Leeahan has spent her time as a badge, acting as peacekeeper, police, counsellor and confidant. Being alone on a shift is nothing new, but having twenty-six werewolves charging toward her town is something she wasn’t planning on.
Facing the werewolves is one thing, her talent for ordering folks around sends more than half of them packing, but dealing with the others puts her life and her body in the hands of the Alpha.
Ozwin was sure that his wolves would tear the badge apart, but he found a woman alone, clawed and bleeding, facing down the next generation of deadly farmers. Her wounds make her his problem, and her transformation into an Alpha makes her his destiny.
She sat through the briefing of what trouble spots were getting ready to kick off and which ones had been successfully calmed. Lee put on her stun gloves, the clubs, stun sticks and knockout grenades. She was as armed as she could be, and the suit she was wearing would fight attempts to get into it, so no shaving and dangling above for all to see.
Her hair was braided tightly and folded back against her head, her earpiece was firmly fixed and her backup tucked into her cleavage under the stiff leather.
“Dispatch, this is a systems check.”
“Check confirmed. Vitals online and strong. Go get ‘em, Badge Ryan.”
Waving farewell to the exhausted badges in the offices, Lee strode into the fading light and got on her cycle. Her route was displayed on the small screen attached to her headset, and she began to do her rounds.
Unlike her associates, the locals never picked on her. Even the drunks managed to struggle into polite cheer when she parted them.
Five hours into her shift, she was helping one of the local girls back to her companions and out of the clutches of two enthusiastic young men when a call came in to her system. “Dispatch, what is it?”
“Badge Ryan, all hell is about to break loose. There are twenty-six Keymin males coming right for the city. Their Alpha is on his way, but he is too far behind to rein them all in. You are about to get busy.”
“Did the Keymin authorize measures?”
“Full stun, full strength. Knock them out as fast as you can. They want them out and helpless. Their people are on their way.”
Lee shuddered and returned the young woman to her people. “Which direction?”
“Coming from the east. ETA nine minutes. Do you want me to call the guys for backup?”
Lee grimaced. “Try and see who answers, but I don’t need anyone sleepy or injured. If they don’t pick up by the second alert, disconnect. I will handle what I can and hope that the Alpha isn’t dragging his ass.”
With the woman returned to the revellers and the young men nursing the impacts to the wall behind them, Badge Ryan returned to her cycle and went to block the Keymin invading from the east.
Keymin were the Earth equivalent of werewolves. Genetically altered to shift their forms and act as a four-footed army, they were a customized species who had won their freedom and been invited to have their own settlement on Decallock. Their biggest problem was that the harvest season was the same time that their females were fertile. The younger males were driven slightly insane by the scent of their females, and though the Keymin kept their young women from being swarmed by suitors, their males were tense and irritable during this time.
The Alpha of the Keymin was supposed to keep the young males under control, but apparently, they slipped his grasp.
She sighed and flexed her shoulders as she drove toward the eastern gate. Any other time of year, the Keymin were completely normal, welcomed citizens of Decallock. This was the one festival that they were not invited to.
