I shrugged. “He’ll change anyway, and I’m sure it’ll be painful. If we pen him up we won’t be able to help him.”
Malcolm shook his head. “If we’re all wolves we won’t be much help to him anyway.”
“But we could at least be with him. I’m pretty sure when that leg starts shifting it’s going to hurt like a son of a bitch, and what if he starts bleeding again?” I didn’t want to think about how much anguish my brother would be facing tonight. Part of me couldn’t believe our father was willing to leave him behind.
Malcolm pondered, staring out the back window toward the barn. He finally nodded and turned back toward me. “You’re right. We’ll bring him along and hope for the best. Either way he shouldn’t be alone.”
I nodded, grateful Aren would be somewhat protected. Malcolm didn’t even know about the jaguars yet.
“You mentioned a threat to the Pack.” His eyes met mine, the physical weight of his stare pressing against me.
“The jaguar that killed Gabe is still at large. We found out he works for something called the Nero Organization. Apparently they train the jaguar shifters to become assassins.”
I stopped when I noticed my father’s expression. His eyes were distant as he looked out the window, his jaw clenched. I waited for him to speak, or at least notice that I had stopped, but he seemed lost in his thoughts.
“Malcolm?” The sound of my voice seemed to snap him out of his trance. He turned from the glass and stared at me with haunted eyes.
“Sorry. I hadn’t heard that name in years. I should’ve been watching for them, but I was too eager to believe they no longer existed.” He shook his head and sat at the dining room table suddenly looking years older. “I’m afraid I may have waited too long to tell you about my Pack.”
“You knew where these jaguars were coming from?” I sat down, and for the first time in my entire life, I saw fear in my father’s eyes. I felt like I just got sucker punched in the gut. My shocked quickly mutated into anger. “How could you keep Nero secret from us? You knew and you said nothing.”
“I thought we could keep them out of Reno.” He sat across from me in the chair. “Until Gabe.”
“Even after Gabe.” I couldn’t sit any longer. Rage pulsed though my muscles. I wanted to punch something. I needed to release the frustration. “You never said a word. You had information and let us chase these guys down blind.”
“When I was a pup my father was not the Alpha of our pack.”
I raised a brow. I’d never heard Malcolm talk about his childhood, but I’d always assumed my grandfather had been the Alpha male. In most Packs the Alpha was passed from father to the eldest son unless there weren’t any sons alive in his line. Usually that led to squabbles and Packs splintering off.
What any of this had to do with Nero I had no clue.
“Our Alpha was a powerful businessman. He was probably older than I am now, but you know it’s tough to guess actual ages in our kind. He had gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes, which I’d thought made him old.” He waved his hand. “None of that matters. What matters is that he was friends with a high-ranking military official. My father was one on the enforcers for our Pack, and his father was a Pack elder.”
My head was spinning as I built a mental family tree, trying to piece together the puzzle as my father spoke.
“My grandfather was an elder. He was at the meeting when Allen Caldwell first mentioned a chance for the younger members of our Pack to be part of an undercover military operation called Moonlight.”
Fuck. Sebastian had mentioned Moonlight to Lana. I tried to sort out all the new info swimming around in my head. “So Allen Caldwell was your Alpha?”
Malcolm nodded and clasped his hands together, wringing them slightly. “Yes. And I volunteered for the project.”
I ran my hand down my face trying to keep from saying something I couldn’t take back. “You worked for the Nero Organization?”
“It was called the Nero Project then. The man in charge was named Severino. I’m not sure if that was his first name or last name.” He paused rubbing his chin for a moment, then shook his head. “Anyway, Severino procured a government grant to investigate paranormal solutions to foreign hostilities. Allen told us that Severino knew we had extra-sensory abilities and that during the full moon we actually changed from men into wolves. He presented it to us that we could be an asset to our country.” He sighed and met my eyes. “I was young and resented being different. So I convinced my Pack brothers—Dominic, Nicholas, and Wyatt—to come with me to volunteer as part of the Moonlight Operation for the Nero Project.”
My father and our Pack elders had known about Nero all along. They’d kept this secret from us while we hunted jaguars. No one had ever mentioned Nero to me until Lana ran into Sebastian.
Malcolm went silent again, but with the afternoon sun getting lower in the sky I nudged him out of his thoughts. “What happened once you got there?”
“They separated us.” His gaze met mine, and I saw shadows of pain lurking in the gray-green depths of his eyes. He took a deep breath, opening his hands. “They wanted us to be assassins for our government, trained mercenaries who could infiltrate foreign governments and take out leaders who were deemed madmen. But they wanted us to work alone.”
“So you quit?”
“We escaped. “ Malcolm shook his sliver mane and got up from the chair. “Our strength is working as a unit. Family and the Pack are always the top priority. It went against every instinct inside of us to work alone. We tried to explain it to Severino, but he still refused, and instead of allowing us to train together, he dumped us into cells. For three months we were nothing but lab rats. He tried to suppress our changes during the full moon and used shock therapy in an attempt to force us to turn on one another.”
His eyes shone with emotion as he steepled his fingers. “When the sky was dark on the night of the new moon, he tossed us out on the grounds while he shifted into a jaguar and hunted us. His motto was ‘trust no one, least of all your best friend.’”
Malcolm got up and walked over to the window again. “So we waited for the next full moon, hiding their drugs under our tongues, and doing whatever was necessary to keep our minds sharp. Once the moon was full, we shifted and broke free from our cells. When we got back to the Pack, Severino was already meeting with Allen, explaining to him that our kind didn’t suit his purpose, that we were weak. I was furious and tried to explain what that madman put us through, but Allen had more loyalty to Severino than to us. The following evening he banished us from the Pack.” He paused. “That’s when I became Alpha of our new Pack and we settled in Reno.”
My mouth was dry. I raked my fingers back through my hair and went to stand beside my father, this man I apparently knew so little about. “So all this time, when the Pack has been hunting jaguars, you and the elders knew they were being sent by Nero?”
He shrugged. “We suspected, but none of us had heard any mention of Nero since we’d escaped. It was a simple leap for me and the Pack elders to believe the project was abandoned once we were gone. Besides, those jaguars behaved like drifters, trouble-makers, not trained assassins.”
“Could the jaguars that come through Reno every few months be looking for you?” I turned to face him, waiting for an answer.
Malcolm lifted his gaze to meet mine. “I don’t think so. We would have told you if we believed any of us were specifically being targeted.”
I took a deep breath. “I guess I’d better tell you the rest of my news then.”
“There’s more?” He turned to face me.
“There’s also a female jaguar who has threatened to come after me once the moon is full tonight.”
He frowned and shook his head. “Why would they send a female? They’re not born into their power. They’d never be strong enough.”
“This one is.” Just looking at Aren would prove that, but I kept that information away from my father. “I think she used to be in law enforcement before she was turned.”
He nodded. “Does she have a mate then? Is he the one who killed Gabe?”
“He’s the one who bit her, but I don’t think they’re mates. She beat the crap out of him in San Antonio.”
His brow furrowed, and I knew he’d noticed. “San Antonio? What were you doing there?”
