Wolf Hunter

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Cameron straightened up to his full new height and let loose of a long, low howl. Feeling imminently alive, he tuned in to his surroundings and the woman standing in front of him who, it turned out, wasn’t really completely human at all. This was a female out of her element who had allowed him a glimpse into intimacy and real physical closeness, things he had lacked for so damn long.

  And she, Abby, with a little wolf trapped inside her body, gave a responding growl when his shudders ceased.

  Panic.

  Thrill.

  She stood there, watching. She hadn’t moved.

  Her eyes were wide and watery, her face paler than pale. More questions lay in her expression, the answers to them lost without his human voice. He had left that voice behind.

  And...

  She. Stood. There.

  Anxiety rolled off Abby in great cresting waves. She held her breath. She didn’t blink. He had the distinct feeling that she blamed him for her present predicament and her unearthly desires, without realizing that she must have possessed a wolf all along. Possibly this blame game had been why she had run from him tonight.

  I don’t know how this happened, Abby. I swear.

  Admittedly, and without knowing for sure, he might have unwittingly unlocked her wolf with sex, but he hadn’t been the one who spliced wolf into her DNA in the first place. Someone else has done that.

  No ring of teeth marks showed on her flawless flesh, and yet something in her bloodstream dictated her new direction. He knew that part of her realized this, but how much?

  Like recognizing like, Abby. That’s what this is.

  It’s the source of our connection. The root of our desires.

  He detected no scent of wolf saliva that might suggest a recent bite from a rogue, and which would have urged a wolf to blossom with the first full moon. Minus those bite and scratch marks, a family member must have put her wolf there. Given that fact, eventually the wolf bits would have been tripped, whether or not he had met her.

  So, with no bites, what did that leave? Genetics?

  Hell, he wasn’t sure that inheriting the virus was possible. If it could be passed along that way, and he hadn’t done this to her, why did he feel so damn guilty facing her now?

  He howled again, releasing the awful tension of the moment.

  How can you not have a clue about your own background?

  Who are your parents? What are they?

  He couldn’t apologize for something they both had wanted. A transition in reverse was out of the realm of possibility, since a reversal was always tougher, and left him quite ill. However, he considered it because Abby acted as if she had been broadsided by witnessing his shape-shift.

  This seemed unreasonable. Surely someone would have told her what to expect if they knew what she kept hidden inside?

  Unless no one else knew.

  When she moaned, Cameron’s heart went out to her. He couldn’t put his arms around her in a shape like this. He could not touch her.

  The dark beast that had taken him over noticed a disturbance in the surroundings. A flare of anger raged through him for the distraction. His beast’s intuition battered at him as if it truly was a separate entity and knew something the man didn’t.

  He whipped his head around to scan the dark.

  What’s wrong with this picture?

  What is out there?

  The answer came like a flash of unwelcome headlights.

  Visitor.

  Chapter 10

  There was no time to stare, shout or break down into a mass of trembling emotion. As soon as Abby had heard the first snap of Cameron’s bones, torrents of pain arrived, nearly breaking her in two and bringing in pain’s wake an unbelievable few moments of understanding.

  When his bones realigned, Abby felt as though each and every bone in her body reacted simultaneously.

  When his shoulders widened and his chest expanded, tearing apart his bronzed flesh and pushing torn muscles and everything else in his system way beyond their limits, her body responded with a pounding, pulsating agony so forceful and complete she could not even scream.

  The terrible agony went on and on until she barely controlled the need to hurl. But the excruciating pain did have an end. When it eased and the feelings of sickness passed, a full-blown werewolf stood beside her—huge, daunting, scary as heck.

  Cameron, the wolf.

  Fright careened through her. Abby looked down at her body, expecting the worst. But she had not changed. Miraculously, though her insides had felt tortured, she looked the same as she always did.

