Page 9 of Shadow

Now that I had burned off Beast’s raw fury, my thoughts started to align. I could analyze, strategize, and assess. Nokita ran beside me, his own rage simmering just beneath the surface. If we kept moving, he’d begin to fade from his primal state in thirty minutes or so.

This slow return to clarity was something we had kept hidden from the Federation. They had never suspected that we gradually regained cognitive function after a shift. To them, we were mindless brutes, dangerous tools to be wielded and discarded. Their fear of us was understandable. Their contempt, however, was less forgivable.

Not all humans shared this disdain. Secretary Church and his closest men had treated us with respect, taking the time to understand our capabilities and acknowledging us as soldiers. Even so, we safeguarded our secrets. Trust didn’t come easily when survival demanded constant vigilance.

The critical difference between humans and our kind lay in a chemical they would never touch: Kedorine 5.

For centuries, we had studied our physiology, and recent advancements in science had yielded groundbreaking discoveries. Kedorine 5 was the foundation of our strength, our resilience, our ability to shift.

It was also our greatest safeguard. Upon death, K-5 broke down completely, vanishing from our bodies within an hour. We had no doubt the U.S. had collected the corpses of fallen Shadow Warriors, but their autopsies would have revealed nothing useful.

The thought of humans desecrating our dead stirred my rage anew, but I forced it down. There was no point in wasting energy on what I couldn’t change. For now, I focused on the rhythm of my strides and the steady calming of Beast.

We could hold this form indefinitely, but the longer we stayed like this, the harder it was for our human brain function to normalize after shifting back. Staying in beast form for two weeks before Marinah’s arrival had been a mistake. If I had shifted back a few days earlier instead of mere hours before she landed, I would have had more control.

Now that Beast had run a few miles, my thoughts cleared. My ability to adapt quickly after a shift was one of the reasons my men had named me alpha.

I had advanced capabilities inherited from Greystone, my uncle, the mightiest Shadow Warrior in two hundred years.

Only the strongest among us could command a squad, let alone the entire pack.

I was the rare one who could do both.

Greystone had foreseen this when I was a child. He had told me I would walk in his shoes, but I hadn’t believed him then. To a boy who idolized his uncle, the idea of Greystone being mortal had been impossible. Hero worship had blinded me to reality.

My thoughts shifted back to the woman. Marinah.

Months had passed since we had begun to reconsider our stance on humans, despite their betrayal after we saved them from annihilation. Bringing a woman here to negotiate had been my idea. Women and children had a way of calming us,grounding our instincts. I had known that if a man of power had arrived, there would have been trouble.

Our intelligence had indicated that no women held positions of power in the U.S. government, so my request had seemed straightforward. By asking for a woman, I had assured myself I could control both myself and my men.

But now Marinah held a position of power among our enemies.

Her father had been a powerfully strong man, and that made her extremely dangerous.

Kill her,Beast whispered inside my skull for the first time since meeting the woman.

But something about it was different.

His suggestion didn’t alarm me. Beast wanted to kill most humans. What made this different was his delay. Beast rarely hesitated over males or females. That hesitation made Marinah’s presence a problem.

My human side resisted the idea of harming her, but I couldn’t tell if it was driven by logic or something more primal.

Maybe it was better described as my sexual side.

I had fought not to think about her long legs, but the intrusive image surfaced.

Marinah was a complication I hadn’t planned for, and complications in our world were deadly.

After two more hours of running, Nokita rumbled, “May I ask a question?”

His speech was improved, evidence that he had been mulling over whatever had happened between me and the woman.

“You may ask,” I growled. Our transformed jaws forced us to speak from our throats, a skill we were taught to master when our transformations began at puberty.

“Woman,” he snarled.

I couldn’t stop the answering snarl that rose in my throat at his unintended tone.

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