Wolf Hunter

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Was it going to be possible to convince Sam of anything? Had he ever been capable of love, empathy or real kindness?

  If Sam had loved her mother, no evidence of that love remained. There were no photographs of her mom, no sign in the house that Sonja Stark had ever lived above the bar with her husband and daughter. Sam never spoke of his wife. Abby knew nothing about the woman who died before her fifth birthday, except for sudden whiffs of scent, so like part of a memory or a dream, which now and then filled the hallway Sonja Stark must have walked through. A rosy, feminine perfume that had been a treasured comfort in times of sadness.

  The crack of another shot brought her around full circle, and shook Abby from motionlessness.

  Not Cameron. They couldn’t have found him. She wouldn’t let them hurt him.

  Gathering to run, Abby glanced sideways, sure she heard someone approaching.

  “Wolf, where are you? Can you hear me?” Her whisper was accompanied by a full body sway.

  When a howl echoed somewhere far off in the distance, Abby’s heart revved. “Is that you? Wait. Watch out.”

  Sprinting over the grass bordering the busy boulevard with her shredded jeans flapping, Abby formed a wish for the brown wolf’s loaned leather jacket, much too heavy for summer-night attire, to prove a magical talisman that would lead her to her lover.

  * * *

  “Leaving so soon?”

  The female’s voice, husky and low on the register, made Cameron turn back toward the building.

  “You’re free to do whatever you like, of course,” the dark-haired woman he’d seen on the porch said. “But we were hoping you’d talk to us first.”

  “I’m Cameron Mitchell.” They had asked for his first name, and he’d give them that. “And you are?”

  “Delmonico.”

  The name brought Cameron to attention. “Officer Delmonico?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “That fits me, and also my father before me.”

  “Jesus,” Cameron muttered.

  “No. Just Dana to my friends.”

  He couldn’t even smile at the remark. Nearly every cop on the force knew about this officer, at least in terms of her service regarding Miami’s criminal factor.

  “Do Weres make up the whole damn police department?” he asked.

  Delmonico shook her head. “Only a few.”

  “How did I not know that?”

  “How hard did you look?”

  “Not very hard at all. But I’ve heard of you.”

  “I didn’t do it.” Delmonico threw both hands in the air and smiled.

  Damn if he didn’t smile, too.

  “You helped to clean up that central park last year,” Cameron said, “taking down Chavez and the warehouse housing a brutal fight ring.”

  She appeared not to want to take any credit for that incident, and said simply, “I did my job, and what had to be done. Like we all do.”

  “You’ve been Were for a long time?”

  Moonlight beyond the roof’s edge shone in her dark hair when Delmonico shook her head. “No. My initiation came after that night, from a bite by another bad guy.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cameron said, meaning it.

  “And you, Mitchell? What’s your story?”

  “I sustained an injury a few months ago on the job that landed me here. It took some time to recover from that injury. I’m not sure I’m truly over it yet.”

  “Yeah, recovery is a bitch, and then some,” Delmonico agreed. “But here we are. And there are more of us than meets the eye. Come along and meet Dylan.”

  “The guy with the long hair?”

  “The werewolf who saved my ass.”

  Cameron put up a hand to stall Delmonico, and spoke without offering a prologue. “Why do I feel her as if she’s nearby, and as if she has become part of me?”

  He dropped the raised hand. “Sorry. That probably makes no sense at all, and you owe me nothing since we’ve just met.”

  Delmonico gave him a sideways glance and waited, as he had asked. “She?”

  The explanation flowed out of him. Pieces of it, anyway. “I met her last night and can’t rid myself of the memory, the feel and the scent of her, no matter how hard I try. She’s not here, and yet it’s as though she’s right around the corner.”

  Delmonico faced him fully. “Wolf?”

  “Maybe. Yes, I think so. I believe she doesn’t know about that. Hell, I could be wrong. I’m not used to my new self yet, or the sensations that go along with this new gig. I shouldn’t try to read others when I’m this messed up.”