  Chills arrived in droves. With them came an immediate amendment of that last thought. She wasn’t the same, and would never be the same again. No one having experienced the slightest bit of what a Were’s morph felt like could imagine a werewolf enjoyed it. Only a true monster would look forward to the effects of a full moon on a mostly human system.

  Abby looked up, and into the werewolf’s eyes. They were Cameron Mitchell’s gold eyes. The light of intelligence shone from them. Colorful and dilated, they remained expressive and sympathetic that she had witnessed what he had become.

  God. This was the creature Sam hunted, and what her scouting had helped Sam and his team to capture in the past. These kind, concerned eyes could have been similar to what lay in those other werewolf faces.

  “How could I have known?” she whispered. “Why doesn’t anyone know the truth about you?”

  Cameron hadn’t lost himself to the beast he shared a body with. Hints of him were there in the shape of the jaw, his height and the grace of every slight movement, including the tilt of his head. Cameron was a true hybrid—half and half. Not in the least bit crazed. No mindless monster.

  Abby suddenly wanted to take it all back—all the scouting and lectures forced upon her, the brainwashing and the part she had played in Sam’s schemes. It was, of course, too late.

  Cameron’s head turned toward the trees.

  “I’m sorry,” Abby said.

  He glanced at her.

  “So very sorry.”

  His attention moved. His muscles undulated.

  “Who is it?” Her question came out faint. Any newcomer might be the wrong one. Someone approached, and with her senses still reeling, she wasn’t sure if it was a wolf or a man. It could very well be Sam, or another member of his team out there.

  “They will kill you.” She choked out those words through a constricted throat. “Do you have any idea what kind of damage a silver bullet can do to a wolf? Just one bullet? Well, they have an endless supply.”

  All Weres had to know about the destructive properties of silver. Cameron had known about her knife. She had to get him away from this spot, and somehow give Sam the slip.

  Ducking under Cameron’s arms, reluctant to lose the comfort and terror of his heat, she said, “We’re sitting ducks here, ripe for the plucking.” She feared that moving wouldn’t increase their odds of survival by much.

  “Got to move, wolf.”

  Daring to leave him, she crept along the base of the wall beside her like a burglar, skirting the moonlight, hating the moonlight. Reaching for her knife, she found the hilt too hot for her gloveless fingers to handle, and guessed that the effects of Cameron’s shift still lingered inside her body.

  Every few feet she traveled away from him hurt as badly as the tearing of his flesh had. Being separated from him made her feel as if she were dying inch by inch, because he was the closest thing to getting the answers she had always needed about herself. At that moment, she felt like a part of him, torn from the whole, and no longer fully human.

  Of course, he wasn’t going to let her go. She counted on that.

  Without knowing what lay behind and what those hunters actually intended to do to him, Cameron’s desire to protect her overruled thoughts of his own health. Quickly catching up, he pulled her back to him easily with his greater size and bulk.

  “We can’t stand still. They will find us here,” Abby warned.


  The werewolf shook his head.

  “Sam’s been wrong in assuming anything. How many innocent Weres has his team killed, along with the bad? How many police officers and emergency-room doctors and construction workers did he take down, whose only problems were falling prey to the moon?”

  She barely got the next part out. “I know there are bad wolves. I’ve read about the human-and-wolf carnage in and around the city. But I didn’t know about you, and those who might be like you. You have to believe that. Sam probably doesn’t know, either, and truthfully, I’m not sure he’d care to find out.”

  Soundlessly, Cameron crossed in front of her, waiting to make sure she’d follow. Abby’s nerves buzzed faintly with his closeness. In a place inside her, deep down below the surface, her need for him remained strong.

  “They will separate and spread out,” she said.

  At least she knew something about the hunters’ routine.

  “They’ll hope to encircle their prey in the same way a wolf pack might. It isn’t only the wolves in this park that are giving off an ominous vibe. It’s what has come to find them.”

  And they’ll find you, my beautiful wolf.

