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My existence was about to be erased, and there were so many thoughts crammed into those last final, fateful seconds.
“You can’t escape!”
Not an instant death.
I was going to be tortured.
TWO
RANGER
“Ranger.”
Flint, my older brother and pack Alpha, glared at me as we stood in the manager’s office at our recycling plant.
Pay attention. Your Alpha is speaking to you. My wolf was a stickler for pack etiquette.
“Sorry.” I’d zoned out of the discussion.
“Someone’s trying to muscle in on our business, boss,” Gabe, the manager, told us, his brow creased with worry. He related details about pick-ups and tampering, and he and my brother went back and forth, talking details.
This was more of the same old, same old. The legit side of our business was always rife with rival organizations eyeing our profits and wanting it for themselves, and I knew the drill. As a pack Beta, I’d be assigned the job of finding out who, what, and why.
Gabe presented us with spreadsheets, reports from warehouse staff, and security camera footage, and as expected, Flint told me to investigate.
The video footage suggested the recycled products had been contaminated with non-recyclable material before our companycollected them. Someone was going to get their ass kicked, and I planned to be the one delivering the punishment.
Our company had received a long list of violations from government inspectors, which had stopped work at the factory and resulted in reams of additional paperwork. The recycling business was squeaky clean, so this smear campaign tarnished our reputation in both the shifter community and the human world.
There had also been articles in the media fabricating environmental violations at our factory. One of our pack worked at The Daily Star newspaper, and I asked him to look into it.
I spent a couple of days gathering the information, and after speaking to our customers, both former and current, I presented the facts to Flint. Our younger brother Hunter joined us in our head office while I summarized my findings.
“The Obsidian Circle is behind this?” Flint drummed his fingers on the desk. This was a newish pack, though our shifters considered any shifter group new if it was less than fifty years since its creation.“Let me think on it.”
While I would have preferred he’d said to teach them a lesson they’d never forget, I understood his hesitation. That pack might not have years-long traditions as our pack, La Luna Noir, did but they were vicious, and the Alpha, Dane, had contacts in high places, having been to school and college with a lot of bigwigs.
Hunter and I made to leave. It was the weekend and I wanted out of the office.
“Don’t forget lunch at Dad’s tomorrow.”
I ground my teeth at my older brother’s reminder and grumbled an acknowledgment.
Barring illness or maybe a pack war, we went to Dad’s home for Sunday lunch or dinner every week. We had been alternating with Flint and Tony for a while but we were back to Dad’s place for the Sunday meal.
Flint being the first born had always told us what to do, even when we were kids. Hunter as the youngest got away with what we couldn’t. And I was the middle child who rubbed along between the perfect older brother and the mischievous younger one.
“See you tomorrow.” Hunter took off.
I sat in my car, thinking of what I hadn’t told Flint and Hunter.
While trying to discover who was messing with our recycling business, I’d caught a scent. Not the pungent odor of contaminated plastic, but a unique aroma, one that got an immediate reaction from me. While there were no flashing lights or pink floaty balloons, I was warm and fuzzy, contemplating a future I’d not dared consider previously. And I didn’t do fuzzy until now.
It floored me that my life could change so quickly, in a split second. I’d had no hint of a mate, not even a smidgen of a scent of a mate. And now there was one person on my mind; the man the scent belonged to.
Our mate!My wolf suddenly ignored all pack protocol and insisted we forget about work and family responsibilities and continue looking for him.
I agreed, but staking out each place was pointless until Monday, much as I longed to find him. I’d scoured the locations I’d visited, but the scent was stale, and I vowed to track him down. Instead, I memorized his scent and kept it at the front of my mind.
