The Midnight Hunt

by L. L. Raand

  “Do you think I will let you hunt alone?”

  “It’s too soon,” Sylvan said. “Your wolf—”

  “The fight was brought to us—yours by the Exodus, mine by a bite from a dying girl. We didn’t choose the time or circumstances. If you hunt, so do I. I’m your mate. Don’t ask me to be less. Not now, not when I’ve given you my heart.”

  Sylvan’s eyes glowed with pride and possession. She kissed Drake hard, drawing power from Drake’s strength. “I love you.”

  “Then let me love you.”

  With a nod, Sylvan grasped Drake’s hand.

  Niki, the Alpha called, it’s time to hunt.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Max and the twins have been tracking the scent since last night,” Niki said as Andrew drove the Rover from the Compound.

  Drake sat on the side bench with her back against the wall with Sylvan lounging on the floor between her legs. Sylvan tilted her head back against Drake’s stomach, and Drake ran her fingers through Sylvan’s hair, unable to stop touching her even for a minute. Like Sylvan and the others, she wore only a pair of jeans, and when Sylvan reached back and idly ran her blunt nails over Drake’s bare flank, she growled softly. She knew a fight was coming and she was primed, her adrenaline pumping, a flair of midnight black pelt streaming low on her belly, her clitoris erect and throbbing. Her wolf clawed the undersurface of her skin, demanding the freedom to hunt or tangle—the two urges nearly indistinguishable in her newly transformed system.

  “Have they sighted the prey?” Sylvan asked.

  “They lost the scent at one of the warehouses on the river last night, but they spent all day checking similar buildings and tracking scent trails. They picked up our prey again just a few hours ago. Max reports the one we want is with half a dozen rogues.”

  Sylvan snarled. “The rogues have never been aggressive before.”

  “They’re loading containers into trucks,” Niki said. “Max thinks it’s DSX.”

  “The methamphetamine variant?” Drake asked.

  “Yes,” Sylvan said. “Highly addictive and highly toxic to us.”

  “If the rogues are running drugs,” Drake suggested, “they must be part of a larger trafficking ring. They need suppliers, distributors, probably police protection. With that kind of backup, they might feel untouchable. That could explain why they’d risk an all-out assault.”

  “Most rogues are usually too undisciplined to carry out any kind of illicit operation,” Sylvan said. “Whoever is in charge is not some half-feral DSX addict.”

  “The assassin?” Drake asked.

  “Probably.”

  Drake massaged the muscles in the back of Sylvan’s neck. If they found the shooter, Sylvan would need to destroy him, but Drake worried Sylvan wasn’t yet strong enough for a fight. Her gunshot wounds had nearly killed her. Knowing only one way to protect her mate, Drake reached deep inside herself and touched her wolf. Instantly, her skin burned and pain shuddered through her bones. She remembered her dream and the agony of shifting. She feared she wouldn’t be able to shift in time to keep her mate safe, but she had to try. The pain intensified and she groaned.

  Stop, Sylvan telegraphed. You’re all I need.

  I want to go with you. I want to be by your side.

  Sylvan stroked Drake’s leg and turned her head to kiss Drake’s stomach. Not unless you shift. You won’t be safe, otherwise.

  What if I can’t?

  Don’t worry. Sylvan tugged on the skin of Drake’s belly with her teeth, then licked the small mark of ownership. Your wolf will know when it’s time.

  Drake caressed Sylvan’s cheek and caught Niki’s gaze as she sat opposite them watching. Niki couldn’t hear what had transpired between them, but Drake could reach Niki. If I can’t go with her, I’m entrusting her to you.

  Niki jolted upright, the surprise in her eyes quickly giving way to resolve. And respect. “Yes, Prima.”

  ———

  “Turn here,” Sylvan said as she felt Max’s call.

  Andrew drove down a narrow overgrown path between a narrow strip of trees and the river’s edge just south of the city. Across the broad expanse of water, a train whistle blew. Overhead slashes of blue-black clouds skated across the face of a brilliant full moon.

  “That’s the building up ahead. Stop here and we’ll go the rest of the way on foot.”

