A Were’s forbidden desire tests the limits of loyalty

When Seattle detective and alpha werewolf Derek Miller meets Riley Price, the bond is instant. Feral. Their connection entails enormous risk, for he must keep the existence of his kind secret at all costs. But the forces of darkness have Riley in their sights. Now Derek must choose between the Were code of silence and saving the woman who’s set him on fire.

LINDA THOMAS-SUNDSTROM writes contemporary and paranormal romance novels for Mills & Boon. 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 lindathomas-sundstrom.com or on Facebook.

Also by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

Red Wolf

Wolf Trap

Golden Vampire

Guardian of the Night

Immortal Obsession

Wolf Born

Wolf Hunter

Seduced by the Moon

Immortal Redeemed

Half Wolf

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Code Wolf

Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08219-8

CODE WOLF

© 2018 Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To my family, those here and those gone,

who always believed I had a story to tell.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Detective Derek Miller howled at the moon...

And that call was answered.

He sprinted down a side street, careful to avoid the stares he’d have received if any of Seattle’s human population saw him all wolfed up. Humans weren’t in on the secrets of his kind, and it was best to keep things that way.

His lethal claws made driving as impossible as ignoring the moon would have been. That big, bright, full moon over his head. Thing was, the claws came in handy on nights like this, when bullets and the usual paraphernalia tied to the justice system wouldn’t take down a supernatural enemy. And there were plenty of enemies like that around.

The air he breathed was pressurized and heavy with the odor of trouble. The enhanced capacities that came with being a werewolf made it all the more intense, when his preference would have been to avoid that smell altogether.

No such luck, though.

Full moons brought out the worst in everyone, no matter what species they belonged to. Who the hell knew the actual reason for that?

The moonlight that ruled Were shapes always made his job tougher—the job he was doing in order to get a jump on bad stuff before it happened. He took to the streets most nights around the moon’s full phases, when the crazies came out to play, even though big moons made keeping his werewolf identity to himself in a city Seattle’s size damn near unmanageable.

When the moon called, Weres obeyed.

Besides the obvious risks of being outed as an Other, working the night shift had its perks. He wasn’t the only Seattle Were in law enforcement, and the bonus of having packmates for backup was important when another species showed up.

Not many folks would have understood about the presence of monsters, the way he and some of his friends did. And though most werewolves didn’t classify themselves as monsters, humans around the world would have if they knew they weren’t the only species sharing the place.

Derek was all right with that, though. He was a good detective and also the alpha of a two-dozen-strong werewolf pack that was helping to clear this city of the morbid creatures stalking it.

Running suited him.

Chasing bad guys suited him.

Tonight, he had a larger body, more muscle and longer hair, which were giveaways of his species. A slightly longer face and more feral features rounded out the look. Still, he might have been recognizable if viewed up close by someone who knew him well enough. And it was a fact that any guy running around Seattle shirtless wasn’t normal even if there was a badge pinned to his belt.

Got to love those perks, though...

He used his enhanced sense of smell to break down scent particles so that he could follow the foul odor blowing in from the eastern part of the city.

That odor was bad news.

Unreleased growls rumbled in his chest like a bad case of heartburn as he inhaled.

Streets in the east were crowded with apartment buildings and lofts in renovated warehouses, where people were piled on top of each other. Singling out the source of that odor there could have been tricky, even for a werewolf. But he had no problem. There was nothing like that particular smell anywhere else. The foulness in the wind had a name, and that name was vampire.

He hated vampires.

Upping his game, Derek ran on legs that seldom tired. Any indication of vamp presence was cause for immediate action, and the packmate that had responded to his call would also be heading this way.

Keeping near to the shadows and squeezing between them, he skirted the public places people frequented on Friday nights, careful to avoid being seen. Detective Derek Miller was a wolf on a mission that required his full attention.

Bloodsucking parasites had become the bane of his existence for two years straight. He must have killed a hundred of them already, but for every one vamp taken down, five more popped up in its place.

Nighttime hours meant snack time for vampires. Old brick exteriors in the eastern portion of Seattle made those buildings easy to climb, and picking off people had become easier for bloodsuckers on the prowl.

Growling again, Derek hopped a curb. His boots were heavy, making stealth difficult. His size didn’t help, either. Still, there was nothing to be done about that at the moment. Because his job was to protect and serve, Derek was already working on a creative reason to explain any human deaths that could possibly occur. Lately, that kind of creativity was not only imperative, but it had also become a full-time job.

Tonight’s moon was going to be the equivalent of a giant dinner bell for fanged parasites. Luckily for this city’s inhabitants, that full moon also gave him a leg up in dealing with them. In werewolf form, Weres were twice as strong as any human and meaner than hell when it came to trespassers with evil intentions.

He didn’t like this, but he was used to the routine.

Come on, bloodsuckers. I know you’re here somewhere.

The odor he had detected became noticeably stronger as he rounded a corner. In case he changed back to a more human form, the gun strapped to his belt was loaded with silver bullets, one of which could take down a vampire if the shooter had good aim.

A small dose of silver to the head or chest would send those undead bastards back to the kind of afterlife they should have been experiencing.

Of course, a sharp wooden stake would also suffice...though a proper staking would require meeting a vampire face-to-face and up close and personal. Which he’d never advise.

Following the fetid trail, Derek slipped into the narrow space between two buildings, where the atmospheric pressure he had noticed earlier got worse. He ended up in an alley that appeared to be deserted, but wasn’t.

The stench he sought had competition here. Overflowing garbage receptacles lined the walls. Beer cans and paper littered the ground. Although there were no artificial lights, broken shards of glass glittered like gems in the thin streams of moonlight shining down from overhead.

Other than his breathing, there was a marked absence of sound. Yet somewhere in all that darkness, among the discarded detritus that could have masked their presence, a couple of pale-faced lunatics hid.

Her pale-faced lunatics. Minions of Seattle’s vampire queen. Two of them, at least, were using this alley for their hidey-hole and probably waiting to do their Master’s bidding.

Got you...

Derek took another deep breath to process the danger. The air here was rife with Otherness that only supernatural beings were attuned to. From experience, he had a good idea these vamps would be fledglings. The degree of foulness saturating the air hinted at this being the case.

There was no mistaking the metallic scent that pointed to the blood meal these vamps had recently ingested. The pair had been sloppy at the dinner table and were coated in the evidence. It was unlikely that their victim, or victims, had survived.

His next growl echoed off the mildewed walls, sounding like thunder.

I met your queen once, he would have told these abominations if he had proper vocal cords in his Were state. I saw your grand dame near here on the night my ex-lover was almost killed.

The thought sickened him to this day.

I know your Master’s name. I’ve seen her face.

He had heard that vampire’s name whispered during a midnight battle with her kind, and afterward had caught a glimpse of the black-haired soulless diva whose talent for drawing every bloodsucker within this city’s boundaries to her side was no joke.

The fanged bitch was like a black widow spider, thriving in her lair while her creepy hordes fed off the living and created an army. Damaris was her name. Most divas only had one.

He owed her a good fight for personal reasons as well as professional, so Derek scanned the darkness with his claws raised, ready to do some damage.

As he waited, Derek adopted a wide stance and slowed his breathing. Seconds passed. The fangers would have to eventually acknowledge his presence, if they dared.

Derek was counting on his formidable appearance to provide an edge. His normal height of six-two stretched upward when he shifted. All that new muscle rippled with anticipation over how this might go down.

He moved his jaw, clenched his teeth. His face might have been more human than wolf, but it wasn’t enough like a human to confuse the two species. It was helpful in this instance that one of Seattle’s most decorated detectives looked like everyone’s worst nightmare.

Come out, you filthy bastards.

Nothing moved. The vampires would be sizing him up and preparing their response. Finding and dealing with them like this was vigilante justice, but justice nevertheless. They couldn’t be allowed to kill more of Seattle’s citizens or break the spell that hid Were existence. For humans, the supernatural world didn’t exist.

His pack and other packs like it policed the shadows, exacting payback on misbehaving monsters that preyed on the humans in this jurisdiction. The goal was to keep the peace and maintain Were secrets, and Derek had taken this goal to a whole new level after the woman he had loved left Seattle because of the influx of monsters.

There was also the fact that his ex-lover hadn’t known about his secret wolfish life and the moon that ruled his kind. But that was history.

His fault.

Long story.

The packmate he had been expecting silently slid into place behind him, barely ruffling the air. Derek didn’t have to turn around to know who this was. Dale Duncan was a fearless cop and no stranger to things that went bump in the night. Officer Duncan was good to have around no matter what outline he presented to the world.

The two of them could have taken on a slew of vampires. These fledglings had to know it. Word traveled fast in underground circles.

Bathed in moonlight, he and Dale stood like sentries near the entrance to the alley. There was nowhere for these bloodsuckers to go. As newbies they’d be full of themselves and energized by their recent kill. Maybe they didn’t yet know about all that ancient enemy shit between Weres and vampires, and that it continued today. Was it possible they believed vampires were the superior species?

When Derek’s packmate growled menacingly, the ground shook. Near the opposite end of the alley, a tin can rolled.

“Monsters have to try to fit in now,” Derek silently chastised. But the warning wouldn’t have done much good if the vamps had heard it.

