The Vampire's Wolf

by Jenna Kernan

  An instant later, the howl of agony seemed to vibrate from the walls. Why weren’t they firing?

  The screaming diminished and then stopped. Lam looked back to Mac, and he gave the order he would live to regret.

  “Double time,” he yelled, and his men responded, eager to come to the aid of the first two teams.

  They reached the west wing and met with silence and an open door. Lam stepped into the room first followed by his team: the rifleman, Towsen; the assistant light machine gunner, Barbari; and the light machine gunner, Gonzalez. They fanned out, backs to the wall, as Mac cleared the door and stepped into the large room. For a moment, he made a perfect target against the opening. Something streaked forward. Robert Townsen, Lam’s point man, managed to squeeze the trigger of his M-4 before something tore him off his feet. His scream came a moment later and died in a liquid gurgle.

  “Get down,” called Gonzales as something clasped his ankle and dragged him off his feet.

  Mac swept the room and his heart went cold. Bodies littered the floor like trash bags. His first two Fire Teams, he realized as the bile rose up in his throat. What the hell was going on?

  There was something here, something big as a bear. What was this, a half-assed zoo?

  A creature ran straight at them on all fours.

  “Fire,” Mac yelled.

  Barbari and Lam both opened up, and they continued firing but the thing kept coming— slashing at Gonzalez and tearing his innards out despite his Kevlar vest and body armor. Then it turned toward him. Lam stepped in front of Mac, swinging his weapon at the beast’s head as Mac drew his knife.

  That wasn’t a bear, he realized, but he’d never seen anything like it. Huge, with massive forearms and claws that still dripped blood from its attack on Gonzales.

  “Kill it,” shouted Lam, striking the thing in the forehead with the butt of his weapon. Mac raised his knife as Lam was tossed across the room.

  Mac aimed for the jugular and sliced across the creature’s neck. Nothing happened. No laceration. No blood. The thing stared at him, seeming to grin. Had this one thing killed his first two teams? In that instant, looking into those yellow eyes, he knew that it had.

  Mac fired his personal weapon until it was spent, and the monster just stood, as unaffected as a tank being struck by rocks. What the hell was this thing?

  Johnny came back, charging the monster like a lineman on Friday night. The creature turned.

  “No!” Mac shouted. He couldn’t watch another man killed by that animal. Mac moved to intercept Lam, shoving hard, knocking him off balance as he took the hit intended for Johnny. Fangs punctured Mac’s shoulder. Top and bottom jaws clamped on to him as the creature tore him from his feet. His weapon clattered to the ground as he lost control of his arm. Pain seared through him, and his stomach heaved. As abruptly as it grabbed him, the monster let go, using its claws to flip him and then toss him. Mac sailed across the room and crashed into a concrete wall. He lost his goggles and with them his sight. Now he was blind in the dark, seeing the world only in short blasts of machine gunfire.

  Towsen, he realized. Where was Barbari? Was he alive? Was Lam?

  “Fall back,” Mac ordered. “Fall back, damn you. Get the hell out of here.” The smell of blood filled his nostrils and he slipped on the viscous fluid, unable to regain his footing. “Get out and call it in.”

  His shouting brought the thing in his direction as he’d intended. It grabbed him again and shook him like a terrier with a snake. Mac’s arms flailed, his jaw snapped on his tongue and his vision blurred. It shook so hard Mac thought he’d lose his arm, but instead he’d only lost his humanity. He hadn’t understood at the time, but that was the moment when everything had changed.

  Mac blinked until he could see the fire again and Bri seated beyond, still and pale as carved ivory.

  “I told him to fall back,” Mac whispered.

  She’d wrapped her arms about herself, though whether from the cold or the horror he could not tell.

