Humans had not given this same kind of consideration to his family. After hunting his mother, they shot her, did terrible things to her body and then dragged her off. Illicit game hunters in on the secret existence of werewolves had hoped for a pricey black-market pelt, but hadn’t gotten their wish. His mother, also able to shape-shift at will, had robbed them of that last detail.
Michael scanned the lawn. With his sensitive hearing mechanisms on alert, he experienced an anticipatory spike in pulse rate. But it wasn’t Kaitlin who approached.
“I get it, Michael.” Rena effortlessly covered ground on long, shapely legs.
“What do you get?”
“She’s different.”
He nodded. “You noticed.”
“I wonder what it is, though.” Rena stopped beside him with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jeans, and looked up at him. “What are you going to do with her?”
“I suppose that depends on how she turns out.”
“How bad was it for her? I know you wouldn’t do this unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“There wasn’t much to save,” he replied.
Rena sniffed the air. “Whatever happened to her happened near here? Some of her scent lingers.”
“Rogue vamp,” Michael said. “Possibly only days old.”
“Damn things are getting bolder. That’s the second attack in a week.” Rena nailed him with a shrewd stare. “Why did you do it?”
“I suppose I felt sorry for her.”
Rena’s expression let him know she saw through that answer. She asked, “Is this a new trend?”
“Hopefully not.”
Rena looked around. “Is she coming here to meet you?”
“Maybe she’ll show. Maybe not.”
Michael didn’t want to get into this now, since he’d have to go over it with the rest of the pack tonight. Rena was good at pressing the limits of trespassing on personal space, though. She’d been raised in a family of twelve.
“Oh, she will show, all right. You’ve mesmerized her,” she said.
“She’ll get over it. People often idolize their rescuers at first, until that new take on life wears off.”
“Yes, but Kaitlin’s new take on life won’t wear off. She won’t be able to go back to her old ways as if nothing happened, will she?”
“I’m hoping you’ll help her with her transition to this new life.”
“And I hope you’re kidding, Michael.”
He looked directly at her. “I can’t think of anyone better for the task, or that I’d trust with it more.”
Rena’s eyes were bright with an emotion she almost succeeded in keeping hidden. After helping to raise her numerous siblings, she wasn’t going to be amenable to babysitting again.
“Like me, Cade was human until he was bitten,” she said. “He’s calmer. He’d be a better keeper.”
“Cade is all male, as you well know.”
“You’re suggesting that no male can resist this little human?” Rena fired back.
“I’d rather not deal with having to find out until Kaitlin can make up her own mind about which side she prefers to take.”
“In case she wants to hide out among the humans and pretend she’s still one of them, you mean,” Rena said.
“Like we all do,” Michael reminded her.
Rena turned away from him, sniffing at something she perceived in the wind. Michael was way ahead of her and had been monitoring that smell for the past couple of minutes.
“Vampire,” Rena growled.
“Two of them,” he said. “And I think I might have just broken a promise to our new pack-mate about keeping her safe.”
*
Every nerve in Kaitlin’s body screamed bloody murder as she took that first step toward the path to the park. The smell of freshly mowed grass hit her hard. The wide expanse of park grounds ahead of her seemed ominous. However, by the time she’d taken a second step, she was resigned to go through with this meeting.
She just needed a little encouragement.
“One foot in front of the other, that’s all.”
She marched on, shoulders hunched, her gaze scanning the surroundings. Late-evening light lay in a pink haze on the distant mountain rage. Pastel air dripped through the branches of the trees. Several students milled around near the buildings behind her. No one she knew.
As Kaitlin picked up her pace, she warned herself not to look to the right. Despite herself, she slowed, automatically braking to a stop before reaching the spot where the vamp had accosted her.
She hadn’t intended to see this. She didn’t want to recall the details of that night, or see if her blood stained the bark of that damn tree.
Don’t go any farther. Though inner red flags were waving, the pull of that terrible spot was both a fascination and a horror. Her throat throbbed as if it recognized where they were. This was where she had clung to life.
She stared at the trees without realizing how much time had gone by before her body chilled. A man…no, not really a man, but a creature named Michael, again looking human, caught her wrist in a careful grip. Without speaking a word, he urged her into a jog.
She did not stop to question this, and matched Michael’s pace. He led her through another section of the park without communicating to her how different this run was compared to the last one they’d shared. Kaitlin didn’t require an explanation, because she sensed trouble in the air. Michael was tense. His grip on her wrist was tight.
They weren’t alone. Somehow she was aware of another presence nearby and recognized the scent of Rena’s dark jeans. Michael’s female pack-mate was somewhere behind them, bringing up the rear.
Was this how it was with werewolves? They possessed an intrinsic sense of each other, aware of Were presence without having to look?
Although the idea was interesting, there was no time to ponder it. Michael ran, and she ran with him—through the park, past the edge of the campus, slowing only when they hit the street. There, they had to walk in order to blend in with the people on the sidewalk.
Once they had cleared the short block leading to the university’s athletic grounds, Michael took off again with a speed that was more like flight.
