Wolf Hunter

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

So, what about Matt Wilson, his current guide? It was obvious that the detective not only knew his way around this area, but also knew about the hunters. Wilson hadn’t seemed surprised when Cameron had told him to watch his back in the bar.

  Wilson knew about Abby. He had to. If a new wolf like himself perceived the wolf in her, a more complex version of Were must have easily picked up on the thing huddled inside her.

  Who the hell was this Wilson guy, anyway? It was a damn shame that furred-up werewolves couldn’t ask questions.

  I’m sorry, Abby had said. Because she found Weres for the hunters.

  He and Wilson ran, over the grass and between the trees. The detective’s T-shirt had been a good choice. Black and stretchy, it handled the pile-up of Were muscle while providing good camouflage. His own white shirt had to be like a flash of neon out here to onlookers. Unbuttoned, the shirt flapped open, hitting his sides as he ran and allowing him room to breathe.

  Breathing was good.

  Though the detective had said there was a target painted on Cameron’s back, losing the shirt didn’t seem like such a good idea. He had no idea where they’d end up, or what might happen when they got there. But he longed to be free of all restrictions. His wolf liked to let it all hang out.

  Wilson proved himself to be fast on his feet. Cameron worked to keep up as the brown Were sprinted over unused pathways without bothering to give Cameron a glance, probably confident in his leadership skills.

  Should he trust this guy?

  Could he trust anybody with a secret that needed constant protection?

  The route Wilson chose ran north after skirting the winding alleys of brick and block walls. He didn’t head for the streets. Instead, after barreling through a narrow maze of high walls, Wilson finally veered toward one of those walls, leaped up onto it with the agility of an orangutan, and waited there, outlined by moonlight that showed off his massive size and mounds of flexing muscle.

  With a running jump, Cameron followed.

  They walked along the top of that wall for a short distance before Wilson gestured to him and dropped into a yard on the other side. Landing beside the brown wolf in a crouch, with his hands on the ground and his head lifted, Cameron saw a small stucco outbuilding close by, lit by yellow lamplight.

  Wilson loped toward that building as though the word home had been etched there in invisible ink. But the place had a strange flavor to it, and a thick, fragrant scent pervaded the night.

  Other than having been exposed to the wolves of the criminal pack, Cameron had never come across anything like the feel of this place. The small building in front of him and the area surrounding it housed more than one wolf, for sure. Had Matt Wilson from Miami Metro’s Homicide division brought him to the home turf of a werewolf pack?

  His head spun with shocked thoughts of how many more Weres there could possibly be in Miami.

  The question now was whether this pack would turn out to be friends, or foes.

  * * *

  “Hold it right there.”

  Sam Stark, dressed in black from his cap to his boots, slid in front of Abby. His prematurely gray hair glinted in the moonlight as he spun her around.

  Abby hated what Sam might be thinking.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Abby?”

  “I got caught.”

  Lying would be the only way out of this. She’d have to save the information dump and the chastisement of his actions for later. The trick at the moment would be getting Sam to believe her invented tale, so that he’d leave her alone.

  “Got too close,” she said. That much was true.

  Sam brought her closer with a sharp snap of one arm. “Too close to what?”

  “Them.” The weakness in her voice had to be a side effect of oxygen debt. She was winded.

  Sam’s tone lowered. “One of the monsters did this to you? Out here?” His scrutiny became feral. “It didn’t...”

  “It only shredded my pants. I ditched the shirt because it had their filthy claw marks all over it.”

  Her shudders were real, and convincing.

  Sam’s right hand grasped the front of the leather jacket. “What’s this?”

  “One of the cops tossed it to me.” Also the truth.

  After looking around, Sam’s attention returned with the intensity of a hungry hawk. “What cop? Where is he?”

  “I didn’t get his name. He helped me, and chased them off. I think he went for backup.”

  “Shit, Abby. We don’t need cops out here tonight. You know that.”

