Alyssa slid onto the bench of the picnic table where Trey, a huge, muscular werewolf named Brooks, and his mate, a high school teacher named Selena, were sitting and glanced around the SWAT compound, amazed at how many people were there. Zane had told her it would be a small cookout for the Pack, their significant others, and some of their closest friends. She now had reason to doubt his mathematical skills, since there must have been at least seventy-five people milling around the fenced-in area despite the chilly weather today.
Rachel was handling the line of grills on the far side of the volleyball pit with the help of Zoe and Chloe. The beta werewolves looked much better than they had when she’d seen them in LA. That probably had a lot to do with the smiles they’d both been wearing ever since moving to Dallas last week with Jake. After leaving Los Angeles, he’d taken them back to their home in Utah—or at least what was left of it—to deal with the aftermath of their parents’ murder and their subsequent kidnapping. The worst part out of all of it was that the police in their hometown had no leads about who’d killed their mother and father, other than some grainy footage from a convenience store security camera showing a bearded man in a hoodie transferring an unconscious Zoe and Chloe from a white van to a dark SUV. After that, there was nothing.
Jake had considered taking the girls back to Santa Fe with him but had ultimately decided he wanted them to be around other werewolves—especially betas—so they could learn to be comfortable with what they were and be safe. Gage was trying to talk him into transferring to the DPD so he could join SWAT and the Pack, but at the same time, Nathan was attempting to woo him to STAT. Alyssa thought he’d be an excellent addition to the STAT team, so she hoped he’d take her boss up on the offer.
Zoe and Chloe weren’t the only ones keeping Rachel company by the grills, Alyssa noticed. So were the team’s collection of mascots and pets—dogs Tuffie, Leo, and Biscuit (the newest addition to the family), as well as Kat the cat. Alyssa was surprised at how patient the animals were, not to mention well behaved. They didn’t even fight over the chunks of meat Rachel tossed their way every once in a while. Unlike the pit-bull mix, Labrador, and dachshund, the black cat refused to eat anything that touched the ground. Any morsels Rachel gave her had to be perfectly cooked and placed on the plate in front of her, or the picky feline wouldn’t even look at it. Alyssa smiled every time she saw it.
Listening in amusement as Selena tried to talk Trey into asking the medical examiner he had a thing for out to dinner, Alyssa picked up her bottle of water and took a sip, her gaze going to her boss, Nathan. He was sitting at one of the far tables with Gage, Zane, and the SWAT team’s two squad leaders. Nathan had been in Dallas for three days now and had spent nearly all that time at the compound in meetings with the commander of the team and the acting chief of police, Hal Mason. She’d overheard snippets of their conversation and had a fairly good idea where those three days of meetings were heading—more joint operations between the STAT team and the werewolf pack. The one in LA had gone well, so why not? She certainly wouldn’t mind.
As if sensing Alyssa’s gaze on him, Zane flashed her a grin, then got up from the table and headed in her direction, slowing to pick up two cheeseburgers from Rachel on the way. Alyssa had to admit she loved watching him move. It was difficult to believe, but he was even more graceful than he had been when she’d first met him.
Even though the weather was cooler than it had been in LA, Zane wasn’t wearing a jacket and she took a moment to appreciate his sculpted biceps. When he sat down beside her at the picnic table, she leaned her head against his left arm. Other than the barely discernible scar along the back of it now, it was almost like the gunshot wound had never happened.
“I saw you eyeing the grills and thought you might be hungry,” he said, setting the plate of cheeseburgers on the table.
Alyssa reached for the bottle of ketchup and squeezed out a puddle on the plate big enough for both of them. “I could definitely go for a burger, but I was actually thinking how sweet it is that Tuffie and the other animals help Rachel cook.”
He chuckled. “More like waiting for her to drop a whole tray of burgers.”
She laughed and dipped her burger in ketchup. “We’re still taking Tuffie home with us tonight, right?”
