What is it about you, woman?

Michael’s muscles twitched in response to his silent question because even in her rapidly declining state, the woman in his arms was irresistible. She was seductive in an ethereal, ultrafeminine way. Her gray eyes, her flowery scent and white face were lures he hadn’t been able to resist. Hell, he couldn’t resist them now.

In his defense, Michael concluded that a good excuse for his behavior was that she probably wouldn’t harm a fly. Even if she discovered that werewolves still existed, it would be a shame for the world to lose such a small bundle. He just couldn’t imagine the alternative. Because if she did live and decided to expose his kind, the job he faced was unthinkable. Saving her life would have been for nothing.

“Breathe,” he said to her. “That’s right. Now breathe again.”

Half Wolf
Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LINDA THOMAS-SUNDSTROM writes contemporary and paranormal romance novels for Mills & Boon Desire and Mills & Boon Nocturne. A teacher by day and a writer by night, Linda lives in the West, juggling teaching, writing, family and caring for a big stretch of land. She swears she has a resident Muse who sings so loudly, she often wears earplugs in order to get anything else done. But she has big plans to eventually get to all those ideas. Visit Linda at www.lindathomas-sundstrom.com or on Facebook.

To my family, those here and those gone,

who always believed I had a story to tell.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Extract

Copyright

Chapter 1

Pain, sharp-edged and nasty, hit Kaitlin Davies in an undulating wave, pulsing in time with the spike in her heart rate.

God, she thought. Can this be happening?

The guy who had just seconds ago seemed like any normal male—short hair, jeans, old white T-shirt—had her by the neck before she could shout. So fast she couldn’t draw a breath. The asshole actually bit her, breaking the skin beneath her right ear. He kept his teeth clamped to her neck and seemed to get a kick out of it. He was making happy noises.

Shock made screaming impossible. The a-hole had her pinned to a tree with some kind of supernatural grip.

Her bags fell to the ground. A hideous sucking sound, like someone knocking back a smoothie through a narrow straw, caused her stomach to turn. Something wet trickled down her throat, forcing a gag reflex, but she was too stunned to do anything other than try to breathe.

The scent of blood saturated the air. Her scream was internal, silent.

No...

The last rush of her frantic energy ebbed with a sensation similar to a tumbling wave’s retreat. And then another jarring spike in her pulse hit, fueled by adrenaline with nowhere to go.

Scream. Shove. Knee him. Fight.

That was what the rules of self-defense said to do if she were ever to find herself in trouble.

Yell. Make as much noise as possible. Draw attention.

Don’t talk to strangers.

While it was a safe bet that every single female across the country had been given those same rules, no one had mentioned the fact that they might not work. She hadn’t spoken to anybody, had just been minding her own business walking across university grounds from the library to her studio apartment.

Searing red flashes behind her eyes warned that she was going into shock, and still standing only because the creep held her upright. She no longer felt her hands or feet. Nerve twitches that should have instigated muscle movement produced no response at all.

Shit.

Help me!

She was so very scared, and cold, though she had started to sweat. Inside, she was fighting, struggling. Outwardly, she did zip. This attacker’s maniacal strength and the speed with which he had executed it severed any prospects of a worthwhile reaction.

What sort of creature bit a person?

Pervert.

Animal.

Monster...

Her thoughts began to fuzz over. Blackness floated in from the periphery of her brain like spilled ink spreading on a flat white surface, threatening a last hold on sanity.

Would she ever see her family again?

Tingling sensations accompanied her blood pressure’s plummeting descent. Dark thoughts dangled. The monster was going to kill her beneath the trees bordering the pathway. She was on her own here because this was Friday night, and everybody else would be either prepping for the weekend or hitting the books. She had walked here at least twenty times this past semester, thinking it safe.

And now she was going to die. Out here. Alone. Just weeks before presenting her doctorate thesis.

She did not want to die, not like this or any other way. Her life hadn’t really started yet.

Don’t deserve this.

She had no energy left to finish the argument. The night had grown darker.

Somebody help me.

Anybody. Please...

Kaitlin prayed, chanting inwardly and straining to keep her eyes open for the last few precious seconds of life. Nothing seemed real. Nothing felt real.

Stomach convulsing, head exploding in a last hurrah, she heard another sound break through the darkness, stirring an internal response. It sounded like the growl of a large animal. Low, guttural and unmistakably menacing, that growl rolled toward her.

But maybe, just maybe, this was merely the sound a soul made when prepping for flight.

Her soul.

No. Not that. God, not that, because the monster beside her also heard the noise. When he lifted his head, part of her T-shirt hung from his teeth, soaked in blood.

His sudden withdrawal was more painful than the initial attack had been. The world began to spin, mingling with the sound of another ferocious animal growl that came from right on top of them.

Can’t hold on...

The monster released her. She fell, sliding down the bark of the tree, sinking onto numb buttocks with her legs folded. In the dullness of tunneling vision, she witnessed a blur of black on black, deeper than the night itself, approaching.

Like a whirlwind, the blur of fluid darkness swept her attacker aside, seeming to temporarily shift things in her favor. In life’s favor. Too weak to make any kind of acknowledgment, Kaitlin fought the wave of light-headedness threatening to overtake her.

In her dimming periphery, squeals broke through the silence—sounds reminiscent of fierce fighting that seemed to come from every direction at once. A high-pitched whine was followed by a scream and the unmistakable sound of flesh tearing. But it wasn’t her flesh being torn this time.

Not this time.

Kaitlin heaved up one final inward cry. Tears were running down her cheeks. When the night became quiet, the silence was scary. And then an artificial softness descended like a cloud, as if she’d been covered by a fur coat. That softness caressed her legs and thighs beneath the hem of her denim shorts.

After the terrible events of the past few minutes, sensation of any kind seemed odd. So, was this gentle caress a sign of Death knocking at her door?

With great difficulty, Kaitlin cracked open her eyes. Looking out through teary slits, she found the face of a man kneeling beside her—a half-naked man, his skin gleaming from the waist up in the dappled moonlight filtering through branches.

This wasn’t the creep that had tried to steal her life force. This guy had broad shoulders and a sculpted chest etched with scrolling tattoos. His hair was dark, long, and a stark contrast to his face.

Could this be an angel?

Moonlight encircled his position as if he sat in the center of a searchlight beam, but his features were hidden by shadows. He didn’t speak, just sat there looking at her as if appraising the situation. If this was a trick, if he wasn’t to be trusted, well, there wasn’t much left for him to take.

When gentle fingers touched her face she winced, because tenderness in the malignant moonlight felt wrong. Her visitor finally spoke in a deep, hushed voice. “It’s all right now. That thing is gone.”

He moved inches forward so that moonlight flooded his face with a wash of pure silver. Kaitlin couldn’t see much past the splashes of blood on his lips and chiseled cheeks. That blood was as black as his hair.

She did a quick reassessment, wanting to understand what kind of an angel would appear like this. Fear made a comeback. Rattles of protest welled up in her chest. Was the blood on his face hers?

The man’s fingers slipped to her chin, which he tilted slowly upward. “You’re safe.”

I’m dying, she wanted to say.

As if he had heard the words, he brought his face close to hers. From inches away, he observed her with the brightest eyes she had ever seen—eyes that glowed a light luminous green and shone with intelligence and understanding. Beautiful eyes. Kind. Sympathetic. Not quite human.

His attention made the last wisp of her consciousness flicker way down deep inside her, almost in a sexual way. Kaitlin wanted to reach out and touch those angular cheeks. She wanted to wipe the slashes of crimson away and thank him for helping her.

She couldn’t do any of that.

He spoke again, slowly, so that she could hear and comprehend.

“You can be healed.”

There just wasn’t one bit of energy left to argue with him. Threads were separating. She’d been attacked, mauled, only to be saved by a what? Man? Angel? Madman? Beast? He hunched there like a predator, with radiant eyes indicative of some animal species. She sensed an edge to his sympathy. He hadn’t picked up a cell phone to call for help.

His presence kept her from drifting off. Kaitlin willed her body to hang on for a few more seconds, afraid he would leave, afraid that if she closed her eyes she’d never open them again and die alone.

Please stay with me.

Help me.

Did he hear her plea? He nodded as if he had.

When he put his arms around her, a strangled moan erupted from her throat—the pain was so very great. Her head hit his solid, soothingly bare chest as he lifted her into his arms, high off the ground.

An odd thought wafted through her mind that it would have been tough for an angel to manage the saggy mess of a twenty-three-year-old woman. Yet if this was an angel, who was going to argue? If he were to take her to heaven, she was in good hands.

Or so she thought until he shifted her weight and the pain came crashing down—crushing, pulverizing, boiling—as though she had imploded.

But it wasn’t over yet. He gripped her with care and whispered assurances. As he turned, cradling her against his body, Kaitlin’s soul-wrenching wail was finally freed. She screamed and screamed. Feral cries. Helpless noises.

The shouts didn’t frighten this man, this angel, this questionable soul who held her. Taking a deep breath, he placed his mouth on hers and blew a warm stream of air into her lungs that tasted of grass and meadows, not the bloody brutality of a savage monster.

His lips lingered on hers, forcing her to swallow past the pain, quieting the riot. She took in each breath he gave her. His long hair brushed her cheeks with a silkiness that was as light as day.

Who could have anticipated a kiss on death’s threshold? The intimacy of their mouths touching and their breaths mingling held a surreal beauty that continued until Kaitlin was able to breathe on her own. Soon after that, the mouth she had depended on left hers.

Wait, she wanted to cry. With his kiss, the pain had lessened. She’d felt as though she actually might survive.

The heat radiating off this stranger’s bare chest brought another level of awareness to her broken body. Her rescuer was muscled and extremely hot. Being held by him was like confronting a bonfire.

She parted her lips for speech that didn’t come. The hovering unconsciousness, temporarily held at bay by a pair of green eyes that continued to stare into hers as if urging her spirit to continue, floated on the sidelines.

“You have to be willing,” he said. “That’s the way this works.”

What did that mean? What did any of this mean?

“There’s no time to explain. But it’s the only way you’ll make it. Nod your head if you understand.”

In the end, it didn’t matter what he might be suggesting, since she’d do anything to stay alive. With great effort, Kaitlin lowered her chin.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Be brave. Hang tight and remember that I gave you a choice.”

His finger tracked a tear sliding down her cheek. Then he nestled his face into her neck, right above the attacker’s deadly wound.

Oh, God, she thought. Not this.

Taking her skin between his teeth lightly, he paused as if waiting for her to change her mind. After that, he bit down.

The sky collapsed in on itself. The earth rose to envelop her. And somewhere between the two, Kaitlin Davies became one with the dark.

* * *

What he was doing was a sin, and unforgivable. So why had he considered it? Why, on the spur of the moment, had Michael Hunter broken every rule governing Lycan behavior to try to save a human female he’d never met—when no human had ever done anything to help him, and in fact had left him with his greatest heartache to date?

His pulse was racing. He knew better than to cross the line.

And just couldn’t help himself.

The woman in his arms was slender, and small-boned to the point of being fragile. But she was no child. Behind the torn T-shirt, her shape was visible. Lean legs, lightly tanned, were shown off by a pair of shorts.

Blood spatter covered everything, and the scent of that blood had already been dispersed through the air. If he didn’t hurry, other bloodsuckers in the area—if they dared to show their fangs to a prowling werewolf—would come calling.

