Threatened

CONNOR

The cameras flashed. I threw on the signature smile as armor, my teeth and charm in place before I gripped the meaty paw of the local political heavyweight. Some corrupt peacock whose pockets we’d had to grease to build this resort in his backyard.

With a last grin and a friendly nod toward the man, I turned to my assistant, Kylie. She was waiting offstage to the left, her gaze fixed on the tablet clutched in her manicured hands.

The humidity here in Panama City was stifling, and I tugged at my suit lapels as I reached her. “What’s wrong?” I asked, noting the frown on her face.

She flicked her eyes up to mine, not bothering to hide the furrow between her brows. “Our flight to Miami has been canceled. Some tropical storm brewing that they’re projecting will escalate into something bigger by the time we need to leave.”

“Fuck,” I muttered. Of course. Nothing like a tropical hellstorm to remind you the universe hates planners.

“But there’s one leaving for Caracas two hours earlier.” She tilted her head. “Didn’t you want to check out the new hotel manager there that was appointed a few months ago?”

I huffed, irritated by the oppressive heat and this impossible situation that would clearly keep me from getting home. ~I should’ve sent Raymond on this trip~, I thought.

But the PR chick had been insistent. “It ~has~ to be you, Connor,” she’d said. “They’ve lined up a ton of media opportunities simply because they knew ~the~ Connor Forest was coming.”

For two years now, I’d been grooming Raymond, my VP, to take over as the president of Aurora, my pack’s hotel chain. Because fame was a leash. And I’d wrapped it around my own neck the day I had let them sell me as Aurora’s face.

My father had built the first hotels for security, a dependable income for our pack. I’d made them into a company, a brand. A godsdamn empire with my signature image stamped across every glossy cover like a poster child for success—with secrets.

I had no one but myself to blame. I’d taken advantage of humans’ obsession with my youth, my looks, and my money. The more successful Aurora had become, the more it’d pulled me away from my home, my pack, and my duties as alpha.

Lately, though, all this travel had begun affecting my sanity, which only seemed to settle when I was in the natural woods of our territory.

But it wasn’t just about success. Having such a recognizable face came with an upside: It kept the other ever-hostile competing packs in Washington away from me and my pack. A sort of unspoken mutually assured destruction.

I was too high-profile in the human world to be taken out without drawing exactly the kind of attention we werewolves didn’t want.

Kylie cleared her throat, snapping me back to reality. She was staring at me, seemingly waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard.

“I’m sorry, what was that, Kylie?”

“I asked if you wanted me to book that flight to Caracas, or if you wanted to linger here in Panama until we can get a flight to the US?” she repeated, and I blessed her infinite patience.

The higher altitude of Caracas might give me a break from this heat. And there, I’d at least be doing something more useful than merely showing up to turn the first shovel of dirt at our newest resort site.

“Yes, book it, please,” I said with a nod. “And let Castillo know that we’re coming.”

We started walking toward the waiting car, and Kylie’s mate, Rick, in his bodyguard role, held open the door.

“~Any pack news come in?~” I asked Kylie through our mind-link.

“~Actually, yes~,” she linked back. “~Beta Ben sent an urgent message for you to call him. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about~.”

I immediately fished for my phone after I’d settled into the car, cursing the fact that our mind-links didn’t work over distances this great.

That would’ve been so handy.

Kylie slid in beside me, and Rick got behind the wheel. I sighed when the blessed chill of the air conditioning hit my face as soon as the engine started running.

Suspecting that Ben wanted to share pack information that wasn’t suited for either Kylie’s or Rick’s ears, I texted him instead of calling. I told him I’d be available to talk in ten minutes, and he responded with a thumbs-up emoji.

Kylie and Rick fell into their usual mate banter that made me switch off to their presence in a heartbeat. The whole way back to the hotel, I wondered what Ben had to say that could be so sensitive.

As soon as I peeled off my suit jacket and tossed it onto the bed, I called him. It only rang once before he picked up.