All the members of the SWAT team shared custody of the beloved pit-bull mix, so she went home with a different person every night. They even had a duty roster to make sure everyone got their turn with the adorable pup. Alyssa’s family always had dogs when she was growing up—still did—and not having a dog to come home to every night was one of the things she’d missed when she’d joined the FBI.
“Definitely.” Zane grinned and leaned over to kiss her. “I love hearing you say the wordhome.”
She smiled. “Not nearly as much as I love saying it.”
It was the truth. She’d been in Dallas for two weeks now. After leaving LA, she and Zane had gotten on a plane to Washington, DC, packed up her stuff, turned in the keys to her apartment, then flown to Dallas that very same day.
Since then, she’d been living with Zane in his small two-bedroom apartment, and while it was approximately the size of a shoebox—one made for flip-flops—she loved every minute of it because she was with him. And while it was seriously tiny, he’d decorated it surprisingly well. She’d kind of expected the typical bachelor pad, but his place could be on one of those home-and-garden shows. Outside of spending time with the Pack so she could get to know everyone, the two of them hadn’t left the apartment much. Heck, they’d barely gotten out of bed.
Across from them, Trey took his attention off his plate of ribs long enough to look at her and Zane. “I overheard Nathan telling Gage the STAT team cleaned up everything in LA. That true?”
Nodding, Zane took a big bite of burger, chewed once, then swallowed. “They went with the human-trafficking angle to explain all the enthralled people, pinning it on Stefan and the muscle heads who worked for him.”
“Are those people the vampires screwed up ever going to be okay?” Diego asked as he sat down across from Alyssa.
“Stacie, the girl Stefan tried to escape with, seems to be coming out of it,” Alyssa said. “But the ones who had been there a really long time haven’t responded to any of the drugs the doctors at the psychiatric facility where they’re staying have given them. It’s only been two weeks, though, so with time, maybe they’ll come out of it.”
She hoped. Though she hadn’t seen any of the people since they’d rescued them, hearing Nathan describe how they acted was enough to make her want to kill Stefan all over again.
They were still talking about that when some more of Zane’s pack mates joined them. Alyssa was amazed how warm and welcoming they all were. She felt like part of their great big family already. Of all of them, Alyssa found herself getting closest to Rachel. That wasn’t surprising, since they’d hit it off from the day they’d met. While Rachel hadn’t confided in her yet, it was obvious she was dealing with some stuff. Even now, pulling grill duty, Alyssa caught her nervously looking over her shoulder at the training structures on the far end of the SWAT compound several times, her eyes fixed on the darkened windows, like she thought someone was watching her. But so far, Alyssa couldn’t get her to open up about whatever she was going through.
“I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around the fact that there are other supernatural creatures out there,” Remy said.
Tall, good-looking, and built like the rest of the guys in the Pack, the Louisiana werewolf with the Cajun accent had joined them at the table a few minutes ago, along with his forensic scientist mate, Triana, and her mother, Gemma, a petite, outgoing woman, visiting from New Orleans.
Everyone in the Pack had echoed that same sentiment over the past two weeks. Alyssa found it funny that she had more experience with what was out there in the world than they did, considering she was human and they were werewolves. She’d need to get them caught up.
“What about the hunters?” Remy asked. “Now that the vampire coven is destroyed, do you think they’ll still be around?”
“I don’t think so,” Zane said. “At least not like we’ve been seeing over the past year, especially since no one is paying them now.”
“Plus, when we dug through the computers we confiscated from Stefan’s office at the parking garage, we got the name of every hunter he ever hired, so now we have files on them,” Alyssa added. “Almost all of them have a criminal past, so when they end up getting arrested again—which they almost certainly will—it will flag our system. Sooner or later, they’ll all end up in prison.”
Alyssa thought that news would be met with a round of cheers and high fives, but instead, the mood around the table—the compound even—turned somber.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “No more hunters in the world is a good thing, right?”