She was seconds from death. He recognized the signs. But death wasn’t the worst scenario here. The worst-case outcome would be hearing her last strangled breath, and then watching her morph into the same kind of monster that had savaged her.

Vampire saliva was highly toxic. The ultimate poison. All it took to kill and then resurrect a human being to the dark side were four or five drops dribbled in an open wound. Rogue vampires didn’t even wait around to see the rise of the night creatures they created. New vampires with no idea what had happened and nowhere to turn except to the raging thirst would be a threat to everyone.

There had been a rash of missing people near Clement College lately, and law enforcers were taking stock of those disappearances. Cops were nosing around. This didn’t bode well for the other secretive nonhuman species living alongside the so-called normal folks. Something had to be done about the recent influx of vamps. Fast.

Michael looked down at the woman in his arms.

Her face was oval-shaped and bloodless. She had long hair that was a unique combination of red and brown, and her skin was soft and lightly scented with the fragrance of flowers, despite all the damage the vampire’s fangs had done. Her tears tasted like sunlight.

After all these years, he still would have given anything for someone to have comforted his mother like this as she lay dying, and helped in any way they could.

This little human had sorely needed help.

Replacing the vamp’s saliva with Lycan blood had been of paramount importance in order to save her life. Wolf blood was volcanic, and immensely alive. If she was lucky, that blood might counteract and overpower the other chilling version of poison put into her by those fangs.

With the miraculous healing powers Lycans possessed, if this female survived the night, the gaping edges of her wound would draw together and mending would begin. On the outside, anyway.

Odds were less than fifty-fifty that she’d pull through no matter what he did or how timely his actions were. Yet purebred Lycan blood, strengthened over the centuries, was one of the strongest medicines on the planet, and he had just given her system a jolt.

Blasphemy?

Hell, yes.

As Alpha of his pack, his other pack-mates might argue with what he’d done. Then again, a couple of them had been on the wrong side of a bite or two, so maybe they’d feel sympathetic.

She was light as a feather. Her breath escaped as a sigh through quivering lips, though her eyes remained shut. Michael’s heart thudded with unanticipated empathy as he carefully scrutinized her expressionless face, deciding that she wasn’t beautiful, exactly. Striking was a better word. She was quite striking for a human so near to death.

“Breathe, little one,” he directed, knowing that humans didn’t take well to their DNA being rearranged. Human women were especially vulnerable to the sudden change in their body chemistry.

“There’s a chance, if what I’ve given you takes and you somehow manage your system’s rewiring, that you won’t thank me.”

Although she’d be alive, she might also be angry, and that was a concern. Telling someone about this rescue attempt, or letting the world in on the secretive presence of werewolves, would place his pack in the spotlight. Hunting season would begin again, as it had for so many past centuries after humans got a whiff of werewolf—in spite of how humanlike Lycans were most of the time. In spite of the fact that this city’s friendly local doctors, mailmen and cops might become something else when the moon was full.

There was another potential problem.

By getting too close to the woman in his arms, he could be instigating a bond between them that for Lycans was a greater event than placing a ring on her finger. Imprinting was something he had carefully avoided for all of his adult life. Imprinting with a human...well, that would be bad. Lycans only mated with Lycans. As werewolf royalty, pure Lycan blood was not to be diluted by the weaknesses humans possessed.

Yeah. So...it was too late for regrets. And hindsight was always a bundle of joy.

He had just committed a sin without thinking twice, and now had to deal with the consequences. Something about this female had captured his attention after merely a look, and that just wasn’t usual fare for an Alpha with a badass reputation.

What is it about you, woman?

Michael’s muscles twitched in response to his silent question because even in her rapidly declining state, the woman in his arms was like wolfnip. She was seductive in an ethereal, ultrafeminine way. Her gray eyes, her flowery scent and white face, were lures he hadn’t been able to resist.

In his defense, Michael concluded that a good excuse for his behavior was that she probably wouldn’t have harmed a fly, even if she knew about the existence of werewolves, and that it would be a shame for the world to lose such a small bundle.

“Breathe,” he said to her. “That’s right. Now breathe again.”

It’s a damn shame that if you live and decide to threaten or expose my kind, it will be my job to kill you. Saving your life tonight would have been for nothing.

Her lashes fluttered, which was a good sign. He said to her, “Some of the pain will ease temporarily, though probably not nearly enough.”

He watched her face for another reaction without finding one.

“The pain will return and get worse. I won’t lie about that. You’ll have to hold on, ride this out, if you want to survive. You’ll have to prove yourself stronger than you look.”

The woman’s pale lips, beautifully shaped and so close to his own, were stiff with shock. Her temporary respite from the agony—either of losing her life altogether or losing life as she’d known it—was as fragile as the rest of her. Michael lowered the odds of her ever opening her big gray eyes.

Still, he held her possessively, liking the feel of her body against his despite her chance of surviving. Liking the velvety softness of her hair against his chest, and how her silky legs dangled over his arms.

Seemed even badasses weren’t immune to an attractive woman.

Something inside him stirred when she moaned. His thoughts grew softer. Is someone waiting for you to come home?

No response came from the prize in his arms. She wasn’t yet alive enough to speak. Possibly she didn’t even hear him.

“I don’t know you. Don’t know your name,” he said. “But here we are, about to either become allies or enemies. Provided that you gain back the strength to open your eyes.”

Michael felt his pulse skip again as he carefully observed his unintentional captive. His victim. His new, awkward responsibility. He wondered if maybe it was only the moon causing the hum in his chest.

Glancing up at the sky, where that nearly full moon blazed a luminous silver white, he held off the muscle burn that urged him to shift shape.

“Hold on,” he whispered to the woman nestled in his arms, willing her to hear, commanding the few drops of his blood, now inside her body, to obey their codes and offer assistance.

His voice lowered to a growl as his internal wolfishness finally rushed to meet the moonlight. “Hold tight, little wolf, and pray for a miracle. If we’re very lucky, maybe you’ll actually thank me someday.”

Chapter 2

“Are you awake?”

The voice was close enough to be inside her mind. Kaitlin struggled to place the words, found meaning and instantly, in some distant part of herself, recognized the tone.

“Can you speak?” the man asked.

Don’t move. Don’t you dare move or answer him. He could be anyone. Another wacko. Seriously ill.

This guy had hurt her, too, Kaitlin remembered, after he had actually asked for permission first. That’s what had gone down.

Willing herself to stillness, to silence, while her heartbeat shuddered uncomfortably against her rib cage, Kaitlin desperately wanted to know what was happening. But she was afraid to find out. She was afraid to move.

She was lying down, curled up in a fetal position with her knees almost to her chin, and she hurt everywhere—head, body, skin, and all the way to the roots of her hair. Pain lashed out each time she attempted a shallow breath, that pain just barely tolerable.

The urge came to whimper, shout, cry. But not to die. No matter what, she did not want to die, or be dead already.

“Can you answer me?” he asked.

Above her pounding heart she perceived another beat—slower than her own, steady against her shoulder blades. Puffs of air skittered along her neck, telling her that the guy was very close to her. She nearly cried out against this kind of intrusion as a fresh wave of panic struck.

Struggling to keep her eyes open, she looked straight ahead at something that had to be a length of chocolate-brown fabric. She was almost positive it wasn’t dirt.

Fire sang through her skull when she tried to place even that one small thing. Her lungs ached. Her eye sockets throbbed. She welcomed the discomfort because those things had to mean she was alive.

Focus.

The brown surface had white lines that looked like stitching. White thread. She was on a blanket. This was good. She hadn’t been left in the park for early morning foot traffic to find.

More relief and another round of chills accompanied a further perception. She wasn’t cold. She rested on a blanket, and the man who had rescued her was here. She remembered the hardness of his chest in what still seemed like a dream. Though she had stopped shaking, she felt like she might throw up.

“Can you speak?” he asked again.

Was he casually posing a question when she had no idea where she was, who he was or what had happened to her? When she couldn’t have uttered one word if she’d wanted to? Her throat was tight, raw and constricted, because a fiend had chomped on it.

Yes. A fiend. I remember that, too.

Swallowing was a chore. Something tight had been wrapped around her throat, from which a distinctive smell arose.

Gauze?

It was a scent out of childhood memory—of scraped knees and knuckles. In this instance, it was the smell of a treated bandage and implied that not only had she survived, but the man beside her had to be a good guy. Still...hospitals didn’t have brown blankets or intimate sleeping accommodations.

More panic threatened with a dangerous undertow. Why hadn’t she been taken to a hospital?

Kaitlin waited to find out if she was wrong about her rescuer and if this guy might have saved her for nefarious purposes of his own. She’d have to rally somehow. She would have to run.

“You’re in my room,” her companion explained, his voice producing a familiar tingling vibration inside her chest. “I didn’t know where else to take you. Didn’t know where you belonged. In truth, taking you anywhere else might have been bad for both of us.”

His voice had the mesmerizing quality of a dangerous animal temporarily appeased. While the words themselves were gentle, they were underscored by a hint of something scary that chilled Kaitlin to the bone.

She gasped and managed to suck in a lungful of daylight-filled air. Stripes of light filled with dancing dust particles lay across the blanket beside her, she now saw. Sunlight was seeping through curtains or shutters.

She withheld a shout of relief. Daylight would chase the nightmares away; keep the horrors out of reach.

Any time now.

“Hospitals are out of the question,” her host continued. “I’m afraid they don’t deal well with people like us. Their physicians wouldn’t know what to do or what we’d need.”

People like us. Kaitlin hoped to God he meant doctorate students without health insurance. She hoped with all her might this guy would turn out to be from the campus police.

She was twenty-three years old and felt terribly small and inadequate. More than anything, she wanted to hear her parents’ voices. Without the people she loved, sunlight and fresh blankets weren’t completely normal things or as comforting as they could be.

She fought back tears.

Squeaking bedsprings made her heart flutter. Her center of gravity shifted as the man behind her moved on the bed.

“You will heal, though it will take some time. The worst is over, but there will be more trials to come. That can’t be helped. That’s just the way it is.”

“No,” Kaitlin sputtered with a ferocious effort. No more of this.

“Luckily, you rode some of this out while unconscious. Our bodies are quick to repair and you’ll soon find this to be true. Your body is trying to adapt right now.”

Kaitlin moved her lips. “Thank you.”

This had to be the man who had come to her aid in the park, and had put her on a blanket. Whatever else came to pass, she was grateful for that.

“You’re welcome,” he said hesitantly, sounding both relieved and wary.

“Angel,” she managed to get out, her throat throbbing like crazy with each uttered syllable. “You?”

His response came in the form of a deep cascade of laughter that sent more dust motes dancing. “No angel,” he said. “Not by a long shot. I’m Michael. Can you tell me your name?”

“Kaitlin.”

“Right now you’re still very sick, Kaitlin. But it’s a new day and you’re mending.”

Taking a chance, encouraged by his kind words, Kaitlin unfurled her fingers slowly, glad when they soaked in the blanket’s softness.

“Don’t worry about anything right now,” Michael soothed. “Rest. Heal some more. Get used to what’s going on in your body.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Kaitlin whispered, “Afraid.”

“I know.”

“Home.”

“In a while,” he said.

“Home,” she repeated.

“As soon as you’re feeling better, I’ll take you there.”

