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“Good to meet you,” Blake said.
“Lincoln heads a small special operations unit within Homeland Security. He and his pack help every security division apprehend supernaturals.”
Blake narrowed his eyes and studied Lincoln. Wolf.
Tristan continued. “Lincoln came to see me today because he needs my help.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Show him,” Tristan said.
Lincoln nodded and then opened the folder sitting on Tristan’s desk. He pulled out a picture of an older woman with her hair pulled back into a braid. Even after thirty-five years, he recognized that face. She was even more stunning than she’d been when he watched her drive away from their beach house in Half Moon Bay, California.
Heather Fairchild had been barely old enough to drink when they met at a ski resort in Lake Tahoe. After Blake’s father kicked him out of the family home, he wandered around the world for years, settling in Monte Carlo for a while and then making his way to Lake Tahoe. He didn’t like the cold ski resort town as much as he thought he would, so he followed Heather to California, where they bought a beach house. He was moments away from committing the rest of his life to her when she found out about a job in San Francisco. She moved away, and he never heard from her again.
“Our investigation connected the two of you,” Lincoln said.
Blake took the picture and studied the face he once loved. She had always loved the sun, which was evident in her face's wrinkles. But they didn’t seem to age her. On the contrary, it made her seem refined and wise.
He handed the photo back to Lincoln. “Heather and I owned a house in California for a while. She moved out, and I stayed. End of the story because I never saw her again.”
“Are you sure you haven’t contacted her since she left?” Lincoln asked.
Blake’s annoyance was slowly turning to frustration. “I think I would know if I had contact with someone.”
Lincoln returned the picture to the folder and pulled out another one. Blake also recognized that picture. The black box channeled Xerxes’ power into the nanotechnology he tried to use. He believed that if he could funnel his power into nanobots, he could make a bigger army of followers faster than just using his magic alone.
When Operation Excalibur destroyed Xerxes’ lab and rescued Benji, an asset Tristan hired to betray Xerxes, he could steal the power source. Still, they were never able to find all the nanotechnology Xerxes created. The picture Lincoln showed Blake was of the missing piece.
“Where did you get this?” Blake asked.
“I have my sources. One of Xerxes’ lackeys, a demon named Keyser, tried to duplicate the lab and finish what Xerxes had started. We tracked him to Arkansas, but the trail went cold. However, we did find something else.”
Lincoln pulled out several more photos and lined them up on the desk. Each of them was a grotesque mutilated image of a shifter in mid-shift. Next to each tortured shifter was a man posing next to the body.
“What is this?” Blake asked. “Who are these people?”
Blake’s dragon roared inside his head. This was cruel and heartless, unlike anything he’d seen before. He wanted to turn away, but his eyes were glued to the pain in each shifter’s eyes.
“Those,” Tristan started, “are wealthy men who pay a lot of money to hunt the world’s biggest, smartest, and toughest game.”
“Shifters?” Blake asked.
Neither man answered him. They didn’t have to.
Chapter Six
Blake
Blake ran his hand through his hair. “By the love of the Goddess. Who the fuck is doing this?”
“We have our suspicions, but we don’t have enough solid evidence,” Lincoln said.
Blake pointed to the pictures on the desk. “Isn’t that evidence enough?”
“You’d like to think so, but let me show you the public image.” Lincoln pulled out more photos that initially appeared to be duplicated.
Blake picked up one picture. It showed a rotund hunter standing over a lion, not a shifter, as in the first picture. “Wait. Which picture is the truth?”
