“Mama!” His voice was shrill with panic. “Mom!”

He was bound hand and foot and shook his head, looking into the night with blind eyes. His scent was an enticing blend of familiar warmth blended with something sharp and unfamiliar—something other. Another wolf drew too close to Sage's powerful jaws; it shrieked as he flung it against a wall. In a heartbeat, the beta shifted and stood naked and wild in the darkness.

As though they'd been compelled, Brian, Patrice, and the others twisted into their human forms. They staggered, and Eva felt a backwash of Sage's power. He'd indeed pulled them into a shift. Fear washed over her as she felt the beta's control stretch dangerously thin. If this was his level of power, what did it take to subdue Sage? As though in answer, Chase strode from the mist. He stepped up to the giant shifter and laid a calming hand on the man's bare arm. Sage dropped his forehead to Chase's shoulder; his shoulders heaved as he panted for breath.

Harte appeared, followed by Kevin. They were naked and bloody, but the blood was not their own. He moved steadily toward his wolves. One by one, they dropped to their knees in front of their alpha. The posture they took was the same she'd performed for him earlier. Only Brian and Patrice remained on their feet.

“You disobeyed my orders,” he snarled.

Several of Harte's wolves cringed. Brian defiantly stood his ground. His mate hovered behind him slightly. Interestingly enough, the other three wolves averted their heads from the rebels.

Eva snorted in disgust.

“Brian. Patrice. Start walking. Do not look back.”

“You can't!” Patrice started forward, a look of panic on her face. “Our clothing…our possessions…”

“You lose, Patrice. Everything. If you two had challenged me honorably, I'd have let you and your pack leave. Now you're lucky I simply don't kill you where you stand. You have a car. Take it. Leave. Never come back to us again.”

Brian growled and faced Harte.

“Now he decides to fight.” Sage grinned in wry amusement. He seemed to have recovered now that Chase was at his side

Brian lunged forward, attacking low. Harte met his attack calmly, taking him down almost casually in a smooth throw. Brian came up with a snarl, his fists clenched, and he dived at Harte like a mindless animal.

They grappled, a streak of blood appeared on Harte's rib cage. He cuffed the former beta with a partially shifted hand. The huge paw was graced with claws that no natural wolf would have. Three lines of blood welled up on Brian's torso.

Sage whistled. “Takes a lot of mojo to pull that off.”

They went to the ground, rolling and scrambling, slick with sweat and blood.

From the corner of her eye, Eva saw Patrice stiffen, preparing to jump into the fray.

She reached out, clasped the other woman's arm, and growled, halting her in her tracks. Patrice bared her teeth but backed off, reluctantly submitting to the new alpha female.

Harte pinned the blond's face to the ground. All around, the night went quiet.

Green light from the traffic signal tinted the fog eerily. Eva heard cars in the distance. A siren wailed, and she looked around uneasily.

The street was abandoned; she didn't even sense the presence of street people.

The light changed to yellow and then red. The men lay on the ground, motionless except for their breathing.

“Submit?”

Brian must have said something, because Harte hauled him to his feet, his hand wrapped in his hair. Even the tracker in the car had stopped moaning, though Eva decided it was only because the boy had gone senseless with fear. She kept her back to the open door, her gaze on the unfolding drama just feet away.

Harte flung Brian away, forcing the blond down to the ground once again.

“Now go. Never come here again. Ever.”

Brian staggered as he regained his footing. His face was twisted with anger, humiliation, and fear. Patrice looked around for support, finding none among her former pack mates.

“You'll be sorry!” Her voice was a soft hiss in the darkness, and Eva suddenly understood where the true power of this couple came from. She knew that Patrice was the one to fear. Her hackles went up in aggression. It was all Eva could do to not attack the other woman.

“Go, Patrice. You made your choice.”

Where Brian had slunk away in shame, Patrice kept her head high in impotent fury. She turned and moved with grace and pride. Before long, she faded from sight. The tension in the air slowly dropped.

Eva turned to the car and knelt on the frame of the door. She reached in and rested a hand on the boy's naked leg.

“Are you all right?”

“Mom?”

“I'm Eva. Are you all right?”