  “I woke up in a medevac. Johnny was there with me, right beside my stretcher. My memory is bad here, because I remember him telling me to hold on, but he couldn’t have, because they said he was in worse shape than I was. I think he was in wolf form before we touched down.” Mac pushed the guilt down deep and rubbed his hairline, feeling the raised scars that threaded over his head. “It also tore my scalp. They said it was flapping like a toupee. Collapsed a lung here.” He hiked his shirt to show her the puncture mark in his ribs. Mac pointed at the scars as if displaying a road map. “I have these because I was still human. Nothing scars my skin now. It’s better than Kevlar.”

  Bri nodded, having seen the scars before; he was still impressed that she didn’t look away.

  “They must have hurt.”

  Not as badly as how much he hurt inside. At the time they were a welcome distraction from his anguish. The pain and the pain pills both gave him the only respite he knew from the haunting memories. When he closed his eyes he still heard those screams. Marines, screaming like animals in a slaughterhouse, for they were.

  “They shipped us both stateside. But not to a hospital. They sent us here. When I was allowed out of bed, I went to see Johnny. He was all that was left of the team. They’d already buried the rest.” Mac felt the air leave him as he recalled writing a letter to each family.

  He pulled a stick from the fire and used it to poke at the dirt until the flaming tip extinguished. Then he threw the stick, watching the glowing ember spiral until it hit with a tiny explosion of sparks.

  “They said he was...like he is, because he’d been attacked by two of those things. They knew because of the separate bite marks. The shape of the canines were different.”

  “There were two?” Bri asked.

  He shook his head, not trusting his voice to hold steady. Mac clamped his hand over his mouth as if that could hold back the self-loathing. For just a moment he thought he was going to puke.

  He was supposed to protect his men. He was supposed to keep them safe, for Christ’s sake. He damned sure wasn’t supposed to attack them.

  “Mac?”

  He dragged his hand from his mouth and held up one finger. “Just the one that attacked us and then me. I attacked Johnny. They said the teeth marks matched. Lam did his best to protect me and I turned on my own man. I don’t know how many I killed. Which ones. I don’t remember. Towsen, probably, and maybe Barbari, too. They wouldn’t show me those videos and I didn’t ask. But they said nobody else got out. Me and Johnny were the only survivors.” Though part of him had died with them. The best part. He kept going to see Johnny through this nightmare. After that...he didn’t know.

  He wanted to go home to his family. Pretend none of this ever happened, lock it down so deep and so tight that he forgot everything. But he already knew that wouldn’t happen because of the nightmares. They just kept coming.

  He pressed the heels of both hands into the sockets of his eyes. And then she was there before him, kneeling at his feet, her slim arms slipping about his middle and her soft breasts pressing against him as she held on tight.

  “Did you hear me?” he whispered.

  “I heard.”

  “My own men.”

  “Shhh, now,” she cooed.

  “You should be running the other way.”

  “No. I’m staying.”

  “Might turn on you, too.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “I’m dangerous.”

  “Yes. And so am I. Maybe that’s why we are together.”

  Mac looked into her eyes and saw understanding. It drew him in, captured him more surely than any magic spell she might be able to cast over human males. But this was stronger, this bond they shared, this parallel of being different, being dangerous and hurting those you cared about.


  “We have that in common,” she whispered. “You and I are not human. Before she died, my nana told me she wanted me to hold on to my humanity. I think I understand now what she meant. She wanted me to be like my father, passionate and full of life. But I’ve been like my mother, attracted to those who have that life instead of generating my own. When I’m with you I feel alive inside, Mac. Sometimes I’m afraid and confused, but always very alive.”

  He felt that, too, not the mindless infatuation he’d heard described in a briefing of the only known survivor of a female vampire attack. The victim was saved by werewolf bodyguards, who recognized the female before she got too close. Even after he knew what she was, he was ordering off his bodyguards, who ignored him, of course.

  Mac’s attraction to Brianna was also physical, but there was more. So much more he didn’t want to dwell on it. But he knew that she did understand his sorrow and the loss of so much of his life. She knew what it was to be other among your own friends and family and to have hurt those she loved.

