The Black Wolf

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Of course, there was nothing strange about someone taking a nighttime swim, so he should just turn around and head home. But the feeling of stumbling onto the mystery that had called him here had gotten stronger, along with that unidentified scent.

  Using the special abilities that allowed all Weres to see in the dark with more precision than their human counterparts, Rafe stared hard at the woman near the shore, even though his mind issued a warning about infringing upon her privacy.

  The moonlight shone on the water behind her, presenting him with her slim silhouette. Her legs were slender. Long wet hair cascaded over bare shoulders.

  Though Rafe couldn’t see the woman’s face in the dark, even with his considerable Were talents, he knew she was looking straight at him with the same kind of scrutiny. The intensity of her attention was electric.

  “You all right?” he called out. “Are you alone? The tides can be quite treacherous for anyone swimming solo.”

  The mermaid offered no response.

  “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Rafe said. “Sorry if I interrupted whatever you were doing.”

  Maybe she thought he was some kind of pervert for staring at her. Could he blame her? On the other hand, if she did turn out to be a mermaid...

  He shook his head sharply, clearing away that ridiculous notion. Again, though, he got the funny feeling this woman was connected to what brought him out here tonight in the first place. Since there was no one else around, he had to consider that she could very well be ground zero for the sensations running through him.

  He didn’t see a towel or a pile of clothes that might belong to her on the sand. She made no move to turn away or cover her bareness with her arms. Being naked all alone was one thing. Being naked on a public beach was another.

  “Do you need something to wear? Maybe someone took your clothes while you enjoyed your swim?” he asked.

  The woman didn’t speak. Her earthy, not quite identifiable exotic scent floated around her like a cloud.

  “You can have this.” Rafe removed his shirt and held it out to her, then shook it as an enticement for her to take his offering.

  “Fine.” He lowered his arm when she made no move toward him. “But you really can’t walk around like that. Not here.”

  “Why?”

  Her question rendered him speechless for a few beats. She had a deep, throaty voice unlike any he had heard lately. Sort of a whisper. Almost a purr. It moved the wolf buried deep inside him with the kind of physical response usually reserved for a full moon.

  Rafe shook that off, too. “You might scare the tourists,” he managed to say. “Or receive a proposition or two that you find offensive.”

  When the woman shook her head, her waist-length wet hair swirled. Though he wanted to see more of her, Rafe figured she already thought he was a perv.

  “There are no strings attached. The shirt is a gift.”

  “I don’t know you,” she said.

  The sexiness of her tone produced a strange fluttering sensation in his chest, which Rafe also found absurd given the circumstances. Hell, he wasn’t going to arrest her for indecent exposure, because he was the only one out here at the moment, and honestly, what he could see of her was quite decent. What he had to do was to go away and leave her alone.

  And yet her rapt attention kicked his pulse upward another notch, and the air between them seemed to be charged with ions like those preceding an oncoming storm system.

  There was danger here, his instincts warned. He had to tread lightly if he hoped to understand what that danger was.

  “I’m with the police,” he said to explain his continued presence.

  “And you’re a werewolf,” she returned with way too much insight and confidence.

  Rafe was stunned. “Werewolf, is it?”

  She spoke again. “I’ve heard that Weres around here have to try to fit in. You look human.”

  “Why would you think I’m anything other than human?” he asked.

  “Practice.”

  After waiting a few more heartbeats, Rafe said warily, “If I’m a werewolf, what does that make you for recognizing me as such?”

  “I guess I’m harder to define.”

  “Maybe you can try.”

  “I’ve been cautioned not to do that,” she said.

  “Who cautioned you?”

  “One of you.”

  “A werewolf, you mean, or a cop?” Rafe pressed.

  Although a cloud passed over the moon, bringing a brief, temporary dullness to the night, Rafe saw her nod her head.

  She said, “The ghost warned me.”

  Another spike of surprise struck Rafe. Though he didn’t have the specific details about this woman, her reply made who this had to be extremely clear to him. The scent that had drawn him here and the prickly premonitions about the possibility of danger finally came to a head. Mystery solved. One part of it, anyway.

  “You are Killion’s daughter,” he said.

  This was the female his pack was expecting. She was supposed to be an extremely rare kind of shape-shifter hybrid. Hell, maybe she could have been a mermaid.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What are you doing here, and without your companions?”

  Rafe connected this shapely vision in front of him with the text message he’d received from his father moments before. Cara Kirk-Killion must have escaped from her transport and her guards. His pack would be looking for her.

  “Those guys were responsible for your safe passage to the estate,” he continued.

  “I don’t need guards. Maybe you’ve heard why?”

  She didn’t give him time to reply. With a quick turn on her long legs, the female that everyone in their pack had been warned to avoid at all costs until proper introductions had been made...just walked back into the sea.

  Leaving Rafe to stare after her.

  * * *

  Cara didn’t stop to consider the possibility that the Were on the beach would follow her until she felt the pressure of a hand on her arm.

