Free Werewolf Moon (The Pack Trilogy Book 1) by Chanel Smith Page A

until Itchiko drew close enough where his worried face could be seen.
    “What’s up?” Petra asked, voice sharp with worry.
    “You need to come with me,” Itchiko told the Alpha Female. As the others in the pack automatically rose, Itchiko said “Only the Alpha, for now.” The pack resettled in their seats, but there wasn’t one wolf who didn’t have a tight stomach.
    Petra followed Itchiko as the black wolf walked toward the back of the restaurant. Where on earth was he leading her this time?
    Outside the restaurant, Itchiko took Petra up several flights of steps then down a long hall, and finally slowed to a halt in front of an impressively large door. She turned her head to ask what was happening and the answer hit her in the face like a wooden bat.
    The heavy, tell-tale scent of a Werewolf in absolute terror was seeping out from cracks below and around that door. Petra frowned. What could cause such terror, and what was that intermingled scent? She inhaled through her nose and concentrated, but nothing came to mind. As she opened her mouth to ask Itchiko, the door swung open.
    “Watch out,” Itchiko said. “Been through this once today already. I’ll go first, you wait for a moment.” The room was dark, the heavy curtains pulled shut as Itchiko slid sideways in through the door.
    Petra squinted, but even with her werewolf-enhanced vision could make out nothing but the shapes of two beds, a chair, a long bureau and a chair.
    Then she felt the air move. Itchiko grunted and cursed, there were assorted noises as bodies took blows and responded. Infuriated at not being able to help, Petra finally bolted into the room just as the bright lights flipped on.
    Itchiko was standing, bent over at the waist, over a small man curled up on the floor. To Petra’s horror, the man was in constant flux: he shifted back and forth, back and forth. “I don’t know what to do any more,” came a voice from behind her in the doorway. Petra whirled and squatted, ready for battle.
    “Stand down,” Itchiko said calmly. “This is Jean-Paul’s lover. Jean-Paul is the one who is shifting.” He inhaled deeply, and Petra saw that for once the Japanese were was badly troubled. The wrinkles on his forehead were a dead give-away.
    “What happened to him?” Petra asked.
    A well-built male moved carefully past her to kneel next to Jean-Paul and put his hand on the other male’s cheek. “The government, they set trap and they caught my Jean-Paul. He was there for almost a week before I am able to pull him out, and during those days he was given I do not know what kind of drugs.” Deep golden eyes rose to Petra’s, the plea evident. “Please, help us. I don’t know what to do any more.”
    To Petra’s horror, tears slowly rolled down the large man’s face. Weres don’t cry as a rule, and male Weres? Never. This situation was unprecedented in so many ways. “I need my mate,” she stated flatly. “He’s Alpha of our pack: he’ll know what to do. Always does. Let me go find him, alright? Itchiko, can you stay with these two?”
    Itchiko nodded, reluctance visible by his lowered brows. “Whatever is going on, I don’t want you left unprotected.”
    “I’ll be fine. It’s Jean-Paul who needs help as fast as possible.” With that, she turned and strode out towards the stairs and Raya.
    Raya followed his mate back up the stairs, lost in thought. What she’d told him made little sense. Why would the American government want a Werewolf, and what kind of drugs had they filled him with? None of this made sense and he needed answers fast.
    Once in the room, he targeted the man kneeling next to the constantly-shifting Were. “You. Your name is?”
    “I am Andre, I’ve been with Jean-Paul for almost two hundred—“ he paused as his lover shifted to wolf-form, let a mournful howl that was abruptly cut off by a shift back to human form. “ Dieu nous garde. Faut que ...” he saw incomprehension on the other faces and dropped