  “With anyone else I have to live with the knowledge that whether I draw their life away or make them burn it up like gasoline, I don’t bring my own flame. It’s different with you. I feel my own passion burning now. When I’m with you, I feel my own life force instead of yours.”

  “Because I block your powers.”

  “And you are certain that it’s safe for me to let go. I never have. Even before Nana told me, I knew deep down it was dangerous.”

  “It’s not with me.” He ran a hand up the long muscles of her back and then wrapped his fingers about her slender neck, controlling her. “You can’t draw my power. We’re opposites, I think, or perhaps we are just the same.”

  “Are you sure that I can’t hurt you?”

  “Not in the way you mean. Not physically.” But she could do a job on him emotionally if he let her get too close. This had to be just physical. It was his only protection from the inevitable loss. Once Johnny was human again, Mac could leave here and return home, at least to visit. He might always be a Devil Dog, but he could reclaim some of what he lost, unless he chose this woman. He couldn’t do that, not without losing everything and everyone else. But he could have this moment.

  Bri still looked unconvinced. “How do you know I can’t hurt you?”

  “Lewis told me. For years the Israelis have had werewolves acting as bodyguards for political officials. Recently they added a female vampire. She works in their intelligence operations. They’ve done studies. Placed the male werewolves in close quarters with her. They found that werewolves are on a different frequency or something. I don’t understand it exactly, but my brain doesn’t respond to your mojo.”

  “This werewolf was all right?”

  “Even after he slept with her. They checked cell growth and division. All normal. They said that vampire-werewolf teams were safe and that werewolves would make natural colleagues for working agents, as the vampires wouldn’t have to worry about killing their partners.”

  She stared in silence as the ramifications of what he told her sunk in. Could it be true? Hope fluttered in her chest but she held it in—afraid to accept the possibilities he dangled before her.

  “He wasn’t attracted to this woman?”

  He shook his head. “He reported he was no more attracted to her than he would be to any beautiful woman, and all her attempts at persuasion failed.”

  Bri tried to say something, but her heart was pounding so hard in her chest that it hurt her ribs. He wasn’t drawn to her.

  “Bri, do you understand what this means? It’s safe. Lewis showed me the report. I read it. Female vampires emit power is a high-frequency electrical wave that increases brain activity in humans. It stimulates the, oh shit, I forgot the name.” He lifted his hand and scratched his head. “It’s the part of the brain that is responsible for creative thinking. It also damages growing tissue and interferes with cell replication.”

  She understood what that meant. “Cancers.”

  “Yes and bruising and nosebleeds and loss of hair. Damage to reproductive organs. It’s like radiation, sort of, or that’s how they explained it to me. Your body gives off this energy all the time, but on occasion, the emission is much higher. High enough to kill.” He held her gaze as her cheeks burned. They both knew what kind of occasion caused this high emission, as he dubbed it.

  “But you are part human.”

  “So are you. Now come here.”

  She closed her eyes as he tipped her head and lowered his mouth to hers. The first kiss came sweet as cane sugar. His warm mouth pressed to hers, filling her with a honeyed lethargy. He used gentle pressure to encourage her to open her lips for him and stroked her tongue with his own. The contact set off electric charges of excitement through her body. She leaned against him, and he took her back to the earth, pinning her with one strong leg as he sucked her tongue. She gave herself willingly, knowing that with this man she could burn away her passion without stealing his. She had always been afraid of what would happen if she ever allowed herself that ultimate release. It had been a sore spot with Matthew, and since she had been with Jeffery only that one time, she didn’t think he realized she had not reached her own fulfillment. Both men thought she was reserved, shy. But she was none of that. Instinctively she had felt the danger and had kept her response tamped down deep inside herself.

  Mac pulled back and gazed down at her. “You taste so sweet,” he whispered. “I want to taste you all over.”

