by Jenna Kernan
He signaled for him to hold and glanced back to the intruders, gaping, as this was the first time he’d seen the Night Stalkers. The sight sent a shiver down his spine. There were two males and they were hideous, pale and rodentlike, just as he’d been told, with purple-skinned and misshapen heads that looked as if they’d been crushed. Their eyes were milky, and their noses, if you could call them that, were slitted as if they belonged to reptiles. And then he fixed on the woman, struggling against their grasp and making every effort to wrench herself free.
She did not seem of the same species. They’d said the females were lovely, and he was curious to see for himself.
She was tall and lithe, dressed modestly in a pair of faded blue jeans that sat low on her curvy hips. Her struggles showed him both the pink mobile phone that did not entirely fit in her back pocket and also the scrap of white lace undergarment that peeked from above her jeans. Her white T-shirt fit her like a second skin and had hiked over her flat stomach, showing a wide-open stretch of perfect skin and the dark indent of her navel. How long had she been a bloodsucker, and why was she fighting them?
The beams of sunlight chased across the yard, illuminating her to reveal that her hair was coppery red, shoulder length, and with ringlets that wound tight, curly as a corkscrew. They bounced as she tossed her head. He wanted to see her face, which was now covered by her hair.
Now what the hell did he do? He hadn’t counted on killing a woman.
Not a woman, he reminded himself. A dangerous assassin. The female vamps killed by drawing energy. At least that’s what the intel from the Israelis said. The Israelis had captured one but couldn’t turn her, so they’d put her down.
She’s not human. A killer. A beauty, whispered his mind.
He shook his head. This wasn’t possible. Her allure didn’t work on him. That was what he’d been told. But he still found he didn’t have the stomach to kill her. She’d be the capture, he decided. The colonel’s prize.
But first he had to get her away from those butt-ugly male bloodsuckers.
* * *
The vampire’s grip bit into Brianna’s wrists. She twisted and kicked, and she worried that she would simply be one more young woman who vanished without a trace.
“Look in the trunk. See if there’s something to tie her hands.”
The second released the latch and rummaged. “Nothing.” He turned to peer at her. “Just knock her out.”
“No. Not this one,” said her captor, pulling her elbows so tightly that they touched behind her back. “She’s special. First generation. Just smell that. I’d like a taste of her now.”
Brianna stilled as the terror washed through her stomach and twisted her intestines. She felt dizzy and nauseous as his breath fanned down her neck in a hot blast.
“But you won’t,” said the one standing before her, just out of range of her kick. “You’ll wait for orders or face his judgment.”
The vampire behind her sniffed again as if she were some kind of cocaine.
“Still we did find her first. Who has to know? She’s not a virgin. I can smell she’s not.”
“We need to get out of here before someone sees us. It’s daylight, Ian. Any human could wander by.”
“In this snow? Just one bite. What do you say? She’ll heal before we get her to the Lord, and it will be her word against ours.”
The one before her cocked his head, staring at her with those creepy white eyes, considering Ian’s proposal.
There was a pounding sound, like a horse at full gallop. Both vampires turned, and the one before her shrieked as a black wolf leaped at him, carrying him backward to the ground as the great jaws closed on his neck. A second wolf, this one gray, attacked from the opposite direction, but the one behind her released his grip and vanished before the monstrous wolf got his jaws locked on him. The snapping sound came just behind Brianna’s head. She crumpled to the earth as the black wolf ripped out the throat of the other vampire. So this was a werewolf, her first sighting and likely her last.
She saw that the one called Ian had run to the front of her car and then changed direction, circling the vehicle, coming back toward the gray werewolf, which now looked in the direction he had gone. She knew he couldn’t see the vampire. But she could.
“To your right!” she shouted.
The wolf dropped and rolled in the direction she pointed, taking out Ian’s legs.
The vampire sprawled and skidded as the gray one landed on his back, pinning him to the earth before using a hideous claw to slash at Ian’s neck. The blood sprayed across the road like a fire hose turned on for just a moment. Then the blood pumped more rhythmically as the werewolf held Ian down. The vampire struggled as his neck wound sealed and healed. But the werewolf opened his neck again. Brianna held a hand over her own neck and then vomited in the snow. She would be next. Of that she had no doubt.
Ian’s struggles ceased. His neck wound remained wide open and the gray wolf rose with his fellow. They turned toward her in unison.
They were huge, at least nine feet tall, and their front forearms ended in long fingers with horrible hooked claws that dripped with blood. Neither had a tail. Their snouts were too short for wolves and too long for men, unlike any creatures she had ever seen outside of a nightmare.
Their teeth were worse than any wolf she’d ever seen, and she got a very good look as they peeled back the flesh from the long white enamel and growled at her.
Brianna scuttled backward on all fours and ran into the undercarriage of her rental. The black one snorted and stared with fixed yellow eyes, and Brianna saw her own death reflected there.
It knew what she was. She sensed that it did. A second low, rumbling growl emanated from its throat. She started to vibrate, preparing to move so fast that even a nine-foot werewolf could not catch her.