He added, “Werewolves, for the most part, have evolved alongside our human counterparts and most of the time can fit in with the society surrounding us. You guys have obviously never gotten the memo.”

A slight, sudden wave of extra pressure in the darkness suggested movement. The back of Derek’s neck tingled in acknowledgment of what that meant.

“Any minute now,” Dale messaged.

What Derek failed to mention in all this was his anxiousness over finding himself less than half a block from the building his ex-lover had once occupied—the same building where real vamp trouble in Seattle had begun two years back. His pack had cleaned out this area after that event. Keeping the public from finding out about it had been a cleanup job worthy of the Nobel Prize.

So what the hell had happened?

Why were the vampires back?

Even the smallest twitch was a waste of energy, but Derek rolled his neck to ease some of the tension building there. Waiting made him angry. There were too many memories in and around this place.

When he heard the swish of a swipe of claws, he nodded. Dale had torn holes in his jeans, and the scent of blood filled the air. “Smart move,” Derek messaged. That smell might draw vampires lacking the facts about how bad furred-up werewolves tasted.

However, a positive outcome was never completely assured when dealing with fanged hordes that were almost subliminally fast on their feet and ruled by an outrageous thirst that no one alive could possibly have understood.

Derek dared a quick sideways glance to calculate the exact distance to the building he had often visited in the past in order to court and bed McKenna Randall.

Too damn close.

His nerves buzzed. His skin burned white-hot. Hell, he still missed having a talented bed partner.

“The place is cursed,” Dale messaged to him.

Derek grunted in agreement.

Both of them knew what to expect here. There weren’t going to be any surprises in this alley tonight, hopefully.

To catch more moonlight, Derek took a step forward. Silvery moon particles settled on his bare shoulders like a hot lover’s breath, setting off a series of internal sparks that in turn started a chain reaction. All of that centered on the word anger. And okay, maybe also a more personal need for revenge.

Behind him, Dale was experiencing something similar and waiting for the signal to get this over with.

Tired of playing hide-and-seek, Derek gave that signal.

Chapter 2

Riley Price blinked back an almost supernatural wave of fatigue and unlocked her car without getting in. She leaned briefly against the cool metal of her silver sedan and glanced up at the moon, wondering if she should howl at that big round disc the way werewolves did in the movies.

She sighed instead.

The hours at work this week had been long and tough to get through, leaving little energy for extras no matter how fun those extras could have been. After her first days on the job, she could have used a little jolt of excitement. Listening to other people’s problems day in and day out was exhausting, especially when she had a few fantasies of her own.

Wasn’t that the premier joke about psychologists—that people in this kind of field went into it because of their own need for answers?

The boulevard was crowded with people coming and going at 9:00 p.m. Shouts, laughter and revving car engines nearly drowned out the sound of the keys jangling in her hand.

And there was something else, wasn’t there? Beyond those normal city noises, Riley could have sworn she heard another sound. Something that didn’t quite fit in.

If she hadn’t just thought about howling at the damn moon, she might have imagined that someone else had.

“It sure sounded like that,” she muttered.

The back of her neck chilled. In spite of the common sense she had always been known for, she secretly wished for adventure. It was one of those personal issues she had to deal with. The desire for a little action was probably what was craved by every female who had done her schoolwork straight through and ended up in a job with no break whatsoever.

Riley Price, PhD. Helpful, empathetic, on her way to becoming successful and, these days, quite bland. Bland on the outside, at least. Deep inside her was where her more rebellious ways had always been corralled.

She turned back to the car, opened the door and slid carefully onto the seat, respecting the restriction of her black pencil skirt. But she didn’t get both feet inside before that same eerie, slightly discomforting sound came again from somewhere in the distance.

A wolf’s haunting howl?

“You know you have a vivid imagination,” she reminded herself with a stern head shake. One strange belief too many and she, in spite of all her education in this area, would be in need of a psychiatrist’s comfy couch.

How many times had she thought that she should have become a cop like her father and let out all of her pent-up energy? For cops, the world was viewed in black-and-white terms, without too many murky gray zones. As it was, her need for independence and a life of her own outside of law enforcement had dictated taking another route toward helping people. So here she was, several states away from her family in Arizona, and on her own.

One more head shake ought to do it.

“Wolves in downtown Seattle? Give me a break.”

Feet in the car, key in the ignition, Riley released a slow breath and closed the door, then paused before starting the engine. Opening the door again might have been willful, but she did so anyway. She hoped to hear a repeat of that eerie sound and wished that things didn’t actually have to be black and white in terms of reasonableness and reality.

She shivered at the incoming breeze of cool night air and was overtaken by a sudden onslaught of chills that weren’t related to a change in the weather. Waves of ice dripped down the back of her neck to lay siege to sensitive skin beneath her baby blue sweater. She did hear that howl again, didn’t she?

“I’m sure I did.”

This third sound made it seem like there had been no mistake. Someone had howled. Not something, because everyone knew there were no wolves in the city and no such things as werewolves. So who, like her, was digging into the beauty and mythology of this full moon? Who, like her, had watched a few too many movies that had activated their imagination?

She could try to find out. Chase down those sounds. Meet that person. Though those ideas were intriguing, women weren’t always completely safe on their own in a city the size of Seattle after dark. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the statistics. Fear hadn’t been part of her upbringing, and inquisitiveness was a trait that had been tightly wound into the strands of her DNA. But it wasn’t wise to throw caution to the wind all at once for the sake of folly.

Somewhere out there a human being with a similar sense of fun and fantasy was having one on. Since moving to Seattle, she hadn’t met anyone quite like that. Didn’t that fact alone determine the need for a closer look?

Fatigue melted away. Riley was out of the car in seconds, listening hard, and issuing a whispered challenge. “Come on. Do it again. I dare you.”

Cell phone in hand—she wasn’t stupid, after all—she locked the car, turned toward the sidewalk and started out in three-inch heels that wouldn’t let her win a race, but would get her far enough.

She hadn’t experienced tingling nerves like this in some time. They drew her half a block to the east, where she’d still be within safety limits. Men and women strolled in both directions, oblivious to the finer art of adventure. None of them glanced up at the sky. Noise from the pubs and restaurants blurred her ability to hear much else.

When more chills arrived, along with a sudden awareness of being stared at, Riley slowed to glance at the man who leaned against the side of an open doorway. His face was half-hidden by the shadows of an overhead awning that spanned most of the sidewalk, and yet Riley knew he was looking at her in a predatory way. Not man-to-woman stuff. Something else. Something more.

With a tight grip on her cell phone, she passed by him, careful to avoid any kind of contact that might have been misconstrued as an invitation. She’d been fed those kinds of self-defense tips for breakfast in the Price household and knew them all by heart.

Show no weakness.

Be a predator, not someone else’s prey.

Almost able to hear her dad say those words, Riley smiled, which would have been the wrong thing to do if she hadn’t already put some distance between that creep by the bar and herself. Nevertheless, she took one more quick look over her shoulder...just before she felt the firm grip of a hand on her arm.

Derek silently counted to five, nodded and took another step forward, hoping to taunt the vampires that were hiding here into showing themselves. Possibly they were going over their options for getting away, as if they actually had some.

Another step took him closer to the cans lining the walls. The stench of rotting food was unbelievable. And this was taking too damn long.

He kicked the closest can with the tip of his boot, providing more incentive for the fanged abominations to make an appearance. Vampires had sensitive hearing and didn’t like noise.

He kicked the can again and it rolled sideways, spilling what was left of its contents—unrecognizable stuff with an unbelievable odor.

The challenge worked.

One of the vamps dropped from above the trash cans as if it actually might have been half bat, as the old wives’ tales suggested. Its partner followed. They were a pair of completely colorless creatures whose dirty and tattered clothing suggested they might have recently crawled up from the grave.

A ripple of disgust rolled over Derek.

Both of these guys were drenched in blood that was now darkening. Tiny red rivulets of what had been some human’s life force ran in tracks down the sides of their white faces. Red-rimmed eyes peered back at him with dull, flat, lifeless gazes. Whatever kind of voodoo had animated this pair remained one of life’s great mysteries.

Derek didn’t waste any time in going after them. In this instance, their newness to the vamp bag of tricks was in Were favor. The dark-eyed pair had speed, but he and Dale far outweighed them. When their bodies collided, the two vamp fledglings shrieked with anger, yellow fangs snapping, but couldn’t escape the claws that snagged their rotted clothing.

After spinning his bloodsucker around in a circle, Derek tossed his opponent against the brick. The bloodsucker quickly rallied and was on him again in a flash with arms and legs flailing. The creep was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked.

Derek’s muscles corded as he fought to send this ghastly creature back to its natural state of death. Actually, he was doing these monsters a favor, because who would have wanted to end up in such a sorry state?

He felt the breeze of snapping canines that had gotten too close to his face and he roared with displeasure. The sheer menace in that preternaturally wolfish sound temporarily stunned the vampire in his grasp.

That’s it. Those teeth of yours won’t harm anyone else in this city. You won’t accidentally make another bloodsucker in your image, and further contribute to the pain in my ass.

