Raven's fists clenched at the thought of Jackson being harmed by his own people because of her. Pack was permanent. His status made him valuable. It made a sick sort of sense. As an enforcer, he knew too much about Kevin's pack. He'd be too big of threat to just be dismissed. "But that's not all, is it?"

"He's protecting you. If he shows any sign of weakness, any softness toward you, the alpha will use that to his advantage." Taggert grabbed her, his unusually display of male aggression knocking her out of her funk. "As much as you both might want it, he isn't your wolf. You can't think of him as such. Not anymore."

They continued to the car, the silence heavy between them. She nearly missed the shadow leaning against the building, would have if her animals hadn't deserted her from one second to the next.

Raven stumbled to a halt. A chill crawled up her spine like the brush of thousands of spider legs. When her gaze finally broke through and pierced the shadows, she spotted Randolph waiting patiently, arms crossed, wearing a knowing smirk.

Upon spying him, she was too relieved to keep her secrets to mind that her animals had abandoned her.

Not when Randolph happened to be an assassin frequently used by the council. She swallowed hard at his pleased expression, wondering what made him seek her out.

She edged in front of Taggert. Randolph wasn't imposing, not much taller than herself. He looked ordinary, forgettable even. Until you peered deeper into his eyes to the devil waiting below the surface, a cold murderer who'd love nothing more than to strike at the least provocation.

His power matched hers in both style and strength. If it came down to a fight, she'd lay money on a draw.

Part of her wondered if that's what kept her safe.

At least for now.

"Randolph." She nodded and kept a healthy distance between them, steadily drawing a small current through the soles of her feet as unobtrusively as possible. Energy crackled under her skin, painfully pulling through her bones.

"You always get into the most interesting of troubles." His rough, unused voice prickled like a cat's tongue licking against her skin.

"Troubles?" Raven winced at the way her voice scraped her throat.

There went casual.

The street was deserted, the streetlights huddled in the darkness, few and far between, the warehouse where the club stood a good block behind them, nearly obscure in the shadows as if hiding from Randolph. If only she'd taken the hint instead of blundering into danger.

Randolph strolled forward, easily opening the locked passenger side of the car and slid inside. "Why don't we talk while you drive."

It wasn't a question. "Taggert-"

"Don't say it. I'm not leaving you alone with him."

"Brave pup." Randolph smiled, but there was nothing friendly in the mask he wore.

Raven flinched, silently cursing Taggert's stubbornness. Though he swallowed hard, he stubbornly stood his ground. Fear for his safety tingled on her lips. Taggert wouldn't be able to help her if Randolph wanted to harm her.

While she dreaded Randolph's curiosity, his indifference could get her killed quicker if she made the fatal mistake of boring him.

He was playing with her, a game that only he knew.

Raven took a steadying breath then drank down all the current. She couldn't drive with all the electricity seething under her skin. She'd fry the computer. She contemplated Randolph through the windshield. She wouldn't put it past him to crawl in her car on purpose to keep her vulnerable.

She reluctantly skirted the vehicle. "Don't react or interact with him in any way. Do you understand?"

Taggert immediately nodded, almost looking green at the prospect of getting into the car. The back of her teeth ached from clenching her jaw against ordering him to run and hide.

Raven's palms were damp as she pulled out in traffic. They were halfway to the crime scene when curiosity finally overtook her nerves. She had to know what she faced and broke the silence. "You mentioned troubles?"

"I wondered how long you would last. Most people babble within the first five minutes." He sounded impressed, which left her stomach a bit queasy. There didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the cramped confines of the car. "Remember the drug leak you told me about?"

He was talking about the woman who'd tried to steal Taggert from her by drugging him. The drug had weakened Taggert to the point he could no longer heal himself.

All to make the twit appear stronger.

Alpha.

The only thing that calmed the rage seething through her was knowing the woman would've suffered under Randolph's tender mercies.

Uncertain of Randolph's mood, Raven cast him a quick glance. Nothing in his expression gave him away. "Yes."

"You were right. The lead didn't have much information. She was a pawn. I've been tracking the escalating drug use in pack."

The words were half a question, half an accusation. "And found nothing. That's not why you came to me."

Randolph gave a short laugh that made her cringe. Absolutely no power resonated from him, his control phenomenal. She was almost jealous.

They were two blocks from the crime scene, and she found her foot resting heavier on the gas pedal, unconsciously speeding to reach safety. Not that a crowd of people would be able to stop him if he had his mind set on something.

"I discovered a more dangerous drug, a twin to the one you'd located."

"So the first was a prototype."

"I want you to help me find the people responsible."

Raven had to swallow twice in order to speak. "Why me?"

He ignored her question as immaterial. "The new drug is called Alpha, but it's a closely guarded secret between a select few. No one I question can find the source."

Tortured, he meant.

The news troubled her. It didn't make sense. "What does this drug do?"

"It gives shifters the ability to experience what it's like to be an alpha."

"What can I do that you can't?"

She didn't want to know what he was thinking. The safest way might be to work with him, but she had a feeling if she gave him even an inch, no one would ever find her body.

When he didn't speak, she turned to find him staring at her. "I've dug into your past."

Blood rushed to her head, and her vision wavered. Her grip tightened on the steering wheel, doing her best not to react. If he didn't know her secrets already, she couldn't have him know there was something to learn.

He was the type of man who would keep searching until he found everything.

"They say you are the person to go to if you want something done."

"So you want to hire me for a job?" She couldn't keep the disbelief out of her voice.