They killed the two that took her. Were there others? She glanced about and did not see any.
Brianna lifted a hand to her forehead and recalled thinking that she preferred death to the living horror that came with her capture.
Now that she looked death in the eye, she wondered if she had the courage to accept what came. They would kill her. Why wouldn’t they? That was what werewolves did, all they did, if the female was to be believed. Still, she had to try. They were her only hope.
“Help me,” she said, finding her voice a strangled weak representation of its former self.
The black one charged her.
* * *
“Help me,” she said, huddling small and innocent as a fawn against the compact car, which was covered with so much road salt that Mac couldn’t tell what color it had once been. She was an exotic bloom growing there in the snow and dirt, beautiful as dawn, as the first golden rays of morning gilded her coppery hair so it shone like flames about her pale upturned face.
Of course it was all illusion. She was as harmless as a heart attack and innocent as a brimming cup of poison. But not to him.
“Please. I have no one else.”
She said it as if he were some human she could order about like a mindless slave.
And he would bet a month’s pay that up until this very moment no male had ever refused her anything. Human males were easily manipulated by female vamps. Apparently she did not know that her powers didn’t work on werewolves.
“They were trying to take me.” She began to rise, a blooming rose reaching for the sun. He motioned her to stay down.
Why didn’t she disappear, like the male?
“So I came here to find you.”
She’d come on purpose into their territory? That was suicidal, he thought, or a brilliant tactic. As to which it was, that would depend on if Mac killed her or not.
Sea-green eyes, pale and lovely as glass polished in the ocean, stared up at him in wide astonishment. Her high cheeks f
lushed a beguiling pink, and a few freckles lay scattered across her nose, giving interest to the skin that glowed luminescent as a pearl. Yes, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But she wasn’t a woman.
She covered her face with her hands, letting her fiery hair sweep forward. Now, he thought.
As if reading his mind, Johnny charged her. No, he thought, but he couldn’t order Johnny to halt. Neither could speak in werewolf form and it was too late. She must have heard Johnny for she turned, lifting her startled eyes. But instead of vanishing, she turned her head, elongated her neck, making it easier for Johnny to kill her.
This one was ready to die, prepared for just that.
Mac had just enough time to throw a shoulder into his corporal and deflect his course. Johnny crashed into the rear of the car as Mac hauled the vampire to her feet. She did not resist, as she had with the males of her species. He tugged her forward and she fell against his wide, hairy chest, looking up at him with sea-glass eyes. He had to remind himself that she couldn’t affect him, because his heart obviously didn’t get that message. Or his skin, for it tingled with a sexual awareness that lifted every hair.
He pinned her wrists against his chest, one in each fist. He realized her jeans and shirt were wet, and he waited for her to slip from his hold like water. But she only stared up at him with wide, frightened eyes. Next he noticed how slender the bones of her wrists were and how silky-soft her skin felt. There was an energy about her, like a static charge that made his skin tingle, as if she were stroking him. He banged her wrists on his chest, and she extended her elegant, manicured fingers so they threaded through the fur that covered his chest. Pink, he realized, like the inside of a conch shell.
Beside him, Johnny growled.
The smell of the breeze off the Gulf of Mexico surrounded Mac. So that was her game. The lure of her person. She’d counted on it to entrance him. That meant either she didn’t know he was unaffected or she didn’t know that it made a difference. Had she never met a man who could resist her?
Was he really immune, or had the scientists gotten that wrong, too?
If he were immune to her terrible powers, then why was he staring down at those soft green eyes, those parted pink lips? She gasped, bringing air into her lungs. She would be so easy to kill.
Johnny made a huffing sound, and Mac looked his way. The look of consternation was clear, as was the slicing motion he made across his throat. Johnny wanted her dead.
Mac shook him off and threw the vampire over his shoulder. They’d secure her for now and then call the colonel.
He easily vaulted the ten-foot security fence with the woman on his shoulder and ran with her to their quarters, trying not to notice the sweet scent of her skin or the tumble of curly red hair that cascaded over his chest like a silken waterfall. When they reached the yard he thought to wonder if her purpose was to find exactly where they lived. Would the vampires sacrifice the two males and this one to discover their position?
It was possible.
He tossed her to her feet and motioned to Johnny, keeping her wrist imprisoned in his grip. Her eyes widened as he gestured for Johnny to take charge of her. It was only when she saw him approach, teeth bared, hackles raised that she started to struggle. Her strength, though greater than what a human female would possess, was no match for a werewolf’s. Johnny clasped her opposite wrist, because he did not want to give her a second to run. Not now that they had her.
How had that male disappeared? Could she do that as well, and if she could disappear, why didn’t she when she had the chance?
He needed to transform if he were to interrogate her. But he wasn’t about to let her see that. Standing naked and vulnerable before her held the kind of risk even he wasn’t willing to take.
He gave Johnny a long look and a slow shake of his head, waiting for the confirming nod of understanding. Johnny would not kill her, though he clearly wanted to.