Dale had maneuvered his vampire to the back of the alley, where there was an even slimmer chance for it to escape. Derek danced his flailing abomination in the same direction, whirling, ducking, lunging to the side to avoid the sucker’s uncanny ability to recover.

The only way to keep those pointed teeth from making contact with his flesh was by taking a firm hold on the bastard’s neck. But since vampires didn’t actually breathe, a good squeeze wasn’t going to suffocate the creature into submission.

The vampire’s spine hit the wall with a thud that shook the brick. The wily creature brought up its filthy bare feet and straddled Derek’s body with legs made mostly of brittle bone and strings of sinew.

Fine little hairs on the back of his neck lifted as Derek shoved off the creature. With a fresh round of strength fueled by disgust, he finally got the vampire on the ground, on its back, where it fought like it had five limbs instead of four. When the sucker gurgled with anger, black blood bubbled from its lips.

“This is the end. I’m sure you’ll thank me later. And really, there is no pleasure in this, and only a necessary kind of justice.”

Dale, close by, tossed him a stake, which Derek caught in one hand. With one final burst of energy, he stuck that wooden stake deep into the vamp’s chest, in the spot where its heart had once beat.

Go in peace, vampire.

The creature exploded as if it hadn’t been actually composed of flesh and bone at all, but merely a bunch of musty pieces that had been glued together. Seconds later, a rain of nasty, odorous gray ash swirled through the area like a twister.

A second explosion rocked the area moments after that. Amid a flurry of ash that was temporarily blinding, Derek turned his head to see Dale smiling back at him.

“Mission accomplished,” Derek messaged to his packmate. Or so he thought before the soft, muffled sound of a human in trouble reached him from the street beyond.

Across the filthy, ash-strewn alley’s crackled asphalt, above the musty gray dust that had quickly settled to the ground, Dale’s eyes again met his.

Chapter 3

Riley was no weakling, but the guy was extraordinarily strong and fast, using his other hand to spin her around. He now had her by the waist with a hand clamped over her mouth.

Despite her rocketing pulse, she got one good kick in before he pulled her into the shadows so fast, it happened between one blink of her eyes and the next. Still, she wasn’t going to play dead or be reduced to a teary mess, and managed to connect with the guy’s shin with a second kick. When his hand fell away from her mouth, Riley shouted for help.

The fight she put up had surprised her attacker. His hold on her waist loosened enough for her to pull back and spin sideways. They were near the entrance to an underground restaurant and yet no one had seen this happen because the asshole’s timing had been impeccable.

She heard her phone hit the sidewalk and didn’t have the opportunity to retrieve it. Hands came at her again as if the guy was half octopus, and as if he had more at stake here than she did. He clasped her throat to choke off a call for help.

“Bastard!” she shouted.

A filmy blur of movement danced around her, reminiscent of a storm system moving in. The whirlwind was so strong, she flew backward, stumbled and almost lost her footing. The jolt of hitting a wall knocked her senseless. Her head snapped back. Stars danced in her vision and her stomach turned over.

That’s when things really got fuzzy.

Did the ass who had manhandled her have accomplices? There were now three moving blurs of speed in the area. Mere streaks of movement. Nothing defined. And she had a concussion. Either that or these new guys were larger than any humans she had ever seen. The sounds they made were fierce, threatening, and similar to sounds animals made in the wild. Each grunt and growl added to the pressure in her skull.

It occurred to her that she had been dropped into the middle of one of those horror movies she had been thinking about. Strange sounds under a full moon reinforced the thought.

Looking up made her dizziness worse. Her knees started to buckle. Her vision narrowed as a hovering net of blackness slowly descended. Riley dug deep for more courage. She could get away while no one was looking, find the phone she had dropped and call for help.

Another arm closed around her before she had completed the plan. Although she struggled to get free, she could hardly breathe past the pain in her head, let alone rally for another attack.

Uttering a string of curses, she tried to focus her eyes and found nothing in front of her but a wide expanse of someone’s bare chest.

“Damn it.”

She whispered more curses as she was lifted up and swept off her feet. The only way to stop the unusual sensation of having the ground ripped from beneath her was to close her eyes.

Another sound ricocheted inside her head, seeming to echo noises she had heard before. Though she couldn’t have been colder, a new round of chills arrived when she recognized what that sound was.

With her heart rate nearing critical mass, Riley slowly opened her eyes and took a breath before having to face whatever her fate was to be.

Nothing happened immediately. Cool wind on her face soothed the icy shame of having put herself in harm’s way. But she was in somebody’s arms, and moving away from the street. For some reason, she didn’t sense harm here, though.

Her inner defiance sparked and anger burned like a beacon.

“Put me down. Let me catch my breath.”

The arms holding her loosened considerably. Riley again felt the hard support of a wall behind her as the man did as she asked and set her down.

In her vision, this guy’s body continued to move as if he had the ability to fluidly alter his shape. Yet she knew that couldn’t be right, and after a tense moment of silence, he spoke.

“Can you stand?”

The husky, overtly masculine voice cut through the pain behind her eyes.

“You’ll be all right in a minute. We’ve called this in and someone will come to get you,” he said.

Hell, had she just been rescued? Was that what all the commotion was about?

Shaking off the last vestiges of dizziness, Riley focused all her attention on the person who had spoken to her, grateful that someone had heard her shout for help. Her attacker had been thwarted and she was going to live, after all.

Her rescuer leaned closer to her, his bare chest wide and bronzed. Her gaze traveled slowly over that broad expanse of flesh before she worked her way upward. The thanks she had meant to offer was delayed by a question that took precedence over anything else she might have said.

“Why are you half-naked?”

“You’re welcome,” the shirtless man returned after a beat.

He hadn’t stepped back to leave her. Instead, her rescuer seemed to be waiting to make sure she actually could stand up.

His physique was rock-solid. Since he towered over her, there was no way to see his face without again banging her head against the wall behind her. One concussion per night was all she could manage.

“I’m sorry.” Riley’s voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked. “Thank you for helping me.”

The guy didn’t respond verbally. His hard, muscled body pinned her in place for a few more seconds, as if body language had its own form of communication. Riley hadn’t noticed how much she had been shivering until she felt the warmth of the man’s closeness. Through the loose weave of her sweater, her rescuer’s heat was welcome.

She sighed.

He leaned closer.

“Not an invitation,” Riley warned, turning her head to the side.

“Didn’t think it was,” he replied.

His voice was gruff, as if he hadn’t spoken in a while. At any other time, she probably would have been intrigued by that. Now she just wanted to go home.

He spoke again. “Will you be okay? I’m sorry, but I have to go. I’ll have to leave you here.”

The wail of a siren in the distance reminded Riley that this guy had mentioned something about calling in the incident. But as she contemplated that, wondering again why this Good Samaritan was roaming the city without his shirt, he disappeared.

His heat was gone and the night’s coolness returned. She had no one to lean against now. It was a miracle she was still standing.

The first thing that popped into her mind as she waited for the police to arrive was a ludicrous reaction to what had happened, and meant nothing, really. Nevertheless, she pursed her lips, took a deep breath and howled softly, almost to herself.

“Ar-rrooo-ooo...”

The heat returned, quick as a flash. The man who had rescued her was there to pin her to the wall again. With a mouth that was as feverish as the rest of his body, he brushed his lips across her forehead and down her right cheek. The featherlight touch, there and gone in a few fleeting seconds, left Riley breathless.

Had she made a mistake in thinking this was a good guy?

Inching backward far enough to put a finger under her chin, he carefully tilted her head so that he could look into her eyes with a studied observation. His eyes were light, maybe blue, and surrounded by dark lashes.

Riley couldn’t look away or break eye contact. The intensity in those eyes would have held her captive if his body hadn’t. In his gaze she found something weirdly beautiful and at the same time troubling. She detected a flicker of real wildness there.

Had she made this guy up in some head-injury-induced coma? Could she have banged her head that hard?

Because...

She was sure...

No. She wasn’t sure at all, actually. How stupid would that have been?

Riley listened to the absurdity of the words that came out of her mouth next, and winced when she was done.

“There are no such things as werewolves. You do know that?”

The smile this stranger offered her made her feel like she was being bathed in white light. She saw pearly teeth in a tanned face. The area around his eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, above chiseled features partially darkened by a five-o’clock shadow.

That’s all she got, all she was allowed, before she found herself alone again with the lost cell phone he had somehow placed in her hand...and a splitting headache.

Chapter 4

Derek had to leave the woman or risk being caught by the people he took such pains to his hide true identity from on a daily basis. Dale was already sprinting in the opposite direction in human form, racing from shadow to shadow. But though Derek had also downsized to a human shape, he hated to leave before further help arrived for the woman they had rescued from harm. That part of being a werewolf sucked.

The woman had howled. Sort of. And she had mentioned werewolves. That alone would have intrigued him, even if she hadn’t been so damn beautiful.

What did she know about his kind? Anything? Could it be that she was just having him on with the werewolf remark, with no real idea how close to his reality she had come? Or was she fully equipped with knowledge about his kind?

She was a fierce little thing. No wallflower when it came to protecting herself. He’d witnessed that kick she had given to the imbecile he and Dale had left unconscious and handcuffed to a drainpipe.

