It's been months since anyone at the Committee has had any contact from the O'Connell family or their pack members, and they are not happy. Suspicious of the activities that took place in D.C. and determined to find out what the wolves are up to, the Committee recruits one of their newest residents, Dr. Matthew Dietrich, to play the part of neighbor and infiltrate the family.<br><br>Matthew has always been a keep-to-himself kind of person. Though idealistic and optimistic, he prefers to work in solitude, at night, while he researches the findings that he hopes will one day change the world. When he's approached by the executives of the Center, he has no idea why they'd choose him. And to say he is skeptical over the concept of men that can shift into wolves would be an understatement.<br>

Wolf, in League

Lyle nodded back. He lowered his eyes and took a breath. He clenched his hand into a fist and the muscles of his forearm bulged beautifully. “Then watch.”


For a second there was nothing. No one breathed. Nobody moved. Then the breath that Lyle had been holding huffed out, his veins swelled underneath the skin of his arm and his muscles lurched like the ground during an earthquake. Somebody sipped a gasp of air between their lips—Randy? Rafe? Matthew wasn’t sure, but God knew it wasn’t him as his breath was locked in his throat—and as if Lyle’s arm had heard the sound and taken it as a queue to continue, the skin from Lyle’s wrist to his elbow split with an audible crack. His forearm heaved, reshaped, while grisly yellow-white tissue splayed left and right.


Chapter 40