  When they climbed out of the Rover, Drake stared up at the moon. Her skin tingled and heat balled in the pit of her stomach. Max stepped out of the darkness followed by two incredibly beautiful young blonds—the male was slightly taller than his sister, both were nude except for pants, both as perfectly muscled as a Michelangelo statue.

  Immediately, the three newcomers crowded around Sylvan and she stroked each of them in turn.

  “What have you found?” Sylvan asked.

  “There are seven inside, Alpha,” Max said. “Including the one we tracked from the park across from the Vampire’s lair.”

  “And you’re sure that one is the shooter?”

  “Yes, Alpha,” the blond female answered briskly. “His scent is thick with silver. Blowback from the ammunition he used.”

  “Well done, centuri.” Sylvan gripped the shoulders of the two young lieutenants. “Jace. Jonathan. Welcome to my guard.”

  Brother and sister immediately dropped to one knee and touched their foreheads to Sylvan’s thighs. She caressed them briefly, then urged them up. “Max, take Jace and Jonathan and secure the rear. Andrew and Niki—with me.” She spread her arms wide. “Come, my wolves. To the hunt.”

  Drake tried to watch the centuri shift, but all she could discern was a faint shimmering before their shadows blurred in a dark, hypnotic dance. Within seconds, it seemed, Sylvan was surrounded by five fierce wolves. A huge gray—Max; a lean, muscular red-gray—Niki; a svelte red—Andrew; two white and grays—Jace and Jonathan. Only Sylvan remained in skin form, and yet she seemed no less dangerous or less powerful than the animals who crowded against her.

  “I’m coming with you,” Drake said.

  “No. I can’t risk losing you.” Sylvan dragged Drake forward and kissed her ferociously. “Wait in the Rover. I love you.”

  “Sylvan!” Drake called as Sylvan loped away, as graceful as her wolves. From deep inside, Drake heard—felt—her other self call to her, claiming her place. Sylvan must not go alone. Her midnight wolf was the sky to Sylvan’s star. She knew her destiny and what she must do.

  Drake took a step, then another, then she was running. Running free. The hot summer air danced across her tongue, carrying teasing hints of prey scurrying in the underbrush, the acrid taste of drug-frenzied rogues, the sharp tang of the centuri. And the powerful, hot rush that was Sylvan. Drake covered the ground in huge, bounding strides and reached Sylvan’s side just as Sylvan prepared to breach the warehouse doors.

  Welcome, mate. Sylvan reached down and buried her fist in Drake’s ruff. Together, they leapt at the door and crashed it inward, Niki and Andrew soaring past them to land in the midst of a startled ragtag group of rogues. Most were half naked, covered in haphazard remnants of tattered clothing. Several looked and smelled sick. Three males carried automatic rifles, and as they brought the weapons to their shoulders, Niki, Andrew, and Drake launched themselves as one.

  Drake didn’t think. Her only imperative was to protect her mate.

  The guard went down with her teeth in his neck, and she shook her head and shoulders with instinctive ferocity. He went limp and she dropped him, racing back to Sylvan’s side. Niki and Andrew drifted toward the shadows on either side of Sylvan. The other rogues had all run, leaving a single blond male standing in a shaft of moonlight that filtered through a broken skylight high above them. Unlike the other renegades, he looked fit and healthy. His dark shirt and pants hugged his muscular frame as if tailor-made. His sharp blue eyes were clear and filled with hatred.

  “Sergi Milos,” Sylvan snarled, her voice echoing throughout the cavernous space. “Your mutts
called you Rex.” She laughed. “You could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve that name. But you won’t have the chance.”

  “Just like your mother,” Rex sneered. “You let your centuri fight for you. Now I’ll kill you just like I killed her.”

  “You already failed.” She spread her arms, displaying her unblemished torso. “Only a coward uses bullets instead of teeth and claws.”

  “Your Pack should be mine,” Rex raged.

  “Is that what the Blackpaw Alpha promised you when you led the raid against my mother? When you ambushed her?”

  “Her guards were lucky and managed to defeat my lieutenants, or I would already be Alpha. Bernardo promised me half of your territory.”

  “Bernardo ordered your execution as part of the new treaty after the failed campaign against us.”

  “Bernardo is a weakling.” Rex laughed. “As you can see, he failed to put me down.”

