Page 3 of Alpha's Second Chance

“Goes beyond that. There’s a female here. The lead prosecutor. She was in the middle of her final speech to the jury, and one of them says she can smell her because she’s a shifter. Says Bull’s a shifter too, and he’s after her.”

“Suppressants,” I said.

“And scent blockers. She’s been using them for years. And so has Bull.”

“What the hell. How did we not know that?” Even with blockers, someone, somewhere, should have known Bull was a shifter. I rubbed my face. Sometimes these things seemed harder than physical battle. We’d all been after Bull for years, and we’d had no intel about this.

“Really good chemicals,” the chief said. “He’s got the money.”

I pressed my fingers into my temples. As a shifter I relied on my senses. The blockers created an absence, one that meant my senses were useless. I didn’t know any shifters who would touch them, although I was aware there was a thriving market of shifters who did. But from what I’d heard, a shifter usually used them only for a short period of time. Bull would have been using them for decades.

There was nothing that would ever make me take a suppressant. I would never hide who I was.

If we’d known what Bull was, he never would have stood trial in a dinky state courtroom. MASK would have taken over and we’d have gotten him into a federal court.

He’d kept this charade going for a decade. Had the two idiots today at the race track been shifters?

Not likely, because they hadn’t reacted to me at all.

I needed a hot shower and a steak. But first, I had work to do. “I’ll interview the prosecutor. Get her to a safe house.”

The chief grabbed my arm. “Owen. One more thing.”

“What is it?”

“Watch yourself. She’s an omega.”

An omega. The word was painful to say. My first — and only — real love had been an omega.

It had taken years, but I’d gotten over her. Eventually.

Protecting everyone, human and shifter alike was my job. But an omega in danger? That was a mission I would defend with my life.

Eve

Alone in the chief’s office, I made several calls to the places where I bought my suppressants. Because shifters weren’t known to humans, we bought them in an underground network of shifters made up of doctors, scientists, and pharmacists.

“What do you mean, they lose their effectiveness after five years?” I said to one of the pharmacists I’d been visiting for years.

“It’s common for omegas,” she said, her voice crackling over the phone. “Shifters have powerful immune systems. Our hormones overpower the synthetic ones. Someone should have explained this to you.”

Maybe they had explained years ago, when I was so desperate to be human. To blend in.

How had I never asked if it was a permanent solution? It was an unforgivable oversight. The blockers and suppressants becoming ineffective was a reasonable enough conclusion. I’d grown complacent, taking them for years, never anticipating the day they might not work. Had I been willfully ignorant? That wasn’t like me, not at all.

Reeling, I leaned back and closed my eyes for a few seconds. The stress had my blood pressure shooting sky high. I grabbed my phone and opened up a text message. I needed to check in with my team and find out the status of the case.

As I texted, an odd feeling came over me. A wave of dizziness made my head spin. When I took the suppressants, they lived up to their name and suppressed most of the extrasensory skills I had as a shifter.

Gradually, those skills were coming back to me.

There was another bear nearby, besides the chief.

I stood, tugging at the blouse, willing it to lie flat against my generous chest. I went to the window and lifted the blinds.

Outside, the chief greeted someone. A man. A very tall, broad man with a powerful, decisive stride.

I’d seen that walk before. Many years ago.

---