At the edge of the field used for wall to wall parking, a line of lush green balsam fir had been set up to conceal the portable toilets. A community band was warming up on a side stage, the trumpets practicing their horse whinnying while the bassoonists twined sparkly holly garlands around the tops of their instruments. In the main circle beneath the tree, hundreds of couples towing children and dogs on leashes spun around us. Between the crush of bodies, the noise from the loudspeakers and the generators, and the sickly-sweet smell of carnival food and diesel, it was no wonder my stomach was doing flips.
Dallas leaned in, breath instantly freezing in the icy night air. “Guess it’s time. Hot chocolate?”
“Make it a cider,” I shouted back.
Alone, I pretended to check my phone and silently tested the air. Human sweat. Wet dog. At my feet, a wrinkly basset hound was sniffing out dropped pieces of funnel cake in the fresh hay that was spread half a foot thick beneath the tree. In wooden gingerbread houses around the perimeter of the circle, Sleigh Ride was jingling loud enough to make my ears ring. Mixed in with all of it, I caught the faint scent of werewolf.
I rotated slowly, trying to seek out its source. A tall man with glasses stooped to lift a little girl with pale blue mittens to twirl beneath the lights. A woman in a dark wool coat kissed her girlfriend as they took a selfie. I glanced up and immediately regretted it, the lights swirling overhead in a dizzying spiral. Staggering back, I rubbed my temples.
“You okay?” Dallas appeared at my shoulder with our drinks, brow furrowed in concern. “What happened?”
“Nothing.” Taking the paper cup of spiced apple cider, I sipped it slowly. “I’m fine.”
“Wow.” Swirling the contents of his cup, Dallas took a sip and pulled a face. “Don’t tell Ethan, but he’s kind of ruined me for cheap buck fifty cocoa.”
“Mine’s off, too.” Pouring it out in the hay, I stuck my empty cup under his. “Do you see anyone—”
A group of teenage girls elbowed past us, scrolling through their phones. The woman in the navy knit hat appeared out of thin air, materializing where the group of teens had stood only seconds before. Slight with angular features, I doubted she was much past five foot three even in those chunky boots. Her fitted cargo pants and cropped canvas jacket looked like she’d picked them up at a thrift store and although her platinum blonde hair had been tied back and stuffed into the collar of her jacket, there was no mistaking the former Alpha of the North Austin pack.
London Blake.
“We don’t have much time.” She strode over to us without preamble, gaze flicking over my shoulder to check out the stage. “I had to lose two tails on my way here.”
“Way to make an entrance.” From everything I’d heard, London was your typical Alpha’s daughter. Raised without rules or limits, the wild socialite with a weakness for designer labels thing was just a bonus. She was also one of the youngest shifters to ever take command of a large urban pack. Had to give her that. After her pack had been proven to be behind the plot to abduct and traffic humans over to the vamps, she’d been summarily stripped of her title as Alpha by the Council. She’d escaped during the subsequent raid of her pack house, and the Tracers had put a bounty out on her head.
“And why the hell hasn’t Brody turned you in?” Dallas added.
Her green eyes grew hard. “You want the information or not?”
“Yeah, we want it. What did the undeads hit Lacey with, and who’s behind it?”
“The vamps are calling this Project Eclipse.” London shoved half-gloved fingers into her pockets. “My intel is sketchy. The best we have to go on is that we think the bloodsuckers were originally trying to develop a drug that would spike viral loads in our people. Something that would drive werewolves mad at the full moon and cause mass chaos in the process. Maybe even be the catalyst that turned some of them permanently feral.”
I swore. “If that happened—”
She threw a glance over one shoulder. “End game. But instead, the opposite occurred.”
“They somehow found a way to suppress the effects of the virus.”
“Right. We know males carry a higher viral count than females and that everyone’s numbers spike each month at the full moon. This biologic agent stops the lycan virus from over-replicating. Basically, it suppresses viral load so that a shifter under the influence of the drug would be temporarily unable to shift, unable to heal, and unable to properly defend themselves in a fight.”
“For all intents and purposes, they’d be human.” I thought back to the last few weeks, the vulnerability of being cut off from my wolf—
“Or close enough.” Dallas blew on his cupped hands. “They deploy this in the middle of a battle—"
“They’d wipe us out. No question.” London scanned the crowd. “We believe there are three remaining vampire covens coordinating Project Eclipse, one out of Houston, and two others north of Dallas.”
“Who’s your source?”
“Like I’d tell you.” She slapped a thumb drive into Dallas’s hand. “Tell your brother he owes me.”
The band began tuning, sheet music flapping under clothespins as a gust of wind shivered across the field, blowing dirt and dry grass into our eyes.
I stared London down. “Your people sold us out to the vamps. Why should we believe anything you say?”
“Okay, first. That was a separatist faction within my pack who’d been hoping to overthrow me ever since I took over as Alpha from my father last year.”
Dallas shook his head. “You were Alpha. Everything that went down in your territory—”
“I’ve been banished from my pack and exiled by the Council.” London Blake bared her teeth despite their foot of height difference. “You really don’t want to mansplain pack law to me right now, pretty boy. It happened on my watch. I paid the price and so did my people. That’s how it works. But it doesn’t make me a traitor. And you can believe me or not. But most of my pack wants reform. Whatever the undeads hit her with didn’t come from us. I guarantee it. And if you’re thinking they could have developed something that complex on their own—"
My blood ran cold. “Wait. What are you saying?”
There was a shout and another group of teens crashed into us from behind. I stumbled, nearly tripping over the wrinkly old basset hound I’d seen earlier, who glared up at me disapprovingly from beneath her light-up antlers.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, searching my pockets for doggie cookies.
When I looked up, London Blake was gone.
Cursing, I stood on my toes, searching the crowd, millions of multicolored lights swirling around us in a spiraling haze. Dallas’s hands caught me before I could fall.
“You okay?”
“She’s gone.”
“Yeah. Least we got what we came for.”
I buried my face in his chest, inhaling the comforting scent of laundry detergent and woodsmoke. His fingers curled into my hair, stroking the nape of my neck. Gently, oh so gently, he tipped my chin so I was staring up into his eyes under the warm glow of the Christmas tree.
“I love you, Lacey.”
My heart took off, fluttering like a trapped moth in the cage of my ribs. Dallas leaned in, whispering my name a breath from my lips, thumbs grazing my cheekbones as if he were afraid of breaking me, touching me in a way I had never before that moment realized I desperately wanted to be touched. Like I was absolutely, exquisitely adored.