Elite Shifter Enforcers, 2
Riley Quinn knows what it means to be afraid.
She’s lived with it long enough to recognize the signs—the careful exits, the constant awareness, the sense that someone is watching and waiting. What she doesn’t know is why she’s being hunted… or that the men tracking her from the shadows aren’t her enemies.
Rafe and Dorian Drake are Elite Shifter Enforcers—wolves tasked with stopping rogues, hybrids, and the organization that creates them. When their investigation brings them to Riley, instinct tells them she’s already in danger. Worse, the man hunting her believes she belongs to him.
As Chimera’s influence spreads and hybrid violence escalates, the Wolves uncover a failed alpha whose obsession with Riley turns the hunt personal. Protection becomes possession. Surveillance becomes war. And Riley is pulled into a hidden world where power is taken, bonds are twisted, and survival demands choice.
Hunted by an enemy who refuses to let her go, and claimed by Wolves who will not let her fall, Riley must decide if she’s willing to trust the men who stand between her and the darkness.
Because some hunters don’t want to kill you.
They want to own you.
Be Warned: menage romance (MFM)
Excerpt:
Rafe Drake had learned to tell the difference between patience and restraint.
Patience was a choice.
Restraint was a leash.
Tonight, he felt as if he was wearing both.
From the rooftop across the street, he watched the café like it had all the answers—doors breathing people in and out, windows reflecting fragments of movement, light spilling onto wet pavement in dull gold streaks. Brooklyn moved the way it always did at this hour—restless, half-awake, pretending the night wasn’t dangerous if you didn’t look at it too closely.
He looked anyway.
His brother Dorian crouched beside him, scope trained on the street, posture loose in a way that only came from years inside E.S.E. where discipline was burned into muscle memory and instinct was honed sharp enough to trust. Wolves didn’t fidget. They waited.
Rafe shifted his weight and felt the dull pull along his ribs, a reminder that he wasn’t healed, not all the way. The stitches were gone, but the damage lingered, deep and persistent, the kind that took time his wolf resented. Healing was slow. Waiting was slower.
Neither suited him.
“She’s been inside eleven minutes,” Dorian murmured. “Corner table. Back to the wall.”
Rafe didn’t need the update.
He could feel her.
It had started before she came into view, a low, irritating tug beneath his ribs that had nothing to do with injury. She was too thin, her long blonde hair was braided, and fell to the middle of her back, and he knew that her eyes were blue. The photos he had seen of her were of her laughing and having a good time, but that carefree Riley was far from the broken and scared woman he watched over now. At first he’d dismissed it—fatigue, adrenaline bleed, his wolf restless after days of circling the same block and pretending that wasn’t hunting.
Then the scent resolved.
Her.
Not strong. Not obvious. Just … there. Woven into the night like it belonged.
It had pissed him off.
Instinct had no business inserting itself into an op like this. They were here to confirm innocence, not complicate the mission with biological nonsense. E.S.E. didn’t survive by indulging impulse.
And yet…
“She doesn’t move like an asset,” Rafe said quietly. “Too careful. Too tired.”
Dorian glanced at him. “You’re profiling from a roof top now?”
Rafe snorted. “You don’t see it?”
“I see a woman who knows how to choose exits,” Dorian said. “And someone who’s been hunted long enough to expect to have to use them.”
That aligned uncomfortably well with the data.
Riley Quinn wasn’t central to Chimera. That much Elara had confirmed—or rather, she’d confirmed what wasn’t there. No embedded clearance markers. No funding trail. No hybrid signatures tied directly to her ID.
Peripheral exposure.
Collateral proximity.
The kind of person Chimera erased when it got inconvenient.
Or claimed, when something went wrong.
“Hybrid hubs are still popping up,” Dorian added. “Two burned last night. One slipped before the Leopards could pin it.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened. “Decentralized and mobile. Someone learned from the Bears’ takedown.”
“Someone is definitely steering that ship somewhere with purpose,” Dorian agreed.
Rafe kept his eyes on the café windows. Riley sat perfectly still, hands wrapped around her mug like it was anchoring her to the chair. Her shoulders were tense, her gaze angled down, scanning reflections instead of faces.
Smart.
“No one wants to live like that,” Rafe said. “She’s not hiding because she’s guilty. She’s hiding because she’s scared.”
Dorian was quiet for a beat. Then, “You feel it, too.”
It wasn’t a question.
Rafe exhaled slowly through his nose. “Yeah.”
More than he wanted to.
Seeing her in person was worse than the file. Worse than the photos. Those had been flat, two-dimensional things that told him nothing beyond bone structure and recorded facts.
This was different.
The reaction was immediate and unwelcome—a sharp spike of focus that dragged his attention down to a single point in the world and refused to let go. His wolf surged, offended by distance, irritated by restraint, already cataloging threats that had nothing to do with Chimera or hybrid hubs.
It took effort not to bare his teeth.
“Easy,” Dorian muttered, catching the shift.
“I am,” Rafe snapped back, then forced his shoulders to ease. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”
They didn’t move.
Didn’t approach.
Didn’t give her a reason to bolt.
That was the job.
E.S.E. didn’t swoop in on civilians, didn’t spook targets when confirmation mattered. They watched. They verified. They waited until certainty replaced instinct.
Still, something gnawed at him.
“The Bears are nervous,” Dorian said quietly. “And Kamon and Rune said that the leaks are accelerating.”
Rafe’s grip tightened on the edge of the rooftop. “Victor mentioned it.”
“The leaks are just fragments of data and information, not full dumps,” Dorian continued. “Enough to draw attention but not enough to burn the source.”
“Someone’s burying answers faster than we can ask questions,” Rafe said.
The words tasted wrong.
That wasn’t Chimera behavior. Chimera buried its mistakes. It didn’t invite scrutiny.
Below them, the café door opened. Riley flinched—subtle, but there—and Rafe’s chest tightened hard enough to make his ribs protest.
His wolf snarled.
Not at her. Never at her.
At the world.
“She’s been hurt,” Rafe said, the certainty landing heavy and unwelcome. “Recently.”
Dorian followed his gaze. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
He didn’t explain how he knew. Didn’t need to. Wolves read damage the way medics read vitals.
“She’s not going to last like this,” Dorian said.
Rafe nodded once. “No, she’s not.”
Rafe let his gaze linger a second longer than protocol allowed, committing her to memory—the tension in her shoulders, the way she curled inward without disappearing, the quiet defiance in how she stayed in public even when fear clung to her like a second skin.
Something old and dangerous settled into place inside him.
Soon. They would get her out of whatever the fuck this was, and make sure she was safe.
But not yet.
He eased back from the edge of the roof and finally let his wolf breathe.
“We keep eyes on her,” he said. “No contact.”
Dorian nodded. “Until?”
“Until we’re sure,” Rafe replied.
And once they were sure, once innocence was confirmed and the threat identified, restraint would no longer be an option.
The Wolves would hunt.
And once they were on your trail … they never stopped.
- Series:
- /series-elite-shifter-enforcers/
