Dying Dreams (Book 1 of Dying Dreams Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of them smiled. Like the wild version of themselves, male werewolves could be territorial and were especially sensitive to other men getting anywhere near their mates. Although everyone in the three-star restaurant swore allegiance to the pack, they kept their distance from one another as soon as they found a mate and started creating a family. The bar was neutral territory for them to see friends and family, but that didn’t mean they didn’t feel the instinct to fight with every other wolf in the room to re-confirm the pecking order.
    The women weren’t as territorial as their mates, but they seemed to love it when their men fought for them and they had their own dominance games. If a wolf, male or female, sensed weakness in another wolf, they would fight to move higher in the ranks. Sloane had seen them kill to do it. Not that any of them were bad people, they worked and they cared for their families, they just enjoyed physical fighting more than most humans did.
    Sloane’s stomach growled as the smells of fries and burgers wafted over to him from the kitchen, but he ignored his hunger and continued to study his surroundings. The bar looked a bit dingier than it had the last time he’d been there. The walls needed to be painted and a few of the tables looked ready to fall apart if someone touched them. He wondered if business had slowed or if the wolves just had more pressing concerns than keeping the bar looking fresh and clean.
    Sloane found Gabriel Moon, owner of the bar and alpha of the U.S. United Shifters Coalition and of the East Coast Wolf Pack, sitting at the bar, listening to the bartender and drinking a glass of pink wine. Sloane supposed when you were alpha of over 700 shifters you didn’t need to worry about a pink drink threatening your manhood. Gabriel Moon was older, appearing to be in his sixties, but since shifters didn’t age like humans he was probably well over two-hundred years old. Moon was one of the only shifters Sloane respected, he was probably one of the very few sentient beings Sloane respected. Sloane sat down next to Moon and the bartender looked at him, stopped talking, and walked away. He wouldn’t serve Sloane, didn’t serve agents, but Sloane couldn’t drink on the job anyway.
    “Get your transfer, yet?” Moon asked.
    “Had a wolf sighting,” Sloane said, already knowing exactly how the conversation was going to go. “You know anything about it?”
    “They’re never going to transfer you, until you lose that 25% of fae blood you’re carrying in your veins.”
    It was an old argument. One Sloane never won and he didn’t want to rehash it, but Moon had his way of doing things. “I’ll get my transfer. I just have to prove to them I’m capable.”
    “How many solves you got?”
    “Fifty.”
    “Out of how many cases?”
    “Sixty-five.”
    Moon nodded, as though he hadn’t heard those statistics before. “How many vacation days you taken in the past eight years?”
    “None.”
    “How many of the people working in your division are human?”
    “None.”
    “You got a supernat for a boss?”
    “No.”
    “No. You got a human for a boss, watching over the supernats. How many supernats work in the other divisions?”
    “I don’t know. Not everyone reveals their blood lineage.”
    “But they check for that now, don’t they? That’s how you got shoved into the supernat department when what you wanted was to investigate terror threats, right?”
    Sloane nodded, watching the bartender who was pouring a drink with one eye on him and Moon. Sometimes, Sloane wondered if there was anyone in the world besides Fulsom who trusted him. Sometimes he wondered if anyone should.
    “So I ask again. How many supernats work in the other departments?”
    Sloane blinked and swallowed down the rage that simmered just under the surface. Always there, always contained, eating away at him slowly, just like the job. “None.”
    Moon nodded, satisfied. “I like you Sloane Rice. I do.