  “I won’t.” Sylvan growled. “You destroy your own species with drugs. You’re not fit to lead anyone.”

  Rex trembled with anger. “When I put you down like the bitch you are, I will claim the Timberwolf Pack and all its territory.”

  “I accept your challenge,” Sylvan said softly. “Here and now.”

  Rex’s eyes flickered around the room. “You ambushed my guards. I have no witnesses.”

  Max appeared behind Rex, dragging two stunned Were guards with him. He tossed the male and female onto the littered floor. “Here are your witnesses.”

  “Shift,” Sylvan ordered, “and bring your challenge.”

  With a vicious snarl, Rex’s face contorted and then his body transformed. Not as fast as the centuri had shifted, but within a minute, a huge white wolf with mad dark eyes stood slavering a few yards from Sylvan.

  Drake caught her breath, wondering why Sylvan, her face completely calm and composed, remained in skin while allowing her enemy to assume his stronger wolf form. Then with no warning, Rex launched himself at Sylvan’s throat, jaws snapping. But Sylvan was no longer the standing target he had anticipated. Instead, a silver wolf collided with him in midair, grabbing his neck in her jaws as she undercut the arc of his leap. His claws raked her chest and underbelly and blood drenched her silver pelt. Drake growled, quivering, barely able to restrain her instinct to propel herself into the fray. But Sylvan was her Alpha and her mate, and she trusted her, believed in her. Drake held her ground, growling threateningly when one of the rogues would have crawled away.

  Rex was heavier than Sylvan by forty pounds, but despite the blood streaming from her wounds, Sylvan’s jaws locked tight, her wolf-gold eyes molten with fury. The wolves crashed to the floor, their bodies a roiling mass of muscle and blood. The air vibrated with their growls of rage. Rex tore at Sylvan’s soft flank, trying to dislodge her.

  Drake felt the searing pain as his teeth sliced Sylvan’s side. Infuriated by his attack on her mate, Drake reached out to Sylvan with her heart and mind, sending all her love and strength. Now, love. Take him now.

  With a tremendous burst of force, Sylvan wrenched her head viciously back and forth, tearing Rex’s neck open in a froth of crimson.

  He dropped onto his back, convulsing in her grip. Straddling his twitching body, Sylvan raised her blood-spattered head and howled in victory. She glimmered with power and pride in the moonlight.

  Drake trembled with a surge of joy at her mate’s triumph and joined her voice to Sylvan’s. While the centuri echoed their cries, the rogue Weres cowered on the floor, their heads down, puddles beneath their legs. Sylvan swung her great head around, searching for Drake. When their eyes met, her pelt receded and she staggered upright. Without any thought to shifting, Drake simply rose up to meet her, her wolf quietly retreating. She took Sylvan into her arms, Sylvan’s hot blood painting her breasts and abdomen. Niki crowded close to Sylvan, her muzzle drawn back in a snarl as she guarded Sylvan’s injured flank. Sylvan shuddered in Drake’s embrace.

  “How badly are you hurt?” Drake said, too softly for the others to hear. She stroked Sylvan’s back and would have cradled Sylvan’s head on her shoulder if the rogues had not been watching.

  “I’m all right. Already healing.” Sylvan rubbed her cheek over Drake’s. “I felt you with me.”

  “Yes. Forever. I promise.”

  Sylvan’s blue eyes clouded with pain. “He killed my mother.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “He must have gone to ground before the order of execution could be carried out. Now she has been avenged.” Sylvan sighed and draped her arm around Drake’s shoulders. “Rex’s masters will no doubt replace him by morning. Evil seems to be in endless supply.”

  “You’ve defeated a challenger.” Drake gestured to the two rogues on their knees a few feet away, still guarded by the centuri. “They’ve witnessed your kill and others will hear of it. You’ve sent the message that you will defend your Pack to the death.”

  “I am afraid there will always be another battle, mate,” Sylvan said.

  “And when it comes, Alpha,” Drake murmured before kissing her, “we’ll all be at your side.”

  “As long as you are with me, I can face any challenge.”

  “Always, my love. Always.”

  Keep reading for a special preview of BLOOD HUNT, the next book in L.L. Raand’s Midnight Hunters series.