Kaitlin ran like the wind without becoming winded. Cool air on her neck stung. Turning her head made her grimace, but those things weren’t half as disconcerting as being mired in the fog of being uninformed. Who the hell were they running from?
Please, don’t let it be vampires.
Panic filled her with the thought of fanged monsters. Her pace flagged as the memory of unnatural teeth tearing into her flesh returned, and with it the reminder of there being more kinds of things in this world than anyone knew.
She uttered a sound that made Michael toss her a sideways look. However, he wasn’t going to oblige by stopping to answer questions. Instead, he encouraged her on.
They raced around the corner of a small building near the university’s farthest fields. Then, slowing so suddenly that she nearly passed him by, Michael whirled and pressed her to the building’s brick siding.
“Don’t go there,” he warned. “Don’t think back too hard or too much. To be afraid is to be weak.”
“I think I can feel them out there. Vampires.”
“They won’t get to you. Not with me here and the pack on the prowl.”
“It’s almost dark, Michael. Don’t vampires come out at night? Is that what you were warning me about when you said to come early?”
He nodded. “When darkness comes, we wait for what hides inside it. I wanted you to avoid being caught up in that.”
“Who? Who will face those things?”
“I will. My pack will.”
Kaitlin refused to address the ringing in her ears that signaled the extent of her panic. She whispered, “I’m not ready.”
Warm hands cradled her face. Michael’s eyes met hers. “You don’t have to see them. No one expects you to. I just wanted you to view the place where you w
ere attacked and accept it. Accept us. Accept me.”
Michael drew back after saying that, as if he had just exposed a secret. Did that secret deal with his feelings for her?
“What if…” Her voice faltered, so Kaitlin started again. “What if they hurt you?”
He shook his head. “Not going to happen. Not here, like this. We’re fairly fluent in vampire, and these young fledglings have picked up a predictable pattern.”
Kaitlin recalled the brute strength of the beast that had trapped her and how she had assumed she would never breathe again. But if darkness was minutes away and Michael’s pack would be going after vampires, where did that leave her?
“What do I do?” she asked.
“Go back to your place and wait this out. I was hoping they wouldn’t come back so soon. It’s unusual they would risk it. I didn’t mean for you to go through this again. I’ll send someone home with you to—”
“Babysit me? Hold my hand? I don’t need that.”
Michael held her to the wall with only one hand on her shoulder. Their hips weren’t touching. She couldn’t feel his breath on her face as he said, “Then it’s a good thing you have no say in the matter.”
As if their sprint had finally caught up with her need for oxygen, Kaitlin said breathlessly, “Who made you king?”
“Not king. Alpha,” he said with a split-second grin that made the rest of the world, as well as thoughts about the monsters occupying space in it, momentarily melt away.
“And as such, you’re my responsibility,” he added.
Michael’s tenseness had returned, which meant that the time for conversation had to be scheduled for a future date. Right on cue with the final nod of his head, the guests he must have been anticipating got nearer, as did nightfall.
Growls rolled from Michael’s throat that would have scared the living daylights out of anyone who heard them, and nearly shattered Kaitlin’s reach for recovery.
“They’re coming,” he said. “Lesson one, Kaitlin. Close your eyes and breathe. Inhale and tell me what you find in the wind.”
Kaitlin did as she was told. She breathed the night in, coughed, breathed again. Heavy pressure on her nerve endings made her eyes fly open. “Is that the vampires?”
“It’s the pack,” Michael said. “Some of it, anyway.”
The scent accompanying the pressure she perceived was hard to define and meant more werewolves were coming. Her body responded quickly to this news. Heat closed around her as if a warm breeze had blown in.
Michael said, “Time to go.” Then Rena, accompanied by two large men that weren’t quite as gorgeous as Michael, but a close second and third, turned the corner of the building…with their eyes trained on her.
Chapter 7
Michael welcomed the members of his pack with genuine gladness.
Cade, with the Danish-born Were’s usual levity, called out, “Not exactly the time to get close and personal, boss,” noting how close Michael was to Kaitlin.
Rena said, “Two suckers have slunk out of their hidey-holes and are heading for the school.”
Kaitlin muttered, “No.”
Michael gestured to Cade. “Watch her.”
“And miss all the fun?” Cade said, already heading for the new hybrid in their midst. “I assume this is Kaitlin.”
Michael nodded. “No time for introductions. Obviously those fanged freaks don’t care about anything but finding dinner, and are way too hungry these days.”
“Have you ever known them to actually think?” Devlin, their Irish Were, contributed.
“Kaitlin has an apartment,” Michael said to Cade. “Can you take her there and wait for us?”
“No problem,” Cade returned. “But you owe me.”
Michael noted the panic coursing through Kaitlin’s body. That panic shuddered within her each time she took a breath.
“A promise is a promise,” he said to her. “You can trust Cade to keep the monsters away if any more of them show up while the rest of us deal with the two fledglings on our radar.”
