CHAPTER ONE
“Maybe I should come with you guys. If you’re right about the people involved, you could use my help,” Senior Corporal Carter Nelson said into his cell phone, leaning back in the seat of his SUV and staring out at Bachman Lake. He’d been about to go for an early morning run when his friend, fellow werewolf, and squad leader, Senior Corporal Mike Taylor, called to say he wouldn’t be able to join him. It hadn’t taken long for Carter to figure out that SWAT had been called out to support a major raid against a heavily armed drug cartel. Because it would be dangerous, Dallas PD had requested the entire SWAT team.
Everyone would be going—except Carter.
“I wish you could, but you know Gage isn’t going to go for that,” Mike said. “And if we’re being honest, he shouldn’t. You might be doing better than you were a couple weeks ago, but you’re still not ready to go into a high-risk shootout scenario. You know that.”
Cursing silently, Carter opened the door of his Hummer to let in the chilly early morning breeze, considering his pack mate’s words. Sergeant Gage Dixon was the commander of the Dallas SWAT Team. More importantly, he was the alpha of their pack of alphas, the only one who could keep all of them in line.
Even if Carter was making it a lot harder on their boss lately.
“Yeah, I know,” Carter finally admitted, hating to be reminded about how many times he’d completely lost control lately, wolfing out in the worst possible situations. “But it still sucks. I can’t help but feel that I’m letting everyone down.”
There was silence from Mike’s side of the line, and for a moment, Carter had an unreasonable fear that his friend would agree and tell him that Gage wanted Carter out of the Pack. That he was a risk to everyone around him. Which wasn’t necessarily wrong.
Still, the thought of being a werewolf without a pack…
“You aren’t letting anyone down,” Mike said, his voice firm. “You’re going through some crap right now, but you’re getting help. You need to give this therapy thing a chance. Even you said it seems to be working, right?”
“I don’t know.” Carter sighed. “Maybe. I haven’t wolfed out since I started seeing Dr. Delacroix, no matter how many uncomfortable questions she’s asked, so I guess that counts for something.”
“It definitely counts for something. It means she’s helping you. Just stick with her and it will all work out. Heck, at this rate, you’ll probably be back to full-duty status in a week or two. You’ll see.”
“I hope so,” Carter murmured. “Honestly, these sessions would be a lot easier if I could tell her about my real problem. It’s exhausting avoiding that I’m an omega werewolf. If Dr. Delacroix knew the truth, maybe she could help me figure out why I’m losing control all the time now when I’ve had it under wraps for years.”
“I don’t think telling your doctor that you’re a werewolf would be a good thing,” Mike said dryly. “While there are some people who can handle the truth about the world we live in, I’m not sure Hadley Delacroix is one of them.”
Carter opened his mouth to point out that Dr. Delacroix seemed to be pretty solid to him but closed it again when he heard Gage’s voice in the background telling people to load up. Now wasn’t the time for this conversation.
“I gotta go,” Mike said. “Gage wants us on the move in sixty seconds. Hit your morning run and then go to your next session with Delacroix. I’ll call later and let you know how everything went on the raid. I know I’m probably wasting my breath, but try not to worry about your pack, huh? Focus on yourself right now.”
Mike hung up before Carter could tell him that there was no way in hell he wouldn’t be worrying. The SWAT team was his family. He worried about his pack mates all the time. With the Pack going up against a heavily armed and violent drug cartel, he’d worry even more. They might be werewolves, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t be killed. A lucky headshot or a bullet through the heart would do them in the same as anyone else.
His heart beat harder at the thought of one of his pack mates getting hurt and he forced himself to take a deep breath. Biting back a growl, Carter gazed out at the lake in the dim early morning light, hoping the sounds of the gentle waves lapping on the shore would calm him down.
It took a while, and for a moment, he could feel his fangs coming out, but after a few moments, the urge to give up control and let his inner wolf take over faded into the background. Relaxing, he locked up his Hummer and shoved his keys and phone into his pants pocket before heading toward the running path that circled the lake. Even though it was still shrouded in shadows, thanks to his keen werewolf vision, he could see as well as if it was daylight.
Carter started running at a good pace, still needing to burn off the extra energy that had built up at the thought of his pack facing danger without him. He wanted to push harder but knew that wasn’t a good idea. Even though it was early in the morning, there were still other people around. He couldn’t take the chance of someone seeing him sprinting along the path at thirty miles an hour. Things like that tended to attract the wrong kind of attention.
As he jogged around the lake, the sound of planes taking off from nearby Love Field occasionally interrupted the peaceful sounds of nature. Carter couldn’t stop thinking about how far off the rails his life had gotten over the past couple weeks. He knew it was stupid to let his mind go there, but at moments like this, it was difficult to think about anything else.
Being an omega werewolf instead of a pure alpha pretty much meant he was defined by unprovoked anger, aggression, and frequent violent outbursts. He’d had to fight for control from the very beginning of his change. It was either that or go insane.
And for the most part, he’d succeeded. Sure, he had minor slips now and then during his time on the SWAT team. An inadvertent flash of fangs or claws during an argument, a rumbling growl when a training scenario got a little too realistic. But outside of a few select people—Gage and Mike among them—there wasn’t anyone on the team who knew he wasn’t an alpha like everyone else. His pack mates might rib him for having some omega-like tendencies, but that wasn’t the same thing as knowing the truth.
But something had changed a few weeks ago, and for the life of him, Carter couldn’t figure out what’d triggered it. He’d been in the middle of a crowded nightclub with Mike and several other pack mates, facing some dangerous supernaturals who’d been killing their way across the city. There’d been too many people around to even consider pulling his weapon, so he’d been fighting one of the creatures hand-to-hand. One second, they’d been going at it blow-for-blow, the next, he’d put the supernatural through a brick wall and was bludgeoning him with a table leg without even knowing what he was doing or how he’d gotten there.
It had been years since he’d lost time, and that night, he’d lost at least ten minutes. Not to mention the part where he hadn’t remembered smashing the suspect through a wall. The creature had been practically impervious to damage and ended up escaping, a problem that hadn’t really meant much in the grand scheme of things at the time. Not when compared to the fact that Carter couldn’t contain his inner omega werewolf.
He’d spent the next few days struggling to get things back under control and had failed miserably. During another fight with the same supernaturals, he’d lost time again—not minutes, but hours—and a supernatural had ended up dead at his hands without him even realizing he’d done it.
Afterward, Carter had been fully prepared to leave the Pack, to get away from Dallas before he lost control again and hurt someone he cared about. But Mike had asked him to hold off on that decision until he talked to someone who could help. Even though he hadn’t honestly believed he’d ever be able to find anyone who could do that, he’d agreed.
Then he had his first appointment with Dr. Hadley Delacroix, and he started thinking that maybe—just maybe—it might actually work. When he was with her, he did feel calmer. Then again, that could simply be wishful thinking on his part. But he really hoped not. Because he didn’t want to leave the Pack.
The mere thought made his fingertips tingle, claws trying to come out to confront a threat that wasn’t even real, and he quickly shook it off. That was something he wished he could bring up during his therapy session later this morning, but he couldn’t do that. Maybe he could describe it as an anxiety attack, only without the claws.
Carter was still thinking about that when he heard panicked shouting, immediately followed by a scream of pain, and then hysterical crying. He jerked his head left and right, slowing his pace, trying to figure out which direction the sound was coming from. While werewolves had exceptional hearing in general, omegas weren’t quite as gifted as alphas, so it took him a few seconds to pinpoint that it was directly ahead and slightly to the left.
