The Hunt, A Big Bad Wolf Romance: Book Four by Heather Killough-Walden

With special thanks to my daughter, for not crying all of those times I couldn’t play Heroes of Might and Magic with her.

With thanks to my husband, who did play Heroes of Might and Magic with her.

With thanks to Mary Moritz, for her critical eye.

And of course, with heart felt thanks to all of my precious readers, for their continued support and priceless friendship.

- Heather

The Hunt©

by Heather Killough-Walden

Prologue

The bruises will go away, he told himself. They always did. But he was so tired. She’d drained him to the point of breaking him this time – or, at least that had been her goal. She was relentless.

This was never ending.

He’d been in this hell for so long….

Light shafted through the chamber and onto the bed, piercing his eyes. He blinked against it and rose as far as the chains would allow him to. He recognized her curves in the doorway at once.

“Little wolf,” she purred, striding across the chamber toward him. He tensed; he always did. No matter how many times she manipulated him and used him, he would never grow used to it. He would always fight her.

She tsked him for his reaction and cocked her head to one side. “Relax,” she said, smiling so that he could see the fangs she used on him again and again. “No need to struggle right now. I know you’re weak. I have a surprise for you,” she told him. Then she turned toward the open doorway and nodded to a guard. The guard nodded back and left. “Father found him dead in a field, but fortunately for him, he had only just been killed,” she said, turning back to face him.

He watched as the guard came back, accompanied by another. Between them, they dragged a bound man dressed in black. There was the smell of black magic upon the prisoner so potent, he couldn’t believe the man had actually allowed himself to be captured.

“Oh, he didn’t allow us to do it,” the vampire said, obviously having been reading his mind. “He put up quite a fight once we raised him, didn’t you, Jason?” She laughed when the man speared her with his cold green eyes. “He wasn’t thinking straight. After all, he should know that as long as I possess this,” she held up her hand and a crystal on a leather string dangled from her forefinger, “I possess him.” She glanced over at the warlock again. “The poor thing is lovelorn. But I’m going to make him forget all about it.”

Then she turned back to the bed and he felt her power pour over him. No, he thought. His inner voice growled, Get the fuck out of my head.

Her only response was to smile wearily and shake her head. “It hurts me how little you trust me, even after all of this time, Byron.” She sat on the edge of the bed, and he tried to move back, but the infernal chains held him tight. No man-made chains could hold him. But this woman and her power and her family and their chains had held him for fifty years.

“Then let me go,” he told her, his deep voice filling the chamber. It should. He’d been very strong once. Very strong. “The last thing I want to do is cause you pain,” he told her, flashing his own fangs.

“Now, now,” she said, shaking her head reprimandingly. “You know I could never let you go.” She leaned over and he tried not to flinch when her fingers brushed a lock of his long black hair from his forehead. “You’re perfection. I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you.” She smiled. “And Daddy got you for me.”

Byron wanted to vomit.

“Now, you should know,” she told him then, leaning back as if she could sense his disgust and was hurt by it. “I brought Jason here for you. You see, the woman he loves happens to be your brother’s mate.”

Byron froze at the mention of his little brother.

“And Lucas wouldn’t be enjoying her right now if he hadn’t put a silver bullet through Jason’s heart.” She seemed to consider something a moment and her gaze became distant. “He’s very smart, your brother. Very resourceful.” Her expression took on a longing cast and Byron’s gut clenched.

“Leave him alone,” he told her. It was a warning. It was a desperate plea.

The vampire princess turned back to him, her cold violet eyes taking him in from head to toe. “Oh I will, my love,” she promised him, licking her red, plump lips. “On one condition.”

Chapter One

“The Kill”

The night was thick with the smell of fog. It was like inhaling snow that hadn’t yet fallen, and it smothered her as she raced down the Embarcadero to some unknown destination. It didn’t matter where she was headed, only how fast she got there. Her long legs carried her at a quick pace; she’d always been a fast runner. Her training ensured that she never lost that talent.

But dreams were dreams and when they went south, they were never fair. The white wall of pea soup around her clung to her legs, pulling at her and slowing her down. Her heart was racing, pounding hard against the inside of her rib cage. It felt as if it bruised her as she ran. But she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t give in, no matter how heavy her limbs were growing or how much her chest was aching.

He was behind her. The demon with the gray eyes.

In the waking world, he was the hunted, the prey, the one who had eluded her and evaded her and taunted her with his very existence for nearly twenty years. But here, in the twisted confines of her deepest, darkest imaginings, he was the Hunter. And she was doomed.

The sound of her footfalls echoed hollowly, despite the cotton-like quality of the fog around her. She was in so much pain… he was coming closer. It was inevitable that he would catch her.

Wake up, wake up, wake up! her mind screamed. Any second now, she would sit up in bed, covered in sweat, her long hair fanning out around her face like a billowing curtain. She would be gasping for air. It was always the same.

But she could hear him now, hear the deep rumble of his breath as he closed in on her. She’d never been able to hear him before.

No, she thought. What would happen if he caught her? Would she die? Would she ever wake again? In her dreamscape, there was no reason. There was no room for logic. It was constructed of fear, built on a platform of stark uncertainty.

Somewhere in the mist behind her, the sound of padded paws scraping along the ground changed. He was a man now. His boots set a quick pace, their hard, warning sound echoing so much more loudly than her own. He was running, but as she slowed, drawn down by the weight of her wicked, unfair dream, so did he.

Unhurried. Stalking.

It was too cruel.

With a start so vicious, her heart felt as if it had been torn from her chest, Katherine Dare awoke in a mass of soaked sheets and gasped for air. Her hair had come loose of the braid she’d put it in the night before and she inhaled several strands as she gulped in what oxygen she could get.

She coughed violently, shoved her hair out of her face, and rolled over. The room was stifling. Her head was instantly pounding, nausea roiling in her belly. Thick, humid air clung to her like plastic wrap. She moaned and swallowed down a throat full of rising bile.

The air conditioner in the apartment had obviously shut off again. Through blurred vision, Kat glanced up at the alarm clock on the bed table on the other side of the bed. It was dark. No power. Thunder rumbled outside. Kat waited, pinching the bridge of her nose. Now she could make out the receding flashes of lightning as the storm that had taken her electricity moved on and out of town. She fisted the covers over her body. With a hard thrust, she shoved them off of her and forced herself to stand.

The nausea was receding, but her head pounded with a rising fury. It was too hot. Her muscles were bunched in ebbing fear and the heat was forcing blood up her neck and into her brain.

Kat made her way to the dark bathroom down the hall, stripped off her tank top and underwear, and located the shower’s controls by memory. She shoved the water on the shower’s tap to the full blast position and then stepped in, not bothering to wait for it to warm up.

The cold blast hit her like a slap across the face. It was jarring in the extreme, but it was just what she needed – just what she wanted. Kat gritted her teeth and let the water wash away the cloying remnants of her dream. She wouldn’t normally close her eyes again so soon after waking from the recurring nightmare, but the darkness around her made it a moot point to attempt to avoid it.

She closed her eyes and, as usual, she saw his. They were filled with thunderstorms, turbulent and deep and powerful. They should be. They had to be. They belonged to the demon who had taken her happiness. They belonged to the werewolf who had killed her father.

She had been hunting the monster for nearly twenty years – since the day she had rounded a corner, her little feet skidding and slipping, in time to find the black-furred beast standing over the body of her fallen best friend.

Her father had been everything to her; a kind man – a good man. He’d been a doctor unable to save his only love from the agonizing death of disease. Katherine’s mother had died two weeks after her sixth birthday. Her father had fallen two days after her tenth.

And now, nineteen and a half years after she’d become a ward of the court, Kat stood stock still beneath the frozen waterfall of the shower and remembered.

At thirteen, she’d begun researching the demons. She wanted to know what it was she had actually seen that night three years before, when she’d watched what appeared to be a wolf turn into a man.

She and her father had just finished grocery shopping. He’d unlocked the front door of the apartment complex and sent her ahead to their front door. But then her father bellowed in pain. It was the most terrifying sound she had ever heard. There was nothing quite so frightening as being forced to face the prospect that those you looked up to for protection and safety and survival should come to harm themselves.

Kat dropped the grocery bag she’d been holding and raced down the hall of the ten story apartment complex. The carpet beneath her feet ran out to be replaced with ceramic tiles. Her Mary Jane's had leather soles and they slid on the tiles, their edges scraping at the mortar between the squares as she tried to find purchase. She ran as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough.

By the time she finally made it to the corner and out into the lobby area, her father had been silent for several long, fateful seconds. She skidded to a stunned halt and stared at the figures before her. A massive black-furred wolf stood over the prone body of her father. She couldn’t see her father’s face; it was turned away from her. The back of his jacket was marked with red, and thick red liquid pooled beneath his chest. It found the tributaries of cracks between the tiles and followed them out, painting the lobby in a red and white pattern.

And then the wolf looked up. Gray eyes speared the distance between them. She gazed at the wolf, seeing God. The devil. An end to everything that was.

The wolf lowered its head, sniffing at her father’s body. And then it stepped back, putting space between them. There was a flash that temporarily blinded Katherine. When she was able to blink past the fading brightness, it was to find a man standing where the wolf had been a moment before.

The man looked from her father’s body back to her a final time. His eyes were like storms brewing; she would never forget them. And then there was another flash and Katherine caught the smell of a church. That was what occurred to her as the man disappeared and she found herself walking the red and white tiles to her father’s side. It smelled like church pews.

The ambulances came after that. There were police and people everywhere. They didn’t let her stay with her father. They tore her little hand from his. It was all she’d wanted to do; he was all that was solid and real in her life. And he’d been taken from her.

That was twenty years ago. The image had remained so clear in her mind, it was as if it lingered merely to torture her. She’d been forced to therapist after therapist, psychiatrist after psychiatrist, until she’d learned at a tender age to keep her thoughts to herself. No one would believe her anyway. All she’d been doing was hurting herself.

What she needed was more information.

So, she’d gone to the library – and then the bookstore – and then she’d logged on to the internet. It was easy to find a connection if you were a ward of the court. People everywhere were willing to share what they had with a cute, bright-eyed little girl with perfect teeth and a nearly unnatural wealth of white blond hair. She was a walking tragedy, beautiful and intelligent and kind. And she used it to her advantage.

It was when she was sixteen that she was approached by the Hunter. They’d been watching her. Apparently they’d done their homework – and found out that she had been doing hers. The Hunter told her he could help her find what she was looking for… if she was willing to listen.

One thing led to another and Katherine Elizabeth Dare had been a Hunter for going on thirteen years.

Kat opened her eyes and lowered her head to keep from filling them with water. The temperature of the shower was beginning to warm up, so she reached behind her and twisted the nozzle, purposely keeping it cool. It helped clear her head. She needed a clear head. Times were tough for Hunters these days.

You couldn’t be too careful. In the three months since the Leader had been taken down, every Hunter in and out of the country had been scrambling to take his place. They’d chosen the old fashioned way of doing this by trying to “prove” they had what it took to claim such a position. And the best way to prove such a thing was to kill the most demons.

If she’d wanted the position, Kat could have taken it. But she didn’t want it.

Katherine Dare didn’t like the killing. In fact, when she’d first joined the Hunters, she’d done so under the outspoken oath that, with the exception of the gray-eyed wolf – wherever he was – Kat would never take a life unless it threatened her own. Unfortunately, it soon became very clear that she wouldn’t have a problem sticking to that rule and yet claiming plenty of werewolf lives. There was something about her that drew the demons to her. She found herself alone with them in elevators, watching in horror as they turned toward her in surprise and their eyes began to glow. She found herself face to face with them in darkened dance clubs, alley ways, and warehouses.

Rumor through the Hunter grapevine was that werewolves were a dying breed. They were going extinct. Kat never would have guessed as much. To her, the terribly handsome, dangerously deceptive demons were everywhere.

As a result, she had more kills under her belt than she wanted to contemplate. When she thought about it – when she really stopped and allowed the bloodshed of the acts she’d committed to sink in and be known – she felt sick inside.

Her nights were often sleepless due to the sounds of death that echoed through her mind. Images of taken lives played like a movie reel through her head. She closed her eyes and saw red. Always the red and the darkness.

She’d given up long ago on having any kind of normal life. So many women her age had not only dated but were married. They had kids and car payments and houses with white picket fences. Kat was simply a killer. Some days she wondered whether there was any more to her than that.

There was something so deeply wrong about it, so unfair. The dichotomy of her unmitigated need for revenge and gut-wrenching guilt of what she’d done was too painful for her. In fact, it was so agonizing that when the Hunter elders had come to her and asked her to take over as the leader of the organization, she had turned away without a word. She wanted no part in it.

She’d become a Hunter in order to learn more about the creatures that had claimed her father’s life. She’d joined them to learn how to fight, how to protect herself, and ultimately how to one day exact the vengeance she thought she so desperately needed.

She didn’t care who the Leader was.

As the other Hunters buzz-sawed their way through the enemy in order to take the Leader’s place, Kat tried her best to stay out of their way. They weren’t taking chances; once they made a claim on a kill, they went to great extents to make certain that no other Hunter attempted to make the same claim. A few Hunters had been killed. It was a blood bath.

Kat wondered whether there would be any Hunters left to lead by the time one of them claimed the Leader’s throne.

“Not my problem,” she muttered now as she shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. A series of clicks out in the hall followed by a whoosh powerful enough to shake the walls signaled that the power was back on and the air conditioner had kicked in again. Storms in Louisiana were forever taking out the transformers on power poles along the streets. But the discomfort she suffered because of it was temporary. She had come to Baton Rouge on the rumor that its chief of police was no other than one of the most powerful demons alive. She’d been hoping that she could play the inside game and learn a little more about the gray-eyed wolf. However, she wasn’t going to stick around after all. She’d be heading back to the West Coast at once.

That was where she’d grown up. It was where the gray-eyed monster had taken everything from her and ruined her life. And it was where the dreams she’d been having lately took place. Kat could take a hint.

It was time to go home.

Chapter Two

“The Cage”

He’d done it once. Twenty years ago, Byron had managed to make it past the chains and gates and wards of his captors’ estate. He’d even managed to make it into the city. But that was where his escape attempt had come to a screeching halt.

Byron rubbed the bruises over his wrists and leaned his head back against the lip of the deep tub in which he sat. The ultra hot water soaked into his sore muscles and the steam cleared his lungs. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the four guards posted inside of the massive bathroom. There were four more outside in the hall. Not that it mattered; he never would have made it past the wards; the guards were there for the fear factor more than anything.

Behind his closed lids, Byron saw the past. He focused on it, grasping it with the ropes of his mind as if it were a lifeline. He remembered his parents and the home he’d grown up in in Brisbane, Australia. He saw his little brother, Lucas. This memory made him smile. Lucas looked so much like he did; they were like twins born years apart.

Byron’s eyes were the color of charcoal, however – and Lucas’s had always been the color of night. Both boys had raven black hair and both boys had always shown a penchant for leather. There was a hardness to their blood that other werewolves didn’t possess. It set them apart from their peers and labeled them alphas from the get-go.

Lucas had always been a stubborn boy; countless times, Byron had caught him attempting to swipe his big brother’s bike or getting into a fight with another alpha in order to prove his worth. It wasn’t long before Byron, who was then the alpha of his own pack, found himself taking his little brother under his paw and showing him the ropes. He knew Lucas would run his own pack one day. There was no point in allowing him to be sloppy about it.

Byron chuckled now, the sound deep and rumbling and in such stark contrast to the sounds he normally made these days. He had to admit it was a pleasant sound. He had always had a very charismatic voice.

Hell, everything about him had been charismatic. It was the gift that sent him to the top of the ranks in his society. And it was the curse that ripped him from that very society to see him a prisoner in another world for more than fifty years.

Byron’s smile faded and his thoughts returned to that brief breath of freedom he’d managed to inhale twenty years ago. It was in mid-June. At least, that was how it had smelled. The truth was, he’d been captive for thirty years already at that point and there were certain aspects of his knowledge that were screwed up. He lost hours in a day and lost days in a week. The months went by like years – the years like centuries.

But that night, twenty years ago, one of the Akyri guards who had been placed on his watch took his side. For some unknown reason, he’d sympathized with Byron – and the two of them had managed to orchestrate a combined force of brute strength, speed and black magic that saw Byron past the massive stone walls of the princess’s estate.

He didn’t know what had become of the Akyri, but he would forever remember the man’s face. He’d been older than the others, and unlike most Akyri, his eyes had not appeared empty. In the dark nights of his pupils were stars of wisdom. It was an oddity for an Akyri. The creatures subsisted on dark energy, black magic. The craft itself was devoid of soul or positive influence. As a result, the creatures were in general devoid of it as well.

Byron had taken out twelve men that night. Four of them had been Offspring, otherwise known as vampires, and the rest had been Akyri. Once they’d made it past the front gates of the estate, Byron and the Akyri who had aided him parted ways. The Akyri had never told Byron his name. And though he’d ultimately failed in his escape attempt, Byron would forever wonder who his would-be savior had been.

Byron opened his eyes and shot a look of cold, hard steel at the four men stationed throughout the room. They were all Offspring. The princess didn’t trust his “safety” to anything but her own kind now. Not for twenty years; not since he’d proven to her how very determined – and how very powerful – he could be.

The vampires in the room ignored him. None of them were even watching him, though he could feel at least one of them rooting around inside of his mind. It was always that way. He had nothing to himself. No thought was sacred. He’d long since given up on any hope of harboring a private dream or wish of his own. He was a prisoner, a toy, an item to be had and used in the deepest sense.

He was nothing. Not any longer.

Werewolves were not immortal and if it hadn’t been for the steady, unwilling infusions he’d received of the princess’s blood, he would have begun to age by now. But thanks to her and the insidious poison in her system, he appeared and felt the same today as he had fifty years ago. He was willing to bet that he and his little brother looked more alike now than ever.

He couldn’t even die to escape his prison.

Byron felt his gums begin to ache as the anger in his mind once more started to flood his system with adrenaline. He was an alpha. Any other werewolf would have broken by now. But Byron’s willingness to fight was as fresh as it had been on day one, and his defiance rode at the top of the slopes as it always had. No doubt, it was one of the things about him that had turned the princess’s head in the first place.

He thought of the spoiled vampire and her unending tortures and his jaw clenched, his muscles bunching as his claws extended – just a little. His vision slid from the normal hues of human eyesight into the blacks, reds and whites of a wolf in hunting mode.

“Simmer down Fido,” came a low taunt from one of the vampires. Byron’s cold metal eyes slitted and zeroed in on the other predator. The large man stood beside the door that led to the master bedroom. He had a cell phone in his hands and was busy texting some unknown recipient. He was disobeying orders by having that phone on him in Byron’s presence.

Byron had only heard the term “texting” once and hadn’t been allowed to see what the hell it actually was, but recognized the frantic movement of the vampire’s thumbs across the phone. He caught glimpses of other vampires doing it outside the doors of his bedrooms once in a while.

He also had no idea what a cell phone even did; he assumed it was a telephone with some kind of battery inside, but he was clueless as to how it managed to transmit messages without being connected to a wire. Perhaps through a satellite or via a radio tower? It also confounded Byron that these newest “phones” did not seem to have any buttons, though he wasn’t allowed a closer look at them. The vampire princess had forbidden the guards from going anywhere near Byron with this kind of technology.

Unfortunately, the princess went to great extents to make sure Byron never caught up on what was changing as time passed around them. He had no television, was not allowed to read newspapers, had no radio. Books, he was given, but seeing as how none of their publication dates passed 1959, he assumed they were classics by now and that the princess had specifically kept him from anything later.

He knew why she did this. All of this.

If he ever escaped – like he had once – not knowing how the modern world worked would make it a hell of a lot more difficult for him to get very far.

It was clever on her part. He hated her for it. And for a thousand other reasons.

Byron glanced up at the texting man and the phone in his hands, but found that the vampire’s starkly colored eyes were on Byron. He wore a tight t-shirt across an ample chest. The t-shirt failed to hide the wicked trio of scars that ran the length of the vampire’s right bicep to the inside of his wrist. They brought a smile to Byron’s lips.

The vampire flashed his fangs, pocketing his phone. “You want to go again, pup?”

“You can’t handle it,” Byron shot back, baring his own long, sharp, white fangs. He wasn’t bragging; the warning was justified. This particular Offspring had held a grudge against Byron for weeks – ever since the two of them had gone head-to-head in one of the estate’s many hallways. Byron had left the vampire bleeding on the ground before the princess’s father and his small army of vampires and warlocks stepped in and subdued Byron. Again.

The scar on the vampire’s arm was Byron’s memento. Apparently werewolves and vampires could harm one another just as werewolves could hurt each other. Who knew? For most werewolves, vampires were a myth. They had no idea the creatures even existed, much less that they could be affected so directly.

The vampire stood stock still and eyed Byron with a mixture of hatred and wariness. Then he glanced at the other three Offspring in the room. Two were busy playing a game of cards at a table against a barred window across the enormous bathroom. They ignored Byron and his tormentor. The fourth vampire was reclined in an easy chair in one corner, a leather bound novel in one hand. That vampire glanced up for a moment to meet the other vampire’s gaze, and he smiled a secret, somewhat taunting smile.

I dare you, the smile said. This book is getting boring.

Byron waited and watched, ready to leap out of the tub and transform at the slightest indication that the vampire was prepared to attack. He would welcome the fight. Even if it left him scarred and hobbled, it would feel good and it would be worth it.

The vampire sneered and leaned back against the wall, suddenly all faked nonchalance and arrogance. “He’d tear my clothes like a girl. I’m not in the mood to change at the moment,” he said, pulling his cell phone out of his back pocket and once more beginning to text.

Byron tried not to smile, but his lips curled anyway. The vampire was terrified of him. He could smell the creature’s fear. Byron was tempted to fuck up the Offspring’s phone, make it go haywire or fry out completely. But he quelled the desire, keeping it to himself as he always had. There was a chance it would come in handy one day; there had to be a reason that it was the one fact the Offspring were unable to pull from his mind. They were unaware of his gift. It was a sign.

The prospect of using said power against the vampire and watching the confused expression on the man’s face did almost make Byron laugh, however. Almost. It had been a very long time since he’d laughed.

Byron took a slow, deep breath and once more leaned his head back against the edge of the tub to close his eyes. These long, hot baths were his only recourse from the life the princess and her family had thrust upon him. The water was magically heated; it never became tepid. It seeped into his muscles and tendons, working away the soreness and tension his struggles left him with day after day.

Night after night.

In a few hours, the vampire princess – Isabel Marie Wraythe – would enter his chambers. Her body and mind, infused with the dark magic of her warlock father and the fangs and parasitic nature of her Akyri mother would overwhelm him, no matter what he did. His arms and legs would be wrapped in chains, his bed wrapped in charms and wards that drained his strength and will, and the food he’d been given would have been laced with spells and potions that bent him to her will.

In the end, he would be spent and drained and the next morning, he would awaken to fresh bruises and a dehydrated headache. It never failed.

Well, it had failed once. Twenty years ago.

Again, he recalled the Akyri who had helped him and the events of that night as they’d unfolded. He and his wayward companion had taken out the guards in the hall and scaled the once warded estate wall to find themselves in the midst of a forest. They parted ways with a single nod and no words and Byron ran on through a woods that gradually became taller and thicker. Redwoods.

He’d recognized his location, known he was no longer in Australia, and realized that when he’d been taken thirty years before, he had been transported across the globe and into the United States. It registered, but he accepted it and moved on, racing as fast as his long, strong legs would carry him through what became state park ground. He made it to the main road and hitched a ride into the city. Lucky for him, the princess provided expensive clothing and shoes and the finest in everything having to do with hygiene; the lie that his car had broken down up the road served him well and matched his handsome, polished appearance.

San Francisco’s skyline was the most welcome, most beautiful sight he’d beheld in three decades. Byron found it hard to breathe as the driver took them down Highway 101 and into the city by the bay. He was dropped off at a bus stop, where he charmed his way past the bus driver and made it further into town.

A lot had changed, but it was night and all he was able to take in were the neon lights, the outsides of new buildings, and the shifted mode of dress. The cars threw him for a loop. When he’d been taken, automobiles were heavy metal works of art. Now they seemed to be thinner and flimsier, for the most part, and totally devoid of style. Still, he marveled at the controls in front of the bus driver’s steering wheel. Not to mention the gas prices he saw plastered to signs as he passed gas stations.

Eventually he got off of the bus and found himself at the gates of an apartment complex. Byron remembered staring up at the complex and wondering what in the world had made him decide to stop there. On the outside, it appeared no different than a million other apartment buildings across the country. But there was something buzzing under his skin; there was a vibration to the air that forced him to break the lock on the gates and stride through the courtyard to the front doors of the first tower on the right.

Most born alpha werewolves possessed some sort of power that set them apart from the betas and others in their society. Byron’s gift since birth had been the ability to manipulate mechanical devices so that they did what he wanted them to do. At first – fifty to eighty years ago – this hadn’t been all that impressive. He could manipulate any vehicle and automatically knew how to fly a plane, operate a train, drive a car and ride a motorcycle. It was the general reason behind the fact that his pack took on the shape of a motorcycle gang. He enjoyed working on vehicles, and bikes were the most fun.

However, beyond being able to manipulate fire alarms and ovens and factory machinery that was much safer left to its own devices, Byron’s power had been somewhat worthless in the practical world.

But standing there before those gates in the middle of a town that buzzed with electricity, Byron could tell that now was a much different story. He didn’t know what all of the changes were, but it seemed logical that humanity had made a lot of them and that they would tend toward the technological side.

The fact that he’d been given little chance to use his ability due to his imprisonment for the majority of his adult life didn’t stop him from knowing how to use it that night. Just as he’d automatically known how to fly a plane or ride a bike, Byron had known what to do with the electronic keypad in front of him. He’d simply waved his hand over it and the metal and glass doors to the apartment tower had clicked open.

In the lobby beyond stood a man in his early forties who was pulling a wad of mail out of what appeared to be a metal mailbox. Byron had missed a lot during his captivity. A lot of surface things had changed, but underneath, some things more or less stayed the same. A mailbox still looked like a mailbox.

The man turned from his task and his eyes met Byron’s. The buzzing in the air became stronger. Byron couldn’t have put the sensation into words if he’d been asked, but something about the atmosphere felt like a portent in that moment. He could sense that something was about to happen. Something crucial.

The man’s eyes were an odd indigo color, deep purple blue that was both rare and stood out in the handsome frame of his face.

Byron nodded at the man in greeting, playing it cool. And though he wore an expression of wariness no doubt brought on by the fact that he had never seen Byron at the apartments before, the man smiled and nodded back.

That was when the music stopped and Byron’s dance with freedom came to an abrupt end. There was a warping in the air, a suction kind of sound and feeling, and at the center of the lobby, a warlock transported into being.

Byron froze, his stormy gaze instantly moving from the warlock to the unwitting witness of this amazing event. The human male dropped the envelopes he had in his hands and slowly turned to face the newcomer. His mouth was open, his stark eyes wide.

No, thought Byron. He knew what was coming. It was inevitable and it was unstoppable. Byron had no time to react, but he reacted anyway, instantly shifting into wolf form.

The flash of his transformation once more filled the lobby with white light. At the same time, he heard the man bellow in pain. The warlock had already attacked. The strike came from nowhere, a magical hit that crushed the man’s chest, ripped his heart apart, and left him bleeding and prone on the ceramic tiles beneath him. Byron could only stand there, smelling the freshly poured blood and listening as the man’s heart slowed and ceased to beat altogether.

The warlock looked at Byron and slowly shook his head. “This is your doing,” he said softly. “Feel it. And try not to make the same mistake twice.”

The sound of leather slapping on stone drew their attention just before there was a third flash and the warlock once more disappeared, leaving Byron still in wolf form and standing over the fallen human.

A little girl of about ten to twelve years of age came skidding around the corner that led to a hall and apartment doors beyond. She had the most beautiful, amazing mass of white blonde hair Byron had ever seen. It was the first thing that struck him as he watched her skid to a halt. Her eyes were the second thing he noticed; they were indigo… like her father’s.

The third thing to strike Byron was her scent. It was this scent, this sweet smell of promise that represented for Byron the culmination of everything he had ever wanted in the sixty years he’d been alive. It was everything any alpha werewolf wanted.

It was undoubtedly the reason he had stopped outside the gates of that apartment complex that night. It was the reason he had chosen this tower over the other three that made up the vast apartment complex. It was the vibration in the air, the buzz beneath his skin that hinted at freedom and happiness and salvation. It was her – and her beautiful, perfect scent.

The scent of a dormant.

She was only a child and the dormancy was still immature. The scent was so faint as to be nearly nonexistent. But he caught it as surely as if it had been a candle’s flame in the darkness.

The girl’s eyes met his and Byron’s gut clenched. His heart felt ripped from his chest as surely as her father’s had been. And then her gaze slid to the man on the floor and Byron found himself wanting to turn back time. He wanted to take back what he had done – just as the warlock no doubt intended. If he had known what the consequences of his actions would bring, he never would have attempted to escape. Not now. Not like this.

Byron’s strong body flashed back into that of a man, once more drawing the girl’s vivid indigo gaze. And then he felt the insidious influence of the warlock king all around him once more. His lesson had been learned. His recess was over. It was time for the wayward wolf to return to his cage.

Magic enfolded him and Byron’s teeth clenched. He gazed steadily at the girl, willing her to not look away – to not look at her dead father. But the world filled with darkness and red and he was ripped from the lobby of the apartment complex.

Twenty years…. Byron opened his eyes, wondering where the girl was now. She would be somewhere around the age of thirty. No doubt, she’d already been claimed by another alpha. A woman like that, with hair and eyes and skin like hers, wouldn’t get far without earning the attention of a master wolf.

He hoped that she was happy.

It was a strange thing for him to feel. But he’d inadvertently taken her father’s life. Who knew what kinds of consequences his actions had wrought? Whatever had happened, he prayed that she came to know some amount of peace. She deserved it. If there was any kind of fairness in the world; if karma was real and worked the way it was supposed to – then the girl with the indigo eyes would have come to find the respite he himself would surely never know.

Chapter Three

“Young Pups”

Jesse leaned back in the overstuffed executive chair behind his desk and sighed heavily. He dropped the files he’d been reading and turned to the man standing near the door on the opposite side of the room. “Is this the latest?”

“Yes sir,” came the werewolf’s reply.

Jesse Graves had a lot of issues with the position of Overseer. He didn’t like the hours, he didn’t like having to give up his job as an attorney, and he hated being called “sir.” But worst of all was what he was about to walk into the other room and do. He hated to be the bearer of bad news. Not much ruined his day more than that.

The council was waiting beyond those doors. They had long ago ceased to be a collection of werewolf bureaucrats that he didn’t know anything about, and were now fathers, brothers, uncles and sons. He’d spent decades as an enforcer for the council, and then a Sentinel, and during that time he’d come to know each of the men seated at the table in the other room.

At the head of that table once sat Alexander Kavanagh, the former Overseer. Kavanagh had been a good man – and to Jesse, he had been family. Somehow, Jesse’d been lucky enough to win Kavanagh’s favor as a Sentinel and had been granted the post of watching over one of the most precious dormants alive: Alexander Kavanagh’s granddaughter, Claire St. James.

In the years that followed, Jesse’s worth was sealed in Kavanagh’s eyes, and unbeknownst to Jesse, the Overseer had put the Sentinel in his will. When Alexander was killed three months ago in a battle against the former Leader of the Hunters and several of his allies, Jesse was asked to take the Overseer’s place. It was probably the last thing he’d wanted to do. But Alexander had been a friend, and it was the man’s dying wish.

So, here he was, pinching the bridge of his nose and half wishing he’d been the one killed in the battle instead. He really did hate being the bearer of bad news.

“All right,” he said softly. “Let’s do this.” He stood and the man across the room nodded once, stepping to the side and opening the door for him. Jesse strode through the open doors, adjusting his tie as he went. He wore what he always wore these days – an expensive tailored suit the likes of which he would have once only worn during trials. He’d always felt that the ties were too tight; he was a big man. But in honor of Alexander’s memory, he was forcing himself to get used to it.

As he entered the room, the men at the table stood, pushing back their chairs as one with unnatural grace. He nodded at them and took his place at the head of the table. They all sat down.

“Gentlemen, I’ll get right to the point of today’s meeting.” He had never been one to mince words and he wasn’t going to start now. Such a thing was ineffective and detrimentally slow. “Our numbers are dangerously low – lower than they’ve ever been. The Hunters have declared open season on our kind. Phelan’s death left a powerful void and every Hunter on the planet is fighting to fill it.” He paused, looked down at the polished oak of the table, and readied himself to say what he was about to say. “At this point,” he continued, his hands splaying on the table top, his soul feeling as though it were sinking, “we honestly don’t stand a chance. Not without a miracle.”

He was telling them that they were going to die – all of them. Werewolves were not only endangered, but well on their way to becoming extinct. Only two things would save them at this point. If every single alpha werewolf remaining on the planet suddenly found his dormant and began procreating, their kind might survive, but only if the Hunters didn’t get to their children before they reached maturity.

The other thing that would save them was painfully apparent and even more painfully impossible. The annihilation of the Hunters and their bloodthirsty organization would ensure the peaceful prosperity of what was probably the least dangerous supernatural creature in the world. It was a shame the Hunters didn’t know vampires existed. Those were some dangerous beasts.

*****

The sun winked at Lucas, a brightly shining beam that hid and un-hid from behind the gently swaying linen of the curtains across the room. It was early morning, but he wasn’t just waking. He and Danny had been up all night.

They lay together now, gently breathing, their eyes drifting open and shut as the night passed away and the world awoke beyond their cabin door. In the trees overhead, squirrels quarreled over nut stashes. Far below, the snow on the ground crunched gently beneath the careful, tentative footfalls of deer who could smell a wolf in the air, but had smelled that same wolf in the air for a month now and had come to no harm. It clearly confused them, but they were also clearly adjusting.

He and Danny were on their honeymoon. The cabin was surrounded by acres of forest, long since owned by the Council and given to Danny and Lucas as a wedding present. The cabin was small; a one bedroom with a tiny kitchen and a real, wood-burning fire place, but it was a log cabin and Danny absolutely loved it. She loved the way it smelled; he often caught her sitting on their leather sofa with her kaleidoscope eyes closed, inhaling the aroma of wood and sawdust.

She also loved the solitude. It was something they had in common.

Danny, or Dannai as her coven knew her, was a witch. Among her people and the werewolves, she was know as the Healer due to her unique ability to heal wounds. No other witch possessed such power; it was coveted and treasured, and Lucas had no idea how he’d come to be so lucky as to have claimed Dannai as his mate.

She was an angel, as far as he was concerned, and she’d been through a lot. Every dormant he knew had been to hell and back, and some had made the trip more than once. It was a gift and a curse to be a dormant in this day and age. Werewolves were few and far between and the rare dormant that came into existence was a treasure far too many men were willing to fight – and kill – for.

This solitude, here and now, of the kind that only came when one was alone, but not alone – when one was with the person they truly loved – was a godsend for Lucas and Danny. It wasn’t to say that Lucas’s mind was fully at ease now and that all of his troubles had been wiped from the chalkboard of his life. No. There were issues left unresolved, as there were for any being worth his salt on the planet. He struggled with his need to find what happened to his brother. He wrestled with his need for revenge. But it was easier to face these ongoing and puzzling contentions with Danny by his side. And that little bit of reprieve had been a long time coming.

“Lily and Charlie want us to come over for a holiday dinner,” Danny said softly. He was laying with his head on her abdomen, and the sound of her voice vibrated pleasantly beneath his left cheek.

“How is Charlie?” Lucas asked. Charlie, or Claire St. James, was one of Danny’s two closest friends. In the fight against Gabriel Phelan and his goons several months ago, Charlie had been subjected to the heinous magic of an infamous warlock spell and turned back into a dormant. The blow had been terrifying to her as it had opened up the prospect of being claimed by the leader of the Hunters, Gabriel Phelan himself.

However, in the end, the good guys had more or less won, even if the sacrifices had been great. Phelan was dead and Malcolm Cole, Charlie’s alpha werewolf mate, had taken Charlie somewhere far away and private in order to turn her back into a made wolf.

Cole and Lucas had spoken on the phone just the night before, during one of Lucas’s few and short cell phone conversations. Cole told him that Charlie’s second transformation into made wolf had gone exceptionally well and she was as healthy and strong as ever. Best of all, the gypsy curse that had originally been transferred from Cole to Charlie during her first turning did not return. It looked like the curse was gone for good, and now Cole and Charlie could get on with their lives together.

Charlie was fine and Lucas already knew as much. But he also knew that Danny would want to talk about it anyway, so he asked just the same.

“She’s good,” Danny said. Then she raised her head and smiled down at Lucas with brightly lit multi-colored eyes. “As you already know.”

Lucas smiled and chuckled low. In response, Danny laughed softly as well, and the beautiful sound tickled Lucas’s cheek. He closed his eyes, grinning widely.

And then his eyes flew open once more. His heart did a flip in his chest, his pupils expanded, and he could feel his deep black irises begin to glow the ruby red that they became in moments of intense emotion.

He’d heard something.

“Lucas?” Danny went still beneath him. No doubt, she’d caught the sudden change in him. She was a wolf now as well, and her senses had always been good anyway. Now she could detect the slightest hint of a change in him without fail.

“Shh,” he told her softly. With a tension that ramrodded through him like the buzzing of a thousand bumblebees, Lucas moved gently over his mate and repositioned himself until his ear was directly against the taut flesh of her lower abdomen. “Hush,” he whispered.

Perhaps she sensed his urgency, because Danny quieted and remained still beneath him. Lucas closed his eyes. He heard her heartbeat first. It was strong and relatively quick; the girl had an amazing metabolism. But underneath that…. Lucas concentrated, blocking out all other sound in the universe.

And there it was.

At once, he was sitting up and gazing into Danny’s eyes. His own eyes felt like golf balls in his face. And that didn’t change when he saw that Danny was smiling. She chuckled softly, a deep beautiful sound that reminded him of sex and chocolate and moonlit strolls through the Redwoods all at the same time.

“You…” his voice cracked under the surprise. He shook his head, letting out a shaky breath. “You knew?”

Danny’s chuckle became an all out laugh. She shook her head as well. “Lucas, it’s my body,” she told him, her tone a very gentle reprimand. “Of course I knew.” Her grin broadened and she sat up as well. Lovingly, tenderly, she cupped the side of his face in her warm, soft hand. “Congratulations… Daddy.”

Chapter Four

“A Predator’s Predator”

Seth was probably the only one not fully listening. The Offspring had nice voices, a lot of them. There was a timber to them that resonated with distinctive clarity, and the older the vampire, the deeper and more beautiful this sound became. At the moment, it was the king who spoke, and eleven of the twelve vampires who sat at the king’s table were rapt with attention.

However, Seth had other things on his mind. He’d just come across some very telling, very precious information. It was the kind of news he’d been waiting for, searching for, and hoping desperately he would find for years.

The news was this: Twenty years ago, the Akyri queen, Olivia, had attempted to escape her husband – the king of the warlocks, Malachi Wraythe. The warlock king had kept her prisoner within his estate for years – centuries – only ever allowing her to consume enough of his black magic to survive. If she didn’t cooperate, she wouldn’t get to “eat.” Over time, she’d become convinced that there was no hope for her, and she had more or less been resigned to the dominance of her husband for the last hundred years.

But twenty years ago, Olivia had tried to escape. Apparently, the opportunity came aided by the timely distraction of a separate escape attempt on the part of one of her daughter’s prize prisoners. But the Akyri queen had ultimately failed. In the end, she’d been sealed off once more within her husband’s vast estate.

Of which Seth now knew the location.

His mind hummed with the information. His muscles were taut, his composure almost overly calm, as if it would negate the turbulent unrest that rode just beneath the surface of his handsome façade.

He wondered whether the king noticed. Most likely he did. He hadn’t become king by accident; little escaped the vampire sovereign’s attention. However, the frighteningly powerful man had apparently chosen not to mention it. There was undoubtedly a good reason for that. Everything the king did, he did for a reason.

Seth let it go – he had no choice – and turned his thoughts inward. Several months ago, he had performed a ritual on behalf of a very strong and influential werewolf, the leader of the Hunters, Gabriel Phelan. It mattered not that the werewolf was now dead; what was important was that before he’d died, Phelan had managed to procure for Seth several werewolf blood infusions – the last being Phelan’s own.

As a result, Seth’s vampire physiology had undergone somewhat of a transformation. It was a mental and spiritual transformation as well as physical, though the effects the blood had on his patience was perhaps the most telling. He could feel the passage of time as if it were a constant reminder of what he didn’t have – and would soon be going after.

He was taller. A few people had noticed, but for the most part, they’d chalked it up to their imaginations. After all, adult vampires didn’t go on growth spurts.

But he was also larger. His shoulders had broadened, his muscles had bulked up, and he no longer appeared as young as he once had. There was a certain roughness to a werewolf; something in the lines of his face and the five-o-clock shadow perpetually gracing his strong chin. It must have been in their blood, because that harder edge was Seth’s now as well.

Several times during the last few months, he’d caught his fellow Offspring doing double takes in his direction. They noticed something, but they had no idea what it could be. When vampires he’d normally had to look up at found themselves instead looking up at him, it was unsettling for them. He could hear their heart rates speed up and smell the sudden rush of adrenaline pouring into their bloodstreams. The senses that allowed him to do this were heightened, intensified by the unique combination of monsters that now made up his physiology.

He felt a little like a comic book hero. Or villain.

Seth leaned back in the plush office chair that was one of a dozen situated around the long rectangular table. His gaze slid from face to face, absorbing their expressions. They were loyal to a fault, the lot of them. It was difficult not to be when led by a man as charismatic as the king. Seth himself owed the elder vampire a debt of gratitude for several reasons. The man was not only a capable leader, but a good friend.

There were those in the “good” world who would claim that evil men did not have real friends. It was a dichotomous impossibility. Evil was a taint that destroyed empathy and without empathy, there could be no friendship.

But Seth was dubious. According to those same people, he and his Offspring brethren were most likely as “evil” as a supernatural creature could come. And yet, at one point or another, the king had put his life on the line for many of the very same people who now sat at that polished wood table and listened to him speak. He’d done it selflessly – if such a thing could be done by an evil man – and he’d done it without pause.

So they were wrong. But Seth wasn’t surprised. If he had learned anything over the last several hundred years, it was that humans and nonhumans alike who believed they were qualified to define “good” and “evil” were categorically wrong about a lot of things.

Seth started gently as the king called an end to their short meeting and stood with unnatural grace. The others at the table stood after him and bowed low in genuflecting respect before they turned to begin to filing out of the large, well-appointed office.

“Seth.”

Seth froze where he stood, his tall strong body vibrating with a hearty combination of impatience and sudden apprehension. The king may have chosen to save his life at one point – but he could choose to take it away just as easily.

“If you were any other vampire in the world, I would tell you that what you are planning to do is suicidal,” the king spoke softly, his velvet voice filling the space between them with its own kind of black magic.

Seth slowly turned to face his sovereign. He said nothing. He was right – the king had known all along. He’d known about everything.

“But you clearly have a plan,” the king said, smiling a nearly sad smile and flashing a set of fangs so perfect and white, they almost managed to look innocent. His stark gaze slipped down the length of Seth’s body and then rose once more. “I do hope it didn’t cost you much,” he said then, cocking his head to one side. His tone was somber, his deep expression slightly troubled.

“Not much,” Seth said, swallowing past a dry spot in his throat. No, not much, he thought. He’d only had to bring a man back from the dead and help turn a made wolf back into a dormant. For all he knew, it may have cost him his soul, but what was that? A trifle, really – and it wasn’t as if he’d been using it much lately. Claire St. James, Malcolm Cole, and their enormous host of werewolf and magic-using friends would no doubt jump at the chance to attest to that.

“I understand,” the king said, nodding once. His vivid eyes glittered unnaturally; a wealth of knowledge was stored in their depths. “She’s worth it, the Akyri queen. Olivia has a different way about her.” Again the king smiled, and this time the smile touched those arresting eyes. “A way that quite a few noteworthy men have taken a fancy to.”

He paused and Seth waited.

“So watch your back, Seth. Despite how it might seem at the moment, mark my words. An infusion of werewolf blood does not an invincible vampire make.”

With that, the vampire king left the room, and with his departure went most of the inherent magic that had been swirling around in the office. Seth stayed where he was for a few moments, absorbing what the king had said. Then he left as well.

It took him a good fifteen minutes to make his way through the vampire king’s massive underground estate. When he finally got past the wards and guards and found himself up top once more, he magically transported himself to the location he’d been wanting to transport to for the last twelve hours – ever since he’d received the news about the Akyri queen’s attempted escape.

The forest surrounding the purported secret entrance to the warlock king’s estate grounds and mansion was quiet. No birds sang, no lizards slithered through the underbrush. Granted, he was a stranger here and the animals of the world generally knew better than to bring attention to themselves in the midst of uncertainty. But this was a nearly unnatural kind of silence. It felt hollow.

“What is she worth to you?”

Seth had caught the stranger’s scent a half a second before he’d spoken, so he wasn’t exactly taken by surprise. But his body, transformed as it was by werewolf blood, responded to the potential danger as if it were a code red situation. His muscles tensed, his lungs expanded, his gut clenched, and he turned slowly in place to peer at the stranger through vision that had gone into stark relief, all reds and blacks and grays. He was going to have to get used to this.

The man before him seemed familiar somehow, though Seth could have sworn he’d never laid eyes on him before in his life. There was a tilt to his chin and his nose – and a depth to his star-studded gaze that made Seth’s fists unclench and sent a wave of calm washing over him. It wasn’t magic. It was recognition. And Seth had no idea why.

“Excuse me?” Seth asked slowly, speaking in a tone that had gone slightly gravelly. He marveled at the change he’d made. Those fucking werewolves were intense.

“She’s a very special woman,” the stranger said. He looked to be in his late sixties, though the lines on his face were few. It was something about the frailty in his body, or maybe the apparent wisdom in his eyes. Seth frowned, suddenly realizing that the man was an Akyri. How had he not noticed that right away?

Because he feels different, he told himself, cocking his head to one side and eyeing the stranger warily. Unlike any Akyri I’ve ever met.

But one.

“You’re her father,” Seth said then, speaking the words aloud even as he realized the truth of them.

The man across from him gazed steadily at Seth, his expression unreadable. And then something sad touched the stars in his eyes and he nodded once.

“Have you come to try and stop me?” Seth asked, his hands relaxing and his body straightening. The resolve that settled into his tall, strong form was a cold and hard resolve, but it was comforting. The tranquility that came with knowing that you would do anything and suffer any consequence for someone you loved was at once shocking and mitigating. It might get you killed, but at least you could be sure of yourself in this one simple thing.

If Olivia’s father planned to hinder Seth’s attempts to rescue her, then the old man was going to die. Seth might die with him, but so be it.

“No,” the Akyri said softly. “I haven’t come to stop you. I’ve come to help you.”