  “Imprinting, Mitchell.” Showing no sign that his questions might be rude or unintelligible Delmonico merely inclined her head and continued. “I know about that. It happened to me.”

  “Imprinting? What does that mean?”

  “When two Weres have a meeting of the eyes that rings as being significant to each, the soul somehow becomes involved. It’s as though there’s a straight line connecting the eyes to what’s inside of us.”

  “But what does it mean?” Cameron repeated.

  “It means that you’re married, that you’re linked with that female until death do you part.”

  Cameron swallowed hard and tried to sound light. “As simple as that, huh?”

  “Oh, it’s not simple at all. When two Weres find each other—the right Weres, at the right time—biology takes a backseat to some kind of mystical wolf voodoo.”

  Cameron stared, confused, as Delmonico went on.

  “There aren’t any divorces in the Were world, so that until-death-do-you-part bit really means what it sounds like. If you’ve imprinted with another Were, you’re bonded until one or both of you die.”

  Did he nod his head as if he understood? Cameron wasn’t sure. He had to soak all of this in. “What if one Were doesn’t want to be bonded to the other one?”

  “Is that the case here, with you?”

  “I have no idea who she really is at this point. She certainly doesn’t know me.”

  “But you feel her when she’s not here.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re obsessed with her?”

  “Hell, yes. Obsessed.”

  “She doesn’t have any idea what you are? What you have become?”

  Cameron thought about that. Abby did know about him. He had changed his shape in front of her, showing her a werewolf up close, sharing his secret. He had perceived the wolf inside her and had felt its attention turn his way. Is that why he trusted her with his secret?

  From the first moment, he and Abby had been all over each other, craved each other, and that kind of special attraction actually had a name in the world of the Weres. They must have imprinted.

  And that meant Abby really was a Were.

  “She knows,” he said to Delmonico.

  “Voilà, and congratulations on finding your true mate. I’m told it doesn’t happen all the time, and that some wolves never do get to experience what it’s like.”

  She disclosed those things earnestly, leaving Cameron with the impression that Dana Delmonico really had experienced imprinting for herself. His thoughts turned to the Were with the long hair sitting close to Dana on the front porch of this place when he had arrived, and what an odd couple those two made, with their opposite size and coloring.

  “Wolf voodoo,” he muttered to himself. “No getting around it.”

  Delmonico pivoted on her small, bare feet. “It’s hell at first, being changed and torn from everything you thought made up your neat little life. But you’re not alone, Mitchell. Remember that. I’m sure Wilson brought you here so that you’d know the truth, and for coping skills you’ll need in the future.”

  “How did Wilson know I’m new at this wolf business?”

  “You wouldn’t have followed him here, otherwise.”

  He got that. He’d been easily swayed by the offer. So, what else was there for him to do except follow this other fellow officer, this she-wolf, and dare to meet the rest of his f
ate head-on?

  “Come on,” Delmonico said, turning back to the cottage.

  “Right behind you,” Cameron replied.

  Chapter 13

  Long after the crack of gunshot, the echo lingered, leaving a high-pitched ringing in Abby’s ears.

  She hadn’t stopped running, and had no real idea where to go, other than forward. Her surroundings had started to blur. She’d lost any real sense of other dangers, having concentrated so hard on finding some small trace of the werewolves she sought.

  Her current mind-set was dangerous. There had been at least three hunters in the bar with Sam earlier tonight, and maybe more than that. One hunter for each park quadrant, with herself hoping to elude those guys by sprinting through the middle.

  She doubted those hunters would recognize her in the dark, especially dressed like this. None of them knew her. Sam always kept his business associates and their identities to himself, as part of the deal.

  None of his associates stayed in the apartments with Sam and herself. She had served them in the bar that night, but would those hyped-up hunters be able to tell the difference between a furred-up werewolf and a woman out here on a mission? Her last injury, sustained somewhere around where she was right now, ached as the skin around it stretched with each stride.

