Page 3 of Collared Mate

“Sorry,” he admits. “I followed you. I got curious. This is fucked up. She’s eaten someone or something.”

I nod grimly. The first appearance was out of order and against regulations, but fit within the general high spirits of a young female up to something she probably shouldn’t be doing. Going out to find a free male to mate with, maybe. Now we’re witness to a murder of some kind.

“I’ll deal with her,” I say again. “Go home. Tell nobody what you’ve seen. And I do mean nobody. This is going to be a very significant problem, and I need to know that you can be trusted in confidence.”

Zack nods, looking serious.

When I am sure he is gone, I turn back to the bloody trail. She has long moved on, but that is okay. This will not be hard to follow. Her scent is potent and my senses are now highly tuned to it. I will not be letting her go. I don’t know who she’s killed, or why, but that is less important to me than finding her as soon as possible.

She is going deeper into the city. At one point, she changes back into her human form and dresses again. I find a small patch in some bushes where I think she ditched her clothing. The undergrowth has been flattened and her scent is fractionally stronger there, as if she stood there for a bit, disrobing and then re-dressing.

There’s a long dark hair wrapped around a twig too. Could be from anyone, but I’d bet it’s her. I lift it to my nose, thinking I catch a hint of her scent. My cock throbs. I am excited.

As a hunter my senses are focused entirely on my prey. It’s rare I get to do this these days. Most of my time is spent in various forms of admin. That’s the reality for all alphas. Running a pack means ensuring streams of income and managing people. It very quickly turns into HR. This hunt, though? This is what I was made to do. It’s a rare opportunity for me to flex all the animal skills that start to wane with too much domestication.

As I get to the edge of the park, where city meets wild, my senses will no longer cut it for tracking. Fortunately, they don’t need to. There are other ways of keeping an eye on people.

I take out my phone and make a call.

“Boss?” The voice belongs to Tinker, a young female shifter who works in my team managing the pack. Tinker can fix almost anything, and break pretty much everything. I know this, because I found her cracking my bank accounts a couple of years ago and offered her a job. She’s been pretty well behaved since, especially since she met her mate, Hades, who is my second in command and puts up with precisely none of her nonsense while somehow constantly indulging her.

“Yes. There’s a female who just came out of the woods where I am. Will probably look like Fiona Swale, because she is Fiona Swale. Unless I’m mistaken.”

“Huh. What are the odds you’d run into her, given the project…”

“Quiet,” I say. If there is one rule, it is that we do not talk about the project. My pack has been working on something to do with the Swale pack for quite some time now. And yes, it’s strange to see Fiona like this, at this time. Almost like it was destiny.

Tinker goes quiet, but I hear rapid keystrokes going on in the background.

“Yeah, think I got a lock on who that female in the woods was,” Tinker says. “I hacked into the network of incredibly intrusive cameras that are fucking everywhere now unless people cut them down with tungsten-carbide sawblades, which is, of course, terrible.”

She loves her deadpan sarcasm. I let her have it.

“Terrible,” I agree flatly.

“I got her face when she came out of the park. She was adjusting her jacket, like she’d just put it back on. And I recognized her. Definitely a shifter, definitely young and female.”

“And?”

I already know these things, but I let Tinker brief me. It’s good to double check that both of us are accurate.

“Fiona Swale. Her husband, Christian Colt, was killed three months ago. He was a confirmed shifter, alleged crime lord. Sexuality was rumored to be gay. He was the son of Corbin Colt, CEO of Cult Industries, but with a u because I guess that’s what passes for whimsy in their corner of the world. Corbin Colt has been a member of the Swale pack since birth. Genetically distinct, i.e., not related, but in the family, as it were.”

My pulse spikes as I realize I’m going to get to hunt her down. I’m going to get to bring her to justice. And I’m going to get what might even count as revenge on Rick Swale, who deserves every bit of pain the universe can inflict on him.

“Are you sure? This doesn’t seem like something she would do.” I ask again. I am sure, and I know she is. But I want confirmation before I go after the little sister of the man who currently holds the city’s most powerful shifter legacy.

“Any girl can run naked through the woods covered in the blood of her enemies if she wants to,” Tinker says.

“Is Hades there?”

“Yeah,” she says. “He’s right here.”

Hades is her mate. A big, taciturn shifter who I’d bet on in any situation that involved combat of any kind. It’s adorable how sweet he is with his much smaller, much chattier little nerd mate.

“Did you confirm the sighting of Fiona Swale?” I ask him.

“Yes.” The word escapes him like a clod of earth hitting a coffin.