His words were immensely reassuring. Why, though, when he could have an agenda of his own?

“Sleep now,” he suggested. “Heal.”

“Heal,” Kaitlin echoed, wondering how she could sleep when she had been mauled by a monster and nearly killed. She would be screaming right now if her throat worked properly, and be running if she had the use of her legs.

“Sleep a while longer,” he directed with a lulling, rolling purr. “You’re safe here. No one will harm you while I stand guard.”

Hell. Did she need guarding? If so, did it mean the monster that had nearly killed her might come after her again? Having sampled a taste, would he seek her out?

The roaring noise in her ears was like distant engines getting progressively closer. She actually felt her brain go dark. And for the second time in Kaitlin Davies’s personal history, she just...slid...away.

* * *

She ran.

Barefoot. With the night wind on her body and moonlight in her hair. Sucking in air. Devouring the night. Blood pumping wildly in her veins.

Stars were luminous overhead. The night tasted like licorice and smelled like old wood. Running through the dark, inhaling it, Kaitlin felt driven, free, uninhibited and exceptionally fast. She felt joyously different somehow. More alive.

Noises followed her as she moved: a creak of branches, the rustle of leaves. Close behind those things came other sounds, like the racing beats of her heart and the snap of overextended muscle and bone. Each movement she made was a symphony.

Trees were dark shapes she rushed past. She knew them all, could name them and count the animals sheltering beneath. She could see in the dark. Outlines, shapes, were clear and slightly alien.

She wasn’t alone. Someone ran with her, his strides in sync with hers. They moved as a single unit, in silence, with some distance between them.

Her companion called out once with a word Kaitlin didn’t recognize, though she chased the sound of his voice into an open field. And suddenly, Kaitlin no longer felt sure of foot. She stumbled, teetered, struggled with her legs. Faltering, she fell to her hands and knees, sliding several inches, carried forward by momentum.

Strong hands yanked her upright, spun her around and lifted her off the ground as though she were as light as a cloud. Whoever this was carried her into the shadow of nearby tree cover and dropped her onto her feet. Warm hands pressed her to the bark of the closest tree in a hazy repeat of another time and place she couldn’t quite recall.

“Not so fast,” her companion advised.

The body leaning into hers was male, extremely warm and completely naked, though she didn’t glance down to make sure of that. He was tall and light-skinned, with features that gave him a regal air, and rippling abs of steel.

“Take your time,” this naked man advised.

His dark chin-length hair brushed her face, sending meaningful vibrations downward and toward a spot between her thighs. Bursts of energy spiraled outward from a spark deep inside her—barely containable energy. Highly unstable stuff.

Kaitlin couldn’t keep her legs still, or her arms. It felt as though her internal engine’s idle had been set too high and she waited nervously at a starting line for the gun to go off.

Did she know this man beside her? Her body did. She had a new and raging hunger for him that added to her shakes. She wanted to crawl under his skin and stay warm. The desire came to nip at his marvelously sculpted chest, half of which was etched with spirals of inky-black tattoos that swirled each time he moved.

Being with this guy felt exquisitely erotic, even though somewhere inside her mind red warning flags were waving with questions about who he really was and what she was doing here.

“Have to move. Have to run,” she said breathlessly.

His piercing green gaze held her captive. “Go ahead. Run,” he said, beaming silent messages Kaitlin swore she understood in some strangely telepathic way. “Stay close to the tree cover tonight. Taking small steps is the way to go.”

The gravelly quality of his voice sent a cascade of thrills through her that set off another adrenaline rush. Her body was responding to this guy’s closeness as though she knew him better than she should and much more than she recalled. Or maybe her anxiousness was translating this dream into some kind of twisted sexual wishful thinking, because she had a nearly overwhelming desire to trace those inky tats with her tongue.

“I’m fast,” she said, exhaling pent-up steam.

“And cocky for a newbie,” he countered. “Hell, you’re only two days old.”

“I merely stumbled.”

“You’ll do so again if you don’t listen. Your muscles have to get with the program.”

Kaitlin glanced around, needing to look anywhere but into the green eyes observing her. “Why are we standing beneath the trees?”

“You’ve got to avoid staying for long in direct moonlight. It all takes time. You’ll thank me later if you listen. It’s a miracle you’re here at all.”

Each word he spoke in that mesmerizing tone served to spread the wildfires already kindling inside her. Only this guy, whoever he really was, could affect her like this. His powerful body, chiseled face and incredible eyes were a turn-on that made her want to jump his bones.

She felt like an animal.

If she could just wrap her arms around his broad shoulders, then lift her legs to encircle his strong thighs, the place inside her that was thrumming with a need for intimacy would perhaps be appeased. As inexplicable as it was, she was tethered to this sexy beast by an invisible chain. His breath had meant her survival. Part of him was already inside her.

Or had she made that up?

“Tell me your name,” she said.

“Michael.”

Michael. Like the archangel. She remembered hearing him tell her this before in a conversation that seemed to have taken place a long time ago.

“Two days old?” she said, remembering what he’d just said.

He shook his head. “Explanations later. For now, it’s enough that you’re alive and walking.”

More than alive, Kaitlin thought. And how could she think about later when Michael’s expression told her he shared her hunger and was fighting to keep from letting his hunger out? Weren’t people supposed to live in the now? Experience each moment as if it were their last?

Had she confronted that last moment recently?

“I want to feel,” she whispered hoarsely, afraid to think back. “I need to know everything life has to offer.”

“Yes, but for you tonight is merely a dream.”

“That’s why you’re here, Michael? I’ve dreamed you up?”

He took her hand in his and placed her open palm on his chest, making his remark about dreams seem ludicrous. This guy was solid sculpted male goodness through and through.

“Enjoy this while you can because if it’s all good, you’ll be back to reality tomorrow,” he said.

Another word floated through Kaitlin’s mind as if Michael had conjured it. College. Not a totally unfamiliar word, yet too distant to capture with a focus that already moved back to Michael’s taut body and the hardness below his waist that she knew was in her honor.

“You want me,” she whispered.

“Like I said, you know nothing.” Michael reached up to move a tangle of her hair back from her face, showing off arms corded with power and tension. No tats covered his biceps. His skin was actually sun-bronzed.

Waves of lust struck Kaitlin so strongly that she would have swayed if he hadn’t pinned her to the tree.

“I know this isn’t normal,” she said.

“Not for you,” he agreed. “Not yet. Your feelings are tied to what happened.”

Do not think back, her mind warned. You’ll be sorry if you do.

Kaitlin glanced sideways. “No one is around?”

“No one you can see.”

Michael’s remark triggered a memory she had just warned herself not to find. Things hid in the dark. Bad things.

Catching a whiff of some new scent, Kaitlin struggled to place it. She reached for her throat, found the rough surface of the bandage and pressed there. The sharp-edged pain beneath that touch caused the night to close in.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Michael’s hands tugged her fingers from her neck.

“What...” Nearly breathless, Kaitlin started over. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing we can’t deal with.” Michael’s voice deepened further as he glanced up at a patch of night sky visible through the branches.

Kaitlin followed his gaze. “Will I remember this dream?”

She ran her palm over his chest, outlining one scroll of the tattoos. Michael twitched, stopped her progress with a tight grip on her wrist and shook his head.

“It wouldn’t be fair for me to take you up on that,” he said.

Her eyes strayed. “What does it matter, if it’s a dream?”

“It matters,” he said. “And you will remember it all eventually.”

She pulled away from his grip and moved her hand to his shoulder, where moonlight helped to outline his exquisite muscular shape. He stopped her again with a firm hand and a nebulous whispered comment. “You don’t, as yet, know anything. It’s hard for me to...”

He backed up, stood tall, drenched in moonlight. The first pop Kaitlin heard after his little speech was a muted sound. There was no mistaking the second for anything benign. Or the third.

Like a series of pinging buttons on an overstretched shirt, the bones of Michael’s jaw began to unhinge. The beautiful, sharp-featured face in front of her began to stretch. Michael’s dark hair lengthened as if someone invisible had tugged at the roots. His muscles danced as though something alive under the skin wanted to get out.

As he dropped to a crouch, the scrolling tattoos on his chest began to spread, covering muscle, turning his skin dark. Then his legs furred up in fluid series of swishes and cracks.

One minute the man had been there, and the next minute, something else appeared that uttered a reverberating growl. When his head lifted, familiar green eyes looked out, but it was no longer Michael, the angel’s namesake, facing her. It was an animal, dark as the night, tall as her thighs. Sleek. Primal. Down on all fours.

Michael had turned into a wolf.

And he had been right about one thing.

She didn’t yet know anything about what was going on.

Chapter 3

Kaitlin woke up screaming, her body prepared to fight. Fists curled, mouth open, she felt trapped and unable to flee the nightmare because something was holding her down.

She kicked out with her legs and opened her eyes. Expecting to see a big wolf leaning over her, she instead found another image. Trees.

Hell, yes. There were trees in her sightline, and not the living kind. She was looking at a picture, a poster of a forest, on the wall above a desk that held a retro lava lamp, a silver telephone and an open laptop computer.

Hesitating, consciously attempting to quiet her churning insides, Kaitlin’s mind filled in the gaps. These were her things. Familiar things. She wasn’t outside, running in a moonlit field. Nor was she pinned to a tree by a naked man.

This was her apartment.

But she wasn’t alone.

Fine hairs at the nape of Kaitlin’s neck prickled with leftover panic as she turned her head. No wolf waited there with its black fur gleaming. A woman, a stranger, sat on the edge of her bed.

“Kaitlin, is it?” her uninvited visitor asked.

Kaitlin sat up to find that she’d been trapped by nothing more than a tangle of sheets. Eyeing the stranger, she scooted backward against the headboard. Quivers of muscle soreness accompanied her movement. She looked down to find her arms covered in red scratches already starting to scab.

Instinctively, Kaitlin reached for her neck.

“That bandage won’t be necessary for long,” the woman said. “You’ll have a pretty little scar that I suppose you can consider your first war wound.”

The woman was close to Kaitlin in age—maybe twenty-three or four, with deeply tanned olive skin and glossy black hair that hung halfway down her back. Nothing out of the ordinary presented itself in the woman’s face or body. The problem was her eyes, which were an unusual shade of green that Kaitlin had seen before.

Fingering the bandage taped to her neck, Kaitlin’s fear escalated. She tore off the bandage and winced at the raw, extremely sensitive puckered line of raised skin beneath her right ear.

That can’t be right. I’m awake now.

Dizziness threatened as flashes of memory returned. Night. Blood. An attacker with incredible strength. In that nightmare, she had been mauled by a monster.

Her eyes swept the room in a desperate attempt to set things straight. No man, wolfish or otherwise, sat on the bed, or appeared anywhere else in the small studio apartment. Morning light seeped through the filmy curtains. There was no brown bedspread. She sat on familiar worn floral sheets.

“Kaitlin?” her visitor repeated.

“You can’t be real.” Kaitlin avoided the woman’s green-eyed stare.

“Really? Then I wonder why I bothered to brush my hair. Still, I guess you’d have to think that way, wouldn’t you, since your reality is being inconveniently rearranged.”

“Who are you?”

Her visitor tossed her hair, scattering a whole bunch of scents into the air at once: soap, lipstick and something else Kaitlin had no time to pin down. Damp fur?