Chapter Five

“The Flush”

Kat left the San Francisco airport on the BART system and rode it all the way to Powell Street, where she hopped off, went above ground, and caught the cable car to her hotel directly across from Fisherman’s Wharf. It wasn’t cheap, but she didn’t have to worry. The Hunters paid for everything; they always had. There were two reasons for this. For one thing, Katherine was a rare bird as far as Hunters were concerned. Most were men – the vast majority of them, in fact. Of the few women in the organization, Kat was hands-down the most attractive. She knew this; it wasn’t that she was proud or conceited, it was just that she wasn’t a complete dunce. At five-foot-nine, she possessed the long, svelte body of a marathon runner or ballet dancer, and the agility, strength and dexterity of a gymnast. Her shimmering ash-blonde hair was striking. It was fine as down, but she had a lot of it and it was very long. Also striking were the color of her eyes and the smooth, unblemished condition of her fair skin. She was beautiful enough to present for the Hunters a very diplomatic face, which came in quite handy when applying for permits or acquiring funding from third-party affiliates. Katherine Dare was an asset for the Hunters that they wouldn’t soon allow to slip away.

The other reason they paid for everything was because they did it for most Hunters. The good ones, anyway. It was a golden handcuff kind of thing. The more accustomed to depending on others a Hunter became, the less likely they were to leave the organization. Not that it would have been an issue with her. She was in for the long haul – she was in until the day she found the wolf with the gray eyes.

And then….

Kat frowned, her gaze lost in the waves just off of the pier. It was strange, but the truth was, she’d never given her life much thought beyond that ultimate point. Once she killed the demon who had killed her father – if she ever killed him – then what? Where did she go from there? What did she do?

She closed her eyes and gave her head a brisk shake. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. She would cross that bridge when she came to it. Right now, she needed to concentrate, keep her guard up. She’d felt restless coming off of the hours of travel and TSA lines and check-in at the hotel. It was late, but she couldn’t sleep. The pier was more or less deserted and a fog was rolling in.

It was all too familiar.

Kat turned away from the rising tide and the tankers out in the bay to watch a group of seagulls pick at the leftover sour dough bread someone had obviously fed to them. Feeding the birds was strictly off limits here; they didn’t need any encouragement. Food that people didn’t want was disposed of rapidly and securely. However, these birds had half a loaf at their disposal; it was clear that someone with a bigger heart than brain had saved the loaf for them and fed it to them on the sly.

It was admittedly something she’d done a few times herself. Life was short and feeding the birds was fun. So sue me, she thought. A cold wind caressed the back of her neck where she had her long, white blonde hair pulled into a low pony tail. She yanked the leather tie out and allowed her hair to fall about her shoulders, providing more warmth. Then she shoved the tie and both hands into her pockets.

Waves lapped noisily against the wooden beams of the pier to her right as she began to make her way down the Embarcadero. The famous walkway was a wide strip of sidewalk that ran the entire length of the wharf and its piers all along the west side of the San Francisco Bay. Some of the piers along the Embarcadero were abandoned and had fallen into disrepair. Others, however, were used by merchants and private boaters alike. Pier 39, the busiest port on the Embarcadero, was nearly always bustling with some sort of activity. Travelers came from all over the world to see its carousel, shops, and the sea lions that made their homes on wooden rafts along one side of the pier. However, late at night in the middle of the week, as it was now, the tourist destination was home only to the birds, sea lions, the fish and the poor who slept in bundles of nondescript clothing in its shops’ empty doorways.

Kat left Pier 39 and headed west, in the direction of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Pacific beyond. The street lights cast long shadows on the damp sidewalk ahead of her. The sour scent of unwashed bodies and dumped trash wafted over her every once in a while; testament to another long day in the wharf.

And then Kat stopped, her heart thudding, her senses alert. Her ears pricked, straining to hear the sound she’d just heard one more time. It had been a shoe – a boot, maybe. The make of the sole was in question, but the sound of footfall was unmistakable.

Very slowly, Kat turned in place, her indigo gaze piercing the corners of darkness around her.

“I admit, you’re good,” came a deep voice behind her.

Kat spun, drawing her weapon from the shoulder holster she wore beneath her thick leather jacket. It was a special weapon, made only for Hunters. They were electric; there was no gunpowder involved, as werewolves could smell gunpowder a mile away. The bullets that came from these weapons ripped an unforgiving hole in their target and then released large quantities of tranquilizers into the victim’s system. Elephant tranqs had nothing on the poisonous concoction that was in one of those demon subduing bullets. They never failed to give Katherine the time she needed to take her opponent’s head.

A man stood before Katherine, but she could sense at once that he was not a werewolf. For one thing, he was much older than most werewolves she had encountered. A hazard to being born a demon was that you normally didn’t die of old age. Hunters usually got to you first.

Another thing was that he seemed… ethereal, for lack of a better description. Though he was solid enough in his black garb, there was a disturbingly pale hue to his face, a nondescript frailty to his tall body, and a deep, dark galaxy-like look to his eyes that seemed positively non-werewolf. But most of all, it came down to the way he felt. He simply didn’t feel like a demon.

But he also didn’t feel human. So, Kat kept her gun up and waited to see what he would do.

“Most humans would have missed a sound so small. My kind move about from here to there without ever being noticed by anyone. We lead our lives from the shadows, day or night,” he explained calmly. His voice sounded strange to Kat’s ears – it sounded both gentle and hollow, as if he were a ghost. “But you heard me and you look into my eyes now, and that can only mean that what they’ve said about you is true. You’re the greatest Hunter alive.”

“Who are you?” Kat asked, unable to help herself. Her senses were fanned out around her, searching instinctively for anyone who might have accompanied the stranger and be attempting to sneak up on her from behind.

“My name is not important. What I’ve come to tell you, on the other hand, is so vastly important that it will change the fates of many – including your own.”

“Then spit it out,” Kat said, her tone like ice. She didn’t like playing games. She had to admit that the stranger was not exactly setting off her alarm bells like he probably should have. It was late and they were alone and he was wrapped in head to toe black like some kind of Hollywood vampire. But the energy around him was… calm. She felt unthreatened.

However, that was no reason to be stupid about it. “Very well,” he said. “I can take you to the man you seek. I can show you the way to the wolf with the gray eyes.” ***** Byron glanced at the clock. A rod of tension ran through his body like constant static, setting him on edge. His teeth were clenched behind his closed lips. If he’d been near a mirror, he’d have been able to see the darkening of the gray in his irises that made them appear cold and hard. In a few minutes, they would be glowing.

He’d been left unrestrained and he had no idea why. His imagination was running rampant. Had the princess finally tired of him? If she had, she would kill him. It would be a blessing. And at the same time, the prospect martialled his defenses, calling them to the front lines. If he was going down this night, he would go down fighting.

Not that he stood much of a chance against the magic of the warlock king. But again, it didn’t matter. There was that strangely familiar buzz in the air around the estate. It was like the feel of adrenaline, antsy and electric. He’d sensed it once before.

Twenty years ago.

With a mental start, Byron turned to the clock on the wall. All at once, the silence in his chamber and the halls of the estate beyond were deafening. There were no guards in the room. The faintest hint of distant smoke wafted toward him. It hit him in that moment, the shock of the realization slamming into him like a freight train.

He flashed into wolf form. And then he ran.

*****

Jason was still wrapped safely in the invisibility he’d draped over himself when he made it past the third set of gates and then stopped. He could sense the werewolf somewhere nearby. Byron Caige. The signature was so much like his little brother’s, Lucas, that it was unmistakable.

Figured it out, did you? he thought bitterly as he slipped into a shadow beneath a grove of trees and scanned his surroundings. No doubt, Byron had taken the opportunity to escape just as Jason had. The warlock king’s estate was in turmoil. Someone had killed the princess.

Jason had no idea who had done it or what kind of power it had taken, but he certainly hadn’t wasted the opportunity. The first thing he’d done was find the crystal the warlock king had used to resurrect him. That precious gem, he now wore around his neck, safely sequestered beneath the black material of his long-sleeved thermal shirt and black leather jacket.

He didn’t know who had set this night in motion and at the moment he didn’t care. It had won him his freedom. Whoever had done the deed had not only killed the princess, he or she had set magical fire to the west wing, filling it with a destructive blaze that no amount of magic seemed capable of extinguishing. To top it off, someone had killed fourteen of the vampire Offspring guards, and cast most of the castle into a painful mixture of magical light and darkness. The light was as bright as sunlight, effectively blinding a good number of the vampires remaining within the estate. The darkness was impenetrable. Not even fire sliced through it, and if Jason hadn’t cast a few spells of his own, he would have run headlong into the hidden flames.

Smoke and chaos filled the grounds, allowing him a relatively easy time past the wards and locks that had been put in place between his chamber and the main exits. And now here he was, his back against the trees in one of the estate grounds’ many groves, his green eyes scanning what little he could see.

“Get out, warlock.” Jason spun at the sound of the voice, but he was met with nothing but a shadow, tall and broad and jet as night. “Get out now and never go near my brother or any of my kind again and I will let you live.”

“Caige.” Jason’s green eyes narrowed. He swallowed hard, his throat dry in the smoky, heated air. His heart hammered and his lungs were beginning to ache. “Was it you?”

“I wish,” the deep, gravelly voice replied. A set of eyes began to glow in that darkness and Jason found himself taking a step back.

“Why don’t you just kill me now?”

“Because you mean nothing to me.” With that, the shadow turned and vanished, crouching low. There was a brief flash of light and one shadow was replaced with another – the man replaced with the wolf.

The black wolf shot forward and through the swirling darkness without further pretense, leaving Jason alone to contemplate his words. Byron hadn’t bothered trying to kill Jason because he didn’t consider Jason a threat to him. He wasn’t concerned with the warlock. Not at all.

It could only mean one thing. Byron Caige was heading home to find his little brother. And if Jason – or anyone else, for that matter – decided to interfere in Lucas’s life in the future, Byron would kill them.

Jason didn’t put it past the werewolf. Byron had somehow survived the last fifty years with his sanity intact. Jason had only been a prisoner to the princess for a few months and he’d already begun to go a little nuts. And Byron had supposedly been her favorite. The gods only knew what kinds of hell she had put the werewolf through.

If he could survive that, he could survive anything.

Something occurred to Jason in that moment, an epiphany of sorts that he would later look back on as a pivotal point in his life. The princess was dead – but her father wasn’t. Malachi Wraythe was sure to want revenge for what had transpired this night.

Jason had known the king on a personal level for a long time before the infamous warlock had resurrected him and brought him back to the estate as his daughter’s plaything. Jason had always known the man to be short sighted and petty. But the king was powerful beyond any other warlock’s capacity, and hence his claiming of the throne.

However…. Jason knew the nature of psychology well enough to understand that traumatic events changed a person. One big enough could diminish an individual’s spirit, thin it out, and make it weak. Jason was willing to bet that if this hadn’t already happened with the king – it soon would. Once the truth really hit him.

Chapter Six

“Iron Sights”

It sounded like Niagara Falls. The blood was roaring through her head so loudly, so quickly, she was afraid she would pass out. She couldn’t believe she had come this far, done this much. Here it was: zero hour. And she was seeing stars.

Getting to this point had been like walking the streets of a bad dream: Foreboding, hazardous, and intense. She had allowed the stranger in black to lead; she’d had no choice. He knew where to go, what to do, and she was once more the student in a very dangerous lesson. But she’d gone along with it, despite its impromptu insanity for two reasons. One, she’d long been aware that there was more to the world than what humans painted in two-dimensional colors. If werewolves could exist… then other things could as well.

The other reason she went along with it was because it proposed a fruition to the unforgiving plan she’d been living for the last twenty years. It would get her closer to her goal – and an end to the wolf with the gray eyes.

The stranger possessed powers unheard of for a werewolf, reinforcing her assumption that he was not a demon. Through the use of his strange magic and her own trained skills, the two of them infiltrated their ways past the boundaries of the vast estate of some incredibly rich man that she had never heard of. Once inside, she was faced with further surprises, all of them just as inconceivable as what she had already seen and heard and felt that night.

The mansion at the center of the estate was on fire. She hadn’t caught the scent of fire before stepping foot onto the mansion’s tailored grounds, but smoke billowed from the giant three-story house and part of the building had clearly already caved in. Katherine and the stranger stopped inside the gates and watched the goings-on for a few seconds, gaining perspective.

The estate was tended to by what Katherine could only assume were a throng of guards. The men were clearly not werewolves; Kat had learned how to tell a werewolf from those around him long ago and there was no failing her on that subject. But the men were also clearly not human. They were different from the stranger who had brought her this far in that they were young, uniformly handsome, and possessed builds that were tall and strong, just like werewolves. But these men were wrapped in a darkness Kat had never before encountered.

Every once in a while, Katherine came across a human she just didn’t like. The feeling was instantaneous and came before she’d even exchanged words with said human. It was an instinctive kind of thing. Without fail, she would later learn something nasty about the person, and over time, she’d come to trust her instincts.

That was how she felt about the men before her now, but the feeling ran deeper than ever and left her with a bad taste in her mouth. There was just something about them that literally hurt her stomach and made her heart race to the point of pain. She tried to figure out what it was: The fangs? The slightly haughty tilt of their sneers? The strange red glow in their eyes? Or just a vibration on the air?

She would most likely never know. She watched, beyond the capacity for being stunned, as they attempted to throw spells onto the mansion, she assumed in order to put out the fire. Everything they attempted to do failed and the fire roared as if it were a beast all its own.

On the ground were several dead bodies. Every one of them was decapitated. She was confused by this; decapitation was a sure way to get rid of a werewolf. But then again, it worked on werewolves because it pretty much worked on everything.

Once they got in, the stranger told Katherine that he was putting a shielding spell over her in order to protect her from the mind-bending abilities of the men on the estate grounds. She went along with it and kept her finger on the trigger of her weapon and her eyes on the prize. The wolf was here somewhere; the stranger had assured her. It was all she had to go on.

They made it into the mansion and began fighting their way through the few supernatural beings remaining inside. She used her own weapons for this, and luckily they worked as well on the creatures within the estate walls as they’d always worked on werewolves.

After that, the stranger told her exactly where she would find the wolf – and they parted ways.

Now Katherine closed her eyes and slowly breathed in through her nose. The grounds were a battlefield of both nature and the unnatural, fire-scarred and smoking. How the stranger had known that the man Katherine sought would be here, in this place, right now, she again had no idea. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was what she was about to do.

The air was choked with smoke and what she could only assume was magic, but she’d had a lot of practice staying calm in the worst kinds of situations. Somehow she managed a semi-deep breath of halfway decent oxygen and let it out through her mouth. Get a grip, she told herself. You can do this. This is what you’ve been waiting for.

She opened her eyes again and gazed across the clearing at the man who had been a wolf only a few seconds ago. He was alone where he slowly moved into the clearing; his frame was tall and very obviously strong. Kat took in the broad scope of his chest, his sculpted shoulders, trim waist and long legs. She caught the reflection of the moon on his jet black hair and it shimmered, promising a softness to the touch, like satin.

The man made it to the center of the clearing, and Kat forced herself into stillness. He was close enough now that if she made a sound, she knew his super-human senses would pick up on it.

He moved in a slow circle, his head up, his storm gray eyes clearly visible – clearly glowing – in the otherwise monochromatic dim of the smoky night. Each movement was the epitome of grace and strength, each breath was controlled and perfect. He’s beautiful, she thought without realizing it. And then she stiffened under the weight of her observation.

Her gaze narrowed, indigo turning to ice. He’s beautiful. Your father’s killer is supernaturally beautiful because he’s supernaturally evil and he kills people with supernatural apathy.

The reminder was harsh and stronger than strictly necessary. But it did the trick. The werewolf’s appearance took a back seat to her mission and Kat straightened, pulled the gun from the holster beneath her leather jacket, and took aim.

As she did so, she made the slightest of sounds; a mere brushing of skin upon leather. Apparently it was enough. The werewolf across the clearing froze and cocked his head to one side. Just as Kat pulled the trigger, the wolf dropped; there was a quick, blinding flash of light and Kat knew that her aim had been off this time.

The wolf was fast. He was much faster than any other wolf she had gone up against. This realization coursed through her even while she was backing up and blocking the light from her eyes to take aim once more. Based on experience, she knew that when she unshielded her eyes, it would be to find the wolf loping toward her at full speed. It was always the same. If they attacked from a distance, they attempted to close that distance as quickly as possible. If they attacked close up – well, she had always been fortunate enough to able to pull the trigger before they could rip her to shreds.

Katherine lowered her arm and tightened her grip around her weapon.

The wolf was gone.

Kat spun, an instinctive premonition guiding her movements. And then she froze once more. The wolf had become a man again. He stood calm and easy less than ten feet away, his arms at his sides, his glowing, thunderhead gaze slicing through the darkness to pin her to the spot. The sight of him there, so close now, instantly jarred Katherine’s senses. Her hand felt strange around her gun and her breath hitched. She had never seen a more beautiful creature than the one who stood before her now. Up close, she could make out the strong lines of his chin and nose and the perfect slope of his neck and shoulder where his jet black hair curled against his collar. A five o’ clock shadow darkened his visage, making him appear dangerously swarthy. His face was like a Roman sculpture – but it was his eyes that tore at Katherine’s heart.

She recalled them now. She remembered what she’d felt when she’d looked into them twenty years ago. She had been scared and numb and confused and in awe. And they’d looked at her then just as they were looking at her now. It brought her up short. Her finger hesitated on the trigger. Her hand began to tremble.

There was no hatred in his look. There was no malice. There was only what appeared to be shock, genuine and deep – and some other, less instantly recognizable emotion that Kat could not readily identify. She would know those eyes anywhere; this was indeed the man who had stood over her father’s murdered body. But if she had learned anything at all under the tutelage of people who killed for a living, it was that the werewolf before her appeared in that moment to be anything but a cold blooded killer.

It’s a trick, her mind told her. He’s a demon. No matter what his kind called themselves, no matter how beautiful he happened to be, he was evil and he deserved to die. His nefarious species purportedly possessed members who were not only supernaturally fast and strong, as all werewolves were, but could manipulate things around them: weather, electricity, even peoples’ minds and willpower. Any hesitation on Kat’s part was most likely the direct fault of the demon, who might very well be in her head in that moment. And it would only get her killed.

Pull the trigger.

There is a fleeting moment that exists for every individual just before they do something truly life-altering. It’s that flash of insight and sanity that stalls your heartbeat and blood flow – a quick warning – just before you explode and make a fool of yourself. Or that incredibly brief instant of clarity you have before you floor the gas pedal and run the red light. It’s a split second of self admonishment in which you realize that what you’re about to do is wrong, but just as quickly choose to ignore that realization and do it anyway. It’s too fast to catch, too bright to see, utterly gone even before you’ve blinked and therefore, it does a person absolutely no good at all. And yet, there it is.

It’s what Katherine experienced just before her finger pressed in on the trigger of her specialized weapon a second time, and she found herself closing her eyes.

It took only a fraction of the time to pull the trigger as it did for her to realize that nothing happened when she did. A stark silence greeted her and her eyes flew open once more. The man with the glowing gray eyes was still standing ten feet away and still watching her, but her gun arm was trembling. The gun hadn’t gone off.

Jammed? she thought, knowing even as she thought it that it was impossible. These particular guns didn’t jam. They were electric. She’d never before heard of one failing a Hunter.

She swallowed; an odd reflex in a body more nervous than it had ever been. The swallow caught half way on a slim throat that had gone painfully dry. She managed to keep from coughing, but her eyes watered where they remained locked on the enigmatic fallen angel of a man several feet away.

The wolf – the man – considered her carefully and then, with that same grace that seemed to spell some kind of perfection, he took a step toward her. Kat’s eyes widened and she hurriedly retreated a step.

What the hell? That wasn’t right. She had never shied away from a fight before. She’d never backed down from a demon. Something was horribly wrong with her.

Kat tried to square her shoulders, but she could hear her breath now and she was stunned to find that it shook. She was trembling. This wasn’t her. This wasn’t how she’d been trained to deal with a werewolf – a demon. She was not herself. This was all going terribly wrong.

“Why are you afraid of me, little one?” the wolf asked. His voice was unlike any she’d ever heard, deep and rumbling and velvet. Katherine nearly gasped beneath the weight of it; it felt like a blanket draping itself over her, warm and comfortable and laced with will-sapping weakness.

No! Katherine shook herself. He’s using his power on me, she told herself fiercely. Some werewolves could do that. Others had to kiss their victims, but she’d heard tales of demons who could force a human into submission with no more than a glance. Surely, a voice could do similar damage.

It had to be that. Because it sure as shit wasn’t that she simply liked the way he sounded.

The man took another step toward her.

The gun was all but useless now, she knew. She could feel that it was a dead weight in her grip. Something had gone wrong with the technology of it. It was fitting that it should happen now, of all times.

With frustrated speed, Kat dropped the useless gun in the dirt beneath her and pressed the button on the inside of her wrist. A poison-laced blade shot forward and nestled beneath her right middle finger. “Stay back,” she warned him, absolutely appalled with herself at the turn the night had taken. That she should warn the monster instead of attacking outright, as she had done every other time she’d fought one of his kind, was atrocious to her. She had no idea why she was behaving the way she was.

There was an unfamiliar and terrifying hesitation within her. It was almost as if she didn’t want to kill the man who had killed her father. She was holding back, and it was probably going to cost her her life.

The wolf stopped in his tracks and his gaze flicked to the weapon she now held in her right hand.

I’m going to die. The thought was not one she had ever before entertained. There had always been something there to keep her going, some goal that she had to reach. It was a score that would not allow her to check out before being settled. But now the words floated across her consciousness on a wave of numbingly cold awareness.

She was going to die, here and now. She’d never had to use the knife against an opponent before; until now, the gun had always worked. Plus, she’d already hesitated, and that was a Hunter’s fatal mistake. The wolf would have the advantage. The title of Hunter was a bitter sweet irony because none was as much a natural predator as the creatures they tracked down and killed. Face-to-face and on even ground, the Hunter would lose.

I’ll see papa, she thought next. It was her one consolation as her grip tightened and relaxed on the blade and she quickly mapped out her next several moves in her head. She would see her father again. There was at least that. Her chin raised and her gaze narrowed. And by the looks of him, the demon will probably at least make it fast.

With that, Kat leapt forward, swiping her right hand high while her body went low. If she missed with the blade, she might be able to knock him slightly off balance enough to come back for a second try.

But she was woefully inexperienced in actual combat with the poisonous knife, and the wolf proved it in record time. Kat felt the blunt pain that numbed half of her arm as the blade was knocked from her grip and a strong arm wrapped around her neck. Her body was spun around and pulled roughly against his chest, but not before he’d also managed to take her already smarting arm in a tight grip and ram it up behind her back. Sharp pain shot through her shoulder, forcing a hiss of breath to escape between her teeth.

Kat ignored the pain, lunged backward with her right leg, and leaned forward, putting as much momentum into the movement as possible. She felt something in her shoulder tear, and the sensation was sheer agony, but her effort was rewarded when the wolf’s immensely heavy and large body fell slightly forward over her. She took the opportunity to raise her left elbow, catching the demon in the solar plexus.

His grip on her arm and throat loosened and Kat straightened, slamming her head back into his face with as much strength and speed as she could muster.

Again, the act hurt horribly, and she wondered whether she’d inadvertently concussed herself, but also again, her efforts were rewarded. She felt the crunch of bone behind her scalp and knew that she’d broken his nose. He made a horrible sound behind her and backpedaled. Kat couldn’t help the mean, hard grin of victory that spread across her lips. It helped a little with the pain.

Slowly, because she felt slightly dizzy, Katherine turned to face the demon head on once more.

Chapter Seven

“You can run...”

Byron should have been in pain; his nose was broken and his lungs were having to drag in air past a rib that was audibly cracked; it clicked with each labored breath. But it was a fair kind of pain, earned in hand-to-hand combat, and mild in comparison to what he had suffered at the hands of the late princess. Not that it mattered. His mind and heart were in such turmoil in that moment, his physical senses were playing second string to his emotions. He barely noticed the pain.

The girl, on the other hand, he was very much aware of.

He’d recognized her scent first, of course. His wolf had been running, shooting through the underbrush beneath the clouds of smoke and ash when the thinnest strain of the scent of dormant had brought him skidding to a fast stop. He’d stayed in wolf form long enough to follow the scent to a clearing just past the boundaries of the warlock king’s estate. There, he’d turned back into a man.

He would have had better luck finding her as a wolf, but the animal scared a lot of people, and the last thing a werewolf could afford to do with a dormant these days was scare her. Dormants were more scarce and more precious than words could relay. Whoever this one was – wherever she was – Byron wasn’t going to mess things up right off the bat by making her turn rabbit.

Little had he known that would be the very least of his worries.

He’d been turning in a slow circle, fanning his power out around him in the hopes of catching wind of something electrical that would give away the dormant’s location: a cell phone signal or a digital watch perhaps. He’d never used either, but he’d seen them come and go – and evolve – during his captivity, so he knew of them. He even had a vague sense of how they worked. The electrical knowledge, he assumed most likely came as an inherent part of his ability to manipulate electrical objects. He had to admit that he was looking forward to the power he might wield in the twenty-first century a hell of a lot more than he’d enjoyed using it in the early twentieth.

He caught the electrical blip, like a hiccup on the wavelengths around him, just before he heard the sound. It was the slightest of sounds, and amidst the rampant chaos that the night had become on the warlock king’s land, it was even quieter than it would otherwise have been. But he heard it all the same.

The feel of the instrument that had sent the electrical pulse in his direction was ominous and wrong. That, combined with the sound he’d heard, had him dropping and transforming back into wolf form before his next heartbeat. The sound of a bullet slicing the air whizzed over the black fur of his head, and he crouched low. A moment later, he was blurring into motion, following the bullet’s path back to its origin.

The scent of dormant slammed into him like a Mac truck, stalling him once more in his tracks. He stopped, as a small cloud of smoke billowed past him. When it cleared again, he saw a woman standing in the shadows, her arm covering her face.

She was tall and slim. From the way the jeans she wore hugged the lean but developed muscles of her legs and the bicep of her arm was outlined by her tight long sleeve as she shielded her eyes, Byron wagered she was incredibly strong. She had the long, strong and graceful look of a gymnast and Byron found himself instantly entranced by the sight of her. She was covered in clothing from head to toe, but the cut of it was one he was not familiar with, and the material seemed thinner, more form fitting than what he was used to.

The only woman he had seen in fifty years had been the vampire princess. The blood-sucking bitch had worn dresses as a rule. They were always cut low and ridiculously revealing, but because he knew what she was and because she was who she was, it had never affected Byron. Not in the least.

However, this woman before him now with not an inch of her flesh showing, was doing things to his blood and his body that he had begun to believe would never happen again without the use of black, unforgiving magic.

A gust of wind brushed past the woman and caught a few strands of the long, plentiful mass of hair at her back, revealing them to him in the faint light of the waning moon and gray mists.

That hair, he thought numbly. He’d seen hair like that somewhere before. It was long and so blonde it seemed ash-white. It was fine, but incredibly thick and shimmered like stardust in the beams of moonlight that made it to her through the tufts of smoke. It looked like an angel’s hair.

Byron’s body flashed again with transformative magic and he once more took the form of a man. In that moment, he knew who the woman was, and when she lowered her arm a second later, he knew what he would see.

Indigo eyes, he thought, bewildered by the events of the night that had brought him to that spot in that moment. It was her – the girl he had seen twenty years ago in San Francisco – the girl whose father had been murdered by a warlock just before Byron had been slammed back into chains.

It was the little girl who was a dormant and had become an extraordinarily beautiful woman…. He glanced at the weapon in her hand and frowned…. A beautiful woman who was now a Hunter?

His gaze narrowed and a chord of dissonance thrummed up his spine.

The woman gritted her teeth and adjusted her grip on the gun. Hunters had been around for nearly as long as werewolves, and though he had to admit that he had never seen this particular weapon before in his life, he sure as hell recognized the symbol etched into its side.

Something, somewhere, had gone horribly wrong. Something unpleasant settled around him – a portent. The woman before him was somewhere near thirty years old, and yet she was still a dormant; there was absolutely no mistaking that scent.

Byron could imagine that any alpha wolf – or any wolf at all, for that matter – who caught a whiff of that scent would have been immediately interested in the woman, to the point that everything else in the world would have become virtually pointless. Surely, she’d been approached by wolves in the twenty years since he’d seen her last?

God no, he thought as he realized what had most likely happened. Werewolves were intense beings; they were driven by nature. They were a part of the same wild undercurrent that drove tornadoes across the plains and made the earth shake. There was very little gentleness in a wolf when the cards were on the table and survival was on the line.

An alpha’s first reaction to a dormant was a stark and startling one. An unprepared dormant could become overwhelmed by an alpha’s behavior and attempt to either fight or flee. It was an issue that was normally resolved quickly. Nine times out of ten, the dormant was attracted to her intended mate with nearly the same level of intensity that fueled his attraction to her, and the two came to a lover’s understanding. Unfortunately however, that wasn’t always the case.

There was no doubt in Byron’s mind that the beautiful dormant before him had, indeed, been approached by other wolves. There was also no doubt in his mind that those wolves were now dead. She was still alive – and she was unclaimed. There was no other explanation.

The idea that a dormant, the most precious and treasured being in werewolf society, could become one of the most hated and feared beings in werewolf society was appalling to Byron. It was fundamentally wrong. In fact, if he hadn’t been witnessing it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it possible.

What the hell had happened to her? Byron found himself moving toward her. The scent of her dormancy, the absolute promise that she represented was intoxicating. He was stunned, and though he knew on some logical level that she had already attempted to attack him once, he couldn’t care. He felt magnetized.

And there was something else. He could see the uncertainty and reception in her eyes. Whatever her mind was telling her was right and wrong, her body wasn’t listening. Her big, bright indigo eyes were filled with as just as much intoxication as he was feeling. The attraction between an alpha wolf and his mate was unmistakable and undeniable.

My mate…. He hadn’t meant to think that. But as soon as he did, he knew it was true. Byron’s gums began to ache.

His gaze flicked back to her face and he concentrated. He knew that the weapon was the source of the strange electrical hiccup he’d experienced moments before. He used his power now to deactivate it and was rewarded with a settling down of the airwaves around him, signaling that the weapon was dead.

He’d acted just in time. Despite the attraction the woman obviously felt toward him, Byron watched as the woman prepared to shoot at him a second time. His heart ached as he watched her struggle with some unknown emotion. She straightened, tightened her grip on the gun, and closed her eyes. As she futilely pulled the trigger, he tried to remember what exactly had gone down that day twenty years ago. What had he missed? What could possibly have turned her down the path she found herself on now and robbed the werewolf community of this rare chance to survive?

He saw himself in the lobby on the first floor of the apartment complex. He saw a man – a human – standing a few feet away, pulling mail out of a metal mailbox. Their gazes met. And then the warlock showed up and everything happened very quickly after that. Byron had flashed into wolf form, but following that was another flash, this one tainted green and red and scented faintly of night. There was a scream of pain, and the human went down. The warlock taunted Byron; he remembered that. And then the warlock disappeared again and Byron had been left alone in wolf form, standing over the dead body of an innocent.

It was then that the girl had come skidding around the corner, all flying white hair and enormous midnight blue eyes. She’d looked at him – and looked at the man on the ground.

He’d known then, in that instant, that the fallen human was her father.

Oh my God, Byron thought as he watched the woman open her indigo eyes. She thought it was me. She thinks I killed her father.

The woman looked at him, noticed that he was still standing and obviously unharmed, and then glanced down at her weapon. Her expression became one of stark confusion and dawning fear. She was a Hunter, and if that was the case, then she’d been trained in the best ways to destroy a werewolf – or as the Hunters referred to them, demons. So, she was no doubt well aware of the benefits of attacking a werewolf from a distance. It was a whole hell of a lot harder to kill one up close and personal.

It all made sense now. She’d come around that corner twenty years ago to find a werewolf standing over the body of her dead father. She’d thought a werewolf had taken everything from her that day. He couldn’t blame her for becoming what she’d become.

Byron’s imagination ran wild in that moment. He could see her trying to explain to the authorities what had happened to her father. What she’d seen. He wondered how much “therapy” they’d forced on the child. He could only imagine the “necessary” atrocities they’d inflicted on the little girl who was more precious than gold – and more miserable than Midas.

It was that thought that fueled Byron’s sudden, unbending resolve. Whatever the reason, whatever their plan, the fates had brought the Huntress to him that night and he’d recognized her for what she was: a dormant – and his mate. There was no way he was going to let this chance slip through his fingers. He wasn’t going to let her go.

Not without a fight.

She must have been thinking along the same lines however, because the next thing she did was drop her gun only to fill her empty hand with yet another weapon. At once, Byron caught the acrid stench of poison. It laced the tip of the blade she palmed and he didn’t have to be a genius in Hunter-ology to know that one knick with the weapon would send him stumbling toward his grave.

He watched as she seemed to consider a hundred different angles at once. Her beautiful eyes flicked like lightning from here to there, the wheels in her head obviously spinning at a thousand RPM. Byron tensed, his mind reeling and his chest aching. He didn’t want to hurt her. She’d already been through so much.

But Hunters were dangerous, and despite Byron’s immense strength and power, he managed to prepare for the woman’s attack a mere, short millisecond before it came.

Now, after their brief initial struggle, Byron’s face throbbed and his rib crackled as his supernatural healing ability kicked in. He turned around to face the woman who had escaped his hold and wondered how much damage he would not only have to inflict – but have to take – before he managed to gain the upper hand with her.

Byron eyed her carefully, taking in every single breath she inhaled and every minute movement her highly trained body made. She watched him just as carefully and for once, Byron felt as if he were being seen for what he truly was – an animal – and not just any animal. She saw him as a very big, very deadly wolf with sharp teeth.

All the better to eat you with, my dear.

“If you’re going to kill me, the least you can do is tell me your name,” he told her once his nose stopped hurting enough for him to talk. He could feel that it had at least healed straight and he was grateful for that. It really sucked when it healed crooked; breathing became difficult until enough courage was garnered to re-break it and set it the right way.

The Huntress seemed to have no problem in divulging the information he sought, because she simply answered him straight out. “Katherine Dare,” she said, her tone dreadfully cold. “Daughter of Doctor Anderson Dare.” Her indigo eyes darkened and Byron found himself gazing into a set of eyes that felt like black ice. “The man you murdered twenty years ago. Two days after my tenth birthday.”

Katherine, he thought. He almost laughed. He’d always loved that name. He loved the way it rolled off of the tongue; it was an educated name, beautiful but subtle, fetching and unpretentious. He’d named his first bike “Katherine,” sixty-three years ago. It was too perfect that the woman before him would bear the same name.

Destiny. And to him, just further proof that she was meant to be with him.

“I didn’t kill your father,” he said. He knew she wouldn’t believe him, of course. What proof did he have? What proof would he ever have? But healing had to begin somewhere. It was either that, or the two of them would end it here and now on the clearing upon which they stood, and that sure as shit wasn’t going to happen. Nothing more would end this night. Not if he had anything to say about it.

“You have no honor,” Katherine spat at him. She was in pain; he could smell the adrenaline and cortisol coursing through her blood stream. She’d no doubt nearly given herself a concussion on his face when she’d slammed her head into him. And he hadn’t gone easy on her arm while knocking the blade from her grip.

Her words were laced with venom as she went on. “You’re bound to take out the rest of the family this night, you ungodly son of a bitch,” she hissed. “The least you could do is be honest about it.”

Byron gazed steadily at her. He could feel her anger all around her like a shroud. Very slowly, he straightened. His body was completely healed now and, for the first time in his life, after five decades of torture at the hands of a sadistic blood sucker, the alpha werewolf found himself wanting to take on someone else’s pain – if only it would mean they would feel it no longer. He knew Katherine Dare was hurting, and despite her poisonous hatred of him, he couldn’t stomach the idea of her suffering in any way.

“I am being honest,” he told her calmly. “I didn’t kill your father. A warlock killed your father.” He watched the play of emotion run its course across her lovely face. Her anger gave way to confusion and frustration. And then that gave way to something like resolve. But he went on anyway. “And I won’t kill you either, Katherine. I would never kill one of your kind.”

He’d barely finished speaking when Katherine’s chin lifted – and she whirled around and began running through the woods in the opposite direction. Byron watched her go, at once fascinated with the incredible speed she was able to reach so quickly. Then he seemed to come to his senses, swore softly under his breath, and took off after her.

Chapter Eight

“The Chase”

I won’t let him take me alive.

It was the only thought that ran through her head as she raced through the darkness and simultaneously dug into the inside pocket of her leather jacket. There was a vial in the jacket. It was a tiny vial, just big enough to fit between her two back teeth. All she had to do was bite down, and this would all be over.

A Hunter was never to be taken alive by a werewolf. It was one of the things that was drilled into a recruit’s head during their first – and last – days of training. If a Hunter was ever taken alive, the werewolf council would question him or her, and though many of them could handle a good deal of torture at the hands of an enemy, ultimately the prisoner might break and divulge information that would compromise the organization.

When the wolf with the gray eyes had told her that he would not kill her – that he would never kill one of her kind – she knew damn well what he’d meant. The demon was aware that she was a Hunter and he planned to take her to his leaders.

Not going to happen, she thought. It was strange, this sense of peace that came with knowing it was all about to be over. She had failed in her quest for justice, but it no longer mattered. She’d given it her best shot.

She just needed a few precious seconds to get the vial between her teeth and bite down. She could hear him crashing through the underbrush behind her just as she was raising her hand to her mouth.

He hit her from behind and took her to the ground, but not before she’d managed to get the vial between her teeth. The jarring impact forced her teeth to clamp together and she heard and felt the glass container snap. Her tongue was instantly numb as the poison raced across it and then into her blood stream.

Distantly, as if her body had been ripped in two the moment the poison had touched her skin, Katherine felt the wolf roll her over. Her arms and legs were numb and the sensation of his grip was experienced as if through body-wide Novocain. She couldn’t see him; darkness had claimed her vision. Her eyes were open – but she was blind.

With that realization and with the knowledge that the damage she’d done to her body was irreversible came a cold, hard fear the likes of which she had never before experienced. She was going to die. She had killed herself.

She’d thought it was the right thing to do. She’d thought that it was something she could accept. She was so very wrong.

A harsh sob of terror escaped her now bone dry throat just before everything began to go cold. She took a shuddering breath and let it go, knowing it would be the last breath she ever drew.

*****

Byron’s entire six foot four frame shook with rage as he raised his wrist to his mouth and bit down. The razor tips of his fangs pierced the taut skin over his vein and blood welled to the surface. At once, he placed his wrist to Katherine’s mouth and tilted back her head. She was already unconscious; the blood only pooled in her mouth and trickled uselessly down the side of her beautiful face.

“Stupid!” he spat, and then followed it up with a string of obscenities. Furiously, he wrapped his hand around her throat and gently worked it, attempting to force her to swallow. “How could you be so stupid?” he asked, though he wasn’t certain whether the question was directed at Katherine or at himself. He’d known that Hunters did things like this; it had simply been so long since he’d faced one, he’d forgotten.

The Huntress lay still in his arms; the only sounds in the woods were the distant crackling of a burning mansion and the ragged breaths of a werewolf seconds away from losing his mate for good. I could have stopped this, he thought viciously. He’d done a thousand things wrong. This woman was special, had to be handled differently.

If he’d pulled his head out of his ass from the beginning and realized it right away, they wouldn’t be where they were now – her on the verge of death, him on the verge of wanting it.

He’d been more concerned with the fact that she was a dormant than with the fact that she was a human being in mourning. She was hurting so badly, had been in so much pain for so long, she was consumed by it. In the end, she’d made a choice. She would either achieve the justice she’d fought for all of these years – or she would die trying.

All or nothing.

Byron gritted his teeth as a distant memory washed through him. He saw a man with salt and pepper hair, stark blue eyes, and a face like tanned leather. He heard a gravelly voice and felt a hard grip on his shoulder. The memory was ancient…. All or nothing, Weather Man. You gotta let me go.

Byron closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, temporarily overcome with the clarity of the image in his head. And then he shoved it away and was raising his wrist to his lips again to pierce through the healed flesh and re-open his vein.

“Swallow, God damn it!” he growled as he once more filled her mouth with the healing liquid and willed her to drink it down. He could hear her heartbeat beneath the fragile cage of her ribs. It was erratic and slow and so soft that if he hadn’t been the powerful alpha he was, he would not have caught the sound.

“Please!” he cried, feeling a kind of desperation that floored him. He’d spent the last five decades a prisoner to a torturous warden and had never known the level of desperation that crept up on him in that moment. “Please?” His voice shook.

He would have done anything just to make her throat move. Just one swallow was all it would take and the magical strength in his blood would heal the crux of whatever damage the poison had caused. He could smell it on her tongue, sense it running rampant through her system. He was fortunate that he even stood a chance. He’d run afoul of many Hunters in his time and some of them carried poisons much more potent than this one – perhaps specifically so that no werewolf could bring them back from the brink of the death they chose over captivity.

But Katherine’s particular vial had either not been as full as the others or had been created too long ago. It had lost much of its potency. It would still kill her… but it would do so just a touch more slowly.

“Please….” His voice had dropped to a whisper. He felt as though all of the strength had been sapped from his body. The thought of moving – of even coming to his feet – was simply overwhelming.

And then he felt it. Beneath the gentle grip of his palm, Katherine’s throat convulsed, letting in a large swallow of his life saving blood. Byron gasped harshly, reared back, and hurriedly moved off of her to give her some space.

The Huntress inhaled sharply, choked violently on what blood remained in her mouth, and rolled over as if to vomit. For several more seconds, she coughed violently, inhaling hard, painful lungs full of air. As she did this, Byron knew she would be unaware of her surroundings. Uncaring, at least.

All that mattered in those moments of near death was the act of not dying. Breathing. That was what was important. Everything else could wait.

Finally, Katherine heaved her last painful cough, gave a violent shudder from what was surely the long lingering, residual pain from the poison, and rolled back over onto her back. She stared at the sky first, her gaze clearly unseeing, her lids closing slowly and reopening again. It took a while, but after a few minutes, she seemed to regain most of her vision – and then she focused her indigo eyes on him.

He had no idea what to say to her. But luckily for him, she saved him the trouble of figuring it out.

“Why did you do that?” Her tone was not quite accusatory, not quite angry, but not at all trusting. It was scratchy and soft and hoarse from the coughing. It was also probably the most beautiful sound he’d ever heard.

“I couldn’t let you die,” he told her truthfully. “Why?” she asked, coughing as soon as she’d finished speaking. He waited until the new coughing fit passed and then said, “It’s a long story.” She seemed to mull this over, her gaze steady, her expression unreadable. The werewolf council Overseer, Alexander Kavanagh, had long possessed the ability to read people’s minds. Just then, Byron wished wholeheartedly that he’d been blessed with the same gift.

“Are you going to turn me into the council?” she asked, surprising him. It was almost as if she had been reading his mind.

Byron frowned and, instinctively, he leaned forward to wipe a bit of blood from her cheek. She flinched, but was still weak enough that she did not fight him. Unless he forced more blood down her throat, she would be weak for a while.

His touch was gentle – tender. And perhaps it surprised her that this was so, because her beautiful eyes widened, becoming quite large in the lovely frame of her face. “Why would I do that?”

“To question me,” she said, again coughing. “Torture me.” Her voice was so dry now, it was now beginning to grate on his nerves. Not because he hated the sound of it – but because he hated the fact that it was dry. He wanted to give her water; he wanted to quench her thirst and take way any discomfort she might be feeling.

“You really are a fool,” he told her, allowing some of his anger to seep into his words. It felt wrong, even as he did it. He knew he shouldn’t say such things to her; she was far from stupid. But she had tried to kill herself. She’d been willing to throw her life away, and that pissed him off. And now she assumed that because he was a werewolf, the only reason he could possibly have for wanting to save her from death was to bring her further harm. It was a reminder of the horrid view Hunters had of werewolves and of the fight for survival the organization had forced upon his kind. And that deepened his anger.

“You have a very unfortunate and very skewed opinion of my kind,” he said as he finished wiping the blood from her face and then began patting her down. He may have wanted her very much alive, but he wasn’t stupid. Hunters were always armed to the teeth. “I wish you no harm, Katherine Dare. Quite the opposite, in fact.” She didn’t move when he found the blade in a black leather sheath on the inside of her boot. Without a word, he pulled it free and tossed it into the woods.

Then he looked back up at her face.

Not for a second did it look as though the Huntress believed what he was telling her. In fact, he watched as she attempted to roll her eyes, but stopped half way due to some kind of pain. She winced, her brow furrowed, and her white teeth clenched together.

“The pain will pass,” he told her. His blood was very strong. He’d been one of the most powerful alpha werewolves the council had ever come across before he’d been waylaid by the warlock king’s magic and then kidnapped all of those years ago. And due to the fact that the vampire princess had been supplementing his diet with her own blood during that time, his body and the blood within it had remained young and potent. The wounds she’d sustained during their fight were gone. Most likely, the Huntress’s discomfort was due to the fact that she’d vomited and coughed so much, she’d given herself a headache, and not due to the fact that she’d been poisoned nearly to death only seconds ago. In fact, he could no longer scent the poison within her system at all.

“You need water,” he said. Without waiting for her to respond, he stood and lifted his chin, allowing his senses to fan out around him. The shouts and turmoil that had existed in the direction of the mansion had all but stopped. The crackling continued and the air was very warm; the fire still burned, but obviously the estate’s inhabitants had either given up and fled or were dead.

Byron closed his eyes and concentrated.

Beyond the scent of fire was the scent of wet woods, moss, lichen, mushrooms – and redwood. Good, he thought. At least he knew he was in the same location he’d been in twenty years ago – the first time he’d escaped.

He concentrated further. Beyond the fire were the high-pitched wails of sirens. And beyond those was the constant hiss of quickly passing traffic, which meant that there was a highway nearby. Twenty years ago, he’d had to travel some distance before coming to a road and hitching a ride into San Francisco.

It looked like things had changed. In this case, and as far as his current needs were concerned, they’d changed for the better.

Byron opened his eyes and looked down at the woman who was now trying to sit up on the ground at his feet. She had one hand pressed to her head and the other was reaching out for the trunk of a nearby tree. He knelt beside her with the intention of placing his hand on her shoulder to stay her. However, she looked up and recoiled before he could touch her.

“Still think I want to torture you, eh?” he asked.

Katherine’s dark blue eyes narrowed. “Where are you from?” she asked.

The question took him by surprise until he remembered that his accent sounded vaguely different from hers. It had been a long time since he’d been in his homeland, but enough of Australia remained on his tongue that it curled the edges of his words. “Australia,” he said, smiling what he knew to be a winning smile. “Or I used to be.”

Something light touched the color in Katherine’s eyes, turning them more purple than blue. The effect was instantly mesmerizing for him. He found himself staring.

And then, as if realizing what she’d been doing, the Huntress pulled her gaze away and her expression became once more unreadable. When she did this, Byron felt as if a cord around him had been pulled taut - and then cut. His lifeline.

Look at me, he thought.

She didn’t.

“When he died, I lost everything,” she said bitterly as she looked at the ground.

Byron considered her words. Her pain was so thick, it was nearly palpable. “I know,” he said. “I didn’t kill him, Katherine Dare. But I know who did.”

Her head snapped up at this and he knew he had her. Whether she believed him or not, he was offering her something she didn’t have a few seconds ago. It was a way out, a clue – a hope in hell.

Byron glanced around them at the growing shadows and the too-quiet nature of the warlock king’s forestland. He sensed something on the wind that he hadn’t sensed before. He didn’t know how much time they had, and he didn’t like the idea of staying there any longer than absolutely necessary.

“We need to get out of here and you can’t walk, so I’m going to carry you,” he told her plainly.

