by Larissa Ione
Su’Neena.
In an instant, icy sweat coated his skin and his ribs ached, as if remembering all the times her foot had cracked them.
He’d come here as an orphan, his parents killed by MoonBound butchers, and Su’Neena had enjoyed using him as her personal whipping boy. So when his chance to take revenge had come, he’d seized it, only to have it backfire. He’d caught her betraying the clan, but she’d lied, and the clan’s fear of his abilities had been enough to give her the benefit of the doubt.
He’d been banished, but that hadn’t been enough for Su’Neena. She’d called for his execution and had tried twice since then to kill him. Openly. Brazenly. He’d dodged one arrow, but the scar on his thigh would forever remind him that she was serious about wanting him dead.
Tensing, he covertly checked her for weapons, but her hands were empty.
“Hunter.” She gave him a respectful nod as she passed, and he blew out a relieved, shaky breath, feeling foolish for worrying she’d recognize him. He was Hunter right now, not Lobo, and he was almost safe. A few more yards . . .
He stepped through the stone doorway and sucked in a huge lungful of fresh evening air. Smelled like victory. He smiled until he remembered why he’d just risked his life.
Holding on to Hunter’s form until he could get safely away, he reached out to Tehya with his mind as he jogged through the twilight toward the safety of his cabin. If she was conscious, he’d feel her.
Nothing. She could be either unconscious or dead; he had no way of knowing.
Anger, sorrow, and frustration boiled in his chest, gathering steam until he felt as though he was going to explode. He needed to do something, but what? He felt so helpless and . . . alone. He hadn’t truly realized how much Tehya had enriched his life until now.
Needing to outrun his thoughts, he first slowed down to concentrate on ditching Hunter’s skin. As he took a bracing breath to begin the process, a female voice called to him.
Called to Hunter.
Son of a bitch. This was the last thing he needed right now. Cursing, he kept going as if he hadn’t heard anything, but a moment later a hand gripped his elbow and gently pulled him to a halt.
When he turned around, he nearly groaned at the sight of Hunter’s mate, Aylin, standing there in worn jeans, a form-fitting blue tank top, and white running shoes. He’d never met her, but he’d seen her from afar, and he’d gotten bits and pieces of information about her from the MoonBound females he fed from on the nights of the full moon. She seemed to be well liked and smart, and, if the intel was accurate, her influence had mellowed Hunter a lot.
“What are you doing here?” She reached back and fiddled with the leather band holding her long blond ponytail. “I didn’t expect you back from your meeting with GraveBorn clan until tomorrow night.”
Oh, wasn’t that just great. No wonder everyone had been staring at him. Hunter wasn’t supposed to be here.
She frowned at his shirt and hands. “And why are you covered in blood?” She sniffed and added, “Wolf blood.”
“I found an injured wolf and brought it to Nicole,” he said easily, because that, at least, was the truth.
Cocking her head, she studied him for so long that his hands grew clammy and his pulse pounded in his ears. If anyone could see through his disguise, it would be Hunter’s mate. Finally she reached out and tugged on his hair.
“This is different. You haven’t worn braids in a long time.” She frowned. “And I swear it’s longer than it was yesterday.”
Oh, shit. He hadn’t even thought about Hunter’s hair when he’d shifted. He’d simply taken his most prominent memory of Hunter and given himself the braids the clan leader sported at formal events . . . such as banishing skinwalkers from the clan.
“I . . .” What had she said about GraveBorn? He was at a meeting? “I thought the meeting with GraveBorn deserved something more formal.” He swept the braid back over his shoulder so she’d forget the length, which he couldn’t explain.
“Well, you should wear it like that more often. I like it.” A sly smile curved her mouth, and his mouth went dry as she eased up to him, pressing her body against his. “Since you’re already here, do you have time for me?” Her hand slid from his chest to his abs, and then lower, to his waistband. “We can take a dip in the river. You can wash your clothes and let them dry while we mess around.” Her voice went deeper as her blue eyes darkened into tide pools of seduction. “Remember what we did on the riverbank last fall?”
