic tables and little pavilions. A few children crawled around a playground, watched over by vigilant helicopter parents. Distant laughter and the occasional delighted cry were carried across the park by the wind.

Slowly, he relaxed. The weight of the watch in his pocket seemed less like a burden and more like a trophy. Of course it was heavy. The best things were.

He moved deeper and deeper into the park, following the path around to the waterfront, where tamed grass gave way to thin, stony shores riddled with swathes of reed. There was no one else nearby as far as he could see. The sand here was too sharp and pointy for a mother to want to let her child run around in it, and the reeds were a perfect place for snakes to hide.

Abraham came right up to the edge of the water, where ocean and land met. He felt the dampness of the lapping waves, seeping in through the holes in his shoes, wetting his socks, his toes. He closed his eyes a little, reveling in the feel of the wide, wide world stretched out in front of him.

I wish I could be that powerful. No one would ever question me again.

People didn’t ask the ocean why the tide came in. They observed and they studied, awed and appreciative.

Unfortunately, Abraham was an omega, and he had never been treated that way.

Everyone always admired alphas, fawning over their dominance, their strong features, the very nature of their existence. Alphas were the celebrities of the shifter world.

Even betas had their fair share of interest, if not admiration. Betas were rare and considered neutral in the shifting world, not dominant, not submissive. They were like regional heroes, the small bands that played in an area spanning only several cities.

And then there were omegas. They were like the winners of spelling bees, the people no one really paid any attention to.

He hated that. He was more than his lot in life. He was something more than what people expected him to be.

It didn’t help that he liked nature, that he had interests which were automatically labeled as soft. He once mentioned that he might like to be a gardener, which he thought of as a physically tasking job, and all anyone could think about in response were flowers. Never mind that he could plant trees, or literally change the lay of a landscape. They just assumed what he would be like in that occupation, based upon his status as an omega.

He was more than that. More than omega.

Opening his eyes, Abraham sighed. He touched the watch in his pocket, trying to harden his resolve. If this wasn’t proof, he didn’t know what was.

Bending down, he stirred the rough sand until he found a few smooth rocks. He spent a minute trying to skip them. Even though the water here was glassy and relatively smooth, each rock plunked uselessly down under the surface.

He pulled back his arm to simply throw the last rock, then sighed and let it drop. The sand puffed up around the stone, then settled down again quickly.

He knew that standing out here thinking about things wasn’t going to solve anything. He should finish his walk and then head home.

The thought of the look on his roommates’ faces when he showed up with a wad of cash lifted his spirits a little, pushing everything else aside. One step at a time and he would get through this, to reach the place of admiration where he hoped -where he knew- he deserved to be.

Heading back to the path, Abraham followed it away from the shore, back into the gentle hills surrounded by trees. The shade cast by the branches felt good on his sun-warmed skin.

As he followed the curve of the path, he crested the top of the last hill. The smooth grass was studded with picnic tables, all of which were empty. This wasn’t the right time of day for the park to be filled with people, after all. Everyone was working, or more interested in other activities at better locations.

Wait.

No, not all the tables were empty. There was one in the thick shadows at the base of a cluster of trees, occupied by a single person. The person had a laptop open, but it had been shoved off to the side in favor of what they were bent over. A book of some kind. A notebook, Abraham guessed, from the way the person was writing on it. Their pen was a thin twig of black, jerking along the page in quick, tight movements.

The person was a man. A very, very handsome man, with a dark beard and moustache. His shoulders were broader than some of the tree trunks at his back. He wore a white v-neck t-shirt, and the thick, dark curls of chest hair protruded above the collar. His arms looked to be equally hairy, though that might have been an illusion caused by the thick shadows.

As though realizing he was being watched, the handsome man looked up. His eyes narrowed slightly, which was just about the limit of what Abraham was able to observe. The color of those eyes was a mystery to him.

The man waved.

Abraham lifted his hand to wave back. He felt like he was moving underwater.

Do I know this person?

There was something about the man that seemed familiar. For someone who did the work that he did, this was a little concerning for Abraham. Had he stolen from this person in the past?

The man beckoned, a distinctive come-hither gesture. His posture seemed relaxed, unthreatening.

Abraham had a bad feeling about this.

He should walk away, pretend like he had thought the other man was shooing him away.

Then, the man called out, “Come on over!” and Abraham knew he had no choice in the matter whatsoever. He couldn’t pretend. If he acted weirdly and fled now, this guy would be damn sure to remember him if the police came by later, asking if the man had seen anything suspicious.

Then again, coming closer would also give this guy a chance to look at him closer, to memorize his features. If the police had a description of Abraham, or if this guy recognized him on his own, that was equally as bad.

Knowing he was sunk no matter what he did, Abraham walked over to the man. He was extremely aware of every single step he took, the way the grass sounded as it was crushed beneath his damp shoes. His heart pounded, his pulse beating a rapid rhythm in his throat.

The closer he came, the more he was able to see about this man.

His hair was rich, dark brown, and his beard was short and trim. He had a moustache, which touched the corners of his beard. His skin was tan, though not the deep golden-brown of a tanning addict.

His face was broad and handsome, and his chin was a thing to die for. His eyes were pale blue and piercing, though there were laugh lines at the corners that hinted he was not as fierce as his gaze might lead a person to believe.

His arms were muscular and toned, and pleasing. His skin was smooth, rather than veiny and bulging. He didn’t look like a steroid-loving bodybuilder, which was what many alphas often resembled in Abraham’s perception.

This was a big, powerful guy, but he didn’t look as if big and powerful was all that he was made of.