“I can walk,” she insisted, her eyes widening as he knelt with the obvious intent of picking her up.

“Not fast enough for my tastes,” he replied as he wrapped his strong arms around her before she could effectively pull away. She felt both tough and fragile in his arms; warm and cold. She stiffened in his embrace, clearly not liking the idea of him being so close. And yet, her skin was warm beneath the thin layers of her clothing, and her curves were tender and inviting beneath his strong grip.

Byron gritted his teeth and mentally shoved his wayward fangs back into his gums where they belonged. He stood, carrying her before him. The sudden rise in altitude sent dizziness through her, just as he guessed it would.

Katherine closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder.

He knew she didn’t mean to do it. She’d been nearly dead only moments ago. He’d almost lost her. The poison the Hunters used was vicious and thorough and she was probably going to be weak for a while – or until he could get her to take more of his blood.

But whether she meant to do it or not, he enjoyed it. “I told you before that I know who killed your father,” he said as he took off at a long stride through the darkened woods. “So I’ll make you a deal. Don’t try to kill anyone for a while and I’ll tell you all about him.”

*****

From the safety and shadows of a nearby copse of trees, Jason Alberich nodded once to himself and prepared to transport away. His job was done. The Hunter woman had swallowed the wolf’s blood – thanks to Jason’s magic – and would live to fight another day. Byron Caige would have his hands full with her for the rest of his life.

It had needed to be done. Because nothing is more dangerous than an alpha werewolf with nothing left to lose.

Chapter Nine

“The Harvest”

“Twins!” Lily shouted into the phone. Daniel looked up to see his wife with her hand on her chest, her gold eyes wide in shock and happiness. “Oh my God, I don’t even know what to say!” She laughed, did a quick jump up and down, and then spun in a circle on the ball of her foot. Daniel put down the files he was reading in order to watch her. She was beautiful when she was happy. Stunning, actually.

It was nearly enough to distract him from what she was saying. Twins? He concentrated his hearing and was able to make out the sound of Dannai’s voice on the other end of the line.

Holy shit, he thought as he realized what they must have been talking about.

As if to reinforce the realization, Lily lowered the phone, looked right at him, and declared, “Danny’s having twins!”

Daniel was up and on his feet the moment the words left her lips. “You’re shitting me,” he said, feeling his own smile steal across his face. It was good news. It was beyond good news. For his kind and any hope they had for survival, it was a down right godsend to have even one child. But two?

What was more, Dannai was the Healer. Daniel couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of powers the children of an alpha werewolf and a witch would possess. The thought was filled with hope. With any luck, the children would be strong enough to make it to adulthood – and powerful enough to make it count.

Daniel strode quickly to his wife’s side and pressed a series of buttons on her phone. Lily caught on right away and set the phone down in its recharger on the counter.

“Danny, you’re on speaker phone,” she warned her friend.

“Congratulations, cher,” Daniel said, shaking his head and grinning ear to ear. “You and Caige must be doin’ somethin’ right.” He really couldn’t control the giddiness he felt; this was a reason to celebrate. “When did you find out?”

“A week ago,” Dannai replied.

“A week! And you waited until now to tell us?” Lily demanded.

Dannai laughed. “Well… we had some important things to do last week.” There was soft laughter and then a few clicks from her end. Daniel could hear the change in the receiver and knew that he and Lily had been put on speaker phone as well.

“Thanks for the congrats, Chief,” came a vaguely Australian accent from the other end. Daniel could hear both the smile and the pride in Caige’s voice. Lucas and Daniel were not necessarily close; Lucas had once worked for Malcolm Cole, and everyone in the werewolf community was well aware of the history between Daniel and Cole. However, times were tough and the community was tight – it had to be. When it came down to it, either man would fight for the other. And that was all that mattered.

“Girls or boys?” Lily blurted out before the men could say anything else.

“A girl and a boy,” Dannai replied.

Beside Daniel, Lily made a delighted squeal that his werewolf ears picked up on all too well. He grimaced and then chuckled, shaking his head.

“You’ve done it now,” he said to the phone.

“Names!” Lily demanded. “What are their names? Have you decided yet?” She was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. Daniel turned fully toward her to watch. At that moment, she seemed like a golden rod of lightning, all energy, all heat and warmth, dangerous but bright and beautiful.

He remembered a time when they were both in high school and she’d been this happy. He recalled surreptitiously watching her from across the hall. He’d been overcome with curiosity as to what had happened to her that she was so happy. He wanted to know… it fueled his arsenal and gave him something to repeat. Anything to make her smile like that again.

But after he had very covertly dug around all day long, it had been to find that nothing had actually happened to her. It turned out that one of her friends had gotten into Stanford. She’d been happy for him. She was always happy for others.

Just like she was now.

Of course in this instance, Daniel knew there was more to it than that. He shook his head again and ran his hand through his blue black hair. He knew what was going through her head, and it looked an awful lot like expensive baby shower invitations, pink and blue stuffed animals, tiny hooded onesies, and ultra soft baby blankets. He was going to have to ask the mayor for a raise.

“And that’s not all,” Dannai was saying. Daniel realized that he’d spaced out and missed the last portion of their exchange. He straightened and moved closer to Lily in order to wrap his arm around her waist. Instant warmth washed over him, a reliable comfort that he would never take for granted.

“What?” Lily asked, her golden eyes as round as golf balls. “What!” On her end, Dannai paused, dragging out the suspense. And then she said, “We eloped last week. We’re married.” ***** Malcolm clicked the “end” button on his phone and turned to face his mate. Charlie’s blue eyes sparkled with a mixture of happiness, surprise, and mischievous anticipation.

“I can’t believe they’re married,” she breathed. And then she clapped her hands together before her and shouted, “I can’t believe they’re having twins!”

“You’re going to throw the lucky bugger a king’s party, aren’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, but Charlie nodded emphatically anyway.

It had been Caige on the phone. He and Danny were having twins. Charlie’s reaction to the news had been just as Malcolm had suspected it would be. She was ecstatic, and for many reasons. Not only was it exceedingly good news and certainly cause to celebrate – it also took the pressure off of Charlie, so to speak.

Werewolves were a dying breed. No one knew the exact numbers; they hadn’t been counted in some time as far as Malcolm knew. However, fewer and fewer answered when the council and the coven of witches who helped the council called. Hunters were spreading at the rate of an epidemic disease, and with each passing moon came the deaths of more and more loved ones.

It had been decided years ago that the only way for the werewolf community to survive this attempted genocide was to locate every dormant it could and reproduce. It sounded crude and old world. But that was what it meant to fight for your life. That was survival to a tee.

Charlie, otherwise known as Claire St. James, had been a very special and powerful dormant. Not only had she carried the dormant gene – she’d been a female-born werewolf. Until she’d come along, such a thing was not known to be possible. The possible implications of her existence were staggering, not in their number, but in the scope of their power. If she could reproduce, would she create offspring who were also female born werewolves and dormants? Or something better? Could she be the beginning of a change for the werewolf community?

These questions went unvoiced by both the council and Charlie’s friends. They loved Charlie very much, and they knew how much she’d been through. Charlie had been kidnapped, tortured, turned into a made wolf, and then turned back into a dormant through the use of black magic. Alexander Kavanagh had been the only family she had left in the world, and he’d died in order to protect her only three months ago.

When the dust settled after the fight with Phelan and the warlocks months ago, Malcolm had been faced with a dilemma. Charlie was far too vulnerable as a dormant; the sooner she made the transition to wolf, the better for them all. But at the same time, the act was a violent one by nature – there was biting involved. And no alpha wolf worth his salt was able to overcome the strength of the animal within himself once he’d tasted his mate’s blood. Malcolm wasn’t sure how much more “dominant male” Charlie could take after her ordeal at the hands of Gabriel Phelan and his minions.

During the first few days of Charlie’s forced, second dormancy, Malcolm had nearly gone mad. He was sure she was innocent, but it seemed as though everything Charlie did, she did solely to taunt him. She was more lovely, more graceful, more tempting than she had ever been, and yet Malcolm had held back, uncertain. The last thing he wanted to do with the woman he loved was scare her or hurt her.

He’d broken a door knob and a cast iron frying pan in his frustration.

It wasn’t until the fourth day alone with her in their cabin that he realized Charlie had been doing it all on purpose. And only then did he realize it because she actually came out of the master bathroom wearing a Little Red Riding Hood costume that left little to the imagination.

Malcolm had been floored. Charlie had grinned and leaned seductively against the doorframe.

And two hours later, she was a made wolf once more.

Charlie was a very strong woman – but even the strongest chains had a weak link somewhere. No one in her circle of friends wanted to inadvertently find hers.

So, they made sure to keep the pressure of children off of her and allow her to bide her time. If she someday decided she wanted to become a mother, Malcolm was in for the long haul and they would face parenthood together and with open arms. If not, then they would still face the future together, and Malcolm knew damn well he was incredibly fortunate just to have Charlie.

“It’s a good thing you make a disgustingly large amount of money,” Charlie teased him now, her ice blue eyes shimmering like an arctic sea. “Because I’m sure that the world’s first post-wedding bachelorette-slash-twin-baby shower is going to cost a pretty penny.” With that, she spun and raced up the wooden stairs to the second floor of the log cabin. Malcolm watched her go, marveling as ever at the way her shapely, long legs ate up the distance.

From what he’d heard, Lucas Caige had a cabin somewhat similar to this one. It must have been something about werewolves that made them more inclined to surround themselves with felled trees than with steel beams.

Malcolm turned away from the stairs and faced the floor to ceiling windows on one side of the room that looked out over the Northwest Coast beyond. It was a different sort of view than what he was used to; most of his homes were in New Mexico or Arizona. However, a lot of alphas had convened more or less along the West Coast due to its proximity to Council headquarters. Much had gone down over the last few months; the werewolf community as a whole had the urge to draw together and become closer.

Malcolm was thinking about this when the phone rang for a second time that morning. He turned from the windows, made his way to the phone, and picked it up just as Charlie’s long legs once again took the stairs at a break neck speed, this time on their way down.

“Who is it?” she asked excitedly. “Is it Lily? I knew she would call!”

Malcolm was getting excited by proxy by the time she skidded to a breathless halt beside him and steadied herself with her hands on his bicep. The touch sent an electric thrill through him.

He tried to hide his smile and placed the phone to his ear. “This is Cole.”

“Cole, this is Graves.”

Malcolm stilled and the anticipation he’d garnered over the last few minutes slipped away, as did the smile that had been gracing his lips, despite his efforts to hide it.

Beside him, Charlie picked up on the change in his mood and moved in to try and listen. He let her. There was no point in keeping anything from her. She would find out on her own anyway.

The man on the other end of the line was not one of the overseer’s assistants, as was usually the case, but the overseer himself. The overseer, Jesse Graves, was also Charlie’s guardian and a former sentinel. He’d been hand picked by the last overseer, Alexander Kavanagh – Charlie’s late grandfather.

It was lucky for all of them that Kavanagh had been smart enough to put the request in his will, or Graves never would have taken the position. Cole might have had his own issues with the man in the past, but what had transpired between Graves and Charlie was water under the bridge – for the most part. And Cole would be the first to admit that Graves was the right man for the job. As long as you didn’t call him “overseer.” Or “sir.” Jesse Graves hated formalities.

The fact that it was Graves calling him and not one of his assistants was ill-boding. Every alpha received a debriefing after the council met, and normally it was someone underneath the overseer who was sharing the information. The phone calls were standard practice these days, again, because the werewolf community was walking such a thin line and it was important for everyone to be up to date and on the same page. Fortunately, the meetings were only held when absolutely necessary. Werewolves weren’t big meeting people.

Unfortunately, what that meant was that if the overseer’s assistants were calling you, a meeting had taken place because something in the community had either gone really right – or really wrong. Jesse Graves didn’t schedule meetings for good news. He just allowed the supernatural grapevine that existed in their community to work its magic and word spread of its own accord.

It was only the bad news that made the phone ring.

Malcolm listened as the Overseer filled him in on the situation. When Graves was done, Malcolm pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Just do me a favor, Graves,” he said softly. “Wait a day to tell Caige. He should be celebrating right now.”

Chapter Ten

“Trap Line”

Nothing in the world made any sense to Kat any longer. Everything she’d thought she’d known about the universe had been turned on its ear; werewolves were not the only supernatural creatures on the planet, some sort of strange portal to another dimension existed within Muir Woods across the bridge from San Francisco – at least that was what she was going to call it because she didn’t actually know what the hell it was - and the demon she’d been trying to track and destroy for the last twenty years was gently carrying her out of the forest instead of killing her. In fact, he’d saved her life. And he claimed to have done so without the intent of torturing her for Hunter information.

His body was hard and hot against her skin. It was impossible not to notice. And he smelled good… like sandalwood and aftershave and leather. She’d had to lay her head down against him; the poison she’d ingested had done a number on her system. She was so weak, it hurt to flex the muscles in her neck.

But the moment she’d relaxed in the warm and tight embrace of his arms, she’d known that something was very, very wrong with her. She couldn’t possibly be feeling the things she was feeling about her father’s killer.

Maybe it was the poison. Maybe there was some of it left inside of her, wreaking havoc on her senses and better judgment.

Because he felt good. Really good. His arms held her firmly and confidently, and she could feel the strength behind them. If he’d wanted to, he could have twisted a man’s head off with his bare hands. But he was gentle with her; his fingers didn’t bite into her skin as she would have expected them to. Instead, she was able to nestle into the broad, thick plane of his chest like a cradled child. She felt warm there. She felt cared for. And against all reason, she felt safe.

Within a few short minutes, the darkness was still and deep and all signs of the fire and turmoil that had existed at the estate they’d left were gone. The night was absolute here; they were in the middle of what appeared to be state park property. All around them were the redwoods of Muir Woods. From what Kat could wager, the vast, burning property had been shielded by magic, its portal hidden somewhere within the park around them, and she and the wolf were now out of its range.

Here, the sky was clear, the night was cool, and the only sounds she could make out were the rare song of a cricket, the rustling of branches overhead, and the footfalls of the wolf who held her tight.

Within a few minutes, they reached a road and Katherine recognized it as a service road; it had been created for park rangers and was too narrow for a full sized vehicle’s tires. The werewolf gently set Katherine down on the curb and kept his arms around her while she tested the strength of her legs.

“I’m fine,” she said simply, desperately wanting him to let her go. His arms were too real and secure around her, and her stomach was beginning to feel squirmy.

The wolf hesitated a moment and she looked up, meeting his gaze. It was the wrong thing to do.

Storms, she thought as his eyes took on the cast of the skies over the Pacific just before a hurricane. His blue-black hair was moon-lit and its thick waves framed the angelic angles of his face to a kind of perfection that made her ache inside. She was lost in him in that moment; his beauty was arresting in the most literal sense. She was frozen before him, caught not only in his strong embrace but in the magnetism of his incredible aura.

“You sure about that?” he asked softly, the edges of his lips curling up slightly. He’d clearly caught her hesitation and was well aware of her attraction to him.

Kat felt her face heat up, and it pissed her off. He pissed her off. He had no right to be having this kind of an effect upon her. Evil should be ugly. Where the hell did it get off being tempting instead?

Kat gritted her teeth, jerked out of his embrace, and took a step away from him. She was impressed with herself. Anger was fueling her strength. “Yes,” she repeated through her teeth.

For the briefest of moments, it actually looked as though the werewolf wanted to reach out and pull her back into his arms. But the impression was quickly gone, and Katherine wondered if she’d imagined it.

“What is your name?” she asked him, wanting to know it for so many reasons.

The werewolf considered her for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he straightened and the sheer height of him seemed at once overwhelming. There were some men who were boys – and there were some men who were men. This one was a man, pure and simple.

“Byron,” he said. “Byron Caige.”

Byron, Katherine thought. Like Lord Byron. She’d had a crush on the enigmatic poet when she was in high school. Those had been difficult years for her and she’d buried herself in books to escape the reality that was life…. Until the Hunters had come along.

“Do you have any money?” Byron asked, his deep accented voice slicing through her memories and grounding her to the spot before him.

Katherine shot him a wary glance. “Why?”

“Because, for all intents and purposes, I’m an escape prisoner and have none on me. We need to get a ride into town and then a hotel once we get there.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she ground out, suddenly highly irritated by the way he obviously assumed he was in charge of the situation.

Byron’s brow raised. He looked entirely too good doing it. “Oh?” he asked softly. “You’ve already come this far with me.” Katherine’s gaze narrowed. “You gave me no choice.” “And what makes you think that’s going to change?” he asked. Katherine glared at him for several more seconds, and then, at a frustrating loss for any kind of come-back, she looked away. “This road won’t take us into town,” she told him as she turned to gaze down the small ranger path to the darkness in the distance. “It’s not really a road. It’s just used by people who work in the park.”

She turned back around to find Caige watching her with stark intensity.

“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious despite the absurdity of the idea.

Byron blinked and frowned. “Nothing,” he said. And then his eyes softened, the cold metal gray melting to liquid mercury. “You have beautiful hair, Katherine.”

Katherine’s eyes widened. He was complimenting her? She felt glued to the spot as he took a step toward her, closing the distance that she had put between them seconds before.

“It begs to be touched,” he continued softly, his expression one of honest fascination. Touched? she thought, feeling her mouth go dry. “When was the last time you let a man run his hands through it?”

Kat inhaled sharply, almost choking on the lump that lodged itself stubbornly in her throat. He reached out and she stumbled back, the heel of her boot catching on the lip of the paved road. She began to fall, but before she’d even fully digested the fact that she was falling, Byron reached out and caught her.

He moved so fast, his hand and arm literally blurred before his fingers were closing around her upper arm and he was steadying her once more on her feet. A dichotomy of emotions whizzed through her in that moment. He was so close and he’d just saved her and he smelled so good. He was uncommonly tall and handsome, and she was utterly and insanely stupid, but she was attracted to him.

And he was a wolf. His speed was a vicious and hard reminder, a hot knife that sliced through the butter her will had become around him.

Katherine felt reality’s blade slice along her spine and she straightened in Byron’s grip. Then, with the slow and cold deliberation of renewed hatred, she gently pried his fingers off of her with a few of her own. “Thank you,” she said icily. “But please don’t touch me again.”

*****

Byron watched the change come over her and knew right away that the night was only going to get longer, not easier. She was still wrapped in the inkiness of twenty years of pent-up sadness, confusion and wrath. He’d been a fool to believe he could dispel it in less than an hour.

He lowered his hand and considered their next course of action. “Since you obviously know your way through these woods, I suggest you lead. I’ll follow,” he told her. “Take us to the main road and I’ll thumb down a ride.”

Katherine looked at him incredulously. “You want me to hike two miles through the woods with you staring at my butt and then let you take me on some hitchhiking trip to God only knows where?” She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “And then what?”

“And then we use your money to get a hotel room and rest for the night.”

Katherine’s eyes widened and it looked as though she would have laughed if she’d had the extra energy. “Is that so! You want me to pay for a room that we will share? Me and you? A Hunter and the wolf who killed her father?”

“I didn’t kill your father, Katherine. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. And yes,” he said, trying his best to keep what little patience remained within his tall frame, “I expect you to use the money the Hunter organization no doubt gave you to buy us a room for the night so that we can regain our strength and – yes – we will be together in that room. You,” he said slowly and pointedly, “and me.”

“You’re out of your fucking mind.”

Byron’s brow raised. This one really had some fire in her. He liked it. “I didn’t realize that ladies said such things,” he taunted.

“I never claimed to be a lady,” she retorted quickly.

“Then at least I know you’re not a killer and a liar,” he shot back.

“No, that would be you.”

Byron stilled. He had to admit that she’d gained the upper hand on that one. She had a very quick mind. She believed in a terrible fallacy and it was going to cause them both a lot of trouble, but he had to admire how rapidly her brain worked. He’d always liked smart women. In the sixties, before he’d been taken, it hadn’t exactly been in fashion for women to reveal how very much they actually, but he’d admired any woman brave enough to do so nonetheless.

He wondered suddenly how much had changed since his “incarceration.” The last time he’d escaped, he’d been subjected to the change in transportation and mode of dress. Women had gone from wearing poodle skirts and bobby socks to draping themselves in grungy looking army pants, combat boots or scuffed sneakers, and open plaid shirts over white tees. Their hair had taken a more natural turn; no longer hair sprayed into tall designs, it was left loose over the shoulders.

He’d only had a few hours of freedom, but he’d taken in as much as possible. The cars, the trucks, the overall growth across San Francisco that Byron guessed reflected a growth around the world overall. He wondered how things were looking in Brisbane, where he’d grown up.

“Let’s get going,” he told her, gesturing pointedly toward the road behind her. “I don’t know whether you had anything to do with the chaos at Lord Wraythe’s mansion, but his daughter is dead and his estate is destroyed and I can promise you it won’t be long before he goes looking for revenge. So the sooner we put distance between ourselves and him, the better.”

Katherine watched him warily for a moment and he wondered again what she was thinking. For a second, she seemed to be a little confused. And he had to wonder just how much a part she’d played in the maelstrom of death that had resulted in his escape. She may have been a Hunter, but she was only one, and she was human.

Now that he considered it, there was no way she’d acted alone.

“Fine, but you walk where I can see you,” she told him. She sounded sulky when she said it, as if she knew how useless a request it was. Not only could he have done anything he wanted to her, whether she could see him do it or not, she knew damn well that if he’d wanted to harm her, he wouldn’t have saved her life in the first place.

“I’ve got no problem with that,” he said.

They started off down the paved path and the night and its silence closed in around them.

Chapter Eleven

“Holed-Up”

Byron glanced over his shoulder at the bed against the wall. Katherine looked back at him. She’d resolved to sit stiffly on one side of the plush covered mattress and had at once assigned him to the couch bed in the adjoining suite’s “living room.” There was no way he was going to sleep on it. For one thing, it was too short for him. For another thing… well, anyway, he wasn’t sleeping on the couch.

In fact he doubted he would be doing much sleeping anywhere that night.

Hunter money was apparently not in short supply. It had been a long time since Byron had stayed in a hotel room at all, and certainly he’d never dished out for something as posh as this. The suite had two separate large rooms and a bathroom the size of his first flat. An enormous solid oak armoire sat in the middle of the master bedroom in front of the bed. Byron hadn’t opened it yet to see what something so large could possibly be stocked with, but if it was anything like the bathroom, which came with plush robes, complimentary toiletries and what looked like a hair dryer from a Superman comic book, then it was bound to be impressive.

They didn’t strictly need to stay in a hotel so high-end, but Katherine had insisted on a place that would come with two rooms or, at the very least, two separate sleeping spaces. She’d known exactly where to go, and for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend, she’d decided not to cause any scenes along the way.

When they’d come to the front desk of the marble-floored hotel lobby and the concierge had asked for payment, Katherine had taken out a small shimmering silver card made of plastic. When he’d bent to whisper in her ear and ask her what it was, he hadn’t missed her responding shiver. She couldn’t hide it from him, and he wasn’t surprised. He had an effect on her; she wouldn’t outwardly admit it, but it was most certainly there. She was a dormant and he was an alpha. There couldn’t be anything more natural than her sexual reaction to his nearness.

But her next reaction was one that had surprised him. She’d turned toward him and asked, “You mean the credit card?”

Apparently, money wasn’t real any longer. Now people carried “credit cards” around with them and those cards were electronically linked to some kind of nonexistent account somewhere. As a result, people racked up tons of debt. On the downside, it was probably bad for self-esteem in the long rum. On the upside, it was relatively good for the economy as long as it kept going – and most of all, it was all electronic. Which meant that if he needed to, he would be able to control it.

That was a definite improvement over the measly powers he’d possessed over the technology that existed fifty years ago.

A part of him – a very big part of him – was untrusting of how easily Katherine had gone along with the night’s plan. What was her game? Would she try to escape during the night? Try to kill him?

It wasn’t that she stood a hope in hell of succeeding at either venture, but it sure would make it that much more difficult for them to get past the hatred part of their relationship and move on to diplomatic acceptance. Which was one short step closer to being lovers.

At the moment, the lover thing seemed like a pipe dream. Katherine’s deep blue gaze followed his movements with the careful precision of a creature who knew they were in the presence of a predator and could potentially become its prey. There was absolutely no trust in that gaze. They had a long way to go.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, knowing already that she was. He’d heard her stomach growl twice since they’d arrived at the hotel.

But she refused to answer him, instead averting her gaze and staring steadfastly at the marble top of the bedside table.

“Well I am,” he said, picking up the phone on the round table at the opposite end of the large master suite. He glanced up at her again as he did so and noticed that she’d paled a bit. With an internal swear, he realized what he’d done.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, little one. I’m hungry for you all right, but I’m not a big fan of cold meat.

“I’m getting a steak,” he told her flatly. “I’m guessing you’re a salad girl.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “I want a hamburger, medium rare, and French fries.” She still wouldn’t meet his gaze. “And make sure they don’t forget the ketchup.”

Byron turned away from her so that she wouldn’t catch his grin. In truth, he could have pegged the meal to the last fry – but goading her had gotten her talking to him again. He was growing to love the fire that was so easily stoked in his mate.

Byron made the order and was placing the phone back in its receiver when Katherine spoke up behind him.

“You…” she began, but then trailed off and cleared her throat. Byron straightened and turned toward her, watching the play of emotion across her lovely face. She finally seemed to regain the will to continue. “You said something about a Lord Wraith. Who is that?”

“Lord Wraythe,” Byron supplied, “spelled W-R-A-Y-T-H-E, is a warlock.”

Katherine looked up at him. A beat of silence passed between them. And then she asked, “A what?”

“A person who uses magic – but the wrong kind,” he told her. She was quiet and still staring at him, and Byron could only assume that she was digesting the information, so he went on. “Malachi Wraythe is the king of the warlocks, the most powerful warlock on the planet. His daughter was the vampire princess and when you infiltrated Wraythe’s property, the princess was killed.”

“I didn’t kill any women,” Katherine quickly insisted. And then she straightened and cocked her head to one side. “Wait, did you say ‘vampire’?”

“Yes,” he said, moving to the large reclining chair beside the table to sit down. When he was comfortable, he draped his arms over the back of the seat and went on. “Vampires are the offspring of warlocks and Akyri. They are the most elusive of the supernatural creatures on Earth and few know they exist. I happen to be one of those few. Now you do too.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Katherine said suddenly. Byron had to admit that she looked a little green. This was a lot of information for a person to take in in one night, and she’d been through a lot over the last few hours, but Hunters were trained to numb themselves up over what they saw and were forced to do. He was a touch surprised by her physical reaction. Maybe it was a combination of things – the poison, the magical smoke that had choked the air in the forest over Wraythe’s estate, the very fact that she was meeting the man she thought killed her father.

Slowly, she stood up and started toward the bathroom. There were three doors in the hallway. Katherine slowed and looked at them questioningly.

“Second door on the right,” he supplied softly. Katherine ran the rest of the way. ***** The clock on the bedside stand read 5:24 a.m. when Katherine put down her empty mug and once more ran a hand through her hair. She did it a lot when she was nervous, and she was pretty sure she’d pulled out a good thousand strands over the course of the night.

Her head was spinning. Physically, she felt better than she had earlier. The bout of nausea had come on suddenly, without warning. She didn’t understand it; she’d been faced with adversity before and had never been sick. But at least it had passed quickly. The thing about throwing up was that as long as you weren’t genuinely ill, you normally felt really good afterwards. She’d even been well enough to eat part of the meal that Byron ordered. Strangely enough, she’d found she hadn’t really wanted the French fries after all, but the hamburger, she’d downed in seconds flat. At least the meat part of it; the bun, she’d left behind.

It had taken the kitchen an hour and a half to fill the order, so she’d had the time she’d needed to recover from her bout of sickness anyway. Fortunately, there had been lots of complimentary mouthwash in the bathroom and she always carried an overnight supply of toothpaste and a toothbrush in her inner pocket in case she got stuck out and about. Like now. So, she’d spent the remaining time brushing her teeth repeatedly and listening to the story Byron Caige fed to her.

Now the trays that had contained their food were half empty and the cart was pushed up against one wall, out of the way. Katherine ran the palms of her hands over the legs of her jeans and took a deep breath. “Warlocks, werewolves, and vampires,” she said softly. “Oh my.”

“It’s a lot to take in,” Byron admitted. “I know.”

Kat looked up at him. The werewolf was seated on the sofa that was supposed to fold out into a bed. He hadn’t needed to use it that night; she’d kept him up with questions through the long hours. And for reasons unknown, he had decided to answer each and every one of them.

Amazingly, he looked as put together and unruffled as he had when they’d first met earlier that night. His thick black hair was effortlessly perfect. His eyes sparkled with charcoal flecks of intelligence. His teeth were white and clean and his white long-sleeved shirt was unwrinkled. He’d rolled up the sleeves and it stretched enticingly across his broad chest and revealed his sculpted forearms as he draped his arms over the back of the sofa. She could even still smell his aftershave and the leather of the jacket he’d left over the arm of a nearby chair.

According to Caige, he had been a prisoner to the warlock king’s daughter for the last fifty years, give or take a few months. To hear him tell it, said daughter had been a vampire – the Offspring of a warlock and a creature called an Akyri – and now that vampire was dead. Also according to him, twenty years ago, he’d managed to escape for all of a few hours, and that was when he’d made his way into San Francisco and then into her apartment complex.

According to Caige, it wasn’t him that killed her father, but the warlock king, Malachi Wraythe – or at least one of Wraythe’s servants. And he’d done so in order to punish Caige.

Of all reasons.

“Do you have any proof for any of this?” she asked finally, even as her mind whirled and danced. She felt as if she were filled with bad energy. It buzzed inside of her, vibrating her nerve endings and making her twitch. It was the reason behind the chamomile tea she’d just finished. It was her third cup.

“No,” Caige said. “I’m afraid right now, I don’t.”

Katherine wasn’t surprised. You can’t have proof for something that wasn’t true. Her memory of that night was clear as day. There had been two people in the lobby when she’d come running around the corner. Just two: Her father and Byron Caige. And whether all of these things he was telling her about the warlocks and witches and vampires and Akyri – whatever those were – were true or not, those very basic facts remained. Two people. One was her father; the other had been her father’s killer.

“I see,” she said coldly. “That’s what I thought.”

Caige looked both calm and starkly disappointed. Something flashed in the depth of his storm gray eyes. But it didn’t matter. She’d done her part. She’d kept him in one place through the night and used her emergency credit card so that her location could be tracked by Hunter headquarters. It would only be a little while longer before help came huffing and puffing at their hotel door.

And she would never have to look into those beautiful gray eyes again.

*****

Lucas moved much more slowly and carefully beside Danny that morning than he normally did. He didn’t want to wake her. He also didn’t want to disturb the little ones.

Lucas smiled at that thought. He rolled quietly over, propped himself up on one elbow, and gazed down at his wife and mate. The sheet hugged her body where it was draped over her, revealing the beautiful curves that he’d fallen in love with so many times over the past three months.

Her stomach was flat and smooth, her hipbones finely accentuating the slope of her long thighs. He’d nibbled on the taut flesh over that spot a few times, always tempted to bite harder – to barely pierce the skin and have a taste.

Slowly, gently, he ran his hand over the sheet and felt the warmth of her beneath it. There was more to it now. It wasn’t just her he was feeling. She was carrying precious cargo.

Lucas blinked, stilled, and almost laughed out loud. His face cracked a huge grin and he ran his free hand through his hair. He couldn’t believe it. He was going to be a dad.

On the bedside table, his phone began to vibrate. Lucas glanced at it, at once irritated by the noise it made; he didn’t want it to wake up Danny. He glanced back down at his wife and bit back a curse.

“Morning,” she said, smiling lazily up at him. Instantly, Lucas’s irritation melted away. The phone may have woken her up, but for that smile, he couldn’t fault it.

“Good morning,” he said, returning the smile. He leaned over and caged her in with an arm on either side. She grinned with sleepy mischief and then moaned softly beneath him when he claimed her lips with his own and lingered in the warm, soft kiss.

The phone on the table stopped vibrating. But three seconds later, it started up again. Two strong hands on his chest pushed at him enough to break the kiss.

“Better get that, gorgeous,” Danny told him, her voice still husky with sleep. She rolled over a bit, yawning and sliding into a cat stretch. He watched her, shot a dirty look at the phone, and then sighed.

“Caige,” he said as he pressed “Talk” and placed the phone to his ear.

A few seconds later, Lucas Caige wasn’t smiling any longer.

Chapter Twelve

“The Blind”

For a werewolf who was lying through his fangs, Kat had to admit that Byron Caige was putting on a good act. Over the course of the pre-dawn hours, he’d drilled her with questions about a world of which he claimed to be ignorant – and from the way he reacted to a lot of her answers, Kat was nearly convinced he was ignorant after all.

There was also the fact that he’d nearly had a heart attack when she opened the armoire and revealed the massive flat screen TV behind it. When she’d flipped it on for soft background noise, Byron had gazed at the moving pictures with what looked like genuine shock. “Color?” he’d asked.

“Um… yeah?” she’d replied, shaking her head.

According to his story, he’d been locked away for fifty years. So now he wanted to know a lot of things. Who was the current US president? And Australian? Was the US at war with anyone? Was Australia? Who’d won the last World Series? And on and on went the questions.

He was surprised to hear that the United States had an African American president – but he was more surprised to hear that Elvis was dead. Perhaps most shocking of all was the fact that the Rolling Stones were not dead. That one, he seemed to have a hard time wrapping his head around.

If what he was telling her was true, the last time Byron had been out and about, they’d been doing the Jitterbug in Australia. Christ, she thought, no wonder he was staring at the TV like that.

Wait… am I actually believing him now?

Kat mentally shook her head and tried to get a grip. The Hunters would be there at dawn. That was the rule. Use the card, flash on the grid, and the home team locked down the location to attack at dawn – when the wolves would most likely least expect it.

“And what of you, Katherine Dare?”

Kat blinked and looked up, meeting Byron’s gaze. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“How have you changed in the last twenty years?” Caige studied her carefully, removed his arms from the back of the chair he sat in, and then leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. He gave her a hard look that made her feel like a bug under a microscope. “Any hobbies?” he asked softly. “Dreams?” He paused, and then, in a tone slightly lower, he asked, “Or have you been studying up on ways to kill the big bad wolf all this time?”

Kat swallowed hard and tried to look away, but found herself trapped this time. The pull of his gaze was incredible. “I didn’t kill your father, Katherine.” “So you’ve said. Repeatedly.” “Why won’t you believe me?” he asked her, his tone gentle and – could it truly be? – hurt.

“Have you any idea what I went through after that night?” she asked.

Byron was quiet for a moment and Katherine could have sworn he was actually considering not only her words, but the pain behind them.

“I have an idea.” “No you don’t. You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone who means as much to you as my father meant to me.” “I do,” he told her flatly. “It happened to me twice.” Katherine stilled beneath the weight of those words. She hadn’t been expecting them. It was either a genuine confession, in which case he was opening up to her for no discernible reason – or it was yet another lie, told to further his charade as the man who hadn’t kill her father.

Either way, there was nothing she could say.

“One is a long story,” he said softly. His tone had lowered and his gaze dropped to stare at something somewhere in the vicinity of the floor. “The other is my brother, Lucas. When I was taken, I was separated from him. I was told by the warlock king and his daughter that Lucas was under the impression I was dead.” He paused and cleared his throat and Katherine could tell that it had become thick. With unshed tears? She didn’t even want to guess. “For fifty years, he’s believed that,” he said.

Again, Kat didn’t know what to say. His words were spinning through her head. In the twenty years since she’d first looked into the eyes of the man she was certain had killed her father, she had never once considered he might have a family of his own. That he would be a son – or a brother. Such a thing was possible, of course, and anyone who had ever taken a life had themselves been given life at one point. Everyone had a mom. Everyone had once been a child.

But she’d never thought of him like that. She’d always just thought of him as… a demon. What did that say about her? About the path she’d gone down for the last two decades?

To say the least, it gave her pause. “What’s the other one?” she asked before she fully realized what she was saying. “What’s the long story?” Byron looked up, his expression searching, his eyes uncertain. “It happened a long time ago,” he said. “Everything happened a long time ago for you,” she replied. “If what you say is true, anyway.” At that, Byron’s lip twitched as if a part of him wanted to smile. She wondered what he was thinking in that moment. But then the moment passed and the semi-smile was gone and the werewolf was once more looking away and focusing on something that was either the unraveling of a new lie in his head – or a very distant memory.

“In the fifties, I rode with a gang of eight men. We made our way up the Gold Coast, always hanging right, near the water.” He ran a hand through his hair and it reminded her of the way she always did so when she was nervous. “We always minded our own business.”

Katherine noticed that his accent had deepened and his expression had become unreadable. She watched the clouds swirl in his eyes as he went on. “Three of us were wolves; five were human,” he said. “We were camped at the base of Mount Beerwah one Autumn. That night, the other two wolves and I came back from a hunt –” Here he broke off and glanced up at Katherine.

She felt her face heat. But even as it did, her stomach grew cold. There was a growing sense of unease unfurling within her. It unraveled to greater lengths the longer she remained in Byron’s company.

Caige looked away again, took a deep breath, and ran the palms of his hands along his jeans. “When we did, it was to find three of the men dead. A rival gang had tracked us down, destroyed our bikes, and slit two throats before the others managed to wake up to defend themselves.”

He paused, but this time it wasn’t for her benefit. He seemed truly lost in what he was saying. Lost in the memory.

And Katherine couldn’t help but wonder whether it was actually real.

“My closest friend was a human. His name was Danson. He and his brother Mike had been riding with us for seven years. Mike was killed that night. Danson spent the next three years tracking down the men who’d done it.”

It wasn’t until Caige had stopped talking and silence filled the room that Kat realized she’d been holding her breath. Her body was a rod of tightness, her shoulders ached, and her teeth were beginning to throb where she had them clenched tightly together. She was literally on the edge of her seat. It was like she knew what was coming.

She knew.

“One morning, Danson found the men sleeping on the beach. His brother had been killed in cold blood. He could have done the same in revenge. But Danson was a man of honor. He called them out and there was a fight.”

*****

Byron’s vision blurred; the intricate pattern of the hotel room’s carpet disappeared to be replaced by the scene that was his memory from that night.

There was no wind, which was strange for the Coast. The nearby bonfire crackled on as if it had not witnessed the violence it had shed light on. Three motorcycles lay forgotten in the sand and two men lay dead. The third rested in Byron’s arms, his stark blue eyes piercing Caige’s heart.

“Why?” Byron asked. His voice was choked; his chest ached. “God damn it, Dan. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.” Danson had been obsessed with finding his brother’s killer. He’d thought of nothing else for years. He’d lost weight. He had once been the jokester of the group, easy going and laid back. But he hadn’t cracked a single smile since that night.

And now that he’d finally achieved what he thought he’d wanted all along – he was a dying man.

“It is what it is, bro,” Danson whispered. “It’s all or nothing. Always has been.” He coughed and blood pooled in his mouth. Byron tilted his head, allowing the precious liquid to spill to the sand beneath them. When he was finished, Danson turned back to him and his eyes clouded. “All or nothing, Weather Man. You gotta let me go.”

Weather Man. It was what Danson had called him because of the storms he’d claimed were always brewing in Byron’s eyes.

Byron finished talking and let the new and pregnant silence fill the cold air of the hotel room. When he found the strength to look back up at the woman who wanted to kill him and whom he knew was his mate, it was to find her staring at the floor.

“Revenge never ends well,” he told her softly. “Its fruition is a curse wrapped in the guise of a gift. The box is always empty.”

“What’s it to you?” she asked softly. Her voice sounded as choked as his had a moment before. He knew she was referring to her own need for vengeance. She hadn’t missed the double meaning. Again, she was a smart girl.

“Right now, it’s everything to me,” he said.

“Why?”

He waited a good half minute before responding this time. What he was about to tell her was very important. Finally, she looked up and met his gaze. He held her there and peered into her soul.

“Because you’re a dormant, Katherine. And I’m fairly sure you’re mine.”

Katherine stared at him in silence for a short eternity. So many different emotions flashed across her eyes, it was like watching a kaleidoscope turn. Her mouth opened, and then it shut again. Then it opened again. And shut. Her indigo gaze darkened to deep violet and then to a near black.

Finally, very slowly, she stood up and moved to the windows where the blinds and thick curtains kept the first rays of dawn at bay. She remained quiet as she pulled the draperies open and then slowly spun the long hexagonally shaped rod that controlled the blinds.

A shaft of weak light entered the room, stabbing at his eyes. He blinked and turned away a little. He was tired, he guessed.

But she wouldn’t answer him. He’d told her what was probably the single most vital thing anyone would ever tell her, and she was rewarding him with the silent treatment.

Suddenly feeling both exhausted and antsy, he stood and ran his hand through his hair. He’d been watching Katherine perform the nervous habit all night; maybe it was contagious. He moved to the oak armoire against one wall and opened it, once more marveling at the massive television screen hidden within. “I’m going to make some inferences,” he said, not looking at her as he spoke, “and you can stop me if I’m wrong.”

Still, she didn’t speak, so he went on.

“I’m guessing you dream a lot. And in those dreams, you see a wolf.”

He glanced at her, but her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her face. He wondered what she was thinking. “I’m also guessing that the biggest, fastest and strongest men you meet always fall for you.”

It was normal for the alphas of several races to be attracted to a dormant. It wasn’t just wolves who knew the perfect mate when they saw one. Katherine Dare was a catch even by human standards. By werewolf standards, she was irreplaceable. He was betting that the Huntress had been approached by a good many hopeful males in her life.

But it was the Hunter in her that he was assuming had been affected the most by the very special gene that gave her blood that very special scent. “And most of all, I’m guessing that not a single werewolf you’ve ever killed laid a hand on you.”

“They never had the chance,” she shot back immediately.

Byron’s ears pricked. He caught the wary tremble in the back of her voice. She was listening to him. And what he was saying terrified her. “Oh?” he asked softly, treading with more care now that he knew there was a chance the truth might just get through to her. “You move faster than a wolf then?” he asked. “That’s very impressive.”

“I don’t,” she said, turning to face him. There were daggers in her dark blue eyes, but her cheeks were flushed with trepidation and a thin sheen of moisture had broken out along her brow. “But my bullets do.”

Byron noticed that she was also trembling. Anger could make a person shake, but this was something more. He took all of this in, studying her with a growing sense of trepidation. The sun was still stabbing at his brain through his eyes, making concentration more difficult.

He was about to ask her to close the blinds when he suddenly scented it and froze. It was the smell of cooking meat. But it was coming from within the room.

In fact… it was coming from the windows.

Byron straightened and his gaze sharpened, along with his other senses. That was when he caught the rapid flurry of Katherine’s beating heart and the shaky, pain-filled sound of her soft breathing.

She was in pain.

Byron scanned her form, stopping when he got to her hand where her long tapered fingers still held the rod that opened and closed the blinds. They were red.

Burned red.

“Fuck,” he said, rushing forward with blinding speed. In a surreal split second, he realized what was happening. It hit him all at once, a domino-effect of information that rattled him to the core. He was jerking Katherine away from the windows and pulling the curtains shut just as the door to the hotel room came crashing open behind them.

Byron spun around, but not before several Hunter guns were discharged. He knew what he would be feeling just short milli-moments before he felt it. The bullets split his skin and muscle and, once they were settled deep inside, they released their insidious poison.

He had seconds to act. Maybe less. With his last remaining consciousness, Byron fell to his knees and looked up at Katherine Dare, who was staring at both him and her hand with wide eyes. There was a dawning comprehension in those eyes.

Good, he thought. It would reinforce the incredible importance and truth of what he was about to tell her.

“The blood I gave you is tainted,” he told her, his voice already weakening. The poison worked exponentially fast. “Vampire… blood,” he whispered. “Stay… out… of….” He fell forward, barely succeeding in catching himself. His eyes closed, but he managed two final words. “The sun.”

Chapter Thirteen

“Boy’s Club”

Kat’s world was tipping on its axis. She was sliding off of it; it was a strange sensation. She wanted to hold on, grab anything near her, as reality took the Earth and turned it upside down.

Hard truths were almost never gradual; they were sudden and stark and painful, and that was how it felt as Katherine felt the sun sear her hand and replayed Byron’s words in her head. It all made horrible, horrible sense now.

The way she’d had to fight off dumb-fuck jocks since she was a teenager. The way she’d been dreaming of a wolf with black fur and gun metal eyes. Even what Byron had said about the wolves she killed was true. None of them had ever harmed her.

Yes, she’d been fast. But she’d been fooling herself by thinking that she’d simply always won the upper hand. No. Wolves were mad-fast and brutally efficient and if one wanted you dead, your chances of surviving were on the low end of the scale. And yet, here she was, very much alive and breathing.

She’d even tried to kill herself and a wolf – the very same wolf she’d been trying to kill only moments before – had saved her life.

These realizations had raced through Katherine’s mind as she’d opened the blinds at the window. She was so numb with the exceedingly cruel possibility of what he was suggesting – that she might be a dormant – and the chance that it might be true, that it took a while for her to feel the discomfort in her hand.

It wasn’t until Byron had pulled her away from the window that she’d realized it was burning. Badly.

She had been shaking from the pain and hadn’t even known it.

And now she stared down at the thick, blistered, red line that ran across the knuckles of her right hand and thought about Byron’s vampire princess. He’d told her that she had given him blood for the last fifty years to keep him young. Werewolves aged slowly anyway, but vampire blood… if there was such a thing…

There is, she thought as she looked up in time to see several male Hunters cuff Byron’s wrists behind his back. There was a resolute surrender in the tone of her inner voice. It was surrender because she knew then – in that moment – that everything Byron had told her was true.

Byron had been a prisoner for the last five decades. He’d tried to escape twenty years ago only to be taken again. And it wasn’t Byron who had killed her father.

Byron had given Kat his blood to save her life. It had only been a small amount, but apparently it had been enough. His blood was tainted – he’d said so himself. It was tainted because it now carried vampire DNA. It was probably the reason for her short bout with stomach sickness several hours earlier.

Byron Caige wasn’t just a werewolf any longer.

And she was no longer just a dormant.

With a nearly audible click, everything inside of Katherine slid down and locked into place. She straightened, looked her “saviors” in the eyes, and steadied her nerves. “Cover him,” she ordered. “Make sure no sunlight touches him.”

She had seniority in this situation. Kat had nearly been the Hunters’ next leader. She had command of the situation, and if anyone in the room questioned that command, so help her God, she was going to kill them.

The Hunters eyed her for a moment, their faces filled with just enough indecision that she could tell they were wondering whether to question her authority. But apparently they decided against it. It may have been wartime for the Hunters, but in broad daylight and while surrounded by their comrades, they weren’t going to buck the system. Not yet, anyway.

One of the Hunters nodded and pulled the comforter off of the master suite bed beside them. He quickly draped the blanket over Byron’s unconscious form and then commanded his companions to help him secure it.

“Take him to the electric company,” she instructed. There was a three-story building in San Francisco, near the wharves, that had no windows. It was officially an electric and gas company. However, anyone traversing its outer walls for what was hidden inside and underneath would be treated to the truth. The “electric company” was the code name for Frisco’s Hunter headquarters.

She didn’t know what else to do. Now that she was staring down at his sleeping form and the truth was sitting like a lump of coal in her gut, she wished she had never called in the troops. If she didn’t maintain absolute control over the situation, they would kill Byron. Or worse – they would hurt him a whole hell of a lot and then kill him.