She’d handled herself the best way she could without succumbing to shock. That took courage and also meant that her girl-next-door, wholesome looks were somewhat deceiving.

Small and feisty would have been a turn-on for a big bad wolf if he had time for such things...and if she hadn’t been human. Add to that her pale oval face, big eyes and mass of shiny blond hair, and she became a real curiosity.

With so many battles to fight these days, it was best for him to ignore distractions. He hadn’t indulged in anything that could have been considered a relationship since his heart had been broken, and he was still picking up the pieces of that breakup. It was also possible he had been wallowing a bit too long in its aftermath.

The only reason he had risked a shift back to human form in this woman’s presence was because she hadn’t been in any kind of state to have recognized what was going on at the time. Only by shifting could he have offered assurance that she was going to be okay. Her eyes had barely focused. She had been confused.

Still, and again, she had howled and mentioned werewolves.

Dale was waiting for him around the next corner, at the edge of a dimly lit parking lot. He stood in the shadows of a large sign, just any old half-dressed human to an observer’s eye. Dale also was a big guy, and formidable. No one in their right mind would have moved closer for a better look, or questioned his shirtless state. Dale’s posture alone would have prevented that.

“Do you know her?” Dale asked as Derek pulled up beside him.

“Never saw her before,” Derek replied.

“You got sort of cozy back there.”

“I just had to make sure she was all right.”

Dale grinned. “Yeah. Well, you took a while to do that. And you shifted in the presence of a human.”

“She was half-unconscious at the time,” Derek pointed out. “And she’s unusual.”

“She’s no Were,” Dale said. “I’d have thought you had learned a lesson about human women.”

Derek nodded. “Learned it loud and clear, my friend. Have no fear about that.”

Dale’s gaze swept over the parking lot. “It’s quiet now.”

Derek didn’t want to jinx things by agreeing or mentioning unnecessarily that there usually were a few moments of calm before a storm. The moon had only been up for a few hours. There was more night ahead. He figured that when word got back to the vamp queen about two of her young fledglings being dusted, vamp activity would pick up. He had a special sense for that kind of thing.

“We’d better get back to it,” he said.

“Right,” Dale agreed with a big breath as he stepped into the moonlight and, to get Derek to laugh, pounded on his chest the way male apes did in the wild. Then he pinned another grin to his rapidly morphing features. Unlike Derek, Dale was a more frightening rendition of their werewolf species—wolfish body, wolfish face, fur follicles and all.

When the light hit Derek, he closed his eyes. With an internal rumble, the changes began. The expansion of his chest came first, followed by an icy burn in his hips and legs as the mysterious chemical reaction coded into him gave his system a bump.

In a quick lightning strike of pain, his arms and torso muscled up, stretching his skin and the bones beneath. Light brown hair, usually only a little too long for a detective in Seattle, lengthened, as if a year had gone by with no trim. Last to alter were the parts of his face that took on another look with a brief, sharp, short-lived sting.

Weres, early in their lifetimes, had to either learn to adapt to these physical changes or die. The first shape-shift often weeded out the weak. There was no escaping or hiding from the inner explosions that set off a shape-shift. Everyone supposed this was a survival-of-the-fittest sort of biological trick. But getting used to the art of a body’s physical rearrangement was a Were’s mission. Being Were was a serious game of species-imposed destiny.

Dale was waiting for him to acknowledge the job of alley sweeping ahead, and Derek nodded. More vampires would come out sooner or later, and he and Dale had to be ready.

“I suppose you’d like to drop by that place and make sure the woman and her assailant were picked up?” Dale messaged wryly.

“Do you think you can read minds now?” Derek returned.

“Not all minds. Just yours.”

Derek barked a laugh. It was true that he wanted to go back there. He wanted nothing more, in fact.

“Just to check on the perp,” he sent to Dale.

“You go right ahead and tell yourself that,” Dale messaged back.

Hell, maybe Dale really could read minds...

“It’s dangerous to retrace our steps,” Dale warned.

Derek shrugged his massive shoulders. “Dangerous for whom? The idiot that tried to attack a woman on a busy street, or us?”

“Well, you’ve got me there.”

Dale matched Derek’s confident stride across the parking lot as they turned to the east again with renewed purpose.

At the very least, Derek decided, he had to find out who that woman was, and what her remarks about werewolves meant. She would have been questioned by the officers who picked her up, so there would be paperwork filed. Her personal information would be on that paperwork.

Even better, with the attacker in custody, she’d have to be questioned further. And he knew just the right detective to help with that, even if doing so might mean treading on another detective’s casework.

“Smell that?” Dale asked.

“Hell yeah,” Derek returned.

They exchanged glances, growled in unison and took off in the direction of the latest ill wind.

Four cops arrived in Riley’s rescuer’s wake. She marshalled her strength, since she needed to make sure they took the guy who had caused all this chaos into custody.

The jerk was still unconscious and was handcuffed to a pipe near the entrance to the nearby alley. Cops were looking from her to him with unspoken questions on their faces.

“A couple of big guys came to my rescue,” she said. “Looks like this was my lucky night.”

“They did that? Cuffed him?” one of the officers asked, checking out the standard-issue cuffs she had seen a thousand times hanging from her father’s belt loops.

“Cops?” the officer continued.

“Possibly,” Riley replied. “Though they weren’t in uniform.”

The officer nodded. “Plainclothes guys, most likely. Are you hurt, ma’am? Are you in need of medical assistance?”

Riley thought about that. Actually, she was okay, except for the headache and the thought of having had a near brush with death.

“A ride would be nice,” she said. “To my car.”

“We’ll have to take a statement,” another officer pointed out.

Riley nodded. “I can give you that.”

She knew the drill about that, too. She could talk about the attempted abduction, but she couldn’t even begin to describe her rescuer in any way that wouldn’t make her sound crazy. Shirtless male? Rippling muscle that didn’t seem to be able to settle on his big frame? Volcanic heat? Eyes like laser beams?

Maybe since these guys assumed she’d been helped by plainclothes officers, they wouldn’t ask too many questions or press her for descriptions.

Should she mention those howls she had heard?

No way. Absolutely not. In doing so, she’d be putting her reputation on the line before she even had a reputation. Besides, the strange noises she’d heard had nothing to do with what had happened here. She had merely been in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

No longer dizzy or wobbly in the knees, Riley glanced up at the sky. Though clouds were moving in, the moon was on full display. After what had happened tonight, that moon suddenly seemed kind of sinister.

A young officer—the badge on his shirt said his name was Marshall—helped her to the cruiser parked at the curb with a steadying hand on her elbow. Silent and subdued, he waited until she sat down inside before making eye contact. Then he smiled knowingly, as if they were co-conspirators and shared a secret. Riley recognized the look.

“You know who my rescuers might have been?” she asked.

The officer shrugged.

“Will you thank them again for me?”

He nodded as two more cops walked up, and then Officer Marshall backed away without looking at her again. Whether or not he knew anything, she’d have liked a way to speak with that young cop again and get a line on finding out about the men who had quite possibly saved her life.

She owed them so much more than a beer.

Tucked into the cruiser, Riley answered each question she was asked to the best of her ability and with as much detail as she thought prudent under the circumstances.

Adrenaline still pumped through her body from the fight she had put up. In spite of regaining some strength, her shivering had doubled, leaving her longing for the kind of warmth she had been temporarily offered by the nameless, shirtless man who’d come to her rescue on a cold night.

A guardian angel was the way she’d think of her rescuer from now on...except maybe for the few seconds when his lips had traveled over her face. She wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Had he wanted a special kind of thank-you for helping her? Should that have left her feeling further abused and icky?

Used to looking inside events in search of deeper meaning, Riley wondered what the guy might have been searching for in such an intimate touch. It seemed to her at the time that he had been seeking a way under her skin to get a look at the real Riley Price, not the professional cover-up artist she had become. She didn’t need another shrink to try to analyze that idea because the absurdity wasn’t lost on her.

If she were to perform self-analysis, her interest in this rescuer had been caused by a latent sense of loneliness, of being alone in a big city, and so far from home. That, along with a healthy suspicion that she might actually have met a real live superhero tonight.

Unfortunately, as a mental health professional, she realized there was more to it than either of those things.

That man’s touch had left her feeling exposed and excited, and sorry there hadn’t been more excitement, all at the same time. She had wished for adventure and it had smacked her on the head a bit too hard.

One little kiss that wasn’t actually a real kiss at all, from an anonymous man, and the memory of how that had felt, was keeping her pulse on warp speed.

Nope. There was no way she could mention much about her rescuer to these cops and come out unscathed. Something in her voice would give away her interest if she mentioned him out loud. The creep who had attacked her was now in custody, she was okay, and that was that.

Statement, check.

Witness form, check.

Perhaps an interview at the police station would follow in the next day or two, and life would go on.

Crowds had gathered on the sidewalk and in the street, lured by the presence of cops like insects to a bright light. Riley tried to find the officer who’d seemed to know her rescuer as the cruiser pulled away from the curb, but had lost him in the throng of spectators. She told herself it didn’t really matter, anyway. Things were what they were, and all that mattered was that she was going back to her small, rented house in one piece.

