Or destroy them, Jason thought, remembering back to 1943. “Who is doing this? Why?”
Pashta spread his hands out before him. “We don’t know very much yet, but we have to act quickly. I’m trying to assemble a team, which is why I need Sofia and you.” He gave him a hard look. “You will honor your vow, won’t you?”
When he put it like that, Jason couldn’t point out that American werefolk had their own system for dealing with problems. Besides, Pashta’s people were not proper werefolk. They were as likely to be hunted as they were to be helped.
“I’ll protect the girl,” he said. “I’ll train her.”
Pashta pointed to the door. “Then go after her.”
Because he could move faster than a mortal, Jason reached Sofia before she got into her car. He put his hand over hers as she began to open the door and said, “Let’s start over, shall we?”
He was almost overwhelmed by the warmth and softness of her skin.
“You seemed like a sane person,” she said as she turned to him. “I don’t know why I thought that.”
“It’s probably because I’m so handsome and charming.”
“Good Lord, I hope I’m not that shallow.”
He ran his hand up her arm, delighted by the faint shiver this sent through her. “I notice that you aren’t denying the attraction.”
“The attraction isn’t the problem. The fact that you’re a nutjob who believes in werewolves is the problem.” She glanced past his shoulder as an eerie sound filled the air. “Your SUV is howling.”
He sent a soothing thought toward his wolves. “That’s just George and Gracie,” he told the suddenly tense woman. “You’ll like them once you get to know them.”
“You may have noticed that I don’t do well around dogs.”
“They aren’t dogs. And neither were those creatures in the house.”
She paled and swallowed hard. “Wolves, then.”
Jason shook his head. “You don’t really believe that.”
“Of course I do!” Her denial was sharp, and genuine.
“You’re a Hunyara. Some instinct in you knows the difference between dogs and wolves, natural-born werefolk and your own lycanthropic relatives.”
She tried to back away from him. And who could blame her? He was going about this as poorly as Pashta. He wanted her badly and that was clouding his thinking.
“Let me tell you a story,” he said, and lifted his hand to touch her temple.
Central Europe, Winter 1943
He went with the Romany to a small encampment far deeper in the forest. It was nearly dawn when they showed him into the shelter of a hut. Inside, a large group of people sat around a small fire. Smoke swirled around the low ceiling. The air was acrid, and hardly warmer than outdoors. Energy permeated the room, almost as visible to Jason as the smoke, and he was aware of being in the presence of several powerful mortal psychics.
Werewolves and psychics? He wondered what was going on, but waited for the others to speak.
One of the younger males bent forward and peered at him closely. “Are you as young as you look, Prime? What are you doing out on your own?”
Jason would have been offended had the questions come from one of his own kind. Now he only shrugged. “There’s a war on.”
The old man clipped the younger man behind the ear. “My son is rude, Prime. His name is Grigor. That little one skulking in the shadows when he should be in bed is my youngest, Pashta. I am Sacha Hunyara. And we”—he gestured around him—“are the Outcasts. People not of the mortal world, nor fully members of the supernatural world. We live in hiding, we keep our secrets, but now we need help.”
Being an outcast and fugitive himself, he was prone toward instant sympathy for them. But being softhearted toward mortals was what had gotten him in trouble in the first place.
“Explain,” Jason said.
“What do you know of werewolves?” Grigor asked.
“That most werefolk are born with the ability to change shape to wolf, bear, or whatever they become at will, and keep sane while doing it. But a mortal bitten by one of the werefolk turns into a creature forced to shift into a maddened animal during the full moon.”
“Precisely,” Sacha replied. “Our people, Prime, are somewhere in between. The natural-born see the bitten as diseased, and a threat to their own existence. They are more likely to hunt down and murder the ones their own renegades are responsible for making, than they are to try to help them.”
“Is there help?” Jason asked. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know very much about shape-shifters.”
“We tame them,” Sacha told him. “The Hunyara took on that responsibility long ago.”
“We had to,” Grigor added. “It is better to tame than it is to kill members of our own family.”
“Some of us carry the disease,” Sacha said. “An ancestor was bitten, and the tribe cared for him. He escaped during a full moon and bit his own wife and son. She became a werewolf. With the son it was different. Instead of turning him, the attack brought out the skill to reach into the werewolf’s mind. Ever since then, some of our people become werewolves, and others are able to control them. I am the current Wolf Tamer of the tribe.”
Northeast of San Diego, Spring, Present Day
“Does that explanation work for you?”
Sofia heard the question as though it were asked from a very long distance, then she realized that Jason’s hands were on her face, his body pinning her against her car.
The chill of winter faded, along with the firelight and the faces and words that filled her head. She blinked as the hot, bright afternoon came sharply back into focus.
“What happened?” She looked sharply at the man holding her. He was an illusionist, a stage magician. “How did you do that?”
“Never mind,” he said, and took a step back. His hands moved to her shoulders, warming her more than the sunlight of the fading day. “I’m sorry that you’re being asked to take a lot of things that sound like nonsense at face value.”
