The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  “I read there are hundreds in your Pack,” Drake said, figuring if she referred to public knowledge Sophia would be more comfortable.

  “That’s a lot of names.”

  “We are the largest Pack in North America—only the Russian White River Pack rivals ours worldwide,” Sophia said proudly. “The other North American packs were hunted almost to extinction and are just now coming back.”

  “Hunted.” A cold chill flashed along Drake’s spine and she leaned closer. “By humans?”

  “We have not always had to hide, but we have always been hunted.” Sophia flushed again as if realizing she’d said too much. She stood up abruptly, averting her gaze. “I should get back to work.”

  “I’m sorry.” Drake rose, recognizing Sophia’s posture as similar to the way the boys had reacted to Sylvan’s anger. She hadn’t meant to intimidate the medic and wasn’t sure how she had. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Your Alpha made an impression on me. When she was treating Misha—her power was amazing.”

  “You felt that?” Sounding surprised, Sophia busied herself with collecting the charts.

  “Yes. How could anyone not?” Drake hurried on before Sophia disappeared. “Why do you all seem to trust her so much?”

  Sophia frowned, giving Drake a cautious look. “She’s the Alpha. Our leader. Without her, the Pack couldn’t function. There would be power struggles, rebellion, chaos. Many of us would not survive.”

  “I understand the importance of her position, but the trust part?”

  “She’d die for us.” Sophia spoke with simple conviction and absolute certainty.

  Drake tried to comprehend the kind of strength and personal sacrifice required of one individual to safeguard an entire community, and couldn’t. If she hadn’t seen Sylvan with her wolves, she wouldn’t have believed it possible. But she had seen her, and her blood still raced from the excitement of their encounter.

  ———

  Sylvan paced the small room in the infirmary where she’d brought Misha directly upon arrival at the Compound, three hundred square miles of fortified mountain ranges deep in the heart of Pack land. Her mother had built the protectorate almost a century ago when she had consolidated the many small, scattered enclaves of wolf Weres in the Adirondack Mountains of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont into one cohesive Pack.

  The nerve center of the Compound consisted of an enormous hard-packed earth courtyard ringed by a dozen log buildings, all enclosed within a twelve-foot-high fence. The main building was a massive three-story timber and stone lodge with Sylvan’s headquarters on the second floor. The barracks, a long two-story building, housed the young males and females who were in military training, two to a room.

  A breezeway connected the barracks to the mess hall. Tall antennae and rooftop satellite dishes for long-range surveillance marked the communications center. In the center of the Compound, protected by an internal perimeter guarded twenty-four hours a day by some of Sylvan’s finest fighters, was a heavily fortified single-story building with two wings housing the infirmary and the nursery. Underground tunnels connected all the structures and led to escape exits in the surrounding forest. Sylvan’s private den was five miles farther into the forest, a simple three-room single-story log cabin whose location was known only to her personal guards.

  “Any change?” Sylvan halted abruptly, fists on hips, and confronted Elena, the Pack medicus. The sight of Misha helpless and hurt was making Sylvan’s wolf rip at her insides in a mad fury to protect her own. Sylvan wanted to lash out, wanted to loose her claws and shred whoever had dared harm one of hers. She shuddered and silver pelt glinted beneath her skin, her wolf breaking free. Ignoring the pain, she held her back. “Elena?”

  “She’s not going to wake up for a few more hours at least.” The petite brunette, perched on a stool next to the bed where Misha lay beneath a colorful knit afghan, cast Sylvan an appraising glance. Her lips thinned in concern. “You look on the verge of frenzy. Why don’t you take care of it?”

  Sylvan narrowed her eyes, emitting a barely audible rumble.

  Elena raised one dark brow in Sylvan’s direction. “Don’t growl at me, either. I whelped you, and I remember when you were just a mewling scrawny pup.”

  “Is there any sign of the fever?” Sylvan chose to ignore Elena, knowing she wouldn’t win an argument with her. Their chief medic was barely two decades older than Sylvan, and in the centuries-long lifespan of a Were, that was negligible. Their relationship was as close to that of siblings as Sylvan could have with anyone in the Pack. Elena would never undermine that closeness by challenging her in front of others, but she didn’t shy away from nagging Sylvan in private.