  BLOOD HUNT

  BY L.L. RAAND

  Coming Winter 2010

  Detective Jody Gates watched Dr. Marissa Sanchez orgasm in the arms of a newly turned Vampire for the third time in as many hours. Marissa moaned, her hips undulating, each time Lara pulled from the punctures she had made in Marissa’s neck. Jody recognized the soft cries and urgent pleas signaling Marissa’s climax, and bloodlust surged in her depths. Until recently she had been the one to feed from Marissa’s neck and the one releasing the hormones that made Marissa come. She rarely allowed Marissa to host for her any longer, even though Marissa always offered whenever they bumped into each other at the city morgue or at Club Nocturne, where Jody usually sated her hunger with a willing host. Unfortunately, Marissa equated the intense physical pleasure of providing life-sustaining blood with an emotional connection that Jody, like most Vampires, did not feel. Jody might orgasm in the rush of heat and power that subsumed her when she fed, but the reaction was purely physical.

  Invariably, humans, and even some Weres, came to want more from a relationship than Jody could provide. She contented herself in knowing that hosts experienced shattering orgasms while she sated her bloodlust. She had learned to move on before her blood partners sought more than pleasure.

  Marissa cried out, clutching Lara’s back as she rode the hand buried deep between her thighs. The allure of sex and blood saturated the air. Jody’s stomach roiled and her vision shimmered. She hadn’t fed since before sunrise, and now it was late evening. Her hunger was riding her hard, and the rich aroma of sex and blood threatened her control. Her incisors unsheathed as she broadcast her need.

  Across the room, Marissa’s eyes snapped open, searching for her.

  “Jody,” Marissa whispered, her voice a plea. She stretched out an arm in invitation, then abruptly, her eyes rolled back and she went limp in Lara’s arms.

  “That’s enough,” Jody warned. When Lara kept feeding, Jody leapt quickly to the bed and cupped one hand beneath Lara’s chin, pulling her mouth away from Marissa’s neck. “Stop.”

  “No!” Lara whipped her head around, her eyes an inferno of red and gold. Vampire and Were. Lara was one of the wolf Alpha’s centuri—Sylvan Mir’s elite guard. A dominant female and one of the strongest Weres in the Timberwolf Pack. Just the day before, during an assassination attempt on Sylvan, Lara had taken most of a fusillade of silver bullets in the chest. Her heart had been destroyed, and even though the Alpha had torn the poisonous silver from Lara’s body, Lara had lost too much blood to heal her wounds. Lara had sacrificed herself for her Alpha.

  Jody still didn’t know why she had offered her own blood to s
ave the Were. She had no particular fondness for Weres. Unlike the Fae, the Mage, and the Psi, Vampires and Weres did not rely on magic and extrasensory abilities to stay alive. Vampires and Weres were predatory creatures whose survival depended upon physical power and dominance. They were more often rivals than allies.

  Lara had thrown herself in the path of the bullets meant for Sylvan—any Were would have done the same. The instinct to protect the Alpha was a primal force. But Jody hadn’t expected to see the wolf Alpha risk her own life trying to save one of her guards.

  Watching Sylvan fight for Lara’s life while blood poured from multiple wounds in Sylvan’s torso bore stark witness to a critical connection Jody had never experienced. No Vampire would have chanced their existence for an underling. Probably not even for a family member. So she had offered her own blood to keep Lara alive long enough to heal. Lara, however, had been so close to death she hadn’t been able to replenish her own blood stores, incorporating Jody’s instead. She had turned and was now a chimera, both Were and Vampire. Lara, like Jody—like all Vampires living or risen—was dependent on the ferrous carrier compounds in human and Were blood to supply oxygen to her tissues. Without it, her own blood would slowly empty of the essential elements needed to sustain life and she would suffocate—one cell at a time.

  Lara was Jody’s responsibility now—hers to protect and control while Lara learned to satisfy her needs without killing her hosts in the throes of bloodlust. Even for powerful, experienced Vampires like Jody, the urge to absorb every ounce of heat and strength a host could provide was hard to restrain. For a newly turned Vampire, the bloodlust was so exquisitely painful, the need to feed so overpowering, they would leave a trail of bodies behind them until they were hunted down and destroyed. Jody would not allow one of her line to devolve into an animal.