She walked around for twenty minutes, seeing nothing. Hearing—well, she wasn’t sure what she heard. There were noises in the distance that she couldn’t identify. Were there some kinds of wild animals living in the woods surrounding the base? Sometimes she thought she heard a howl.
Or was this all piped-in sound effects to make the gullible think there were werewolves out there? She wasn’t about to buy that.
She drew closer to the edge of the woods, just to peek, not that she would get close. Had they really loosed some kind of wildlife, something feral, on the base?
Not likely. Not animals they couldn’t control. Well, five more minutes out here and she would return to her quarters. It did feel a bit eerie after all, being alone at such a large facility.
What was that? She heard something—not howls, but a growl. There was no breeze that night, but she also heard crunching of leaves, as if something was walking in the woods.
Okay. Her imagination really was working overtime. Or maybe there were some kinds of animals out there. She’d better go back—
She stopped dead as something emerged from the woods. Not just one creature, but maybe half a dozen.
Wolves.
Should she freeze? Should she run?
An African-American man she hadn’t met before suddenly appeared from behind them. He wore camos like her and didn’t seem frightened by the wolves.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Everyone was told to stay inside tonight. Go back to your quarters. Now.”
“But are you safe with—?”
In unison, several of the wolves leaped toward Sara.
“Run!” called the man.
And Sara did.
Chapter 2
He wanted to chase after her, that foolish woman who hadn’t listened to him or anyone else.
Didn’t she know how dangerous it could be, wandering around on the night of a full moon in an area where shapeshifters prowled?
If he had been in his human form, he would have laughed.
But Jason was in his wolfen form, loving it. Especially because the time of his shift tonight had actually been his choice.
He stood in the midst of his also-shifted comrades. None chased Lieutenant Sara McLinder from where she had confronted them here, at the edge of the woods surrounding Ft. Lukman. Most of them had leaped in unison to scare her off.
Soon, though, since she was an aide to the general, she would be told, and shown, the truth.
Jason looked sideways. The wolf beside him was Drew, his cousin, who had coerced him to enlist in the military, to join Alpha Force, for his own good.
At this moment, despite his misgivings about the future, Jason couldn’t thank Drew enough.
His cousin nodded his canine head and turned. He began walking into the woods. So did the other shifters.
They were followed by their single human aide for the night, Captain Jonas Truro, who was a medical doctor like Drew.
He was not, however, a shifter, but as a member of Alpha Force he was an expert at helping them, including assisting in perfecting the Alpha Force elixir.
All shifters here would continue to prowl until dawn. That was when they normally would change back on nights of the full moon anyway, even if they didn’t have access to that very special Alpha Force elixir. His family had started to experiment with it, at least Drew had, and now, with the help of other Alpha Force members including Jonas Truro, he had developed some sophisticated and amazing formulas.
That elixir was one reason Jason’s thoughts were so clear now, while he was shifted.
Why he could wonder, so precisely, exactly what lovely Lieutenant McLinder thought about her recent confrontation by an entire pack of wolves.
Oh, yes. He would laugh, if he could.
But since he couldn’t for now, he would wait and look forward to a conversation, sometime soon, with pretty Sara.
* * *
Sara lay on her back in the dark, on the uncomfortable bed in her new apartment, willing herself to fall asleep.
She had closed the blinds, but a soft glow still penetrated between the slats. The light from the full moon.
Hell, she had trained her body as much as she had trained her mind. She never had trouble getting to sleep.
Except tonight.
Her thoughts kept returning to the pack of wolves she’d seen. They were wolves, weren’t they? They didn’t look like any breed of domesticated dog she knew of.
On the other hand, they had been so calm at first. Even when a few had moved quickly toward her, none had acted as if it intended to attack.
And then there’d been that soldier who shooed her away.
What was this?
Was the mysterious Alpha Force really composed of shapeshifters? Somehow, that didn’t seem as nonsensical now as it had before.
Of course it could still all be some kind of ruse that the military was attempting to impose on enemy forces—couldn’t it? That was the logical assumption. But if so, how had they tamed those wolves that way?
Sara turned over, trying to get comfortable. Maybe she should pull up a training manual on her laptop. Read something, at least.
But she knew that if she did boot up her computer, she would instead search for something else entirely.
Werewolves.
She had gone to bed in her usual sleeping attire—a T-shirt and matching shorts. She was comfortable in them. She kept telling herself that the room’s warm temperature was fine. So was what she was wearing. So was everything except for the outrageousness of her thoughts.
She needed sleep, but it wouldn’t come.
What time was it, anyway? She turned over and pulled her smartphone from the nightstand beside the bed where it was charging.
Really? Was it actually almost five o’clock? The night was nearly over.
And she clearly wasn’t going to sleep a wink.
Throwing the covers off, she flipped the light switch at the side of the bed.
She had an idea what to do next.
She was going to track down those damned wolves.
* * *
She had dressed in her camo fatigues. She once more used the stairs to get to the first floor of the BOQ, then slipped out the side door again.
This time, she was armed—with a camera. She had shoved it into her pocket.
Since this Alpha Force was supposed to be so covert, she suspected that if she took any pictures of the wolves she might be considered in breach of military protocol—at the least. She might even be doing something illegal. Certainly, it could be contrary to her security clearance.
But she didn’t intend to show anything to the world. No, if she found those wolves again, she would take pictures only for herself.
Darkness still hovered over the base—the darkness before dawn, since the moon was setting behind the trees. Soon, the sun would rise.
For now, Sara kept in shadows as she crossed the paths toward the woods where the wolves had emerged from among the trees.
She stayed just outside the foliage. Canines,