  When Sam moved his hand, the jacket creaked with the sound of soft, worn leather and emitted a familiar musky, masculine scent Abby preferred not to inhale too deeply.

  “What did he see, girl? That cop?”

  “Nothing, other than me running away and looking like this. I told him some jerks tore my clothes to humiliate me, and that I escaped.”

  She had seen the expression Sam now wore a hundred times or more. His wide face creased. Pale blue eyes narrowed. “Why were you out here?”

  Words failed her. When confronted with the full force of her father’s moody inquisition, the lies seemed flimsy in explaining her presence in the park on the night Sam’s hunters prowled. She had never come along, and this point was bound to be a stickler for Sam.

  “Maybe you met that cop from the wake at the bar, the one pestering you? You didn’t come back in. Did he follow you?”

  “No one followed me. I made sure of that.”

  Sam wasn’t going for it.

  “I didn’t go through the park, Sam. Wolves were skimming the street, not far off the boulevard.”

  That got his attention. Sam’s expression changed to reflect his displeasure over that information. His cell phone came out of a pocket quickly. He punched a button and barked one word. “West.”

  To Abby he issued a second command. “Get back. Close things up. Take a shower and make sure you don’t have one single visible mark on you. Stay inside. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Taking off with his gun drawn, he said over his shoulder, “You should have known better than to come out tonight. Damn it, girl, haven’t I taught you anything?”

  Then he was gone.

  Abby thought seriously about sitting down, right there behind Sam’s disappearing back, and without a care as to who else roamed beneath the treacherous moonlight. She held back the urge to shout “Yeah. Thanks for the concern, Dad.”

  She wasn’t really sure what he had meant with the cryptic warnings, other than to suggest that if she had been bitten or scratched, she might become one of the creatures Sam despised. That’s the way Cameron had been infected.

  Well, it was too damn late for worrying about that.

  Or...possibly Sam had meant that after all this time of tension between father and daughter, he’d finally have a justifiable reason to be rid of her if she again ignored a direct order. He hadn’t even tried to hide his anger.

  Thank heavens he hadn’t noticed the bandage on her thigh.

  A potent impulse came to think of better things. Only one came to mind: an image of a golden-bronze werewolf with eyes like fire—a picture etched in her mind and seared into her system. She had seen Cameron shape-shift. She had observed it all, felt it all...Cameron’s features twisting in pain. His body suffering greatly. Chills returned with the memory of the sound of his realigning bones.

  In spite of that terrible event and the weakness in her knees, and after witnessing two Weres emerging from the shadows in full wolfed-up glory, Abby stood where Sam had left her, scanning the dark. With her heart tapping out a ferocious rhythm and her limbs restless, she looked up at last, into the light.

  “Damn it, Sam.” The words came slowly, and with effort. “You’re a fool, and you know nothing.”

  * * *

  Two people rose from creaking wicker chairs when Matt Wilson reached the porch attached to the building he obviously knew well. One of those people—male, tall, with the chiseled features of a Vik
ing and blond hair that fell to his shoulders—cautioned the woman beside him to hold back with a slight lift of one hand.

  Cameron’s gaze moved to the woman. Small, and light of bone, her hair was the first thing he noticed. It was very dark brown, almost black, and hung halfway to her waist in a sleek mass that picked up the moonlight when she turned her head. Her eyes were big, her skin olive. She was dressed in black.

  Cameron caught the scent. Both of these people were Weres.

  “Wilson. We’ve been waiting,” the fair-haired man said.

  Wilson leaped onto the porch, taking the steps three at a time. As soon as he landed beside the two others, his reversal began, the shift as smooth as if Wilson were made of swirling liquid instead of muscle and bone. The cracks and snaps of muscle and sinew didn’t startle the other two people, because neither of them was human.

  Cameron cringed as Wilson’s face reverted to its angular human features. When Wilson rolled his shoulders, ridding himself of a last bit of stiffness, the detective said, “They’re out again tonight.”

  The other man nodded without taking his attention from Cameron. “And who is this?”