  The touch came as a shock. No one had dared to touch her in the past for fear of what kind of shape she would end up in and how far into their souls she could see. One touch was all it took for her to adapt her form to the shape of whatever kind of being had reached out. Sometimes all it took for her to shift her shape was closeness, eye contact or a connecting thought.

  Once she had melded to their shape, she could read them easily and see into their souls. She could at times predict their futures and understand their needs.

  This Were had broken with tradition. Possibly he didn’t know better than to get too close to a member of the Kirk-Killion clan. Yet if he knew about her guards and the estate, he had to belong to the Landau pack and be privy to their secrets.

  “It isn’t safe out here,” he warned, letting his hand drop.

  “It’s never safe,” Cara replied, longing to get back to the silence and buoyancy of deep water, dreading having to go to the Landau place, where more Weres like this one awaited her arrival and she would be fenced in.

  “I mean that if you’re as special as everyone seems to believe you are, you’d be a hot commodity around here and possibly hunted for your many talents,” the Were said. “It’s not safe to be on your own in a strange city.”

  Cara still felt the burning sensation of his hand as if his fingerprints had been stamped on her skin. Did he also feel the heat? Had the call already gone out about the necessity of finding her?

  More time was what she needed. Time to herself. Time with the water, which had been lacking at her family’s inland estate. Time to experience a few more precious moments without the shackles of Were society.

  “I’ll take you there,” the Were beside her said, skipping over all of the things they hadn’t yet mentioned about why she was in Miami and h
ow she had gotten away from the guards. “To the house,” he added.

  She had escaped one net only to be ensnared by another. The big Were next to her, with his moon-streaked brown hair, lean, muscular build, chiseled features and light eyes, looked capable enough of handling any surprises that were in store.

  Because he was in human shape tonight, Cara maintained her human countenance. She also kept her voice. However, she sensed the wolf curled up inside this guy as if it were her own and knew that it was strong, like hers. Being near him messed with her delicate equilibrium. She was drawn to him without knowing why.

  He looked at his hand suddenly, as if he also felt the burn caused by one brief, simple touch. Then he glanced back up at her.

  “I don’t like being caged,” Cara said, watching him closely, observing how he fisted his hand and the way the wind played with strands of his hair. He was as good-looking as her father, with prominent cheekbones and wide-set eyes. He was tall, with broad shoulders and moonlight-dappled golden skin. All of those things reinforced the Were’s wolfish nature, and yet he wasn’t a full-blooded member of the species. Human blood also ran in his veins; she perceived the slightest hint of an altered fragrance. One of his parents had, at one time or another, been human.

  “That’s what you believe will happen when you accept our hospitality?” he asked. “You’d be caged?”

  His voice disturbed her with its low, cautious, controlled quality. The Were’s earthy, masculine vibe caused another new ruffle in her widening awareness of the world outside her family’s gates. This was her first time meeting a male Were who looked as if he might not be too much older than herself.

  “Why else would my parents shun this place and everyone in it, if not that for the fact that they no longer fit in?” Cara replied.

  “From the stories I’ve heard, your parents withdrew from the rest of the pack because it was in their own best interest.”

  Yes. She knew that. But it was only a small part of why the Kirk-Killions had withdrawn. And she didn’t owe this Were any explanations.

  “I need time to get myself together,” she said. “It’s not easy for me to come out of the seclusion I’m used to.”

  To her surprise, her companion seemed to get that. After a brief silence, he nodded and said, “I’ll wait for you on the beach.”

  Cara didn’t know what to make of that. He was going to leave her alone for a while?

  “What if I swim away?” she asked.

  “Then you will be someone else’s problem.”

  He didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Cara heard how his pulse pounded with the effort it took for him to let her have her way. She had no doubt that he would come after her if she tried to leave the area, and that shaking off this guy might be a difficult task. The strength of his inner wolf and all those rippling muscles made him a worthy opponent.

  “Who are you?” she asked, more intrigued about him than she wanted to be.

  “Name’s Landau. Rafe Landau. And I can assure you that though my family’s estate has walls, those walls are there only to keep trespassers out.”

  Landau...

  The Miami pack was both run and protected by his family.

  She didn’t really believe in coincidences, and yet what were the odds she would run into a Were of this caliber so soon after ditching the guards his family had sent to bring her there?

  “Can you promise me that’s the truth? I won’t be a prisoner behind those walls?” she asked.

  “I can.”

  The handsome Were allowed one little thought to slip past his mental defenses, and Cara caught hold of it easily. Neither fear nor anger ruled Rafe Landau’s thoughts. He wasn’t afraid of her at all. When she saw the image he held in his mind, she smiled.

  “I could be one, you know,” she said. “If there were such creatures.”

  He was staring at her openly. His heart continued to pound.

  “Who knows?” she added. “Since you’re granting my wish by letting me explore the sea, maybe your wish will come true.”

  “What wish?” he asked, frowning.