  She’d been wounded by a gunshot, but refused to believe that Sam’s finger had been on the trigger, even after all was said and done. He hadn’t brought it up, and Sam Stark wasn’t the kind of man to let anything significant go by.

  Tonight, there were two sides to worry about. Hunters and werewolves. At the moment, she preferred to meet up with the latter.

  Why did werewolves like this park, anyway? Whatever the answer was made them frequent visitors. Did the grass contain some mysterious nutrient they absorbed through their feet? Was the air charged with positive ions, or did they merely crave the open spaces difficult to find in any busy metropolitan city, except for the relatively few acres of public park?

  Had those shots she’d heard been in their honor?

  Two shots.

  Refusing to consider that the Weres who’d left her minutes ago had been the aim of those bullets, she wondered who else had heard the gunfire. No police sirens blared. Nobody shouted or came from the street to inquire, because everyone around here had heard the old adage about curiosity killing the cat.

  Actually, curiosity didn’t often kill anything, other than boredom. Thugs, criminals, gangbangers and werewolves that had dived into the deep end of the mentally deficient gene pool did.

  Cameron Mitchell, possessing a dark secret that would likely get him killed if exposed, walked these few acres like some sort of supernatural guardian—keeping the peace, as she had always longed to do, only on the right side of the peacekeeping fence.

  Cameron carried a badge, and would be sexy in uniform. On the streets, with supernatural instincts, he’d be a force to be reckoned with.

  She ran on, unable to recall ever having been able to move so fast. Her bare feet were assaulted by twigs and other normally inconsequential debris as she cut across one edge of the mostly deserted space with her eyes and senses wide open.

  Perceiving an anomaly in the silence, Abby finally slowed. Someone with quick reflexes grabbed her from behind and slammed her to the ground, knocking the air out of her.

  “I told you to go home,” Sam growled, leaning over her with one knee on her chest and a steady hand on her shoulder.

  “So you followed me to make sure I did?”

  She had never openly defied her father in this way, and that fact registered in his angry, questioning expression.

  “I gave you an order, for your own safety.”

  “I didn’t want to go back home. The action is out here.”

  “Those actions have nothing to do with you, Abby.”

  “They have everything to do with me. You’d never find the wolves without my help and direction. I’m part of this.”

  “Am I supposed to be grateful, and cut you some slack? You’ve already had one mishap out here because of poor judgment. Will you go for two by meeting up with something far worse than a couple of loiterers out to cause trouble?”

  Sam snarled the words with an attempt to keep his temper under control, but his fingers dug deeply into her shoulder.

  “Are you saying you’d care if I got hurt, Sam?”

  Her father’s eyes bored into hers. Abby saw nothing of herself in them or his expression.

  “What’s wrong with you tonight, Abby? What are you doing? You’ll get yourself killed.”

  Sam’s questions and the angry tone behind them stirred emotions inside Abby that she had decided not to repress. Her own anger ignited.

  “Would you mourn me, Sam, if I died, or move on as if I’d never existed? Oh, wait. You’d have to work hard to find targets for your crew if I wasn’t around to point the way to the Weres.”

  Sam’s grip loosened enough for Abby to sit up, but she hadn’t finished with him. As he studied her, she said, “Tell me about my mother, and if you ever loved her.”

  Then, with the mention of her mother and the change that came over Sam’s face, Abby started to shake uncontrollably.

  * * *

  Matt Wilson stood on the cottage’s porch with his shoulder against a vertical beam. His badge gleamed in the soft glow of overhead light.

  Delmonico jumped two steps and gestured for Cameron to join her. She made no mention of their private conversation, and Cameron silently thanked her for that.

  “You must be Dylan,” he said to the Were Delmonico now stood beside. “Are you the host here? Is this your pack?”