He actually did remember that, because he’d come upon them while out on a run in wolf form. He’d watched, probably for longer than was considered polite, as Hunter made love to his mate with the wilderness surrounding them. Their cries had filled the air with primal sounds of passion but had filled his chest with longing.
“I can’t,” he croaked, trying to disengage himself from her, but she stayed with him, and now her hand was slipping under his waistband.
“Oh,” she said saucily, “I know you can.”
Shit. She was hot and all, but if he thought that impersonating Hunter would get him dead, Lobo knew that messing with Hunter’s mate would get him painfully dead.
Very gently, as if she were as delicate as a feather, he gripped her wrist and pushed her away. “Later,” he said, hoping she didn’t notice the slight tremor in his voice. “I still have the GraveBorn meeting. I promise to find you the second I get back.”
“Fine.” She pouted playfully and dropped her hands to her sides. “I guess I should let you build up your strength for tomorrow anyway.”
Tomorrow? Oh, right . . . tomorrow was the new moon, the night when female vampires needed to feed from males.
He hadn’t fed a female in months. Tehya’s jealousy made it too difficult, so he usually avoided it until around the year mark when the headaches started. He wasn’t sure why that happened, and no doubt Nicole could answer that question; but whatever the reason, he always felt better after donating a little vein juice to a hungry female.
“Oh.” Aylin reached out and grasped his wrist, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He wasn’t used to being touched, and he certainly didn’t know how Hunter would react. “I have to tell you what I did today.”
Lobo glanced around, on alert for anyone who might be approaching. Clear so far, but MoonBound was an active clan, and he doubted it would be long before someone came along. “What did you do?”
“I opened a portal to Wallowa Lake, and I held it open for fifteen full minutes.”
He whipped his head around and stared. To his horror, he was unable to stop staring. Gaping, really. Surely she wasn’t talking about a portal. A method of traveling from one location to another distant location in a matter of seconds.
“You . . . wait. What?”
“I know!” She bounced on her toes. “That’s the longest I’ve held one open, and it’s the farthest away I’ve been able to get. Well, aside from Samnult’s realm, of course. Riker wouldn’t let me go through it because he’s still on that kick about wanting me to be able to hold a portal open without it flickering before we start using them for long-distance travel, but we’re close. Really close.”
Sweet Maker, he’d thought the ability to swiftwalk was nothing but legend. Then again, most people thought skinwalkers were fiction as well. But swiftwalking . . . holy shit, with Aylin as his mate, Hunter could rule the damned world. Suddenly the battle among three clans and the humans a few months ago made sense. MoonBound had fought against two large vampire clans and a human army, and had somehow won, while dozens of humans, maybe as many as a couple of hundred, had disappeared off the face of the earth. Had they used one of Aylin’s portals to send the humans somewhere? Like, say, to this Samnult’s realm she’d mentioned?
“You know,” she said in a hushed voice, “if I open a portal for you, you could be at the GraveBorn meeting in seconds, and Riker will never have to know.”
Still rattled by the fact that they were casually talking about somethin
g he’d thought was impossible, he stammered out a lame, “Ah, thanks, but you know Riker will find out.”
In reality, he had no idea if the guy would find out or not. Riker, Hunter’s second in command, hadn’t been at MoonBound back when Lobo had been a member, and Lobo had only spoken to the guy a handful of times to share information about human movement in the forests.
Aylin sighed. “You’re probably right. He’s like a drill sergeant in those military movies you make me watch.” She went up on her toes and surprised him with a lingering, tender kiss so full of affection that his heart ached. Hunter was one lucky bastard. When she broke it off, he was almost disappointed. “Now get going,” she said brightly. “The sooner you take care of business, the sooner you can come back to me.”
She gave him a swat on the ass and a naughty smile; as he walked away, he rubbed his chest, but it did nothing to assuage the jealousy and longing that throbbed just under his breastbone.
