“Or…” Gideon’s voice hung in the air for a long moment.

“Or?” Cooper prodded.

“Or there’s a new player in town,” Gideon finished. “One who doesn’t follow pack tradition.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

The two men exchanged grim looks. That was NODEAL’s worst nightmare. A lycan that infected indiscriminately could be a plague on the city. Or the world. Both men turned and stared unseeing at the television, each absorbing the implication of such a possibility.

Sighing, Cooper stood and brushed orange Cheeto dust from his hands. “I expect you to be available this weekend and taking calls.”

Gideon nodded, rolling his eyes. Who needed a wife when you had a NODEAL director breathing down your neck?

For a split second, the by-the-book agent in him considered coming clean and telling Cooper about the teacher, but he quickly squashed that idea. Hell, Cooper would probably put him on suspension. Then he’d track Claire down and destroy her himself. Gideon’s personal history with Cooper wouldn’t get in the way. Neither would sentimentality. Nor Gideon’s vague instinct that Claire Morgan was worth saving. Cooper was hard as nails. From that first meeting in his parents’ hallway, his mother’s corpse at their feet, that much had been clear. And only became clearer in the following years as Cooper took him under his wing and taught him the trade. Gideon had done his best to model himself after Cooper. A hard man driven by one purpose: to hunt and destroy lycans.

Apparently, Gideon March wasn’t as tough as he thought.

He owed Cooper his life—his and his sister’s. No argument there. He also owed him the truth about Claire.

Unfortunately, it was the one thing he couldn’t give him. Not yet.

“You look… different.”

Claire couldn’t help smiling at Maggie’s pause as they exited the school together. By the time their conference period rolled around, they desperately needed a little adult R & R. The bagel shop around the corner provided the perfect escape.

Only eleven in the morning and heat already cloaked the city. The smell of baked asphalt, thick and pungent, clogged Claire’s pores.

“Different good or different bad?”

“Oh, good! Different good,” Maggie assured, a hint of devilry in her smile. “I never knew you had breasts.”

Claire chuckled, allowing the tension to ebb from her shoulders. The run-in with Gideon had left her in a foul mood. As a result she lacked her usual patience and had decided to assign book work for her afternoon classes in order to spare them. To top it off, Jill Tanners, Lenny’s counselor, was too busy to see her. Claire knew when she was being avoided, but she had no intention of letting Tanners off the hook. It was her job to follow up on Lenny, and Claire intended to pester her until she did.