She couldn’t chance any of the others noticing her change of heart. She couldn’t ask them to leave now that they’d done their part. It would never work. Ordering his transport to headquarters would at least cement her position in their eyes. Once they were there and they were alone, she would figure out what to do next.

In the meantime, she had another pressing matter to deal with. The sun wouldn’t only harm Byron when it struck; it would rip into her as well now. Kat’s throat felt dry as she thought of this. Her head began to throb. She couldn’t fathom not being able to go out in the sunlight – but the wicked, smarting line across her hand was testament to that. She didn’t know whether the damage was permanent or whether the effects of the sun in this manner would fade as Byron’s donated blood cycled through and out of her system.

But at the moment, if she went outside without substantial protection, she was going to make the neighborhood dogs howl for barbeque.

With that in mind, Kat headed for the bathroom and its complimentary robes. She was going to look like a crazy person and her fellow Hunters would no doubt question her actions, but it would be better than leaving a steaming cloud of bacon smell behind her.

*****

Malachi Wraythe was not like other warlocks. His was a dark magic borne of a powerful secret. That secret had seen him to the position of warlock king centuries ago, and now it would obtain for him the otherwise unobtainable.

His daughter had been killed, her body decapitated and burned beyond recognition. There was no salvaging what he had lost in her; her murderer had known what they were doing and no magic in the world would return the life to her veins. His angel was gone.

His wife had been abducted, stolen from the chambers of her gold-gilded prison while he and his men fought the seemingly endless barrage of magic and might that had taken down his empire. Where she was and who she was with remained a mystery; her being was shrouded in someone else’s heavy cloak of legerdemain. He couldn’t get through it. She was gone.

There was little left for Wraythe. There was no recourse remaining but revenge. And so, as it was all he had, it was what he wanted more than anything in the world.

“You claim to have something of value to us, Lord Wraythe.”

Malachi looked up, pulled once more from the swirling vortex of his dark thoughts. The vampire king sat at the opposite end of the table, his impenetrable gaze at once sending inescapable chills across Malachi’s skin. “I do,” Wraythe managed.

“I’m listening,” the vampire king said. He was a vessel of calm – as if he possessed no lungs with which to breathe and no heartbeat within his chest. However, vampire lore was mistaken in this assumption. Vampires very much lived and breathed, and their warm, beating hearts could even break.

The vampire king was king through the acquisition and display of immense power. It was how every sovereign of every supernatural race came about his or her position; the royal titles were almost always “up for grabs” and spurned endless competition. The Akyri queen, Olivia – his stolen wife – for instance, was queen because she was the sister of the Akyri king, a lecherous young man with four wives and an unquenchable appetite for both black magic and dangerous sex.

The vampire princess, Malachi’s daughter, had borne no relation whatsoever to the vampire king. She’d simply been the very powerful daughter of the warlock king and the Akyri queen, which had promised her an influence other female vampires lacked.

Now that she was dead, another female vampire would no doubt attempt to claim the position, and a battle of undead proportions would be waged within the vampire race. But Malachi could not have cared less. All that had ever mattered to him as far as vampires were concerned had been destroyed.

All, that was – but this.

“I can give you the wolves on a silver platter,” Malachi said. His voice was weighted with mourning, soft and hoarse and devoid of depth. “The secrets of their waning existence,” he went on. “And all you would need to reverse their demise.”

The vampire king simply watched him, and the silence in the room grew to epic proportions, deafening him with its crackling, unspoken words. Finally, the sovereign of the “undead” leaned forward, laced his graceful hands on the polished wood of the table top, and said, “The wolves are all but extinct, warlock. Their females lost the ability to produce werewolf children so long ago, none of them can even recall the event. The Hunters have whittled their already dwindling numbers to a hopeless state.” He paused, allowing the weight of his words to settle upon Malachi’s shoulders. “What use are they to me now that they are nearly all dead?”

Malachi didn’t miss a beat. He was too tired for drama. He had the truth and he was willing to sell it – for a price. “The females of the werewolf race lost their ability to bear werewolf children more than four and a half thousand years ago,” he told the vampire king. “I know because it was my ancestor who took that power. The magic obtained through the act has been handed down through the generations, and now it is mine.”

He’d expected some kind of reaction. He wasn’t certain what passed for vampire surprise, but at the very least, a raised brow would have sufficed. However, the king merely sat there at the head of the polished table and looked through Malachi as if the warlock were not even there.

Which was what he wanted.

“I suspected as much,” said the king slowly.

Now it was Malachi’s turn to be surprised. For nearly a hundred years he had ruled the warlock race. He was not a young man; magic and his daughter’s donated blood had given him the appearance of a man in the prime of his life. Vivid hazel eyes and a strong build belied the fact that he had more than a hundred years under his belt. But in the presence of the vampire king, he was finding that he felt like a child.

“And I suspect that now you are offering the reversal of this curse,” the king went on, “at the cost of your own life.”

Malachi was shocked to find that he felt no fear as the words were said out loud. A numbness had set in, he supposed. It was a blessing; the loss of his Offspring was a chasm within him that he floated above in an emotional limbo. “Yes,” he said.

“And what is it that you want in return, Lord Wraythe?” the king asked.

“I give you the rebirth of the werewolf nation and the continued existence of thousands upon thousands of wolfen kind,” Malachi replied. “In exchange for the promised death of one.”

*****

It wasn’t until Seth was able to sense the absence of the warlock king’s presence anywhere on the vampire king’s estate grounds that he felt it was safe enough to step out of the shielded, warded space in which he had been secluded.

When he did, the vampire king turned to him and waited.

“You were right,” Seth said. “About everything.”

The king said nothing to that; he glanced up at Seth and then turned away to walk slowly toward the tall windows along one wall of the office. They overlooked a night garden beyond, its landscape filled with hundreds of white blooms. A fountain stood at the center of the garden, its centerpiece a carved beautiful woman with waist-length hair and sad eyes. She was looking up toward the night sky as if hopelessly searching for something that had disappeared long ago.

The king stared at the sculpture, his piercing gaze resting upon the rivulets of water that trickled over its alabaster curves. Seth watched him in silence, wondering for the millionth time what his sovereign was thinking.

“It appears you will have what you wish,” the king finally said. He didn’t look away from the garden and he spoke softly. “The warlock king will soon be no more. Olivia will be safe.”

Seth thought about this. Wraythe’s daughter had been killed in the escape, but Seth hadn’t done it. He’d been too busy getting Olivia out of the mansion. And he knew that Olivia’s father hadn’t done it either; Seth had had a chance to speak with the ancient Akyri since Olivia’s escape.

“Did Byron Caige kill Wraythe’s daughter?” he asked softly, simply wanting to know.

“No,” said the vampire king.

Then who did? wondered Seth.

It was a question in the back of his mind, but at the forefront his thoughts was Byron Caige. While it was true that Malachi Wraythe had agreed to give up his power and, hence, his life, in order to fulfill the reverse of the ancient curse that had changed the course of werewolf history, it came at a price that felt disturbingly uncomfortable to Seth. The werewolf would have to die.

The vampire king suddenly turned from the windows and his ancient gaze settled upon Seth, freezing him to the spot upon which he stood.

“Werewolf blood suits you, Seth,” he said as the corners of his mouth turned up in a smile.

Seth blinked. His pulse sped up, which the king no doubt caught, and Seth at once felt like an insect pinned to a dissection tray. He was wide open. Everyone was when it came to the king, whether they wanted to be or not. Seth knew what was coming; the king could read everything about everyone like a book.

“It’s given you a conscience,” the king continued. He moved away from the windows and headed toward the door to the office. As he passed Seth, he said, “Do not ignore it.”

Chapter Fourteen

“The Canned Hunt”

Katherine ran her hand through her hair for the five thousandth time that morning and took a deep, rather shaky breath. She cut her gaze to the still sleeping figure of the massive, gorgeous werewolf chained to the wall on one side of the cell and then stood up, ran her hands over her jeans and began pacing the length of the small room. He’d been asleep for two hours. The drugs they’d unloaded into his system were very strong; she knew that. But the truth was, she’d never waited around to see how long they would last. She’d always finished off her opponent and moved on.

Opponent? she thought as she again glanced at Byron’s unconscious form. No. They weren’t her opponents. They were her victims.

She knew that now.

“God, what have I done,” she whispered frantically, running her hands over her face. Behind her closed lids, she saw her father’s body and remembered the hell she’d suffered at the sight – at the loss. And then she thought of the family members of the wolves she’d killed, and her gut clenched. A wave of blackness washed over her, dark and cold and wrong.

Katherine fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around herself. She was rocking back and forth when a deep, gravelly voice cut through the swirling sludge of her maddening guilt.

“It’s not that I wouldn’t like to see you on your knees, Kat,” he said. “But you’ll bruise that way.”

Katherine whirled around and wiped at the tears that had found themselves on her cheeks. Byron’s eyes were closed again, but he’d obviously had them open a second ago. He moved slowly against the wall, turning his head to the side and pulling his legs up. The drug was still heavy in his system, which was clear enough by the fact that he’d called her “Kat.”

Katherine got to her feet and made her way over to him to kneel once more. “Byron?” she asked, taking his chin in her hand and turning his head so that he faced her. His eyes opened to stark platinum gray slits; they were glowing.

“You’re all wolf on me now, aren’t you?” she whispered, not really asking the question so much as making the observation.

“All the better to smell and see and eat you with, my dear,” he said softly. As he spoke, she caught the tips of fangs behind his perfect lips. And then he closed his eyes and slumped once more.

“Shit,” Kat hissed. “Byron, you gotta wake up. We’re in serious trouble here.”

As she’d suspected, the Hunters who took Byron were more than curious about why he had to be covered – and why she did as well. Things had gone down hill once they’d arrived at headquarters and Sanchez had taken over.

Manuel Sanchez was one of the organization’s top Hunters. The man was ruthless; his methods were unconsciously sped along by the personal conviction that they were aided by God. He was a devout Catholic who firmly believed that no Christ-fearing human would be safe on the planet until every single demon was wiped from it.

That wasn’t exactly a rare stance for a Hunter to take; the organization more or less hammered such notions into their trainees heads from the beginning. But with Sanchez, it seemed more personal. And because it was, he was better at it than anyone Kat knew. The man saw things others didn’t and suspected things where there seemed to be nothing there to suspect.

Sanchez had seen right through Katherine’s lies. One minute, she was standing free and had some semblance of control over her situation – the next, she was being locked in the same cell with the werewolf she’d wanted to kill for twenty years because she’d believed he’d killed her father.

The wolf who hadn’t killed her father after all.

Byron shifted where he sat against the wall and again opened his eyes. They were still glowing hotly, molten mercury in the frame of his painfully handsome face.

I can see why the vampire princess wanted him, she thought. “Byron?” she said out loud.

“Well at least you know my name,” he mumbled. And then he was straightening and his attention was focused and she knew that he was fully awake. She sat back a little, giving him room as he tested the heavy metal manacles around his wrists. They didn’t give. The metal had been treated long ago to withstand the incredible strength of “demons” everywhere.

“I’m sorry Byron,” Kat found herself saying as he settled down and began to scan the room.

He looked at her again. A strange, sad smile touched the curve of his lips. “I bet you are,” he said. Then he glanced at the large metal door on the wall adjacent to him. “I take it things went bad and you’re a prisoner now as well.”

Katherine nodded.

“You got a key?” he asked, turning his glowing gaze on her. She had the sudden, inexplicable urge to kiss him. But she shook it off and then shook her head.

“No,” she said. “The locks are electronic. No one has a key – there’s a code you have to punch into the pad on the wall outside the cell.”

But instead of the disappointment she’d expected to see cross his features, Byron went very still and gave her a surprisingly hope-filled look. “Electronic?” he repeated.

She frowned. “That’s what I said,” she told him. “Almost everything in the headquarters is controlled by codes. And as of two hours ago, they’re codes that I’m no longer privy to.”

Byron let his head drop back against the wall behind him and started laughing.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, wondering if it was still the drug in his system making him behave so strangely.

“Nothing,” he told her, shaking off the last of his deep chuckles. “It’s just that it was about time to finally get some good news for a change.”

With that, he looked up at the manacles around his wrists and Katherine noticed a shifting in the air. It grew both hotter and colder, as if electric static were charging the atmosphere. The hairs on her arms stood on end and she felt prickly.

She backed up further, instinct taking over, and the feeling lessened a little. And then the cuffs around Byron’s wrists popped open with a snapping sound.

Kat felt her jaw drop. Slowly, she stood. “Did… did you just do that?”

Byron’s expression was pure smug satisfaction as he stood to his full impressive height and rubbed his wrists. “You say the entire facility is wired like this?” he asked.

“Y-yes, but –”

Before she could ask him why, he had turned to the massive metal door and reached out his right palm. Again, Katherine felt the shift in the air and again she stepped back, but this time it was more difficult to escape the sensation. The atmosphere was charging. She could almost hear it buzzing now, becoming thicker with pent up energy. She half expected to be struck by lightning.

And then the door clicked and there was an answering thunk somewhere deeper within the metal casings. The door popped open, the heavy metal swinging inward three or four inches before it slowed to a stop.

“Holy shit,” Katherine breathed.

“I think I’m going to like this century a hell of a lot better than the last one,” Byron said.

Katherine looked over at him. He was already making his way toward the door. She rushed to keep up, her legs feeling slightly numb and unresponsive beneath her. “Are you telling me you can control electricity?” she asked. “Technology? That kind of thing?” She’d been taught that some werewolves possessed powers above and beyond the normal supernatural strength and speed associated with their kind. Byron Caige seemed to be one of the lucky few whose “power” was not only incredibly impressive – but highly valuable.

“I’m not telling you anything,” he said as he stuck his head out into the hall and then pulled quickly back inside again. “There’s no one outside,” he said, turning to face her. “What does that mean?”

“It means there are cameras there instead and the people are probably on their way.”

“Cameras?”

“Oh, right,” she said, recalling that he’d been holed up for the last fifty years. “I forgot.” There was no time to catch him up on the plethora of technological advancements made since his incarceration, so she just waved it away and instead slipped back into Hunter mode. It helped her maintain her calm.

“They’re monitoring the room – again, electronically,” she said. “They no doubt saw the door open. Either that, or a silent alarm went off when you jacked with the system. Which means they’re on their way.”

“Then stand back,” he told her. “And wait for my signal.”

Katherine’s training kicked in once more and instead of asking him why, she simply took several large steps away from him. Byron nodded, closed his glowing eyes – and the room went dark.

A very non-silent alarm went off out in the hall, nearly deafening Katherine. Instinctively, her arms came up and her hands felt along the wall for the sake of grounding location.

Within short seconds, Kat could hear the sound of metal banging open, orders shouted, and the staccato barrage of automatic weaponry. She slid down along the wall until she was in a safer, crouched position, and fought the urge to cover her ears. If she couldn’t hear, she wouldn’t catch Byron’s “signal.” Whatever that was.

Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder and Katherine reacted. She jumped to her feet, her fist came up, her body turned, and she went into fight mode.

Fortunately, the werewolf she was attempting to attack had obviously been expecting the reaction because he caught her wrist, spun her around, yanked her roughly off balance, and pulled her hard against his chest.

A warm thrill instantly went through Katherine. It was immediately calming. The darkness seemed to recede, the danger became distant, and she had the sensation that she would never feel cold again. She stilled in Byron’s arms, her breathing shaky, her ears aching from the sound of the alarm. She sensed him lean over behind her and then felt his hot breath at her ear.

“Take my hand and follow me as quickly as you can,” he told her.

She felt him release her and take her hand to hold it tight. She squeezed back, her body working now on pure adrenaline and instinct.

The bulk of his body moved away from her then, but he didn’t run as she’d expected him to. Instead he paused and a second later, the alarm stopped sounding. The relief was instant; the ache in Katherine’s ear drums ebbed and the air became hollow with renewed quiet.

And Byron was off, pulling her at a breakneck speed along with him.

Chapter Fifteen

“The Drive”

Lily didn’t normally get visions in the middle of the day. They woke her up at night, colored her dreams, and dictated the hours between midnight and six a.m.

For the most part.

However, every once in a while, when the situation was dire enough, a vision interrupted her daylight hours and she was thrust into the arms of danger with little to no warning. Because this could happen while she was driving, her husband Daniel, who also happened to be the chief of police of Baton Rouge, had forbidden her from riding the motorcycle anywhere. Well – he’d asked her nicely not to anyway.

And she’d agreed. It wasn’t smart.

The problem was it also meant that it wasn’t safe for her to get behind the wheel of a car. She couldn’t go into the more crowded or dangerous parts of Baton Rouge and New Orleans alone; visions caused her to suddenly be unaware of her immediate surroundings and left her open to theft and assault. One of the things she’d always loved doing before she’d unwittingly become the werewolf council Seer was swimming at the local YMCA. Now that was out of the question.

Daniel had never brought the subject up; he’d known it would be too much to ask of a mother to request that she not spend time with her own child, but Lily knew that even going somewhere alone with their son was dangerous. She never took William out on the streets or the shopping centers without her best friend, Tabitha, or some police officer Daniel assigned – or a werewolf chaperone sent by the council.

After all, it wasn’t just their precious son who was at risk. Hunters were everywhere now and the world had become a carnival ride without fail safes. As were all dormants or made wolves who had once been dormants, Lily was incredibly precious as well. Hell, every werewolf in existence had become a gem in the pile of rocks that Hunters had made out of life on the planet.

Theirs was a dying race. And based on the recent findings at council headquarters, there was no hope for them. They’d crossed that quintessential line; Hunters had seen to it that there were now so few alpha wolves and dormants alive, werewolves would become extinct before the century was out.

It was over.

No it’s not, thought Lily. It’s not over…. It was the thought that followed her out of the blurry surrealism that had been her vision and into the cold chaos of the grocery store, where Tabitha and two other wolves stood guard over her semi-conscious body.

Lily blinked up at them, at once aware two things. One, Dannai and Charlie had been with them minutes earlier, and now they both appeared to be gone.

Danny, Charlie and their mates – along with a handful of other key players in the werewolf community – had decided to pool together since word had come down from council headquarters that the Hunters were on a rampage. There was safety in numbers.

As a result, Danny, Lily, Charlie and Tabitha often went out together these days, as they had today. While they were out, Lily’s son, William, remained with family.

The other thing Lily noticed was the soft fabric beneath her body. She touched it with her hand. Fleece? She looked at the two male wolves standing above her and noticed that neither was wearing his jacket.

“That was a humdinger, Lil,” whispered Tabitha from where she was kneeling beside her. “You almost fell, but Bruce here caught you.”

Lily glanced at the wolf, who nodded respectfully and then returned his attention to the end of the aisle. The muscle this time had been donated by council; both men were enforcers, and the ample musculature was proof. As was the fact that neither man strayed from his task of bodyguard for long; their gazes remained trained on the exits and any possible trouble that might walk through them.

Lily wondered why no one in the store had called an ambulance. Not that she needed one, but it did strike her as odd that she was laying on the floor in the grocery aisle with two very large men standing over her and the manager was nowhere around.

“Don’t worry; Danny’s keeping any would-be rubberneckers away by making anyone who wants to come down the aisle suddenly have to go to the bathroom.”

Ah, thought Lily. That made sense.

“And Charlie ‘accidentally’ bumped into a pyramid of barbeque sauce bottles on aisle three, so most of the workers are doing clean up right now.”

Lily smiled a little at that.

Tabitha leaned in then and lowered her voice. “What did you see?”

“We have to talk to Jesse,” Lily said. “There’s something he needs to know.” Tabitha helped her sit up and Lily handed the jackets back to her bodyguards. They nodded and slipped them back on. One offered her a hand to help her stand. Once she was back on her feet, she turned back to Tabitha. “We also need to talk to Lucas,” she said.

“Caige?” Tabitha asked, her brow furrowing. “What about? Is it something having to do with Danny?” she asked, her expression suddenly becoming worried. “Don’t tell me that Jason guy is actually still alive.”

Lily wanted to shake her head. She wanted to deny that assumption, especially since it was of such a lesser importance than the other thing she had to tell Lucas. But she couldn’t – because it was true.

So she nodded. “Yes,” she admitted. “Jason Alberich is still alive.” And then she took a deep breath and said, “But so is Lucas’s brother.”

*****

At the time of Jason’s death – or, rather Jason’s “disappearance,” as they were referring to it now – the coven that Danny and Imani were members of had become a coven without a herald. So Lalura had come forward and appointed one.

No one was more surprised than Imani when it was her name Lalura called out. Danny had of course supported it unquestioningly, and though there were some members of the coven who had been hopeful they’d be chosen, for the most part, the group agreed that Imani had earned the position.

She’d had her doubts about Jason, after all. Even while Lalura had been blinded by his definite charms and charisma, Imani had suspected that there was something not quite right about him. Any witch good enough to smoke out a warlock as deeply undercover as Alberich had been was worthy of some kind of respect.

In any case, it was Imani who was present in the boardroom of the werewolf council headquarters that afternoon as her friends sought audience with the Overseer, because it was Imani who now represented her coven and its interests. She only hoped she could live up to the expectations they no doubt had – especially Lalura’s.

At the head of a long polished wood table sat a man that Imani remembered seeing several months ago, when she’d been at council headquarters due to the trouble with Jason Alberich and Gabriel Phelan. His name was Jesse Graves and he was hard to forget; a body and face like his were the kinds of things that very good girls were rewarded with at night in their dreams.

And bad girls were rewarded with at night in real life.

Oh, she remembered him all right. However, if she recalled correctly, at the time, he’d been an enforcer. And not just any enforcer, but a Sentinel. In fact, he’d been Charlie’s Sentinel, and if the stories were true, the two of them were very close friends. Friends with benefits, one might say.

Imani was a tad jealous of Charlie in that moment; a sentiment that only deepened the moment Jesse Graves opened his mouth and addressed everyone in the room. His voice was like melted chocolate – like audible sex. Crappola, Imani thought. That man is F-I-N-E.

“Thank you all for coming. You’re all well aware that Lily Kane has been our seer for a while now. And by this time, I’m also sure most of you know she’s had a vision of such importance I felt it necessary to share the information with those it might concern, even laterally.” He looked at each of the people in the room as he spoke. Daniel Kane was there beside his wife. Tabitha sat on the other side of him. Beside her sat James Valentine, Lily’s guardian and Tabitha’s fiancé. On the other end of the table sat Imani, who had been given the rather prominent place at the table in direct acknowledgement of the important role she now played for her coven.

To Imani’s left sat Danny, and beside Danny sat her new husband, Lucas Caige. On the other side of Caige sat his old boss and one of the most powerful alphas in the room, Malcolm Cole. Beside Cole sat Charlie, of course, and then there was Jesse Graves again, heading up the table in his place of Council Overseer.

She looked up at him to find that his amber gold eyes were settled on her. Her heart did a small flip in her chest, which she was certain every wolf at the table would be able to hear, and she felt her face grow warm.

“I’m going to hand the reins of this meeting over to Imani Zareb, whom you all know. As herald, she now speaks for not only her coven, but for every magic user the council deals with.” His eyes glittered as he relayed the information, and never once did they leave her own. “She will help us to understand the significance of Lily’s vision.” He nodded at her, just once, and Imani managed to nod back.

She cleared her throat. “For thousands of years, the females born within your race have been born without the benefit of an active werewolf gene,” she began. She was very proud of herself when her voice didn’t waver at all. “They do not possess the strength, speed or healing abilities of their brothers. They are also never born as dormants – or, at least, they were not until Charlie.” She gave Charlie a nod of respect, and the werewolf smiled in return.

She continued. “However, Charlie appeared to be a very special anomaly and the wolves everywhere have resigned themselves to believing that such a thing will not occur again.” She paused and watched as the women at the table glanced at one another.

Tabitha spoke up. “It won’t happen again… will it?” she asked. This was an important question for Tabitha. Imani reasoned that out of everyone at the table, it was Tabitha who stood the most, if anything, to gain by a change in this curse.

“Actually,” said Imani. “It might.”

There was an immediate reaction at the table. Every werewolf there began to shift in his or her seat. “This is where Lily’s vision comes in,” she went on. “According to what Lily gleaned from what she saw, thousands of years ago, a warlock cast a spell on the werewolf race. This spell sucked much of the magic out of the werewolf civilization – and placed it in the warlock’s hands. A curse fell over you,” she explained. “Your women were born powerless in almost every way because that power was stolen, and it has been handed down from the thief to his son and his son’s son and so forth – for the last forty centuries.”

Each of the werewolves at the table began to talk at once then. The questions came furious and fast and Imani was wondering who to attempt to answer first when Jesse Graves suddenly cleared his throat at the end of the table. “That’s enough,” he said. He didn’t have to raise his voice. Something in it carried across the tension-filled air in the room and quieted the tongues of everyone there.

Imani looked at Graves. He looked back.

“The herald hasn’t finished telling you everything,” he said calmly. “Let the lady speak. When she’s done, you can ask your questions one at a time.”

Imani was suddenly incredibly grateful that her skin was dark enough to hide a good flush, because she felt herself blushing furiously. Regardless, she steeled herself for what she had to say next and went on.

“The ancestor of that warlock is now the very same man who has been sitting in the throne of warlock king for the last hundred years. His name is Malachi Wraythe.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Malachi and his wife, who is currently the Akyri queen and who has been prisoner to Malachi for as long as he has been king, have a daughter. Or, at least they had a daughter.”

“Wait,” Danny interrupted. “The Akyri queen was Wraythe’s prisoner?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “In my vision, she was in a warded chamber under heavy guard and wore some kind of strange black diamond collar.”

Danny visibly paled. “Black diamond?”

“You know of the dominating significance through personal experience,” Graves said, his deep voice rumbling across the table. “Queen Olivia was under Wraythe’s command in every sense of the word.”

Silence filled the room. Danny shifted uncomfortably in her chair and placed her hand to her stomach. It was an unconscious gesture, but one that did not go unnoticed by everyone in the room. Lucas put his arm around her and kissed her on the head.

Imani went on. “The daughter that Wraythe and Olivia had was what you now know as an Offspring. Charlie, you’ve now dealt with the infamous race twice in your meetings with the man you only know as Seth.”

“Yes,” Charlie said, nodding once.

“What you don’t know is that Offspring go by another name amongst themselves.” Here she stopped and looked to Lily, whose beautiful gold eyes were shimmering under the chandelier lights hanging from the office ceiling.

“Indeed,” said Lily. She turned to regard the others. “They call themselves vampires.”

Again the response at the table was instantaneous and rather loud. This time, all Jesse had to do was straighten in his chair and the clamor quieted. James Valentine cleared his throat. “Vampires,” he said. “As in blood-sucking, garlic-hating, stay-out-of-the-sun vampires?”

“More or less,” Imani provided. “I doubt garlic has any effect on them. You know how myths can be twisted. However, the sun may very well be a factor.”

“Yes, in my vision, it was daylight, but the sun was a moon. I’m guessing that they can walk in daylight but with the help of magic,” said Lily.

“It makes sense,” said Imani. “Offspring are the children of magic users and beings who are basically composed of magic. It stands to reason that a good deal of their makeup would be magic as well.”

There was a silence then that stretched for several long seconds. Finally, Malcolm Cole took a deep breath, leaned forward, and rested his folded hands atop the table. “Provided this is all true, what does it have to do with the reversal of this magic-stealing curse you speak of?”

Imani regarded him. Malcolm Cole would be the one to ask about reversing the curse. He’d had to live under one for far too many years himself.

“The vampire-slash-offspring information is collateral actually,” Imani admitted. “You need to know it; we need to be aware of everything these days. What is important is that Wraythe’s daughter was the vampire princess and she was very powerful. She was also very spoiled,” she said. Now she took another deep breath and noticed that this time it shook. She glanced at Graves. He was watching her steadily.

Almost imperceptibly, he nodded his encouragement.

It was enough. “Isabel Marie Wraythe was notorious amongst her kind for getting everything she wanted. I’m not talking about stereo systems and Lamborghini’s,” she said. “No. Her tastes were indeed aesthetic, but her desires ran a lot deeper than the material.”

Now she looked at Lucas Caige, whose rare handsome visage and glittering dark eyes were sculpted by mystery and slightly tainted by a history of pain. It was Lucas whom she addressed as she said, “Fifty years ago, Isabel caught sight of something – someone – she decided she wanted more than anything. With the help of her father and his men, she got what she wanted, and for the last five decades that man has been her prisoner. Until yesterday, that is, when he and Queen Olivia both managed to escape Wraythe’s estate.”

Imani watched the knowledge flash before Caige’s eyes. There was a progression of awareness that went from nothing to vague hope to realization and then to a cacophony of emotions so vivid and intense, only a gaze like Caige’s could have contained them.

That’s it, Imani thought. He knows now.

Beside Lucas, Danny turned toward her mate and it was clear from her own expression that the truth had dawned on her as well. However, before either of them could speak, the Overseer reclaimed the floor.

“Lord Wraythe’s daughter was killed in that escape,” he said gravely. “And now Wraythe wants revenge. He has gone to the Vampire King with a proposition. He will give the king the power he took from us four thousand years ago in exchange for one promised favor.” He waited, letting the incredibly pregnant silence fill the board room. “The death of Byron Caige.”

Chapter Sixteen

“The Mark”

“I don’t understand,” Katherine sighed. She dropped her hands where her elbows rested on her bent knees and peered at Byron over the short flames of the small camp fire they’d made. “You’ve been tainted by this blood for fifty years,” she said. “But you’ve never been burned by the sun until now?”

The crackling of the fire filled the silence until Byron replied.

He shrugged, his gaze shifting from the fire to her. “I was living on the warlock king’s magical estate grounds. Think about it,” he said softly. “The wards, the spells…. When we left, the entire mansion and its grounds were on fire and once we’d stepped past its boundaries, there was no sign of the blaze. Not even a hint of smoke on the air. I was constantly surrounded by magic. There were probably wards over the estate to protect Isabel and her guards from the effects of the sun, so why would I ever notice?”

Katherine thought about that for a moment and then stood and paced to the opening of the cave twenty feet away. The sun was in the western sky now; it was five twenty-seven in the afternoon. Kat stopped at the opening, just out of the sun’s reach and then glanced at her watch. Five twenty-eight.

“I want to try again.”

“Don’t,” Byron said. Kat jumped at the sound that had come from directly behind her. She spun around and looked up. He was so tall, he towered over her. “Don’t do it,” he told her. Before she realized what he was doing, he’d wrapped his hands around her wrists. The hold was gentle but firm. She swallowed hard. “If the effects of Isabel’s blood are permanent, Katherine, this will never go away,” he said, raising her right hand so that she could once more see the red blistered line across her knuckles. “It will scar.” He lowered her hand. “How many scars do you want?”

Katherine didn’t have a response for that. She wasn’t supposed to. Instead, she stared up at the insanely gorgeous werewolf standing over her and tried to simply hold her ground. His touch was so warm, his presence nearly overwhelming. But there was a hollow darkness beneath his eyes that hadn’t been there before. At least she’d never noticed it until now.

“Using that… power of yours drains you, doesn’t it?” she asked softly, thinking of all of the things he’d done to get them both out of Hunter headquarters.

Byron didn’t answer. Instead, he slowly raised the arm of her uninjured hand and pressed his lips to the inside of her wrist.

An electric buzz thrummed through Katherine’s arm and across her chest, hardening her nipples against the inside of her t-shirt. She clamped her mouth shut, afraid that he would hear the instant tremble in her breathing. It didn’t matter, though. She knew he would hear the jackhammering of her heart regardless.

“You smell good,” he told her, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. When he spoke again, his fangs were fully elongated. “Like promise.”

“I’ve heard… ” Katherine broke off, swallowed, and started again. “I’ve heard that’s what a lot of alphas think a dormant smells like.” There was no conscious thought behind what she was saying. Byron’s nearness was playing tricks on her and her mouth was simply spitting things out unfiltered.

Byron chuckled softly and opened his eyes. They were glowing again; a bright platinum that took her breath away. “I can imagine,” he said, offering her a purely depraved smile.

Katherine had no time to wonder how things between them had shifted so quickly into the state it was in now. A day ago, she’d wanted to kill him. And now she wanted…. What?

“If you so badly want to mark up your body, little Kat, I can do it for you,” he told her then. “And it won’t hurt nearly so much.”

Kat’s stomach did a flip and her heart skipped a beat. Instant warmth flushed across her stomach and spread lower. She tried to step back on pure reflex, but Byron’s grip on her wrists tightened, and he used the hold to pull her forward, stopping her retreat.

“That way leads only to pain,” he told her, his gaze flicking to the open cave entrance just over her shoulder. At once, Kat understood. She’d nearly stepped out into the sunlight. Byron was ruining the effects of twenty years of self protective training in the course of seconds flat.

“Please,” she whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“Please what?” he asked, pulling her further into the darkness of the cave. She stumbled after him, her gaze trapped in his. In the dark, his eyes glowed more starkly, filling her with an anticipation that very nearly bordered on fear.

“I…” She didn’t know what to say.

“Do you still think I killed your father, Katherine?” he asked, his grip on her arms lessening now that they were well away from the cave entrance.

Katherine digested his question and then shook her head. It was true. She didn’t believe it any longer. Not at all. She knew, in her heart, that he was innocent. And she knew that the warlock king was not.

“Do you fear me?” he asked next.

Yes, she thought without hesitation. That, too, was true. Byron Caige scared the hell out of her. Everything about him screamed danger. He was big, he was strong, he was powerful. He could send the city into a blackout if he wanted to; of that she had little doubt. He had glowing eyes and razor sharp fangs and he smelled like the most delicious sex in the world just waiting to happen. Byron Caige represented everything a mother ever warned her daughter about.

And he was standing over her now, his hands wrapped lightly around her wrists, his smooth, deep voice sending rivulets of pleasure across her skin. “Yes, you scare me,” she told him.

“Good,” he replied. There was no hesitation on his part either. His smile broadened, ever so slightly, and he leaned in. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” he said. He was so close, she felt his words whisper across her lips. “I can smell just how very much I scare you.”

A hard, hot embarrassment ramrodded through her at those words. She knew exactly what he was referring to. His kiss on her wrist, his nearness right now – they were making her wet. And he could scent it on her.

With her humiliation returned just a spark of her former anger. Her fire. It straightened her spine and she felt the resulting tightening of his grip on her wrists. Clearly, he sensed the fight in her coming back and was readying for it.

“Whatever it is you plan to do to me, Caige, do it now. Just get it over with.” She wasn’t stupid. He’d told her she was a dormant and then as much as promised that she was his. He was planning to turn her. She had no weapons on her and even if she managed to miraculously escape his clutches and knock him out, there was the sun to contend with.

And she didn’t want to hurt him anyway. The softer part of her – the part that had been more or less buried for twenty years – recognized the pain he’d already suffered for the last five decades and didn’t want to add to it.

But she didn’t like being toyed with either.

“I would love nothing more, Kat,” he told her frankly. “But the vampires are on their way. I can sense them now. I carry a part of their race in my veins.”

Katherine blinked. The vampires were coming? For them?

“Wraythe must have cut a deal with them,” he told her, his gaze flicking to her lips and then back up again. He looked the very image of hunger, deep and unforgiving. His fingers clenched and unclenched where they held her wrists. “They can move in the daylight; they always have. We don’t have that benefit, little Huntress.” He shook his head, just once. “We’re sitting ducks.”

Oh God, Katherine thought. “No,” she said. “We have to get out of here!”

“It’s too late.” Byron closed his eyes, only for a moment. “They’re near.”

“Byron!” Katherine cried. Her voice shook. She tried to turn toward the cave entrance, wondering if when she did she would find a line of vampire silhouettes blocking the exit. “There has to be something we can do!”

*****

Byron could think of only one thing. It had always worked among his people; a mark prevented another male wolf from touching an alpha’s intended mate. But would it work against an Offspring’s bite?

Because he knew that’s what would happen. No vampire in his right mind would pass up a chance to have dormant for supper. The precious women were so rare, their blood so sweet, they were like drugs and sex and candy and alcohol on the tongue all at once. Dormant blood running through a werewolf’s system was pure ecstasy. Byron knew that it would be no different for a vampire; he was a part of them now. He could feel what they would feel. And Katherine Dare was a prize that was calling to him in a really, really bad way.

The vampires were coming. She needed to be protected.

“Just this,” he said before his grip on her tightened once more. Her head snapped back around, her white-blonde hair flying about her lovely face as he pulled her into his arms and released her right wrist so that he could slide his hand around her waist.

She tensed in his embrace. “What are you doing?” she asked through gritted teeth. Fear was sending her into fight mode and no doubt her training was kicking in as well.

His hold on her left wrist, he maintained. “I’m going to mark you,” he told her, and as he’d suspected she would, she instantly tried to pull out of his embrace. Of course, she failed. “You’ll be fodder for the Offspring who take us otherwise, Katherine,” he told her over her struggles. And I want to do this, his wolf growled inside of him. Almost more than anything I’ve ever wanted to do.

Desperation tilted her tone when she cried, “You can’t do this!”

It was a useless thing to say to him at that moment, and they both knew it was patently false as well. He could do what he was about to do. And he was going to do it.

“You have ten seconds to pick a place, Kat,” he told her, feeling his gums ache and his dick throb with the very idea of sinking his teeth into her sweet flesh. “And then I pick for you.”

Katherine’s harsh, ragged breaths punctuated the silence of the cave, joined only by the tiny grunts she made as she tried to pull away and the crackling of the fire. Her beautiful blue eyes had lightened into a near violet; fear brought out the purple in them, apparently. High emotion.

She knew what it meant to be marked by a werewolf. There was no going back.

Ten seconds came and went and Caige raised her left wrist to his lips. Katherine froze in his grip, her breathing arrested, her wide-eyed gaze trapped in his. A beat passed between them, and he listened to her racing heart.

Something dark flashed in the depths of her beautiful eyes. It gave Byron pause.

Time was not on their side, but Byron couldn’t lose Kat to another seed of fear. Not if he could prevent its planting this time around.

In a split second decision that might make or break the one chance he had of protecting her, Byron lowered her wrist and instead took her head in his hands. He peered hard into her eyes – and then he claimed her mouth with his own. His kiss came hard and fast and the bliss it released within him was of a magnitude he’d never known possible.

It had been fifty years since he’d kissed a woman. The vampire princess had kissed him. She’d forced pleasure and need and dark desire into him with such fierce fury, it had left him breathless and spent and miserable. He’d never known happiness through her kisses.

He’d thought he never would again.

Until now.

Byron had intended to use his kiss to send Katherine to sleep and make this easier on her. He’d only wanted to see the fear in her eyes disappear. But he’d been a fool. To think that he could kiss his dormant – open her up beneath him and taste the sweetness she promised – and not react had been pure idiocy.

He felt her moan against him as he moved past her lips and teeth and delved deep. The tension left her arms, her body curled into his, and he realized that she did so of her own accord. He was not controlling her. She was reacting to him out of her own need. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

His inner wolf growled and he spun with his dormant, shoving her up against the wall and pinning her there, his arm braced against the stone behind her. We’re doomed, he thought. They were doomed because he didn’t have enough strength of will within himself to break the kiss.

So she broke it for him.

In one hard move, she placed her hands to his chest and pushed. He could have held on. He could have broken her will, brought her to orgasm, had her writhing beneath him. He could have taken it all the way – right up until the point that the Offspring crashed the party and the both of them kicked the bucket.

But he didn’t. Some semblance of humanity remained within the wolf and he let her go, knowing it was the only thing that would save their lives.

“Do it,” Katherine whispered, her breaths quick, short and ragged.

Byron hesitated, uncertain he’d heard her correctly.

“Just do it!” she cried then, and in a move that would forever change her life, she pulled her flaxen hair to the side and exposed the side of her neck.

That was all Byron needed. There was no hesitation in him now. The wolf reared its head and Byron exposed his fangs. With blinding speed, he thrust his hand through her hair and grabbed ahold of her waist, holding her in place.

And then he sank his teeth into her throat.

Katherine gasped and arched into him. He knew it hurt at first – teeth were teeth and they were hard and sharp and there was no escaping the very real pain they brought. But in the next instant, her sweet, precious blood was fueling his body and mind and Byron’s power was washing over her in return. It moved through her, a wave of liquid, molten magnificence that erased the discomfort from her body. All that was left in its receding wake was pleasure, need – and a burgeoning desire for more.

It was natural. Piercing the jugular for a wolf was normally accompanied by sex. The two combined would turn a dormant into a made wolf, and no dormant could withstand the very basic desire to move to this next step. No alpha could either.

It was the hardest thing Byron had ever had to do not to strip her down and take her then and there. Every fiber of his tall, strong being screamed that it be done. His muscles flexed taut, his grip became bruising, and he swallowed with a slow, languid abandon that made his already rock hard cock throb.

But he could feel the Offspring now; the vampires were right on top of them. They were out of time.

Very slowly, very carefully, Byron pulled his fangs from the side of Katherine’s neck. She sobbed, half in uncomfortably sharp pleasure, half in disappointment, as his teeth left her flesh completely. He had her pressed against the wall beneath him, pinned to within an inch of her life. And he didn’t move now.

Instead, he pierced his tongue with the tip of one fang and leaned back in. “You’re mine,” he whispered in her ear. She shivered against him and he growled. Everything about her was painfully tempting. But he knew what he had to do and he did it.

Byron closed his eyes and gently kissed the dual bite marks he had carved into her neck. And then he touched them with his tongue, once more tasting the sweet, sweet promise that was Katherine Dare. As he did, his blood entered her open wounds and mingled with her own.

He knew it was coming a split second before it came. He held onto her, nuzzling her neck as an orgasm racked through her body and a swirling, shimmering charcoal-gray mark began to etch itself across her perfect, healed skin.

Chapter Seventeen

“Loose the Hounds”

Manuel watched the red dot on the screen send out a single bleep of a signal and nodded to himself. Manuel Sanchez was a good man. He’d worked hard to get where he was and he deserved the respect and power that would come when he took over as the leader of the Hunters. God was on his side. He had plans for the organization.

Hunters claimed to be fighting for the good, but though they hunted the demons and wiped their filthy race from the Earth, there was so much more they could be doing. Demons didn’t only come wrapped in fur. There was so much evil in the world, tainting its Christian purity. This wasn’t the world God wanted. Where was the Church? Why wasn’t it involved in this? This was the single most important thing humans had ever done in the name of their Lord – and the Church was kept separate. It made no sense!

But Manuel planned to change all of that.

And an unwitting Katherine Dare was going to help him.

Something had happened to her. She’d gone after the “wolf with the gray eyes” that she’d been hunting since her inception into the organization, but somewhere along the way, she’d lost that fire that he’d always admired in her. Her conviction had kept her on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, the wolf had gotten to her.

He could tell. He could always tell.

Now Dare was nothing but a trussed up hussy with a demonic problem or two of her own. She’d been unable to show her skin in daylight, and neither had her gray-eyed wolf. Manuel had never come across this particular demon disorder, however it made sense. If you were of the devil, you shouldn’t be allowed to show your face in the light of God’s day.

Manuel wanted to know more. This development held immense potential for the Hunters. Until now, they’d been resigned to fighting demons both day and night. If, however, the creatures could be relegated to moving about only at night, it would leave them vulnerable half the time. That was an incredible improvement and an opportunity he couldn’t afford to pass up.

Which was why he’d planted the tracking device on Katherine Dare. At the time he’d placed it on her, he’d simply gone for their smallest, newest one because he hadn’t wanted her to find it or notice it. It was lucky that he had.

She’d been so preoccupied with making sure no light touched her or her demon companion on their way out of the hotel, she hadn’t notice when he’d placed the nearly microscopic device on the inside collar of her leather jacket. It was so light, it would never be felt. It emitted no sound or flash and was the same color as the jacket.

He’d known she would try to escape.

What he hadn’t expected was that she would be lucky enough to find her way into the headquarters electrical system and wreak havoc on it the way she had. That piece of demon magic had obviously been the work of her incredibly powerful werewolf friend, and it not only surprised him, but made him incredibly grateful he’d gone with the organizations newest, tiniest tracking device for Katherine.

This electrical power the demon had was a matter he would look into. It held immense potential for the Hunters, but it also worried him. Manuel had instantly prayed that the demon wouldn’t find the bug on Dare; that it was small enough and gave off a minute enough electrical signal to evade detection. God had granted his wish.

He was right to know she would escape. Katherine was smart; he would give her that. It was another of the things he’d always admired about her. Female Hunters were rare, and Katherine had been, by far, the best among them. She was blessed with a mature sense of logic and deduction that had saved her life many times over.

It was unfortunate that it had to fail her now. But Manuel would see if he could do something about that. After all, Jesus wanted his followers to forgive others – especially if those others were topnotch Hunters and it would be a shame to lose them. Manuel was willing to forgive Dare these latest trespasses of hers under the right circumstances.

Manuel shut down the screen in front of him and turned to face his men. “Let’s head out,” he said. “Remember we need the demon’s blood.” There had to be a body left over for that, and too many Hunters were entirely too fond of destroying all trace of demon as quickly as possible. “And take Dare alive.”

*****

Katherine was seeing stars. The universe was swirling before her eyes, points of colored light that melted like a milky way and spiraled inward, deeper – deeper. Her bliss followed her down, sinking with her until she could go no further. It seemed to go on forever.

And then the stars faded and someone was brushing a lock of her hair from her forehead. The warmth of her orgasm ebbed and a strange chill of cold rode over her. She shivered, noticing the hardness of the cave stone beneath her body. She was laying on her side.

She tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt heavy. The gentle fingers that had brushed her hair from her face now brushed a second lock of hair from her neck.

“He’s marked her,” said an unfamiliar voice.

Katherine tried again to open her eyes, this time succeeding in letting in a thin shaft of light. Someone was crouched down beside her. The dark figure felt familiar.

Oh no, she thought as reality sank in. A… vampire?

“You know us then, do you?” the voice said softly.

What? Kat felt as if he’d read her mind.

The vampire smiled, flashing fangs. “You must be the Hunter who helped make such a mess of the warlock king’s estate.” The voice was deep and melodic and despite the dire magnitude of the situation, Katherine found that the speaker’s tone held no malice. In fact, if anything, it held amusement.

Which made absolutely no sense.

“This was quick thinking on your part, wolf,” the voice said. Katherine watched as the blurry, dark figure beside her straightened and stood. She could tell that he turned away from her then. “Of course you realize that the mark disappears when you die.”

Kat felt very weak, but she’d never been one to lie down for a fight. With great effort, she was able to get an arm beneath her and prop herself up to look around.

As she did, her vision cleared and the rest of her surroundings came back into focus. It was a mixed blessing though, because what she saw filled her with a stark sense of mounting terror.

Byron was on the other side of the cave, surrounded by half a dozen very big, very strong men. For the most part, they wore jeans and t-shirts, all in dark colors. They had a familiar look about them; she’d seen their kind all over the warlock king’s grounds. And now she knew what they were. Vampires – all of them.

Also in the room were three other men: the man in black who stood over her now and two others. One of the others was dressed in a suit, its hues as subdued as everyone else’s. He looked like a lawyer to Katherine, which she knew was shortsighted and rather stereotypical of her, but she wasn’t firing on all cylinders at the moment.

The third vampire wore what looked like wizard’s robes. His head was shaved and a tattoo of intricate red knots decorated his scalp.