He’d been alone for so long, with only Tehya as company, and as much as he loved the wolf, snuggling with her by the fire wasn’t the same as snuggling with a female of the same species. When Hunter kicked him out of the clan, Lobo had lost everything, including the hope that one of the clan females would become his mate.
Mentally giving himself a kick—feeling sorry for himself wasn’t acceptable—he headed back to his cabin to pray to whatever god would listen that Tehya pulled through.
3
Whatever Tehya was sleeping on was soft. At least, it was softer than the cabin floor she was used to when it was too warm to curl up at the foot of Lobo’s bed.
Yawning, she lifted her hind leg to scratch her ear . . . but something was wrong with it.
Her gritty eyes stung as she peeled them open, and then she hastily shut them again when bright light nearly blinded her. Did Lobo have all the lights on?
She tried again, blinking to focus her blurry vision. As the haze faded, a million colors assaulted her vision, and she realized she wasn’t stretched out in front of the fire in Lobo’s cabin. She was lying on a pile of blankets on the floor of . . . a hospital? Or laboratory? IV supplies and bandages were scattered around, as if she’d ripped them away in a struggle. Would Lobo have brought her to a veterinarian for some reason? Maybe that would explain why her leg wasn’t working right—oh, Jesus!
Her leg . . . it wasn’t covered in fur. It was the wrong shape. The wrong size. It was a human leg.
Panicked, her heart racing and her breath coming in panting puffs, she held her hand in front of her face. Her hand, not her paw. Every coherent thought scattered as she scanned her naked body over and over, unable to believe she was looking at herself no matter how many times she counted her fingers and toes.
Could it really be that after twelve winters of living as a wolf, she was human again?
She licked her lips, catching her tongue on sharp fang tips. Right . . . not human.
Vampire.
Her mind spun as she tried to corral the memories that had grown distant over the years. She’d been human once, working as a dental assistant while attending college to become a dentist. And then her mom had died, and she’d been bitten by a vampire. She’d gotten sick, had spent weeks in a haze of nausea and fever as she transitioned into a vampire and then, shockingly, into a wolf.
After that . . . She shook her head, hating how clear her memories were now that she was no longer canine. It was as if someone had remastered an old, staticky black-and-white movie to make it ultra-high-def, with hypervibrant color. There was so much pain in her past, and without the filter of her wolf-brain to tone it down, it was nearly overwhelming.
But she supposed that at the moment her past was the least of her concerns. Right now she was in a strange place, she was naked, and she was freezing her bare butt off.
Shivering, she attempted to wrap one of the blankets around her shoulders. It took three tries and way too much concentration to make her hands behave like hands and not like paws, but she finally managed to cover herself.
But she was still on the floor.
Awkwardly she reached up with one hand to grab the edge of the counter. Her muscles, stiff and unaccustomed to this new form, seized in protest as she hauled herself to her feet. She swayed violently; thank God for the counter, or she’d have keeled over.
She stood there for a moment, sweating and wheezing, allowing herself time to adjust to standing upright and seeing things from twice the height she was used to. What now? She wasn’t sure what to do besides run in a blind panic around the room.
Just breathe. You’ve been through worse.
Yes, she had. And as her mother used to say, “Panic leads to mistakes. Know your surroundings. Get the lay of the land, and always have a plan to escape.”
Her mother should know, given that she’d been on the run from the government since the day Tehya was conceived.
Tehya willed herself to calm down and look around. There were rows of counters and tables covered with machines, computers, and lab equipment, but not a single window and only one door. She got the uneasy feeling she was underground. But where?
Tentatively she released her death grip on the counter and took a step toward the door. Then another. And another. Her first steps on two feet in more than a decade.
Her feet padded unsteadily on the hard floor as she shuffled across it. If she could just peek outside the room, maybe she’d get a better handle on her situation. But before she was even halfway across the room, the sound of voices drifted through the closed door.
“I’ll tell Riker you’re looking for him,” a female voice called out. “He’s meeting me here in a minute.”
The door whispered open.