The screwy thing was that, coming from him, she half wanted to believe this nonsense. Sofia shook her head. “One of us has got to be crazy. You, specifically,” she added.
He laughed. “The supernatural is perfectly normal to me, but I understand your skepticism. Think about what I showed you.” He glanced at the sky and sighed. “We’ll talk later.”
“What’s wrong with talking right now?”
This was stupid! She should want nothing more than to run away from this guy, yet a knot of loneliness squeezed her heart at the prospect of him leaving. She was never going to see him again, was she?
“Don’t look so sad.” He stroked her cheek, cupped her chin in his palm, and looked deep into her eyes. She wanted him to kiss her again. “I want to kiss you, too. May I?”
He lifted her hand to his lips.
So I can find you again, his voice whispered in her mind.
She thought he was going to kiss the back of her hand, a romantic but terribly old-fashioned gesture. But she didn’t mind because she’d been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately.
Instead, he bit her wrist.
Chapter Six
Wolf Clan Citadel, La Jolla, California, Present Day
H ow long do you think we’ll have to stay?” Eden asked as they approached the Moroccan-style mansion Lady Juanita called home.
Sidonie Wolf knew that her sister-in-law wasn’t comfortable around large numbers of vampires, and she certainly didn’t blame her, considering Eden’s family history. Normally she might tell Eden to just suck it up and live with the shame of being born into an ancient line of vampire hunters. It wasn’t like anyone was going to bite her or anything. Tonight, however, Eden’s attitude was tinted more with impatience than paranoia, and Sid was in complete agreement. She was even more anxious to get this duty over with than her mortal friend.
“Let’s try to get in, smile at everybody, and get out.”
“Roger that,” Eden answ
ered.
At least Eden carried her and Laurent’s daughter, which assured her welcome. Sid hoped that little Toni would be the center of attention and darling of everyone’s eye for the evening. Toni was going to grow up mortal, which meant that she wasn’t going to help the vampire population problem, but she was an adorable toddler, all blond curls and pink cheeks and dimples. She got the dimples from her dad, Sid’s brother, Laurent. Who didn’t have to be here tonight because, after all, he was Prime.
“Putz,” Sid muttered.
She deeply resented the fact that even at the dawn of the twenty-first century, thems with penises still got to have all the fun. She didn’t blame Laurent, who was out on the streets searching for Cathy, but she seethed with fury at Lady Juanita for not allowing the female members of Bleythin Investigations to join the hunt.
“What?” Eden asked as they went up the wide steps leading to the carved double doors.
“Just pouting because I have to go in and be nice to everyone. Do you want to take a turn?”
“Yes, please,” Eden said. “I could be hacking into the old laptop we found in Cathy’s closet right now if not for this command performance. It’s not that I don’t love your Clan, but—”
“You don’t.”
“I love your mother.”
“As well you shou—Hello, Matri,” Sid said as Lady Juanita opened the door.
The Matri nodded regally. “Welcome, Wolf daughters. You will always have a place in my citadel.”
Whether we want it or not, Sid thought, using many layers of mental shielding to keep her opinions to herself.
Besides, the Matri had spoken to them aloud instead of issuing a telepathic greeting. That set the ground rule for this evening. Sid understood why when another female appeared beside Juanita at the door.
“Hi, Mom,” Sid greeted Lady Antonia, head of her house of the Wolf Clan.
Antonia had lost her ability to use telepathy, and it would be rude and cruel to use this sense when she couldn’t. Besides, Eden didn’t have a lick of psychic ability.
Antonia held out her arms, and Eden dutifully handed Antonia’s namesake over to her grandmother. Then Lady Juanita ushered them into her home with an elegant, imperative gesture.
“I hear your sire was in town,” Antonia said as Sid walked beside her down the long entrance hall.
“He stopped by to pay his respects this morning before he returned to Los Angeles,” Juanita said before Sid could answer.
She hoped he hadn’t said anything about the conversation they’d had to the Matri, since he’d been livid about her suggestion of using modern medicine to assist their population problem. He had calmed down enough to say he’d talk to the people at the Los Angeles clinic, if and only if she could come up with a Prime who’d agree to the procedure.
She knew this was because he didn’t think she had a snowball’s chance in hell of finding a suitable candidate, since Clan Primes were so stupidly old-fashioned and macho.
And speaking of macho…
Sid was aware of the males waiting for them before they reached the garden courtyard. The energy that hit her senses was hot and spicy, filled with dark undertones of challenge and rivalry. The males of her own species always reminded her of cinnamon and pepper, black coffee and dark chocolate. They made her hungry. She couldn’t stop the primal thrill of excitement that shivered through her.
But the call of male to female was normal and natural, and Sid was able to acknowledge it without letting a rush of lust go to her head. She smiled at her sister-in-law when they reached the waiting males in the courtyard, and Eden grinned back.
“I might be bonding with my own gorgeous vampire,” Eden whispered to her, “but I can enjoy the window shopping.”
“It’s too bad Laurent isn’t here to defend his mating rights when the boys start hitting on you.”