Further advancing that idea was the fact that this man had a notebook in front of him. It was not a specialized notebook at all. It was the kind that kids were told to bring to class to take notes in. Blue and red lines, neatly spaced.

However, these lines were covered in rapid little drawings. Looking at them upside down like this, Abraham didn’t have much of an idea what he was seeing.

The pen used to craft the drawings was nearly swallowed up by the man’s large hand. His fingers, though broad and powerful like the rest of him, held the pen gently and loosely. His wrist was relaxed.

“Enjoying the day?” the man asked. His voice was deep and mellow.

Abraham was searching for a way to respond, or for something to say at all, when the wind changed. Blowing towards him now, the wind carried the man’s scent to him more clearly.

His mouth opened. This man was definitely an alpha, and a wolf at that.

“I didn’t know you were like me,” Abraham blurted out.

The alpha raised an eyebrow. “Why are you so surprised? There are a lot of wolves here. Their scent is everywhere.”

That was true. Pensacola was home to not one, but two groups of wolf shifters. Both groups were biker gangs, though as with any gang, family members and close friends were also included.

One pack ruled the east end of Pensacola. That was Lethal Freedom.

The west was controlled by Shadow Claws, and that was the group Abraham technically belonged to, even if his only connection was that his brother was the second-in-command.

Enemies once, the two packs now considered themselves one. Their communal hub was a two-story former parking garage known as the Den, owned by the leader of Shadow Claws. The Den was something of a community center, and also had rooms where wolves could stay if they needed to. As the second-in-command’s younger brother, Abraham should have been able to stay there with no problem. He hated it, though. Too many wolves, looking at him, judging him. They seemed to be so united against him, their bond reinforced by recent and ongoing improvements to the Den. Comfort eased the tension for everyone but him.

Remembering the man he had stolen from so easily, Abraham felt a squirming hesitation in the pit of his stomach. That man had been so unsuspecting, believing himself to be safe, comfortable where he was.

Focus, dammit!

Pulling himself back to the conversation, Abraham said, “But you aren’t part of either pack.”

“Do all wolves here join those packs?” the man asked. He didn’t sound curious. Rather, he was making a valid point and he knew it.

“No,” Abraham said, “but I would know if you lived here. You don’t.” He felt heat trying to climb up his cheeks, aware that he sounded like an idiot. “What I meant is that you’re a tourist and I wasn’t expecting you to be a wolf.”

“Well,” the man said, “I’m not quite a tourist. I might think about settling down here, if it’s the right place for me.” His eyes were so intense now that Abraham could hardly look at them.

“Oh.” Abraham frowned a little. “I don’t recommend that.”

“Oh?” The alpha gestured, inviting Abraham to take a seat on the other side of the picnic table.

“It’s a junk city. Lots of tourists. Shitty culture. And there must be a curse or something, because shifters have it rough here.”

Abraham didn’t like to think about all the things that had happened in the past. Those things were years gone by now, and he had been too young to be involved, but there was so much death. Every year, it seemed like there was a new crisis to deal with, a new struggle coming their way.

“A curse, huh? I suppose anything is possible in this world.” The alpha gave a small, crooked smile. “But it doesn’t seem so cursed to me. Not right now. Not here.”

Abraham slowly lowered himself onto the bench seat, though he stayed perched on the very edge. He was fully aware of the risks of doing this, but he couldn’t seem to leave now that he was here. This man was fascinating. So familiar. He talked to Abraham like they were on equal footing, completely ignoring the fact that one of them should be submissive, and the other dominant.

Risks or not, he liked that too much to leave. It made him feel good on the inside.

“It’s a beautiful day,” the alpha said. He tilted his head back, looking up.

Abraham followed his lead. The branches overhead were thick, but the sky could be seen through the gaps in the leaves. Pale gold rays of sunlight filtered down through those gaps. Where they touched against the alpha’s hair, they turned dark brown into something multifaceted, highlighting glimmers of auburn and gold.

Heat stirred inside Abraham’s groin. He shifted a little, then dropped his gaze when he realized he’d been staring at the other man for what was probably an embarrassing amount of time.

“You must like it out here too, right?” the other man asked. “Not to sound weird, but I noticed you walking up. You seemed pretty relaxed.”

“It’s okay, I guess,” Abraham grumbled. “Too humid.”

“Nice here under the shade, though.”

Abraham risked another look at the other man. That seemed to him to be an invitation to stay, to linger.

Dropping his gaze again, Abraham searched for something, anything to focus on. He saw the notebook again and pointed at it. “Can I see?”

The alpha pushed the notebook over to him, turning it around as he did so, so that it was facing the right direction. “Knock yourself out. I was just doing some exercises before getting to work.”

The notebook page was filled with drawings of trees of various shapes and sizes, a disconnected forest. They had been rendered with swift strokes and swirls, and long, curved lines. The result was like something that would have seemed at home in the background of a cartoon, or maybe alongside a company logo.

Underneath the trees was a sketch of the scenery that the man could see from his position at the picnic table. Gentle hills with a weaving pathway, crisp trees.

“These are just exercises?” Abraham said, surprised. “These look professional.”

The man laughed. “Well, I am a professional. I’m a designer. Graphics, mostly, though if you need anything at all drawn or colored, I’m your guy.”

Not a rare occupation so far as Abraham knew, but he couldn’t shake the sensation of déjà vu that shook through him at this announcement. He knew this man, and he could hold back his curiosity no longer.

“What’s your name?” Abraham asked.

“Thomas. Thomas Paulson. Most people call me Thunder, though. You want a business card?”

Thunder.

At the mention of the stormy nickname, it was like lightning struck Abraham. He forgot how to breathe for a moment.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Abraham snarled.