Also, now that she thought about it, other smells came to her above and beyond those: dust, pencil lead, chemicals from the lava lamp and a pair of dirty socks stashed under the bed. She also smelled the iron tang of anxiety. Her anxiety. Because, hell...the crisp denim of this stranger’s dark blue jeans had a unique smell. Also discernible was the scent of the worn-out fabric of her own T-shirt. Edging those smells was a lingering odor of badly injured skin, blood and matted hair.

Her hands fell like rocks to the mattress as she studied the scratches crisscrossing her forearms.

“Looks like you might have picked those up last night,” her visitor said. “Sometimes puppies forget how vulnerable their skin really is.”

“Who are you?” Kaitlin repeated.

“I’m Rena. And you, it seems, are Michael’s little secret. Until now.”

Michael. That name belonged in a dream. Kaitlin refused to let this woman see her shake. She swallowed a rising protest.

“He hasn’t told us about you,” Rena continued. “Since Michael has been MIA for a few days, I got worried and followed him here.”

Michael was here? Yes. With her eyes closed, Kaitlin found hints of her dream man in the room. There were scents of shaving cream, faded jeans and musky maleness.

“Who are you, exactly?” she asked Rena, her voice faint.

“Kind of a new relative. A distant cousin.”

That made no sense at all. Kaitlin tried another tactic. “What do you want?”

“Merely to see you and find out why Michael would do something like this. I suppose he wanted to ease you through the process on his own first, before letting us know what he’d done.”

“What process would that be?”

In Kaitlin’s mind the word wolf kept flashing. Fragments of what she’d begun to worry had not been a dream began to coalesce. In it, the man this woman spoke of had turned into an animal right before her eyes.

The fine line between reason and insanity made Kaitlin’s nerve endings fire. As she wrapped her arms around her knees and considered Rena carefully, fear continued to make her heart race.

She looked again at the scratches on her arms. Had she gotten those from being pressed to the bark of a tree, or from a madman trying to kill her in the park?

Rena’s smile suggested that none of these panic attacks Kaitlin was having might be warranted. Whoever this Michael guy was, and whatever kind of trauma she had been through, she couldn’t believe there were alternate species in the world. If she’d had an accident and some guy named Michael, acting like a Good Samaritan, had helped her home, possibly jealousy was what had brought Rena here today. Rena could be Michael’s girlfriend. His lover.

As calmly as she could, Kaitlin met Rena’s scrutinizing gaze. “Where did your friend go?”

“To the corner store, probably to bring you something to eat,” Rena said. “We need to keep our strength up and require lots of fuel. More than usual.”

“We, as in what? Wolves?” Kaitlin asked cynically.

Rena smiled again, flashing very white teeth that almost made the idea of wolves seem plausible.

“He didn’t have to bother. I’m not hungry,” Kaitlin said. In fact, she was sure she’d never be hungry again.

“You’ll be hungry as soon as you smell the food,” Rena told her. “Our metabolisms run hot.”

In her dream, Michael had been hot in more ways than one. But Kaitlin couldn’t turn inward to look for answers to the problems at hand with this woman staring at her. In another minute, she’d sprint for the door.

“It wasn’t a dream, you know,” Rena said as if she had the ability to read Kaitlin’s mind. “You’ll find that out soon enough.”

Rena seemed to be waiting for her to say something, as if they were going to have a conversation that made sense. All Kaitlin could get out was, “What day is it?”

“Monday.”

“That can’t be right. I couldn’t have lost two days.”

With another glance at the discarded bandage, Kaitlin added, “What is going on? Really going on, I mean?”

Rena stood up. “I’m sorry I can’t explain it to you, Kaitlin. For the time being, I guess I’m not supposed to know you exist. Imagine my surprise in finding out that you do.”

Kaitlin was feeling stranger by the minute because Rena was fairly convincing. She decided to go for broke, hoping that when this woman she had never seen before heard what she had to say, Rena would laugh her head off and hit the road.

“Are you a wolf, Rena?”

“You can’t tell?” Rena countered noncommittally.

“Hell, I’m not even sure I’m awake.”

“Then the answer is yes.”

Yes...

The room suddenly felt cramped. Too many ridiculous ideas were taking up space, and the air seemed to beat with a foreign rhythm. Kaitlin blinked slowly to get her bearings and went for round two of the most inconceivable questions possible. “So, that would make you and Michael part of a group of...wolves?”

The question sounded silly in a truly horrifying way. Rena didn’t laugh, though. She said, “You call us werewolves. And we call ourselves a pack.”

Werewolves. Pack. Kaitlin’s stomach tightened. Her next question bordered on hysterics. “You believe that? For real?”

Rena held up a hand in a gesture that indicated she was telling the truth. Scout’s honor, or some such equivalent thing for females.

Kaitlin stared at the pretty, rather feline-featured visitor. “How many of you are there in this pack?”

“Four. There are four of us here, and then there’s you.”

The hairs at the nape of Kaitlin’s neck stood up. Chills iced her spinal column as phrases came back with a startling clarity—bits of words the Michael in the nightmare had used.

It’s the only way you’ll make it. And Remember that I gave you a choice.

She did not want to ask the next question and knew Rena anticipated it, because the scent of Rena’s excitement wafted in the air.

“Are you hinting that I’ve become one of you?”

Glancing sideways to view her image in the wall mirror, Kaitlin found a pasty-complexioned, tangle-haired version of herself. But it was Kaitlin Davies who looked back.

Rena smoothed the creases from her jeans with both hands. “Not quite one of us. I suppose you’ll be accepted by the pack if he wants you to be, though, since...”

“Since what?” Even short pauses in Rena’s partial explanations were intolerable.

“Well, it’s not my place to assume anything or tell you more. You’re Michael’s pet project, so he will have to explain.”

“What is he, the king?”

“Alpha,” Rena corrected, walking to the door. She opened it before anyone had knocked, and then stepped back to make way for the man who suddenly filled the doorway.

Chapter 4

Michael stopped on the threshold of Kaitlin’s apartment. He looked first to Rena, who nodded her head before slipping past him. Damn it. Rena knew about Kaitlin, which meant they probably all knew.

His gaze slipped to the waif on the bed who had compressed herself into a tight ball near the headboard. The auburn-haired beauty was staring at him with a wide-eyed, stunned expression, as though she’d seen a ghost.

Because the bandage he’d taped to her neck had been removed, he knew what was coming. Hard questions and demands for explanations would be the next things out of her mouth.

Really, this nursemaid routine didn’t suit him. He was better at chasing bad guys. And Rena had no right to jump on his parade.

“I see you’ve met Rena.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, not quite sure what to say now that Kaitlin was fully awake. She was staring. Her eyes were clear and focused.

“I didn’t tell the others about you because I wanted to make sure you were all right first. Otherwise...”

She finished the remark for him in a voice that was stronger than he would have expected. “Otherwise there might not be any me to tell them about, since I’d be dead.”

He could sense the fear radiating off her in waves similar to the rippling heat of a desert mirage. Only colder. He felt that fear from six feet away. Yet Kaitlin was showing an inkling of the spirit that had attracted him to her in the first place. Even half-dead, he’d sensed she was a fighter.

He couldn’t look away from the tight, pale face that wasn’t quite like any other human’s face he’d seen. Light, this time from streaks of morning sun, seemed to caress Kaitlin’s delicate contours. He’d noticed those contours from the start, too. What he’d failed to remember correctly was the impact she had on him when those big eyes of hers were open. This fragile flower took his breath away.

And if he admitted that to anyone, or took it too seriously, he would no longer resemble the wolf he’d always thought he was, and he would dishonor his fallen mother’s memory.

Humans were a fickle, dangerous species. Some were even his enemies. And here he was, protecting one from things that went bump in the night.

He observed Kaitlin steadily. “You’re pale, but looking better. Does your neck hurt very badly?”

“Bad enough,” she said.

Life pulsed beneath her skin. In this case, he could sense anger, an indication of her turnaround, and yet Kaitlin looked even more waifish than before. Already thin, she’d lost more weight in the past two days—a sign of her new, faster metabolism kicking in. If she didn’t eat something soon, her nerves would fry.

Michael lifted the paper bag in his hand and watched her glance at it. “Breakfast.”

She didn’t acknowledge that.

“Do you feel sick, Kaitlin?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sick, I’m scared. I’m not sure who you are, why you’re here or what’s going on.”

He nodded. “I do realize how difficult this must be. Let me just say that I found you in the park, injured pretty badly, and that I helped in the best way I could.”

She pointed to the bandage. “You did that?”

“Yes.”

“You brought me here?”

He nodded. “As soon as I found out who you were and where you belonged.”

Her hand went to her neck. “I can’t feel stitches.”

“You didn’t need them.”

“I didn’t go to a hospital?”

“No. No hospital.”

“Then the injury wasn’t so bad after all?”

“It could have been your death,” he said, “if untended.”

She took a moment to reply. “If you hadn’t come along with a bandage, you mean?”

Her eyes were pleading with him to lie. She wanted him to laugh and tell her this was all a big joke of the worst kind and that things would be fine now. Of course, he couldn’t say any of those things and mean them. Though she had been faced with this situation for only fifty-some hours, she would have to come to terms with what had become her new reality.

“Lucky for you, I did come along,” he said.

Kaitlin’s shaking intensified, though Michael didn’t sense shock setting in, and that was another miracle. Her fragile exterior hid a decent backbone that made her want to try to deal.

“Public places are bad for us,” he explained, driven to speech by the intensity of her gaze. “Finding out about what we are would mean the end of many of us. Humans aren’t partial to sharing their planet with those who are unlike them. Given that, I couldn’t take you to your real home, either.”

She didn’t immediately press him for more information about that. Her attention moved again to the paper bag in his hand before coming back to his face. When her eyes met his, an electrified shudder passed through him that Michael didn’t like at all.

Her bloodless lips parted. “I dreamed that I had a near-death experience. Could that be true?”

“Maybe now isn’t the time for details.”

“Because you don’t have any details?” she challenged.

“Timing is everything, Kaitlin. Those details might hinder the healing process.”

Would you want to hear how you nearly bit the big one, and that your life force was drained by a fanged parasite? Or that you now will be initiated into the moon’s cult?

He kept those things to himself.

Her gaze remained nearly as steady as his was. “Maybe you’ll tell me that I’m going to be a wolf, and that you really are one, too,” she said. “Like in my dreams, and according to Rena.”

Michael glanced to the corridor before turning back to the bed. Rena had gone, but had obviously spilled some of the dirt he had intended to hold back.

Moving slowly, he stepped inside the apartment and closed the door behind him. “If we’re to have a chat, mind if I come in?”

“I thought only vampires had to ask for permission to enter a building.”

He smiled. “I was being polite. We have no such rule governing our behavior.”

“No. I don’t suppose animals have a need for rules,” she said.

She was still staring at him, and hadn’t moved. Michael didn’t attempt another step in her direction.

“Did it really happen?” she asked. “Was I attacked?”

“Yes.”

“You helped me?”

He nodded.

“None of it was a dream?”

“Afraid not.”

She rubbed her eyes, daring to momentarily take her attention from him, and whispered, “Shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Michael said.

“For helping me?”

“For how that’s going to turn out.”

She sat up straighter, resignation in her expression. “Okay. If it wasn’t a dream, tell me about what’s going on. That’s what you meant, isn’t it, by withholding details? There’s a surprise in store?”

