Page 5 of Secret Wolf Baby

I groaned. “I know that look. It’s the ‘I have a mission for you’ look.”

“That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. I just got a call from the Wolf’s Council. They want us to look into something for them,” he explained.

The Wolf’s Council was the group that oversaw all the packs in North America, the shifters who ensured peaceful interpack relations and ran the military. So, effectively, they were our old boss from when the Gold Wolves were spec ops.

Emphasis on “old” and “were.” Or at least, so I thought.

“Do they not understand how retirement works?” I groused.

“Apparently not. Their excuse is that it should be a minor thing, and we’re already in the general area. I think they’re just trying to pull us back into the job any way they can.”

“Jameson did warn us that the spec-ops life always found a way of coming back,” I mused, thinking back to the alpha of the Silver Wolves, another semi-retired black-ops group we had worked with before. “I just thought he was bullshitting us.”

“Apparently, he was right.”

“Seems like it. And I’m guessing that we don’t really have an option in any of this.”

At Declan’s “no shit” expression, I took a deep breath. “Right. Well, it was worth a shot. What’s the job?”

“It’s nothing major. Should only take a couple of us, to be honest. But they want us to look into a pack nearby. Apparently, their alpha, Reacher, has been throwing his weight around a little too much. The council’s been hearing whispers that he’s been using extreme tactics to keep his guys in line.”

I nodded, folding my arms as I shifted on my feet. It wasn’t the first time an alpha over-asserted his authority, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last, either. Sometimes they just needed some strong encouragement to knock it off, and that was the end of it. Others could be a lot more problematic. But it wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before.

“What’s the pack name?” I asked.

“Blood Moon. They live in Rowen. It’s not too far from here.”

My brow furrowed. Something about the pack and town name sounded familiar, triggering some old distant memory that I couldn’t place. I could have sworn I’d heard the name before, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out when or where.

“Have we ever dealt with them before?” I asked.

“Not to my knowledge. Why?”

I shook my head. “No reason. Keep going.”

“Anyway, I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind overseeing this,” Declan continued. “It should be pretty cut and dry. Check out the town for a day or so, see if there’s anything amiss, try to get the locals to talk to you, that sort of thing. I’m too swamped here to get away.”

“Are you sure you’re swamped, or you just don’t want to go?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Declan’s lip tilted upward. “I’m going to ignore that one,” he said. “Anyway, are you good to go?”

I let out a long breath, chewing the inside of my lip as I considered. To be entirely honest, I didn’t want to go. I was enjoying not having to deal with black-ops jobs after years of constant fighting and moving from town to town, from mission to mission. There was a reason I’d retired.

“I don’t know, Declan,” I said. “Are you sure the council can’t get one of their non-retired units to look into this?”

Declan cracked a grin. “I asked them that almost verbatim,” he said. “Apparently, all of them are busy at the moment, and they want this checked out sooner rather than later. Just in case it is something to worry about.”

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath. The truth was, I didn’t want to go. It was inherently selfish, I knew, but I was perfectly happy staying in town and helping out with running things on this side.

Declan seemed to read my mind. “Look, it’s not fun, and it isn’t what any of us had in mind when we quit. But at the same time, we still swore an oath to protect others. That oath doesn’t die with retirement.”

Sure, but I had assumed the days of being shuffled around from place to place, often finding nothing, were long behind me.

“Let me think about it,” I said.

Declan gave a curt nod. “That’s all I wanted to hear,” he said. “I know it’s not convenient, and honestly will probably be an incredibly boring job, but it is a necessity.”

“Yeah,” I said, strolling toward the door. “I’m coming over to visit Mira tonight. I’ll let you know what I’ve decided then.”

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