With a startled yelp, Tehya hit the floor, taking cover behind a cabinet.
“Oh, shit,” the newcomer gasped. “The wolf.”
Suddenly a strawberry-blond woman came around the corner, stopping short and gasping again when she saw Tehya crouching on the floor. For a few terrifying heartbeats, Tehya stared at the other female, unable to move. More heartbeats. More staring.
“Who . . . who are you?” the other female asked, and that fast, Tehya snapped out of the grip fear had on her.
She leaped to her feet and darted toward the door, but the woman moved like a snake. Her fingers dug into Tehya’s shoulder and spun her hard into a wall. Terrified and confused, Tehya went on the attack, sinking her teeth into the other woman’s arm and shaking hard. Blood spurted into her mouth, and even as her mind registered disgust, she moaned as the rich, silky nourishment coated her tongue.
The female screamed in pain, and Tehya went into a fresh spin of panic. People were bound to hear this, and then what? What would happen to her?
Who were these people?
Shoving with all her strength, Tehya slammed the female into what looked like an X-ray machine, and then she watched in horror as the woman crumpled to the floor, her mangled arm cradling her swollen belly.
Oh, shit. Pregnant. The female was pregnant.
Torn between wanting to make sure the female was okay and wanting to run, Tehya hesitated. The pounding of feet outside made her decision. She tore out of the room, bounced off a big guy who was heading for the lab at a dead run, and skidded around a corner, belatedly realizing she’d lost the blanket and was as naked as a newborn.
Whatever.
She sped blindly through the maze of hallways, careening off walls and people as she ran. She came to a Y split in the passage and, fighting her instinct to keep running, forced herself to slow down and take a deep breath. A million different scents filtered through her nostrils, from the musky tang of sex and the succulent odor of cooking meat to the crisp, green scent of outside fresh air from the tunnel on the right.
The sound of running footsteps once again spurred her into action. She sprinted down the right tunnel and followed the fresh air until she burst into the welcome sunshine.
She didn’t stop. She didn’t think she’d ever stop. Accompanied by the c
hirps of birds high in the trees, she bolted into the forest, easing up only when she caught the scent of smoke and roasting meat and realized she was running toward a human campsite.
Okay, chill out. Think. Get your act together.
Her mother hadn’t merely been full of good advice; she used to make Tehya practice using her brain during an emergency, and as Tehya crouched against a fallen tree she took back every complaint she’d ever uttered during those exercises.
Think. Breathe. List your options.
That last thing was easy, because she had very few options, and only one of them made sense. She had to find Lobo.
But how was he going to react? He knew her only as a wolf. He’d even named her Tehya. She had basically been his pet for twelve years, and now . . . now she was a vampire. A vampire who had been human until only a month before she shifted into a wolf and couldn’t shift back. A vampire who was in love with a man who knew her only as a canine.
God, how was she going to explain this?
Her stomach contracted sharply, reminding her that she was truly a vampire, and she needed blood. Desperately. But did she dare risk approaching the human campsite by herself? She didn’t know how to hunt or feed. She’d only fed from one human, a sleeping homeless man she’d attacked during the mindless insanity of her transformation. The campers would be healthy, awake, and perhaps even armed.
Worse, something besides hunger was gnawing at her. A need she couldn’t quite identify, one that required blood, but also . . . something else. A . . . male?
An instant ache bloomed deep in her chest and in her pelvis at that thought. Of course! If what she’d learned about vampirism was true, it wasn’t human blood she would crave during the new moon phase. She automatically looked up at the sky, but the only celestial body hovering overhead was the sun. Still, her instincts were telling her what she needed.
She needed to feed from a male vampire.
Lobo’s handsome face filled her vision, his glossy black hair pushed away from his neck so a female could feed from his vein. Possessive anger clawed at her the way it always had when she found him with a female from one of the nearby West Coast clans. Even as a wolf with dulled vampire senses and memories, she’d understood that he needed the blood exchanges to survive . . . but that hadn’t meant she’d liked it.