Terence and his sisters were on the volleyball court, playing with Megan, her human boyfriend, Zak, and some of the other kids. Megan was completely healed now and seemed to have a calming effect on the recently traumatized kids.
Their mother wasn’t smiling as much as Terence and his sisters, but she was trying to put on a good face for her children’s sakes. Lana hoped Eileen and her kids became regulars at the SWAT cookouts. They fit in here.
Lana was absently nibbling on her sweet potato fries, thinking she and Max should take the Wallace kids to a Cowboys game, when Gage and his wife, Mac, came over to their table and sat down.
“I was hoping your mom and dad could make it today,” Gage said to Lana.
“I was hoping so, too,” she said. “Dad is doing much better, but there’s no way his doctor was going to let him out yet, even if all he’d do was sit at a picnic table.”
Gage nodded. “I can understand that.”
“Everything is okay between you and your father now, right?” Mac asked. “Your dad is on board with you and Max being together?”
Lana smiled and reached out to take Max’s hand. “Yeah. Max and I have been hanging out with my parents almost every night. Dad finally got around to apologizing for how he treated Max—and for hiding my werewolf nature from me. We’re really good now.”
“I’m glad,” Gage said, then glanced at Diego. “How’re you feeling? Any long-term effects from the poison?”
Diego shook his head. “Not really. My ab muscles are still a little tender, but it’s fading fast. I’ll feel a hell of lot better when the son of a bitch who shot me goes to trial.”
Diego was talking about Seth, the only hunter who’d made it out of the raid alive. He was currently in Dallas County lockup, awaiting arraignment.
“Seth Oliver’s looking at the death penalty for the attempted murder of the deputy chief, not to mention shooting you at the clinic. That’s a given,” Gage said. “But I might as well tell you the latest news before you hear it through the grapevine.”
“What?” Diego asked warily.
“There are least six other states that want to question Seth relating to his possible involvement in a series of unsolved homicides. Bottom line, the guy will probably avoid the death penalty for years because he’ll be traveling around the country, getting charged with other murders.”
“You’re kidding me, right?” Diego said.
Gage shrugged. “I wish. Then it wouldn’t hurt so much.”
Remy took a swig of beer. “You think Seth is in contact with the other hunters out there?”
Gage shrugged. “We have to assume he is because he sure as hell is never going to tell us voluntarily.”
The SWAT commander should know. Everyone on the SWAT team except for Zane had paid Seth a visit in jail, trying to get the man to crack, but no luck yet.
“How long do you think it’ll be before more hunters show up?” Max asked.
Gage sighed. “Based on what Lana overheard, we know Seth and his crew were nothing more than hired killers on a leash. The man pulling the strings is still out there, and we don’t have a clue who he is or what his motives might be. It’s a safe bet they’ll try again at some point, especially now that they know exactly who and where we are. My concern is that next time, we won’t see them coming until it’s too late to do anything about it.”
“But we have the antidote to their poison,” Triana pointed out. “And Dr. Saunders said he’s going to start giving small doses of the drug to every werewolf in town to help build up some kind of resistance to the poison. Like a vaccination.”
“And that’s a good thing,” Gage said. “But there’s nothing to say they’ll use the same poison the next time they show up. I’m worried about the weapon program Lana overheard them talking about. Something tells me they may have more than poison bullets in their bag of tricks.”
Max cursed. “Great. Now we have to worry they might have something even worse than wolfsbane the next time we tangle with them.”
“That may be the least of our problems,” Gage muttered.
Diego stopped, his burger halfway to his mouth. “It gets worse?”
“If you consider the possibility of someone in the DPD knowing about us and actively working with the hunters to kill us to be worse, then yes,” Gage said.
Lana and Max had been talking about the same thing since the night at the clinic. The man who’d told Boyd she and Zane were at Dr. Saunders’s clinic had to be high up in the DPD organization. Very few people had known Zane was injured, much less where he was. The thought that there was a cop out there working with the hunters was absolutely terrifying.
Gage and Mac hung out at their table for a little while longer, but Lana could tell the SWAT commander’s mind was a hundred miles away. No doubt he was worrying about protecting the rapidly growing pack from the hunter’s next attack.
“He blames himself because he didn’t see this coming,” Remy said quietly after Gage and Mac had left to talk with some omegas and betas at another table.