  “His name’s Mitchell. Cop.”

  The fair-haired Were nodded. “Is Mitchell the first name, or the last?”

  Wilson waved Cameron forward. “He can answer that one himself in a minute.”

  Yeah, he might be able to talk in a few seconds, if he was Wilson. And just who were these people?

  He didn’t relish changing shape in front of strangers. He had a hard enough time dealing with the pain of a reversal on his own.

  Wilson, apparently possessing the ability to read minds, said, “Excuse us, Mitchell. You probably need some space. Come with me and you’ll get it.”

  The detective led the way around the side of the building, which looked to be some kind of watch station or a decent-size guard gate for a mansion that may or may not be hidden in the distance. That’s the impression Cameron got, anyway. It seemed to him that the two Weres on the porch were keeping track of things and awaiting Wilson’s word on...what? Things that lay beyond the relative security of that eight-foot wall? Information on the hunters? Picking up stray Weres in the moonlight?

  Though he was stunned by the fact that there were more creatures like him, and not at all sure about where Wilson had brought him, Cameron supposed that any Were in the area that had been around awhile sporting a fur coat had to know about the hunters, which proved that as a new wolf, he had a lot of catching up to do.

  “You coming?” Wilson said over his shoulder.

  These Weres appeared to be friendly enough. At least they hadn’t tossed him back over the wall. Yet. Surely, though, as wolves, they’d want to get off that porch and into the moonlight. They would seek the light that seeped into them with its seductive silvery call.

  Maybe they took turns.

  “Mitchell. This way.”

  Cameron temporarily gave up the attempt to see through things and ended up beside Matt Wilson in a small yard. A solid roof of crossed beams and tile shingles lay to his right, as a temporary respite from the light.

  Cameron’s body shivered in reaction to the enclosed space, which put him immediately on guard.

  “It’s private,” Wilson explained from under that roof, seeming once again to have mind-reading tendencies. “There are other places, but for now this is safer. I thought you might like to be near the cottage. The area is protected around here. Trust me on that, if nothing else. Sam Stark and his hunters don’t have a clue about what goes on behind this particular wall, and wouldn’t like what they found if they nosed around where they were unwelcome.”

  After turning to go, Wilson paused. “She’s one of them, you know. Always has been.” Then he disappeared around a corner, leaving Cameron to think this over without the addition of strange, prying eyes.

  He saw clearly that Wilson possessed information he needed. In order to get it, he had to be able to talk. In order to take Wilson up on the offer of hospitality, he’d have to stay for a while.

  Gritting his canines, Cameron’s lids fluttered closed. Without Wilson’s presence, the walled area seemed as remote as another universe. Still, shifting in close proximity to the others felt like the ultimate perversion. Like sharing something too personal. Like doing something truly unnatural in a natural world. And it was a lot like exposing himself, naked, in a crowd.

  The wolf’s hypersensitivity immediately noted the dimensions of the space and where the exits were located. Wolf knew how many inches from the light he needed to be in order to refuse the moon’s call, and didn’t like what Cameron was going to do.

  But it really was necessary.

  With a violent intake of breath, Cameron shed the negatives of the situation and willed himself inward. Straining with every ounce of willpower he possessed, he pulled his muscles into a state of overstrung tightness.

  Patches of fur began to suck inward through his pores, tickling nerve endings before getting serious about pain. His shoulder muscles fired up and started to sting. More fire spread along the back of his neck, spilling onto his upper back and chest. Each bone of his spine became a hot, glowing coal as it began the compression process.

  Limbs quaked with a series of rocking convulsions until standing upright became difficult. Breath was cut off as a rush of sickness rose up from his twisted, churning gut, only to get stuck in his seizing throat.

  Flinging his arms wide to shake off the wolf, Cameron slowly began to feel more like himself, but the beat of the wolf’s heart, amped by strain, continued for minutes, hard and steady and fast. He was uncertain, and out of his element.