Despite the massive muscles of the bunch who surrounded Byron, the three piece cage on “lawyer” vampire, and the strange mode of dress of the “wizard” vampire, it was the vampire who now stood over Katherine who easily wielded the most charisma. He was tall, as all supernatural creatures seemed to be. But his build was not as large as those of his companions. He looked leaner, harder – faster. He had light brown hair, neatly cut, and a small scar ran from the bottom of his left eye through his eyebrow.

His eyes were different colors. His left eye was blue, the color of arctic ice. That was the one the scar ran through. The other was gray. Together, they looked like a dichotomy of sunny morning and stormy afternoon.

There was an air about him that the others didn’t possess. When he turned back around to face her and very gracefully knelt beside her once more, Katherine found that she couldn’t pull away. Instinctively, she wanted to back up and put distance between them. But she couldn’t. Instead she sat there and watched him with a mixture of fascination and trepidation. And something else.

This was new. His gracefulness appealed to her. A lot.

“It happens, little one,” the vampire told her as he cracked a handsome smile. The smile touched his eyes, lighting up the blue and sparking the metal in the gray. “You’ve been marked. Such a thing awakens the sexual nature of a dormant,” he said as he reached out and touched the side of her neck where Byron had bitten her. She was thoroughly shocked with herself that she allowed him to do so. The touch was bad enough; she was a Hunter and no supernatural creature had ever come this close to her before without her consent. But the touch was also intimate.

What shocked her the most was that it hurt.

Byron was right, she thought as a mild, warning ache moved through her neck, making her wince. She knew that Byron had marked her in the hopes that it would protect her from vampires as it did from werewolves. And from the slight pain now moving through her, she would have to say that he’d been right to assume as much. If it hurt, then it was working. No one in that cave would be able to sink his fangs into her and drain her dry. No one but Byron, that was.

“Touch her again,” Byron told the man, his tone lower and more threatening than any Katherine had ever heard. “I dare you.”

It was hard to pull her gaze from the man before her, but somehow Katherine managed. She glanced at Byron, whose platinum glowing eyes spoke heated volumes. Kat let out a shaky breath and returned her attention to the vampire who had touched her. His fingers still lingered beside her throat, but there was no longer any contact.

The vampire smiled a small, slightly guilty smile at Katherine and then removed his hand completely. Something strange flickered in the depths of his bi-colored eyes. “I apologize,” he said, speaking so softly that it was clear he was addressing only Katherine. “I had to be sure.”

Again he stood. Kat watched as he spoke a few short archaic words that she didn’t understand. There was a rippling effect over his tall form, as if he was suddenly separated from Katherine by a wall of water. But it moved over him and vanished, and Kat wondered what the hell he’d just done.

The vampire then pulled something out of the inside pocket of his black sports coat and held it up for her to see. “Glucose and a few added nutrients,” he told her. “You’ve lost blood and this is something I’ve had a lot of experience in dealing with.” He smiled and shrugged. “You’ll live but you’re weak. This will help.”

He leaned over and held it out for her. Kat sat up a little straighter, looked at the small glass vial, and was torn. She wanted to trust him; her body wanted to trust him. She knew he was right about one thing – Byron’s mark had brought out a submissive nature within her. She felt divided into threes at that moment. A part of her was terrified and worried for Byron. If the vampires were there, then they’d been sent for a reason and that reason probably had a lot to do with Malachi Wraythe. And if that was the case, he probably wanted Byron dead.

Another part of her felt disturbingly… heated. She felt like stripping down and having a roll in the sack. And the vampire before her was a very handsome man. He professed to want to help her. It was a hard thing for her to turn down at that moment.

At the same time, she wasn’t stupid. She shook her head.

The vampire knelt once more and she found herself gazing into his different colored eyes. “Drink it,” he told her softly.

At once, it was the only thing Katherine wanted to do. She gently took the vial from his fingers, uncorked it, and placed it to her lips. The vial was empty in a few short swallows. It tasted like clear, super-sweet Hawaiian punch.

She handed the empty container back to him and he took it, re-corked it and placed it back into his sports coat. Then he stood and leaned over to offer her his hand.

Kat glanced down at his hand and experienced another moment of trepidation. There was no way she was going to touch him again. Pain was a great teacher.

“It won’t hurt, little Huntress,” the vampire said. “I’ve seen to that.”

Kat looked up at him. Again she was caught up in the charisma of his gaze and her body flushed warm. It was discomfiting at best.

It was discomfiting because the third part of her was the Hunter and that Hunter very much disliked the idea of being controlled by anything other than her own will. It was a logical part of her, fortunately, so it also realized that she and Byron had truly had no other choice. But it was also an angry part of her. It had been trained toward hatred and revenge for more than a decade. It couldn’t help it.

That Hunter wanted to regain her power, and power came with knowledge. So out of curiosity and a pure strength of will, Katherine placed her hand within the vampire’s.

There was no pain.

The vampire closed his fingers over her hand and helped her to stand. She was a tad wobbly at first, but quickly regained her footing. Still, her head felt light and buzzed slightly as she again glanced around the room.

“I must say I’m impressed,” said the vampire, releasing her hand to turn toward Byron. “You went for the jugular.” He smiled and chuckled softly. “I can’t say I blame you, but it’s a new one.” He slowly strode toward Byron and Katherine had the distinct impression that the vampire was composed of unspent energy, carefully disguised in black clothing. “I imagine that if we had not arrived when we had, you wouldn’t have been able to stop.”

He glanced at Katherine over his shoulder. “And you would be walking on all fours at the moment.”

Katherine swallowed hard. She knew a taunt when she heard one, no matter how mild or underhanded it might be. She wisely chose not to respond.

As did Byron, but his bright white gaze glowed menacingly and she could see the tips of his fangs resting upon his lower lip. As Kat watched him watching her, she noticed something shimmer in the air beside him. She frowned and looked more closely. The air moved… a force field?

“He’s wanted alive for the time being,” said the vampire who had helped her stand. “Therefore, it’s best if he be incapacitated.” He turned back to face her. “For what it’s worth, little one, it’s taking the magic of six of my men to hold him.”

Kat’s eyes widened. She looked back at Byron, seeing him now in a new light. She’d known that he was strong. She’d known he was powerful. But as he stood now, a tower of breathtaking and deadly beauty trapped in a circle of six vampires, she saw him as the gorgeous monster he really was.

The black wolf, she thought. With the gray eyes.

My wolf.

“Indeed,” said the vampire. “Now then, there’s one last small detail to see to.” He raised his hand toward Katherine, palm-out. She winced and back-pedaled, her survival instinct finally trumping everything else.

But magic apparently moved at the speed of light, and she hadn’t retreated five inches before his spell was washing over her. It didn’t hurt. It just felt strange. Like being blanketed in something cold for a moment. She had the sensation that she was drenched in water – and then dried just as quickly. She looked down to find that nothing had changed.

“What did you do?” she asked.

“You’ll see,” he told her. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing toward the exit of the cave. “There is someone who wishes to have a word with you and, seeing as how he has the king’s blessing, I don’t think it would be a good idea to keep him waiting.”

Kat glanced at the exit to the cave. “I can’t,” she said. “The sun.” It was about to go down, she could tell. But for the moment, it still shone – and still posed a danger.

“You can now,” the vampire told her. He smiled at her, flashing fangs. “Trust me.”

So that’s what that was, thought Katherine. The spell he just cast on her had been to protect her from the sun. “What about Byron?” she asked, knowing full well that whatever the sun might do to her, it would do to him fifty-fold.

“Of course,” said the vampire placatingly. “It wouldn’t do to have our prize prisoner fry to a crisp before we were half way home.” He glanced at Byron, who glared at him steadily. “Consider him safe.” He turned back to her, a small smile still tugging at his lips. “For now.”

Chapter Eighteen

“The Permit”

Daniel Kane pushed his chair back from his desk and stood. Then he turned and gazed out the windows of his third story office to the twilight landscape of Baton Rouge beyond. He’d left the West Coast and headed back to Louisiana after their meeting with the overseer and he would be away from Lily and their son for the next week or so – until he could either catch a break in his workload and fly out to see her or council called and he had no choice in the matter.

In the meantime, the cavalry had been called out. Enforcers across the globe had been instructed to “hunt” down one Byron Caige and get him safely to council headquarters before either the vampires or the Hunters could do the same. If he was found, Daniel would get the call. Every alpha able to fight would need to be there; bringing Byron in might set off an all out war with a race of vampires the werewolves had only recently learned even existed.

While no werewolf alive could ignore the possibility that Caige’s death might ensure their continued survival, not one of them would sacrifice one of their own for such a promise either. There was a brotherhood amidst their kind that might not have existed in other races. A string of empathy and love ran through them so deeply that despite their surface differences and occasional argumentative mannerisms, when it came down to it, each would die for the other.

So they weren’t going to hand over Byron in order to allow the survival of future wolves who were not yet even born. Never burn a bridge.

According to Lily, whose visions had been coming hard and fast since her initial episode, when they did find Byron – if they found him – he wouldn’t be alone. He had a dormant with him, and she was as vulnerable as he was.

She was also a Hunter.

It was that thought that plagued Daniel as he gazed out over the town he’d grown up in. It was a changed city; much of it was unrecognizable as the home he’d known for more than thirty years. Time changed a lot of things.

It changed people too. Malcolm Cole was a prime example. Hell, they all were.

In the seventeen years that Daniel had been on the force, he’d seen a lot. People were canvases and the paint that drew what they became was colored by a variety of things: genetics, environment, happenstance. A man could be unfortunate in DNA and worse off in the way of financial means – but cross his path with a giving soul, and his life would change forever. It was a splash of yellow on what would otherwise have amounted to the monotone masterpiece of his human soul.

People were the product of their pasts. It was like that for the young dormant who was a Hunter. Daniel’s wife had told him that as a child, the Hunter had seen a werewolf standing over the dead body of her father. Daniel was no fool. It would have been naïve and short sighted to think that such a thing could happen to a child without it incurring dire consequences. For Katherine Dare, those consequences had been brutal - as they had been for every werewolf who had crossed her path since then.

Daniel took a slow, deep breath and closed his eyes. The dormant Huntress had killed more than a dozen of his kind. Most of them had been alphas.

Daniel opened his eyes again and, this time, as he looked out over the city of Baton Rouge, he imagined what it would have looked like a hundred years ago. Two hundred.

It would have been lush and uncut and ripe with possibility. Like a person. Every brick laid, every road paved was a scar for better or worse that determined the map a being became. With luck, love and imagination, the map would show San Francisco. Without it, a person was Houston. Messy, cruel and mean.

Katherine Dare’s soul had a bit of Houston in it. But Daniel was willing to bet that there was a Golden Gate Bridge under there somewhere. He just prayed, for her sake – and for Byron’s – that he wasn’t the only werewolf willing to take the time to look for it.

The phone on his desk vibrated and a dedicated beep went off. It was exactly the sound he’d been waiting to hear. He quickly turned and picked up the phone, placing it to his ear. “Kane.”

“We found them,” came the quick report. “I’m on my way.” ***** When they left the cave and walked out onto the black and tan sand of one of California’s many secluded beaches, the vampires stopped them and surrounded them. They made a circle around Katherine and Byron and, for a moment, Kat wondered whether that was it. She felt like someone about to be sacrificed.

But what actually happened next had nothing to do with killing. yet another impossibility that Katherine was having to wrap her head around. Witches, warlocks, vampires – they were enough. But inter-dimensional travel on demand?

The vampire had called it “transporting,” and apparently the only reason he’d waited until they were out of the cave to do it was so that she would see she was safe in the sun. She had no idea why he would care what she thought. Maybe it was just that a calm prisoner was a hell of a lot easier to deal with than a prisoner who was sure she was going to get fried at any second.

The transportation spell had left her a little disoriented, but it was passing. They’d disappeared from the beach and reappeared in the middle of the redwood forest. Then the vampires had begun walking them down a trail. It was rather surreal for her. Wasn’t she just here a few hours ago? She felt like her life was moving in maddening circles, doubling back in on itself. Not a lot made sense any longer.

She was thinking about this and simultaneously beating her brain from the inside out in the hopes of coming up with a way for them to get out of this mess when there was a commotion behind her. She’d been walking ahead of the group, accompanied by two vampires, one on either side of her. Byron and his six-vampire entourage were in the middle, and the lead vampire – the one who had cast the sun protection spells on them – was bringing up the rear.

But when Kat turned around, it was to find that three of the vampires who had been watching over Byron were on the ground unmoving, and Byron and the lead vampire had their hands around one another’s throats. She gasped in surprise; she couldn’t help it. It was the last thing she’d expected to see.

The men beside her were moving forward at once, their speed blurring like some kind of Hollywood special effect. Kat could only watch as the lead vampire smiled and held up his free hand, staying the help the others would have otherwise given.

“I warned you not to touch her again,” Byron growled, all fang and monster.

The vampire chuckled, the sound somewhat strangled. “So you did.” He raised a brow and added, “So go ahead and kill me.”

Kat found herself entranced with the image before her. She should have been looking around, finding viable exits, weak spots, ways to escape. But Byron was incredible. How in the world he had gotten through the force field around him, taken out three vampires and attacked the lead vampire in the course of seconds, she had no idea. It blew her mind.

“It’s your blood,” the vampire told her without looking at her. His gaze was steadfastly locked onto Byron’s. Byron seemed to be contemplating something; he was silent.

My blood? Kat thought.

“Indeed,” the vampire replied. “You’re his mate. The stuff you’re made of will always give him more strength than anything else. And apparently the wolf knows what to do with it.”

Kat was amazed the man was able to speak so well around the grip Byron had on his throat, but then again… did vampires really need to be able to breathe? If they were truly the offspring of warlocks and magical demonic creatures – Akyri, she reminded herself – then they could probably find ways to speak without air.

The vampires on the ground were coming to. The fact that Byron had knocked them unconscious in the first place was beyond her. The other three that had been guarding him, along with the two who had been guarding her, all waited like sharks around the duo, their eyes glowing like stoplights, their fangs bared.

“Well, Caige?” the vampire asked again. “Why don’t you just do it?” It was another taunt, Katherine knew. She also knew that it would be illogical for Byron to kill the vampire. It was twilight now and they were probably safe from direct sunlight, but as it always did, the sun was sure to rise again in the morning. If Byron killed the lead vampire, the spells the Offspring could place upon them to protect them from the sun would probably die along with him. And that would be bad.

Byron hesitated another two seconds, and then he spun, throwing the vampire toward the nearest redwood. The man went sailing through the air, but before he would have hit the tree, he vanished into thin air.

And reappeared standing directly beside Katherine.

She spun, her hand coming up in an automatic defensive strike. He could have stopped her. She knew this now; she’d seen them move. Vampires slid into speed so fast, it wasn’t traceable by the human eye. But for some reason, the vampire allowed her to hit him. His head snapped to the side with an audible crack. And then he very slowly turned back around, his eyes now glowing red as well.

His expression, however, had not changed. He still appeared calm and in control - and ever so slightly amused. “I think this makes us even, wolf,” he said softly, his red eyes trained on Byron’s tall form. “Your girlfriend packs quite a punch.”

Byron looked from him to Katherine and the platinum glow gradually ebbed from his eyes.

Girlfriend? Katherine thought, somewhat uncharacteristically baffled. She stared at Byron, taking in the blue black of his thick, wavy hair, the strong line of his chin and the perfection of his lips where his fangs peeked threateningly behind them. For the hundredth time since she’d first laid eyes on him, she was lost in his beauty. No model in any magazine advertisement had anything on him.

She imagined him on a motorcycle as he’d told her he’d once been – riding at the head of a motley pack of bikers. Dressed in leather… his hands around the handlebars, working the shift and throttle…. Her mouth watered at the idea. The power.

Girlfriend? she witlessly thought again. With everything going on around them, with the danger they now found themselves in, this was what she was going to focus on?

Beside her, the lead vampire moved forward, approaching Byron once more. Byron, for his part, remained where he was, his gaze sliding from the approaching vampire to Katherine. Their eyes met.

“Well that was fun,” said the vampire. “But play time’s over. Our man of the hour has arrived.” He turned to face an empty spot a few feet away, as did all of the other vampires.

The air over the pine needles and fallen leaves that littered the empty forest space began to shimmer like pixie dust. Then the shimmers coalesced and brightened until they were blinding enough that Kat shielded her eyes. There was a sound like miniature thunder, a clapping of air colliding, but not nearly as loud. When it passed, Kat could tell that the darkness had returned. She uncovered her eyes to find a tenth vampire standing in the small clearing.

At least she assumed he was a vampire. He had vaguely the same look about him. His hair was shoulder-length and straight and nearly as black as Byron’s. His eyes were a very stark blue, and his skin was so pale that vampire-wise he fit the bill perfectly. However, his build was a bit thicker than that of the others. Muscle-wise, he looked more like Byron.

Still, there was the same feel about him as with the other vampires. It was probably the mixture of the warlock stuff and pure magic that she was sensing on the “Offspring.” She was starting to recognize it for what it was.

“Seth,” the lead vampire greeted the newcomer. “Allow me to introduce Byron Caige and Katherine Elizabeth Dare.”

He knows my middle name too? thought Katherine. Her knuckles were hurting a bit from when she’d struck him. He, on the other hand, did not appear to have been effected in the least. It was a painful reminder of just what kind of creature she was dealing with.

The new vampire – Seth – stepped out of the clearing and approached Katherine. Byron was immediately mobile, but this time the lead vampire apparently didn’t feel like messing around with him because he raised his right hand, spoke an archaic word that echoed through the forest trees, and Byron fell to his knees in the dirt. He leaned forward, bracing himself with his hands, clearly weakened to the point of near unconsciousness.

“What did you do to him?” Kat demanded, trying her best not to rush to his side. She knew she wouldn’t get far.

“While I have to admire his devotion, at the moment we need your cooperation, Miss Dare, and werewolf antics will only waste what little time we have,” the vampire told her coolly.

Seth moved past Byron’s kneeling form, affording the werewolf a mere glance of interest before he was again capturing Katherine’s gaze in his. He came to stand before her and studied her in silence.

Kat’s skin crawled. The air felt tight, almost hard to breathe.

“Katherine Dare,” Seth repeated her name. There was something familiar to the sound of his voice. Kat couldn’t place it… it was a rumble or a deepness that the voices of the other vampires in the clearing didn’t seem to possess. “Something tells me that at the moment, you’re going to be the more reasonable one to deal with.” This, he said with a sharp glance at Byron over his shoulder.

Byron was watching him from where he knelt, doubled over in the dirt. His quicksilver eyes glowed eerily in his handsome face. He was once more surrounded by vampires.

Seth turned back around and Kat tried to prepare herself for whatever was coming. “You helped me to save the woman I love,” he told her plainly. There was no duplicity in his tone. His expression was one of such simple honesty that it seemed almost bored. “So I feel I owe you a similar boon, Miss Dare.”

Save? Kat thought. I didn’t rescue anyone. Not that she would have said as much out loud. If he was willing to believe she’d done him a favor, she’d ben an utter idiot to want to change his mind.

Seth smiled. “You obviously aren’t familiar enough with our kind yet, Katherine,” he said. “So just to get the record straight – I can read your mind.”

Kat blanched a little, but her surprise was relatively mild. She’d suspected as much, truth be told. The other vampire – the one who’d cast the spells on them in the cave – had responded to her as if he could read her thoughts. Now she knew that he could.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Then you know I didn’t save anyone. And I have no idea who you are, much less who the woman you love is.” Damn, she thought.

“In point of fact, you helped quite a lot,” Seth said. He looked at the ground for a moment, contemplated something in silence, and then shrugged. “And so I think that you and I should have a talk.”

Chapter Nineteen

“The Rub”

Byron didn’t fail to notice the way Katherine’s every breath was monitored by the men around her. He may be standing right next to her, but to the number of very dangerous creatures surrounding them, he was a mere obstacle that stood in the way of a really good night. Kat’s blood was singing a siren song and he wasn’t the only one who could hear it.

He also didn’t fail to notice how “Seth” and the lead vampire hung close to the both of them, almost seeming to guard them from the others. Or maybe they were just guarding Katherine.

It was fortunate that none of them seemed to want to harm her because Byron wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it if they had. Not now. He’d been placed in black diamond bonds; they were bracers with the dark diamond dust enmeshed in their fabric. They were the same kind the princess had used on him for fifty years. Whether his restraints had been constructed of metal or leather, they’d always had crushed black diamonds embedded in them. It was the primary material component in spells that enabled a warlock or vampire to maintain control over a victim.

He’d also been draped with so many spells there in that redwood clearing, he could barely breathe without inhaling dark magic. Apparently they didn’t want to take any chances with Byron interrupting them again, and he had to hand it to them. With this much dark power wrapped around him, he wouldn’t be acting out again any time soon.

The three vampires he’d attacked earlier had healed completely and, though their eyes were wary when they fell on Byron, their expressions held neither malice nor any kind of need for revenge.

Again, he considered how different they were from the princess’s private guard. In fact, these men reminded Byron of the military: take orders, follow instructions, show no personality of your own whatsoever.

It would have intrigued Byron but for the fact that he was mostly just pissed. He was getting really sick and tired of being a prisoner. Time and again, he would gain the slightest taste of freedom only to have it ripped from him as if it had been no more than decoration on his chest. He often wondered if he’d lived some sort of past life as a slave owner and this was his comeuppance. He hoped not. The very idea made him nauseated.

It was sort of how he felt when he thought of what would happen to Katherine once he was dead and the mark on her neck disappeared. Because from the looks of it, that was where things were headed. Byron couldn’t really imagine another viable outcome.

On the up side, once he’d been covered in black magic, the guards had backed off. When he got to his booted feet and strode toward Katherine, she’d rushed to meet him half way, and neither of them were stopped. He’d felt the ripple of tension caused by the instant jealousy his nearness to her set off; every single man in that clearing wanted to be in his place. But they’d held their ground and kept their distance.

Now he and Katherine sat side by side. She was warm next to him, but he could feel a tremble of faint fear move through her beneath the grip he had on her waist. She was trying to be brave, but he could hear the rapid fire hammering of her little heart.

He felt her take a deep breath. “What’s the deal with…” She swallowed hard and continued, “vampires… and the redwood forest?” she asked. She and Byron rested together on one of the logs that surrounded the bonfire the Offspring had magically created. The fire was warm and the forest was cold, so Byron had to admit he was grateful they’d gone to the trouble of thinking of something that would keep a human – and a wolf – comfortable in such conditions. God knew it didn’t do anything for the Offspring. Vampires never got cold, and fire was one of the few things that could kill them.

“The warlock king’s estate was in the middle of Muir woods,” Kat continued. He turned to gaze down at her. “And now we’re here. Why?” she asked.

He had to hand it to her for her bravery. The Huntress obviously preferred to be in the know and not even fear of death by blood draining was going to keep her from asking what she wanted.

Seth moved away from them to sit on a log not far away. The vampire with the different colored eyes remained by their sides, not too close, but close enough that Byron knew he did so purely to act as a reminder. His stance was easy, however, and his expression was calm as usual.

Kat glanced nervously up at the lead vampire before turning back to Seth.

“Vampires prefer moist climates,” Seth told her as he gracefully seated himself. “The redwood forest is one of the few places on the planet with this climate that possesses trees as old as we are. We feel comfortable here,” he said as he gestured to the massive woods around them. “The warlock king set his estate within these woods for his daughter’s sake.”

Kat absorbed this information quietly. When the silence stretched until she shifted beside Byron, Seth straightened, suddenly all business.

“Speaking of Malachi Wraythe,” he said, “the warlock king came to our sovereign recently and proposed a bargain.”

I knew it, thought Byron.

Seth went on. “For thousands of years, the werewolf community has existed under the false impression that the females born within their race lack an active werewolf gene – one that would give them the same powers and abilities as their male siblings.”

“It isn’t a false impression,” Byron said softly. “It’s very much true.”

“Granted, that certainly seems to be the case,” said Seth, splaying his long graceful fingers out before him in a show of placation. “However, the fact is, your females have only suffered this inequality recently – anthropologically speaking.”

Byron’s gaze narrowed. “What game are you playing at, vampire?”

“No game,” said Seth. “It has fallen on my shoulders to relay to you the situation and that’s what I’m doing.” His tone neither rose nor inflected. He was as seemingly calm as his charismatic and scarred vampire companion.

“Go on,” Byron said.

*****

It had been a strange night thus far. Katherine was already on information overload with everything that she’d seen and heard and felt in the last forty-eight hours, but this had pretty much sent her over the too-much-information waterfall.

She’d known about the fact that werewolf females were born helpless, of course. It was one of the few things she’d truly disliked about the race other than the fact that she’d thought one of them had killed her father. It was so drastically unfair that the women were born so powerless, unable to heal like their brothers, unable to run as fast or lift as much. In her hurt and angry mind, it had simply been further proof that the race was truly as demonic as the Hunter organization made it out to be.

But like so much of what she’d thought she knew, that knowledge turned out to be wrong. Yes, the females were born powerless, but not because of some horrible design flaw in their natures or any deliberate, forced hierarchy where the men lorded over the women. Werewolves were not the criminals in this crime, but the victims.

Roughly four thousand years ago, a warlock had taken half of their power as his own, and since that fateful moment, female werewolves were born without the benefits of the race that their brothers enjoyed. They were also never born dormants. Well, almost never. Seth seemed to have personal experience with one very special dormant who happened to have also been a female-born. But as far as he knew, she was the only one.

It was a lot of information to take in. Especially when Seth went on to tell them that the power the warlock had taken had then been passed down from him to his son and his son’s son and so forth, for the next several thousand years. According to Seth, the power now rested in the hands of one Malachi Wraythe, the warlock king.

“That explains a lot,” said Byron. Kat turned to look up at him. So close beside her, he was a rod of tension that radiated a nearly unnatural heat. Between him and the fire in front of her, it could have begun snowing and she wouldn’t have noticed.

“Indeed,” agreed Seth. “Wraythe has always had more power than he knew what to do with. Even given the curse that fuels his abilities, he can’t seem to do anything on his own. You know of what I speak,” he said softly, giving Byron a meaningful look. “Did he ever face you without the help of one or more of his men while you were his daughter’s prisoner?”

Byron’s tall form stiffened. Kat found herself wanting to inch away from him. There was an uncomfortable vibration coming off of him at the mention of his imprisonment. For an instant, Kat imagined the wolf she’d seen over her father’s dead body, the massive black wolf that she’d faced in the clearing on the warlock king’s grounds. He was huge and terrifying. It was startling to recall that it was that very same wolf that lay, barely hidden, beneath the handsome façade that was Byron Caige.

“No,” Byron said simply. His eyes were glowing again.

“No,” Seth repeated. “He kept his own unwilling bride locked up with the help of borrowed magic and vampire guards. The man does not deserve the power he possesses.”

There was a silence following that decree that none of them seemed to want to break. Certainly no one disagreed.

“However, the warlock king’s unworthiness is not what is important here,” Seth finally continued. “What is important is that the curse his ancestor placed upon your kind can be reversed.”

Another silence stretched, this one pregnant with a mixture of shock and stark disbelief. “You’re lying,” Byron finally accused. “Why would I lie?” “Why do vampires do any of the things they do?” Byron asked, his expression darkening. “I have no idea.” “Hear him out” Kat interrupted, laying a gentle hand on Byron’s arm. The rod of tension that had stiffened his body seemed to instantly relax a bit. He turned to look down at her.

“I knew she would be the logical one,” Seth said softly.

Byron shot him a hard look and seemed to mull something over. “Okay then, have out with it,” he finally said. “How can this curse be reversed?”

Seth looked from Byron to Katherine and back again, and something dark flashed before his ice blue eyes. Kat knew that look. He was going to have to say something he didn’t want to say.

“Lord Wraythe has agreed to release the werewolf race from the bindings that leach its power on one condition,” he said.

“Release us?” Byron questioned. “Is such a thing possible?”

“It is,” said Seth. “But at great cost to Malachi. He must willingly die to release the magic. It will run free with the blood of his death.”

Kat felt her jaw drop and her eyes widen. Could what he was saying be true? There was actually a way to change everything for the werewolf race?

If so… if he was being honest, then Kat couldn’t imagine why the warlock king would agree to do such a thing. Why would he die to ensure the future of the werewolf race? If anything, he had to hate werewolves right now; he probably believed that Byron had something to do with his daughter’s death.

And why would the vampires think this was a good thing? What did they stand to gain from this deal?

Katherine could imagine that Byron was as surprised as she was about all of this; he had yet to say anything where he sat beside her. But she couldn’t look up at him to verify her hunch. She was too caught up in what Seth was telling them. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why in God’s name would the warlock king agree to do such a thing? What can he possibly hope to gain from such a deal? Not to mention the vampires?”

“My sovereign has his reasons for showing interest in this arrangement,” Seth said. “They remain his reasons and his alone.” “I just bet they do,” Kat said. “And the warlock king? Why would he do this?” Again that dark look crossed Seth’s features. “As I said,” he began, “Wraythe has agreed to do so on one condition.” Here it comes, thought Kat. The other shoe dropping.

“He wants the guaranteed death of the man who killed his daughter.”

“Who does he think killed his daughter?” Kat asked, her voice sounding hollow in her own ears. She already knew the answer. She didn’t even know why she was asking; it was automatic. Like a moth to a flame.

“Me,” said Byron. Kat slowly turned to look up at him. But his gaze was on the fire at the center of the camp, and his storm gray eyes were no longer glowing.

Chapter Twenty

“Crosshairs”

Lucas stood in the center of the cave and turned a slow circle. The fire had burned down to its embers, but the logs that remained were crisscrossed in a pattern that Lucas instantly recognized. Byron had built a lot of fires for them along the Gold Coast when they were teenagers. He’d always laid the logs just so.

The air in the cave was a mixture of cold and hot and it felt strangely charged, as if with electricity. Lightning waiting to happen.

It also smelled like him.

Like Byron.

It had been so long. There weren’t even words for what was going through Lucas’s body and mind in that moment. The emotion was unlike any he’d ever experienced. He felt numb and overrun at once. A crazy part of him wanted to touch the red and black logs in the campfire. He wanted to take them home with him.

“They were here,” said Daniel as he made his way back through the cave from the entrance where Lily, Charlie and Danny stood together with Malcolm and James Valentine. Lucas turned to face him, and Daniel stopped in his tracks.

It must have been the expression on Lucas’s face. He wondered what he looked like.

Daniel searched his gaze for a moment and then closed the distance between them to place his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “We’ll find him, Caige. We’re one step closer.”

“I know,” Lucas said. His voice sounded hoarse but he didn’t bother to clear it. “He was with his mate,” he continued. “I can smell her blood.”

Daniel nodded, his expression unreadable. “Either she was injured or he marked her. I’m betting on the latter.”

So was Lucas. If his brother was anything like him – and he was – then he wouldn’t want to wait and he wouldn’t take chances. Especially not after being held prisoner for fifty years.

A wave of dizzying reality washed over Lucas, blurring his vision. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. Fifty years. He couldn’t come to grips with it. At first, he simply hadn’t believed it. Despite the fact that Lily Kane had had hundreds of visions in the last two and a half years and not one of them had been wrong, Lucas couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of someone keeping his brother locked up for five decades.

Byron Caige was a rebel, a fighter, a free man. Lucas had always wanted to be like him – hell, he’d pretty much grown up a carbon copy of his big brother and he’d done so on purpose. Because nothing beat Byron Caige. Nothing could hold him.

At least that was what he’d thought. But now Lucas could scent his brother in the cavernous air and the smoldering logs in the camp fire bore his signature and he had to admit – finally – that Lily Kane had been right once again.

Byron was alive.

“Their scent disappears right outside the cave entrance,” Daniel went on. “And it smells like magic. I’m assuming they were transported somewhere else. Danny’s trying to see if she can follow the spell’s signature, but if she can’t, then….” Daniel trailed off, shooting a concerned glance at his lovely wife where she stood conversing with her friends and running a hand through her long golden hair.

“Then it’s on Lily’s shoulders again,” Lucas supplied softly. Daniel turned to him, his blue eyes stark. He nodded, just once. ***** Kat had no idea what to say to Byron, but looking up at him in that moment, she was struck with a hard cord of anger. The crackling of the fire was the only sound that punctuated the silence, but in her head, she was screaming. And she wasn’t even sure why.

Without fully realizing what she was doing, Kat spun on Seth and her indigo gaze narrowed into purple slits. “Why did you bother telling him this?” she asked him hotly. “Why not just kill us?” Why would Seth fill Byron’s head with the guilt of knowing that it was his life and his life alone that could be sacrificed for the good of his entire race? What was the point? Torture?

“As I told you, Katherine,” Seth said patiently, “I owe you a boon.”

“And this is what you call a boon?” she demanded. “Telling us why you’re going to kill us before you do it?”

Seth looked as though he was going to reply when he suddenly went still and his eyes flashed into red. A second later, several other sets of eyes went red as well, until monster eyes pierced the darkness all around them, a vision straight out of a nightmare.

Katherine’s ears pricked, her skin flushed warm, and just as she was considering getting to her feet, Byron was already doing so. He and the vampires moved in synchronicity, their senses clearly kicked into high alert.

She heard the darts before she saw them; darts had a very unique sound to them. They suffered from a certain amount of drag and there was a hollow quality to the material they were created from. When they split the air, they left a deep gash in it that resonated on a lower level.

These darts came out of the darkness and whizzed past Kat’s ears. They’d failed to hit their mark, which Kat reasoned was somewhere in the vicinity of her throat, because Byron dove over her, taking her to the ground with blurring speed. She would have landed hard enough to knock the wind from her lungs, but Byron turned, wrapping his arms around her, and absorbed the impact himself. He then rolled with her across the clearing leaves and needles.

When they came to a stop, Kat tried to make out any sounds that would help her figure out what was going on. There were odd popping noises, mini-thunders that filled the clearing and the surrounding forest, and a few hurried footfalls in the underbrush.

No voices. That was disorienting and it would have served to further confuse Kat under normal circumstances, but the darts had tipped her off as to who their attackers were. Hunters used darts on quarry they wanted alive. Every once in a while, a human got caught up in “demon” business and the Hunters took him or her in for questioning. The guns Hunters normally used on werewolves would have killed a human ten times over, so they developed the darts, which could be used on anyone. Even children.

“Stay here!” Byron commanded before he was once more blurring into action. He was up on his feet and flashing into wolf form so fast she couldn’t catch the movement. And then he was gone.

“Like hell,” she said as she sat up. A cursory scan of the clearing revealed that it had been cast into darkness. The vampires who had been there moments ago were gone; they’d vanished to leave Katherine and Byron to fight alone. Figures moved in the shadows and the fire had been magically doused. There wasn’t even any smoke.

Kat rolled back and then jumped to bring her legs beneath her in a crouched position. That serum worked, she thought. It was incredibly easy for her to move as she’d been trained to move, despite the blood Byron had taken from her. The vampire had obviously been telling the truth about his experience with such things.

Now that she was upright, she could see the red beams of laser sights slicing across the clearing in different directions. Byron was at the center of the clearing, once more in human form and engaged in fist to cuffs with two Hunters at once. No doubt he’d rushed them; she could see their discarded weapons on the ground nearby. Two other Hunters lay dead on the ground, their throats ripped out. One of the bodies had a face she recognized. He was young; probably around nineteen or twenty. He worked with Manuel Sanchez.

Katherine absorbed the sight with a heavy feeling in her gut, and then shoved the image into some compartment within her mind saved for things she would have to digest eventually but didn’t have time to deal with right now.

The sights that were lasering in on Byron’s body couldn’t get a clear shot. He moved so fast, his opponents kept getting in the way. Only split seconds had passed since he’d left her on the ground, but she was seeing everything the way one does when faced with a traumatic event: In slow motion.

The laser sights belonged to the same kind of weapon Kat had faced Byron with in the clearing on the warlock king’s estate. She remembered that her gun hadn’t gone off – it had “jammed.” Now she knew that Byron’s immensely powerful control over electrical objects had had something to do with it. He could stop these before they went off too, but he was enmeshed in hand-to-hand combat and might not even know they were there.

“Byron!” she yelled. “Shut down the guns!”

She heard someone swear and then one of the guns went off. The shot missed, thankfully, and no further shots were fired. Or they were, but the guns were “jammed.”

Relief washed over Katherine, but it was short lived.

“Get out of here!” Byron yelled. Kat could feel the shift in the air; the mood was changing. The other Hunters were coming out of the clearing now. She turned to count them – half a dozen in addition to the men on the ground and the two Byron was fighting. A third Hunter joined his companions in the dirt and Byron was left fighting a single man. Kat knew the human wouldn’t last long.

But with a sinking feeling, she realized it didn’t matter. She heard the cocking of cold, hard steel and smelled the musk of gun powder on the air. A second later, there was the sound of leather on nylon and the tiny click of a dart gun being reloaded.

Kat dove for cover as the dart sailed past. The razor edge of its casing sliced across her back as she went down, ripping a line into her leather jacket. Which was why she wore leather jackets in the first place.

As she hit the ground and rolled of her own accord, she called out once more. “Byron, he has a revolver!”

There was no electricity involved in the shooting of a Smith and Wesson. Those guns were old magic, all fire and brimstone, lightning and thunder. She knew Sanchez carried one with him just in case; she’d done her homework on the opposition, even if she had never planned to outwardly challenge them for the position of leader.

Sanchez’s particular weapon carried bullets made to kill a werewolf. They weren’t silver; that was a rather expensive myth gone awry. Kat didn’t actually know what was in these particular bullets. Rumor had it that the bullets were a gift to Sanchez from their former leader – a box of one hundred of them. That was why he carried the revolver. The gun would have been useless without them.

Somewhere over her head and a few feet away, a hammer slammed a primer and fire split the night. Kat rolled to her hands and knees and scrambled through the dirt. Above her, someone tried to grab her by the back of her jacket, but she rose, slipped out of it, and then spun on the ground, raising her leg in a fan kick that took her attacker out.

Another Hunter hit the ground – but at least she hadn’t killed him. Kat looked at his unconscious body and saw the glint of steel on his thigh. Working on instinct, she reached out and yanked the Buck knife out of its sheath and shoved it into the similar sheath on the inside of her own boot.

The gun went off again, an explosion that echoed through the forest like a single-strike epitaph. Kat tried to keep moving, shooting for the tree line in front of her. Another dart raced toward her and this time, she felt it slice across her upper arm, digging a hole into her shirt and carving a red line across her bicep. She gritted her teeth against the sudden flash of pain and thanked her lucky stars she’d chosen to wear black. They could probably see her river of white-blonde hair well enough in the darkness, but fortunately they weren’t aiming for her head.

The revolver went off a third time and fourth time and Kat’s stomach clenched. She made it to the edge of the clearing, scrambled into the shadows beneath the low-lying braches of a tree, and tried to see what the hell was going on.

Several feet away, Byron Caige stood with a Hunter in his grasp. He’d placed the other man before his own body as a shield, one strong arm wrapped around the Hunter’s neck, the other around his chest. In front of them both stood Manuel Sanchez, his gun arm extended, the hammer pulled back and ready.

“Go ahead,” growled Byron through a deadly set of fangs. His jacket, too, was missing and his clothes were smeared with dirt and blood.

Sanchez pulled the trigger without blinking. The man Byron was holding jerked once in his grip and then went slack. Byron looked down at the limp form in his arms and, a brief moment later, he let the human slide to the ground. When he looked back up at Sanchez, it was through glowing eyes and a stark, enigmatic expression.

Kat couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. She’d known that Hunter teams were turning against one another, but this had been one of Sanchez’s own men.

“I don’t suppose you’d agree to coming quietly,” Sanchez said softly, cocking his head to one side and regarding Byron with unadaltered disgust.

Byron didn’t respond.

Sanchez shrugged. “Either way.” And then he cocked the gun again and Kat found herself rushing forward into the clearing.

“No!” she screamed, coming to a skidding halt ten feet from the two of them. Byron glanced at her in hard disappointment. It was as if he’d known she was there all along and this was the very thing he hadn’t wanted her to do.

But Sanchez smiled. Without taking his eyes from Byron, he addressed Katherine. “I was wondering when you would speak up, Dare. Your compassion is admirable, but it’s misplaced. We aren’t the humane society.”

“You can’t kill him, Sanchez. He has powers that other wolves have only ever dreamed of,” she said. She blinked. Apparently her mind was faster than she’d thought. She was trying to buy them time. Bartering. And she was using the one piece of information that might actually work. “Our people could learn a lot from him.”

“Oh, you mean that little trick he plays with the juice?” Sanchez asked before he chuckled. “I’m well aware. I admit I had no idea it would extend to our weapons – impressive,” he nodded in mock respect. “And I would love to know more. But your puppy is a trouble maker, Dare; his life doesn’t seem to mean enough to him to insure his cooperation.” He paused and then said, “I wonder if yours does.”

Without looking at her, he turned the gun on Katherine and Kat felt herself go cold.

Sanchez waited, his black eyes revealing nothing. And then, finally, he turned to look down his arm at Katherine. “Your death would suck the life right out of him.”

Kat held her breath.

“But you’re one of our best and you can be redeemed. You’re not the demon here,” he said quickly, turning the gun back on Byron. “He is.”

Kat knew it was coming. Her body was moving before her brain fully processed the knowledge. “No!” she screamed as Sanchez pulled the trigger.

She hit the Hunter in the side, her shoulder to his waist, and the gun went off a sixth and final time. And then she was being pulled off of him none too gently and thrown in the other direction. Katherine landed on a patch of fallen leaves and rushed to get back on her feet. But the sounds coming from behind her then were retched and horrible, straight out of a nightmare, and at the last minute, she simply stood still, her body too terrified to turn around.

She was trembling badly and a ruthless cold was seeping into her bones when the noises stopped and silence filled the forest. Kat realized her eyes were shut tight and her arms were stiff at her sides when she heard the single footfall directly behind her.

She inhaled sharply, her body jerking to spin around, but a strong pair of arms wrapped around her, holding her in place. The heat from that embrace was instantly recognizable.

Kat opened her eyes. “Byron, I –” she began, not even knowing what she was about to say. “We have to get out of here, Kat,” he said softly, his lips beside her ear. Katherine shivered violently. “Shh,” he said then. “Let’s get somewhere safe and I’ll see you warmed up.” His hands slid down her arms until he took her fingers in his. Slowly he moved around her, pulling her after him. He never turned back toward the clearing and the mess of bodies she knew would be strung across its earth. He never let her look.

Instead, he pulled her deeper into the forest and the darkness and the freedom beyond.

Chapter Twenty-One

“The Trophy”

Katherine was good at noting the passage of time. She’d been trained to know how many minutes or hours or even seconds passed in any given space of moments. She could tell that they’d been moving roughly half an hour when Byron slowed – and then dropped to his knees.

Kat was instantly kneeling beside him. “Byron,” she said, trying to get a better look at him. “What is it?” she asked as she scooted on her knees until she was in front of him. Now she could see the blood that coated his right side; it had been hidden from her.

“He hit you,” she said softly, speaking more to herself than to him. I knew it. She’d known deep down that she hadn’t been able to get to Sanchez in time. Byron had been so close; it was stupid to think a trained Hunter would miss at that range, despite her efforts.

“What do you need?” she asked quickly. His entire right side was drenched in precious red liquid. His face was pale; she could see that now in the moonlight. His lips had no color to them and the gray in his eyes had darkened – as if night were coming.

Byron shook his head, just once. “Nothing,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

“Bullshit,” Kat hissed. Werewolves were shot all the time and survived. Not every Hunter had always been as successful as she was. “Demons” got away. There had to be something now that would bring Byron back from the brink of death. “Tell me what you need,” she insisted, taking Byron’s face in her hands.

His eyes were unfocused for a moment, but when she looked into them, they caught her gaze and held it, back for a moment.

“Tell me,” she repeated firmly.

Byron smiled a small, somewhat sad smile and a glow sparked in his stormy grays. But as soon as it was there, it was gone.

And Kat remembered what the vampire had said…. You’re his mate. The stuff you’re made of will always give him more strength than anything else.

“My blood,” she whispered.

Byron slowly hugged his side and Kat looked down to see wells of blood rise through his spread fingers. A wave of nausea rolled through her.

“No,” he said, his voice so weak she barely heard it. “Not this time.” “Don’t be stupid,” Kat told him, then tried her best to swallow down her own sickness. “Exactly,” he said, laughing harshly. “I could kill you.” “You won’t,” she told him. “If you were going to kill me, you’d have done so a long time ago.” Byron still hesitated, sitting back on his heels and dropping his head as pain obviously overtook him. Kat saw him dying in front of her and thought of the many alpha werewolves she had killed over the years. They’d died because of her. And now here was the man she was meant to be with, the one her blood called for, and he was dying too. But she’d be damned if it would be her fault this time.

The grown up in Katherine took over and she felt herself go hard inside. “Fine,” she said. Then she took the knife she’d shoved into her boot and, before Byron in his weakened state could figure out what she was going to do with it, she drew it length-wise down her wrist. Deep red blood instantly rose and spilled across her pale flesh.

Katherine was trained well. She knew that the slits most suicidal people made across their wrists were less than efficient. True death came when the cut was made down the arm, along the length of the vein, opening it up past repair.

The nausea was back, this time with the cold, numbing fear of reality. For the second time in as many nights, she’d tried to kill herself. She only hoped she was as unsuccessful now as she had been the first time.

When she turned to look back up at Byron, his eyes were glowing and his fangs were out. She had barely enough time to inhale before he was reaching out and taking her arm in a firm grip. “Do you know what you’ve done?” he asked through his sharp teeth. His body was shaking; she could see that every muscle in his tall form was taut with tension, pain and anger.

“Yes,” she said softly. “This won’t heal on its own, Byron. Save us both.” She swallowed hard and fought a wave of dizziness.

Byron looked into her eyes, and desperation met fear. And then, with blurring speed, he was sinking his fangs into the taut flesh on her wrist on either side of the cut she’d made. She was already in so much pain, the attack felt like nothing to her – but then he began to drink.

*****

He couldn’t give her the pleasure he’d wanted to give her when it came time to turn her. Not now. The bullets the Hunter had emptied into his body were laced with magic. The magic was dark and insidious and it was leaching not only his blood from his veins, but his very essence from the spirit inside of him. He was dying, both inside and out.

Katherine didn’t know this. She was unaware of the damage she’d done and the horrible mistake she’d made. She could, indeed, save him. And he could save her. But it would come at a terrible cost. He would have to turn her into a werewolf, right here and now, or the wound she’d so expertly given herself wouldn’t heal and she would bleed to death.

But the act of turning a dormant required the ultimate intimacy.

He was so weak, so ripped apart, he wouldn’t be able to send her climaxing into oblivion. He couldn’t prepare her for him. Everything he would do to her would hurt her. He wasn’t a small man and this wasn’t a romantic night. There was no foreplay, no wine, no magic.

He had to take her, in every sense of the word, or they would both die.

Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. He would rather cease to exist than cause Katherine Dare any further pain. But she had taken that choice away from him, and now he had his fangs in her flesh and her blood was warming his throat.

Heaven, he thought distractedly. She tasted like ambrosia, sweet and warm and charged with her own special kind of magic. His body responded at once, coming alive in every possible way. He felt his wounds healing and his mind clearing. And then he heard Katherine moan and her body swayed.

Without taking his fangs from her wrist, Byron slid an arm around her waist. The softer, more human part of him wanted to stop. He was killing her. He was hurting her. But the wolf in him knew there was no going back and it was the wolf that was in charge.

