“I think Jason—Sergeant Connell—was right. You should just stay in your quarters tonight. It’s safer.”
“The base is safe,” Jock contradicted. “But if you’re not familiar with it, you’d be better off not wandering around at night, and definitely not tonight.”
Okay, they did seem to be playing the general’s game. But did they all really want her to hide in her BOQ unit tonight, maybe put her head under a pillow and pretend she wasn’t here? Were they going to put on some kind of act tonight? If so, she wanted to see it.
Or maybe this was completely a sham, so they could actually do something else under cover of darkness.
They all separated at the elevators. “Good night,” Sara said, wondering what each of the others was thinking.
When she reached the second floor, she noticed a female captain and male lieutenant down the hall. She went to greet them.
Neither was part of Alpha Force, they told her. They were Captain Samantha Everly and Lieutenant Cal Brown. Did she want to hang out in Samantha’s unit with them?
Had they, too, been directed to stay indoors that night? If so, what story had they been told? But she didn’t ask.
“Thanks,” Sara said. “I just got here today and I’m really tired. I’ll take a rain check, though.”
She used her key to enter her apartment. There, she unpacked the scant clothing and other things she had brought, then sat down in front of the television.
She sat there for maybe an hour, but she was bored. And curious. She rose and walked to the window.
Lights illuminated the part of the base that she could see. So did a full moon that had just risen above the trees that surrounded the back portion of the base.
She saw no movement. No Alpha Force members or otherwise.
Hell, she was used to following orders, but the cautions she had been given didn’t amount to orders, did they?
She wouldn’t stay out long, and she would remain where the base was well lighted.
Would she need a weapon? Hardly. No matter what those Alpha Force members really did that night, they surely wouldn’t hurt anyone, least of all the aide to the unit’s officer in charge.
She stayed as quiet as she could, locking her apartment door behind her and taking the stairs rather than the elevator. She exited through the BOQ’s front door.
The spring air was brisk but pleasant. She moved out of the artificial lights toward the shadow of the nearest building, in case anyone was watching her.
Hell, she’d already determined that she wasn’t disobeying orders. She was just outside for...for health purposes. The night air would help her sleep.
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
