Paxton stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel. Toweling off, he inhaled a breath from the thick steam, half expecting to catch a trace from his night with Evelyn. He exhaled, not really surprised to find nothing but his own clean musk on the back of his throat.

Last night was a vivid dream. Connected, yes—but no more than a very vivid dream. Problem was it felt like reality. Down to the way his body hummed in satisfied afterglow. He’d claimed Evie, like so many of their kind. A blessed mix of blood and soul, teeth and flesh. The bond was there in the ephemeral, but in the cold morning light, he felt empty. Evie was his, but not.

Her words rang through his mind, clearer now than ever before. Do what you have to and wake me. Pax wrapped the damp towel around his waist and padded into the locker room to slip on a clean pair of scrubs, sparing a glance for his laptop on the coffee table in the doctor’s lounge.

After shrugging his arms through the V-neck scrub top, he tightened the drawstring on the matching pants and then walked barefoot into the lounge.

“Okay, Google. Let’s see what you’ve brought me so far.” He scraped a chair closer to the coffee table, ignoring the grit on the bottom of his bare feet from the floor.

Lifting the laptop’s lid, he fired up his browser to open his inbox. Bingo. At least seven emails waited from the wolf investigators he put on Grisham’s scent.

One by one, he opened each, downloading picture after picture and article after article. These weren’t the sanitized press corps pieces he’d found on the Internet. These were items any politician would pay to have scrubbed from history.

Accusations of collusion and bribery. Fraud and even a hint of murder. Then there was the article that caught his attention the most. The piece showed a photograph of Grisham and the President of Ferrell University at a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new campus lab facility. The headline read: “New Home for Advanced Research at Ferrell.”

Pax snorted to himself. “Ferrell University. More like Feral.”

The school’s claim to fame was genetic research that pushed the envelope, but shifters everywhere knew that to mean coloring outside ethical lines. Way outside ethical lines. As in gene mutations and species experimentation.

In fact, Pax had medical school classmates who likened the research at Ferrell with the likes of Josef Mengele during World War II.

He exhaled, running a hand through his damp hair. Maybe it was nothing more than a political stunt. A photo op for show. Then again, considering what was making Evelyn’s body shut down, maybe Grisham’s presence pointed to more than an opportunistic media event.

Paxton’s stomach growled. He’d barely eaten in the last week since Evie was brought into the ER. There simply wasn’t time to think about real food. He took the laptop with him to the lounge kitchenette and warmed a stale bagel in the microwave, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

Barely tasting as he chewed, he scanned the article and the rest of the attached document until his stomach turned. No wonder Evelyn asked to keep her father away. Clicking on another link, a file opened with the obituary for Evelyn’s mom.

Pax vaguely remembered the woman, but there she was, big as life in a photograph taken beside Grisham. The two were dressed to the nines at some political gala. The funerary write-up didn’t say much about how the woman died, just a list of her philanthropic accomplishments and where to send donations in lieu of flowers.

As to whom survived her—Pax’s hand froze with another bite halfway to his lips. Not a single word was listed about Evie. No wonder Evelyn said she didn’t need or want the reminder.

Paxton clicked on the attached images from the other emails. Every photo showed Grisham and his wife. Not one picture of Evie. Or her so-called aunts. Not even a footnote or a passing mention. It was as if her father purposely erased her from existence.

But why? None of it made sense.

He closed his laptop and sat back chewing on his lip. Grisham and his family were originally from North Carolina. It’s where he and Evie met that fateful summer.

So where did a southern girl like Evie pick up a French Canadian accent? Her accent wasn’t thick, but it was undeniable. Plus, she impulsively swore in French, as though it was her native tongue. They were teenagers, barely fifteen when he and Evie last saw each other. That kind of accent would require total immersion. She’d have had to live in Quebec, gone to school in Quebec to think and speak like a native. Could Grisham have sent her out of the country? For what reason? There was only one way to find out.

He grabbed his laptop and stuffed it in its neoprene case. Putting the computer on the top shelf of his locker, he then slipped on a pair of socks and sneakers and took his jacket from the inside hook. It was time to pay a personal call.