He leaned back in to get a closer look. James’s face was not remotely human looking. Not a wolf-wolf either. But some stage in between that Cooper rarely saw, and never more than a glimpse as one form smoothly shifted into another. He would almost have thought someone was playing a bad joke with a particularly gruesome Halloween mask, except for the very real way the skin pulled painfully tight over the elongated, protruding face.

“What’s—why?”

Park shook his head. “I don’t know. But it’s bad, Cooper. Very, very bad.”

Chapter Four

“I understand... Yes, I’ll tell him... Of course.”

Cooper stepped out of the bathroom and lingered in the bedroom door, toweling his hair dry. He watched Park talk to Cola on the phone. It had been a long afternoon of managing the crime scene, calming down the crowds, making sure the right people were called and then being questioned themselves, decontaminated, picked over for transferred evidence. James was a werewolf and had clearly been murdered, so of course the Trust was taking over his case.

Not Cooper and Park, though. They were already too involved, according to Cola. She had showed up on scene along with the Trust agents taking over the case looking harried and annoyed. As director, she almost never went out into the field herself, and Cooper wondered if she’d come today because of them. She’d certainly seemed to want them as far away from this as possible. Their orders were to go home and not worry about it. No small ask, for Cooper.

“No, no word yet,” Park was saying. “We didn’t see him.”

That would be Eli they were talking about. Park had texted him the news and told him to stay put, but Eli hadn’t been here when they’d finally made it back home, and his phone was shut off now. Cooper was ready to call up the Trust right then and there to report another victim, but Park had found a note on the kitchen counter in Eli’s handwriting, promising them both that he was fine and that he was going to lie low until he could find some answers. The final line: I’m not going down for this.

“...I see... Yes, all right... Let us know.” Park disconnected and sat on the bed with a sigh. He’d already showered thoroughly and was halfway dressed, a nice pair of slacks loose and undone on his hips and an expensively soft-looking dark green button-down shirt hanging open. It made Cooper, still naked from his own intense hour-long shower, feel slightly obscene.

“Anything new?” Cooper asked.

Park rubbed his eyes and made a frustrated gesture. “James Finnigan bled out from four deep lacerations to the lower abdomen. They’re still waiting on toxicology.”

“Will the tox report explain the—” Cooper gestured at his own face.