“Truly, now might not be the time for the tough ones.”

“Tough for me, or for you?”

“Both of us, actually,” Michael said.

She fingered her neck. “Your friend came here to tell me I’m going to become something other than human. Since she was pretty convincing, does that make me crazy if I decide to believe her?”

“Not crazy,” Michael said. “Enlightened.”

He watched Kaitlin briefly close her eyes and exhale a slow stream of the air that he had helped to preserve by giving her back her life. Thoughts of that rescue brought mixed feelings because of all the unseen consequences. Still, damn it, if he had it to do all over again, he’d have done the same thing.

“You aren’t a figment of my imagination?” She asked this seriously.

“No figment, Kaitlin.”

She seemed to consider his reply. “If the attack was real, what about the other parts of what I thought was a dream? Did we run through a park?”

“We did. Last night.”

“Naked?”

“One of us didn’t have many clothes on. Clothes get in the way of a shape-shift.”

That shut her up for a long minute. Then she said, “No dream, really? None of it?”

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes were even wider now, and trained on him in a way that made Michael’s internal wolf whine. Kaitlin’s gray gaze was direct and accusatory. “What is an Alpha?”

Her change in direction didn’t throw him, but her use of that word did. Michael promised himself that he would be having some serious words with Rena later on.

“An Alpha is the leader of a pack,” he said.

“A pack of wolves.”

He nodded, almost able to see the wheels of Kaitlin’s mind turning. The scent of her desperation tinged the air, though she was fighting for control over her part of the conversation, knowing its importance had to override her fear levels.

“I’ve never liked big, scary animals.” She said this breathlessly. “And now I’m supposedly going to be one?” Her eyes found his. “Like you? Like what I think I saw you turn into?”

Michael’s heart picked up its pace. He had made a vow never to get this close to a human female under any circumstances and had obliterated that vow with her because...well, again, he wasn’t sure why this woman affected him so much.

“Not exactly like me,” he replied. “Though you will be something close enough.”

Her jaw tensed, sending a spiral of pain through the wound on her neck, pain that Michael also felt. He supposed he was sharing her feelings due to having placed his blood in her veins, and that blood was giving him a heads-up on a few things. But that kind of sharing deepened his determination to stay as far away from Kaitlin Davies as possible in the future, once she knew the score.

“What does close enough mean?” she asked.

It seemed they were going to aim for the hard ones after all. This little fireball wasn’t about to let him off the hook.

Could he blame her?

“You now have Lycan blood in your veins,” he said.

He saw that the word Lycan didn’t ring a bell.

“Lycans are a very old lineage of shape-shifters,” Michael said.

Her head came up.

“Lycans can’t replicate themselves exactly, unless two Lycans mate and produce pure-blooded offspring. Because you now have Lycan blood in your veins, you’ll be a special combination of wolf and human, two things that can only mix well if the recipient of the blood gift is strong enough to handle their wolf, and pays close attention to the changes.”

“Blood gift? Hell, that’s what you call it?” Her eyes had gone glassy, though they still maintained focus. “Lycan means wolf?”

“Yes.”

“If this is true, I won’t be a real wolf?”

“Half wolf,” Michael reiterated. “And half human. Werewolf.”

She repeated that term to herself in a whisper, as if trying it on for size, and took time to formulate her next question. “You aren’t a werewolf?”

“Lycans are Weres, yes, and yet some older Were families have traits that actually fall under the categorization of shape-shifter. When those like us change, we take on animal form. Wolf form.”

None of this appeared to deter Kaitlin from pursuing her agenda of gaining all the information she could.

“What about the monster that attacked me?” she asked.

“Vampire.”

She closed her eyes and clasped her knees tighter, as if one of those monsters had gotten into the room. Michael sensed the rise in her blood pressure. There was now a faint tinge of pink in her cheeks.

“That was real.” She hung her head. “God. True. There are such things. No joke.”

“Hard to believe, I know,” Michael said. “For me, it’s equally as hard to believe that there are regular old humans that can’t change into anything.”

He walked to the side of the bed and set the paper bag on the table beside it. Kaitlin glanced up again. Beneath that gaze he felt wrong somehow, and that neither of them deserved the repercussions of what he had set in motion. His blood had bound them together in special ways. Before too long, he would have to break some of those invisible chains he already felt linking to her.

“You chased that vampire away,” she said.

“I took care of the problem so that vampire can’t hurt others or make more mindless monsters.”

“You don’t consider yourself a monster?”

“I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. But no, I don’t.”

“Supernatural vigilante, then?” she asked.

“My pack and others like us try to keep the peace. Some of us work behind the scenes to chase the undead away from the human population because only in that way can we, as a Were species, stay safe.”

There was more to tell her. Things she needed to know—such as the fact that she had spent one entire day and night in a coma, fighting the transition from human to something else.

He could tell her that he’d never seen a human take such a short time to pass through the first phase of moving toward their half wolf status, and that she was an anomaly.

He could warn Kaitlin that possibly she would hit the next wall in the hours to come, and therefore would need him for a while more, though he dreaded that need for closeness.

He could not bring up the fact that humans, like the one she had been, had hunted and killed his mother for sport.

“Then I should be grateful you were out there.” She surprised him again with a complete change of tone. Her voice became softer now, with an almost magical ability to work its way under his tough Were skin. The prickle of anticipation Michael felt when he observed Kaitlin was always unexpected, and wholly unique.

He fended off the desire to shift right there and avoid those gray eyes, the way he had done the night before. But shifting was a private matter, and Kaitlin had already seen him do it twice.

“Thank you for whatever you did to keep me alive, Michael. I mean it.”

She was still curled up in a ball, knees drawn tight. “I didn’t want to die and prayed for intervention. So, really, you can be considered an angel. My angel.”

Michael counted the passing seconds by his own racing heartbeats, knowing that this was the moment to take his leave. He wanted to argue again that he was the furthest thing possible from an angel. He had lethal teeth, ten razor-sharp claws, and he pretty much adhered to the moon’s beck and call. What kind of angel used the moon for their higher power?

He was a tough fighter for the rights of his kind to exist in this world, and yet his reactions to Kaitlin left him feeling fuzzy and ill-defined about the whole human-versus-wolf thing. These feelings were new and unwelcome. They left him feeling vulnerable when that word had never entered his vocabulary. They made him feel guilty about breaking certain vows.

I’m not to be trusted here, Kaitlin, this close to you.

He had to take care of this problem of being attracted to Kaitlin, and quickly. He couldn’t afford time away from his hunt for vampires and the protection of his pack.

Now that Rena knew about what he’d done, she could take Kaitlin under her wing. That task would serve Rena right for coming to see Kaitlin uninvited.

He shouldn’t linger near Kaitlin Davies for two minutes more. He’d done a good deed, had shared Lycan blood, which was a rare event for any Lycan, and Kaitlin had thanked him. The sun was up. She had made it through the weekend and seemed to be okay.

Damn, though...

Only heartless, soulless vampires left their offspring to fend for themselves. Vamps, and also a new breed of nasty rogue Weres created from the bites of other werewolves bent on passing along that trait to unsuspecting others. He had an obligation here to see Kaitlin through her transition to becoming Were, no matter how attracted to her he was. Three members of his pack had been the recipients of illicit tooth-and-claw encounters. Surely those Weres would understand about Kaitlin needing help, and condone what he had done to save her.

Kaitlin’s voice rose again, cutting through Michael’s internal chatter. “Why me? If you have a secret to keep, why help me?”

Her beautiful gray eyes reflected the chill of her fear. Kaitlin’s sober expression pierced his soul. Hell, this woman made the big bad wolf want to protect her.

“You’re young, beautiful and innocent. You have a whole lifetime ahead of you and didn’t deserve to die like that,” Michael said.

“Does anyone deserve to die?” she asked.

“Yes. The monster that attacked you and dozens of others like it.”

“God, there are more of them?”

“A seemingly infinite number,” Michael replied.

Kaitlin winced at the pain turning her head caused, and said, “You would have helped anyone out there?”

He had to think about that, and took too long for Kaitlin’s current need for answers.

Her eyes were accusatory. “You’re telling me the truth? You’re some sort of shape-shifter? I wasn’t mistaken about what I saw?”

He said, “Beneath a full moon, I change from this shape into another one.”

“Only with a full moon? I don’t recall seeing one last night.”

“I can change other times, as well. Only a few Lycans can do that, and not very many of us.”

She fired off another remark. “I’ll be a hybrid because I’m also human.”

“Because you started out human.”

“Why didn’t I die, Michael? What about this blood gift you mentioned? How does that work?”

“If you’re not born into our species, a transfer of blood is the only way to be initiated. It doesn’t take much, and is the only way I know of to heal the damage from a deadly vampire attack.”

“But it creates another werewolf.”

“Yes,” he reluctantly admitted.

Species. Initiated. Heal. Michael wondered how anyone in Kaitlin’s situation could possibly comprehend this.

“Would I have become a vampire if the monster’s blood had been left inside me?” she asked.

“You would have died and then been reanimated as one of them. Just like them. No heart. No soul. No need for breath. Hungering for blood.”

She pried her lips apart. “Maybe you helped me so that you wouldn’t have to contend with one more bloodsucker like the one I would have become.”

“Being like us seemed the better option, Kaitlin. Our genetics cause us to heal faster than normal, and we recover from injuries cleanly. We can survive a lot of things. With wolf blood in your veins to counteract that vamp’s damage, you had a chance. You’ve made it this far. In another month, that wound will be nothing more than a thin white scar. So I suppose...”

He leaned over her, with his hands on the mattress. “I suppose that though this new turn of events is unbelievable, you can be thankful you’re here today.”

Staring at Kaitlin, Michael relived how he had breathed life back into her after she had lain on the hard, damp ground. How he had cradled her in his arms and run his fingers over her bloodless face. He, who prided himself on remaining aloof from the human population, had whispered assurances to this woman, though one of her species had destroyed his family and others like his with a spray of silver bullets.

Did helping Kaitlin make him a traitor to his family, or just a bighearted idiot who made a rash decision on the spur of the moment? He felt like a traitor. Hell, saving a life didn’t equate to being an angel, and might have been an action he would someday regret.

Yet when Kaitlin broke contact and looked away, he wanted to pull her attention back despite his inner protests about keeping some distance. He wanted to lift her in his arms and trade hot, sultry breaths. Fantasies were appearing about pressing her to a tree in the moonlight, where he’d kiss Kaitlin to within an inch of her life, and revel in each second.

And if he were willing to admit more personal blasphemy, he’d concede the desire to go beyond that kiss-fest and have her in all the ways that counted between a male and a female, while listening to her soft growls of pleasure.

He had to close his eyes to shut those images off.

What had been his motivation for going back on an oath? Kaitlin Davies wasn’t human anymore. There was a slight possibility he could have helped her in that park in hopes of just such a situation as this, having been instantly attracted to her, and despite the taboo placed on Lycans mating with human-wolf hybrids of lesser bloodlines.

If that had been the case, though, he didn’t recall it. Nor had he stopped to consider that by saving her he would prevent Kaitlin from becoming a vampire. Neither of those thoughts had crossed his mind. All he saw was her, and how badly she was being hurt.