Eden’s grin widened. “I’m not sure what’s more fun: watching Laurent get jealous, or the way he stands back and smiles and lets me defend my own honor when the Clan boys gather. I’m not sure if that’s because he accepts me as an equal, or because he’s as lazy as he claims to be,” she added.
“I think it’s a bit of both,” Antonia said. “Eden, come with me, there’s someone I want you to meet. Sidonie, mingle.”
“Aw, Mom,” Sid complained at being left alone.
Eden gave her a sympathetic look, but dutifully accompanied the woman holding her baby.
“Motherhood makes us weak,” Sid grumbled as she faced the crowd. Oh, well, it was best to get the social obligations over with so she could get back to hunting for their missing associate.
As she stepped onto the tiled courtyard, she glanced at the sky. Instead of seeing the beauty of the moon, she was gratefully aware that it was several nights away from being full. They had some time before Cathy was helplessly trapped in her lycanthropic form, but not much. They had to find her before then, because if she killed or bit a human as a werewolf, according to werefolk law she’d have to be executed.
To Sid this was brutally unfair. What was even worse was that the person who had to carry out the sentence was someone who cared for Cathy very much. Sid knew that if she lived the circumscribed life of a proper vampire female, this wouldn’t be any of her business.
But she couldn’t live like that, all cosseted and safe. It wasn’t that the Clan women didn’t have incredible power—personal, spiritual, sexual, financial—a Matri’s word was law among her Clan, and only the Matri could override the decisions of the Mother of a House. But these powerful women weren’t involved in the greater world outside their own domains.
Boring.
But this wasn’t the time or place to proclaim her feelings. She took a deep breath, forced a smile, and walked through the crowd of males in the courtyard to stand next to the bubbling fountain in the center. There she turned and waited to be adored.
A pair of handsome Primes showed up before she finished moving.
“Mortals think they invented speed dating, but they’re wrong,” a richly amused male voice said behind her. “You boys move along,” he went on. “The lady is here to meet me.”
When the Primes smiled sheepishly and moved away, Sid knew the Prime behind her could be no one but the legendary David Berus.
Chapter Seven
T he civilized rules of vampire society required that he be here, and Jason was scrupulous about obeying the rules since his youthful run-in with the law. He approached the mansion carrying a bottle of wine and two dozen bloodred roses, George and Gracie pacing at his side. He buried his own impatience and mentally soothed the wolves, even though he shared their restlessness. It was important to get the formalities over with, even if he was anxious to be somewhere else, with someone else.
As he expected, the door opened before he could ring the bell. He hadn’t expected it to be opened by Lady Juanita herself, who wore the necklace of the Wolf Clan Matri.
She smiled, her eyes glinting in amusement. “Who might you be, night child?”
“A stranger in your territory, but a friend.” Jason introduced himself, his family, and his house and bowed formally.
“I’ve heard of you,” she answered.
“My bad reputation tends to precede me.” He smiled and held out the wine and roses. “But I bring nice presents.”
“Did I say I’d heard bad things?” She took his gifts and stepped back to let him enter. “You are welcome in my home.” She glanced at George and Gracie. “The wolf may be our Clan’s symbol, but some of my guests tonight are mortal and might find your companions disturbing. Will they be all right if you leave them in the library?”
“Perfectly all right,” he replied smoothly. “I didn’t mean to crash your party, Lady Juanita. I came to pay my respects.”
“But you must stay. Let me introduce you to my guests.”
What did one say to the most famous Prime of them all? Sid felt like an idiot, but all she could manage was, “Hi.”
She had not planned
on being impressed with David Berus, but some things simply couldn’t be helped. He had an aura of sadness and hard-won wisdom that was instantly intriguing. Besides, he smiled at her in that appreciative, flirtatious way Primes had, yet she didn’t sense any of the usual desperation that accompanied Primes meeting females. He didn’t instantly want her simply because she was a girl. She couldn’t help but like that.
“You are a perverse creature,” he said.
“Tell me about it.”
“Oh, I know all about you. Lady Juanita has been singing your praises since I arrived.”
She had no intention of letting any other vampire know all about her, but she smiled as if she were flattered by the comment.
“Are you in search of rescue?” he asked when she glanced around.
“Not at all. I’m looking for—” She waved as her mother came into the courtyard. “Mom, over here.”
She realized that she’d practically shouted while all other conversation among the hypersensitive guests was being conducted in murmurs and whispers. This brought stares and frowns, which were answered by a fierce smile from Berus.
“I only lost my telepathy, darling,” Antonia said, coming up to her. “I’m not deaf.”
It always amazed others that Antonia accepted a devastating disability with such matter-of-fact aplomb. But as she had once said to Sid, “You can be alive or dead, and anything but dead can be dealt with.”
“Unless they’re zombies,” Sid had reminded her. “But zombies aren’t our problem.”
Werewolves weren’t supposed to be, either, but Sid’s worry for Cathy reasserted itself, and she was suddenly very anxious to leave.
Cover for me, please!
She sent the thought into her mother’s mind, hating the necessity as she saw Antonia wince in pain.
But Antonia rallied, smiled at her, and came forward. “Hello, it’s so good to see you again, David,” she said, holding out her hands.
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