  I can’t have that. I won’t allow that to happen.

  Close on Cameron’s heels, Abby followed. He walked fast, leading the way as if he knew where to go to outdistance the gathering storm. As a cop who had routinely patrolled this park, he probably did have a good idea about hiding places. Abby hoped so, anyway, until he paused to sniff the air.

  The hair on the nape of her neck stood up. Inhaling, Abby smelled it, too—a body, close by.

  * * *

  “Officer Mitchell.”

  An unrecognizable male voice broke the silence, the suddenness of it making Cameron’s ears ring.

  “I wondered if you might need assistance?”

  Stiffening, Cameron lunged to stand in front of Abby. His heart pounded. He raised his hands, ten claws fully extended.

  The man who had spoken remained in the shadows of a large tree to their right, just a dark spot in a moonlit landscape.

  “There’s always trouble brewing,” that man went on. “We cleared most of the parks of this kind of nonsense last year, but this one just keeps ticking.”

  “Who are you?” Abby pushed past Cameron.

  “A friend.”

  “To Cameron, or to me?”

  “That depends.”

  “Prove it,” she challenged.

  “Gladly, if you can first assure me you’re not affiliated with the other people out here tonight.”

  Cameron glanced back and forth from the shadows to Abby, whose face remained bloodless.

  “Well?” the man said.

  “I don’t owe you anything,” she replied. “Not even an introduction.”

  “I thought so. Mitchell, I suggest you let Miss Stark go, and come with me.”

  Cameron went rigid with a buildup of anger and resentment for the whole damn night and what was going on. But he lowered his hands. The scent of the new guy told him who this was. Detective Matt Wilson. From the bar.

  “If I get closer, I’ll lose anonymity,” Wilson said. “That might be a very dangerous state around you, Miss Stark. So, you’re either going to let Mitchell go on his merry way, with me, or be the cause of what might happen to all of us if we wait here for your associates to find us. Are you willing to take that chance?”

  Cameron growled his frustration with this line of reasoning. The detective didn’t seem to be aware of what Abby might be going through, and that Cameron didn’t have it in him to leave her to face a possible first confrontation with her wolf alone.

  No one deserved that.

  But she hadn’t shifted yet. Possibly Abby truly had only an inkling about what was going on inside her, but maybe not a full-fledged inkling. Although the moon was the brightest he had ever seen it, her body had withstood the urge to blend.

  “I have friends nearby,” Detective Wilson explained. “Unfortunately, Miss Stark has friends, too, and they are closing in. It’s likely they won’t harm her. You, Mitchell, are a prime target. Hell, I can see the bull’s-eye painted on your back from here, and I’m wondering if Miss Stark helped to put it there.”

  Cameron took a step toward the shadows, his chest rumbling with sounds he did not utter.

  “Time is short,” Detective Wilson said to him. “It’s your choice. But I’d remind you that I can help, and am willing to do so.”

  Abby moved. Cameron wasn’t entirely certain that she’d be able to get anywhere on her own, or if the people she had alluded to as hunters would resist shooting first, before identifying themselves, and hit Abby by mistake, going after anything that moved. She’d been injured out here once already.

  “Go,” she said soberly, facing him. “I’ll be okay.”

  He contemplated visiting the shadows to shed the wolf’s outline and regain the use of his voice, but as he turned, familiar sounds rushed in, along with Abby’s sudden breath of astonishment.

  The detective Cameron had met at the bar that night cleared the shadows as he began to transform. The shift happened incredibly fast, in seconds, and as though the detective had fluid body parts well used to rearranging. A formidable werewolf with dark brown fur stood on the edge of the grass, eyes flashing, teeth bared. Wilson hadn’t been kidding around. The situation had turned deadly serious.

  But then Wilson did a strangely human thing. He tossed his leather jacket to Abby and gestured for her to cover herself up.

  “Shit,” he heard Abby say as she backed up without taking her eye off the newcomer. “Another good one.”