He pulled her into him and felt the warm softness of her body against his. She smelled faintly of soap and leather, but mostly of dormant, and the scent filled his nostrils as her blood fueled his core.

He felt her head drop onto his shoulder and heard her soft, ragged breathing in his ear. The wolf in him reared its head. Slowly he pulled his fangs from her injured wrist and turned. Her neck was at his teeth, vulnerable and waiting. The mark he’d given her shimmered in the moonlight, urging him on.

“Byron,” she whispered, and her breath caressed his skin.

Byron bared his fangs and sank them into her throat. Katherine arched against him and went stiff, her entire body shuddering with the pain it no doubt felt. Guilt and anger unraveled within Byron, but they were thin tendrils, wispy and insignificant in the wake of the pleasure that flooded his system. Her blood gushed into him, spreading through his limbs, filling the gaps and spaces and darkness where the bullet’s foul magic had ripped him apart.

One swallow… two… He laid her down beneath him, never breaking contact, never releasing her from his dominant bite. She was enslaved by him, caught in his arms, trapped beneath his body, held ransom by the cruelty of his long, sharp teeth.

Three… four… She moaned again, sobbing once as her life blood deserted her.

And he was whole. He could feel it now, like a clicking into place. His body was uninjured. The deadliness of the magic the Hunters had poured into his system had been negated, miraculously, by the sacrifice of one of their own.

Her blood burned in his veins, setting him on fire. His cock throbbed in his jeans, his head felt light, and sweat broke out along his body. He was alive and he was well and he wanted his mate more than anything he had ever desired.

My turn, he thought viciously, wanting to return the favor Kat had so willingly done for him. At once he reached out for the power he’d possessed for eighty years, wanting to be sure of it before he released her from his bite and kissed her to pour that power into her.

But it felt like grasping at nearly empty air. There was almost nothing there.

The fear was back again, unraveling within him faster now, flooding him with its harsh truth. No, he thought as he delicately pooled in what little power he possessed and hoarded it within himself. No….

Katherine’s blood had healed his wounds and fueled his body. But the Hunter’s borrowed, wicked magic had negated almost all of his power.

Byron couldn’t even wonder whether he would ever regain it. His mind was on Katherine now, and on her alone.

For a split second, he faced his choices. Take away her pain or bring her pleasure. Pain was a strange thing. It came in different colors. The red was un-ignorable, all encompassing, and bordered on evil. Red was agony. Katherine wasn’t there yet. And when pain wasn’t red, it could be molded, melted, and used to taint the edges of pleasure, giving it a sharpness that could cut through just about anything.

He would know. He’d spent many, many years learning this particular lesson.

Which was why he decided against it.

Byron slowly eased his fangs from his mate’s throat and heard her whimper beneath him. His dick ached as he released her, but he sat up then and cupped her beautiful face in his hand. He turned her slightly and trapped her heavy-lidded gaze in his own. And then he kissed her tenderly – gently – and with a simple thought, he willed his power over her. It draped her in its comfort, erasing her pain.

She relaxed beneath him, her lips parting, her gaze coming into sharp focus. Byron broke the kiss to watch her for a second and then chanced a glance at the wounds on her arm and throat. Blood welled at the openings, but more slowly than before. He listened to her heart beating; fainter, slower.

It was now or never.

Byron braced himself with one strong arm and leaned over her, capturing her full attention. As he did so, he slipped one hand between their bodies and popped the button on her jeans. “Katherine Elizabeth Dare,” he said, “I claim you as my mate.” He unzipped them next. “Do you understand?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question. She didn’t really have a choice. He just wanted her to know that.

But Katherine surprised him by smiling a little. “You wish,” she whispered defiantly.

Byron froze, his eyes widening. All fire, he thought in hard admiration. Even now.

His bewildered thoughts were shattered when she suddenly rose up and wrapped her good hand around his neck. In the next instant, her lips were on his, soft and sweet and delicate. Byron’s body roared to life, humming with something like electricity. He felt sparks set off all along his skin, as if the air over his body were suddenly charged.

His fangs once more ached in his gums and his vision shifted into predatory grays. His eyes were glowing; he could feel them hot in his head.

He growled low and kissed her back; the animal within him was taking over. When one of his fangs pricked her bottom lip and he again tasted her blood in his mouth, he hesitated, at once violently torn between wanting to rip her clothes from her body and savage her – and wanting to back off so that he didn’t hurt her any more.

But the indecision was gone as quickly as it came and Byron’s wolf was once more in charge. He pried Katherine’s teeth apart and tempted her tongue with his own. There was a hunger in her kiss, in the way she pressed against him with what little strength she had left, that Byron instantly recognized. It was there in the way she trembled and gasped against his lips and in the way her fingers fisted in his raven locks. It was a hunger that spoke of deciding moments, last chances and finaly’s. And it was a hunger that nearly matched his own.

Byron’s claws gripped Katherine’s jeans, digging holes into the material. He broke their kiss long enough to sit back and pulled them swiftly off of her. He moved with blinding speed, taking her boots and socks with them.

The scent of her uncovered body washed over him, warm and willing, and Byron rushed her, claiming her lips in another kiss, this one harder and more demanding than the first. She gasped into his mouth when he shoved his hand under her shirt and wrapped his fingers around the edge of her bra. He felt himself growl, gave a quick tug, and his razor-sharp claws sliced the fabric in two.

He reluctantly pulled away once more, rose up, and yanked the garment over her head. She let it go without a fight, revealing herself to him in all of her perfect, naked glory.

It was nearly his undoing. He so badly wanted to stand up and take a step back just so that he could see all of her, take her all in. Her skin glowed white and smooth beneath the moonlight. She was every man’s dream, a fairy princess from her white-blonde waterfall of hair to the enticing curve of her shoulders to the rise of her small and perfect breasts with their hard little nubs, tightened so beautifully in the cool night air.

Her waist was narrow and the curve of her hips beckoned. He saw the blood on her wrist and the bite marks on her neck and he heard the fluttering of her heart – and he knew he was wasting precious time. But she was so beautiful.

He couldn’t help but watch as she laid back and closed her eyes. And then she did something he never would have expected. Slowly, sensuously, Katherine bent her long, lean legs – and opened them to him. His breath caught in his chest as she arched her back and reached for him with her uninjured hand. “Byron,” she whispered. “Please.”

Byron’s stark, glowing gaze sharpened, his strong body responded painfully, and a kind of madness overcame him as he caught the scent of her sex. In one smooth, fluid movement, he was gliding over her once more and reclaiming the lips he never wanted to stop kissing. He tasted the blood when his fangs pierced her lips, but he couldn’t stop.

She moaned in what Byron knew was a mixture of anticipation and frustration when his hand moved up her waist and chest to palm the tender curve of her breast. She gave a soft cry as his thumb gently brushed the hardness of her deep, red nipple. He did it again and she shuddered against him, gritting her teeth.

He propped himself on his elbow as his other hand explored the tempting rise of her hip bone, the valley of creamy flesh beneath it and then brushed through the silken curls to the core of her. Here, the feel of her flesh, slick with need, was driving him insane.

She gasped as he circled like a shark, his kiss deepening, drinking her in with tremendous greed. And then he was parting her nether lips and pressing inward. She made a deep, delicious sound against his mouth as his fingers were squeezed with her wet tightness.

He swore softly under his breath, his mind delirious. She was so small, so hungry for him. The thought of her wrapped around his cock was nearly unimaginable in the bliss it promised. He was throbbing now, his manhood screaming for release.

And then he was bracing himself on the ground again, removing his fingers from her folds, and ripping open the front of his own jeans.

Katherine tensed and her lust-filled eyes widened as Byron moved over her to press the tip of his engorged cock to her opening. She could feel how big he was; her eyes flashed with indecision, her head turning as if she could hide her fear from him. Byron took her chin in his hand and held her beneath him, trapping her gaze in his. There was no going back now.

And he wanted to look into her eyes as he took her.

Katherine’s fingers fluttered against his still-clothed chest as he breached her defenses and slowly slipped into her tight, slick sheath. Her warmth infused him like magic, gripping him as tightly in its innocence as he was gripping her now in need.

“I claim you as my mate,” he told her, his voice no more than a growl. He leaned in to nip threateningly at her lips and then he whispered across them, “That means you’re mine.”

She cried out against his mouth as he slanted over her in a hungry kiss and shoved himself into her to the hilt. He felt her arms come around him and smiled when her nails dug into his flesh through the thin cloth of his shirt. He pulled out enough to make her moan beneath him and then drove into her again, pushing harder than before, wanting to go deeper though she nearly squeezed the life from him.

His vision was starring, his fingers were going numb and the only sensation in the world he could give notice to was the feel of her wrapped around him. He pulled out and drove forward. Again. And again.

Each time he took her, she arched to meet his thrust, the softest, sweetest sounds coming from deep within her and pouring across his tongue. Every gasp made him more of an animal, every moan drove him further over the edge.

A change was coming; Byron felt the heat boiling up within him and knew it for what it was. This was the moment every alpha lived for – when he would take a piece of himself and give it to his dormant, a gift of magic and power unlike any other. It swelled within him as he pulled back and gazed down at his mate. She was covered in sweat, her lips swollen and red and parted, her eyes glazed, her movements now more frantic and demanding.

She was entering that wonderful, selfish place where women went when they felt themselves draw near. He saw it riding her and it fueled the fire already roaring within him. She wanted the release – would have done anything for it.

So he gave it to her. With a hard strength and a nearly cruel resolve, Byron slipped one hand between them and found the spot he knew would make her scream. Katherine arched her back, her cry splitting the night as he drove into her one final time, impaling his mate so deeply, so fully, he felt he would split her in two.

He felt the ring of her muscles squeeze him in her climax and the world flashed out of sight, his body was shifted onto a plane of pure pleasure, and he came so hard it hurt. Byron threw back his head and cried out harshly as a bliss he’d never known racked over him, wringing him out again and again.

It took forever for the world to come back into focus. Byron slowly lowered his head, his eyes hot in his face, and looked at Katherine through a white glowing gaze.

In reverence, the forest was silent but for the sounds of their breathing. A beat passed. Ten. And then, “Christ,” he said breathlessly. “You’re stunning.” She took his breath away; not that he had much to begin with.

Her white blonde hair was spilled out across the leaves and clothes beneath her and it shimmered in the starlight. Her skin glowed more intensely than before, covered in a thin sheen of perspiration and magic. And her eyes…. Her gorgeous indigo eyes were no longer the eyes of a human, or even a dormant.

A light shone from somewhere deep within them, illuminating them from the inside out. She looked at him through glowing pools of promise, so deep and mysterious he honestly felt himself getting lost in them then and there.

When she raised her arm and ran her fingers through his hair, Byron noticed that the cut on her arm was gone. He glanced at her neck. Those marks, as well, had been erased. She was whole and very much alive.

She was also a wolf.

“Took you long enough,” she told him softly, the corners of her plump red lips turning up in a secret smile. “You men from the fifties have far too many manners.”

Byron was still too stunned to speak. He could only laugh softly and shake his head. Once more, Katherine surprised him. He would never get used to the fire inside of her. At least, he hoped he never would.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“The Trail”

It’s about time….

Kat felt as if she were floating. There was no pain in her body – not anywhere. It was a significant thing to notice; at any given moment, most people walk around with at least something aching them in some way. Headaches, mosquito bites, irritable bowel syndrome, period cramps, ingrown nails, shaving burn, cavities, cold sores…. The human condition was a painful one, all in all, and people simply tried to exist through it.

But right now, at this moment, Kat felt nothing but pleasure. Not a single inch of her was uncomfortable. She felt sated, light, and delicious. The lingering aftershocks of her orgasm were painted with tips of pleasure – and Byron was still inside of her. She could feel that he was almost hard again. She knew that if she moved, the tiny motes of need that floated around her would blossom once more into full blooms of desire, and she would be all over him again.

She realized now that it was exactly what she’d really wanted to do the first time she’d seen him there in that clearing on the warlock king’s estate. He’d been so tall and gorgeous – impossibly so. And she’d wanted to jump his bones. She had been angry and confused and scared, but deep inside was a need that she’d shoved away and ignored for far too long.

Katherine had been born a dormant and, as a Hunter, she knew all too well that most dormants were claimed in their early twenties. She’d held on to hers, denied its existence. And then, when Byron Caige had turned his gaze on her, she had been caught in its sparking steel and called out. In every sense of the word.

“You need food, little one,” Byron whispered in her ear as he leaned over her and moved to the side, propping himself up on his elbow. She turned with him, unwilling to let him leave her just yet.

The movement stirred a familiar feeling deep within and she closed her eyes for a moment, biting back a moan. She couldn’t help it when she rose to meet him and his hardness probed her deliciously. As her eyes were closed, she heard Byron’s deep chuckle beside her ear. He gently kissed her neck – and then nipped it. She felt the prick of his fangs.

“Don’t tempt me any more, Huntress. I’ll end up draining you dry.” He raised his head and she caught the lightning in his eyes. Then he kissed her, only slightly less demanding than he’d been before. Warmth spread across her neck and chest and inched lower until he finally pulled away.

When he did, his breathing shook. “If you were human,” he said, and his brow furrowed as if he was overcome by what he was realizing, “which you’re not any more.” He cupped her face with his hand and ran his thumb along her cheekbone in a tender caress. “You would be going into shock.”

“I’m fine,” she told him. It was true. She felt better than she’d ever felt. Maybe she felt a bit light and weak, but she was alive – and she could sense that something very significant had happened to her body.

“If you have to run or fight against anyone but a human, you won’t be able to,” Byron said. “I want you to take my blood.”

Katherine hesitated. “But you just took my blood,” she told him, frowning. “You’ve barely healed yourself.”

Byron smiled in a way that was not entirely innocent. “Kat, you make me stronger than you realize. Now,” he said, and he ran his hand down her back to cup her bottom. She shivered as he slipped lower, pulling her leg up over his so that the air touched them both. It caused her to clench around him and he answered in a growl and another kiss.

When he pulled away this time, he said, “I insist.”

His cock throbbed inside of her and Katherine moaned low. He felt so good…. She was slipping into a state of stark need once more. When she felt his fingers slip over to deftly manipulate her clitoris again, something inside of her snapped. She placed her hands on his chest and pushed, rolling on top of him as he went down onto his back.

In the next moment, she was curling her fingers around the top button of his shirt and giving it a hard tug. Her strength was unfamiliar to her – and it was immense. The buttons went flying and Katherine had the view of his chest that she’d been wanting for the last two days.

Perfect, cut… He was broad and strong and absolutely mind blowing. But before she could get the eye-full she truly wanted, Byron was once more taking over, rising to claim her lips in another of his scorching kisses. He delved deep, drank her in, and made her dizzy. His hand fisted in her hair, holding her taut as his other hand continued to work its wicked magic on her slick, heated core.

She felt another orgasm building. The smell of him, the look of him, the feel of his sculpted hardness beneath her fingertips – he was all around her and she was on fire and it couldn’t be contained. But there was something missing… something…. Her mind hummed and her body writhed.

She found herself on her back again, trapped beneath her werewolf mate as he pulled back and thrust and she gasped and craved more. Her eyes felt warm in her face, her vision was shifting, and she was… hungry.

There was just something that would complete her as nothing else could. Her body knew what it wanted, but her mind was two steps behind it. She didn’t fully recognize it when her gums began to ache and her teeth grew long and sharp. She heard Byron’s deep, throaty growl, animalistic and extreme, and couldn’t comprehend that the wolf in him was responding to the mounting wolf in her.

She rose to meet him as he pounded into her again and again, and her brain felt feverish. She squeezed her eyes shut. I want… God, I want…

Byron broke his kiss and hissed in her ear, “Do it, Kat.”

Katherine ran the tip of her tongue over one of her new fangs. Reality kicked in, her being slid into place, and she opened her glowing eyes and turned her head – to sink her long, sharp teeth into the curve of his neck.

Byron made a harsh, deep-throated sound of pleasure and she felt his hands clasp onto her waist with immense strength. He drove into her harder now, going deeper, and Katherine drew his precious blood into her mouth.

It was hot and felt like liqueur across her tongue. It burned deliciously on the way down, making her drunk with pleasure. The warmth spread across her chest and into her limbs, coiling in her middle, where his cock thrust up to meet it, making her delirious. She growled, not recognizing the sound as her own – and then she spasmed around him, a tight, mind-blowing squeeze of a climax so strong it was nearly agonizing.

She ripped her fangs from his throat and cried out as the orgasm rolled through her, but Byron silenced her cries with his mouth, drinking her in with greedy wrath. Life ceased to exist; there was no up or down, wrong or right in that moment. They came together and there was only the pulsing pleasure in her body, the crackling of it in her head and behind her eyes. It went on and on and on….

At long last, the fireworks stopped sparking behind her lids, and Katherine felt Byron’s arms around her once more. He was sure and strong, and radiated heat where he clasped her to him to lay them both on their sides. She felt him kiss her forehead and brush a lock of blonde hair from her face. Katherine caught the scent of their sex; it was easier to detect now and it mingled with the scent of redwood and moss – and distant rain.

It really hit her then – what she had become. She could smell the world around her. She’d ripped a man’s shirt off and taken his blood with her fangs. She could feel her eyes glowing and her body changing inside. She felt stronger than she ever had.

I’m a wolf, she thought. She was a made wolf.

Byron’s made wolf.

“Mine,” Byron whispered against her flesh where he nuzzled her neck. It was as if he’d caught her thought and echoed it. She liked the way it sounded. ***** Jason Alberich felt the air in his living room shift and knew that the warlock king was trying to get in. Jason had erected various wards around the premises years ago, and he replenished these wards whenever it came time. But Wraythe’s power was backed by very old and natural magic and it would only be a matter of time before Jason’s spells fell.

He sighed heavily and rose from the black leather love seat in which he’d been reclining. If Wraythe’s estate hadn’t been destroyed and his daughter hadn’t been killed, Jason would have been more nervous about the man’s impending visit. However, Malachi Wraythe was not the man today that he’d been three days ago. Jason’s freedom was not at stake.

His life may be – but not his freedom. Not any more.

Jason strode to the edge of the large white plush rug that rested at the center of his living room – and then he turned and slowly waved his right hand. The edges of the room warped, the color shifted, and the smell of sandalwood filled the large space. When he lowered his arm again, a swirling black mass appeared at the center of the room.

Before it fully materialized, Jason addressed it. “I wondered when you would succeed in hunting me down.”

The black mass coalesced, condensed, and formed the tall, dire figure of a man. Malachi Wraythe’s hazel eyes found Jason where he stood and zeroed in on him. “I’m surprised at you, Alberich,” he said calmly. His voice sounded hollow, devoid of the haughty edge it once carried. “You were too easy to find.”

“I wasn’t hiding,” Jason told him. It was true.

Wraythe looked as though, at one point, he would have laughed at the comment. But he was all out of laughs now; he was an emotional husk of the man he’d once been. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his suit pants and paced across the white rug, his gaze on the floor.

“I want to know where he went, Jason,” Wraythe came right out and said. It was what Jason had expected he would say. “I know you saw him. I know you spoke with him.” He stopped and looked up at Jason, meeting his eyes. “And I know that you know where he is right now.”

Jason absorbed the accusation and watched the play of dark, disturbed emotion pass behind Wraythe’s eyes. And then he took a deep breath. “In point of fact,” he said, “I don’t know where he is right now.” This was also true. He knew where Caige had been the night before – holed up in a cave on the West Coast. However, something had happened in the interim and now his location was being guarded by someone with quite a bit more power than Jason possessed.

And apparently more than Wraythe possessed as well.

Which gave Jason an idea of just who it might be. Not that he was going to say as much out loud.

Wraythe was quiet for a moment, and the air in the room grew thick with dark magic. “Don’t fuck with me, Jason,” the warlock king warned. “Believe me when I say I’m not in the mood.”

Jason believed him. Malachi Wraythe was a man with nothing to lose and a hell of a lot of magic. There was little in the world more dangerous. However, he would also gain nothing by killing Jason and Jason knew that too.

“What do you want from me, Wraythe?” Jason asked, opening his hands at his sides. “He’s being guarded and we both know it. There is nothing I can do for you.” Never mind that Wraythe had ruthlessly dragged Jason back from the peace of death and shoved him into a cage with his vicious, blood-sucking daughter. The warlock king apparently didn’t care whether Jason owed him anything or not – Wraythe was simply king and that was that.

“No,” Wraythe said finally, his tone one of calm resignation. “Perhaps not at the moment. But there is something I can do for you.”

Jason’s gaze narrowed. He watched the king carefully as Wraythe left the rug and made his way slowly toward a chest along one wall. Jason’s gut clenched. He really didn’t want Wraythe to see what was in that chest. It was a holdover from the man he’d been in another life time.

But Wraythe flicked his wrist nonchalantly and the chest unlatched, its lid yawning open to reveal an assortment of devices inside. Ropes, cuffs, whips, chains, and a myriad of other dominating devices had been placed neatly – lovingly – into the chest. They were testament to a darker side of Jason Alberich. It was the warlock in him, and a side he’d been born with.

Wraythe gazed down at the instruments and without looking up, he addressed Jason once more. “Imani Zareb is now the herald of your coven,” he said softly.

“I know.”

“Of course,” Wraythe allowed. “Did you know that the young herald once referred to you as Anakin Skywalker while conversing with her best friend?”

Jason swallowed hard. A lump had instantly formed in his throat. Imani’s best friend was Dannai, the Healer. And Jason hadn’t had the courage to scry on the Healer since he’d escaped the warlock king’s estate. He just couldn’t… he couldn’t bring himself to see her smiling at another man.

Jason said nothing. Wraythe still gazed steadily at the assortment of devices in the chest.

“How ironic,” the king finally said. When he turned to glance at Jason over his shoulder, Jason caught the meaning in his cold expression. The warlock who enjoyed putting women in restraints had found himself restrained by another woman. At least that was how Wraythe would see it.

The warlock king was an apathetic man, however, and knew little of the desires and needs of others. Jason would never deny that his tastes had run along a darker path than those of other men. But there was something deeper to what he had done, something that hinted at trust and release and freedom – despite the bonds involved – and that was something a man like Malachi Wraythe could never come to comprehend.

Let him believe what he wishes, Jason thought. He could not have cared less.

What he did care about was the fact that Wraythe turned then and his gaze focused intensely. “You still care greatly for the Healer.”

Jason felt his throat tightening a little more. “Tell me, Alberich, did you close your eyes and think of her when my daughter took your blood?” Jason’s jaw twitched. His muscles tensed. “Did you dream of young Dannai when Isabel left you drained and chained to your bed after a long night?” “Get out,” Jason hissed. Enough was enough. “Need I remind you that I am your king, Alberich?” Wraythe said softly, taking a step toward him. “And your response confirms my suspicions.” He took another step toward him. Jason’s hands curled into fists. “You want the Healer. And I can help you.”

Jason wanted to send him flying into the opposite wall, but instead he asked, “Yes, you’re fond of kidnapping people for others, aren’t you.”

It wasn’t really a question, and Wraythe didn’t bother responding to it. Instead, he took another step and said, “Two warlocks are better than one.”

Jason felt his teeth grind behind his closed lips. He said nothing.

Wraythe nodded once. “Give it some thought, Alberich. Call me when you’re ready to talk.”

With that, the warlock king’s body was enveloped in a thick cloud of odorless smoke. It rose from the ground up, a charcoal gray writhing shroud, and once his body was gone, the mist disappeared as well.

Jason stared at the spot where his king had stood. And then he closed his eyes and thought of a woman with long black hair and kaleidoscope eyes.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“The Flush”

“Can I ask you a question?” Katherine said where she rested with her head in the crook of his arm. Her left leg was curled over his and her left hand was draped gently over his abdomen. They’d been laying there for an hour or so and Byron was in heaven. He had no idea what was coming or what was in store, but at that very moment, he knew a kind of peace he’d thought he would never obtain. All because of Kat.

“You just did,” he teased gently. “Another few?” He smiled and kissed the top of her head. She was a fast learner. “Shoot.” She hesitated a moment, shifted a little, and then said, “The vampire princess had her father’s blood in her veins.” Byron nodded, though she couldn’t see it. “Yes.” “And for fifty years, she gave you her blood.” Byron’s gaze narrowed. He thought he could see where this was going, and it didn’t feel good. “Yes,” he admitted softly. “So you carry the warlock king’s blood inside of you. And now so do I.” Byron didn’t know what to say to that. What could he say? It was true. Katherine’s veins ran with a soup of magical blood – the warlock king’s, the vampire princess’s, Byron’s blood, and her own.

“Byron, he’s inside of me. The man who killed my father.”

Byron moved then, shifting so that he was at eye level with her, his body gliding over her own, caging her in. “Listen to me, Kat,” he said, capturing her gaze with his. “There is no one in here,” he said, lightly touching her chest and then her temple, “but you.” He shook his head. “I have never known a being with more will and more intelligence than you, Katherine Dare. Blood is a transfusion, nothing more. People have them all the time.”

“Then why can’t we go out in sunlight without it burning us?” she asked, her beautiful eyes wide open.

Byron stilled. Fuck, he thought. She was going to make this hard. “Blood can be tainted, little one, but it doesn’t mean that the person who donated it is inside of you.”

“You would say that,” she told him. There was a hint of something in her voice that he didn’t like at all. It sounded like resignation.

It made him angry.

Slowly, so that he wouldn’t hurt her, he moved away from Katherine and got to his feet. “We need to find shelter before dawn,” he said, hating the way his words only served to verify her claims. But the vampires had obviously decided their business with Byron and Kat was through and Byron wasn’t certain whether the one protection spell they’d enjoyed would last through to morning.

Katherine didn’t say anything. She stood as well, and made her way to the clothes he had more or less ripped from her body. Byron watched as she bent and retrieved them one at a time, the curves of her legs and hips beckoning as she moved. When she turned to face him again and pull her top on, she stretched, taunting him with a flash of her perfect breasts and torso before the shirt was sliding over her skin and covering it up.

He swallowed hard. She pulled her long blonde hair out of her shirt and eyed him suspiciously. “You gonna get dressed or just stand there watching me?”

“I was thinking option three.”

Katherine’s plump, kiss-bruised lips curled in a small smile. “Well at least you’re honest.”

Byron turned away, hiding his smile. He breathed a private sigh of relief. If she was gently reprimanding him, then she was no longer thinking about the fact that her blood ran flush with the blood of her father’s murderer.

A few minutes later, they were both fully dressed once more, though looking a bit worse for wear garment-wise. Katherine’s dark clothes were covered in dirt from where she’d rolled to avoid darts and grabby Hunters. Byron’s clothes were ripped and blood-stained and his shirt was missing all of its buttons. Not that Katherine seemed to mind the fact that it stayed open; her eyes kept wandering to his chest.

Byron had never been so happy to be a wolf. His kind were blessed with impressive builds, but he’d always taken it for granted and not really paid it much heed, despite the fact that women had always shown him interest. Now every time he won Kat’s violet-blue gaze, he felt like crowing.

About fifteen minutes out of their make-shift camp, Byron could sense that they were drawing closer to the shore line. The air was saltier and a bit windier. It smelled like the sea.

“I love the ocean,” Katherine said, breaking their shared silence.

Byron blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that. Clearly, her senses were just as sharp as his own and she’d realized they were nearing the coast as well.

“I love the way it goes on forever,” she said. “It’s this uncontainable thing. Like the Earth keeps popping up points of land here and there, trying to pin the water down, but the sea just laughs and moves around them.”

Byron was stunned… which was often his state around Katherine Dare. What she’d just described was so deeply beautiful and fundamentally true, it was breathtaking. What was more shocking though was that he felt the same way. It was why he’d always stuck to the coast while riding with his gang fifty years ago in Australia. He loved the ocean and the freedom it represented. He felt that way now more than ever.

Byron stopped in his tracks and Katherine stopped too, turning a confused look to him. “Kat,” he said, feeling a warmth in his chest that he didn’t recognize. “I… Have you any idea how – ”

He never had the chance to finish telling her what he wanted to tell her because the forest shifted just then. A flock of birds in a grove of nearby trees took to the sky at once. The air grew warm and filled with the familiar scent of magic. And Byron was spinning and pulling Katherine behind him with blurring speed.

There was a flash of light that expanded from a central spot in a small clearing a few yards away. Byron covered his eyes with his arm, temporarily blinded. But the flash faded and the light receded, and Byron lowered his arm once more.

“Wwwow,” said a female voice. “That’s definitely an alpha.” Byron blinked, taking in the figures of at least a half a dozen people; wolves, from the smell of them. His heartbeat sped up, and his head felt light.

“Christ, you could almost be twins, Lucas,” came another female voice.

Lucas.

Byron inhaled sharply, his stormy gaze scanning the faces of the people present. It was still dark, but his wolf vision was clear enough to see it when a tall dark-haired man stepped around another man and Byron’s storm gray eyes met those of star-studded black.

He almost couldn’t say it. But somehow he managed. “Lucas?” he breathed.

“Byron…” came the almost whispered response. A heartbeat passed, filled with recognition and memories and hopes fulfilled – and fear. And then the other man was moving forward and Byron was rushing to meet him.

A hurricane of emotion ripped through him as he took his little brother in his arms. He felt the muscle and bone of his brethren, heard his brother’s heart beat, and caught the sound of his kin’s shaky breaths as Lucas squeezed him back just as hard.

Oh God, he thought helplessly. Let this be real. Countless times during his imprisonment, he’d dreamt things like this. He’d missed his brother and his friends so badly. He’d imagined what it would be like to see them again, hear them again.

But he knew this was real, because in his dreams, it had never been this good.

When he and Lucas finally pulled away enough to look into each others’ eyes, Byron felt the wetness on his cheeks and couldn’t help the deep laugh that bubbled up inside of him. He cupped his little brother’s face and looked him over. “You’re all grown up,” he said through a half-sob. The last time he’d seen Lucas, the boy had been fifteen years old. Tall and strong, yes, but not the man he saw before him now. Not yet.

Lucas looked pained, his own cheeks wet with emotion, his dark eyes rimmed with red and beginning to glow. “For a while now, big brother,” he said softly. And then Lucas was pulling him roughly into another embrace and Byron felt a racking sob go through the other man.

It was a long while before either of them moved. Byron couldn’t even open his eyes. He was lost in the past, captured in the present, once again prisoner to something – but this time, it was something wonderful.

Finally, he sensed the air warming and thought of Katherine. He could feel her there, not too far away. He could still smell her on him and hear her heartbeat; different from the others. Despite the world being turned on its axis, he needed to get her to safety before the sun came up.

No one in the clearing had spoken. It seemed eons since he’d heard a voice or a even a throat clearing. He slowly pulled away from Lucas and looked around. There were at least half a dozen other wolves in the forest around them, all of them watching the reunion with stark, emotion-filled expressions. Clearly these were friends of Lucas’s.

The boy had done well.

Byron turned to find Katherine watching him with glistening violet eyes that glowed slightly with emotion. She’d been crying; he could see the tear tracks on her cheeks. He moved from Lucas to stand before her, taking her hands in his. She smiled up at him and then blushed, looking down at the ground. He knew what must have been going through her head. He knew she must have been wondering what it was like to hold someone you never thought you’d see again – someone you loved this much.

“Byron,” Lucas said softly, and Byron glanced at his brother over his shoulder. Lucas was pinching the moisture from his eyes and sniffing loudly. “We have to get you to shelter.”

Byron’s surprise showed on his face. “I know,” he said. “But how did you?”

“It’s a long story,” came a woman’s response.

Byron turned to see a young woman with beautiful golden hair and equally golden eyes step forward beside a tall black-haired, blue-eyed man. The man was very obviously her mate by the way he slid a possessive arm around her waist and watched Byron with a completely natural mixture of relieved happiness and male dominant wariness.

“Lily is our seer,” Lucas explained with a respectful and grateful nod to the golden haired woman. Lily blushed prettily.

“And I’m guessing this is Katherine,” came another female voice. It was the first one he’d heard after the flash that had brought them all there to that spot in the forest.

A tall, gorgeous African American woman came forward, her dark eyes searching past Byron and landing on Katherine. “Lily said you looked like a fairy princess,” she said softly, her bright white smile lighting up her lovely face. “She wasn’t kidding.” Her voice purred like audible sex. It gave Byron a strange buzz in his limbs.

And he didn’t miss the way the woman gazed at Katherine in all kinds of admiration.

He cursed inwardly at the automatic tightening in his crotch and glanced back at Kat to see that her blush had deepened and her long lashes brushed the tops of her cheeks in embarrassment.

She was a vision.

“Everything can be explained once we’re safely secured,” came a deep, commanding voice.

Byron turned to find a very tall, broad, and serious looking black man stepping forward into the clearing. It was at once clear to Byron that the man was of a different caliber than those around him. He had the physique of an enforcer and the stature of a sentinel – but an air of steadfast, resolute responsibility. Byron at once recognized the feel of that kind of power. The Overseer, he realized silently. Something had changed. Where was Alexander Kavanagh?

The Overseer nodded at a young woman with long black hair and multi-colored eyes. Byron felt a fissure of recognition shoot through him at the sight of her. He’d never laid eyes on her before, but he felt he knew her.

“Dannai,” the Overseer said and then turned to the woman who looked and sounded like walking sex. “Imani,” he continued, nodding at her as well. “Will you do the honors?”

“Of course,” they said together, and they raised their right hands above them.

Byron instinctively pulled Katherine into his arms and tightened his grip. Just as he’d suspected, the air around them began to warp and shift once more and for just a second, he had the sensation that he couldn’t breathe. A bright, white light filled the area, blinding him and those around him as they were transported from the forest.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“The Hen”

There had only ever been one time in Katherine’s life when she’d felt more like an outsider than she did now. It was right after her father was killed and she was sent to the orphanage. The court tried to ease the transition for her, but at her age, most children had already been in the orphanages a while and they’d formed cliques just as they would have anywhere else.

She was the victim of stark jealousy from the girls; she’d been a very pretty child while most girls her age were going through their awkward stage. And boys… well, boys were always difficult. They either hated you or wanted you, or both. That was how it went for Kat until Kai came along.

Kai Keahi was in a Marin county orphanage and she was in San Francisco, but they met up every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when their groups got together for after school activities. He was cute and strong and fast and he made her laugh. He was also gentle with her and attentive and, for some reason, they formed a fast friendship.

He was her first crush and her very best friend. He’d filled a little of the gap that had been torn into her being when her father died.

Years later, she’d gone to college in one place – and Kai attended in another. But she remembered the way he looked at her when he said goodbye. He’d told her she wasn’t meant to be with him. He’d said that if she was, she would have known it. It was the kind of thing that would tear some girls up, but not Katherine. She’d nodded and accepted it. Because she’d known it was true.

Despite that knowledge, despite the fact that she now knew she’d been born a dormant and had not only found her mate, but been turned by him and brought to werewolf council headquarters, Katherine felt out of place. Uncomfortable.

The headquarters were huge. There was a beautiful building on the top floor, white washed and graced with floor to ceiling windows that looked out over an Oregon coast. Sea gulls could be heard crying at all hours, and the fog rolled in and rolled out like a massive white beast. It was gorgeous. But the top floor was only the tip of the iceberg.

The building stretched out below ground to encompass meeting rooms for three levels, each reinforced from moisture or damage through the use of magic. There were guest rooms and kitchens, a gym, a pool, a hot tub, and even a massive ball room that Katherine could not even imagine being used just then. Trying to picture the werewolves she’d met in ball gowns and tuxes was almost enough to make her laugh.

Almost. She was actually too uncomfortable to laugh. “Here, sweetie.” Kat looked up as someone set a steaming cup of tea down in front of her and then sat down beside her. “Lily, right?” Kat asked, wanting to make sure she didn’t mess up.

The girl with the golden hair and golden eyes gave her a big, friendly smile and nodded. “Right,” she said. “I’m impressed. You’ve met something like twenty people today and there’s no way in hell I would remember all of our names.”

Kat gave a little shrug and tried not to act strange under the compliment. “Well, I’ve never exactly met people like you before.” Lily laughed. It was a very pleasant sound. “You mean like witches and wolves and a bunch of people caught in between?” Kat couldn’t help the smile she returned. “Yeah, that.” Lily sat back and glanced out the enormous windows. The early morning was misty beyond. Kat would have been afraid of the sun that might have peeked through the fog at any moment if it weren’t for the fact that the entire building was warded for the sake of its inhabitants. Dannai and Imani had also cast spells on both her and Byron, just to make sure.

Then Byron and Lucas had gone off on their own to catch up and the “girls” had taken Katherine through the building and bombarded her with information. She had to admit that not one of them seemed duplicitous or “clique-y” or unpleasant in any way. They’d been nothing but kind to her. But something was off. Kat had a feeling that whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the werewolves around her and everything to do with herself.

“It’s a lot to take in, I’ll give you that,” said Lily without looking over at Kat. “You think you won’t fit in here because you used to be a Hunter.” She glanced at Kat and caught Kat’s slightly surprised expression. She smiled. “I can read it in your eyes,” she said. “Plus, I was a social worker before I was pulled into Daniel’s world. I’ve seen a lot of terrified expressions like yours.”

Kat didn’t know what to say. She looked down at her bare feet where they curled into the plush carpeting. The council had provided her with new clothes and shoes, but she had yet to put the latter on.

“Every one of us has a past, Kat,” Lily said softly. Katherine thought it odd that Lily used her nickname, but more odd was the fact that felt natural, as if they’d been friends forever. “Some are darker than others. But we’re a family and families stick together. Believe me when I tell you that you’re cherished here.”

Katherine looked into Lily’s eyes and wanted to believe her. She really did. But the “darker” past she was talking about was really much darker than anyone else’s. She’d killed more than a dozen of their kind. She was a murderer. She was no better than the man who had taken her father.

Kat swallowed hard as this realization washed over her. It was numbing and cold and made her feel slightly ill.

Lily frowned, as if she could see the change that had come over Katherine. She bent and lifted the mug of tea she’d previously set down. “Drink this,” she said. “Its chamomile. It’ll help settle your nerves.”

Katherine took the mug with a small “thanks,” and put it to her lips. She hid her eyes behind the cup as she took a sip. She didn’t want Lily to see the thoughts spinning there. Little did the former social worker know that at that moment, Kat’s nerves were doing anything but settling. They were hardening, in fact.

Steeling up. Because what she was thinking about doing was going to take every ounce of courage she possessed. And then a little more. ***** Jason stared into the scrying pool and his fingers fisted over the edge of the smooth porcelain dish. Nothing but fog. Wherever Danny was, she was protected. Again. She was always protected – from him. He wanted to turn the massive stone dish over in that moment, knock it from its pedestal and watch it shatter across the carved floor of his viewing room. But instead, he straightened and lifted his chin.

For the second time in only a few short hours, the air around him changed. But this change felt light. It felt as if he could breathe easier, see better, and the film had been pulled from his soul.

He recognized that feeling. “Lalura,” he whispered, standing away from the pool and turning in a slow circle.

“Good morning to you as well, Jason,” came a scratchy, weathered voice. Jason whirled around. Of course the old woman had gotten the jump on him. It never failed that Lalura would show up behind you when she transported.

Jason’s green eyes flashed with reflexive magic as he caught Lalura’s ancient gaze. She stood all but four and a half feet tall and her thick, silver braid nearly touched the floor. She’d always appeared to Jason like a cross between a dwarf and an elf. A dwelf.

Her expression was enigmatic, but there was a smile at the edges of her wrinkled mouth. “How have you been?” she asked.

There was no point in lying to Lalura. She’d always known when he was doing so. “I’ve been a sexual slave to a vampire for the last few months,” he said plainly. “And you?”

“The arthritis is acting up a little and I’ve got a hammer toe that keeps me from wearing my favorite pair of shoes, but other than that, I’m good.”

Jason watched her warily as she made her way from the center of the massive underground viewing room to the scrying pool he stood beside. She stood on her tip toes, bent over it, and peeked in. “Anything good on?” she asked.

Jason shook his head.

“Thought not,” she said, lowering herself down again. “Those wolves have always utilized the best wards.”

Jason was utterly bewildered. “Lalura, what are you doing here?” he couldn’t help but ask. He was a warlock, he’d betrayed the coven, he’d endangered Lalura’s adopted daughter – Dannai – and here she was, the most respected and loved member of their coven. In his presence. Acting as if nothing had ever happened.

“Oh that,” she said, slowly moving toward one of the few chairs he had in the viewing room and slowly lowering herself down into it. It was a wood chair and not at all comfortable, which she made plainly clear when she began to shift and make a face. “I came to ask you what the hell you think you’re doing.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?” He felt like a child in this woman’s presence.

“You heard me,” Lalura said. She grunted a little, turned to give the chair a dirty look, and then pointed a finger at it and muttered an archaic word of magic. The chair shimmered and transformed, and when it was finished morphing, Lalura sat back into its feathery, velvet softness with a heavy sigh. It had been turned into something that looked suspiciously like the back end of a swan.

“A bird?” Jason asked incredulously.

“Indeed,” said Lalura. “If it’s going to be down you may as well get the freshest stuff available. Plus, it’s ergonomic. Now then,” she said, closing her eyes and getting comfortable. “Whatever it is you think you’ve got boiling in that cauldron of a head of yours, you need to just forget about it.”

Jason’s jaw dropped – and then his gaze narrowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lalura opened her eyes and looked up at him. At once he was lost in their crystal, clear blue. The rest of her face may have looked like a topographic map of a mountain range, but her eyes had always been calm, intelligent oceans. “Gods, I’m too old to even pretend that what you just said might be true,” she muttered. “So I’m just going to ignore it.” She shifted a little, as if looking for a fresh spot, and then went on. “Malachi Wraythe is a stinker of a man. He will only bring you unhappiness, Jason.”

She knew about Jason’s talk with the warlock king. He was surprised that he was surprised. Lalura knew everything. “You know too much, old woman.”

At this, Lalura threw back her head and laughed, the sound like leaves skittering across a school yard. “I won’t argue with that,” she said, coming to sit up now. She heaved a heavy sigh, wiped what he could only guess was a tear from her eye, and then stood up again. “For instance, I happen to know that you’d make one hell of a god father.”

Jason’s brow furrowed. He was beyond the point of getting irritated. Lalura was simply throwing him for a loop. He was flummoxed. “What?” he asked, not certain he even wanted to know what she referred to.

But Lalura waved her hand dismissively and sighed. “Not important right now, actually,” she said. “Though I should warn you that magic using twins are exponentially more difficult to keep an eye on than normal twins. FYI.”

Jason ran a hand through his hair and fisted it at the roots.

“Now, now,” Lalura said as she approached him and the pool once more. “Don’t have a conniption fit. I’m about done.”

“Lalura, how can you even want to talk to me now that you know I’m a warlock?” he asked. He was just discombobulated enough by her that frank honesty was all he was capable of at that moment.

“What?” Lalura looked at him as though he’d sprouted a second head. She reached up – way up – and cupped his cheek with her palm. “Dear, I’ve always known you were a warlock.” She patted his cheek and dropped her arm. “Gods, you’re tall. Always have been,” she muttered distractedly. She stepped past him to tiptoe over the scrying pool again. It still showed nothing, but she gazed into it anyway. “You were born under that particular sign,” she told him. “I’ve known you were a warlock since the morning you came into this world.”

Jason stared at Lalura dumbfounded. He opened his mouth to say something – and then closed it again. And then opened it again and blurted, “Then why did you accept me? Why didn’t you cast me out?”

Lalura turned a confused look onto him and frowned. “For that?” she asked. “Hell, if I threw you out for that, I’d have to throw out a lot of other people for a lot of worse things.” She shook her head and whistled low, and Jason felt his teeth begin to grind. “Besides,” she went on, “you were good with Dannai and she needed a protector. You never failed her.”

“Like hell,” Jason hissed then, his ire suddenly rising sharply. “I failed her in the worst way.”

Lalura dropped back from the pool and eyed him sharply. Jason went still under that look. He always had. Lalura commanded immense charisma; more than anyone he’d ever known.

“You most certainly have not failed my Dannai,” Lalura told him pointedly. “You’re a bit quirky with your tastes, I’ll admit,” she said, shrugging as if she’d seen it all. “But that’s kids for you.” She paused a moment and turned to the scrying pool. She muttered an incantation and began to float above the ground, rising until she was able to gaze down into the pool without standing on her tip toes. “Much better,” she said.

She waved a hand over the pool and the mist within it began to clear. “You never failed her, Jason, and you never will. You have a choice to make and I fully expect you to make the right one.”

Jason looked down into the pool, his attention rapt as light infused the water and an image began to form. The outline of someone laughing was beginning to take shape when Lalura said, “Don’t fail me, Jason.”

Jason looked up at her, caught by the seriousness of her tone.

“It really pisses me off when people do that.”

With that, Lalura snapped her old, arthritic fingers. Ever the one for dramatic exits, the ancient witch vanished in a white cloud of lavender and rose-scented smoke. The smoke cleared, leaving Jason once more alone.

He turned back to the pool and found himself staring at the fully formed image of the Healer. She was smiling broadly, laughing at something someone had said. And then she calmed down and the happiness in her beautiful, bright eyes remained. The image panned out, as if he were watching a movie, until Jason could see that Danny’s right hand was placed gently over her firm, flat belly.

She looked down and patted her stomach lovingly. Privately.

“She’s pregnant,” he whispered, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them. He saw the joy in Danny’s multi-colored eyes, and Jason’s hands dropped to his sides. His heart skipped a beat and then settled into a new rhythm.

And everything changed.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“The Doe”

“Christ,” Jesse said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “We really need to instigate some kind of rule about you women going to the restroom alone in this building.”

Katherine Dare hadn’t been at council headquarters more than three hours before she’d managed to flee it for God only knew where. It had been incredibly easy for her. She’d simply said she had to go to the restroom, and the next thing they all knew, she was nowhere in the building. Granted, she was a trained Hunter, but it shouldn’t have been that easy for her to slip away undetected. It was the same thing Charlie had done only a few short months ago, and with the same “bathroom” excuse.

“Yeah,” Imani agreed slowly. Her voice sent a warm feeling up his spine. “Like the buddy system or something.”

He looked over at her and caught the enigmatic expression on her beautiful face. He couldn’t tell whether she was teasing him or not. A part of him wanted to take her to one of the bedrooms upstairs and spend some time finding out. But he was the Overseer, and right now one of their own was in very real danger.

“Lily?” he asked, addressing the seer. Lily looked ashamed when she shook her head and shrugged. “Sorry,” she said. “Not yet.” “Danny, can you perform a scry?” Jesse asked, addressing the Healer. “I already tried,” she said, her multi-colored eyes filled with concern. Katherine Dare was the mate of her brother-in-law. Of all of the women there, Danny stood the most to lose should something happen to Katherine. “She’s either being shielded or she’s somewhere where there are wards. I can’t get through either one.”

A brief silence followed, pregnant with unspoken concerns, as Jesse put his hands over his mouth and blew a frustrated sigh into them. His amber gaze found Byron’s form by the windows in the adjoining living room and noted the bunched muscles and glowing eyes. Lucas stood a few feet away, watching his brother with the kind of torn up emotion that could only come from a man who knew that if he hadn’t pulled his brother away from his mate when he had, she wouldn’t be missing right now.

Jesse took a second to read Byron’s body language. Byron Caige was a man ripped apart by guilt and fury and about ten seconds away from doing something stupid. Like going after his mate himself.

