“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.
Cameron 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.”
“Why do you think so?” Wilson asked.
“Because,” Dana Delmonico said to the group in a low voice all the more noticeable for the quietness in it, “Abby Stark is one of us.”
That information virtually shut down the conversation until Dylan recovered sufficiently enough to address Delmonico’s remark.
“Sam Stark’s daughter is Were?”
“Maybe not fully, or not yet,” Cameron heard himself say. “Nevertheless, she now realizes she’s not like everyone else around her, and more like me. It can’t be long until she comes into her own. Her body wanted to change tonight, but she fought hard against it.”
Wilson slapped the wooden post beside him and said seriously, “Well, if that isn’t some kind of cosmic justice, I don’t know what is.”
Dylan required further confirmation. “You know this how?”
“By way of that kiss Wilson mentioned. Plus a whole host of other things.”
“You’re not mistaken?”
Cameron shrugged. “I’m pretty sure there’s no way to be mistaken about that. I might be new to this whole species thing, but I’ve already learned that a wolf recognizes other wolves.”
Dylan tossed Delmonico a thoughtful expression. Cameron observed how their eyes connected, and he relived the strike of the connection he and Abby had shared. Dylan and Dana Delmonico were indeed a couple. Seeing them, he fought a nearly overwhelming desire to go after Abby right then.
“This complicates matters,” Dylan said.
“And places her in jeopardy,” Delmonico added. “Imagine being the daughter of a major player in the wolf-hunting business, while becoming a wolf herself.”
Cameron suppressed the impulse to shout that he had to be on his way. Instead, in a managed calm-cop tone, and with a straight face, he said, “I need to get her out of there before her father finds out.”
Chapter 14
“Shut up,” Sam Stark said. “Shut your damn mouth. What the hell is wrong with you?”
With a groa
n of frustration, Abby shoved Sam’s hand away. She was bathed in moonlight, and had to escape. The light sank into her skin and down into her bones, icing muscle and marrow, producing sharp prickles of apprehension that bordered on pain.
“I guess that answers my question pretty clearly, Sam.”
Folding her knees, Abby flipped over and used her hands to steady herself, though steadying herself completely wasn’t in the picture. The shaking got rapidly worse, and Sam, who might have guessed the quakes were merely the effects of their heated confrontation, got to his feet without offering to help her up.
“You don’t know anything of the kind,” he said. “And you suppose that now is the time and place to have any discussion about family?”
“It’s as good a place as any.”
Abby’s fingers curled against her palms, her nails drawing thin lines of blood, the scent dispersing in the air, and in the moonlight, like dust motes caught in sunbeams.
She could not get to her feet. She felt weak and unnaturally winded.
“Get up,” Sam commanded. “It’s dangerous to stay here.”
“I’ll move when you tell me one thing I’ve asked you for.”
“Now you’ll bargain with me, Abby? It isn’t my health that’s at risk by remaining in one place looking the way you look.”
The shakes had gone internal, rocking Abby’s stomach and chest. She closed her eyes and tried to rally. Whatever had taken hold of her tonight threatened to turn her inside out. Was she sick? Flu? Summer cold? Some sort of virus? Was it nerves revving for battle?
A series of terrible images sprang to mind.
Cameron, in the moonlight. The way his pulsating body had exploded into masses of rippling muscle and his skin had danced like water over stone. His beautiful features, drawn with the pain of a transition he had worked so hard to hold off for her sake.
Real fear crept into her heart for the first time. But heaven help her, the only person who seemed to truly care about what happened to her wasn’t human.
Awareness of the bond connecting her to Cameron across the distance separating them made her muscles start to mimic his, twitching and contracting as the moonlight began to change inner sensation from ice to fire.
She looked at her hands and extended her fingers, recalling how Cameron’s skin also had burned up in the moonlight.
Something was happening to her. She had to get away.
Sam yanked her up by the back of the leather jacket and shoved her up against a tree. She wanted to fight back, needed to assert herself. The leafy canopy overhead offered a temporary respite from the light, but breathing seemed an impossible task.
“You’re ill,” Sam said.
“You think?”
“And you’re half-naked under that jacket.”
Abby glared at her father.
“You know the way home. I’ll let the others know you’re moving toward the street,” Sam said. “Keep out of the way, Abby. Maintain a distance from the team.”
“Or what? Maybe they’ll screw up and put me out of my misery before I get there?”
Sam slapped her across the cheek so hard Abby’s head turned. Her father had never struck her, had never actually paid that much attention to her, other than to shout. Talking about her mother had been an obvious touchy spot for him. Abby’s new show of defiance had to be icing on the cake.
The slap that burned her face served to awaken more of the dark sickness rolling around inside her, inspiring that darkness to gather and rise up against such violence. When Sam turned away, Abby drew her blade. As he reached for his cell phone, she went after skin...her own skin.
Pushing back the sleeve of the leather coat, she sliced open her left forearm, severing enough small vessels to bring up a small river of blood. Sam might not notice, but they would smell the blood. If werewolves roamed this park tonight, they’d come running. Weres would either try to hack Sam to pieces, or lure Sam to go after them, leaving her alone, allowing her a few precious moments to herself.
