AN: Sorry for such a long wait. I had midterms and then spent spring break in Atlanta with my family, but I'm back now. That's also why this chapter is shorter than all the others. I just wanted to get you guys something after having to wait so long. Most of the other chapters should be more the normal length. I'm sorry if I don't respond to your reviews. I try to, but this site hasn't sent me a single email in two months now, and they haven't responded to my emails asking for help. So it's been difficult to respond. That being said, I still very much appreciate your reviews, and I hope you continue to enjoy and leave them :)


The moment Mac and Jack stepped into the war room, Riley knew something was different. She took another subtle sniff of the air, and her eyes widened in realization. Mac had been turned. A quick look at Matty proved that she could smell it too. The scent of a werewolf was impossible to hide from other wolves, making it immediately obvious that Mac was no longer human.

"What happened?" she asked, fighting back the wave of emotion that came over her. Mac had never wanted this. He had been completely content with being human and made her, Matty, and Jack all promise that they would never turn him unless it was literally the only way to save his life, and even then they could only do it with his consent. So him being turned meant that no matter what, something terrible had happened. And based on the way that Jack was sticking extra close to Mac, keeping his arm around the blond's shoulders, whatever happened had been truly traumatic.

"I was out for a run last night," Mac started in a small voice. He wasn't meeting anyone's eyes. "And I was attacked by a wolf, a huge wolf, bigger than any wolf I've ever seen in my life. His claws and fangs were so long and jagged, and his eyes were red." Mac wrapped his arms around himself, and Jack pulled him even closer. Riley didn't have to be a werewolf to tell that Mac's heart wasn't the only one that was breaking. "He bit me, then ran off." He pulled the collar of his shirt over his shoulder and pulled some of the gauze over the wound off, revealing part of the worst werewolf bite Riley had ever seen. It wasn't bleeding anymore, but it was going to take a very long time to fully heal, and the scar left would be terrible. As a born wolf, Riley didn't have that scar, and neither did Jack. She knew Matty had one, but she'd never seen it, which implied that it was probably on her lower torso, easy to hide. Mac's would not be during the summer months. That was going to be hard for him to deal with.

"I'm so sorry," Riley softly said, stepping closer to Mac and wrapping her arms around him. He melted into her touch, letting his head rest on top of her shoulder. Riley could smell more of how his scent had changed, but it was still undeniably him. He had always smelled a bit like the summer air after a warm rain to her, and now he did even more. She was sure that he could now smell her more clearly too, and she figured he was just now realizing this, based on the way he had tilted his head to get his nose closer to her hair. Riley couldn't help but smile. Even though this was a situation that he never wanted, they could still find some joy in it. "We're gonna get you through this," she continued. "It's gonna be okay." Riley started to gently rub his back for a moment before pulling away. The moment Riley stepped away, Jack moved right back to Mac's side and put his arm around the blond once again, holding him close.

"She's right," Matty added, stepping closer to them. She looked about as emotional as Riley had ever seen her. "We're here for you. I know what you're going through, and I'm going to be there every step of the way."

"Thanks, you guys," Mac replied, crossing his arms again and pulling them close, as if he were trying to make himself smaller. He was understandably a bit overwhelmed, not only with the emotional toll of what had happened, but physically. For the first time in his life, all of his senses would be completely in tune with the world around him. That was something that usually took about a week or two for bitten wolves to get used to.

"We have to find the bastard that did this to him," Jack growled - literally, his eyes had changed to amber and his fangs were slightly elongated. "We can't let it get away with this, and we can't let it hurt Mac."

Matty was silent for a moment before asking, "do you still have what you used to clean out the bite with?" Jack nodded. "Go get it, and bring it down to the labs. They can try to find the wolf's DNA and see if we can get a match, or at least see if it matches any open investigations."

"It's out in the car," Jack said to them all, before turning just to Mac and continuing in a lower voice. "I'm gonna go get it and bring it to the lab, but then I'll be right back, okay?" Mac nodded his acquiescence, then Jack rubbed his back for a second before leaving.

"What did you tell Bozer?" Riley asked. Even to a human, it was impossible not to tell that something was wrong.

Mac's eyes went wide for a split second before he averted his gaze at looked at the ground. He quickly glanced back at the door where Jack had left, as if he were hoping the man would walk back in at that very moment. He rubbed his hands over his arms and met no one's gaze.

"Uhmm," he said. "That I was attacked by a wolf," he muttered. Clearly there was more to it than that. Mac was usually a really good liar, but Riley was willing to cut him some slack on that front due to the circumstances.

"Mac," Matty gently prompted. "What did you say to him?"

Mac took a small glance up at her before looking away once again. "Just that, that I got bit by a wolf," he answered with a shrug. He looked again longingly over at the door.

"And Bozer believed that?" Matty asked, incredulous. It was a fair question. They all loved Bozer as part of their family - their "dysfunctional wolf pack", as Jack liked to say - even though he knew nothing of what they really did. But he wasn't allowed to know. As Oversight, Thornton was a stickler for the rules and regulations. She cared much more deeply about her agents then she would ever admit, but in order to keep their agency on the government's good side, they had to follow government protocol to the letter. Thornton, despite the care she had for the agents, was willing to do whatever necessary to keep the agency safe. And that meant that if someone broke the rules and told someone, both would disappear, and a blacksite would gain two new permanent guests. As much as Riley knew it broke Thornton's heart to do that, she would, for the good of the agency and peaceful werewolves everywhere.