Kaitlin was as white as a sheet. He didn’t want to leave her, but couldn’t send the others to fight in his place. He had told Kaitlin to meet him out here without considering that the vampire attack on her life might have signaled something far worse, like an invasion of the fanged freaks. Before things turned uglier, he’d have to contend with the problem, though tearing himself away from Kaitlin was going to be harder than he could have imagined.
There was no time to whisper assurances to her, touch her or explain why he wanted to do those things.
“Go with Cade, Kate,” he said to her. “Trust us.”
His heart was pounding twice as fast as usual, announcing his wolf’s imminent appearance. Vamp scent was prodding him to act.
The members of his pack all knew what special things he could do with or without a full moon’s assistance, and yet Michael had always been uncomfortable shifting back and forth when the rest of his pack had to wait for that one special night per month.
Already, his claws were extending in honor of dealing with old enemies whose presence was a blight on Otherness. His claws were long, curved and lethal. Back when he was a kid, the claws had taken a while to get used to. He had scratched himself more times than he could count. Now, the razor-sharp tips were stained with black vampire blood.
He hid the claws behind his back, out of Kaitlin’s sight, because she was scared enough already and possibly on the verge of being frozen in place.
“Go now,” he said, locking eyes with her large grays. “There’s no time to waste.”
His Lycan power of persuasion helped to make sure she obeyed. They were still connected. His thoughts would become hers if he willed it.
Kaitlin faced Cade, who was three heads taller than she was and twice as broad. Michael understood that she wanted to see the kind of monster that had attacked her so she could truly believe that kind of evil actually existed. But the word danger didn’t even begin to describe a situation where his pack had to worry about Kaitlin and fight the vamps at the same time.
Kaitlin didn’t glance back as she left him. Her spine was rigid and she held her head high. He trusted Cade. Cade was the best of his pack and strong enough to fight his way through a crowd if he had to.
The sandy-haired Dane followed his Alpha’s directives without question. Cade had been right, though, to want to question Michael’s plan. They were peacekeepers, not babysitters, and the big Were’s incredible reflexes would be sorely missed if push came to shove with fledgling bloodsuckers on a bender.
Michael swore beneath his breath for having to make that choice.
“I’ll second that unspoken filthy oath you just thought up and raise you one,” Rena said, observing him thoughtfully.
Michael tossed her a look.
“Raise you one what?” Devlin asked, glancing after Cade and Kaitlin. “By the way, you do realize that girl is…”
“Is what?” Rena snapped.
“Fragrant,” Devlin concluded.
“She’s going to be one of us,” Rena said.
“Is she, now?” Devlin grinned at Michael.
Vampire presence made the air harder to breathe even for a Were whose system churned oxygen like a well-oiled machine. Michael’s wolf pressed against his insides with a desire to be freed. His body wanted to turn itself inside-out and become the thing he harbored.
“Party time,” he said as night finally darkened the air, rallying the two Weres. “Under no circumstances can those vampires be allowed to reach the campus.”
“Like you have to tell us that,” Rena muttered as they all moved toward the spreading blackness that heralded the approach of the undead.
There was no mistaking the stench in the air. The two vampires heading their way moved in unison from shadow to shadow. Although they were youthful in appearance, these vamps were terribly fast, their whereabouts difficult to pinpoint until they passed through a glittering shaft of early moonlight. Then, as if
they’d been trapped by a searchlight, both bloodsuckers paused to hiss their displeasure over having any type of light touch their colorless skin.
The moon belonged to the wolves, while vampires were true children of the night—the darker the night, the better. Though Michael didn’t know for sure, he supposed that like bats—which were credited as the vamps’ distant relatives—bloodsuckers didn’t have proper-functioning eyes in bright light, which was why vampires sought out dark spaces and burrowed underground in the daylight hours. The darkness was where nightmare belonged.
The moonlight made these two vamps angry and twice as dangerous. Neither had been undead for long, since both retained some pre-death musculature. Their clothes were in relatively good shape, if the bloodstains were overlooked. However, no one on earth could have believed these creeps were living, breathing humans after a first quick look. No way in hell.
“Ugly bastards,” he heard Rena mutter.
One of those bastards heard her and slipped away from the pool of light. Devlin moved after that slinking shadow, leaving tree cover to follow his pasty-skinned prey.
The vamp in the light made a strange keening sound that Michael was afraid might be some sort of signal.
“You’re heading the wrong way,” he said to it. “This area is protected.”
The vamp swelled as if it had swallowed enough air to double its size, though breathing wasn’t its forte. It bared its nasty fangs.
“Saw that trick in a circus once,” Rena said, unimpressed.
Her remark broke the standoff. The fledgling moved toward Rena without changing its expression, perhaps incorrectly concluding that a female would be the weaker opposing link. At the same time, Devlin gave a shout as the vampire they had lost sight of came rushing at them from the right, with Devlin close on its heels.
Michael had already torn off his shirt to soak up the moonlight. Calling upon the innate strength and reflexes of his Lycan heritage, he had one vampire by the throat before Rena had moved.
There was no time to strip. Michael kicked off his shoes and listened to his worn jeans tear at the seams. Before his next big breath, his continuing morph gave him teeth and jaws to match the claws he had already been wielding.
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