“The kid can't hear you, Eva. Can't see you either.” Kevin moved into the car from the other door and urged the boy to sit upright. He quickly loosened the ropes from the boy's ankles and wrists. Somehow, being surrounded by naked werewolves seemed normal. However, this boy's nudity was shameful. He shivered, and Eva pulled off her cape and wrapped it around his body like a blanket. He rubbed his face against the velvet, inhaling deeply.

“Mom.”

Eva sighed, finally taking him in her arms. He was small and young, though not as young as she'd initially thought. His hair was dark; his skin was fair. They could very well have shared the same mother.

“Eva, we need to get him out of here.” She looked up. Harte stood next to her.

One of Chase's men was settling into the driver's seat of the car, while the other carried the broken body of the driver back to the trunk.

“We'll get him home and take care of him.” His gaze darted around, looking for possible witnesses.

A light growl carried on the night air, and she looked over to where the small, ragged remnants of Harte's pack hovered on the sidewalk.

“Tonight is not a good night to challenge my decisions, Martin.” Harte's voice had dropped to a rumble. “I'm not particularly in the mood to listen to anything you have to say.”

The man ducked his gaze, as did the others.

“We didn't know what Brian was going to do, Harte. Patrice called us to help with the hunters. We didn't want to be dragged into Brian's challenge.” The woman spoke without raising her gaze from the sidewalk.

Eva watched them carefully. In their human lives, they were probably accountants and business owners, but here in the night, they were werewolves.

Whatever they sensed about the boy caused a primal reaction that hit them to the core. It was that sharp scent that came from the tracker. It was off somehow.

“What's wrong with him?” She held the boy closer.

“Nothing's wrong, Eva. He's part coyote. They're our natural enemies.” Kevin's voice was heavy and sad. He reached out and stroked the black fall of hair away from the boy's face. Kevin sighed deeply.

Chase was still fully dressed; he hadn't shifted. He stood tall and dark, his black eyes glittering in the night. Not a drop of blood stained his body, but death wafted from his very being. “We'll give him sanctuary, Eva. He needs medical care as well as emotional support. We have a doctor. We have other pack members who know what he's suffered.”

Automatically Eva glanced at Sage. He looked at the boy with raw grief in his eyes. Chase's pack was different than Harte's. There was probably no other pack like it. Gently, Sage leaned down and lifted the boy from her arms.

Down the street, a long black SUV cruised toward them. Another of Chase's betas was at the wheel. The sedan pulled away, heading toward the alley where the bodies of the Abraxas men lay.

“What did they do to him?” she asked Harte, but it was Sage who answered.

“Maybe they spliced his genes, or maybe his father was just some poor coyote shifter they caught. Their scientists are pretty damn creative.”

Chase took the tracker from Sage and settled him in the back of the big vehicle.


Kevin. His scent was full of stress and doubt.

“That boy, Harte.”

“I know.” He threw an arm around the younger man's shoulders and pulled him close. “That was you not so long ago.”

“It was bad enough for me. I can't imagine how hard it will be for him.”

Kevin was full wolf, but a coyote pack had found him as a young man about the same age as the tracker. He'd been wandering the desert naked and dazed, traumatized from his treatment at the hands of Abraxas. The coyote shifters had taken care of him, raising him until he was a young adult. Their pack alpha had then brought Kevin to Harte, trusting him to take the young wolf into his pack.

It had been hard. He'd had to contend with the ingrained prejudice of the pack as well as its fear that he was a spy. Kevin hadn't been born an omega; he'd been forced into that role to survive. His submissive nature had allowed that adaptation.

“That boy is going to need me, Harte.”

“Go. You're right. You keep an eye on that kid. He's going to need your understanding.”

Chase came around the rear of the SUV. He was a dark presence in the night.

“Are we ready to go?”

“Can you find space for one more? I think Kevin might be helpful with the boy.”

“Understood.” Chase gave a grim smile as he glanced at the small cluster of wolves behind Harte. “You can't assume that Abraxas doesn't know you're here.

Your people aren't safe.”

Harte scented the night. Chase's men had already taken the corpses of the Abraxas hunters. In a day or two, those three bodies would appear in another city or even another state. They might never appear at all. But Abraxas would get the message. They'd never found the hunter who had caught Eva. He'd vanished like the wind.