  “No sign of fever yet. In another few hours I can say for certain that she’s safe.” Elena traced her fingers tenderly along Misha’s pale cheek. She shook her head, her dark eyes filling with sorrow. “Who would do this to a child?”

  “Jazz said they smelled like wolf Weres, but not Pack. Rogues.”

  “But why would they poison her? It makes no sense.”

  “I’m not sure they meant to kill her.” Sylvan regarded the broken knife tip she had dug out of Misha’s body. Elena had placed it in a safe, sealed container to be delivered to their technicians at Mir Industries—their medical and pharmaceutical research facility—in the morning.

  While they needed a complete analysis of the chemical nature of the poison impregnated into the knife blade, she didn’t need a scientist to tell her it was silver-based. Only another Were would know that silver was lethal, even in very small doses. “Jazz said the rogues tried to separate Misha from the boys, and when all three of our adolescents fought back, the rogues panicked. Misha was accidentally stabbed in the chaos.”

  “They intentionally targeted Misha,” Elena echoed bleakly, keeping her hand protectively on Misha’s shoulder. “Misha would make three, Sylvan. Three dominant females. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  “No,” Sylvan said darkly, her canines lengthening as her wolf howled in rage. “Someone is abducting our females.”

  Two young Were females had disappeared in the last half year—the first had been believed killed in a landslide while hiking alone, but her body had never been recovered. The second had disappeared from a local campus after leaving a note in her dorm room saying she and a male from another Pack were eloping. The girl’s parents swore she would never have kept a serious romantic relationship from them, especially not one with a non-Pack male. Sylvan had ordered an investigation, but her sentries had found nothing. Although young wolves, males and females, frequently roamed before mating and settling down, Pack and family ties were central to every Were’s life. Runaways were almost unheard of. These females did not disappear willingly.

  “Why? What kind of wolf would do such a thing?” Elena’s voice shook with outrage. “You’ve let it be known that any rogue is welcome to join us if they swear allegiance to the Pack. They don’t have to live like feral cats.”

  “I don’t know,” Sylvan said grimly. “But I’ll find out.”

  Sylvan knelt on the flagstone floor by Misha’s bed and rested her forehead against Misha’s. Closing her eyes, she murmured, “Sleep, little one. Sleep and heal. All is well.”

  Misha whined contentedly in her sleep and nuzzled Sylvan’s cheek. Sylvan rose and, feeling Elena’s worried gaze on her face, stroked Elena’s ebony hair. “Don’t worry for me.”

  “If I don’t, who else will you allow?” Elena caught Sylvan’s hand and entwined their fingers. “You should at least take a lover.”

  “Elena, don’t push me,” Sylvan warned, her tone turning Alpha.

  “I’m the Pack medicus. It’s my responsibility to attend to your well-being,” Elena insisted.

  “My well-being is fine.”

  “Your wolf runs close to the skin. She needs calming. So do you.”

  Elena gave Sylvan’s fingers a squeeze. “Rena would tangle willingly. So would Anya or Lara.”

&nb
sp; “Lara is one of my centuri,” Sylvan protested. Her guards swore a blood oath to her, and she to them, a bond as unbreakable as a mating bond. For her to take one of them as her lover would disrupt the unity of their cadre. Any hesitation, any uncertainty in rank or order, would leave them all vulnerable in a fight. Sylvan’s voice dropped dangerously low. “You would have me risk their lives for empty pleasure?”

  “Pleasure is never empty when there is caring, and they love you. We all love you.”

  “I know,” Sylvan whispered, skimming her lips over Elena’s knuckles.

  “Your father was centuri to your mother,” Elena pointed out. “That did not stop her, why should it stop you?”

  “We will not speak of them,” Sylvan said, and this time it was a command. “My centuri are not my bed partners.”

  “As you wish, Alpha,” Elena said, “but Rena is not even a soldier. She has the look of a mater through and through. She would set your bed afire and give you strong, sturdy pups.”