Nevertheless, she peered out the back window of the cruiser and hoped for a glimpse of the broad shoulders that would now be the highlight of her dreams. And as the car wove expertly into traffic, Riley clutched the edge of the seat and gasped, thinking she just might have caught that glimpse.

Chapter 5

“They’re back, and we need to go,” Dale messaged, vying for Derek’s attention, which was riveted to the cruiser getting ready to pull away from the curb.

He and Dale were on the rooftop of the pub, peering at the scene below after taking this slight detour from their agenda, though it could be a costly detour if they didn’t get moving toward any new vamp problem that turned up.

He just had to be sure she was safe.

Derek turned around, nodded to Dale and walked to the opposite edge of the roof, where the shadows were deeper and there was no hint of human presence. It was a shame, he decided, that the owners of these buildings didn’t upgrade their lighting systems. Bloodsuckers hated lights almost as much as they hated noise, and would have been much easier to spot without all that pooling darkness.

“Marshall will take care of her. You know that,” Dale added, following along in Derek’s wake.

“Yes.”

“She’s not your type anyway, Derek.”

“Most assuredly not,” Derek half-heartedly agreed.

But the woman had some kind of hold on him that he could not shake. Or didn’t want to.

She had smelled so damn good. Her skin was like velvet. Yes, she wasn’t a Were. They had nothing in common. Yada yada.

His head came up. There was a scuffling sound to his right and an unnatural wave in the shadows below where he stood. The sudden distraction broke into Derek’s inner discourse on the pitfalls of human-Were relations. It seemed that Dale had been right. Bloodsuckers were gathering here.

Hell...

Derek knew there’d be no way to slow down these numbers unless they could find and deal with their queen. Without a Prime or Master, most vampires couldn’t survive on their own for long. The undead didn’t possess the brains and the skills to keep up their attacks. A Master was just that—the mastermind behind the nest. The core that kept a nest growing.

There might have been one sure way to find this one, but he wouldn’t go that route, since it would entail bringing back the immortal Blood Knight, who had faced this queen down years before. The same f-ing immortal that had driven a Harley away from Seattle with McKenna Randall on the seat behind him.

Immortality aside, some women seemed to prefer bad boys in black leather.

“Five,” he sent to Dale as he peered into the dark. “Five more parasites down there.”

“Is that all?” Dale messaged back.

Derek looked at his partner. “Piece of cake?”

Dale nodded and leaped onto the brick ledge next to Derek. “Right behind you.”

“I wonder,” Derek sent back, “why it is that I always have to go first.”

“Shinier badge,” Dale said as they jumped.

They landed in the alley side by side and on their feet. Derek’s announcement of their presence was a deep, guttural growl that served to halt the moving trail of shadows now hugging the building beside them. He really was tired of fighting vampires without ever seeming to stem the tide, but if he and his pack were to give up, who would take over?

Beyond the alley, several police and fire sirens wailed in earsplitting decibels that might have caused these vampires to think twice about emerging from behind the pub, if in fact they maintained thoughts about self-preservation. As it was, the swirl of moving darkness pressed on.

Derek caught one of them with his claws and dragged the bloodsucker backward. The sucker didn’t have much time to protest or put up a good fight, and was reduced to a cloud of flying dust seconds later.

The vamp in front of that one paused, whirled and hissed like an angry cat through chipped fangs that no longer could have punctured human flesh. Derek tossed that one back to Dale and held his breath as the filthy, foul-smelling ash rained down.

That little deletion left three remaining vampires. If he and Dale took care of them quickly, he could get a last look at that woman before the officers took her away. One final glimpse was all he needed to settle his nerves and maybe even the question of why he wanted that last look so damn badly.

He barreled through the vamp lineup like a football lineman and turned to head them off before they reached the street. With Dale bringing up the rear, the three vamps were squeezed between them. It wasn’t much of a party, and the fighting, which didn’t last long, wasn’t pretty. Black blood dripped from Derek’s claws. Ash swirled everywhere like dark, discolored snow.

Wasting no time, Derek stepped onto the street, careful to keep to the shadows that no longer stank of vampire presence. He leaned forward to view the cruiser that was making its way into traffic. His heart was beating faster than normal and his boots were already starting to move him in that direction...until a claw snagged his belt.

Dale’s message came through loud and clear. “I wouldn’t recommend taking that next step, boss. And I think you know why.”

Well...maybe he did know why.

And maybe he didn’t have to like it.

Riley stared out the window of the police cruiser until her chills had subsided, but hadn’t gotten anywhere in terms of finding her rescuers. When she thought she saw something, it turned out to be nothing more than a passing flash of tanned flesh seen against a dark backdrop, and could have been anyone.

She didn’t speak to the two cops in the front seat. It angered her to think that she had nearly been a victim of a violent crime, and that she might have placed herself in danger by following a whim.

“Turn right, here,” she finally said as the cruiser approached the parking spot where she had left her car. “This is it.”

No longer feeling quite so weak or frightened, Riley opened the door and got out on steady legs. Her hands didn’t shake when she brushed her hair back from her face.

“You’ll be okay?” one of the officers asked.

“Yes. Thanks for your help.” She fished in the pocket of her skirt for her car key. “I’ll be fine.”

“We’ll follow you home, all the same,” the cop said.

She hated to turn down an offer like that. The only problem was that she had to. The car key wasn’t in her pocket. The damn thing was missing. Short of heading back to the site of the incident to look for it, the only way she was going to get home would be to either take a bus, or have these nice officers drive her. Then she’d have to break into her house because she had left her purse, which contained the rest of her keys, locked inside the car.

Riley blinked slowly to absorb all of that.

The alternative was to go to her office, where she kept spare keys. The building’s night watchman would let her in to get them. Although she didn’t particularly like the idea of going into that building alone after what had happened tonight, it would be all right. Plenty of people worked late, and the building was well lit and secure.

“Thanks for the offer. I need to go back to work first to pick up a few things. My office is just down the street,” Riley said.

The cop that had helped her out of the patrol car nodded as he peered into her car. “No key?”

“I seem to have lost it,” she admitted.

“I can help with that lock.”

He had it open in less than thirty seconds with a slim-jim device, and it was difficult for Riley to hide her relief. But it still didn’t help in the long run, since she couldn’t start the car without that blasted key.

After retrieving her purse, Riley glanced at the cop and shrugged. “I’ll be fine now.” She waved a hand at the street. “There are lots of people around.”

“You sure?” the cop asked.

“Positive.”

He nodded again. “Please come to the precinct tomorrow for a more formal statement. And take care.”

“I’ll do both of those things,” Riley said.

She searched the street in all directions when the patrol car drove away, knowing she had to get going, but unable to shake the feeling of being watched. More imagination?

Instead of wondering who had made those howling sounds that had kicked the night into high gear, she now wanted to punch that person for his or her part in nearly getting her killed.

Derek couldn’t help taking a closer look at the woman whose rapid steps gave away little of what she had been through tonight. His packmate’s expression was filled with sympathy, but there was only so far a Were could go in a disagreement with his alpha. And Derek had never been mistaken for stupid.

Both he and Dale were in human form again. Derek’s nerves were charged from changing back and forth so many times in a single night. Shape-shifting came with a cost, and he was experiencing that cost now. Prolonged time spent as a wolfed-up version of himself not only heightened his senses for a long time afterward, but actually also left him feeling kind of beastly.

His animal instincts were working overtime at the moment and directing him to go after the woman who had looked into his eyes not more than an hour ago. He had questions about her that needed answers. For instance...how had she seemed to have gotten past the incident so quickly? She was carrying on as if nothing had happened.

She was tough, at least on the outside.

He liked that.

Who are you? I wonder.

Dale leaned against an ivy-covered wall, content for the time being to have dealt the vampires a warning blow. But in terms of the antics brought about by a full moon, the night was still young. Hell, the hunting hadn’t even really begun.

“Happy now?” Dale asked, stripping most of the wryness from his tone.

“I wonder where she’s going,” Derek said.

“Maybe she has a hot date.”

Though Derek gave Dale a long glance, Dale persisted. “A hot human date.”

Jealousy was an ugly emotion that Derek understood all too well, having had a tough time watching his ex and her new lover together. Still, he experienced a brief pang of jealousy now for whatever lucky bastard had this woman’s attention.

“We’d better check in with the pack,” he said, ready to put his muscles to more good use. He couldn’t just follow the woman to wherever she was going because of a wayward bit of electricity that had flared between them earlier, or because of the fact that he still felt that electrical buzz when they weren’t anywhere close.

He had lost sight of her, and shrugged off the desire to follow. There were more important things to take care of in the city’s shadows. Other Weres would be out and about now, and as the alpha of a Seattle pack, he was needed for his directions.

Coming from his human throat, the growl he issued sounded downright rude. Even as his boots thudded on the asphalt and he moved in the direction of the last skirmish with the vampires, he felt the tug to turn around. It had been a long time since his allegiance had wavered between duty and a woman, and he had solemnly vowed never to let that happen again.

From several steps behind him, Derek heard Dale say, “Good choice.”

Chapter 6

After Riley reached her office, the thought of going outside again wasn’t appealing. She had made it this far without collapsing, but wasn’t sure she could keep up the farce for much longer. Although her dad had long ago taught her about the art of the good cop face, no one was around now for her to have to pretend with.

