Out of all the students in his first season of outdoor survival specialist training, Riley Brierly was the best candidate to become a member of his pack. The kid was smart, tough, knew how to follow orders and had been trained by the finest in U.S. military.
Mike Johnson was a close second, neck and neck with Collin Campbell. A wolfish smile curled Ty’s mouth in the dark. Three cubs. A nice start to his Olympic Pack. Not bad, especially considering he didn’t even have a mate.
At least there weren’t any Were packs in the area. Ty suspected it was because the Cascade Vampire Clan was so close. The small town of Sinclair sat directly across the Puget Sound from downtown Seattle, an hour-long ferry ride away from vampire central. No Were in his right mind would want to live that close. But he had little choice. He had to take territory where he could, to form a family of his own. A lone Were wasn’t going to be welcomed into an existing pack, like those that occupied the coast.
The blue team yelled as they dove out of the trees onto the startled red team. The men rolled about, throwing punches and kicking out at one another. Grunts and the smack of flesh against flesh resounded loudly in the night air.
“Companies, halt!”
The men stopped midmotion and turned toward Ty as he emerged soundlessly from the bushes. “Blue Leader. Extra points for your team for executing the overhead attack so well. Extra steak at dinner.” The recruits elbowed one another in the ribs and grinned.
“Red Leader. What happened?”
“We didn’t expect them to attack from above, sir.”
Ty narrowed his eyes and pointed up at the trees. “Out here, danger is everywhere. Where you least expect it. What’s rule number one of survival?”
“Know your surroundings, sir,” they all said in monotone unity.
Ty nodded. “Good.”
“Red team, you need to act as a team. Not a bunch of individuals working in the same group. You should have had one man assigned to watch above, in addition to your sides, back and front. Did you?”
“No, sir,” the red team responded.
Ty stopped pacing and stood, pulling his NVGs off his head, then clasping his hands behind his back, his feet spread apart in a wide stance in the soft leaf litter. Moonlight filtered down from above, casting everything in the small clearing in stark relief. He made deliberate eye contact with each trainee as he spoke, letting his gaze linger a little longer on the members of the red team. “Unless you’re a team, a pack, you’ve got nothing. You are nothing. You function as a unit, you live. You go out on your own in the wilderness, your chances of survival drop seventy-five percent.”
The recruits stood at silent attention.
“Teams, pack your gear back to the barracks and prep for dinner. Red team, you’re on KP duty. Brierly, Johnson and Campbell, remain. Teams dismissed.”
The three recruits stayed behind and watched their classmates jog into the dark veil of the night. “You three did really well over this past week. Good enough that I think you deserve a little something extra. You’ve got passes for tonight to go into town.”
“Yes!” Johnson gave a fist pump.
Campbell grinned at Brierly. “You’re the hometown boy. What’s a good bar in town?”
Brierly’s mouth tipped up in a wicked grin. “You could hit the OON.”
“Want to be more specific?”
Brierly shrugged. “That’s its name, man. That or the Tavern. The neon sign used to say SALOON, but the neon has only three lit-up letters left. It’s on the main drag. Sinclair isn’t that big. You can’t miss it. I’ll show you how to get there.”
Campbell turned and looked at Ty. “You coming with us?”
Ty shifted his weight. “Technically you aren’t supposed to leave the school without an escort, so I suppose I could meet you there later.”
Campbell’s goofy grin got bigger. “They got hot chicks at this bar, Brierly?”
Brierly laughed. “Hard for me to know what you think’s hot. It’s not like I can read your thoughts.”
“We find some hot chicks, you won’t have to,” Campbell shot back.
Ty crossed his arms. They were still so young. Too full of themselves to be of much use to a pack, but with some training they had promise. “Head back to the barracks, clean up and you can head out.”
The three young men snatched up their gear and jogged off in the direction of the school camp base. Ty glanced around, making sure they were all gone and well out of sight before he shucked off his clothes into a neat pile, then crouched down, letting his fingers dig deep into the earth. He needed to burn off his excess energy before he went into town. He needed to hunt. Satisfying the wolf half of him now would lower the chances of him spontaneously shifting later.
With a wet pop and crunch, bone and muscle transformed. His skin tightened and grew hot as hair grew into a thick pelt. His fists turned into paws, his spine extended into a tail and his teeth elongated into lethal fangs. The shift took less than a minute, but in terms of strength and speed, it made all the difference. Ty loped off, disappearing into the night-dark trees.
* * *
Two hours later Ty eyed the door of the bar Brierly had suggested with skepticism.
The whole damn thing looked as though it was about a hundred years old and held up by baling wire and chewing gum. A sagging roof and chipped white paint faded to a pale gray didn’t give him much hope inside would be any better. In fact, the only thing that convinced him to go in was the long row of expensive bikes parked out front. There was even an old Ford hot-rod truck, matte black with red, yellow and orange flames along the sides. To be this popular, the dive had to have something the locals liked.
A wail of guitar backed up by the pounding beat of rock drums and the stale smell of cheap beer drifted out into the evening air, beckoning him indoors. What the hell. He’d lost everything else. When you started at the bottom, there was nowhere to go but up.
He trudged up the step and pushed open the front door. A waft of heat and the scent of wood smoke from the black potbelly stove in the corner hit him full in the face. Inside was an assault on his keen Werewolf senses. The music, chatter, laughter and the smack of pool balls were too loud. He took a step toward the bar and heard a loud crunch. Ty glanced down at the tan husks of peanut shells littering the worn wooden planks of the floor. The greasy, hot smell of grilled hamburgers, the yeasty aroma of beer and the pungent mix of perfumes, body odors, cigarette smoke and bike exhaust fumes that swirled in the air were overwhelming to his preternaturally amplified sense of smell. It was hard to suck in a deep breath without getting light-headed.
He glanced around, looking for the three recruits. The old plank walls were covered in motorcycle posters sporting big-haired, tiny-bikini-clad women draped suggestively over shining chrome-and-leather machines. Old painted tin signs advertising everything from motor oil to soda pop added a rough appeal to the ambience of the place. There were a few booths, covered in cracked black vinyl, and a big-screen TV in the back was blaring out a football game.
This was definitely not his normal kind of place, but it did remind him a little of Joey’s back in Teanachee—a hometown hangout that the locals frequented. Ty scowled. It wasn’t as if he’d ever see that place again, he thought as he settled onto a wooden bar stool. There was no sign of Brierly, Campbell or Johnson. So either they’d already been here, pounded back a few beers and left, or they hadn’t made it down from camp yet.
The bartender, a heavyset bald man with a long beard in a sleeveless red plaid shirt that showed off his beefy arms, jerked his chin at Ty. The single diamond-stud earring