Nathan's met Vince's family, but Vince hasn't met Nathan's, and Nathan would like to keep it that way. Holy smoked almonds, what else do you do when you know how completely nuts your relatives are? Why, you ease your man into it, by introducing him to normal shifters. Assuming you can find any. But with a gossipy werehummingbird spreading the news, and a pair of young red pandas wreaking havoc with their fainting goat friends, Nathan’s about ready to climb into a pine cone and pull it in after him. Then the local playboy weremoose hears about Vince, and Nathan has to find his inner alpha or the consequences will be worse than moldy hazelnuts.

With his secrets exposed and his partner-in-crime gone, renowned thief Shatter Cage has only one target in mind: Silverclaw, the fallen Hero responsible for destroying Cage's life. He's teamed up with his sometimes-enemy-current-fiancee Brigid Byrne to destroy Silverclaw's organization piece by piece, no matter how long it takes. The Oracle who canonized Silverclaw wants a more absolute type of revenge. Like, Silverclaw's head on the end of a legendary sword. She's willing to pay for the job done right. And if Cage will kill Silverclaw, she'll make Cage into a Hero. Becoming Hero is all Cage ever wanted, but he's never murdered before. He can have his dreams at the price of blood on his hands. And hey, why not? There's no reason an old were-squirrel can't learn new tricks…

Supernatural war is on the horizon, and no one will escape unscathed. Enemy after enemy, foe after foe, has fallen before the combined might of the Romanian grey wolves and their allies among the supernatural races. But now the alliance doesn't fight a single supernatural threat. It's no longer a single coven of vampires, a lone deranged warlock, or a rogue pack that threatens their safety. Now, the wolves face a unified force of evil--the Order of the Burning Claw. The Order needs a representative from every supernatural race to unleash a spell that will enslave humanity forever, and they've just recruited one of their most powerful members. The Order will stop at nothing to gain power, including kidnapping the pack’s children and its beleaguered healer. The Romanian pack would love nothing more than to bring the wrath of the Great Luna down upon their foes. But how can they do that when their enemies hold captive the pack’s greatest treasures. Before this is over, bonds will be tested, a new leader will rise, and all hell will break loose.

“The powerful origin story of one of Yellowstone’s greatest and most famous wolves.” —Washington Post “[The Rise of Wolf 8] is a goldmine for information on all aspects of wolf behavior and clearly shows they are clever, smart, and emotional beings.” —Marc Bekoff, Psychology Today Yellowstone National Park was once home to an abundance of wild wolves—but park rangers killed the last of their kind in the 1920s. Decades later, the rangers brought them back, with the first wolves arriving from Canada in 1995. This is the incredible true story of one of those wolves. Wolf 8 struggles at first—he is smaller than the other pups, and often bullied—but soon he bonds with an alpha female whose mate was shot. An unusually young alpha male, barely a teenager in human years, Wolf 8 rises to the occasion, hunting skillfully, and even defending his family from the wolf who killed his father. But soon he faces a new opponent: his adopted son, who mates with a violent alpha female. Can Wolf 8 protect his valley without harming his protégé? Authored by a renowned wolf researcher and gifted storyteller, The Rise of Wolf 8 marks the beginning of The Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone series, which will transform our view of wolves forever.

It is clear that the melanocortins are of immense academic interest. Further, these molecules have remarkable potential as pharmaceutical agents for treatment of multiple human and veterinary disorders and diseases. The evidence to support academic interest and clinical applications lies in significant part within the chapters of this book, chapters written by noted experts in the field who have worked diligently to understand the molecules and to move them toward clinical applications. I personally believe that the - MSH molecule and its derivatives will be used as routine therapeutics in the very near future. My belief is so strong that I left academia to form a company based on -MSH analogs and have caused millions of dollars to be spent on melanocortin research. Now why would a sane professor pick up such a challenge and enter business, an essential step toward any clinical application? It is the - MSH story that drove me. Consider that - MSH occurs in exactly the same amino acid sequence in humans and in the sea lamprey, an organism unchanged since its appearance during the Pennsylvanian period of the Paleozoic era (about 300 million years ago—way before dinosaurs were to be considered). There is unpublished evidence that the stability of the molecule can be traced back a half billion years. Frankly, I believe that the molecule existed even when single cells began to live together.