She wasn’t all right. The shaking had started up again, so hard that Riley had to sit down. All the moments leading up to this one merged into a single thread of riotous emotion.

She had not made up any of this. Just because tonight’s events were over didn’t necessarily mean she could move forward without recriminations. She had paid dearly for her stupidity, sure, but why did she have to feel so stupid now? Why did she want to march back out there as soon as her legs were capable of carrying her and find the men who had rescued her from harm?

Hero envy was an emotion she was familiar with. In her job, she had dealt with a few cases of people who had come close to death. And though it was true that she could empathize, and invest in years of clinical-training work in order to try to help others, being affected by such a thing herself was a different ball game.

Cops had always been her heroes. Had those two guys been undercover? Maybe she’d see them tomorrow at the precinct and get a better look at them.

She rubbed her temples with cool fingers and sat back, aware of a growing ache in the spot on the back of her head where it had struck the brick. Her fingers drifted to the cheek her rescuer had touched. She remembered it all as if it had been etched on her brain.

What she couldn’t do was break through the fog that blurred out several minutes of the ordeal. The moments when she had actually started to believe that the man whose lips had rested on her cheek might actually have possessed some sort of superhuman powers.

All that warm, rippling muscle...

The long hair...

His incredibly handsome face...

Riley clapped a hand over her mouth. What had she said to him in place of a proper thank-you? Had she actually mentioned werewolves? Maybe it was insanity he’d searched for in her eyes.

Well, it was over, and here she was, snug in her office, where street noise was blocked by dual-paned windows and howling wolves had no place among the credentials and diplomas framed on her wall.

She would not go back out there, that was for sure. Possibly she’d spend the night here on the couch and go home in the morning for a shower and clean clothes.

Relieved to have made up her mind, Riley stood up and walked to the window that offered her a good view of the street for half a block or more in two directions. Traffic was light at the moment. Signals on the corners flashed red, yellow and green. All of this was normal. The problem here was that she wasn’t.

After shaking her head to clear her mind of the notion that if she looked hard enough and long enough she’d find her rather wolfish rescuer or others like him out there, Riley continued to search. When she closed her eyes, she could see him. She could again find the light-colored eyes that had seemed to see deep into her soul. She felt him beside her, leaning in.

With her eyes open, the only thing she experienced was the sense of her own mortality and a reminder of how closely she had managed to escape.

The glass was cool when she rested her forehead against the window. “Thank you,” she said aloud to the nameless man whose face she would always remember. “And if it turns out that there are such things as werewolves, you’d be a perfect specimen. Just so you know.”

She headed for the bookcase and the decanter of amber liquid she had hoped to reserve for special occasions in the future, but was necessary now.

She poured some in a glass and swirled the contents. Never having been a fan of alcohol, she held her breath as the glass touched her lips, and then felt the burn of the whiskey as it trickled down her throat.

Carrying the glass with her, she moved back to the window feeling slightly better, thinking she’d be able to handle the rest of the night like a pro. After all, she was a pro. Those framed credentials said so. And besides, everyone she had treated so far in her short time in this office had seemed comfortable on her couch. She’d make do with it tonight in lieu of going back out to the street.

Just in case things weren’t as safe out there as they seemed.

His pack was a formidable bunch. Most of them were around his own ripe old age of thirty-two in human years. A few were slightly younger. The older Weres tended to hang out in areas beyond the city proper, and patrolled no less vigorously than their younger counterparts.

Having seen plenty of action already, they all helped to foster the kind of enthusiasm every Were needed for handling the things that hid in the shadows. Every good-guy Were had a place and a job. The pack was a second family to most of them. For some, it was their only home. For Derek, who had lost his family to a vampire attack in Europe fifteen years ago, the pack was a real comfort.

They met for the meeting two streets over from the precinct, in a private room in the back of a restaurant whose owners liked having cops around. Four Weres were in uniform, the rest weren’t. The rule was to behave in public, get their orders and dish out their own version of justice to fanged troublemakers.

Because there had been vamp activity tonight already, the plan was to comb the streets and alleys within a quarter-mile perimeter of the incidents. Energy levels were particularly high tonight as the Weres dispersed. Even Weres under a full moon had to remain alert to the danger those vamps presented.

Dale led the charge so that Derek could stop by the precinct for a look at the interesting woman’s attacker. In honor of that visit, he had put on a T-shirt and leather jacket, and thought he looked almost completely human.

Alone again, he stood on the sidewalk, beneath the overhang, silently contemplating where his senses were urging him to go...though he could have predicted where that was. In his estimation, another little detour was warranted. A quick in-and-out, and then he’d get on with the plan.

That’s what Derek told himself, anyway, as he tilted his head back and called up the fragrance that seemed to have coated his lungs. Her fragrance. That woman’s.

He sent his senses outward to locate the trail of that one unforgettable scent among so many others, and walked west, then east, keeping well away from the moonlight until he found what he sought. Then, grinning like he had won the lottery, Derek whispered, “Got you,” and smiled.

The building he’d found was a nice one just steps off the main drag. Four stories’ worth of large windows overlooked the street. There was a revolving front door. Inside, his boots echoed loudly on the black-and-white marble tiles. The only hang-up was the security guard manning a reception desk not quite twenty feet in.

Derek showed him his badge. “I’m looking for a woman.”

The security guard smiled, his expression saying, Isn’t every guy in Seattle?

Derek continued. “I believe she would have come in not more than an hour ago. Tall, slender, blonde, in a black skirt.”

“May I ask what you might want with a woman of that description?” the guard asked.

“We’re missing a few things on the statement she gave us tonight about an incident. I’d like to clear that up.”

“And you didn’t get her name?”

Derek strengthened his tone. “I’d appreciate it if you could help me with that, silence being a possible obstruction of justice, and everything.”

Derek’s inner wolf was bristling over being repressed when there was a full moon. He could easily have yanked the guard over the desk and spoken to him nose-to-nose, but he refrained. The Seattle PD was trying to upgrade their image with the masses, and this guard was only doing his job.

“Name’s Price,” the guard finally said. “Third floor, three-ten.”

Derek nodded. “Miss Price is here now?”

“The after-hours policy is that she would have had to sign in and out. She hasn’t signed out.”

Derek nodded again. Though his insides were throbbing and his pack was out there doing the dirty work, he told himself that he just needed one little peek at the woman in 310 in order to put his overactive imagination to rest.

“Okay to use the elevator?” he asked.

“The middle one is in operation,” the guard replied, pushing a notebook and a pen toward Derek.

Derek signed in and headed for the elevator. As a rule, he didn’t like small spaces and the feeling of being confined. He especially didn’t like those things tonight.

So, he asked himself as the doors closed, what did he really want from this unauthorized visit? He had already memorized every detail about the woman. A second look at her wasn’t going to change any of those things.

It was that remark... But he wouldn’t tell her that. Bringing up the word werewolf would only cause her to focus on it more.

Another reason for showing up on her doorstep unannounced was to find out if she would recognize him. There was danger in such a move, and a lot at stake if she put two and two together and came up with a connection between him and the shirtless werewolf vigilante that had helped her out of a jam.

Nevertheless, Derek didn’t even consider turning around. He blamed this brazen act on the wolf that tugged on his insides in need of freedom.

When the elevator doors slid open, Derek looked around and then turned to the left. Number 310 was halfway down the hallway. Double doors. Brass plaque.

He read: Dr. Riley Price, PhD.

Price...

The name had a familiar ring to it. Then again, there were probably hundreds of people in the city with that name. Riley was unusual, though. He decided it suited her.

Riley Price had walked away from the attack as if it had been a minor thing when he knew better than to believe that. He had felt the quakes that rocked her and could still see the expression of fear, hurt and confusion in her eyes.

His hand stopped in midair before his knuckles actually stuck wood. He closed his eyes, able to feel her in there, knowing such a connection with a human was also unusual.

He knocked three times. So that he wouldn’t frighten her more, he called out, “Seattle PD, Miss Price. I just need one more thing to help with this case. The security guard told me you were here. Can I have a minute? I know it’s late.”

Stepping closer to the door, Derek willed her to respond. To grant his request.

The strange thing was that she did.

Chapter 7

Riley hesitated before turning toward the door, annoyed by the interruption. The glass was still in her hand, though she had only managed one more sip.

There was a cop in the hallway. The front-desk guard wouldn’t have let him in without showing proper identification, which meant she didn’t have to worry about that. She could either respond and let him in or ignore him. He wasn’t going to break down the door if she stayed where she was. Eventually, he’d go away.

Riley found herself heading to the door, hoping that this would all be over with sooner, rather than later, and then she could get on with her life.

She paused with her hand on the knob. “What’s your name, Officer?”

The same deep voice that had requested a minute of her time said, “Miller. Detective Miller.”

“I’m quite busy, Detective.”

“I won’t take up much of your time, Dr. Price.”

Riley took a deep breath to settle down and opened the door. The man in the hallway appeared to be as surprised as she was when their eyes briefly met. There was something familiar about him.

“Do I know you, Detective Miller?” she asked, breaking the silence that had stretched for several seconds. “You seem familiar.”