Mac wasn't responding, which told Riley everything she needed to know. Matty walked to the glass and frosted it, showing that she understood too.

"I won't let anyone know," Matty whispered. "I'm going to protect you, and Bozer too. Thornton will not find out about this, I promise. Riley," she said, turning to her. "I assume you can erase the footage of any incriminating parts of this conversation without leaving a trace?"

"Look who you're talking to," Riley responded with a smirk. She pulled out her laptop and sat down, getting to work. Everything would be erased and the remaining footage would pass even the highest level of scrutiny in a matter of minutes.

"I don't want you guys to get in trouble too," Mac said, raising his voice more than he had since walking into the room. "I can't let you guys go down too."

"Too bad, blondie," Matty replied, a gentle smile on her face. "I know that as director I'm not supposed to play favorites, but you aren't just an agent, you're family, and that means that Bozer is family too. I am going to do whatever I have to in order to protect you both. It's gonna be okay, I promise."

Riley had to take a moment to center herself on the task at hand. Matty's motherly tone had a lump forming in her throat. Mac's mother had died when he was five. He said she got sick, but he didn't really know what with for sure, just that she had gotten really sick and was dead two days later. He barely even remembered her anymore. But even if his biological mother had died, he had another one. No one said it out loud, but their whole team knew that Matty was the closest thing Mac was ever going to get to having a mother again. He deserved to have a mother, and Matty filled that gap very well.

At the knock on the door, Matty defrosted the glass. It was Jack.

"The labs are runnin' it now," he said as he walked through the door. "They should have results within the hour, which means that we have time to go down to medical and get you stitched up for real."

"You did a fine job, I don't need to go to medical," Mac said dismissively with a wave of his hand, as per usual. Riley just smirked.

"Yeah, I wasn't askin', bud," Jack replied with a smile. He threw his arm back around Mac's shoulders and directed him out the door. Riley caught the roll of his eyes, but he didn't fight against it with more than a clearly exaggerated sigh.

"Everything's all good," Riley said to Matty, pointing at her laptop to indicate that she had finished up with editing the footage.

"Good, now can you go down to the labs and wait on a result for me? I want us to know the moment the results are in. I'd go down myself, but sadly I have an agency to run," Matty said.

"Yeah, of course." Riley stood and put her rig back in her backpack, then made her way down to the labs. Although Jack hadn't said who he had given the job to when he dropped off the samples, Riley had a pretty good idea who it was. There were many lab techs, but their team was closet with Jill Morgan.

Jill was bit while in college, and recruited by the Phoenix shortly thereafter. She'd been with the Phoenix ever since Riley worked there, being a few years older than her and Bozer. Although a bit naive, she was deeply caring and one of the smartest people Riley knew.

"About how long on those samples?" Riley asked, clutching her hands together behind her back. She grinned at the way Jill jumped at her voice. For a werewolf, Jill was very jumpy.

"Uh, hey, Riley. How did you know I had them?" she asked in return.

"Lucky guess," Riley replied with a shrug and smile. "You have the samples from Mac's case, right?"

"It should be just a couple of minutes. I'll let you know as soon as they come in."

"Awesome." Riley spun around on her heel and took a seat in one of the open chairs. She pulled her rig back out and got to work on the latest code she was writing. She may as well be productive while she waited.

About ten minutes later, Riley heard a very telling ding coming from Jill's computer. She looked up, but couldn't see the monitor. Jill was frozen in front of it, not moving, and saying nothing.

"Did we get results?" she asked, hoping to break Jill from whatever trance she was in.

"Riley, you better come see this," Jill replied. Riley frowned. The woman sounded haunted.

"What is it?" she asked. She set her laptop down and stood, quickly taking the few steps over to Jill's station.

There on the monitor were pictures of several different bloodbaths. They were some of the most gruesome crime scenes she'd ever seen - and she'd seen a lot of crime scenes. The bodies were completely ripped apart, limbs missing and blood everywhere. It had probably been very difficult to get positive IDs on a lot of the victims. They looked like rabid bear attacks.

"Oh my gosh..." Riley muttered, raising her hand to cover her mouth. These disgusting scenes were somehow related to the werewolf that bit Mac?

"The DNA I was able to pull from the sample that Jack gave me came back from six different investigations. The police were never able to identify what the DNA came from, but it's clearly werewolf," Jill explained.

That didn't make any sense. Stuff like this was what the Phoenix existed for, so why hadn't they been investigating these murders? Why didn't they know about them at all?

"Send this up to Matty immediately, I'll run through it with her."

Without waiting for an answer, Riley turned around and grabbed her laptop, before quickly heading back up to the war room. Whatever monster had murdered those people had bit Mac. It didn't make any sense, but Riley knew Mac was in danger. She could feel it in her gut. It went beyond a werewolf's instincts or a protective sense for the one she thought of as a little brother. It was plain old intuition that Riley had learned over the years to always trust. It's what helped to make her such a good agent. And that intuition was telling her that this monster wasn't going to be content with just turning Mac, it wanted something else. Mac wasn't safe. She just knew it. And Riley wasn't going to rest until he was.