  A grin lit Dylan’s handsome face. “I’d like to see anyone try to lord over Dana. Or Matt, for that matter. No, I’m not their Alpha. But we are a pack.”

  “Alpha.” Cameron repeated the word, setting its meaning in his databanks. He found the term pack only slightly less intimidating.

  “This is my home away from home,” Dylan continued, “and my father’s estate.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” Cameron said.

  “Any friend of Matt’s is a potential friend of mine. And Dana has already given you high praise.”

  Cameron looked to Delmonico, who hadn’t said anything on this side of the building. “How’s that?”

  “You’re still alive,” Wilson said. “That’s Dana’s version of an open-arm welcome.”

  A beat of time passed before Dylan laughed and Wilson joined him. But they cut the laughter short when they noticed Cameron’s sober expression, caused by a suspicion that they hadn’t actually been kidding.

  “Sorry.” Wilson moved toward the steps. “I’m sure you have questions. I know we do.”

  Cameron looked out at the dark. “I’ve been watching the park.”

  Dylan said, “We’ve seen you, and thought you might like to know that we do the same.”

  “You know what happened to me?”

  “We recognize what you are, just like you recognize us,” Dylan replied. “Maybe you’ll tell us about what happened to you sometime.”

  Dylan’s allusion to the possibility of Cameron being invited back here brought unexpected relief. There would be time to ask more questions.

  “You were all part of the big cleanup last year in the park?” He addressed this to all three Weres.

  “We did what we could.” That was Wilson, more or less repeating Dana Delmonico’s words.

  Cameron shifted his focus to the high walls surrounding the estate. “Do the bad guys make it this far?”

  “They try sometimes, but never manage to get in,” Dylan said.

  “What about the hunters?”

  “Ah, the hunters.” Dylan’s gaze joined Cameron’s on the walls. “They need a watchful eye, as well. Their numbers have been growing lately, in direct proportion to black-market demands for a sampling of our skin.”

  Cameron winced.

  “You didn’t know about that?” Dylan asked.

  Camer
on shook his head, not quite able to wrap his mind around the meaning, and deciding it would be better if he didn’t try.

  “They’re part of a growing contingent of people who know about us,” Dylan explained. “They hate criminal violence, just as we do, only they pick our species to chase down, and don’t know a bad werewolf from a hole in the ground. So, they justify the killings in another way. Dollars. You, Officer Mitchell, are potentially worth more to Sam Stark and his associates than you are to the Miami PD as a cop on this beat.”

  Stark. Sam Stark. That was the name Dylan had spoken. Stark was also Abby’s last name. He faced Matt Wilson with concern. “You said she’s one of them. How did you know that?”

  Wilson didn’t pretend to be ignorant of the person Cameron had asked about. “Abby Stark is the Big Kahuna’s daughter. If not actually killing wolves personally, she helps hunters in other ways that count.”

  Abby had confessed as much to him, so Cameron already knew about this, but not the full extent of her interaction with the people she called hunters. Or that her father led them.

  “She told me she finds wolves for those guys. She told me that tonight after warning me about the people in the bar. The hunters in the bar. Shit. The hunters in her father’s bar.”

  Wilson trained his eyes on Cameron’s face. “Did you give her that kiss from me, I wonder? Did she show you her blade?”

  These Weres knew a lot more about Abby than he did, it seemed, but not everything. Not the really big thing.

  “Yes, well, it makes one hell of a problem for a lot of us, along with the bad guys out there,” Dylan said, waving at the wall. “Although hunters leave little evidence of their kills, too many other dead things are turning up. Pretty soon someone will widen the search and investigate issues that shouldn’t concern them. Like who else patrols the parks and cleans up potential messes before law enforcement officials hear about them.”

  Sure, Cameron thought. With Weres in the police department and possibly elsewhere in the system, those Weres had advanced notice of hazardous issues and could tidily cover things up.

  “She will stop.” As soon as he issued that statement, Cameron recognized the truth of it. “Abby will stop helping the hunters.”