Cover

Also by Charlie Adhara

Also available from Charlie Adhara
and Carina Press

The Big Bad Wolf series

The Wolf at the Door

The Wolf at Bay

Thrown to the Wolves

Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Cry Wolf

Dedication

For R, who deserves a happy ending.

Author Note

I had a wonderful time reading up on the National Zoo’s resident animals, studying St. Regis’s intense photo set and getting lost on the virtual tour of the National Museum of Natural History. But while these are very real locations in DC, I used them in a purely fictitious manner and played fast and loose with their representations here on the page.

Any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental. Though if you do know of a criminal plot involving werewolves that has taken place at any of these locales, that is a coincidence I would love to know about.

Quote

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

—W. Somerset Maugham

Prologue

There should be a word for it. That feeling of sitting across from someone you thought you’d never see again. The specific scramble your brain made to pull memories it had already let fade and align them with the real thing, wondering if time had transformed your perceptions or if you’d never actually seen the real them at all.

Cooper Dayton leaned back in his chair, arranging his hands on the smooth, sterile table, the perfect picture of relaxation. Across from him, Dr. Emily Freeman mirrored his position and continued to say nothing. For someone who had voluntarily surrendered herself into custody and demanded to speak to Cooper and Cooper alone, she was being awfully quiet.

“I feel like we should be playing chess. Or eating fava beans,” Cooper said. “Isn’t that how these dramatic interrogations between arch nemeses go?”

“I’m not your enemy, Mr. Dayton. I want to help you.”

Cooper smiled pleasantly. “That’s funny. I just got back from this whole counseling retreat thing—long story—the point being I’m fully on board with the ‘getting help’ thing now. Less sure on how you can do that for me, though.” He shrugged and his clothes felt sticky and damp. Although it had still been morning when he’d made his way over to the Trust, the swamp air of DC in July was operating at full blast. That, and he’d been...nervous.

Cooper glanced compulsively past Freeman at the two-way glass where he knew his partner, Oliver Park, and their boss, Trust director Margaret Cola, were watching them. At least he hoped they were watching and not fighting. Again.