Randolph must have found it amusing but his smile didn't reach his too pale green eyes. "The council gives me leave to use whatever resources I deem necessary to solve my cases. You have the talent and connections that I don't."

Then Raven understood. "Because I'm now on the police force. You think humans are behind the sudden increase of this Alpha drug."

Randolph couldn't afford to harm humans. They were too fragile and easily broken. The shifters would hunt him down after the first suspicious death in order to protect themselves and keep the illusion that they could all live happily together.

Raven shivered. She appreciated why someone would crave power, but there were other consequences to being an alpha. The uncontrollable rage, bouts of violence, the need to dominate and protect against any threats...real or imaginary. Randolph nodded at her. "I see you comprehend the danger."

She wouldn't have a few weeks ago.

She didn't say anything as she parked. Lights flashed in the distance, police tape strung around a lone vehicle a few car lengths ahead of them.

"I'll let you get back to your work." Randolph exited the car without any overt threats.

No probes.

No tests.

So why did that make her more twitchy?

She followed his gaze toward the crime scene, her feet drawn forward against her will.

The first thing that caught her attention was the oddly red tinted car windows. As she drew nearer, her skin pebbled as her mind finally processed what she was seeing.

Blood.

In the next step, a familiar smell slammed into her.

Raw meat and rotten blood. Even with the car being sealed, she swallowed at the strength of the stench invading her sinuses. The conditions, coupled with the heat, had created a homemade pressure cooker. It took nearly a minute for her to control her gag reflexes.

"The doors were locked from the inside when we arrived." Scotts didn't say more as she studied the scene. She was barely aware of him and the techs.

Though parked under the streetlight, the car seemed to draw the darkness, reluctant to reveal its secrets. The police set up other lights, but nothing could take away the death hovering over the vehicle like a living thing.

"How do you know they weren't switched from the outside by remote?" Randolph appeared abnormally fascinated as he stood behind the yellow police tape. She was surprised that he stayed, drew attention to himself with the question.

Scotts ignored him. Raven peered closer at the car and answered. "The keys are still in the ignition. There are no smears. The gore on the side panels hasn't been disturbed." None besides the drips of blood and flesh as it slid down every surface.

Raven purposely avoided looking at the woman sitting in the driver's seat.

She was human.

Not the source of the detonation.

Similar to the last crime scene, the shifter was reduced to nothing much more than gelatin, pieces of him oozing from the interior of the car.

Raven did her best to breathe through her mouth. The decay told her that they had to have been there for a while, just in time for decomp to fully kick in with the late summer heat. That the other police officers didn't react to the smell told her that the other side of her nature had kicked in to help.

She wrinkled her nose, wishing it wouldn't help so much.

Tennis shoes lay discarded on the passenger side. They were red and twisted nearly inside out like they'd been through a dryer. She couldn't find enough of a shirt to swear to a color. The jeans had dozens of holes, the seams ripped apart where it couldn't contain the blast.

Nothing else remained of him, vanishing as if he'd never existed.

Same as the last crime scene.

The condition of the car surprised her. Other than some cosmetic damage, the interior remained relatively whole despite the force it took to tear a person apart from the inside out. The windshield was peppered with half a dozen chips. The plastic had what looked like speaker holes in odd places. A few cracks marred the hard dashboard. Tiny rays of light filtered into the side windows, like the glass was perforated, the shards traveling so fast it passed right through without even shattering.

The process of cataloging the car first helped switch gears in her mind from emotion to analytical. She crouched and got the first good look of what was left of the woman's face. "Do you suppose she was the target or collateral damage? What do we know about her?" She aimed her question at Scott's but didn't glance away from the scene.

"We'll have the whole vehicle towed back to the precinct to examine, but we were able to match her DMV records as owner of the car. She lived in the corner apartment building." He pointed the pen over his shoulder at a building cloaked in pale light of the streetlamps as he checked his notes. "We're checking with the super to find out more. According to him, the shifter is male and lives at the same residence."

Raven straightened, and walked around the vehicle, something nagging at her.

"What do you see?" Scotts was studying her and not the crime scene.

"She's been dead for at least six hours." Only a few hours after the original crime from just this morning.

Raven squinted to see under the gore, searching for a better angle. "Do you have a flashlight?"

Scotts barked an order, and one was slapped into her palm. She shone the light across the woman. Blood and tissue covered her body, the majority of it the shifter's.

Pieces of white bone flashed under the light.

After the brief scan, Raven reviewed the corpse from the head down. The woman's eyes had clouded over to a milky sheen. Half of her face had disintegrated, small splinters had shredded her features down to the tendons and skull. The heat had cooked her face, giving it a waxy appearance. Layers of skin and flesh were pealed back in stages, making her look like a plastic model in an anatomy lab.

Her torso appeared in little better shape. Blood saturated the female's blouse, obscuring the view, but Raven had seen enough. Even if the woman had survived the trauma of the explosion, she would've bled to death by the hundreds of individual injuries that littered her body.

There was a stamp of some kind on the back of her hand, nearly obliterated by her wounds.

Raven didn't recognize the symbol.

"Well?"

Raven flicked off the flashlight and straightened. "The impact indicates she was alive when it happened. Most likely the same scenario as the last location. He suffered some type of pain. She turned to help him when the incident occurred."

Raven held out the flashlight. "Do we know if these two are the first murders?"

Scott's brows furrowed. "The only ones we've found. Why?"

"Shifters are gathering for the full moon. It's very coincidental that the murders have started now." Raven wondered if this could be the drug Randolph had mentioned.

Alpha.

The conclave would be the perfect place to spread chaos.

Kill off those pesky shifters.