  * * *

  “Get out of here,” Abby warned, glancing around. “Now.”

  God, yes, there were two werewolves facing her. The new wolf on the block didn’t seem like a mindless criminal, either. He knew Cameron.

  “I don’t hunt,” she said, needing to get that off her chest. “I don’t like it when anyone else does, except that someone has to clean up this hole of a park and others like it.”

  She backed up several more steps, knowing she’d have to sprint in the opposite direction when she wanted to follow these wolves.

  She was shaky, sure, but she’d recover and find a way to deal with Sam and the team if they found her. Somehow, she had to try to tell Sam about these two, and the possibility of others like them. But it would be a big giveaway if she did that now. It would let Sam know how close she’d gotten to the enemy. Sam wasn’t partial to new slants on understanding. He’d punish her for breaking the rules.

  Nevertheless, a lesson had been learned here, and it was a big one. Two out of two werewolves in one night turning out to be decent individuals were odds that went against everything Sam had preached. And though she had never bought it all, she had not anticipated this kind of turnaround.

  Despite the decent shakeup, a quick comeback on her part was an absolute necessity. “I won’t tell them. They won’t hurt me because they need me. Now get lost.”

  Beneath the intensity of Cameron’s wolf-eyed gaze, Abby felt like hanging her head. “Okay. So you know about me now. I tried to warn you. I tried to get you away from Sam. It’s the best I could do, since I didn’t actually want to get away from you at all.”

  I don’t want to go back.

  Don’t want to face what happens tonight.

  Did the beautiful man who was also a man-wolf combination hear her thoughts and understand? He hadn’t moved. His attention didn’t waver until the other wolf growled a warning that made him visibly uncomfortable. Like the new guy, Cameron bared his teeth.

  Abby had to tear herself away. Danger rode the night, and she’d played a part in that. The chances of getting out of the park without meeting up with a hunter were dismal, yet she knew the park a lot better than the new guys Sam had brought here to indulge in tonight’s full moon gaming.

  With a hand to her forehead, Abby saluted the big, fully transformed werewolves. Spinning on both heels, she took off in the
direction of the bar, swallowing the guilt of having been brainwashed by her father all this time, and hating being separated from the one wolf who had been about to show her something important about herself.

  “How will I find you again?” she muttered as she ran. “Will I find you again after this, or will it be too dangerous?”

  The werewolves didn’t follow her. Moonlight did, though she tracked to the west to avoid it. One eerie howl in the distance, a sound that echoed in the park, seemed a response to her softly spoken questions.

  “Maybe you will find me,” she said.

  Darting along on the pathway close to the walls, half-naked and wearing a stranger’s leather coat, she hoped the hunters wouldn’t stumble upon her. They had to have heard that howl.

  She started to run. But as bad luck would have it, she didn’t get far.

  Chapter 11

  Cameron raced alongside Wilson, considering the direction the brown wolf had taken, setting that path in mental databanks all cops possessed. He ached to turn around, didn’t like leaving Abby at the mercy of whatever lay behind in the dark.

  Detective Werewolf seemed to know exactly where he was headed. The massive park spanned blocks to their right, lit by nothing but moonlight. Taking out streetlights and park lights was a good deal for criminals wishing to hide dark deeds, and the city crews just couldn’t keep up with new bulbs.

  Vigilante. Abby had used that word when they’d first met, and Cameron supposed that’s exactly what he had become. But who was better suited for going after werewolves that were up to no good than one of the same species? Who else had the strength to confront them?

  He’d tried his damnedest to keep other cops on the outskirts of this park. What had happened to Stegman hadn’t been pretty. He would always remember that, and that a Were’s ability to speed the healing process made them almost indestructible in the long run, and more willing to face down an adversary. Add a little mental instability to the criminal werewolf soup, and the result was a pack with the ability to be every cop’s worst dream.