Jesse turned to a nearby enforcer, one of the many guards stationed throughout the massive complex. “Watch him,” he instructed softly, gesturing to Byron where he stood across the room. The enforcer nodded and shot glances at his fellow guards. Very discreetly, they moved into the room, spreading out so that each of them could make it to Byron in equal time if needed.

This was a disaster. The warlock king wanted Byron dead and had apparently gone to the vampires with a deal. Katherine Dare used to be a Hunter and that nasty group was now out, not only to kill every last werewolf on the planet, but to exact particular revenge against Katherine for the death of Manuel Sanchez, one of their own and best men. And now Katherine was missing.

Jesse knew that if anything happened to her, Byron would be lost. Jesse may not have found his own mate yet, but the alpha gene was hardwired into him and he knew damn well that no alpha could survive once he’d found – and lost – his mate.

And if Byron was lost… Lucas would be too.

And then Dannai. And the twins.

It would be a domino effect of inescapable tragedy. As long as Jesse drew breath, there was no way in hell he was going to let that first domino fall. He just need to figure this out.

What would Kavanagh do? he asked himself. Alexander had always had matters well in hand. Or, at least it had always seemed that way to Jesse and the others. But now that Jesse really stopped to think about it – had that been completely true?

He thought of the way Charlie had been taken and abused by Gabriel Phelan. She’d endured horrid tortures at his hand. Kavanagh hadn’t been able to stop that. And he hadn’t been able to stop Phelan from escaping the first time either. In the end, the late Overseer had traded his life to rid the world of the disease that was Gabriel Phelan. He’d finally won, but at what cost?

Okay, so he wasn’t perfect, Jesse admitted finally. No one is.

With that in mind, Jesse steeled himself, felt his resolve harden, and turned to Dannai. “Ask Lalura if she will help us with a more advanced scry,” he ordered. He knew from experience that the more magic you put behind a spell, the more of a chance of success it had. “And anyone else who’s willing to pitch in.”

*****

Katherine wasn’t sure what she hoped she would find by returning to Muir woods. There was more of a chance she would run into a pack of vampires or a rogue group of warlocks than of locating the secret entrance to the burned-up remains of the warlock king’s estate. But she had to try.

There was something she needed to do. She’d done so much damage, caused so much suffering. It had never really hit her until she’d seen Byron and Lucas embrace. The looks on their faces, the strength in their grips – it was testament to a pain that had existed inside of them for fifty years and was finally released.

Katherine knew that kind of pain. And now she knew that she’d caused that kind of pain as well. Over and over and over again. Every time she’d pulled her Hunter’s trigger and taken a werewolf’s head.

Kat wiped the tears from her cheeks again and turned her face to the window. The taxi driver glanced in his rear view mirror and then looked back at the road. He didn’t ask her why she was crying; maybe it was something he was used to seeing. Or maybe he’d seen a lot worse.

They would be at their destination in twenty minutes, according to the driver. She was sure that she was making his day; the distance was far and he was driving like a demon. A real demon – not a wolf.

God, I’ve been so stupid, she thought ruthlessly as she pinched her eyes shut and fought back another wave of tears. Her emotion was justified, she knew. But it also pissed her off. It was one of the things she’d been trained to ignore – emotion. Easier said than done, and quite an idealistic oxymoron given that every Hunter in the organization was there because they thought they “hated” something. Hatred was a very strong emotion. Possibly the strongest.

They’re all a bunch of ignorant idiots, she thought then. And so am I.

With that, she straightened and stared out the window in unseeing silence for the next seventeen minutes. The taxi driver pulled up at the exact spot that she’d been standing in when Byron had flagged down a ride for them two nights ago. She paid him, tipped him, told him he should think about slowing down a little, and then bid him good day.

He left her alone on the side of the road and Katherine turned in a slow circle. Once she was sure she could retrace the steps she and Byron had taken that night, she set off through the woods and hoped for a crapload of luck.

*****

The vampire watched the young Huntress through two different colored eyes as she made her way slowly through the forest. He and his men had been instructed to look in on her. Their sovereign had known she would return here and, as always, he was right.

It was mid-morning and the sun shone brightly through the treetops. He and his companions were invisible, as they usually were while in the forest at midday. Most people who knew of vampires and warlocks assumed the latter to be the ones who performed more spells. But the truth was, vampires were the offspring of magic and magic users and the combination was nothing if not inherently… magical.

Vampires existed in a cocoon of legerdemain. It poured through their blood. There were few things more powerful than an Offspring. The sun was one. Hunger was another… a vampire had to feed. He supposed it had something to do with the darkness of the kind of magic they were conceived in. Fire was dangerous as well, but unlike the sun, it could be magically doused.

All in all, there wasn’t much a vampire couldn’t do. So it took little effort at all to track down the Huntress and follow her every move. Her every breath, in fact.

He wasn’t surprised that he no longer caught the scent of dormant on her. She was a made wolf now. Byron Caige didn’t waste any time.

The vampire smiled at this and chuckled softly; a sound Katherine Dare couldn’t hear.

She wouldn’t know this, but she had no hope of finding the entrance to the warlock king’s estate during the day. Even at night, she would have needed magical assistance.

But he had to hand it to her for her gumption.

In his opinion, courage alone deserved some kind of reward. It was rare enough these days, and he had a feeling it was what his king would have wanted him to do. So the vampire looked at his companions and as they smiled in knowing encouragement, he raised his hand and whispered a powerful incantation.

The woman in the forest clearing several yards away paused and cocked her head to the side as if she’d heard something. Felt something?

His smile broadened and he lowered his hand.

*****

Katherine sensed something different about the trees in front of her. She stopped and listened; it was almost as if the air had begun to vibrate or hum. It was very mild, almost imperceptible. But it was there and her wolfen ears had picked it up.

Wow, she thought as she slowly ventured forward, her hands outstretched before her. This wolf thing is pretty cool.

She was right about the difference in the trees. As she drew nearer, she noticed that they seemed to warp. One moment they were close, the next moment they were far away and she had the unsettling sensation that she was moving while not moving at all. If she hadn’t known it was magic, if she hadn’t been so determined, she might have wasted the time it took to let the sensation make her a little sick. But she didn’t have the luxury of sickness, so she ignored the disorientation and moved on.

Beneath her feet, the ground changed. There was less moisture, less moss, and the fallen leaves crackled under her boots. The warped air closed around her like an envelope; for a moment, it felt as if she couldn’t breathe and Kat began to panic. She picked up her pace and the envelope moved over her as she punched through the other side of what she now realized was a force field.

Once inside, Katherine stood still and gulped in air. Fear was causing her heart to race, her lungs to work overtime. She glanced behind her at the space she’d just come through and swallowed hard.

Well I found it, she thought. One step down, countless others to go.

“Well if it isn’t the little Huntress,” came a deep voice.

Kat whirled around and took a stumbling step back. A man stood in front of her where none had stood a second before. She didn’t recognize him. He was tall, as every man she’d met lately was, and fairly built. He was also dressed in head to toe black. His hair, too, was the color of pitch and his eyes were brownish green. His face was pale, and there was a hollowness beneath his eyes that would have made her wary if she were not already petrified.

“Who are you?” she asked, having right out with it.

“My name is Malachi,” he told her calmly. “And yours is Katherine.” He took a step toward her and Katherine took another step back, unconsciously moving to the left to avoid accidentally stepping through the force field again. “I’ve always liked that name. I considered naming my daughter Katherine, actually. But Isabel won out in the end.”

The warlock king, Katherine realized. A dark fist grabbed her heart in that moment and squeezed. It was terror and she knew it. Now that she was here, now that she faced the man she’d come to face, she was too scared to go on.

He took another step toward her – and Katherine backed into a tree.

“Let me guess,” he said as he idly closed the distance between them. “You’ve come to offer your life in exchange for Caige’s and the promise that I will still die and reverse the curse that has claimed the werewolf community for four thousand years. Is that about right?”

I’m in over my head.

“Nothing to say, Huntress? What’s the matter?” he asked. “Wolf got your tongue?”

He took the final step that filled the space between them and Kat looked away, turning her gaze from his to close her eyes. It helped her concentrate. “Byron Caige didn’t kill your daughter,” she told him firmly, willing herself to go on before she lost her nerve. “You have no right to hunt him. You have no reason to hate him. But I’m still willing to die to save him in return for your promise.”

There was a stretch of silence in which Katherine was afraid to open her eyes. But then she felt the warlock king’s touch on her face, brushing a lock of her hair from her cheek, and her head instantly snapped forward, her eyes shooting wide open.

Malachi smiled a smile utterly devoid of happiness or kindness. “Jumpy?”

“If you’re going to kill me, then please just do it.”

The warlock king raised a brow. “But you came here to make a deal with me, little Katherine. Are you not interested in hearing what I have to offer?”

Kat hesitated. Her heart hammered painfully. Her mouth was completely dry.

Wraythe obviously took her silence for interest, because he dropped his hand and his gaze slid down Katherine’s body. Slowly. “I’ll tell you what, Huntress,” he began, his tone like ice. “You give me that which Byron Caige took away from me and I will let him live.”

Kat didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. The lecherous look in his piercing eyes was enough to tell her. He wanted another child. And he wanted Katherine to give it to him.

Bile rose in her throat and she turned quickly, covering her mouth with one hand. But once more, she managed to get past the threatening sickness and instead doubled over a bit. It was strange what love brought out in people. Under normal circumstances, say in a subway or a train station, she would have honestly given the warlock king the time of day. He was not an ugly man; he had striking eyes.

But he’d killed her father. And that made him the most loathsome creature on Earth to Katherine. And at that moment, the thought of anyone but Byron touching her literally made her sick.

Still, she would do it. She knew she would. She would give herself to the one she absolutely hated if it meant that Byron could live, would be free, and that he would be with his brother.

Kat swore internally as her insides churned. She was in love with Byron Caige.

The warlock king gave her room, taking a step back. “Give me your answer, Huntress. I tire of this conversation.”

Kat swallowed repeatedly and closed her watering eyes. Now she had an idea of what Byron must have gone through for the last fifty years of his life. Somehow she managed a shaky breath, sucking in enough air to say, “That wasn’t the deal, Wraythe. You have to undo the curse your ancestor put on the werewolf race.”

The warlock king surprised her by laughing. It was a deep, mirthless chuckle. “Ah, the ultimate sacrifice. Death for sex.”

Kat looked up at him and straightened a little, using one shaky hand to shove a mass of blonde hair out of her face.

“Yes, of course,” the king said dismissively. “I have no reason to live any longer anyway. And once I’m assured that my legacy will live on, I can die a happy man.”

Kat stared at him in mild shock. It would be insane to simply believe him – but believe him, she did. It was in his eyes. He was telling the truth. Not about the happiness, but about the dying part.

There was a hollowness to the man that only belonged to the hopeless. It belonged solely to those who had given up. She’d seen it in mug shots, in video clips of people before they’d committed suicide, and even in the eyes of some of the Hunters’ trainees. Malachi Wraythe was a warlock who had lost everything.

Kat gritted her teeth and tried to take a deep breath. It was hard. She could feel her gaze begin to glow as she straightened fully, rolled back her shoulders, and looked Wraythe in the eyes. “Then it’s a deal.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“The Rut”

“Where is the seer?” Lalura asked, stepping back from the werewolf council’s private scrying pool and searching the room with her clear, ocean blue eyes.

The woman Byron remembered as Lily – the golden one, he’d thought upon meeting her – stepped forward, her face a tad pale. Byron reasoned that it was probably that Lily Kane was a touch self-conscious in front of the woman she knew to be the oldest and probably wisest member of Dannai’s coven. “I’m here,” Lily said.

The seer moved forward and peeked down into the pool, which Byron could tell, even from where he stood, still held nothing but a faint gray mist. Lily couldn’t hide her stark disappointment as she turned away from the pool and faced the old woman.

Lalura pinned her with a hard blue gaze. “She spoke with you before she left, did she not?” Lalura asked.

“Yes,” Lily admitted. “I don’t normally share what people tell me in confidence, but I thought that in this case, it was important. I’ve already told Jesse everything we said.”

“I know, dear,” Lalura said, patting Lily’s hand with a patience that said she was pretty sure she was dealing with a numbskull of a child. “I only bring it up because if you were the last one to speak with her, you have the strongest connection to her as far as time and all of its irritating quantum-physical aspects are concerned.”

Lily blinked. And so did half of the people in the room. “Okay,” Lily said. “What do you need me to do?”

“That’s a good girl,” Lalura said, nodding sagely and again patting Lily’s hand. “Come here and place your palm over the water.”

Lily did as she was instructed and Byron felt his fists clench. He had run out of patience half an hour ago – ten minutes after they’d discovered that Katherine was missing. Now he was just about going insane. However, he knew damn well that the Overseer had placed the guard on him. Did they really think they could hide the fact that they were watching him like that? And what was more, even if he did leave, Byron didn’t know where to go.

It wouldn’t do anyone any good for him to dash head-long out of council headquarters with absolutely no idea where Katherine was and with half of the supernatural world wanting him dead. He couldn’t even follow Kat’s scent. They’d lost it at the road half a mile from here, so she’d obviously caught a ride somewhere. They had nothing to go on.

Nothing but this.

So, he sat tight. Or, he stood tight anyway. Like a tall, dark, glowering rod of barely kept lightning dressed in Armani.

“Good, now keep right there until I tell you to move.” Lalura moved to the other side of the scrying pool and reached up so that both of her palms were on either side of Lily’s hand. Then she nodded at Dannai, who joined her as the third woman at the pool. Seeing them there like that, Byron was reminded of Shakespeare’s three witches. He was also struck with a realization.

Fate had attempted to take power from the women of his society four thousand years ago. And yet, the women seemed to be so inherently strong, so basically magical, they found a way to evolve and let their power show anyway. Some of the most powerful members of the werewolf community were apparently women. He’d learned a lot in the few hours that he’d been back amongst his kind. And if he hadn’t been worried sick and ready to barrel through ten enforcers so that he could crash through the windows and do something, then he was pretty sure it would be blowing his mind.

Dannai and Lalura began to chant. In front of them, the water inside of the large stone bowl began to glow. Lily shifted nervously and then gazed into the water with wide, golden eyes as all five of their hands lit up with magic.

And then Lily went still and her eyes began to glow as well.

To Byron’s left, Daniel Kane grew nervous. Byron could feel the sudden tension rolling off of the alpha werewolf who also happened to be the Chief of Police of Baton Rouge. He was worried about his mate.

Byron couldn’t blame him. Lily Kane had gone utterly motionless – as if she were a living statue. Lalura didn’t look worried, though. She glanced up at Lily, nodded in satisfaction, and then removed her hands from above the pool. Dannai did the same.

Only Lily’s hand remained – and the water within the pool began to swirl and shift until an image took shape.

Byron couldn’t help himself. He strode forward, his strong hands gripping the edge of the stone bowl of the viewing pool as he bent and peered inside.

What he saw there made his tainted blood run cold.

*****

“Glad to hear it,” Malachi said, smiling a nasty smile as he suddenly reached out for Katherine and grabbed her by the shoulder. He spoke a word of magic and before she could inhale for a scream, Kat was being dragged through a rip in the fabric of space and time.

They came out the other end, she stumbling, he holding her up with his strong grip on the collar of her jacket. Katherine straightened, sucking in air, and frantically looked around.

They were standing in a lobby. Dust and grime covered the tiles and the doors and windows were boarded up, but Kat would have recognized this room in any condition. Shafts of light that slotted through nail holes and cracks in the boards illuminated dust moats floating in the air. All along the walls were rows of metal mailboxes. Some of them hung open and empty, others remained shut tight.

It was the lobby in the apartment she and her father had shared twenty years ago. It was the room where her father died.

“So where was it, little Huntress?” Malachi asked, roughly jerking her around until she spun in his embrace. He yanked her up against him, her back pressed to his chest, and then he bent and hissed in her ear. “Show me the spot where you found daddy dying in a pool of his own blood.”

Katherine felt the world drop out from under her. She was floating, groundless and insubstantial, held aloft on a cloud of misery and memory. She couldn’t help it when her eyes found the exact spot Wraythe spoke of. They zeroed in on it as if she were a child again and she’d just come sailing around the corner.

The tiles were dusty and chipped, but there was no horrible blood stain, no sign that read “Here, was something lost,” no evidence of the tragedy that had taken place there at all whatsoever. It was cruel and unfair.

“Ah,” said Malachi. “So that’s where it was.”

Kat cried out as he gripped her arm painfully and dragged her toward the spot she was staring at. A strange keening sound had started up around them and only peripherally did Katherine realize that she was making it herself.

Like lightning, Wraythe turned on her, grabbed her by the throat, and took her to the ground. She went down backwards and would have landed hard on her back if it weren’t for the grip the warlock king maintained on her neck. Her hands were wrapped around his arm reflexively. She stared up at him, shriveling inside. She wanted to fight, to run, to lash out and kill him or probably die trying, but some small, horribly stubborn part of her kept her from doing any of those things. It was the part of her that had whispered it loved Byron Caige. It was the part of her that wanted to save his life – and the people he cared for.

Even if it meant this.

Wraythe released her throat and moved over her, quickly taking her wrists in his hands and pressing them into the ground. The ground where her father had died two decades ago.

Nausea overwhelmed Katherine and she turned her head, certain she would choke on it this time. Wraythe’s grip on her arms tightened and she felt his fingers brush the insides of her wrists.

The nausea instantly receded.

“I can’t have you getting messy on me,” said Wraythe. “So you want to pay for Caige’s sins?” he asked through her confusion. “You can start by feeling what he felt for the last fifty years.”

Kat gasped as Wraythe shoved both of her wrists into one of his hands and wrapped his fingers around the top of her shirt. His fingernails gouged furrows into her skin as he did. Then, with one vicious tug, the material tore, eliciting a cry of pain from deep within Kat’s throat as the material dug into her flesh and broke the skin.

Through blurred vision, she caught flashes of her attacker, his angry, hate-filled eyes, his bared teeth, the coldness in his all-but-dead expression. This is what it looks like, she thought numbly – faintly. This is what hate looks like. This is revenge. It’s hideous.

“Did you know, little Huntress,” Wraythe said as his hand roughly ran along her exposed skin, “that a warlock can make a person feel whatever he wants her to feel just by touching her?”

Kat heard herself sob when he moved over her rib cage to cup one of her breasts. Viciously, he squeezed and she screamed in pain again. “For instance, right now, I’m betting this hurts,” he hissed. And then he laughed harshly and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “But I can make you like it.”

“No!” Something snapped inside of Katherine and the will of Kat’s body surpassed her mind’s in that moment. Deal or no deal, werewolves or no werewolves, it simply couldn’t take any more of his abuse. With a show of werewolf strength she hadn’t fully realized she possessed, Kat jerked her hands out of his grip, her strength no doubt surprising him. But Wraythe’s free hand was still pressed into her torso and in the next split second, a wave of orgasmic pleasure rolled through her, crackling through her mind and blotting out the room.

She cried out under the power of it, her body bucking beneath his. It was a hard, angry orgasm, the kind that was all take and no give and it squeezed through her again and again, bringing tears to her eyes.

“That’s more like it,” Wraythe said, taking hold of her wrists again, and this time pinning them with all of his weight. “But there’s more.”

“Not for you there isn’t,” came a deep, unearthly growl. Somewhere not too far away, thunder rolled across the sky.

Wraythe spun, but not fast enough. Kat caught the blur of movement above her, heard a painful sound, and then rolled over onto her side to block it all out. With shaking fingers, she pulled her jacket closed over the remains of her shirt and buttoned it once to cover her exposed, bleeding, and bruised body.

*****

There wasn’t enough pain in the universe for Malachi Wraythe to endure in that moment. Byron could have killed him a thousand times and it wouldn’t have been enough.

His claws bit through the man’s clothes and into his flesh as he hauled the warlock king off of his mate and spun with him, intent on slamming the man’s body straight through the plaster and stone of the wall and into the next room.

Byron had in his hands the man responsible for the misery he’d lived for the last half of the twentieth century. He could have been thinking several different things at that moment. Wraythe was the one who kidnapped him. Wraythe took his brother from him.

But all Byron could really see Wraythe as just then was the evil son of a bitch who had hurt his mate. And all he wanted to do was make sure the bastard never – ever – hurt her or anyone else again.

Malachi Wraythe wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Before Byron was able to get him up against the wall, the warlock king vanished, slipping from his grip like so much thin air.

Byron spun to face the dank, musty darkness of the deserted lobby once more. He hadn’t come alone. Lucas was there, of course, and despite the fact that Lucas had bold-faced told her “no,” his new wife Dannai had insisted on coming in case Katherine needed healing. Daniel Kane was there, Malcolm Cole and his mate Charlie were there. And Jesse Graves had come as well. In the vision, they’d seen the warlock king alone with Katherine, so their sheer number was probably unnecessary.

But no one was in the mood to take chances.

Across the room, Lucas saw Byron turn around empty handed, and his expression hardened into a mask of wary wrath. He was kneeling beside Dannai, who was on the ground with Katherine, both her hand and Kat’s body glowing.

Byron didn’t even want to think about what damage Wraythe had managed to inflict before their arrival. Whatever it was – Dannai was healing it. But before he could do more than take in the scene, the warlock king reappeared, this time directly behind the Healer.

Lightning split the sky outside, casting the room into stark relief for a split second before thunder boomed all around them.

In one swift move, Wraythe knelt, grabbed the pregnant woman by the back of her collar, and yanked her to her feet, enveloping her in his strong arms. The next thing he did was cover her mouth with his hand. A magic user unable to speak was very often powerless.

A thrum of fear coursed through Byron as he watched his brother’s mate being held by the man who had been so violent with his own. His gaze slid from Wraythe’s eyes – to Dannai’s stomach.

Another flash of lightning, so close this time, Byron could feel the electricity in the air.

Lucas stood frozen to the spot, either unable or unwilling to move toward his wife and the demon who’d grabbed her. His fists were clenched at his sides, his tall body radiated malign intent. His dark eyes were glowing red like a vampire’s.

Byron realized that Lucas didn’t want to try to attack Wraythe – not while he was holding something so precious. All it would take was the slightest incantation, one evil word of dark magic, and not only Dannai could be harmed, but their twins might be as well.

Byron had never felt so helpless in his life. Fifty years, he’d been a prisoner, going from chains to ropes to bindings of a more malignant and mental kind. And he’d never felt as utterly out of control as he did in that moment.

Especially when Wraythe said, “It’s over Caige,” as he looked down a the woman in his arms. Whether he was talking to Byron or his brother, he couldn’t tell. “I’ve finished with the lot of you. But before I go – a token of remembrance.” He slid his hand down Dannai’s body to her abdomen and Byron felt his heart turn to ice.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of incredible movement, nearly blurred with speed, and Katherine, who had been laying on the ground on her side seemingly resting under the aftermaths of Dannai’s healing, proved she had actually been doing no such thing. Byron’s chest swelled with a warm sensation as Kat slid beneath Wraythe and her leg shot up in a kick so fast, so strong, and aimed so well, he was surprised the warlock king was still conscious.

Wraythe doubled over in obvious agony, all thoughts of causing others harm temporarily flung from his mind. Dannai spun in Wraythe’s now loosened embrace and pressed her hand to his chest, muttering a word of incantation. There was a blast and Wraythe shot backward as if he’d been punched by a wrecking ball. A second later, his body slammed with tremendous force into the opposite wall, and the plaster and wood behind him cracked and crumbled under the pressure.

Wraythe hit the ground, slipping to one knee. When he looked back up at Byron and the others, his hazel eyes looked strange. It was as if they reflected the light, a set of iridescent mirrors lit from within.

A pulse of power rolled out from the warlock king, a wave so strong it was visible. It rippled out from his center and washed over everyone in the lobby. The magic felt oddly transformative, as if it were meant to change something. However, once the wave had passed him through and Byron steadied himself and looked down, it was to find that nothing had changed.

Not with him, anyway.

A warning buzz thrummed through him and Byron’s head jerked up in time to see a man in black raising his arm toward Lucas, who was holding his wife at the center of the room. “Lucas, lookout!”

Lucas’s head snapped up at the warning, and he managed to dive for cover just as a ball of what looked like dark, crackling energy went sailing over his body. Lucas hit the ground, rolled, and looked up to find that the large lobby that had been filled with several werewolves and one warlock a second ago was now teeming with both races.

He called them here, Byron thought as he, too, hit the ground, avoiding a ball of black magic by a wolf’s hair. He rolled and was instantly on his feet again, scanning the room for his mate.

Where…. When he couldn’t find her, alarm bells went off in his head, especially when his glowing gaze found the spot against the cracked wall where the warlock king had been standing seconds ago only to find it empty as well.

Byron flashed into wolf form just as something hot and sharp crackled by him – another bolt of dark magic that had barely missed his shifting form. If he hadn’t transformed just when he had, the attack would have hit its mark dead center.

He ignored whatever warlock had it in for him and rushed across the room. His blue-black fur sparked with residual magic as another bolt just missed him, but he ignored that as well. Instead, he shoved all sense of the growing, growling, sparkling chaos around him away and concentrated on one vital thing: The scent of his mate.

There.

It was like a whiff of softener sheet at a dryer vent in the middle of a polluted city. It felt like catching the scent of rain or freshly made waffle cone – it was stark, distinct, and absolutely wonderful. Once he found it, he followed it down the hall that adjoined the apartment lobby and into the apartment complex courtyard. An as he ran, he tried his damnedest not to think about the fact that his nose was telling him the warlock king had gone the same way.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“The Scent”

Katherine rushed headlong through the deserted halls of the apartment complex she’d once lived in, her paws pounding out the ground beneath her at an amazing pace. She hadn’t thought she would know how to make the change she knew she was now able to make, but apparently what her mind could not fathom, her body was ready to teach it. Only seconds after she’d taken off down the hall adjoining the lobby, thoughts of following Wraythe’s scent in her head, her body had been enveloped in a warm, white light. When the light passed, she found herself closer to the ground, moving along it at incredible, mind-boggling speed.

If it weren’t for the fact that she was chasing after the man who killed her father and that she had no idea what the hell she was going to do with him once she caught up with him, she would have enjoyed the run. It was exhilarating. She felt free. Each step was light and fast and her lungs felt as if they would never tire. There was no pain involved as there normally was with running. All humans had pain, but Kat was no longer human. And right now, nothing hurt.

As soon as Malachi Wraythe had hit the wall in the lobby, opened his eyes, and cast whatever spell it was he’d cast, he had once more disappeared. Kat wondered where he had gone for a second and then realized that he wouldn’t have gone far. He wanted to see the destruction of Byron Caige. And Byron was here, in the apartment.

Wraythe would have gone somewhere close by to recuperate. And though, as a human, she would have no idea where that was – as a wolf, she might just have a chance at tracking him down. Because she could follow his scent.

Then Kat’s legs were moving before she fully realized what it was she was doing. She had to follow him – she had to find him while he was still weak. His body had to have taken some damage when Dannai had slammed him into that wall, and as far as Katherine knew, Dannai was the only magic user around who could heal people.

Kat’s training as a Hunter had taught her many things. A lot of them were wrong – not in a factual sense, but in a bigotous, ignorant, intolerant sense. But a lot of them, whether wrong or right, were still useful. Like the fact that as long as they weren’t delirious, a person weakened by pain or injury was a lot easier to deal with on a physical level than a wholly healthy and utterly pissed off person.

If she could get to Wraythe right now, she might be able to trick him into willingly spilling his blood for the reversal of the werewolf curse. She had no idea how such a thing worked. She had no idea where or how to even start – but she had to try. She owed the werewolves that much, even if it meant dealing with Wraythe and his hatred one last time.

If she failed and Wraythe was allowed to escape, he would never willingly free the wolves from their burden. All hope would be lost. Kat heard the rumors that had been running through the werewolf council. Without a miracle, they were doomed. The Hunters had all but destroyed them, and before the turn of the century, they would be no more.

This was partly her fault. Hell, it was a lot her fault. She’d killed alphas – beings paramount to the continued success of the werewolf race.

Please help me, she mentally whispered. She didn’t know who she was asking, or whether there was anyone there to hear her, but she prayed anyway. Just help me do this one thing.

Katherine flew past the flung-open doors that led to the apartment complex’s courtyard and rushed into its tangled, weedy mess.

Kat’s mother had died when Katherine was six years old. Kat and her father moved into these apartments years later and Kat had never seen her mother move through these gardens. She’d never watched her pick a flower or sit under the tree. She’d never seen her smile with the shadows of the maple leaves brushing across her face and hair.

But here, in this courtyard garden every Tuesday night, Katherine would sit under the Japanese Maple and try to imagine what her mother would have said to her if she’d been alive. Kat would have tucked a dandelion behind her mother’s ear. Or picked a shamrock for her and put it between her mother’s bare toes. She’d loved going barefoot. Kat imagined her mother would have laughed and curled her toes in joy.

She had chosen Tuesday nights to come here because it was deserted on Tuesdays. It was quiet. There was room for her thoughts and dreams.

Now, as Katherine raced through it for the first time in twenty years, she was struck with how it had changed. The structure of the garden was still there – the same stone steps, though now crumbling, the same walls, the same dead wood of the shrubs that had once flowered. But the peace was gone. There was a storm brewing above them and the wind whipped through the fallen leaves and weeds as if she were caught in a gothic horror movie. She also had the stench of the warlock king in her nostrils, and its darkness cast a pall over her and her surroundings that did them far more damage than either time or any storm could do.

Up ahead, the air thickened and Kat’s shifted vision caught movement of a non-plant nature by the very same Japanese maple she’d sat beneath when she was little.

Malachi was there, standing beside her tree. He looked up as she pounded down the path toward him – and he smiled. Blood painted his bottom lip red, suggesting he’d either bitten his tongue or he was bleeding internally.

The warlock king waved his hand over the trunk of the tree and a portal swirled to life. Kat was getting used to them now. She was understanding – more to heaven and earth, her father had always said. More, indeed.

Wraythe stepped through the portal once it was tall enough to take him, and about two and a half seconds later, Katherine’s wolfen form rushed through after him.

*****

He was going to strangle her when this was over. If they lived through it.

He couldn’t believe her will. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she was chasing after the man who had nearly raped her only minutes ago. She was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid – and he knew damn well that she wasn’t stupid. It was one of the things that made him love her.

So she was brave. Which he also already knew.

But why? Why would she do this?

Byron’s claws gripped the cracking tiles and cement as he rushed through the open doors that led to the courtyard of the apartment complex. He rounded a copse of un-trimmed and overgrown trees just in time to catch sight of both the warlock king and Katherine at the opposite end of the massive garden.

A portal had been opened near a stand of maple trees. Malachi Wraythe stepped through the portal – and Byron watched as Katherine rushed through after him. If he’d been human, he would have bellowed for her to stop. But he was a wolf and every last ounce of his energy was being funneled into his legs so that he could catch up with them on time.

He made it. But just barely.

The portal swirled closed over his fur and a horrible feeling went through Byron. It was like being ripped apart in slow motion. He felt something inside of himself pop and tear and wondered at the damage. But he pushed on through using all of his supernatural strength. The portal shut like an irate elevator door finally being allowed to close, and Byron found himself flashing back into human form and tumbling to the ground on the other side.

He rolled, his entire body aching horribly, and came to a stop amidst pine needles and fallen leaves. He stared up at the dark night sky and blinked. Redwoods.

Again. ***** Kat skidded to a halt and flashed back into human form. It was so easy to do. She’d simply wanted to do it – and it happened. Malachi Wraythe was standing still and alone on the other side of a small clearing, his hazel eyes watching her with interest and expectation. Katherine’s senses were on overload. She could smell the forest all around her, feel and hear another building storm – or maybe it was the same huge storm cell that was also over San Francisco right now. But she couldn’t tell what Wraythe was thinking, what was going through his head as he watched her like that.

As she’d feared, now that she had caught up with him, she didn’t know what to do.

“I can’t imagine you enjoyed our little tumble in the lobby so much that you’ve followed me here for a second go at it,” the warlock king said, his eyes flashing. “So tell me, little Huntress. What is it you hope to accomplish now?”

“You made a deal with the vampire king,” Katherine ventured, going with her gut. She had nothing else. “You were going to trade him the continued existence of the werewolf race for Byron’s death. Why would the vampire king care?” She realized as she asked it that the unanswered question had been brewing in the back of her mind ever since she’d learned about the deal.

Malachi smirked. “Dormants are delicious,” he said with a shrug. “And they’re all but extinct. For thousands of years, the king has kept his people from feeding off of dormants due to their rarity and the fact that without them, the werewolf population will evaporate.” Wraythe stopped, clutched his stomach for a moment, and then coughed, wiping the added blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“The vampire king wants you to reverse the curse just so he and his people can feed off of dormants again?” Kat asked, disbelieving.

“What can I say?” he asked with a dark look and a red-stained grin. “Vampires will do anything for tasty blood.”

“Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”

“Who am I to know what goes through the vampire king’s head?” asked Wraythe, no hint of sarcasm to his tone now. “I made the offer – he accepted. That was all that mattered.”

“Except that Byron didn’t kill your daughter, Wraythe.” The warlock king’s gaze narrowed and his stained teeth clenched tight. “No one had more of a reason to hate her than he did.” “That doesn’t mean he was the one who killed her,” she told him. “It doesn’t work that way.” She would know. Malachi cocked his head to one side and studied her with renewed interest, the expression on his face shifting from loathing to a nasty, dawning comprehension. “Well, well,” he spat. “I’ll be damned the little Huntress hasn’t gone and learned herself a lesson.”

Anger spiked through Katherine, but she held her tongue and tried to remember why she was there. “Wraythe, you are the only hope the werewolf race has of continued existence.”

Not true.

Katherine blinked. She could have sworn the voice in her head hadn’t been her own, but it was also possible that she was imagining things at this point. The night had been pretty stressful.

“That’s right,” said Malachi, taking a step toward her. “It’s all in my hands. So, how about it, Katherine? Want to give it another go?”

“No,” she told him simply. “I will not sacrifice myself to your hatred, Wraythe. I would rather die first.”

“Very well,” he conceded with a disgusted expression on his face. “I see no reason why we can’t have our cake and eat it too, but if you insist,” he said right before he raised his arm and his magic rushed her.

It was the same thing that Dannai had done to him back in the lobby. Kat knew that as she was picked up and thrown several yards. The pain of her impact into the tree trunk behind her was immense. She felt things go pop inside of her and cried out with the agony before she limply slid to the ground.

She hadn’t been planning on the magical attack. She didn’t know why. She supposed it was just that everything Wraythe had done to her so far had been so personal, she’d expected he would want to strangle the air from her lungs or break her neck himself. And when he came for her, she was going to stop him. He was injured and she was a perfectly healthy, Hunter-trained werewolf no longer willing to let him touch her. She would have stopped him cold.

But now she understood how the warlock king had managed to keep a werewolf like Byron Caige prisoner all of these years. Brute strength was no match for magic. It never had been. It never would be.

Kat blinked through her blurred vision to find Wraythe standing over her.

“Stupid bitch,” he hissed. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you?” He knelt in front of her as pain racked through her. Her body was trying to heal itself and it wasn’t a comfortable process. But it was a fast process. And hopefully the warlock king didn’t realize that.

“Hurts, huh?” he asked. “I bet this isn’t going to help any.”

He raised his hand and pressed it to her chest. Before she could knock the hand away, a horrid, sharp arc of agony ripped through her, forcing a piercing cry from between her lips.

Her body reacted as her mind went blank with the pain and Katherine slipped into Hunter mode. With werewolf speed, she slammed her palm into his arm, knocking it away from her. Then she raised her knee for a kick to his chest. She felt and heard his ribs crack beneath the impact and he stumbled backward. Katherine shoved herself off of the tree trunk to come to her booted feet.

She watched as Malachi backed himself into an opposite tree and doubled over, clutching his already injured torso. Katherine didn’t know her own strength. She hadn’t meant to hurt him so badly – just get him away from her.

When he straightened a few seconds later, she saw that his chin and neck were now covered in blood he had vomited up. He was bleeding fairly badly internally.

Katherine was beginning to understand how vital Dannai and her healing abilities were. She was also pretty damn grateful for the fact that werewolves healed on their own.

Wraythe glared at her through eyes that glowed with menace. “Fuck this,” he hissed through his bloodied teeth.

He then raised his right hand and at the center of his palm grew a swirling, building, throbbing mass of black magic. She knew what it was on sight. She could feel its evil even from across the clearing. It sucked at the air like a black hole. It made everything around it appear dimmer, less beautiful, tainted and wilting. It looked like hatred. And, on an existential level, Kat realized that was exactly what it was.

Lightning split the sky, striking so close, it temporarily blinded Katherine and definitely killed a tree nearby.

Wraythe was unaffected. Malevolence etched lines into his face. “We’re through here,” he said. Malachi pulled his arm back to throw the dark energy at Katherine and she felt her body go cold, her feet rooted to the ground. She felt her mother push her on the swing and heard her laugh. She saw her father helping her floss for the first time. She smelled the fresh baked cookies she’d had on her fifth birthday. She rode the carousel on Pier 39 and waved at the camera. She fell off of her first bike, snuck behind the couch to watch the scary part of her parents’ film, and saw her father laying in his own blood in the apartment lobby. She heard the gavel fall in the court room, felt the cold splash of water on her naked flesh as she went skinny dipping with Kai, and then felt the pain of a sparring match while working for the Hunters. Finally, she melted beneath the all-encompassing, hot and demanding kiss of one Byron Caige.

All of this and more, she saw and heard and felt the space of a heartbeat.

And then lightning struck.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“The Gut Shot”

The closing portal had thrown him off course. He could tell when he sat up and realized he no longer had Katherine’s scent. His body was beginning to heal itself from the time-space mishap, but for the moment, pain shot through every one of his joints as he got to his feet.

Thunder rolled overhead and he glanced up, surprised by the building storm clouds that grayed the darkness and made it feel thicker. Storm cells weren’t usually so large. But he paid it little heed and turned his attention back to the woods around him.

“I’m really beginning to hate magic,” he muttered under his breath as he slowly turned in place and closed his eyes, trying desperately to recapture the faintest hint of his mate.

He paused, concentrating as a tiny tendril of hope crossed his nostrils. And then, despite the pain, he was morphing again and racing through the forest as fast as his legs would carry him.

Above him, the storm clouds grew denser. In the midst of night, it would have been difficult to see the building tempest climbing up the anvil above him, but he could feel it in the air. There was more moisture and more static, more power waiting to be released. Thunder rumbled again, this time closer.

And then he heard the scream.

He’d thought he was running as fast as he could run, but he’d obviously been wrong because he picked up speed then, breaking through the underbrush so fast that it seemed the broken branches remained suspended behind him, trapped in a quantum field he’d managed to surpass.

He felt the building of black magic as he neared a clearing and his heart ached with fierce trepidation. Lightning split the sky above him, slamming into a nearby tree. He focused on what its light illuminated. In the clearing ahead, through the leaves of the branches, he could make out Katherine on one end of the space and Malachi Wraythe on the other. The warlock king held a ball of writhing fury in his hands and was preparing to throw it at Katherine.

And then Byron was crashing through a low-lying branch and flying through the clearing. He slammed into Malachi Wraythe’s body with such intense speed, his own bones jarred with the horrible impact and he felt Wraythe go limp in his grasp.

They moved through the air, two airborne bodies, until Wraythe’s back hit the ground several yards away and Byron landed on top of him. Byron felt something in the bones of his forepaw snap, but again he ignored it. Instead, he flashed back into human form and got to his feet.

In the next instant, he was doing something he never would have guessed – not in a thousand years – he would one day be able to do. The storm had coalesced above them, the wind had picked up, and leaves whirled and eddied through the clearing. Byron raised his right arm and lightning flashed in his eyes.

Weather man….

He could feel the heat of the electrical field coating his body like a second skin. He was born to feel it. He recognized it as the force that had run through him his entire life. He welcomed it, used it, pulled it in. He gave himself to it. And it repaid him.

Byron closed his hand into a fist and the sky split. A bolt of white-hot electricity cascaded through the night, blinding the world. Byron felt the heat of it scorch the air directly in front of him. And when it struck down, he aimed carefully.

Malachi Wraythe would never touch his mate again.

*****

“Noooooo!” The scream was out of Katherine’s mouth before she could stop it. She saw Byron raise his arm and knew – just knew – what he was going to do. She’d seen him manipulate electrical devices. She knew the scope of his power. What was lightning if not electric?

And she remembered the clouds in his eyes. The building storms. She’d seen the flash of emotionally-charged magic crisscross through his vivid irises. He was by far the most powerful werewolf she’d ever come across. And now his blood was inside of her and she understood him better than ever.

The sky responded to his call. The moisture in the air, the charge that was always there waiting – it was his to do with what he pleased. His friend had called him the “Weather Man.” His friend had been right.

Katherine’s legs wouldn’t move. Not fast enough. If Wraythe died, all hope would be lost. The werewolves would die out within the century.

Not true.

Again, she didn’t know whose voice it was, but this time she was sure it wasn’t her own. She was less sure that she wasn’t officially going crazy. But at the moment, it wasn’t as important as the scene unfolding before her eyes.

She wasn’t fast enough. Nothing was faster than light. So, there was nothing she could do to stop her mate as he called heaven’s wrath from the depths of the night sky and struck his enemy down.

The night tore open, cracking apart to reveal a dimension of unearthly blue-white light. That light sizzled through Malachi’s body, lifting it from the ground where it lay and holding it aloft with unholy energy. She was sure he screamed. Or, at least he tried. But even if he managed the sound, it was swallowed by the roar of nature and drowned in its fury.

Katherine made it to his side just as the air closed back up again and the thunder was rolling away. As it shifted to the distance, she noticed the ringing in her ears; it was louder than everything else around her. If it weren’t for her werewolf ability to heal, she would assume that deafness was inevitable.

But it was passing even as she leaned over Malachi’s smoking body and looked into his glazed eyes. Byron didn’t move. He let her do what she would; it didn’t matter. There was no way the warlock king had survived the strike.

“No, no, no,” Kat muttered under her breath. There it went. There it all went – all of the hope. Gone with Malachi’s last heartbeat.

Not true.

What the fuck? she thought angrily, automatically looking up as if she would find the culprit who had been whispering in her head. But when she did, the body in front of her moved. With utterly unexpected and lighting-quick speed, Malachi Wraythe reached a smoking arm up and wrapped a death grip around Katherine’s arm.

“Second best,” he hissed, his voice a dried up whisper of what it had once been. And then he spoke a word of magic and Katherine’s world was painted red.

Pain ripped through her, tearing her apart from the inside out. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even breathe. It was all encompassing, blacking out the rest of the world. Somewhere nearby, she felt movement. Hands on her. A shifting. Someone was screaming her name, but it was faint and far away.

This is it, she thought, knowing that she was dying. All for nothing.

Not true.

Not true?

And then she saw it, in the blood red that had become her existence. She saw a woman sinking her fangs into her wrist and letting the blood pour into a goblet of wine. She saw Byron drinking that wine. She saw Byron sinking his fangs into his own wrist – and giving that blood to Katherine.

She saw… and she understood.

It’s in me, she thought. Malachi’s blood is in me. The blood that can free the curse… it’s in me.

Katherine opened eyes that she hadn’t realized she had shut and looked up. Byron was kneeling beside her; he’d laid her down on her back. The world blurred beyond him; her perception had gone awry past the bubble of her being. There was no sound; only the rush of her blood through her ears and the ringing that hadn’t quite gone completely away.

Katherine moved her arms and realized they were wet. Warm and wet. She looked down. Her torso and arms were drenched in blood. An image flashed before her mind’s eye… her father in the apartment complex lobby, laying in a pool of his own blood. That’s me, she thought deliriously. But not for nothing. Not this time.

There was a flash above her, warping the bubble of her consciousness, and taller shapes joined Byron beside her. She ignored them; they were vague and immaterial now.

Somehow Katherine drew breath. It was the second hardest thing she had ever had to do. The first hardest thing was what she did next.

Through the sheer, desperate will of woman making a last wish, Katherine opened her mouth and pushed air past her lips to speak. “I release you,” she whispered, finding a set of storm gray eyes and holding them fast with her own. “I spill my blood freely… and lift the werewolf curse.”

*****

It had happened so fast. One second, he was standing over Wraythe’s seemingly dead body and Katherine was kneeling beside him, and the next – Byron’s world was turned on its head.

Wraythe wrapped his hand around Katherine’s arm and uttered a single, hellish word. That word had done to Katherine what it had done to Katherine’s father twenty years earlier.

Wraythe let her go, his body going limp, his eyes closing for the last time. But Kat’s body was ripped open, her heart pierced by Wraythe’s magic, her blood staining the forest floor

And now, Byron heard that little heart flutter and waited for the next erratic beat.

It didn’t come.

He spun on the ground, knowing that the others had just transported and appeared behind him. He found the one he wanted and speared her with his gaze. “Heal her!” he bellowed. His hand was wrapped around Katherine’s, gripping it with fierce strength. He wouldn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her go.

Dannai shoved her way from her husband’s side and quickly knelt beside Byron. He watched as she placed her palm over Katherine’s torso and closed her eyes. Her hand began to glow and the glow spread, its immense warmth and heat enveloping not only Katherine’s body, but Byron’s.

Byron held his breath, his entire existence weighted in that one moment. The light pulsed and then faded, and when it was gone, so was Katherine’s wound. Her body was healed. Even the blood was gone.

But Byron looked to her eyes to find that they were still closed. “Kat,” he said, squeezing her hand and cupping her beautiful face. She was so pale. Her lips were outlines of white against a white background. The blue beneath her eyes had never been there before. And she was cold.

“Kat.” There was no response. “No,” he heard himself say. “Oh God,” he heard someone else say. “Byron, I…” Dannai tried to speak, tried to say something, but either he blocked it out or she fell short because he didn’t hear it.

His body was numb and hollow. His mind was blank but for the screaming inside that demanded this wasn’t real. No, no, no, no it said, over and over again. Not him. Not now. Not Katherine. Not her. Not us. Please, not us.

“Kat,” he said again, brushing a stray lock of hair from her cheek and tucking it behind her ear. She didn’t move. She wouldn’t answer him.

Why wouldn’t she answer him?

“The Healer can only do so much,” came a voice that cut through his quiet screams and echoed off of the walls of his mind. Byron blinked and more tears joined the wetness already on his cheeks. “She can bring someone back from the brink of death, Byron. But she can not raise the dead.”

Byron found himself turning, his gaze skirting the faces of the people around him. Those people parted, separating in order to make room for someone else, and the owner of the voice stepped forward. Byron blinked, trying to clear his vision. The woman came toward him, all four feet and nine inches of her, and Byron found himself looking up at her. Only just.

“She’s gone, Byron. She freely gave herself to end the curse that has claimed the werewolf race for four thousand years.”

“No,” Byron whispered. It seemed to be all he was capable of saying. All he was capable of thinking.

Lalura gently took his wet face in her soft, wrinkled hands. “And Dannai can not bring her back from death,” she went on. She paused so that the miserable sentence lingered around them. And then she broke the silence, “You need a warlock for that.”

The group fell into an odd hush.

“You have one.”

The deep voice came from behind Lalura and the others. They turned and Byron caught the hint of something secret flashing in the blue of Lalura’s eyes before she, too, turned around to face the newcomer.

Byron felt detached, as if he were viewing a film.

The gap between the group of werewolves and witches widened and a tall blonde man in black stepped forward. Beside Byron, Dannai leapt to her feet. “Jason!” she cried, her expression plainly showing that she had no idea what to make of this development.