“I think I’m going to be sick, and I think I’d prefer to be sick alone,” she announced, bringing him back to the present.

She wasn’t looking at him now. He had to go, had to leave her, at least for a while. He also felt sick, confused, sad.

“All right, Kaitlin. I’ll go. Things will work out. You’ll see.”

Promises, little wolf, from what you believe to be a freak of nature, Michael silently added, scanning her profile.

“Werewolves tend to land on our feet, you know,” he said aloud.

“Yeah,” she agreed in a strangled voice, and with a last stab at defiance. “All four.”

Chapter 5

Remember that I gave you a choice.

Michael’s words from that night floated through Kaitlin’s memory as she looked into the emerald-colored eyes of the man who had uttered them.

Contrary to what he’d just said, Michael hadn’t made any effort to leave her apartment. Looking at him, she realized Michael wasn’t just handsome, he was extraordinary. Tall, leanly muscled and much too male, he wore a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and faded jeans that fit him like a second skin.

His face was as chiseled as her memory of his abs, and the angularity served up a regal air. Dark hair hung to his chin, straight, shiny, with the slightly mussed look of a man who didn’t give a hoot about his appearance.

But his looks were deceiving, because Michael wasn’t human, even though he appeared to be at the moment. Something much wilder hid beneath his skin, waiting to get out. She sensed that wildness as if she could taste it.

She had witnessed his shape-shifting firsthand. That wasn’t what bothered her at the moment, though. The awful part was the realization that whether or not Michael was a wolf, she was attracted to him. She wanted him in blistering hot, slightly demented ways. Closeness was what she craved...for both Michael and what he kept hidden inside.

Maybe what he’d done to her had caused these feelings. Maybe she was just grateful to him and that was showing up in inappropriate ways. If Michael had turned out to be an emissary from heaven, she would surely have gone to hell for what she wanted to do to him right then and there.

So, it was now official. She might not have died this weekend, but she had gone completely insane.

When Michael moved, Kaitlin wondered if he had felt her attraction to him. Instead of turning for the door, he transferred the paper bag he’d brought from the table to the bedsheets that no longer covered her up.

“You need to eat, Kate.”

His voice was hushed, sexy as heck and full of unacknowledged emotion. He’d used the nickname her family used, and made it seem intimate. Beneath his keen green-eyed observation, Kaitlin felt exposed in her old T-shirt, and she was short of breath. The thin, worn fabric covering her was the only thing standing between them, and as a barrier it was a joke.

When Michael’s gaze landed on her throat, her neck throbbed mercilessly, as if the injury somehow recognized its savior. Her body lost some of its chill and the room began to spin when his eyes bored into hers in a replay of their connection the night she had nearly died. With that gaze, she remembered the dark fur of the animal he had become.

Needing to think and to decide what to do next, she looked away. She didn’t dare show him how badly she wanted him, or how conflicted she was about feelings that weren’t in any way normal reactions to the events preceding this moment.

“Kate. Kaitlin.”

He whispered to her in a sensuous, velvety tone—the voice of a wolf prince walking upright on two legs. Lycan. Werewolf. Wolf. She had to look at him. She felt compelled to do as he asked.

His expression was set and sober. His wolfish eyes gleamed. Oh, yes, she wanted him, all right. She could argue all she wanted to, and pass this off as a trip to Neverland, but she couldn’t lie about her connection to Michael. As absurd as it seemed, with just one kiss at death’s door, he had bound her soul to his.

No dream. No dream at all.

“Kaitlin,” he said again.

“If I won’t be human anymore, what about my family?” she asked.

“You won’t lose them. They don’t even really have to know for a while,” Michael replied.

“You don’t have any idea what they’re like, or how close we are.”

“We can deal with that later. First, let’s tend to you.”

What did he see in her? Why had he chosen her to save? She wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, or even close. She didn’t stand out in a crowd, dress for success or anyone’s approval. In fact, she had always tried to blend in.

Her body was lean and athletic, like a runner’s, without accentuated curves and bulging breasts. She had never worn lipstick. Kaitlin Mary Davies was five foot five, and sprang from delicate-boned Irish stock.

She was the eldest of the two Davies siblings and had been taught to question, to test and never to outright rebel. She had been encouraged to stand on her own two feet, as long as she stood on them in relatively close proximity to her family and her home. And though she had come close on a few occasions, she had never actually slept with a man.

“My father is a judge. Mom is a homemaker.” She spoke in a rush. “There are no black sheep in the closet that I know of. It’s a sure bet there are no anomalies in my family tree.”

Michael let her go on.

“Not only am I getting a PhD in history, you’re saying that I’ve been awarded a degree in animal, and that I now have wolf in my Irish veins. I will be that Davies family anomaly.”

Deal, Kaitlin. You have to deal. Slow down. Take this in.

Had he said that to her? His lips hadn’t moved and yet she heard those directions as clearly as if he had spoken. Was part of Michael in her mind as well as in her veins?

“Does it hurt?” she asked. “Being a werewolf has to be no picnic. I’ve seen you shape-shift and it didn’t look like fun.”

He was using some kind of mesmerizing voodoo to pull her gaze back to his. The jolt of electricity sparking between them was immediate, and like a bolt of lightning stapling her to the bed.

“Yes. It hurts at first, while the body readjusts,” he replied. “Then you get used to it, and can look forward to the changes.”

She blinked slowly to absorb what Michael said, failing to counter that there was no alternative now, other than getting used to something like that, since the only other option had been taken away. Death.

No, not even death, since she would have come back as one of the undead if Michael hadn’t shown up.

“Well,” he said. “As much as I’d like to stay, you probably have class today. Go. Getting back into your routine will be good for you.”

Stunned by that suggestion, Kaitlin said, “Are you kidding? I go on as if nothing happened, and wait to see if anything will?”

“As much as you can, because that’s what life does. It goes on.”

“Are you a student?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I’m a carpenter.”

“What if I can’t act like life goes on? Where will I find you if I need help?” Her voice had grown noticeably quieter.

“Come to the park an hour before nightfall tonight. I’ll be there. That’s important, Kaitlin. Do you understand? It must be before dark.”

“The park? I—”

“You’ll be safe, I promise. You can bet that I keep my word.”

“Who will I find out there? Man or wolf?”

“Before nightfall, you’ll find me. I’ll be waiting. After nightfall, you’ll find more of your new self, and might not be ready.”

Her hands were shaking. Her face again felt cold. As much as she wanted Michael, she also wanted him gone. Yet the prospect of him leaving seemed daunting.

“If there’s no full moon?”

“Any moon phase can instigate small changes,” he said.

When Michael’s lips turned up at the corners, the moment became even more frightening. This was just another day in the life of a werewolf, while for her it was the end of life as she’d always known it.

Afraid to move, Kaitlin watched the thing she hoped for and dreaded all at the same time happen. Michael caught her chin so that she couldn’t look away. Then he swore beneath his breath as if trying one last time to fend off his feelings...before his mouth found hers.

The sensation of his slick lips sliding over hers wasn’t wholly unexpected. In that intimate act Kaitlin felt the wind in the trees and the dampness of grass beneath her toes. She felt moonlight on her face, and had a sudden urge to sprint through open spaces.

All in his kiss.

Not even a kiss, really. Merely a touch.

However, he soon changed that.

Adding pressure, Michael urged her lips to participate. His warm tongue met hers, sending Kaitlin spinning.

She strained for more of what he had to offer, yearning for a connection that would tame her fears. She grasped at life, seeking to understand what had happened to her, how this man had saved her with his blood and what would become of her now.

She struggled to comprehend the images she’d been shown and the future she would have to come to terms with if any of this could possibly be real.

It was all so damn freaky.

Thoughts fled as Michael’s talented mouth conquered hers in a way that left her mindless. His kiss became a deep, devouring act that demanded she respond in kind.

The kiss went on and on as though it might never end, and as if they’d never get enough of each other. Hunger sparked memory. This was what she recalled—Michael’s breath in her lungs and his mouth on hers, there at death’s door. This was what she needed now in order to get up and go on.

Michael...

As if sensing how desperately she demanded this connection, the pressure of Michael’s mouth lightened. His lips left hers to angle across her left cheek, drifting toward her neck in a downward trajectory of kisses. He paused near the band of her T-shirt, took hold of the cotton with both hands and crumpled the fabric in his fist.

He was so damn hot. The room was humid and stifling. Her body was quaking with a longing that had nothing to do with life-altering transitions...unless it was about becoming intimate with a man she really didn’t know.

This was body betrayal, big-time, with the hope that Michael would stay and finish what they had started. Maybe then she’d be able to rest. Possibly she’d get over this ridiculous crush if their bodies actually merged.

“Wait.”

The command was loud, though it had been whispered through her cracked lips.

God, had she said that?

Michael heeded that command. His head came up. When he looked into her eyes, Kaitlin detected defiance in his gaze, and knew he was scrambling for a hold on his own wayward needs. Still, he was going to do what she asked, no matter what that cost him.

“You’re right, of course.” His voice emerged as a growl.

She had to say something. “I owe you for saving my life.”

“But now isn’t the time to repay me, and I wouldn’t expect that kind of payment from you anyway, especially when you might not be happy with the way things turn out.”

He didn’t smile as he went on. “If I go now, you’ll settle down. Being near another wolf tends to bring out the wolf in you, and in me. I know that, and I thought...” He let that part dangle, and started again. “Your allure is strong, Kaitlin. I’ll admit that.”

Michael straightened up before she could reach for him. He leaned over her once more, with both hands on the bed beside her. Eyes closed, Kaitlin waited for his mouth to betray his words and for Michael to ignore her outburst in spite of what he’d just said.

There was to be no further touch.

She heard the click of a door and opened her eyes to find herself alone. Michael had left her with the tan paper bag.

Her own growl of distress rose in her throat as her stomach again turned over. Giving in to the rush of feeling she’d trapped in her core, Kaitlin tore into the paper bag as though it were made of tissue—ripping it apart, sending pieces of paper flying.

If she couldn’t have Michael, she’d at least have this.

She wolfed down the meal as if she hadn’t eaten in months instead of days, and with the gusto of someone who might never eat again.

Because you just never knew what could happen from one minute to the next.

Only somewhat satiated, Kaitlin glanced sideways, eyes bleary, startled by her reflection in the mirror. She was on her hands and knees on the bed, bare ass showing from beneath her T-shirt. Barbecue sauce was smeared all over her face and hands, making her look, to her complete dismay, very much the beast she might become.

Staring at that image, she started to cry.

Chapter 6

Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: How do you cope with life on a Monday when you’ve almost died over the weekend?

Answer: You either curl up for days on end, or you have a go at what’s left.

In the end, Kaitlin had to remember that the Davies family was nothing if not flexible. But she feared that the day stretching ahead would seem like a blur, with life burning like an eternal question mark at the center. Colorless day, colorless surroundings. Heavy books, laptops and ongoing research. Meaningless chitchat. Typical postgraduate stuff.

Because she was no longer herself.

Or so Rena and Michael kept telling her.

Concentrating was difficult when there were monsters all around, and when a person’s eternal flame could be choked out so quickly. When this life do-over had turned out to be a doozy.

However bad things were, she was determined to try to cope. She would handle this, because there was no alternative.

Remaining optimistic proved to be tough, though. In the hallway, Kaitlin focused on avoiding others and keeping to the sidelines, not sure she could actually carry on a conversation or if the students she passed would know she was different. Was she different? She had only Michael’s and Rena’s word for that.