  “Ever since you and Roger mated, you’ve become an incorrigible matchmaker,” Sylvan teased, hoping to deflect Elena from a topic she had been trying to ignore. She hadn’t tangled with anyone for weeks, and for a Were, more than a few days was a very long time. Physical contact—touch, sexual release—was essential to Were physical and emotional well-being, and the more dominant the Were, the greater the need. Without a physical outlet for their intrinsically high levels of endorphins and adrenergic hormones, especially if augmented by stress, the delicate balance between beast and reason broke down. Unrelenting sex frenzy could push Weres to become feral, and going feral was a death sentence.

  As a natural counterbalance, all Weres were highly sexual, and since there were no social sanctions against casual sexual encounters, unmated Weres often had multiple partners of both sexes simultaneously.

  Abstinence for an Alpha was unheard of. Their innate super-aggression heightened their sex drive, and without frequent venting, their untamable wolves pressed for dominance. Sylvan’s wolf had been riding her hard the last few weeks, enraged by the escalating dangers threatening the Pack, demanding the freedom to hunt and destroy their enemies. Sylvan knew she was walking a dangerous path. She needed all her control at the best of times to keep her wolf in check. Negotiating with the human politicians, containing the constant infighting among the Praetern alliance members, and providing stability for her Pack strained her reserves to the breaking point. She was agitated, sleepless, hypersexual. But every time she thought she had to take a female for a night or surrender to wolf madness, she resisted, knowing she would remain unsatisfied. Her body craved sex, her wolf craved a fight, but her heart, despite all of her attempts to deny it, craved a connection. So she denied herself the sex, denied her wolf the release, and refused to acknowledge what she really wanted.

  “Rena wants a mate,” Sylvan grunted.

  “And you need to release before you find yourself in full frenzy.” Elena pointed a finger, stopping Sylvan’s protest. “Even I can feel your call, and I have a mate who satisfies me quite nicely. If my urges are triggered this much, before long, you’ll throw the females into heat—”

  “I won’t let that happen.” An entire Pack of females in heat would drive the dominant males and females crazy. They’d have chaos as the dominants fought for bedding rights. If Sylvan couldn’t dampen her pheromones enough to prevent the females from cycling to her, she’d need to have sex just to settle the Pack. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “For now,” Elena sighed. “Stubborn wolf.”

  “I must go.” Sylvan kissed Elena on the mouth, a brief brush of lips. “I need to double the border guards on the Compound, and we have unmated females in the community who need to be warned and protected. Call me if there’s any change with Misha.”

  “Promise me you’ll sleep at least.”

  “I’ll sleep,” Sylvan said as she closed the door to the sickroom behind her. She would sleep when her enemies were dead and her Pack was safe.

  She loped through the empty halls of the Compound and out through the massive double wooden doors onto the deck that wrapped around three sides of the building. The moon was well past its zenith now, and storm clouds slashed across her face. Sylvan breathed deeply, sniffing rain in the air and the scent of deer moving through the trees.

  She sent a silent message to Callan, the captain of her sentries.

  Reinforce our outer borders. Double the guards on the inner perimeter. Give no one safe passage on Pack land.

  She pulled off her T-shirt, unzipped her jeans and pushed them off, and left the clothes in a pile at the top of the wide stone stairs.

  Running naked toward the trees, she shifted in motion, gliding into the forest as invisibly as a wraith. She lifted her face to the moon and howled, the pull in her loins and the longing in her heart for a mate to run with her under the night sky so strong she ached. Scenting another wolf following her, she circled back on her own trail and crouched in the underbrush, waiting until the sleek red-gray wolf drew near. Then, as silent as a ghost, she exploded from her hiding place and caught the wolf’s neck in her jaws, dragging her down. The she-wolf snapped at her, closing her powerful jaws millimeters from Sylvan’s foreleg. Sylvan growled and shook her powerful shoulders, forcing the gray onto her back. She pressed down, belly to belly, then let her go. The gray jumped up, snarled, and they circled one another, lunging and snapping, rolling and thrashing. Eventually when the gray began to slow the slightest bit, Sylvan caught the other wolf’s muzzle in her jaws. The wolf went limp, allowing Sylvan to mount her. Sylvan clasped the wolf between her legs and growled. When the wolf whined and licked her face, Sylvan released her and settled on the ground. Panting, the gray wolf inched closer until their shoulders touched. She rested her head on her paws and gazed at Sylvan.

