She pulled out a frozen pizza, the cardboard box hitting the counter with more force than necessary. Hunter watched her tear open the packaging, movements mechanical and angry. His wolf wanted to comfort her, but he recognized this kind of fury. It needed to burn itself out.
Hunter stepped into the bedroom, pulled out his phone, and dialed Axel. “Need a favor,” Hunter said when the pack’s tech expert answered. “Can you run the Sweet Summit Bakery manager, Sophie Cross, through the system? Hospital admissions, police reports, accidents?”
Axel’s keyboard was already clicking in the background. “Give me a few minutes. I’ll call you back.”
Hunter returned to the kitchen as Brie slid the pizza into the oven and set the timer. The smell of warming dough and cheese began to fill the apartment. She wiped down the counter and tossed out the box, her movements sharp with frustration.
He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She leaned back against him but didn’t relax.
“Sophie’s going to be fine,” he said quietly.
“You don’t know that.”
Fifteen minutes later, the timer went off. Brie pulled the pizza from the oven, the cheese bubbling and golden. She cut it into slices with efficient movements.
At the table, they ate in near silence. Brie mechanically chewed while scrolling through her phone, reading festival emails and notifications. Hunter’s phone rang. Axel. He answered.
“Nothing,” Axel said without preamble. “No hospital admissions, no police contact, no accident reports.”
“Thanks for checking.” Hunter ended the call. He looked at Brie. “I had Axel run a check on Sophie. See if she was in an accident. He came back with nothing.”
Brie’s eyes tracked to his face, reading his expression. The irritation in her features shifted, worry creeping in around the edges.
“I’ll go check her apartment,” Hunter said. “Maybe she’s sick, no phone battery, something simple.”
Brie provided the address, her anger dissolving into concern. “Maybe she really can’t get to her phone?”
Hunter kissed her forehead. “I’ll find out.”
Sophie’s apartment complex squatted on the edge of town, three stories of fading beige stucco and external stairs that had seen better decades. Hunter’s tactical instincts engaged automatically as he surveyed the layout. Two exits, minimal lighting, too many blind spots. Sophie’s beat-up Honda Civic sat in its assigned space. His wolf growled in the back of his mind. Something was off.
He climbed the exterior stairs to the second floor, hand unconsciously checking his concealed carry. No lights showed through Sophie’s windows, but the door was ajar. Hunter’s wolf snarled a warning as he drew his weapon and nudged the door open with his fingertips.
“Sophie?”
His voice echoed in the empty apartment. A lamp had been knocked over. Mail was scattered by the entry.
The bathroom made his blood run cold. On the white tile floor, he found a small pool of dark brown blood. His wolf’s enhanced senses confirmed what he already knew. It was Sophie’s blood, about thirty-six hours old.
Hunter pulled out his phone to call Dom, then froze as it buzzed in his hand. Unknown number. Video call. Every instinct screamed danger, but he answered.
Sophie’s face filled the screen. Bruised, terrified, duct tape over her mouth, zip-tied to a metal chair in what looked like a warehouse. She made desperate muffled sounds, eyes pleading.
The camera pulled back, revealing three more people bound to chairs. Hunter recognized them all.
“Four of Fate Mountain’s finest residents,” a voice said from behind the camera. “They stay alive only if you cooperate.”
“What do you want?” Hunter kept his voice level despite his wolf’s rage.
Brennan appeared on screen.
The chemist’s face was a nightmare of incomplete transformation. Part human, part bear, features twisted. One eye remained human while the other had gone fully ursine. Patches of fur sprouted randomly across skin that looked raw and infected. His mouth couldn’t quite close properly, human teeth and bear fangs creating a grotesque grimace.
“My body is destroyed,” Brennan said, each word seemingly painful. “The shifts are killing me, cell by cell. But my mind... my mind created something beautiful before the end.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Brennan’s hybrid face twisted into what might have been a smile. “I survived long enough to perfect my formula. To give yourpreciouscommunity exactly what it deserves.”