“I’m sure we’ve probably passed on the street. I get around on the job, as you can imagine.”

That could have been true, Riley supposed. But besides the eyes, there was also something distinctive about his voice that caused her to tighten her grip on the glass in her hand.

His gaze drifted to the glass.

“For my nerves,” Riley explained.

The hunk in the hallway nodded. “You’ve had quite a night.”

Detective Miller truly was a hunk. He was tall, dark-haired, and obviously more badass than desk jockey in his worn leather jacket and fitted white T-shirt. He said, “Can I come in, or would you prefer answering questions like this?”

Her sudden interest in guys who looked as good as this detective surprised her.

This guy, at first glance, hit most of her attraction buttons. She liked the shaggy hair, his height and the shape of his face. Action and adventure were probably his middle names. But he was a cop, and she had vowed never to put herself through what her mother had suffered, never really knowing whether her husband would come home at night or be killed on the job.

With that thought firmly in mind, Riley stepped back, opened the door wider and gestured for him to come in with a wave of the glass.

The room was dim, lit only by a lamp on her desk, and yet she easily saw every move this detective made. She was glad the dimness wouldn’t allow him a closer look at the paleness of her face. Putting the desk between herself and the detective, she said, “What do you need from me?”

He hesitated for a few beats too long for her not to notice. “You’re a psychiatrist?” he asked.

“Psychologist. And very new to the business.”

“That’s good.”

“Why?”

“Maybe you can better manage what happened tonight and put it in perspective.”

He again glanced at the glass she was clutching.

Detective Miller’s voice was deep enough that its vibration quietly filled the room. His eyes, however, told another story, and made Riley imagine he was on good behavior and playing nice at the moment.

“What is it you need?” Riley repeated.

She set down the glass.

The detective had only walked far enough into the room to get a distant view of the window, but he looked there. “Will you be able to identify your attacker?”

“I’ll never forget his face,” she said. “I have a knack for remembering faces.”

More beats of silence passed and the detective still hadn’t said anything to warrant this visit. She had already told this same thing to the officers at the scene.

“I just needed to corroborate your place of employment, Dr. Price, and to make sure you’re credible,” he said.

“Credible how? What’s my job got to do with anything?”

“It makes things easier for us all if you are believable in your statements.”

Riley pointed to her throat. “Want to see the bruises that guy inflicted?”

She flushed when his gaze landed on her neck, and began to think this detective might have had another reason for coming here. However, since she had already allowed her imagination to run amok once tonight and had landed in trouble because of it, Riley waited for whatever he’d say next.

“I’m sorry to have brought this up so soon and to have disturbed you,” he said. “Tonight’s attack must have been terrible for you. So how about if I apologize for the intrusion and let you get on with whatever you were doing? You can answer more questions tomorrow.”

Riley nodded. “Thanks for showing some concern.”

She wasn’t going to vocalize how Detective Miller’s presence lent an air of safety to a truly awful night, or how knowing that guys like this were on the streets doing their job made her feel slightly better.

There was no way in hell she was going to submit to fanciful thoughts about this guy, or let herself believe he was strikingly similar in size and looks to the man that had come to her rescue on the street...because that would have been pathetic.

“Well, I’m glad to see that you’re going to be okay,” he said.

“Yes, thanks to two of your guys out there.”

The detective’s inquiring gaze returned. “Did you mention anything concrete about them to the officers who took your initial statement? Descriptions? Conversations?”

“It happened so fast, I’m afraid I wasn’t in good enough shape to speak or to note many details about who those guys were. One of the officers later suggested some ideas about who my rescuers might have been, though.”

“So you wouldn’t be able to identify them?”

Riley eyed her glass on the desk, wishing she actually liked whiskey and that she’d taken another sip if there was going to be much more of an interrogation.

“I was just glad they showed up in time to save my ass,” she said.

Detective Miller’s gaze was like being caught in a tractor beam. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Riley met that gaze with an equally studious one.

“Nothing?” Detective Miller asked. “You can’t describe them in any way?”

“Other than the fact that neither of them wore shirts, not much was clear...which is strange, when I think about it. So I’d prefer not to think about it and just be grateful.”

When the detective smiled, a further ripple of familiarity returned to her in a flash of repressed memory of the night’s events. Her rescuer had dark hair and light eyes that were a lot like this guy’s. They both had the same kind of unshaven face that highlighted handsome, angular features. She had sensed wildness in the man on the street as well, and both of these men possessed the same kind of male vibration that affected her after only a glance in her direction.

She ran a fingertip down her cheek—the same cheek her rescuer’s lips had illicitly touched. That touch left her feeling breathless.

Detective Miller’s expression was again one of concern, though he didn’t close the distance.

“Are you all right, Dr. Price?”

“Yes. I... I just need time to process this.”

“Did you remember something just then?” he asked.

Rile shook her head. “Nothing that would help.”

The detective nodded, turned and walked to the door. Riley tracked his movement without calling him back, though every cell in her body urged her to ask him to stay. At the door, he paused as if he might have been reluctant to leave her.

“I don’t see myself as a victim,” Riley said.

He looked at her over a broad shoulder. “I can see that you don’t.”

As he crossed the threshold, she added, “Actually, the man who came to my rescue looked a little bit like you.”

He paused again, then said, “I get that a lot. I’m thinking it must be the jacket. Good night, Dr. Price. Maybe we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

As he closed the door, Riley took her first deep breath and headed after him. Changing her mind at the last minute, she leaned against the door and strained to hear the sound of the elevator, but felt as if she were listening for something else. Like the howl of a wolf. Or the velvety growl of a light-eyed, dark-haired, chisel-faced, half-dressed werewolf with the kind of voice that resonated, even now, in her soul.

Just like Detective Miller’s had.

Derek leaned a shoulder against the wall of the elevator and looked up, as if he could see through the ceiling to a couple floors up.

“Good night, Riley Price,” he muttered. “He looked like me, did he?”

He had taken a chance by coming here to speak with her, but at least he now knew the things she did and didn’t remember, and could take comfort in the fact that she hadn’t been able to identify him outright while standing several feet apart.

“I’m no less interested, just so you know,” he added.

She was safe up there in her office with the guard manning the front desk. At the very least, he didn’t have to worry about that. Her memory was another issue altogether. Psychologists were familiar with all sorts of tricks to spark repressed memories. Meeting her again would not be wise.

And yet he wanted to see her again. He wanted to see her again right now and get to the heart of the werewolf remark she’d made on the street. But that would probably serve no purpose whatsoever other than to place his pack in jeopardy.

He signed out and exited the building with a curt wave to the guard. From the sidewalk in front of the building, Derek glanced up at the moon and said, “Fine. Let’s get on with it.” He walked toward the car he had parked near here earlier in the evening, before the night’s antics had begun.

He removed his jacket, tossed it on the seat and took one more look at the street corner from the shadows of the two buildings that hid Riley Price’s building from sight. Then he ducked into the alley, where the subtle scent of werewolves filled the night air like its own brand of dangerous perfume.

From her window, Riley watched the detective turn the corner. He did look a little bit like the man who had rescued her. At least, she thought he did.

Grabbing her jacket and her purse, she locked the door and went down to the street, determined to find the truth of what she now had come to suspect—that Detective Miller and the man who had helped to save her life could, in fact, be one and the same. If not, maybe Miller had a brother on the force. A twin.

He had headed east with purpose, as though he knew exactly where he was going and what he’d find there. His stride had been graceful when viewed from above, and radiated confidence. Miller was a dangerous man in his own right.

Riley gripped her cell phone tightly in her hand as she exited the elevator, signed out and started out after the detective, hoping she’d catch his trail before both sanity and the need to think about her own safety returned. The fact that she wasn’t alone helped somewhat. There were plenty of cars moving in both directions. Couples laughing and holding hands breezed by her, and she had a momentary pang of desire to be like them.

She couldn’t really recall the last time she had shared a light, loving moment with anyone. The flicker of wildness in her nature made her want to find her soul mate instead of settling for anything less, and she had never found that certain someone.

At the intersection, she paused, knowing Miller was long gone and that she was a fool for thinking she could have found him.

But then...

She heard a sound that made her hands quake. Was it an engine turning over, or could it have been a growl?

You know better, Price.

Go back to the office or go home.

She ignored both of those options. As if tonight’s events had never happened, Riley crossed the street. She headed for an area where shadows pooled and moonlight failed to reach the sidewalk, drawn there for reasons that felt insane. If Detective Miller had been looking for trouble, the shadows were where he was going to find it.

Chapter 8

Derek again scented a problem.

Two of his packmates had already come this way, and he could almost picture them in his mind. They were riled up and anxious because they had found something nearby. He knew what that something had to be.

The alley he had entered was a dead end. He searched the dark before climbing over a short brick wall, and jumped down on the opposite side with both of his hands raised and ready for whatever showed up. But he didn’t step into the moonlight. He wanted to see what kind of creature would come out for a look at the man who had just possibly walked into a trap without realizing it.

His packmates had beaten him here and were hidden from sight. One of them was on the rooftop, all wolfed up and as motionless as a Gothic ornament. The other wolf was behind a partially boarded-up window.