By the time she was halfway through the main university building, odd things were happening. Inexplicable things. Smells, scents and fragrances were suddenly overwhelming and more of an affront to her senses. Polish on the floors gave off a sweet, sticky odor. Scuff marks from black-soled shoes smelled like burned rubber. Paper stuck to bulletin boards made her eyes water.

Crowds of people huddled in the corners, amplifying the odors of damp clothes, hair gel, fabric dyes and perfume. Passing the cafeteria was a big mistake. Although she was hungry again, almost ravenous, the smell of overcooked pizza sickened her.

She wanted to escape, hide, get away, and didn’t know where to go or how to outdistance the waves of panic that stuck to her like shadows. She had to wait to see Michael again.

New self. Changes. Don’t go out after dark.

She chewed her fingernails in frustration and chose a secluded seat in the back of the library, though she was certain there was no way to work on her thesis. No one gave her a second glance or turned around to stare.

The tick of the wall clock drove her mad. Fighting every agonizingly slow minute, Kaitlin waded through the hours like a sinking swimmer, finding it harder and harder to breathe when beyond the library walls she could feel him. Michael. Somewhere close.

Thoughts of Michael made her muscles dance with anticipation. The leftover pressure of his talented mouth brought far too much heat. She looked up werewolves online on her laptop, shuddering as she read lines of a story labeled as myth. She grew more and more restless as the afternoon dragged on. Forgoing her work, she drew pictures of wolves on her notebook and tried to remember the shape of Michael’s eyes.

When the clock chimed five, she raced through crowds of students having a normal day, wondering how they could be so oblivious to events unfolding around them. Almost at the exit, she skidded to a stop near a bunch of people gathered outside a closed classroom door. Taped to that door was a note.

“Class canceled due to instructor illness.”

Her fear turned major. What if that missing teacher had also been some fanged monster’s prey?

Her legs began to shake uncontrollably.

Going to be sick. Need to get out.

Taking in ragged breaths of stale air, Kaitlin slumped against the wall with her head in her hands. After several long minutes she was able to again stand upright, and then only because there were answers to find and truths to sort out.

“Come hell or high water...” She reached for the neck of the sweater that hid what a stranger named Rena had called her “war wound” and finished the statement. “I’m going to find out what the hell is going on.”

* * *

Michael paced from tree to tree, sure Kaitlin would show up, though he wouldn’t have blamed her if she didn’t.

He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Hadn’t realized he was kissing her until she stopped him. Now she’d have the wrong impression of this meeting and what he wanted her to get out of it. She might assume this to be an invitation to a rendezvous. If so, she would be dead wrong.

Kissing wasn’t on his agenda.

Touching her was out of the question.

He set that firmly in his mind and stopped pacing twenty feet from the spot where Kaitlin had nearly lost her life, thinking that she would indeed have to be tough to return here so soon.

Making her confront her new direction in life was part of his plan and an important first step in helping her to face the truth. Hopefully, eventually, she would get past being afraid of the unknown.

For the time being, she needed guidance. After tonight, he was determined to turn her over to Rena. Females were so much better than males at dealing with personal issues, whatever species they belonged to. Some kind of innate nurturing thing had been twisted into female DNA.

That’s what he told himself, anyway.

Rena wasn’t exactly softhearted, but she would step up to the plate if he asked her to. He knew Rena harbored a lust for him that the she-wolf never fully kept hidden, but he considered Rena family. She wasn’t the new rusty-haired human-wolf hybrid that his wolf craved in some strange and inexplicable way.

Rena was intuitive. She would see this. Although Rena wouldn’t think much of what he’d done to save Kaitlin, the she-wolf would never purposefully harm anyone who didn’t deserve it.

So. Hell. Why had he done what he had done, exactly? Why had he helped a human being? Chance? Coincidence? Serendipity?

Humans had not given this same kind of consideration to his family. After hunting his mother, they shot her, did terrible things to her body and then dragged her off. Illicit game hunters in on the secret existence of werewolves had hoped for a pricey black-market pelt, but hadn’t gotten their wish. His mother, also able to shape-shift at will, had robbed them of that last detail.

Michael scanned the lawn. With his sensitive hearing mechanisms on alert, he experienced an anticipatory spike in pulse rate. But it wasn’t Kaitlin who approached.

“I get it, Michael.” Rena effortlessly covered ground on long, shapely legs.

“What do you get?”

“She’s different.”

He nodded. “You noticed.”

“I wonder what it is, though.” Rena stopped beside him with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans, and looked up at him. “What are you going to do with her?”

“I suppose that depends on how she turns out.”

“How bad was it for her? I know you wouldn’t do this unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“There wasn’t much to save,” he replied.

Rena sniffed the air. “Whatever happened to her happened near here? Some of her scent lingers.”

“Rogue vamp,” Michael said. “Possibly only days old.”

“Damn things are getting bolder. That’s the second attack in a week.” Rena nailed him with a shrewd stare. “Why did you do it?”

“I suppose I felt sorry for her.”

Rena’s expression let him know she saw through that answer. She asked, “Is this a new trend?”

“Hopefully not.”

Rena looked around. “Is she coming here to meet you?”

“Maybe she’ll show. Maybe not.”

Michael didn’t want to get into this now, since he’d have to go over it with the rest of the pack tonight. Rena was good at pressing the limits of trespassing on personal space, though. She’d been raised in a family of twelve.

“Oh, she will show, all right. You’ve mesmerized her,” she said.

“She’ll get over it. People often idolize their rescuers at first, until that new take on life wears off.”

“Yes, but Kaitlin’s new take on life won’t wear off. She won’t be able to go back to her old ways as if nothing happened, will she?”

“I’m hoping you’ll help her with her transition to this new life.”

“And I hope you’re kidding, Michael.”

He looked directly at her. “I can’t think of anyone better for the task, or that I’d trust with it more.”

Rena’s eyes were bright with an emotion she almost succeeded in keeping hidden. After helping to raise her numerous siblings, she wasn’t going to be amenable to babysitting again.

“Like me, Cade was human until he was bitten,” she said. “He’s calmer. He’d be a better keeper.”

“Cade is all male, as you well know.”

“You’re suggesting that no male can resist this little human?” Rena fired back.

“I’d rather not deal with having to find out until Kaitlin can make up her own mind about which side she prefers to take.”

“In case she wants to hide out among the humans and pretend she’s still one of them, you mean,” Rena said.

“Like we all do,” Michael reminded her.

Rena turned away from him, sniffing at something she perceived in the wind. Michael was way ahead of her and had been monitoring that smell for the past couple of minutes.

“Vampire,” Rena growled.

“Two of them,” he said. “And I think I might have just broken a promise to our new pack-mate about keeping her safe.”

* * *

Every nerve in Kaitlin’s body screamed bloody murder as she took that first step toward the path to the park. The smell of freshly mowed grass hit her hard. The wide expanse of park grounds ahead of her seemed ominous. However, by the time she’d taken a second step, she was resigned to go through with this meeting.

She just needed a little encouragement.

“One foot in front of the other, that’s all.”

She marched on, shoulders hunched, her gaze scanning the surroundings. Late-evening light lay in a pink haze on the distant mountain rage. Pastel air dripped through the branches of the trees. Several students milled around near the buildings behind her. No one she knew.

As Kaitlin picked up her pace, she warned herself not to look to the right. Despite herself, she slowed, automatically braking to a stop before reaching the spot where the vamp had accosted her.

She hadn’t intended to see this. She didn’t want to recall the details of that night, or see if her blood stained the bark of that damn tree.

Don’t go any farther. Though inner red flags were waving, the pull of that terrible spot was both a fascination and a horror. Her throat throbbed as if it recognized where they were. This was where she had clung to life.

She stared at the trees without realizing how much time had gone by before her body chilled. A man...no, not really a man, but a creature named Michael, again looking human, caught her wrist in a careful grip. Without speaking a word, he urged her into a jog.

She did not stop to question this, and matched Michael’s pace. He led her through another section of the park without communicating to her how different this run was compared to the last one they’d shared. Kaitlin didn’t require an explanation, because she sensed trouble in the air. Michael was tense. His grip on her wrist was tight.

They weren’t alone. Somehow she was aware of another presence nearby and recognized the scent of Rena’s dark jeans. Michael’s female pack-mate was somewhere behind them, bringing up the rear.

Was this how it was with werewolves? They possessed an intrinsic sense of each other, aware of Were presence without having to look?

Although the idea was interesting, there was no time to ponder it. Michael ran, and she ran with him—through the park, past the edge of the campus, slowing only when they hit the street. There, they had to walk in order to blend in with the people on the sidewalk.

Once they had cleared the short block leading to the university’s athletic grounds, Michael took off again with a speed that was more like flight.

Kaitlin ran like the wind without becoming winded. Cool air on her neck stung. Turning her head made her grimace, but those things weren’t half as disconcerting as being mired in the fog of being uninformed. Who the hell were they running from?

Please, don’t let it be vampires.

Panic filled her with the thought of fanged monsters. Her pace flagged as the memory of unnatural teeth tearing into her flesh returned, and with it the reminder of there being more kinds of things in this world than anyone knew.

She uttered a sound that made Michael toss her a sideways look. However, he wasn’t going to oblige by stopping to answer questions. Instead, he encouraged her on.

They raced around the corner of a small building near the university’s farthest fields. Then, slowing so suddenly that she nearly passed him by, Michael whirled and pressed her to the building’s brick siding.

“Don’t go there,” he warned. “Don’t think back too hard or too much. To be afraid is to be weak.”

“I think I can feel them out there. Vampires.”

“They won’t get to you. Not with me here and the pack on the prowl.”

“It’s almost dark, Michael. Don’t vampires come out at night? Is that what you were warning me about when you said to come early?”

He nodded. “When darkness comes, we wait for what hides inside it. I wanted you to avoid being caught up in that.”

“Who? Who will face those things?”

“I will. My pack will.”

Kaitlin refused to address the ringing in her ears that signaled the extent of her panic. She whispered, “I’m not ready.”

Warm hands cradled her face. Michael’s eyes met hers. “You don’t have to see them. No one expects you to. I just wanted you to view the place where you were attacked and accept it. Accept us. Accept me.”

Michael drew back after saying that, as if he had just exposed a secret. Did that secret deal with his feelings for her?

“What if...” Her voice faltered, so Kaitlin started again. “What if they hurt you?”

He shook his head. “Not going to happen. Not here, like this. We’re fairly fluent in vampire, and these young fledglings have picked up a predictable pattern.”

Kaitlin recalled the brute strength of the beast that had trapped her and how she had assumed she would never breathe again. But if darkness was minutes away and Michael’s pack would be going after vampires, where did that leave her?

“What do I do?” she asked.

“Go back to your place and wait this out. I was hoping they wouldn’t come back so soon. It’s unusual they would risk it. I didn’t mean for you to go through this again. I’ll send someone home with you to—”

“Babysit me? Hold my hand? I don’t need that.”

Michael held her to the wall with only one hand on her shoulder. Their hips weren’t touching. She couldn’t feel his breath on her face as he said, “Then it’s a good thing you have no say in the matter.”

As if their sprint had finally caught up with her need for oxygen, Kaitlin said breathlessly, “Who made you king?”