  He turned his thoughts to benign normal things. Unwolfish things. The feel of his crisp uniform at work. His face in the mirror. The comfort of his home, and the cleansing gift of a long, cool shower. The meditative images began to work. His heartbeat finally calmed, descending on a sliding scale until he remembered something else: a pair of emerald-green eyes meeting his, and piling fire on top of fire.

  Abby.

  He saw her as if she were there. Her pale body in the moonlight. The long legs and bare chest. The puckered nipples he hadn’t gotten to sample, and the feel of the hot triangle of fur between her legs that had seduced him into forgetting himself and his agenda.

  Near the finale of this absurd transformation, his body craved hers with an intensity so far out of bounds as to be totally uncontrollable.

  Abby.

  She made him feel beastly.

  Damn it, he had to lose those thoughts about her. In order to process what was going on, he had to be able to think straight, and memories of Abby Stark didn’t help. From these three Weres, he’d find out about werewolves and their deal with the moon. Finally, he would get to ask about what had really happened to him and how to move forward.

  With a last-ditch battle between breath and willpower, Cameron finally tamed the beast. Popping sounds ceased. Pain eased back to a more neutral and acceptable territory. His face bones melted back to normal with one last sting.

  But his craving for Abby Stark didn’t dissipate when the wolf did. That craving got a whole lot worse.

  Pressing the hair back from his face, then rubbing his forehead with clawless fingers, Cameron waited nervously in the new surroundings. An almost nonexistent breeze ruffled through his hair. He heard the scrape of chairs on wooden floorboards. Somewhere out there, pretty far away, a howl went up. Was it a sound of wildness? Joy? Hatred? Happiness or despair? Could hybrid humans ever be truly happy with their lot?

  Although his mouth opened to return the call, his vocal cords didn’t respond. The wolf had been suppressed for the time being.

  With a glance at the cottage, and at the walls beyond it, Cameron spoke out loud. “Don’t blow this.” But he remained motionless, drawn by a perceived whisper in the dark. At least, he thought it was a whisper. Hers.

  Of course, he reasoned, it was entirely possible the sound wasn’t hers at all, and only the ec
ho of madness, closing in.

  Chapter 12

  “Shit.”

  One cuss word just didn’t do the trick. Three repetitions hardly made a dent in releasing some of Abby’s anxiousness.

  She had to circumvent the hunters, avoid a replay with Sam and ignore her father’s direct order to return to the bar. In order to accomplish all that, she’d become the rebel she had always hid for the sake of peace in shared Stark space. The time had long passed for the real Abby to make an appearance, revealing who she was and what she wanted to do. That Abby wanted to find a werewolf...for something other than its pelt.

  “I know you’re out there. Can you hear me?”

  Her remark was a déjà-vu moment from twenty-four hours before, and her tie to Cameron would not lie down and die. Messy emotions had been building inside her for some time, she supposed, but her meeting with Cameron had brought them to a head.

  Had finding Cameron Mitchell been an accident?

  “Head back to the bar? Not on your life.” She was adamant about that. So, where to go? Where to start the search for her new identity and all that came with it? No way could she just stop and shout for Cameron Mitchell to come and get her, after telling him she’d be okay. Not with danger close at hand. Hunters were all over this park. More than one wolf trespassed here, too, some of them cop killers.

  She knew that Cameron hadn’t gone far. Her body told her this. The night vibrated with his presence as if he’d left a trail of energy behind.

  Another thing was clear. Sam had to be stopped from killing good Weres along with the bad. Probably the hunting business needed to cease completely, since determining which wolf was which would be a risky endeavor without interrogations.

  Sam had to stop his dreadful games, and she had to make this happen. She might be Sam’s daughter, and might have dreaded that relationship for more years than she could count, but she had learned a thing or two from the tough old buzzard—like when to trust her gut.

  She lifted her head, hearing the unmistakable sound of gunshot in the distance. If Sam had succeeded in bagging a wolf so soon, there was no telling who that wolf might be.