The blood also might do something else, her frantic mind insisted. It would let Cameron Mitchell know of the immediacy of the danger here. If he scented her distress, he’d be forewarned about the seriousness of the hunters and take care to circumvent the trouble.
That’s what Abby hoped as she stood on trembling legs that wouldn’t hold her up for much longer, and with her blood pattering as softly as summer rain to the ground by her feet.
* * *
“Mitchell?”
The voice calling to him seemed blurred by a great distance. Cameron turned his head, stunned to find that he had dropped into a crouch, and that his heart pounded as if he’d been running.
He looked up.
“I guess it’s true, then.” The voice belonged to his new host, Dylan. “Abby Stark has wolf in her.”
Puzzled about how he’d gotten into this position, Cameron kept very still. “What just happened?”
“You recognize her scent,” Dylan replied. “I smell it, too. Wilson?”
Wilson shook his shaggy-haired head. “I sense the change in the air, but can’t pinpoint the source like you do.”
“Blood? Is that what’s in the wind?” Cameron’s body reacted with a jerk as he finally got the gist of what Dylan had proposed. “It’s Abby’s blood? Good God.”
He sprang to his feet and started for the steps. Delmonico stopped him from descending by barring his way.
“It could be a trick,” she warned. “Very likely it is. That woman might be wolf without knowing it, but she’s also been one of those hunters for a long time. She would know how blood would affect you, especially her blood if you’ve bonded.”
Wilson concurred. “And if she didn’t do this to lure you front and center, someone else might have provided that invitation for her.”
Cameron stiffened, horrified by that thought. “You think those hunters might cut her up in order to draw wolves out of hiding? They’d be cruel enough to do that?”
Dylan stepped forward until he was shoulder to shoulder with Cameron, and offered just two simple, incredibly strong words. “It worked.”
Cameron glanced from Delmonico’s practiced, blank-cop face to Dylan’s. They were right, of course. His body strained to move. Independent of his mind, his system wouldn’t be appeased for long by rational thought. Each breath he took in filled with Abby’s scent. Each breath brought back the memory of feeling her bare skin against his skin and her lips crushed beneath his in an endless kiss. And those hunters might injure her in order to get a rise out of wolves in the area, and a rise out of him?
Well, it worked, all right. He was a breath away from shoving Delmonico aside. His legs were gearing up for a sprint.
“Talk to us,” Delmonico said.
“It doesn’t matter who did this to Abby, or the reason. Besides, how do we know what this is, for sure? What if it’s a call for help? What if this is Abby’s personal message to me, an SOS? I can’t risk ignoring that, can I? I’ll have to find her in either case.”
He sounded breathless, and hardened his tone. “Thank you for the introductions. I’m grateful. I needed to find you, so I hope we’ll meet again.”
Sidestepping Dylan, Cameron leaped from the porch. Moonlight was waiting for him. Knocked backward by the suddenness of the start of his shift, Cameron clenched his teeth and stretched out his arms. “Bring it on, damn it!”
As his body ripped apart at the seams and his face began to morph, he let out a roar that shook the ground. But he didn’t wait. He could not let more time go by with Abby in trouble.
Halfway through his wolfish transformation, he shook off the immensity of the pain. With his head pounding and his chest torn in two, he headed for the wall that had sealed him in with an offer of safety, and maybe even the companionship he had desperately sought
. When he reached that wall, Cameron launched himself upward.
Claws scraped the brick in a sound like fingernails on a blackboard as he found purchase in the grooves in the mortar. Growls erupted from his throat, one after the other, as he hauled himself up—menacing sounds heralding his intent to do harm to anyone or anything that might have harmed his mate, and to anyone stupid enough to get in his way.
On the top of the wall he stood for a few seconds, strange sensations pinging through him that paralleled some wild, distant past. Wolves running. Wolves howling from mountaintops. Wind ruffling through fur.
Landing on both feet with a heavy thud on the opposite side of the wall, Cameron knew he had crossed into life-threatening territory. But he faced those kinds of things on a daily basis as a cop, and only one thing mattered tonight. Abby.
He did not believe she would intentionally cause him harm. She had warned him clearly enough. She had confessed about the part she had played in the deadly game of hunting werewolves.
If he had been mistaken about her...
If the other reason for shedding her blood turned out to be the case, and this was a particularly sadistic trap, he’d get his wolf on in the worst way possible, and do some damage of his own.
Seconds into his sprint, Cameron realized he wasn’t alone. The aggressive growl he’d let loose was answered by each of the werewolves beside him. Three of them, all furred up and terribly intimidating as their muscles stretched and their pelts ruffled with each churning stride.
Not your problem, he would have shouted if he possessed a human voice. Then again, it had been their problem for a lot longer than it had been his. Hunters had been on their radar for a while. These wolves knew infinitely more about werewolves than he did, and the iron-rich scent of Abby’s blood had disrupted the meeting, keeping him from finding out a few important things.
He inhaled. A real ocean breeze, rare this far from the beach, diluted the bloody scent somewhat, though he found it easy enough to follow.
Cameron growled again, and this time the gruff vocalization felt good, because in spite of the situation, he had companions from whom he didn’t have to hide. These wolves knew the score.
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