“Not king. Alpha,” he said with a split-second grin that made the rest of the world, as well as thoughts about the monsters occupying space in it, momentarily melt away.

“And as such, you’re my responsibility,” he added.

Michael’s tenseness had returned, which meant that the time for conversation had to be scheduled for a future date. Right on cue with the final nod of his head, the guests he must have been anticipating got nearer, as did nightfall.

Growls rolled from Michael’s throat that would have scared the living daylights out of anyone who heard them, and nearly shattered Kaitlin’s reach for recovery.

“They’re coming,” he said. “Lesson one, Kaitlin. Close your eyes and breathe. Inhale and tell me what you find in the wind.”

Kaitlin did as she was told. She breathed the night in, coughed, breathed again. Heavy pressure on her nerve endings made her eyes fly open. “Is that the vampires?”

“It’s the pack,” Michael said. “Some of it, anyway.”

The scent accompanying the pressure she perceived was hard to define and meant more werewolves were coming. Her body responded quickly to this news. Heat closed around her as if a warm breeze had blown in.

Michael said, “Time to go.” Then Rena, accompanied by two large men that weren’t quite as gorgeous as Michael, but a close second and third, turned the corner of the building...with their eyes trained on her.

Chapter 7

Michael welcomed the members of his pack with genuine gladness.

Cade, with the Danish-born Were’s usual levity, called out, “Not exactly the time to get close and personal, boss,” noting how close Michael was to Kaitlin.

Rena said, “Two suckers have slunk out of their hidey-holes and are heading for the school.”

Kaitlin muttered, “No.”

Michael gestured to Cade. “Watch her.”

“And miss all the fun?” Cade said, already heading for the new hybrid in their midst. “I assume this is Kaitlin.”

Michael nodded. “No time for introductions. Obviously those fanged freaks don’t care about anything but finding dinner, and are way too hungry these days.”

“Have you ever known them to actually think?” Devlin, their Irish Were, contributed.

“Kaitlin has an apartment,” Michael said to Cade. “Can you take her there and wait for us?”

“No problem,” Cade returned. “But you owe me.”

Michael noted the panic coursing through Kaitlin’s body. That panic shuddered within her each time she took a breath.

“A promise is a promise,” he said to her. “You can trust Cade to keep the monsters away if any more of them show up while the rest of us deal with the two fledglings on our radar.”

Kaitlin was as white as a sheet. He didn’t want to leave her, but couldn’t send the others to fight in his place. He had told Kaitlin to meet him out here without considering that the vampire attack on her life might have signaled something far worse, like an invasion of the fanged freaks. Before things turned uglier, he’d have to contend with the problem, though tearing himself away from Kaitlin was going to be harder than he could have imagined.

There was no time to whisper assurances to her, touch her or explain why he wanted to do those things.

“Go with Cade, Kate,” he said to her. “Trust us.”

His heart was pounding twice as fast as usual, announcing his wolf’s imminent appearance. Vamp scent was prodding him to act.

The members of his pack all knew what special things he could do with or without a full moon’s assistance, and yet Michael had always been uncomfortable shifting back and forth when the rest of his pack had to wait for that one special night per month.

Already, his claws were extending in honor of dealing with old enemies whose presence was a blight on Otherness. His claws were long, curved and lethal. Back when he was a kid, the claws had taken a while to get used to. He had scratched himself more times than he could count. Now, the razor-sharp tips were stained with black vampire blood.

He hid the claws behind his back, out of Kaitlin’s sight, because she was scared enough already and possibly on the verge of being frozen in place.

“Go now,” he said, locking eyes with her large grays. “There’s no time to waste.”

His Lycan power of persuasion helped to make sure she obeyed. They were still connected. His thoughts would become hers if he willed it.

Kaitlin faced Cade, who was three heads taller than she was and twice as broad. Michael understood that she wanted to see the kind of monster that had attacked her so she could truly believe that kind of evil actually existed. But the word danger didn’t even begin to describe a situation where his pack had to worry about Kaitlin and fight the vamps at the same time.

Kaitlin didn’t glance back as she left him. Her spine was rigid and she held her head high. He trusted Cade. Cade was the best of his pack and strong enough to fight his way through a crowd if he had to.

The sandy-haired Dane followed his Alpha’s directives without question. Cade had been right, though, to want to question Michael’s plan. They were peacekeepers, not babysitters, and the big Were’s incredible reflexes would be sorely missed if push came to shove with fledgling bloodsuckers on a bender.

Michael swore beneath his breath for having to make that choice.

“I’ll second that unspoken filthy oath you just thought up and raise you one,” Rena said, observing him thoughtfully.

Michael tossed her a look.

“Raise you one what?” Devlin asked, glancing after Cade and Kaitlin. “By the way, you do realize that girl is...”

“Is what?” Rena snapped.

“Fragrant,” Devlin concluded.

“She’s going to be one of us,” Rena said.

“Is she, now?” Devlin grinned at Michael.

Vampire presence made the air harder to breathe even for a Were whose system churned oxygen like a well-oiled machine. Michael’s wolf pressed against his insides with a desire to be freed. His body wanted to turn itself inside-out and become the thing he harbored.

“Party time,” he said as night finally darkened the air, rallying the two Weres. “Under no circumstances can those vampires be allowed to reach the campus.”

“Like you have to tell us that,” Rena muttered as they all moved toward the spreading blackness that heralded the approach of the undead.

There was no mistaking the stench in the air. The two vampires heading their way moved in unison from shadow to shadow. Although they were youthful in appearance, these vamps were terribly fast, their whereabouts difficult to pinpoint until they passed through a glittering shaft of early moonlight. Then, as if they’d been trapped by a searchlight, both bloodsuckers paused to hiss their displeasure over having any type of light touch their colorless skin.

The moon belonged to the wolves, while vampires were true children of the night—the darker the night, the better. Though Michael didn’t know for sure, he supposed that like bats—which were credited as the vamps’ distant relatives—bloodsuckers didn’t have proper-functioning eyes in bright light, which was why vampires sought out dark spaces and burrowed underground in the daylight hours. The darkness was where nightmare belonged.

The moonlight made these two vamps angry and twice as dangerous. Neither had been undead for long, since both retained some pre-death musculature. Their clothes were in relatively good shape, if the bloodstains were overlooked. However, no one on earth could have believed these creeps were living, breathing humans after a first quick look. No way in hell.

“Ugly bastards,” he heard Rena mutter.

One of those bastards heard her and slipped away from the pool of light. Devlin moved after that slinking shadow, leaving tree cover to follow his pasty-skinned prey.

The vamp in the light made a strange keening sound that Michael was afraid might be some sort of signal.

“You’re heading the wrong way,” he said to it. “This area is protected.”

The vamp swelled as if it had swallowed enough air to double its size, though breathing wasn’t its forte. It bared its nasty fangs.

“Saw that trick in a circus once,” Rena said, unimpressed.

Her remark broke the standoff. The fledgling moved toward Rena without changing its expression, perhaps incorrectly concluding that a female would be the weaker opposing link. At the same time, Devlin gave a shout as the vampire they had lost sight of came rushing at them from the right, with Devlin close on its heels.

Michael had already torn off his shirt to soak up the moonlight. Calling upon the innate strength and reflexes of his Lycan heritage, he had one vampire by the throat before Rena had moved.

There was no time to strip. Michael kicked off his shoes and listened to his worn jeans tear at the seams. Before his next big breath, his continuing morph gave him teeth and jaws to match the claws he had already been wielding.

Loud cracking sounds accompanied the realignment of his shoulders. His spine snapped straight with a shock to the bones. Seconds later, his legs jumped on the bandwagon.

As Rena reached for the vampire in his grip, Michael butted her away, allowing his wolf the room necessary to deal with a creature that had died once already and now needed a reminder that dead was dead.

He howled as he completed his shift. After hitting the ground on his paws, Michael bounded back up to lunge for the vampire’s neck. Grabbing hold there with his sharp canine teeth, he shook the bloodsucker so forcefully, the creature shrieked.

Rena wasn’t to be left out of this party. She came hurtling back, aiming for the monster’s chest with a short, sharp-tipped wooden stake. Putting all her muscle behind the strike, she hit the place in the vamp’s chest where a man’s heart should have been, and drove the stake deep.

That was all it took to send one unholy bloodsucker back to wherever it went in the hereafter. The creature exploded into a funnel of swirling gray ash.

“Dust to dust,” Rena said. “One down.”

“Make that two,” Devlin announced with a fierce guttural growl as a second explosion came from the area between the trees.

Michael knew they had lucked out with this batch of fledglings.

Silence returned quickly, and as though nothing had happened to disturb it...which was exactly the way Michael had wanted things to turn out. Until, with his extraordinary connection to Kaitlin, he perceived the trouble she was in and whirled on all fours.

* * *

The guy beside her was blond, built like a brick house and looked capable enough to handle most of the things life might throw his way. Her new guardian, Cade, was the epitome of a modern-day Viking. Attractive. Make that a real heartthrob. And also a werewolf.

Cade’s green eyes, similar in color to both Michael’s and Rena’s, stared straight ahead, never once veering from the path he led her down. He was concentrating on their surroundings. Kaitlin sensed his reluctance to break their silence.

“Is something there?” she asked.

He held up a hand and shook his head, gestures indicating that speaking wouldn’t be a good idea at the moment. There had to be more company up ahead. Dread began to blossom inside Kaitlin over what that company might be.

With a firm hand on her shoulder, Cade urged her to pause. They stood side by side for a minute, listening, waiting. Then Cade stepped in front of her, acting as a protective shield against whatever was going to show up. Because something was.

Kaitlin couldn’t see anything past Cade’s powerful shoulders and didn’t need to. Her neck stung with pain that was like having to suffer through her terrible ordeal all over again. In this case, her wound had become a built-in vamp-o-meter.

Cade spoke to whatever hid in the darkness that lay beyond the meager glow of the closest light pole. “This place isn’t for you. Come to think of it, I don’t know anywhere that is.”

Sounds reminiscent of radio static caused the back of Kaitlin’s neck to chill. She froze. Cade tensed.

“I’m sorry.” Cade spoke to one particular spot as if he saw something there. “Was that your reply? Maybe fangs hinder speech?”

“Now isn’t the time to taunt them.” Kaitlin hated every heart-stopping second of this confrontation and formulated a plan to move to another city if she got out of this with her life and limbs intact. She would take her family with her.

Not sure if she could handle another vampire sighting, she made a pact with herself to finish her thesis elsewhere. To hell with it. To hell with Michael, werewolves and...

“Vampires,” Michael said, finishing her internal remark as he, Rena and the other Were in the pack approached.

Kaitlin spun to look at them with her heart hammering. Cade remained motionless enough to have been turned to stone, his laser-like gaze hovering on that spot in the distance.

“Didn’t trust me?” he said to Michael over his shoulder.

“Finished early,” Michael returned. “Nothing else to do, so we thought we’d join you.”

“Everyone likes company,” Cade said.

Kaitlin’s attention was on Michael. In human form and completely naked, he was breathtaking. His tarnished bronze skin glowed with a hint of perspiration. He looked like a shaft of moonlight carved into solid form. Without clothes, he seemed not quite as human, and twice as formidable. When confronted with all that pulsing, molded muscle, even she wanted to get out of his way.

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