If these vampires didn’t feel the danger in their midst and were inept as to how the supernatural world worked, they would soon show themselves, the way their cousins had earlier. If they were seasoned bloodsuckers, they would avoid three werewolves like the plague and ply their trade elsewhere.

Derek kind of hoped for the latter on this occasion. He would have preferred more time to think about Riley Price, but just couldn’t allow personal issues to take precedence over his job. Nor could he afford to let a perfectly good full moon go to waste.

“Anyone here?” he finally called out, lowering his hands and feeling his claws spring as he turned in place, very near to the light.

His two packmates were silent, intent on what might happen next. Derek took in a breath that was tainted with a new and potent scent of Otherness before a figure appeared in the distance. Derek squinted to make it out. The damn thing seemed to be wrapped in its own fog, and that left its outline unclear. The creature also appeared to float several inches off the ground.

The whole image was murky at best, and decidedly different from anything in Derek’s experience in dealing with vampires.

He inched closer to the stream of moonlight next to him, ready to meet this thing head-on, and said, “Who are you?”

The voice that came from the fog might have been either male or female. Derek couldn’t be sure as he heard it say, “You trespass here, wolf.”

This was a seasoned vampire that knew a wolf when it saw one. And that could potentially make the task of taking this creature down a hell of a lot messier.

“I could say the same thing about you,” Derek returned.

“Werewolves belong in the forests,” the newcomer said.

“And vampires belong underground. Which makes me wonder why you’re walking around.”

“It’s a very long story.”

“I’m all ears,” Derek said.

“The thing is, I’m not sure I owe you anything, certainly not an explanation for my existence. I just am. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“And you’re here now, in this alley, for what purpose?” Derek asked.

“I came to warn you.”

“About?”

“Where to find your next fight.”

“You mean the next fight after dealing with you?” Derek said.

As he watched, the fog began to dissipate slightly. Not enough to actually see the thing hidden inside it, but Derek did see a tall, thin figure of unknown gender.

“You can’t fight me, wolf,” the creature warned. “I think you already know that.”

“I’m not sure I do. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

The creature’s reply was as cryptic as the rest of this conversation. “I believe you have better things to do at the moment than to deal with the likes of me.”

“Such as?” Derek said.

The fog floated to the left, which gave Derek a decent view of what was beyond it. He saw the street, and cars going by. Then he saw someone stop to peer into the shadows in the break between the buildings.

He felt a chill on the back of his neck. His heart gave a thunderous roar and a few treacherous beats.

“It helps to find out that wolves have not only soft underbellies, but other vulnerable spots as well,” the creature remarked.

Damn it...

The wolf on the roof began a quick descent. In seconds, one of Derek’s packmates was standing beside him looking big, dangerous and lethal, with his sharp canines exposed. The fog remained on the sidelines, like a dark cloud that had swallowed whatever the thing was that used it for camouflage.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek said.

But he did know, of course. And for the first time, Derek also understood that he had exposed himself to the vampires tonight in another way. A new way. Because it was Riley Price who stood there on the street, looking on.

And there was probably a vampire to keep him from reaching her if this vamp had brought friends.

Riley hit the wall with a shoulder that was already sore, and winced. The protests she wanted to utter got stuck in her throat. Either the shadows were playing tricks with her eyesight and she actually did have a concussion from hitting her head earlier, or there was a werewolf in this alley.

A real, live werewolf.

No joke.

She stumbled back and toward the street, numb with shock. The fact that she had wanted to find a werewolf melted away behind the actual sighting of one. The phrase that kept repeating over and over now in her mind was that she wasn’t insane after all, and might never have been.

Still, she refused to believe that seeing a werewolf in Seattle was anything other than the very definition of insanity. So she turned around and walked away, heading back toward her office with her skull humming and her pulse hammering away at warp speed.

She’d call Detective Miller and tell him about what she had seen. Would he think she was crazy? Could he possibly understand that no governing body would issue a license to a therapist whose own sanity they doubted? As for proof of what she had seen...by the time she got to the precinct or found another way to reach the detective, that werewolf would probably be long gone.

As Riley consciously willed her legs to carry her forward, she knew there was no way she could win this, prove this, or convince anyone about what had been in that alley. She also knew that she had to try.

Derek glided into the moonlight to join his packmate in a standoff with a vampire that was far too enlightened for anyone’s good. He wondered what the wolf beside him thought of this discussion.

There was a chance the abomination hadn’t meant its remark the way Derek had taken it after seeing Riley there. Yet it had sure felt that way. The comment had seemed pointed and personal.

He knew that Riley had to have seen his packmate in full moonlight, and that for her the werewolf comment she had made earlier had now taken on new weight.

What would she do next?

Where would she go to feel safe?

Who will you tell, Riley?

His shape-shift took seconds. Derek roared in the moonlight, daring the creature in the alley to challenge two Weres in spite of what it had said. But the creature, which had to be some special kind of vampire, didn’t rally. It hovered near the street for some time before Derek decided to break the face-off.

He rushed forward, wanting to get to Riley, knowing that in order to reach her, he’d tear this bloodsucker apart if he had to.

Intending to ram the vampire’s body, Derek barreled forward with his backup on his heels. The foggy bastard he lunged for wasn’t solid, so he passed right through it and pulled up a few feet from the street, snapping his not-quite-human teeth.

His packmate had no better luck.

Angry, Derek whirled around to try again. But the vampire remained elusive, shifting in time to avoid any direct confrontation as it drifted over the Weres. It was as if the spooky sucker had the ability to fly.

Again and again, Derek and his mate challenged, spun and went for the abomination. Time after time, their teeth and claws came away empty. Finally, the bloodsucker floated to the street and spoke. “You see, wolf, that I was right to warn you, and to call to your attention the vulnerability attached to your new weaknesses.”

The next remark the vampire made came in the form of a touch on his mind.

“She is not for you, wolf. Stay away from her or our next meeting will not go nearly as well as this one.”

Derek clutched his chest—he was suddenly short of breath. He hadn’t been wrong. The warning had been pointed and had pertained to Riley Price. Who else could this sucker have been talking about?

Madder than ever and refusing to give up, Derek and his packmate sprinted toward the creep like rabid animals, biting, clawing and punching at nothing even remotely physical enough to maim or injure. They kept this up until the vampire simply disappeared, as if it had never really been there at all.

Derek stared at the empty alley with his heart racing. When his packmate turned to him in an equal state of confusion, Derek sent a message. “I hope to God there aren’t more of those things around.”

It was at that moment that Dale arrived, alone and calm. After a quick look at the two Weres, Dale asked, “Did I miss something?”

“I think it must have been a ghoul,” Derek’s current fighting partner, still wolfed up and wild-eyed, messaged back. “That thing was seriously demented.”

Though Dale looked to Derek for an explanation, Derek was already miles beyond thinking about the fight. There were new questions to be answered—carefully, cautiously and with as much diplomacy as possible. The thing they had faced had shown off new tricks, and also knew about Riley. It didn’t seem to want him hanging around her, and had issued that warning.

It was possible the creature had purposefully allowed Riley to see the werewolf in this alley, so that she’d be frightened enough to stay away from the streets. Why, though? What did that creature have to do with her, and more to the point, what did it want?

“Derek?”

Derek glanced at Dale.

“Maybe you can explain what happened after you’ve changed back, boss. Tonight was quiet everywhere else we patrolled. The pack is reconvening at the park for your summary and for further instructions.”

Derek didn’t feel like downshifting. He felt like running. Like howling. Like tearing apart that damn fog in any way he could so that he’d be able to sleep.

But who was he kidding? There’d be no way to sleep when he had to find Riley Price and convince her that she hadn’t seen what she had seen.

There’d be no way to rest until he made her understand there was no such thing as a werewolf, and that she must have been mistaken due to the darkness of the alley if she thought there was.

Those urges had to be tamped down for the moment, however, because his pack was waiting for their alpha.

Was the weakness the vampire had mentioned about Riley?

Did he believe that?

There was no way to skip over this encounter with the vampire, or ignore what it meant. Either the vamps had evolved somehow and learned new crafts, or he had just come face-to-face, more or less, with their damn queen.

Damaris.

If that was true, he had, for the first time, experienced the power of a centuries-old vampire that had been around as long as there had been history. A powerful female bloodsucker that had gone after his ex-lover two years before and had caused McKenna Randall to accept the so-called blood gift that only a pair of fangs could offer in order to fight back. McKenna had accepted immortality by way of a Blood Knight’s kiss. Her new lover’s kiss.

McKenna had been given the gift of an everlasting life span from an immortal warrior who had walked the earth for as long as Damaris had, and who once had gone by the name of Galahad. The same motorcycle riding superpower that had stolen McKenna’s heart, and then had taken her away.

A goddamn immortal who rode a Harley instead of a steed.

“Derek?” Dale called out.

Derek backed into the shadows and absorbed the flash of pain that came with downsizing again. He headed for the street, already planning what he had to do to warn his pack about the future, before he’d try to find Riley Price and get to the heart of the problems piling up.

In his mind, like a lingering echo, he heard that vampire’s message. She is not for you, wolf.

It was no longer to be an average fight with a vampire. Whether or not anyone liked it, the stakes had just gone up.

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