Page 8 of Pack Kasen: Part 1

“Three bodies so far. The cops are saying a wild animal. They thought it escaped from a zoo, but there have been no animals reported missing, so they’re looking into someone having kept an exotic pet that got loose.”

A feral then.

No other pack in the country has hunted more of them than us.

Usually, when a shifter bites a human in their wolf form, the human dies. Sometimes they become like us, able to change into a wolf at will.

Then there are ferals. Bitten humans who become creatures so dangerous to everyone around them that we hunt them.

“Just on the campus?” I ask.

Finan nods. “So far.”

As the feral loses control, they stop caring about exposing themselves. Initially, they’ll hunt at night, but that doesn’t last. Soon, they start attacking during the day and, possibly, shift where someone could see them. That would reveal our existence to regular humans, a secret we all fight to keep. I can’t let that happen.

“How long?” Usually, we hear about a feral in the first couple of days of an attack. Reporters assume the fatally mauled humans must be the result of an escaped animal from a zoo. It’s a big clue that the murder is unusual enough to be worthy of investigating.

One kill sets off the hunting and predator instinct that a shifter learns to control as a pup. A regular human does not have that level of control, so the wolf’s predatory needs will consume the human side. That doesn’t always happen when a shifter bites a human, but it’s rare for a human to manage the transition without a pack to support them.

That first kill excites their wolf enough to kill the next night, then the next. Three days is all it takes for us to have a feral in glut, and they need putting downfast. Hence the abrupt end of my dinner.

“A week,” Finan says.

I stare at Finan. “Aweek!”

“That can’t be right.” Silas reaches over to snag the newspaper.

My fingers tighten around it. “Mine,” I growl.

I’mnotdone with it yet.

He freezes and slowly pulls his hand back, angling his head to show me his throat.

My wolf, mollified by his submission, sniffs once and settles down.

“The internet is still down,” Finan explains. “It’s why we missed it.”

I curse.

The problem with living so remote, which for us, is practically in the wilds of northern Montana, is the reliance on generators and the patchiness of satellite internet during bad weather. Spring, in particular, is one of the worst periods of heavy rain for us. That almost always means spotty or no internet for days at a time.

Including now.

No internet meant we wouldn’t have known there was a feral problem until the weekly newspaper hit our mailbox this morning.

“We need to do something about the internet.” I frown.

Finan nods. “I’ve started looking into moving the satellite or trying a different provider.”

I scan the newspaper as he speaks, grateful he doesn’t require micromanaging.

According to the reporter, the feral has been killing for nearly a week. Three dead so far, with the latest body found in a bush near the science building late last night by one of the campus security guards.

A feral killing three students over the span of a week, with no sign of a glut?

This sounds like a mystery and I’ve always liked those.

My wolf is alert, eager for the hunt, but after what happened last time I went hunting, I’m a little less eager to charge into battle lest it happen again.

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