  Cara’s answer was meant as a subtle warning of her power. This Were might be strong, but he wasn’t truly in control now that a werewolf-vampire-banshee hybrid like Cara Kirk-Killion was in Miami.

  “About mermaids,” she said as she dived beneath the next incoming wave.

  Chapter 3

  “Well, this is going to be a challenge,” Rafe muttered as Cara Kirk-Killion disappeared from sight. He feared that the word challenge didn’t begin to cover things.

  She was swimming away, and he wanted to go after her. What if she decided not to return? Would he let her go? Let her become somebody else’s business, as he’d said?

  Not likely.

  He found himself much too interested and curious about her. And besides, his family was responsible for her safety.

  Rafe ignored the tug of the outgoing tide on his legs. He needed more time to think. If Cara was anything like her parents, he could sympathize with her reluctance to meet the pack that had helped her family out of a jam so long ago.

  Rosalind and Colton had departed from Miami soon after a battle with a particularly nasty nest of vampires that had almost killed Cara’s father. Colton Killion had been so severely injured that he had ended up a rare ghost wolf—the name Weres had for survivors of such heinous, life-threatening attacks.

  Given Colton Killion’s state of health and his appearance after the attack, the wolf’s desire to go into seclusion was understandable. But in addition, from the stories Rafe had heard, Colton’s mate had turned out to be something even rarer than he was, making it even more necessary to retreat from the city. Now, Killion’s sole offspring was here, and heaven only knew what traits she possessed.

  Rafe walked farther up the beach and turned without taking his eyes off the ocean. Cara hadn’t seemed dangerous, but what did he know? Wasn’t it a fact that looks could be deceiving?

  He clutched his phone. The next step was to call and check in with his father, who would probably send a car to fetch her. But he didn’t do so. Not yet. Rafe empathized with her plight. Cara had to know how different she was and that his pack would be wary.

  Still, whatever other forms she could take, Cara was a wolf. Both of her parents had been full-blooded Lycans before the events that had changed them, and Lycans carried the purest blood in the Were world. His hand felt hot. His insides were feverish. It was likely that his wolf was reacting to that part of Cara. Was his desire to see her again due to obligation and the threat of danger in his own backyard, or did it have to do with meeting a new kind of being that he wanted to understand?

  Maybe she’d ditch him and appear somewhere else. If she did, where would she go?

  “I won’t call them,” he said as if she still stood beside him. Then he sent that same message silently through the telepathic channels all Weres used to communicate.

  “But I won’t go away,” he warned out loud.

  The return of the fluttery sensation in his chest made Rafe stand up straighter. It was as though Cara Kirk-Killion had heard his little speech and had placed her own silent comment inside his chest instead of his mind. She knew he was there, all right, and that he would be here when she decided to be reasonable. She was also letting him in on some of the special things she could do.

  The only question now was how long she might make him wait for another chance to see her, and if she already knew that was what he wanted most.

  * * *

  The Were wasn’t going away. Cara sensed his determination to corral the guest who was MIA and fulfill his obligation to the pack. She also sensed that he was genuinely interested in her for reasons of his own. This Were male had a different agenda. He seemed to be as curious about her as she was about him.

  She rode the crest of another wave, feeling extra
ordinarily light, but guilt over the promise to behave that she’d made to her father left her nauseous. Her family never broke their promises. Would she be the first to do so? If the Landaus’ walls didn’t keep her in line, her family’s reputation for integrity would.

  As the wave that brought her back to shore receded, Cara stood up. Taking a few steps forward to avoid the drag of the tide, she said to the Were on the beach, “You are persistent.”

  “Persistence is my middle name,” he returned. “I’ve been told it’s a virtue.”

  Cara didn’t wipe the water from her face, liking the coolness it provided. “You’ll take me to your pack yourself? You aren’t afraid of being alone with a member of my clan?”

  “Should I be afraid?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Then yes, I’ll drive you to the compound, if that’s all right with you,” he said.

  “Do I have a choice in the matter?”

  “I suppose you can do whatever the hell you want, though the invitation to be our guest stands,” he replied.

  She watched the tall Were brush sand from the hem of his jeans. In the moonlight, his bare shoulders appeared to be perfectly sculpted. She allowed her gaze to linger there.

  “One thing, though,” he said, glancing up. He held out his hand, offering her the damp shirt he had removed before wading into the water after her. “Nakedness won’t do if we meet anyone else on the way to the car. This is the best I can come up with unless you remember where you left your own clothes.”

  Cara glanced up the beach. “I came from that way.”

  He nodded. “Maybe you can wear the shirt until we find your stuff.”

  If she followed his suggestion, she would have to take the shirt from his hand...the same hand that had touched her and given her the first real thrill she could remember. She wasn’t sure she wanted another one. She was fiercely aware of his body, and the fire in his eyes held her strangely captive.

  She took another step, then paused. The Were’s scent saturated the shirt he held out to her, overwhelming her senses.