Was he right?
Mac stared at the beautiful temptation and recognized that he did not want to let her go. He growled. Werewolves didn’t moon after vampires. They caught them and killed them. But even as he let her go, he knew what he wanted to do with her and that troubled him.
Chapter 2
The black beast captured Brianna’s other wrist as the gray werewolf withdrew, leaving her to her death. Her knees clanked together and then failed to hold her. The werewolf stared down at her with malevolent yellow eyes. She folded like a lawn chair as the black spots spun and danced, like gnats, before her eyes. Bri’s head hung down, and she waited to feel the piercing pain of its bite, but it did not come. Instead, she heard the low, rumbling growl as it gave her one reckless shake before dragging her a foot along the cold earth, which smeared mud on the knees of her wet jeans.
“All right, Johnny.” The voice was deep, commanding and totally unfamiliar. “Stand down.”
The authority of his tone carried an absolute certainty that his orders would be followed. Instantly the punishing grip on her wrist eased, shifted as warm hands grasped her forearms just below the elbows. His hold was firm, but his fingers did not bite into her flesh as the werewolf’s had done, and his index finger stroked her bare skin. She gasped at the tiny, intimate gesture.
She lifted her chin to find the black werewolf giving way to a tall, dark-haired man with a military haircut. He knelt before her half dressed in camouflage. The spots swirled into a vivid pattern of light. She closed her eyes, struggling against the darkness that threatened to consume her.
“Just breathe,” he said, his words now lower, more personal, and lacking the bite of authority he used on the werewolf.
She did as he said, dragging in a lungful of air through her nose and then another. Her vision cleared and she noted his intent blue eyes pinning her, as surely as his hands that clasped her wrists. His eyes were not friendly; rather, they held caution and a glittering intensity that she could not read. He was imposing and not the least bit concerned by the giant hulking werewolf who stood panting and growling behind his left shoulder like some rabid dog. Where was the other one?
Her gaze flicked back to the soldier. The patch on his sleeve showed a chevron, but she didn’t know what rank that was. His posture, his bearing, the ridged thrust of his square jaw and the fatigues all screamed soldier. Bri recalled passing the training center and the fence the gray wolf had vaulted as a child might jump a mud puddle.
The gray werewolf had brought her to this man. Who was he?
His camouflage shirt was all browns and tans, flapping open as he loomed over her to reveal a rising landscape of hardened, contracting muscle. Four long, raised scars slashed across the right side of his chest. They looked like knife wounds, except the marks were evenly spaced and puckered as if a gash, rather than an incision, had caused this damage. One scar missed his nipple by a hair’s breadth. And there was more. Peppered throughout the scars were a series of punctures. What had happened to him?
“Why did you come here?” he asked, his voice no longer holding that calming tone. Now it sounded low and deadly.
The hairs on her neck prickled. She tried to speak, but the muscles of her diaphragm seemed paralyzed.
She lifted her chin to see his pronounced Adam’s apple and the dark morning stubble on his throat. The muscles at each side of his neck corded like wings. His clenched jaw looked hard as steel, except for the continuation of the beard that did not mesh with her image of the uniformly clean shave of most army men. His lips showed tight displeasure, making his generous mouth seem stingy at least for her. His long nose had a bump high on the bridge, showing an old break. It gave character to an otherwise flawless slope. His cheeks were high and smooth, above the distinct line of stubble that merged seamlessly into the sideburns of the short, bristled haircut favored by military men and athletes. Bri lifted her gaze to meet his eyes.
She saw the i
cy blue and decided in that instant she had made a terrible mistake. This man would not help her. He was a soldier, hardened, heartless, and she would find no pity in him.
The hairs lifted on her neck as she looked to the right and left for help. She caught movement and then the large, dark werewolf who seemed to be waiting for the order to attack. She stifled the scream rising like bile in her throat.
“What are you doing here?” barked the soldier.
“I...I’m looking for help.”
His thick brows tugged together, forming a perfect bisecting line between them. She noticed another scar now, a thin white line that cut across the outer edge of his left brow, creating a thread-thin territory where no hairs grew. His brows were deep brown. Was that what color his hair would be if he had any?
“Why would we help a thing like you?”
Bri gasped.
“That’s right, sweetheart. I know what you are. Surprised?”
Her eyes rounded. “Yes. And you know about the vampires, too?”
He cocked his head as those blue eyes targeted her. Then he gave a slow nod. Maybe there was still a chance then.
“Then can you explain it to me?”
That answer made his head snap back. What had he expected her to say?
“You telling me you don’t know?”
“Yes, I know. Bits and pieces. My nana knew they were after me. And a woman came last night to warn me about them.” And suddenly one of the things Nana said to Bri suddenly made sense. Stay single. Keep moving. She understood now. Nana trying to protect her from the things that stalked her. But why hadn’t Nana told her outright? Why hide the threat from her granddaughter? Nana hadn’t answered any of her questions until the very end. Only when her grandmother knew she was dying had she revealed the terrible truth, and then there hadn’t been enough time.
