Page 2 of Under A New Moon

“Galen,” Val shouted, waving him over with some urgency. “Get your ass back here!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he grumbled to himself. “You can’t even get through fiveminuteswithout needing help.” Galen rolled his eyes. They were lucky to have him. The boss never said it aloud but he could tell they were relieved he’d stayed on. Most guys left after a few years but Galen? He’d hoped to make this a permanent gig.

They may notice, eventually, that he didn’t age quite the same. But he had two solid decades before anyone pressed him about it. He certainly didn’t look at all of his fifty years. He was still young for a wolf, anyway.

“Galen!” Val called again. “The fork’s down!”

He cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “Then do it by hand!”

There was a collective groan from the crew.

Galen chuckled, putting his safety gloves back on. But even as he tried to focus on the task at hand, his attention lingered at the tree line. Sometimes, when he glanced back, he thought he saw eyes. When he focused, they disappeared, or maybe they were never there to begin with.

Another chill passed over him.

One last time, he turned to the woods and issued a deadly glare.Don’t fuck with me, it said,or you’re not going to like what happens.

With that, he left it alone.

They wouldn’t dare make a scene so close to humans. They’d try to draw him away from the others and take him out if that was their intention. And if they haven’t attacked already, they wouldn’t. Not tonight.

It didn’t matter that he was a stray shifter, unwanted even by his own pack. He was an alpha as well, and that made him a creature to be reckoned with. Galen was just worried they’d blow his cover and expose him in front of his coworkers. They’d kick him out, too, and blacklist him from the industry.

He couldn’t have that.

Two

Darla

Darla hated being a diner waitress. She hated how the smell of grease clung to her after she finished a shift, and even a good hot shower couldn't entirely wash it away. When she quit her sophomore year of college, she swore to herself she'd never do it again.

But there she was, years later, a different diner but the same persistent odor of greasy food and stale coffee. It wasn't the same customers, but it might as well have been—bleary-eyed third-shift workers, tired, hungry, and maybe a little cranky.

Being a fit but curvy woman with captivating pale blue eyes sometimes helped with tips, but also meant she got hit on by far too many guys who assumed a customer service smile was an invitation.

But as much as she wanted to quit, she needed this job. At least for a little while longer. When she saw Galen Trent enter the diner, her heart started to race. She wondered if he was paying enough attention to hear it thudding her chest. Tonight was the night. Galen was her ticket out of this crummy job.

All she needed to do was kill him.

Or capture him, but she wasn't expecting that to work. She had a good track record capturing most other shifters, but she'd never met a wolf willing to submit. Every one of them had gone down fighting, but all of them had gone down.

It was always a challenge fighting a wolf. They were fast, strong, and traveled in packs. But even with all that in their favor, Darla had always come out on top. Galen wouldn't be any different, especially since she never saw him interacting with a pack.

The waitressing job was a cover, fake—just like the name Shelly engraved on the chintzy plastic name tag pinned to her chest. Her real job was as a PEACE agent. Her division's mission was to eliminate the shifters who continued to operate in the shadows even after The Veil fell.

She had been so idealistic in the aftermath of that historical event. But it didn't take her long to realize how many sins The Veil had been covering up.

PEACE was an agency created within the Department of Homeland Security five years after the Veil fell and regular humans realized they were living amongst a world of very non-human neighbors. Ostensibly, it stood for Paranormal Engagement, Action, Control and Enforcement. Which was to say it sought to protect shifters from destroying the social fabric of the United States.

Darla’s department within PEACE was designed to root out the truly vicious shifters. The ones that had gone rogue from their social networks and posed the greatest threat to stability.

Darla still had her misgivings about shifters, but they weren't a priority. The ones still living in secret were the far greater danger.

When it came to someone like Galen, the wolf in sheep's clothing idiom was a little too apt. But she was going to eliminate the threat by any means necessary—any means feasible.

It wasn't like she could just poison his coffee. He'd sniff it out.

She nodded at Galen and pointed him to the open table in her section. He smiled and nodded back. She had him tucked into a corner. He had little chance of getting to an exit if she tried to kill him right there. But she couldn't do that.

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