  She closed her eyes and made a sound that most resembled a purr of anticipation. Yes, she wanted that, too. She wanted all of it. She wanted to plunge into passion and open wide to all he offered.

  Bri stretched out beside the fire, the flames warming one side of her as the night air cooled the other. Above her, Mac stared down, his face half gilded and half in shadow. Just like the man, he was half apparent and half mystery. But she felt she knew him better now, understood how he became what he was.

  Bri pushed off the ground and lifted the hem of her T-shirt and outer sweatshirt, drawing them both away in one graceful sweep. His eyes went to her breasts first, made more tempting, she knew, by the turquoise push-up bra that Johnny had collected. The A cup did not quite fit her, and so she spilled over the top. Mac used a thumb to brush her exposed top of one breast and Bri trembled. Ah, yes, she thought, this was what she’d longed for and never had—until now. Mac offered himself like a banquet to a starving woman. She wanted to touch every square inch of him and take everything he had to give.

  She captured his big, warm hand against her breast, savoring the sweet aching pressure at his touch.

  “Now you,” she whispered, releasing him.

  He reached up behind his neck, grasping the T-shirt with one hand and yanking it with a violent tug that made her stomach flutter. He was her warrior, violent and dangerous. He was also part wolf, feral, driven by instinct. And now his only ambition was to have her. Her gaze devoured him, both the hard muscles and the raised white scars that had made him what he was—hers.

  The edge of danger that clung to him aroused her in ways she did not want to consider. She let her eyes gobble him up, rising to explore the hard planes of his muscular chest. Was this what they meant by body armor? He certainly had muscle to spare, hard, defined, ripped. Her fingers swept up his torso, and he inhaled sharply through his nose. The pads of her fingers registered the change in texture from the satin of his skin to the puckering nubs of his nipples and then the leathery white scars where the werewolf had torn him open.

  “I haven’t had a woman in a long time,” he said.

  “Dry spell’s over,” she whispered and kissed his chest.

  Bri patted the place beside her, and he rolled onto his back, wrapped an arm possessively around her hips and brought her flush against him.

  She wiggled away, feeling the need to go exploring. Bri lea
ned forward to kiss those scars. She let her tongue follow them like a river, down to his nipple, where she sucked. He gasped, clasping the back of her head and holding her there. She didn’t mind. She used her tongue to flick over his taunt nipple, feeling her heartbeat quicken in anticipation.

  His fingertips danced over her shoulders and down her spine, raising a tingling awareness and stoking her internal furnace. He held still for her exploration, but she felt what his stillness cost him in the tightly coiling muscles. He did not grab at her or hurry her, as Jeffery had done. He let her do as she liked, letting his body be her playground. The sense of power elated her. She knew that he was the stronger, but for this moment she held the power. Bri glanced up at him and saw her intuition was right. His stillness was a thin facade. He watched her like prey, his mouth grim and his eyes blazing with emotion. He was waiting for her to finish, waiting for the signal to advance. He held her gaze and his mouth quirked as his eyes issued a challenge.

  “Go for it,” he whispered.

  “You think you can take it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Take it all.”

  Her fingers danced down his ribbed abdomen but she paused when she grazed the top of his fatigues and found his erection there beneath the wide waistband.

  She gasped in surprise at the length of him. He took the opportunity to sweep down and capture another kiss. This was no gentle caressing or quiet exploration. He plundered as he brought her head back, his fingers grazing her neck as his tongue invaded her mouth. She gasped at the thrill of desire bolting through her middle and streaking down to her core, and felt herself go hot and wet. He moved from her mouth, the stubble of his cheek grazing her sensitive skin as he took her earlobe between his teeth and bit down with just enough force to make her startle in excitement. Mac pushed the straps of her bra down until the lacy undergarment encircled her waist. His hot tongue stroked the ridge of her ear before dipping inside. She trembled and clung to him as excitement shuddered through her. With each kiss and caress she grew wet until she shifted her hips impatiently. She wanted out of these clothes.