Shifter

The air in the holding cell tasted like industrial bleach and old sweat.

I sat on the edge of the steel cot, my wrists handcuffed to a heavy ring bolted into the concrete floor. Across the metal table sat Agent Vance. He didn’t look like a guy who worked for the government; he looked like a high end undertaker. His suit was too expensive for a military base, and his eyes had the flat, dead quality of a shark waiting for a drop of blood.

He slid a glossy, black and white photograph across the table.

It was a crime scene photo. A man lay splayed across a marble floor, his throat torn out in a jagged, violent crimson crescent.

“The police call it a wild animal attack,” Vance said, his voice a cool, rhythmic drawl. “But we know what a wolf’s bite looks like. And we know you were within three blocks of his penthouse when his heart stopped beating.”

I didn’t look at the photo. I looked at Vance. “I didn’t touch him.”

“It doesn’t matter what you did, Logan,” Vance replied, leaning back and crossing his legs. “What matters is what the federal prosecutor can prove. Right now, they have a mountain of circumstantial evidence, a blood soaked crime scene, and a jury that is terrified of monsters. You’re looking at a needles-in-your-vein needle-drop in a state penitentiary. Fifty fifty shot you don’t even survive the transport van.”

The silence in the room stretched, heavy and suffocating. My claws twitched beneath my fingernails, a hot, electric spark of silver heat coursing through my veins. The wolf inside me was pacing, clawing at the ribcage of my chest, begging to be let out to rip Vance’s throat to match the photo on the table.

I forced it down. Breathing in. Breathing out. Stay human.

“You didn’t come here to offer me legal counsel, Vance,” I said, my voice low and gravelly. “What’s the other choice?”

Vance smiled. It was a cold, humorless movement of his lips. “We have a project. Out of country. Deep in the Triple Frontier where the borders of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay blur into a lawless swamp of mud, mercenaries, and black market cash. We need someone with your... unique physiological assets. A scout who can survive the deep jungle, hunt targets, and disappear without a trace.”

“A black-ops spy dog,” I spat.

“A covert operative,” Vance corrected smoothly. “You join our team, you execute our directives, and when the job is done, this file vanishes. You get your life back. You get your happily ever after. You say no...” He tapped the photo. “And you spend the rest of your very long, miserable life in a silver-lined cage.”

I looked at the handcuffs. Then I looked at the photograph of the dead man. It was a 50-50, no win choice. Jail for a murder I didn’t commit, or joining a shady, lawless operation in the absolute hell of hells.

“Guess which one I chose,” I muttered.

Three days later, I was stepping off a rusted, twin-engine prop plane into a wall of sweltering, 100-degree humidity.

The air in the South American border town of Puerto Iguazú was so thick you could chew it. The scent of diesel exhaust, rotting vegetation, and cheap river-mud clung to my skin like oil. But beneath the sensory overload of the tropics, my heightened senses picked up something far worse.

The scent of blood, cordite, and the distinct, sour sweat of men who killed for a paycheck.

A heavily armored utility vehicle was idling on the dirt runway. Leaning against the hood was a squad of mercenaries the black-ops unit Vance had blackmailed me into joining. They wore mismatched tactical gear, their faces hardened by years of dirty wars, their eyes sizing me up like fresh meat.

They were morally warped, venal, and armed to the teeth.

And as I walked toward them, the tropical heat beating down on my neck, I felt a sudden, sharp pull in my chest. A scent drifted past my nose, cutting through the diesel and the decay. It was sweet, wild, and intensely familiar.

I stopped in my tracks, my eyes locking onto a woman standing near the back of the vehicle, checking the chamber of an assault rifle. She looked up, her piercing gaze meeting mine.

My heart hammered against my ribs. The wolf inside me went completely still, suddenly recognizing its match.

This was going to be some party.