“I’m on break,” Maverick said, dismissing the person who had walked up to the counter at the coffee shop he worked at. He was making himself a coffee before sitting down, and his shift partner was dragging her feet in the back. “Someone will be with you shortly, I’m sure.” If he was in a bad mood because he’d been out with the pack all night, looking for whoever it was who had been feeding on the locals, that wasn’t the customer’s problem, and yet he had few outlets for his anger.

His pupils were swallowed in the deep black of his irises. Slate was starving. He had known hunger his whole life but none like this. It was consuming. It was felt not just in his stomach but throughout every nerve ending of his body.