  Elena sent you, didn’t she?

  Niki rubbed her nose under Sylvan’s jaw.

  Did she tell you I needed a tussle?

  Niki flashed a wolfie grin.

  Sylvan sighed. Come, hunt with me. If you can keep up.

  Surrendering to her wolf, Sylvan jumped up and tore off into the woods, Niki hard at her shoulder. Sylvan loved Niki, loved running with Niki at her side, but still her heart ached.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mmm,” Anya murmured, arching her back and rolling her hips as her orgasm ebbed, “I do love it when you run with the Alpha.”

  “Why is that?” Niki nuzzled the small redhead’s neck, licking the spot she’d bitten earlier just as she was about to explode all over Anya’s gorgeous ass. Anya turned her head and nipped at Niki’s jaw.

  “You’re always wild for a long, hard tangle after.”

  Anya was right. Running with Sylvan, awash in the Alpha’s power, always left Niki excruciatingly aroused and ready to tangle with the first willing female she found. Tonight, the burning in her loins was greater than she could ever remember, the fire so hot she hurt. The sex glands buried on either side of her clitoral shaft swelled and pulsed, reminding her she wasn’t done yet. She caressed the svelte muscles in Anya’s back and when Anya raised her ass in invitation, Niki straddled her and fit her stiffening clitoris into the tight cleft between Anya’s buttocks. She groaned when Anya squeezed down on her. The clitoral core went rigid and she wanted to come.

  “Be careful how you tease,” Niki gasped, her canines lengthening as Anya’s motions stripped her control. Like most dominants, she could extrude her canines and claws at will, but they would emerge involuntarily when she was enraged or sex frenzied.

  “Tonight you’re even hungrier than usual.” Anya tightened and released her powerful muscles, milking Niki’s clitoris and making her growl. “You’re still ready and you’ve already come three times.”

  “Four, but who’s counting.” Niki bit Anya’s earlobe and dragged her clitoris free before the frenzy claimed her. She’d already been selfish enough. She was dominant to everyone in the Pack except Sylvan, and Anya would have been more than willing to c
ouple with her at any time. But that wasn’t the reason Niki had come to her tonight. Anya did not think of her as a potential mate, so she could tangle with her without any guilt later. She’d shown up naked at Anya’s door, waking her from a sound sleep, panting and dripping with sex sweat. The dominance scent she’d exuded would have instantly readied any unmated Were in her vicinity.

  I need you now, she’d snarled.

  Anya hadn’t said a word, only dropped to her knees and sucked her to release within seconds. She’d come a second time straddling Anya’s thigh while she fucked her on the floor. Anya had screamed through her orgasm, clawing at Niki’s shoulders and back. When Niki had finally been able to focus through the frenzy, she’d carried Anya to the bed and taken her a third time from behind, thrusting hard inside while she stimulated Anya’s clitoris with her other hand. Her primal need for dominance had been so great, she’d refused to release Anya’s clitoris after Anya came, forcing release after release from the keening female.

  Now that she had regained a little control, she scented that Anya was still ready and Niki wanted to satisfy her. Anya’s appetite for sex was always strong, but tonight she seemed particularly needy. Niki stroked the inside of Anya’s thigh and cupped her high between her legs. She was hot and wet.

  “I’m not the only one who’s still ready,” Niki whispered, caressing the underside of Anya’s firm clitoris where her sex glands rested.

  “You’re burning.”

  “The craving’s been riding me so hard for two days.” Anya whimpered and pumped herself against Niki’s hand. “Even when I release it doesn’t quiet.” She reached back blindly and dug her nails into Niki’s forearm. “Oh God, please just fuck me. Make me come. I need it so much. I hurt.”

  Niki registered a warning somewhere in her clouded brain, but the frenzy hit too fast for her to pay attention. She rocketed to her knees and pushed deep between Anya’s legs. Slick blazing muscles gripped her fingers. She found the thickened internal ridge that connected directly to Anya’s clitoris and massaged it with each stroke. The deep-seated sex glands were hard as stones. Anya panted and moaned, clawing at the mattress as she struggled to crest.