pushed past the bleach cleaner used on the floor and the fatty aroma of rotating hot dogs and picked up his scent. I knew it now and would know him when I found him. I didn’t need video surveillance or mug shots to identify the guy.
He was a wolf shifter, like me. Fucker. I hated when our species screwed things up in the shifter world. But it made him easier to find and execute. A wolf knew a wolf.
As an enforcer, I knew how to hunt a rogue one.
I’d seen no paw prints in the snow around the building, so I believed he traveled by car. I already knew from the security footage released to the public that he attacked in human form. He must partially shift to maul the workers. No human ripped out another’s throat.
Whatever the story, he had to be put down.
Today.
Before he hurt any more humans and exposed our kind to their law enforcement.
My theory was that he was into drugs. That’s why the wild, haphazard robberies and random killings, all at convenience stores. Whatever cocktail of narcotics he’d taken had made him crazed. Savage enough to kill innocent people trying hard to make a living.
Whatever his reasoning, it didn’t matter. The council had sent me to end him. We didn’t allow rogue shifters or human killing.
He might still be alive, but his life was forfeit.
I entered a diner and immediately caught the fucker’s scent. Luck was with me. Trouble was, he’d scent me, too. Know a shifter was close. After him. Getting away with a number of killings and staying off the radar of the FBI meant he wasn’t just rogue, he was smart.
I turned around and left. It was better to catch him outside and have the element of surprise on my hands. A bunch of diners as witnesses wouldn’t be good, either.
In the Wolf pack, only Rob knew I was an enforcer. Sure, the others knew of the role within the pack system, but our identities were secret. While everyone wanted to ensure pack safety and security, no one wanted to know they had an executioner in their pack.
Boyd and Colton had no idea. Neither did my brother, Rand, my parents or anyone else. To them, I worked the ranch. Handled the horses. Was our pack’s chosen delegate to the council. A simple cowboy living a simple rural life.
As fucking if.
I walked through the dirt parking lot until I caught the faint scent again around an old Honda Civic. Great, now I had his car. I went back to my truck, parked facing the lot and diner but near the street and climbed in to wait.
Twenty minutes later, a guy moved toward the door, setting a toothpick between his teeth. Just because I’d scented him didn’t mean I didn’t have his photo. I did my job and did it well. Skipping something like being able to identify the rogue shifter by more than scent was plain stupid. My mind drifted back to that night months ago when I’d fucked the hot little number, Becky, in the storage room. I thought of that often, especially with my dick in hand. I hadn’t been able to scent her then, and that had been a fucking shame. I could only imagine what it would have been like if I’d had that sense at the time.
As the guy stopped in the middle of the parking lot to adjust his pants, I put a silencer on the pistol. The place was remote enough that if I could haul him around back, I could be done with this damn assignment.
I jogged toward the guy, his pasty face smudged with bacon grease.
“Jarod Jameson?” I asked, even as I got a whiff of him. I prodded him in the ribs with the muzzle of the gun through my coat pocket.
He started to snarl but then must’ve caught my shifter scent because he stiffened, and the metallic smell of fear issued from his body.
Be afraid, fucker.
I lifted my chin. “Walk around back.”
His movements were jerky as he obeyed, stepping around behind the diner. I prodded him to keep moving until we were all the way behind the dumpster. Glancing around, I confirmed we were alone.
“Jarod Jameson, you have violated shifter law, and the shifter council has deemed your life forfeited,” I recited.
Even though I held a gun to his back, he whirled and slashed me with a dagger, far faster than should have been possible, even for a shifter.
Holy fuck. I lurched