“Alpha, we received a rather weird email,” he said, getting straight to the point. That was typical of him—no fluff. “It’s from an unknown person warning us of a threat to our pack. An attack, maybe. And they want to meet to discuss it. They say they have proof.”

I frowned, my thoughts clinging to the words ~unknown~ and ~attack~ and ~meet~.

My council and I were always on high alert for any threats to the pack. But they usually came in the form of howls in the night, or scouts reporting movement at our borders, or the scent of enemy wolves on the wind. Not via emails.

“Have you responded to them?” I asked.

“Yes. I asked them what kind of threat, and they replied rather quickly with something very cryptic. A bit puzzling, really.” His tone piqued my curiosity.

Ben was the sturdy, no-nonsense, reliable kind that made him an excellent beta. There wasn’t much that could faze him. Yet, he sounded fazed.

“Well, what did they say?”

“They said, and I quote, ‘Don’t trust the woman with black hair and green eyes. She’ll be your end. From within.’”

I blinked. Cryptic indeed. In fact, it sounded like a cliché out of a spy novel. The kind of threat that came scratched into the walls of a padded cell or whispered right before the speaker vanished into a wall of fog.

Was someone playing games, or were they truly warning us against a threat in the shape of a woman?

In my inner circle, no one matched that description. But there was a tightness in my gut I couldn’t quite explain. And as alpha of Moon Shield Pack, I’d learned to listen to my gut.

So, I went into alpha mode. “Did Josh put a trace on the email? Did you ask for a meeting?”

“Yes and yes,” Ben replied. “The email account seems to have been created solely to communicate with us. [email protected]. One of those truly generic addresses that could’ve come from anywhere in the world. I’ve requested to meet, but they’re yet to reply.”

“Okay. Let me know as soon as they do. Meanwhile, have Carl check out every she-wolf with that description in our pack or among our contractors. Even the Aurora employees. Discreetly. Any hint of suspicion, I want to know about it.”

“On it, Alpha.”

“And get Travis to up the security around the borders. Make sure every border patrol guard is briefed on this ‘black-haired, green-eyed’ threat. Be extra vigilant.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

I sighed, running a hand through my hair. Despite my hope that this was simply an empty attempt at intimidation, a nagging feeling told me otherwise. Ignoring it could be disastrous.

“What do you think, Ben? Think it’s just another scheme to take us down?” I asked. “It’s not all that absurd a thought.”

He blew out a breath before answering, “Could be. Every year it does become harder and harder to hide who and what we are from humans. Packs everywhere are shrinking, their ways of life destroyed little by little. Maybe one is getting desperate?”

“So they’re taking it out on us?” I scoffed. “And why? Because Moon Shield Pack is thriving in a modern world that they refuse to embrace?”

Starting with my father, we’d adapted, leveraging human technology and blending in rather than hiding. We hadn’t abandoned our traditions—we’d evolved them. Survival had demanded it. And ~that~ irked the other packs.

“Look, Ben, I’m not worried about a full-scale attack from another pack. We’re strong, and using human weapons has proved effective,” I said, working through it out loud.

“Me either, Alpha. I mean, sure, if they really wanted to, they could take us down by doing the same. Guns with silver bullets. Explosives with silver shrapnel. Wolfsbane in water supplies or as a chemical bomb. But they’d have to work together, and that’s unlikely.”

“To say the least,” I agreed with a snort. “Still, the thought of an internal threat unsettles me. Sabotage, espionage, betrayal from within, from someone we trust… I can’t bear the thought.”

Ben waited a moment before he asked, “What shall we do if we find her, then? Take her out on sight?”

Another sigh escaped me, and I sat on the bed. “What if this is all a hoax, and she’s innocent, and we kill her for nothing?”

“What if it’s not a hoax?”

His question lingered loudly between us, weighted with more than doubt. Though I knew he’d never voice it, his tone contained a reminder that protecting the pack wasn’t optional, and leadership could be taken.

That steeled my resolve.

“All right, Ben,” I said. “I’ll be back within a week. If you find anyone matching that description before then, lock them up and get answers. By any means necessary.”