Lucas was immediately mobile, striding across the short distance to grab his wife and pull her protectively behind him.

But no one made a move to subdue Jason Alberich. Despite the fact that they were no doubt teeming with questions as to what the warlock was doing there and what he wanted, no one attacked him. No one dared. And if they had, Byron would have killed them then and there. Jason Alberich represented his last hope.

“Bring her back,” he found himself saying. He stayed where he was, glued to the spot by the anchor of his grip on his mate’s hand. His gaze met that of vivid green and locked on. “Please.”

Jason looked from him to Katherine’s still, pale form and then back again. He seemed out of place as he stood there, a tower of solitary black, almost at odds with himself. It was surreal for Byron because in that moment, the entire world was at odds with itself.

“I can’t do it alone,” Jason finally said. “I can perform the spell, but it takes more power than I possess.”

“Then we’ll do it together,” Lalura said, stepping forward. “And there’s no time to lose.” She took Jason’s hand, holding it as a parent would a child’s. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he let her guide him to Katherine’s opposite side, where he knelt and faced Byron.

“Byron, you’ll have to move,” Lalura instructed. Her tone brooked no room for argument. Byron didn’t hesitate. He rose and moved aside, only hesitating as he felt Katherine’s limp fingers slip from his hand.

Lalura took his place at Katherine’s side and then turned quickly, waving her hand at an empty space a few yards away. With a flash of magic, a roaring bonfire appeared, washing the clearing in leaping light, dancing shadows and warmth.

She turned to face Jason and he nodded his approval. Then he dug his hand into a pocket on the inside of his coat and extracted what looked like a perfect, clear crystal dangling from the end of a leather string. This, he gently draped over Katherine’s neck. Byron watched her not moving, not reacting to anything anyone did to her and swallowed hard.

Once the crystal had been draped over her neck, Jason sat back on his heels and closed his eyes. The night grew very still. There was no sound from the animals in the forest. It was as if every one of them sensed the change coming and was listening. Watching.

The fire began to crackle furiously, embers flying as if harassed by a wicked breeze. The trees overhead swayed in a wind that came out of nowhere, their branches parting to reveal a moon overhead. It shone brightly into the clearing and Jason opened his eyes. They were no longer green; they glowed red as stoplights now, hot as fire.

He reached over Katherine’s body and Lalura at once took his outstretched hand. And then he spoke a single, powerful word and the earth shook beneath them. Byron reached out reflexively for something stable. His hand was grasped by another and he looked over to find that his brother had taken it and was holding it tight.

Lucas nodded, just once, his dark eyes sparkling with stars. Byron took the good luck wish and turned with it, his gaze once more settling on Katherine’s beautiful, still features.

The ground continued to tremble. And then there was a popping sound, short and quick, followed by a sonic boom that traveled across them and rippled through the ground like water. The bonfire several feet away coiled in on itself. Byron watched as it condensed, shrinking and becoming hotter, like a dying sun. It grew tighter and brighter until finally it was reduced to a spinning stream of blue-white light. The super hot vortex hovered for a moment above the charred sticks and logs of the now dead bonfire and then shot toward the crystal that hung around Katherine’s neck.

It entered the crystal as if through a funnel and the crystal began to glow. The light grew brighter until it literally became too bright to see.

“Shut your eyes,” Lalura ordered and Byron knew she was speaking to everyone in the clearing. He found himself obeying, squeezing his eyes shut tight as the light flashed once so bright, it seared through his shut lids and washed him in a bright, hot red.

When it faded, Byron opened his eyes once more. The crystal around his mate’s neck pulsed with the beat of her heart. He knew it did because he could hear her heart beating.

His eyes widened as Katherine suddenly drew in a hard, harsh breath that filled her lungs and arched her supple body off of the ground. Lalura placed a gentle hand on Katherine’s chest and bent forward to whisper something that Byron couldn’t understand.

Katherine slowly settled back down, her chest now rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. She was breathing.

She’s breathing, he told himself.

It took a few seconds for the words to sink in. It took a moment for him to process what he was seeing. He was afraid to move, afraid to rush forward in case he broke the dream fabric around them and woke up.

She opened her eyes. And it hit him – like a Mack truck on a quiet highway – and Byron fell to his knees. At the same time, Jason Alberich moved aside, clearly knowing to get out of the way.

Byron knelt over his mate, took her chin gently in his hand, and turned her head. “Kat?” he whispered, every fear he’d ever had riding on that one word that was really a question.

When she looked at him with her beautiful indigo eyes, frowned slightly and replied, “Yeah?” Byron sobbed painfully and pulled her into his arms.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Catch and Release”

Jason had never performed the spell himself before, but he knew enough about it to know that the newly Raised were always different in some small way when they came back. It was a physical difference – a manifestation of the experience they’d endured, and it was there forever.

This difference was the first thing he looked for when Katherine Dare opened her eyes and drew her awakening breath.

Her indigo eyes looked completely normal, however, unlike Gabriel Phelan’s had upon his raising. Katherine’s lovely face was unlined and unmarred. Jason’s gaze slid down her body, very quickly taking in the single button that held her jacket together and the smooth flesh that was exposed where it parted.

And then he saw it. It was tiny, but significant… and it was prophetic. On her stomach, to the left of her belly button, sat a small gray mark that looked remarkably like a tattoo. But he knew it wasn’t a tattoo. The perfectly formed wolf’s paw was Katherine’s memento – a mark that would forever identify her as the woman who had died to free the werewolf race from a millennias-old curse and had been brought back to life by a warlock with a changed heart and the help of a dwelf.

Jason felt partly empty as he got to his feet and stepped back, affording Byron and his mate the room they needed. The spell he’d performed was sapping and dangerous and it had drained him of a good amount of his strength. In fact, in that moment, it felt as though he would never regain all of his power, but he’d heard that this feeling was often the case with warlocks after this spell.

He felt partly empty. But he also felt partly full.

His gaze wandered from Katherine and Byron to Lalura, who was also coming to her feet. And then it moved on to the couple standing a few feet away. Lucas was watching his brother. But Dannai was watching Jason.

Jason’s heart hurt in that moment. It was a real, physical ache. He gazed into Danny’s multi-colored eyes and remembered how they’d played together as children. How he had always kept her would-be bullies at bay. It was his magic that had protected her in her childhood and it was his magic that had saved her family tonight.

Now Jason’s gaze slid from hers to the hand she held protectively over her stomach. He swallowed as a strange feeling uncoiled in his chest. It was warm and unfamiliar – and he liked it. Twins, he thought, a bit mystified.

And then he raised his eyes, nodded once at her, and mouthed the word, “Congratulations.”

Danny blinked once – and then she smiled. The smile lit up her eyes, casting their gem-like colors into fire light. “Thank you,” she mouthed back.

“Now then,” Lalura said, breaking the silence that had filled the clearing amidst Byron and Katherine’s reunion. “There’s just one last thing to take care of.”

Jason turned to find her leaning over Katherine and holding out her hand. “Byron, hand me her crystal, please dear, and be quick about it. I can’t stay bent over for long.”

Katherine seemed coherent, but a little confused as to what Lalura was talking about. She also looked dreadfully pale. She had been turned into a made wolf by Byron’s blood, and Jason knew all too well that Byron’s blood had been tainted by princess Isabel. Any made wolf would be anemic after enduring what Katherine Dare had suffered. For Katherine, however, the blood loss was probably even more detrimental. No doubt, Byron would be dealing with that particular issue as soon as he and his mate could find a room, or at least some small amount of privacy.

In the meantime, Byron looked up at Lalura and narrowed his stormy gaze. The wind shifted and Jason glanced at the sky to find clouds forming overhead.

“Why?” Byron asked, his voice a throaty, emotion-weary growl.

“I think Katherine looks better without it and I doubt she wants to wear it around for the rest of her life,” Lalura told him pointedly. “And besides, it’s a little nerve wracking to think that at any moment, it could break, wouldn’t you agree?”

“What are you doing, Lalura?” Jason asked. He hadn’t meant to interfere, but this spell was his work and he was well aware of the importance of the crystal Katherine wore. It held her life force within it. If it was destroyed – she would be too. He should know. He wore one just like it around his own neck.

“You’ll see, Jason,” Lalura told him, shooting him a hard look. He immediately wanted to back off. If Lalura wanted the crystal, she could have the crystal.

“Give it to her,” he told Byron, hoping the trust he had in Lalura would show in his own eyes.

Byron looked from Jason to the old woman and hesitated. And then he looked down at Katherine to find that she was already pulling the leather strap over her head. He didn’t make a move to stop her, but Jason could see the tension in his form.

Katherine handed it to Lalura, who smiled approvingly at her and patted her hand. “There now,” she said as she turned away from them and faced Jason. “Let’s have yours as well while we’re at it, Jason.”

Jason’s eyes widened. He took an involuntary step back and his hand came to his chest where, beneath his shirt he could feel the outline of the small hollow stone that pulsed in time with his heart.

Lalura simply raised her chin, narrowed her gaze, and held out her hand.

Jason looked down at the hand and hesitated. But only for a second. Then he reached behind his neck, took the leather straps between his fingers, and pulled his own phylactery over his head.

Lalura smiled brightly when he laid it gently in her open palm.

“I never did like these things,” she muttered. “I may not be able to raise the dead, but I can sure as hell do something about this.” With that, she tossed both crystals into the air and Byron leapt to his feet. At the same time, Jason rushed forward. But the crystals went up – and up – and froze in space, turning slowly where they were suspended by some unseen force.

The light within them both began to grow brighter. Jason instinctively wanted to shield his eyes once more, but he didn’t. Something told him not to. Instead, he remained frozen to the spot and stared up at his floating phylactery as the light inside of it grew and then pulsed once with gorgeous white brilliance. There was a shattering sound, like crystal thrown into a fire place, and the lights began to spiral downward.

Jason gazed, transfixed. It was so beautiful. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to hold it, to have it – he wanted it inside of himself.

So that’s where it went.

The lights sparkled like fireworks, gleamed like comets, and twirled to the earth like brilliant tornadoes. One came for him. The other went for Katherine. The world stood and watched in fascination as Jason and Katherine closed their eyes – and the lights found their marks.

He felt it enter his chest as if he’d been touched by something purely good. Living, breathing forgiveness maybe. Second chances. Hope and happiness. It infused his body, vibrated through his veins, and then went deeper.

He would never have been able to describe the sensation of the place the light went. It was simply a part of him. And now, instead of being dark and maybe partly empty, the space was light and bright and warm – and one hundred percent full.

*****

Four days later….

Katherine peeled off the last of her clothing and dropped it on top of the pile of garments beside a large water-weathered stone. Then she turned toward the sound of the surf and squinted her eyes. The sea wind tossed her hair back over her shoulders, allowing the sun to kiss her bare skin.

Through werewolf blood donations and the use of protective magic, the damaging effects of the sun on Byron and Katherine had been progressively lessened over the course of the last few days. They were told, in fact, that eventually, the tainted blood in their veins would be replaced completely and they would no longer be required to wear magical shields. It was worse for Byron than for Kat; he’d been force-fed Isabel’s blood for fifty years. Not only did he require more protection, he also had to feed. In a way. When ordering steaks, his were always rare. And when he and Kat made love, which was often, she encouraged him to leave his fangs in a little longer… drink a little more. It was a win-win situation.

Kat, on the other hand, had been given relatively little of the tainted blood, and most of that had ended up on the forest floor when Wraythe had done her in.

Regardless, however, right now Kat stood before the yellow orb in the sky free of fear, and it felt good. It had been a long time since she’d gone skinny dipping. Once, when she was twelve, she’d gone on an after school trip with fourteen other children. Kai had been there. They went to a nearby lake and, when the teachers’ backs were turned, she and Kai slipped away from the rest of the class. As promised, he’d taken off his clothes first. So, she’d kept her end of the bargain and followed suit.

Kai was a rare gem; he’d remained a gentleman and, once she was naked and in the water, his constant joking around made her forget all about it. They may as well have been wearing suits – but there in the back of her mind had been the delicious knowledge that they weren’t wearing suits. They were bucking the system – going natural. She supposed that was what had made it so fun.

Kat had very fair skin; she’d gotten a bit sunburned that day. But unlike the other girls, she’d gone home without tan lines. And Kai had never let anyone in on their secret.

She smiled at the memory now. Slowly, deeply, she inhaled, taking in the salt and sun and freedom. Dannai had been right; the magic of her coven had turned what would otherwise have been a frigid Northern California beach into a paradise. It was warm and the breeze was gentle.

Danny had confided in her that since the covens were sort of sequestered along the West Coast for a few days in order to tie up a few loose ends, some of the witches had gotten antsy and had begun casting nature spells. As a result, the normally cold and damp shoreline was a very pleasant seventy-six degrees and the water was a clean eighty. At least for a radius of two hundred feet. If she strayed any farther, she’d have goose bumps and possibly hypothermia within seconds.

At the moment, she was alone.

The werewolf curse had been lifted and suddenly female born wolves across the globe were finding they had powers they hadn’t had the night before. It amounted to a milder version of mass hysteria, which prompted action on the part of the werewolf council and everyone who worked with them. The witches were convening, the werewolf council was meeting, and everyone wanted to meet the “precious” woman who had saved the werewolf race.

Katherine had to admit that she’d more or less shrunk under the prospective attention. Jesse had seen the look in her eyes and immediately gone to bat for her, informing werewolves everywhere that the woman they were all referring to as the “Curse Breaker” would be remaining anonymous.

Kat smiled softly and looked down, her gaze automatically finding the small wolf’s paw mark that graced her abdomen. It was actually quite a pretty mark in shimmering gray; it looked as if it had been drawn by an artist. It forever labeled her as the Curse Breaker, though. For not long after the incident, some coven’s seer had witnessed the mark in a vision and spread the word. Now everyone was on the lookout for a made wolf with a wolf’s paw on her stomach and teenage werewolves were tattooing the symbol on their own abdomens in solidarity… or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

She wouldn’t know. But she did know that touching it gently with her fingers made her both a little bit happy and a little bit sad. It felt like life did, like lessons learned, like remembering – and like moving on.

Kat delicately grazed the fingertips of her right hand over the mark and then dropped her hand. The wind kissed her cheeks, brushing fine strands of blonde hair across her face. This was one of those incredible, rare moments when the rest of the world seemed to have something important to do and she didn’t. Which left Katherine naked on the beach and not another soul in sight.

She couldn’t have been happier about it.

With an ear to ear grin, Katherine braced herself and then took off like a light. Her long legs ate up the sand as she raced across the beach and hit the water. The warm, salty sea embraced her feet and legs, enveloping her in what felt like magic. Which made sense. It was magic, in a way.

She dove in and swam for several minutes before deciding she was probably pushing the limits of her “alone and safe” time and headed for the shore. And that was when she saw the massive black wolf sitting on the beach, its storm gray eyes watching her with rapt attention.

Katherine stopped swimming and treaded the water. The wolf cocked his head to the side. Katherine shook her head slowly and waved a naughty-naughty finger at the wolf.

The wolf flashed into human form and grinned broadly at her, flashing teeth that had grown an impressive set of fangs.

He’s so beautiful, Kat thought as she took in the tall, strong form of her mate. He wore linen pants and a white linen shirt rolled up at the sleeves and he was barefoot. His pitch black hair was wind-tossed and touched with the salt of the sea. She noticed that his tan was deepening.

Maybe she wasn’t the only one who liked to skinny dip.

Kat felt a smile grace her lips as Byron eyed her appreciatively. Then, clearly deciding that she wasn’t going to come out of the water any time soon, he broke into a run, heading straight for her. Kat’s eyes widened and she backpedaled in the water, which of course did absolutely no good.

Byron took the first few splashing strides out into the surf and then dove in fully clothed, eliciting a squeal of protest from Katherine. He was under the water now and she couldn’t find him. She couldn’t hear his heart beating through the splashing of the waves around her.

She screamed as he grabbed her waist from under her and then surfaced behind her, spinning her around and yanking her body against his as he did so.

“You’re impossibly beautiful,” he told her somewhat breathlessly. His dark hair was slicked back from his face and his eyes matched the gray of the sea.

“Some people would say the same about you,” she told him. “What people?” he asked, ducking his head to kiss the water droplets from her shoulders. “Just some,” she replied. He chuckled. And then he asked, “What were you thinking about?” He straightened and looked into her eyes. “On the beach.” “You were watching me then?” she asked, embarrassment painting her cheeks with warmth. “Absolutely,” he laughed, smiling darkly. She noticed that his accent was a bit stronger just now. She wondered if it was the water – the coast in general – bringing it out in him.

“You’re a tool,” she told him. Byron frowned. “A tool? Like a hammer?” She laughed. “Never mind. And that reminds me, I’m showing you Star Wars tonight. It’s going to blow your ever loving mind.” He looked at her as though he had other ideas as to what they could do that would blow his mind, but she shot him a stern look and he chuckled. “Are you going to tell me?” he asked again. “What you were thinking?”

Kat thought of her mark and of her memories. But Byron’s smile was devastating and she felt so good with him in that moment, she didn’t want to ruin it with talk of deep emotions. She thought for a second and then smiled a mischievous smile. She felt a wicked streak rush through her as she said, “I was thinking about the first boy I ever went skinny dipping with.”

Byron’s brow raised and lightning flashed in his eyes. “Oh?” “Yep. His name was Kai and we were twelve.” Byron blinked and Kat saw some strange expression cross his features, but mistaking it for another form of jealousy, she went on. “Nothing happened. He was a perfect gentleman. And we were best friends.” “Did you say ‘Kai’?” Byron asked suddenly. Now it was Katherine’s turn to frown. “Yeah, why?” “Kai Keahi?” Kat’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “How the hell did you know that?” Byron began laughing, a deep throaty chuckle that shook his hard body and because he was holding her, shook hers as well. “What’s so funny?” she asked, truly confused. “Kai Keahi,” he said, settling down a bit, “is the son of Manoa Keahi, known in some circles as “Madrid,” because he’d visited once and always talked about going back some day.”

Kat looked at Byron as if he were growing a third eye. It was what she felt he would do at any minute. “What the heck are you talking about?”

“Madrid rode with me in Australia,” he told her. “He was one of the wolves who made up the gang I told you about at the hotel. Kai is his son. Only he didn’t know it until he actually went to Madrid, found the woman he’d slept with twenty years earlier, and learned of Kai’s existence and the fact that she’d given him up for adoption in the states.”

Kat knew her mouth was hanging open.

“I know this,” Byron went on as his hand slid over her bottom and cupped it threateningly, “because I just had a discussion with Madrid about forty minutes ago – when he came to council headquarters and introduced me to his son. And his son’s wife. And their two little girls.”

He looked up at the white washed edifice of the werewolf council headquarters where its rooftop peeked over the smooth rocks on the beach. “Up there,” he finished.

Kat stared at her mate for a moment and then looked up at the building. And then she looked back at Byron. “I don’t believe this,” she said. And she didn’t.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he told her, grinning broadly.

“Oh my God,” she said then, remembering something. “Before I went off to college, Kai told me not to worry about us – that I wasn’t meant to be with him.” She blinked and felt her mouth form an “O.” “He knew, didn’t he? He knew I was a dormant.”

Byron’s smile softened and he nodded. “Without a doubt, Katherine. And for him to realize you were not his mate and let you go proved he was the best friend you say he was and the alpha he probably knew he was.”

Wow, thought Katherine. The werewolf race had been all around her for practically her entire life. She’d never realized it. It was like a silent guardian, a force that pushed and pulled. In its own way, it had been there for her.

And in the end, in her own special way, Katherine Dare had been there for it as well.

Roman D’Angelo had lived a great many years and had come to know a great many things in that time. But one thing he feared he would never quite have down was how to prepare himself for a visit from Lalura Chantelle.

She came upon him like a hurricane, as always, and he turned from the window through which he’d been gazing at the alabaster fountain at the center of his night garden.

A moment later, he felt her presence against his wards as if she were the raven, tap, tap, tapping at his chamber door. Roman took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. Then he waved his hand dismissively and his wards fell.

“Please come in, Lalura.”

The air in his study wavered and he caught the scent of roses and lavender. He turned his back to the area at the center of the room and pretended to peruse the spines of the books he had in shelves along the wall. He knew she loved to make a grand entrance and nothing would irritate her more than him failing to witness it.

As he’d suspected, there was a popping sound, a slight poof, and he caught a tendril of white smoke in his peripheral vision.

“It’s lovely of you to join me,” he said by way of greeting. “Can I get you some tea?” There was a moment of silence and then a heavy, disappointed sigh. “Damn Roman, you know how I hate it when you do that.” He smiled and turned to face her. “You’ve grown,” he teased softly. “Down, you mean,” she shot back, clearly already grumpy. His tactic had worked. He hid his smile of triumph and sent out a mental call to the butler. In a few moments, the vampire servant would arrive with a tea tray and a steaming mug of vanilla caramel tea with soy milk. It was how Lalura liked it.

Roman watched in silent amusement as the old witch made her way to his biggest, most comfortable chair and sat down with a plop. “I came to ask you a question,” she told him, getting right to the reason of her visit. It was always like that with Lalura – in with a fury, out with a fury, no time spent beating around the bush.

“Please ask it.” “It was you who killed Wraythe’s daughter.” “That wasn’t a question,” he said. Lalura looked up at him. “That’s what I thought.” Roman paused a moment, and his gaze again wandered to the window. “It had to be done.” “Oh I don’t disagree,” she admitted easily, leaning back in the love seat and sighing. “I just wanted to be sure.” The door to the study opened and in walked the butler. Roman nodded at him and the vampire placed the tea tray on the coffee table in front of Lalura and then turned and left the room.

Roman made his way to the seat opposite the old witch and gracefully sat down.

Lalura glanced up at him. “The wolves think that the reason you made the deal with Wraythe was for the ever tasty blood of their dormants,” she said.

Roman laughed and the sound filled the study like magic. It felt good. “I know,” he admitted.

“You don’t mind what they think of you, do you?”

Roman wasn’t sure what to say to that. On one level he did; good relations with the other supernatural races on the planet ensured help when you needed it. On another level, however, she was right. He didn’t care. So he didn’t reply at all.

Lalura eyed him carefully and blew on her tea. Then she lowered the mug a little and said, “You’ve been thinking about her.”

“Again, not a question.”

“You’re the vampire king,” Lalura told him. “You’re thousands of years old and I’m pushing a hundred and ten. We’re beyond questions and answers. Plus, you can read my mind, so frankly, making me waste my energy with talking is just plain bad manners.”

Roman cracked another grin and chuckled softly. He hardly ever laughed any longer. It was quite pleasant.

But as usual, before he could really get comfortable and start to enjoy himself in the witch’s company, Lalura was putting down her mug and making movements to stand. Inexplicably, the mug was empty.

“Zapped it into my Thermos at home,” she said by way of explanation. “Your guy makes the best tea.”

Roman stood as she did, the way he’d been taught to do eons ago, and watched as she moved around the coffee table to the center of the room. There, she stopped and turned toward him once more.

“I know you were playing chess with my pieces again, by the way,” she accused.

Roman nodded, just once. “She needed my help.”

“Indeed,” Lalura agreed. “And on that note, Roman,” she said as she raised her hand and prepared to snap. Always the drama. “Someone else out there needs your help more.”

With that, the old witch snapped her fingers, and in a white cloud of flower-scented smoke, she left the vampire king alone in his richly-appointed study.

The End.

Excerpt from Always Angel, the exclusive eBook introductory novella for the Lost Angels series by New York Times bestselling paranormal author, Heather Killough-Walden….

Always Angel, by Heather Killough-Walden

“Hesperos,” she whispered, nearly out of breath with the shock of him. Memory was a strange thing. Most people couldn’t recall what they’d had for lunch the day before, but they could remember events and people from decades past. It was that way for Angel now.

The man on her window ledge looked the same as he always had, just like she remembered. His clothing had changed. Instead of the armor of a soldier of ancient Athens, he now wore black jeans, black boots, and a black leather vest over a bare chest. But his appearance was as it had always been: Tall, strong, chiseled. Perfect.

Hesperos may not have been quite as otherworldly as Samuel Lambent. No one was, and for good reason. But Hesperos was a king.

And it showed.

Maybe he won’t recognize me, she thought desperately. Her mind was spinning end over end, her heart thumping painfully in her chest. Angel was far from defenseless, even when it came to battling things not quite human. However, Hesperos was special. If it came down to a struggle, she would lose.

The last time he had seen her, she’d been sporting long red hair and hazel eyes. She’d been wearing the robes of a Celt. On the outside, she had looked nothing like she did now. Maybe, if she was lucky, he wouldn’t see past her outer shell any more than a human male would.

But even as she hoped it, she knew she was fooling herself. Hesperos was an incubus. The incubi, or “Nightmares,” as other supernatural creatures referred to them, were notorious for hunting beauty in its purest form. Outward appearance often meant little to them. They appreciated it, to be sure. But if a woman was not as lovely on the inside as she was on the outside, they quickly lost interest and went elsewhere.

Nightmares could easily tell what rested in a woman’s heart. Despite the fact that Angel had become very good at hiding her true nature over the decades, Hesperos was their Nightmare king. Two thousand years ago, he had managed the tiniest peek at her real form. And now? If anyone could see her, or at least glimpse her, as she truly was, it would be him. Well… him and Samuel Lambent, anyway.

Very slowly, Angel turned from the mirror, her fingers clasping the thin spaghetti strap of her slip where she’d been about to let it fall off her shoulder. It was her last remaining vestige of clothing. It was all that remained between herself and the literal lord and master of the sexiest men on the planet.

Hesperos watched her from where he stood on the ledge, framed by the light of the moon and her slowly swaying curtains. His raven black hair was shot through with streaks of blue beneath the illumination. He bore an intriguing black tattoo on the left side of his neck, and another across the swell of his right bicep. A third peeked from beneath the leather edge of his vest. To most people, they simply appeared to be tattoos, “manly” perhaps, intricate and well drawn. However, to Angel, they were symbols of his power, his status, and a reminder of the fact that he was king.

After a few moments, he stepped down from the ledge and the moonlight struck the steel of his eyes. It had always been his eyes that turned Angel’s head the most and weakened her to the point of danger. They were a mixture of green and gray that she had never seen before. They looked like jade shot through with metal, and their powers of perception were incredible.

Nothing escaped Hesperos.

That was perhaps what scared her the most.

She swallowed hard now and watched with a wariness she hadn’t felt in centuries as the incubus king moved from the window, his boots sounding loud in the hollow silence between them. It wasn’t that Hesperos was a bad man. He never hurt women – not that he would ever need to – and he never let his seed impregnate anyone as did the majority of the incubi. Compared to his minions, the Nightmare King was a teddy bear in those regards.

But he hadn’t gotten to be king by accident.

Hesperos possessed a great deal of power. In fact, Angel was a little surprised that he hadn’t yet attempted to subjugate her mind in order to make this easier for himself. It wasn’t that he necessarily needed to be able to control the minds of his victims to get what he wanted. Most women melted at a single glance from him. But he wasn’t stupid. He never left anything to chance. Another reason he was king.

The fact that he hadn’t tried to infiltrate her thoughts only fortified Angel’s fear that he knew damn well she was something more than human. He wouldn’t bother to try taking her over until he knew what he was dealing with. He was sizing up his prey. A good hunter did whatever was necessary to keep the claw and bite wounds to a minimum.

Hesperos continued to watch her as he moved through her room, a shark making slow circles around his dinner. His expression was a wickedly handsome mixture of curiosity, caution and determination. “Oh, little beauty,” he said, his voice raising goose bumps of anticipation across her skin. “What are you, I wonder?”

Angel said nothing, but her heart’s quick pace was surely giving her away. He doesn’t know, she told herself firmly. He doesn’t remember, so don’t tip him off. Be strong.

“You seem familiar to me,” he said.

Angel’s breath caught. She felt her eyes widen just a little. Stupid, she scolded herself. She was out of practice, it would seem. Hesperos was sure to notice slip ups like that.

The king stopped at the center of her room and cocked his head to one side, narrowing his gaze on her thoughtfully. In that moment, he reminded her of the calculating Greek soldier he’d once been as he’d gone slumming among the mortals out of sheer boredom. He’d been a veritable god of war, pulling back from the role only when he’d realized that if he’d wanted to, he could have slaughtered the entire human population. That wasn’t him. Hesperos wasn’t a killer.

But he looked like one now. Machiavellian. Cunning…. Bad.

Without speaking, the Nightmare King took a step toward her. Angel thought fast, steeling her nerves. She raised her chin, and with a slight twist of her wrist, she finally let the slip that she had been holding slide through her fingers. Hesperos’s metal green eyes watched the thin sheen of material drift to the floor and pool at her bare feet. For the slightest of moments, he paused, a small smile playing across his lips.

Then his gaze slid back up her long body, taking everything in. He took another step. “My, my,” he said, shaking his head as if at the wonder of her. “But you are a rare bird.” Several more boot-echoing steps and he had closed the distance between them. Despite her tall frame, the king stood half a foot taller than she did and towered over her as he crowded her with his imposing presence.

“You’re rather impressive, yourself,” she admitted softly, unable to help herself. He was getting to her. She may have been inhuman, but she was still a woman and Hesperos was very much a man.

“You know me,” he said. “You’ve spoken my name.” He smiled then, revealing straight, white teeth with canines that were ever so slightly longer than the norm. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage.” As he spoke, he locked her gaze in his, capturing her attention in a nearly literal sense.

She found it impossible to look away as he raised his right hand and delicately brushed his fingers across the top of her collarbone. A hard shiver raced through her. “I hardly believe that’s possible,” she told him.

His smile broadened and a chuckle of real amusement rumbled up from his broad chest. “I wouldn’t have thought so either,” he admitted easily. “And yet, here we are. You know who I am….” He lifted a curly lock of her black hair and wound it around his fingers. “And it isn’t mutual.”

To this, Angel said nothing. She was afraid that if she dared to speak, she would inadvertently say something – anything – that would give her away.

Hesperos watched her eyes as if he were reading the play of thoughts that ran through her mind. And then he narrowed his gaze and she felt it. The swell of his power. He’d obviously realized that she wasn’t going to reveal herself to him willingly because he had decided he was no longer playing nice. She sensed the arms of his magic reach out and grab her, holding her fast as his mind scraped hers, scouring it for the secrets she was hiding.

“Stop, Hesperos,” she said, her own gaze narrowing in turn. “Stay out of my head.” Anger clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but his curiosity was piqued. He’d always been like that. Relentless.

Again – he was king for a reason.

“Who are you, little one?” he asked, his steel green eyes sparkling with almost cruel amusement and curiosity. “The walls you’ve put up are ancient,” he said, shaking his head as he brushed his knuckles across her cheekbone and then gently cupped her chin. “As ancient as I.”

And then, suddenly, he stilled – and she knew her battle was lost. The recognition flashed before his beautiful face like lightning and his grip on her chin tightened. “Angel,” he whispered. His gaze darkened, his pupils expanding. For a moment, he seemed thrown. Off his game.

Angel felt her muscles tighten, preparing for a literal fight or flight.

But he was faster. His hands came down around her upper arms, gripping them with vice-like strength. It didn’t hurt – not yet. But it was clear she wasn’t meant to go anywhere.

Two thousand years ago, Angel had spent a single night with Hesperos. A single, hot, wanton, intense, burning and delicious night. And then she’d fled – and though he’d looked for her, sending out his Nightmares to search high and low for decades, she had successfully eluded him.

Eventually, he and his kind had taken to the shadows along with the rest of the paranormal creatures on Earth. They’d disappeared from the sight of humans as readily and easily as she had vanished from Hesperos’s sights.

Only now, he was back. And he’d found her after all.

Angel felt her hopes sink and her need rise as Hesperos bent over her and leaned in, his grip tight, his eyes unflinchingly resolute. “Long time no see, precious one.”

Excerpt from “Avenger’s Angel,” the first book in the exciting upcoming series The Lost Angels, by New York Times bestselling paranormal romance author, Heather Killough-Walden….

Avenger’s Angel, by Heather Killough-Walden

They were there for a signing. The movie Comeuppance had been such a hit with vampire fans around the world, it had been turned into a book – and then a series of books – and cast members from the movie were signing autographs in bookstores across the globe. It was late in the afternoon and Uriel’s signing as “Christopher Daniels,” the actor who had played Jonathan Brakes, the gorgeous vampire in Comeuppance, was about to begin.

They’d pulled up to the back of the bookstore in order to prepare. Across from him in the back of the limousine sat Max, Uriel’s manager. He was also Uriel’s guardian – and guardian to his three brothers, Michael, Gabriel and Azrael. Max was good at the job; he was an ace at donning the multitude of different hats it took to deal with four very strong male spirits in an ever changing world.

Just as Max was reaching his hand through the break in the separation glass to signal to the driver that they were ready to go to the front of the store and meet Daniels’s fans, a harsh shrieking sound drew Uriel’s attention to the limousine windows.

His vivid green eyes grew very wide. “Is that what I think it is?”

“I’m afraid so,” Gillihan replied.

“They’re blocking the exit,” Uriel said, his tone laced with shock. A throng of teenage girls had amassed on the Tarmac that ran around the side of the bookstore and were racing toward the limousine at break-neck speed.

There was no time to formulate a plan. He could either stay inside the car indefinitely and wait for the cops, or he could escape from the car and run. Fast.

Uriel threw open the door of the limousine and bolted out of the backseat. Behind him, he heard Max calling, but he ignored the guardian and headed directly for the bookstore.

Later, and in retrospect, he would realize that heading toward the bookstore instead of away from it was, at the very least, a bizarre decision. Especially considering that the slew of fans now racing toward him like a medieval village mob was coming from said store.

However, there was little thought involved. The girls were coming around the corner from the front of the store, which gave him a clear shot at the back door. It was mostly instinct that propelled Uriel across the lot to the locked back exit of the establishment. And it was superhuman strength that then allowed him to wrench the door open against the lock and rush inside.

He sensed that the alarm wanted to go off. He used his powers to silence it and pulled the door shut behind him, making sure to yank it in tight enough that it warped a little and held.

The girls outside reached it just as it shut and their fists pounded furiously on the metal of the barred exit. They were getting soaked out there. He was more than a little damp himself.

He wondered if they were also hurting one another as they shoved toward the door. He sincerely hoped not. But whatever was happening, the sheer number of them suggested that the door wouldn’t hold for long. All they had to do was work together and it would come open.

Uriel passed the restrooms on his left and strode toward the science fiction section of the store just beyond the exit foyer. There, he stopped and grimaced. Another mass of girls, nearly as large as the first, was grouped around the front of the store. There must have been a hundred of them. . . . Maybe more.

The door behind him creaked and then scraped.

Uriel thought fast and ducked into the women’s restroom. Once inside, he closed his eyes, pressed his back to the wall beside the door, and listened. The exit door of the bookstore gave way beyond and he could hear the group of girls rush into the hallway. They raced by, their Converses squeaking with rain water on the linoleum tile.

“You have to memorize a script to act, and the movie you starred in was also turned into a book, so I assumed that you could read.”

Uriel’s eyes flew open to find a woman and a little girl standing a few feet away, beside the door of the first stall.

“I was obviously wrong,” she continued. “Because you’ve mistaken the women’s restroom for the ridiculously famous sex symbol restroom—which is next door.”

Uriel’s heart stopped beating. His jaw dropped open.

He couldn’t be seeing what he was seeing in that moment. He couldn’t be feeling what he was feeling. Not now. Not here, in a bathroom—after two thousand years. Maybe he’d slipped in the rain outside and hit his head.

No, that was impossible. He was relatively invincible. Being hit on the head would do nothing to him but make him a little cranky.

She was really standing there before him. She was real; he could see her, hear her—he could even smell her. She smelled like shampoo and soap and lavender.

Jesus, he thought, unable to refrain from letting his gaze drop down her body and back up again. She was everything that he had ever imagined she would be, from her tall, slim body to her long jet-black hair, and those indigo blue eyes the color of a Milky Way night. Her skin was like porcelain. Her lips were plump and pink and framed perfect, white teeth. She was an angel.

She was his archess. And she was . . . scowling at him?

He frowned.

*****

The door to the bathroom had shut firmly behind Christopher Daniels, and he clearly had heard what she’d said, but he still just stood there like he was frozen and Eleanore could not figure out why. “Mr. Daniels, is there something I can help you with?” Eleanore asked.

She had to admit to herself that when Daniels had first entered the women’s restroom, she’d been taken completely and utterly by surprise. First of all, he was even more handsome in real life than he was in his plethora of press photos. And that wasn’t supposed to be the case at all. Wasn’t there supposed to be loads and loads of makeup involved? Tricks of the light? In real life, didn’t actors have acne and scars and wrinkles and un-dyed roots for miles?

In real life, an actor’s eyes didn’t seem to glow the way they did in the movies. But Christopher Daniels’s eyes did. It was nearly eerie, they were so intense. They instantly called to mind the dreams she’d had of him. It was always his eyes she saw just before she woke up. All of the pictures he had plastered across the nation didn’t do them justice. His eyes were the color of arctic icebergs, so very, very light green that they seemed . . . more than human. They were incredibly beautiful.

She was standing in a restroom, face-to-face with a famous actor who was, quite literally, the most attractive man she had ever seen. And yet he was looking at her as if she were the gorgeous movie star instead.

And so she was more than a little surprised at herself when, instead of feeling faint and falling all over him like all of the other girls in the world seemed to do, her first instinct had been to stand up to him. For what, exactly, she had no idea. For coming into the girls’ restroom, she guessed. Of all things! What kind of crime was that, exactly?

Eleanore’s subconscious mind knew the truth. She wasn’t mad at him for coming into the wrong restroom, of course. She was mad at him for being who and what he was. Gorgeous—and famous. It was an old brain kind of thing.

He was obviously hiding. That was clear. And from the sound of the giggling schoolgirls beyond the door, she would wager a guess that it was his fans he was hiding from. The nerve! First, these guys fight tooth and nail to climb their way into fandom and then they balk at being loved by the masses.

What was up with that?

Meanwhile she’d forgotten Jennifer, the little girl she’d come into the bathroom to help in the first place. But Jennifer had clearly noticed Daniels as well. Her hand slipped out of Eleanore’s own as she spoke up. “Miss Ellie made my stomach feel better!” she chimed in, completely out of the blue. “I was throwing up, but she touched my tummy and made it stop.”

Eleanore paled. Oh no, she thought. Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet—don’t say any more!

“Which is a good thing,” Jennifer went on, nodding emphatically, “because the throw up made me want to throw up some more.” Jennifer was only about five, but she wasn’t shy. She grimaced and seemed to want to push the memory away with her little hands. “It was so gross.”

Eleanore felt herself blanching further. She pulled her gaze off the famous actor and looked at the wall. She needed to compose herself. She needed to get a handle on the situation—take control.

Finally, she rolled her shoulders and looked back up at him.

She blinked. He was still staring at her in abject fascination. That was fascination, wasn’t it? Not amusement? Maybe he just thought she was mental. . . .

“Mr. Daniels, I’m going to find Jennifer’s parents and then I would be happy to announce your arrival over the intercom, if you’d like—”

Daniels pushed himself off the wall and stepped toward her. His motorcycle boots made a heavy thud on the linoleum floor. It sounded dangerous. A warm, erotic warning thrummed through Eleanore’s body.

“You’re the reason it’s storming,” he said. “Now it makes perfect sense.”

Eleanore’s world tipped on its axis, and fear gripped her. Her vision began to tunnel. “P-pardon me?” she asked. Her voice sounded hollow to her own ears.

What is he talking about? He can’t know.

She almost shook her head against the possibility. She thought about taking a step back, suddenly needing space. But there was a tiny hand in hers, squeezing tight, and she couldn’t escape.

“You’re a man and this is a girls’ bathroom,” little Jennifer said.

Christopher Daniels glanced down at the child. Jennifer’s nose was scrunched up and her gaze was reprimanding. The actor seemed to be considering the girl for a moment and then he looked back up at Eleanore.

“Ellie,” he said softly.

Eleanore swallowed hard. Her mouth and throat had gone dry. “It’s—it’s Eleanore,” she stammered. And then, realizing that she’d just given out her name and that perhaps she shouldn’t have, she looked away from him and shook her head. “Mr. Daniels,” she tried again. “Excuse me. I really do need to find Jennifer’s parents. She’s just been pretty sick.”

She brushed past him to push open the door and as she did, the air seemed to thicken around her; it suddenly felt cloying and confusing. It took forever to get by the actor; she could feel him watching her as she came near and he made virtually no move to get out of the way. His nearness was electrifying and disarming, his body tall and hard and very real. Time seemed to slow down as she opened the door and stepped out into the store.

But once she was past him, she walked as quickly as she could with a five-year-old tethered to her arm, which wasn’t very fast at all. She heard footsteps behind her and glanced back to see that Daniels was following her. He kept pace easily, a small, determined smile playing about his lips.

Christopher Daniels is behind me, Eleanore thought. The famous actor, Christopher Daniels, is behind me! He’s probably looking at my ass. She tried not to groan out loud at that thought. As if it mattered!

She wasn’t sure what her bottom looked like from his vantage point; she never bothered with the mirror that much in the morning. And she was nearly as horrified by the fact that she cared what she looked like to him as she was by the fact that he seemed to be looking at her. Was he looking at her butt?

Of course he’s looking at my butt, she thought. He’s a guy! That’s what they do!

She berated herself for the internal monologue of Clueless-worthy concerns and once more wondered what he’d meant by his storm comment. Did he know that she’d caused the storm? If he did—how?

There’s no way, she thought. He must have meant something else.

Eleanore stopped beside the customer service desk and bent to whisper into Jennifer’s little ear.

“This is our secret, okay?” she said, hoping against hope that the child would catch the urgency with which she made the request.

Jennifer looked up at her and then glanced over at Daniels, who was leaning against a bookshelf a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression both bewildered and amused. Then she nodded and smiled up at Eleanore, and Ellie’s fear dropped down a notch.

Eleanore straightened and picked up the phone at the customer service desk. She saw Daniels peek over the racks at the crowd by the front doors. A woman dressed in a suit with a name tag glanced nervously at her watch and then stood on her toes as if to look for someone. They were wondering where their star was.

There was a tall man in a suit with them. He was pushing his way through the women—and a few men—to the front of the store. Eleanore wondered vaguely who he was, but let it go as she made a “lost child” announcement over the intercom to get the attention of Jennifer’s parents.

When she’d finished, she put the phone back in its cradle and turned to face a harried-looking couple who instantly knelt before Jennifer to console her. Jennifer’s mother scooped her up into her arms and with a quick thank-you to Ellie, they were on their way out of the store.

Now Ellie turned to face Daniels, who was still leaning against the bookshelf, watching her. In the next split second, he straightened from the shelf, closed the distance between them with two purposeful strides, and pinned her to the customer service desk, one strong arm braced against the counter on either side of her.

Eleanore inhaled sharply and her heart did a somersault in her chest.

“I have to go to a big party Thursday night. Come with me,” he said. He was so close, his breath whispered across her lips—it smelled of licorice and mint.

“W-wha  . . .” she stammered. Then she dry swallowed and tried again. “What?”

She heard a faint cracking sound and glanced down to see that his grip on the desk behind her had tightened. She turned back to face him and watched as his gaze flicked to her mouth and back.

“Ellie,” he said, as if testing her name out on his tongue. “Here’s the thing,” he continued softly. “I need a date to a big promotional party in Dallas. A gala. I don’t know anyone in Texas. You were kind enough to let me hide in the women’s restroom.” He smiled an incredibly charming smile. “And I appreciate it,” he added. “So I would be honored if you would consider being my date next week on Thursday.”

Eleanore took a few seconds to digest this. There was a part of her that simply couldn’t believe her position at that moment. She was being cornered by Christopher Daniels, against her own customer service desk, and asked out on a date. But despite the impossibility of it all, she knew she wasn’t dreaming. This felt too real.

He was so big. So tall and . . . he looked hard—everywhere. And his nearness was doing strange things to her. He smelled good. The leather of his jacket and whatever aftershave or shower gel he’d used were a heady, highly tantalizing combination. There wasn’t an ounce of him that wasn’t pure masculinity, from the set of his jaw to the smooth, determined sound of his voice.

“You’re not answering,” he said, once more glancing at her lips as he’d done before. He seemed to be leaning in closer now, and Eleanore was finding it more difficult to breathe. “Does this mean you’re considering it?”

Christ, I’m falling for this jerk. I’ve barely met him and I’ve already got it bad.

She tried to swallow past a spot in her throat that had gone dry. She wondered then, as she gazed up into those impossibly colored eyes, how many women he’d done this to lately. He was good at it.

He’s an actor, she told herself. Of course he’s good at it.

That was a sobering thought. She blinked and felt her own gaze harden. He seemed to notice, because something flashed in his eyes and his gaze narrowed in response.

“You’re serious,” she said in a low voice. “You don’t know anything about me and you want me to just agree to go out on a date—in another city—with you.”

“I know enough,” he told her plainly. “And yes. I want you to go out on a date with me.” He paused and then added meaningfully, “Very much so.”

She stared back at him for several more hard beats, and then, before she realized what she was doing, she had the customer service desk phone to her ear and was pressing a button behind her on the carriage.

Daniels seemed as surprised as she was and only watched as she put the speaker to her mouth.

“Attention guests! It is my pleasure to announce to you all that the star of the evening, Mr. Christopher Daniels, is here with us now and is making his way to the front of the store to begin signing autographs for all of his much-appreciated fans.”

The sound of cheering rose from the front of the store and spread through the aisles. Daniels glanced up, not moving from where he had her ensnared between his arms.

Eleanore glanced behind her to catch frantic movement at the front of the store.

When she turned back to face him, it was to find Christopher’s jaw tensed and his teeth clenched in obvious irritation. But his ice-green eyes returned to Eleanore’s face and once more trapped her gaze in his. He took a deep, calming breath and seemed to ponder the situation.

Then he smiled and straightened, stepping away from the desk. Eleanore stayed where she was and watched him warily. For a moment, his eyes flicked to her neck, her shoulders, and back up again. She could have sworn she saw a troubling indecision cross his handsome features. He looked as if he were tempted to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and abscond with her.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Ellie,” he said instead, locking gazes with her a final time. “I’ll be seeing you again soon.”

With that, he turned and strode down the aisle toward the front of the store.

Eleanore was too stunned to move. She watched him go, and as he disappeared, she listened. The ecstatic greetings started up almost immediately. They were crazy about him.

And now she could see why.

He asked me on a date, she thought. The gorgeous, famous movie star from Comeuppance asked me on a date.

A part of her wanted to be thrilled at the thought. But there was another part of her that knew better. It was that other part that had forced her to cut their exchange short by announcing his arrival. Because that part of her had a feeling that Christopher Daniels was not who he pretended to be. Not just on the screen—but in real life.

He knows something, she thought.

She didn’t know how it was possible; even the very idea was unfathomably weird. But somehow, Christopher Daniels seemed to know that Eleanore had caused the storm. He’d told her as much. You’re the reason it’s storming, he’d said. She was willing to bet a dollar that he even suspected her healing powers after Jennifer’s untimely exclamation in the bathroom.

And now he also knew her name and where she worked.

Several more long, tense seconds passed and Eleanore’s body finally relaxed a little and she slumped against the desk. She closed her eyes and ran a somewhat shaky hand through her long hair.

Life had just gotten a little too interesting for her taste. Maybe it was time to move again.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine