Wolf Hunter

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  Leaving him, even temporarily, would be the toughest thing she’d ever done.

  “I want to know everything about you,” she said softly, something she wanted nearly as much as round two of the extreme physical pleasure he gave her. Yet the rush of a newly discovered kind of blood in her arteries also gave Abby a feeling of being left behind on her own life story, and a sense of hollowness remained after being sated.

  “Everything about you,” she stressed, running a hand over his shoulder.

  When he looked up, Abby averted her gaze.

  Night flooded through the window next to the bed. The moon had dropped from its position high up, where it had lorded over its Were children, though strong light flowed over nearby rooftops and into Cameron’s backyard. That light had now become part of her, and the key to a strange existence. At present, its pull remained deniable, but for how much longer?

  She was a Lycan, and as such, her pelt would bring a fortune to anyone capturing it. She’d be hunted by the best teams Sam had with no letup, because Sam now knew for sure what she was. It seemed that he might have known all along what she had the potential to become. Was that why he had kept her around? Not out of any kind of familial loyalty, but to grow his own special million-dollar pelt?

  Abby’s stomach heaved up nothing but emptiness. Her involuntary convulsion made Cameron raise a hand to turn her head.

  “Abby.” His tone was serious. “We can’t take it back. We can only move forward, making the best of what we have.”

  She had granted Cameron access to her body, and desperately needed him again—inside her, merging with her. Only with their intimacy had she forgotten the rest and briefly glimpsed her own real strength. Together, they equaled something truly special.

  And yet she was about to leave that behind.

  She was going to leave him to find the truth about herself.

  “I know that,” she said. “But I’m stuck, neither here, nor there. No longer fully human, yet unable to shift into the thing I could become.”

  “Never fully human to begin with,” he pointed out.

  “So your friend says.”

  “He’d be the one to know. You can sense Weres, but it seems reasonable for Lycans to be able to sense more, sense things beyond what the rest of us can. From what I understand, Lycan blood has been around for quite some time. Years. Centuries.”

  When Abby’s eyes met his, her instinct was to let her body’s needs take over. Stay with Cameron. Figure this out. The sparks in his eyes and in his touch made her inner fires sizzle and dance, yet as if she’d been the one shot with that silver bullet, Sam’s secrets left their own dark hole of disturbed emptiness.

  “I don’t deserve you, or this,” she said. “After what I’ve done to Weres.”

  “Don’t, Abby. Don’t even think things like that,” he argued. “How were you to know?”

  But she should have known better, Abby thought. And she’d be good to no one until she found herself.

  “I have to go.” She continued to caress his face. Sensing the protest building up inside him, she placed a finger over his lips to try to hold the arguments back. If he said something logical, she might give in, change her mind, leave those questions unanswered. If he kissed her again, she’d lose sight of her goal.

  He took her hand in his and squeezed her fingers. Raising himself onto one elbow, he said, “I can’t let you leave. It’s my job to protect people, and the trouble out there stinks.”

  “People,” Abby said, “is a term that doesn’t describe either of us, really.”

  “You have claws, and not much else to help you face what’s waiting, Abby. What good are the claws when those hunters have guns? A fight with teeth and nails is personal and face-to-face. What’s the distance covered by a bullet shot from a gun or rifle? Where’s the sport in that? Those hunters don’t have to really see you. They won’t look into your eyes and see the light of humanity in them.”

  “They also kill monsters.” It was a weak protest, at best.

  “They do, but their sense of sport has gotten out of hand.”

  “Yes. Way out of hand,” Abby agreed. “But maybe we caused Sam to do this. My mother and I. Maybe something my mother did caused him to hate Weres so deeply.”

  “You didn’t know your mother?”

  “She died before I could.”

  Cameron nodded. “Are you thinking that Sam might have killed her?”

  She stared at him. The prickles along her spine returned because, damn it, she hadn’t thought that, hadn’t allowed herself to consider the idea...until now, when it was out in the open, and spoken with the voice of a man who had been bitten by a werewolf and had his life changed forever.

  Possibly she had been dreading that particular scenario.

  Could Sam have killed her mother?

  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe he had something to do with her death. I don’t know.”

  These were terrible thoughts, horrendous suppositions. She had tried to find out about Sonja Stark so many times, and come up short. She’d hid her search, hoping someday Sam would toss her a bone.

  “I won’t rest until I find out,” she said.

  “I can help with that, Abby. The department has access to all sorts of information.”

  Again their gazes connected, causing a stir deep inside Abby. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I’m like you? Because I have nowhere to turn, and don’t understand what I am?”

  “Because I want to know you better, too, and this seems like a good way to start.”

  Glancing to the window, Abby was able to draw in her first decent breath in a long night of turbulent events. “Thank you, Cameron.”

  He sat up to face her. “You don’t want to stay here, with me?”

  “I can’t. Not now.”

  He took that in. “Dylan and the others will help. You heard them say so.”

  “How do we know they spoke the truth?”

  “About you?”

  “Yes. About me.”

  “Is there another explanation for your inability to shift, when your claws proved the point?”

  “It doesn’t feel right.”

  “This feels right.” Cameron caught her elbow and, with a simple snap of his arm, brought her closer to him, level with him and down on her side, so that she had no option but to study his face. He said, “I’m not sure it would be like this if we weren’t alike to some degree.”

  His statement brought her more sadness. Abby held her tears back by the sheer force of her dogged determination not to weaken any further.

  “Then why did Sam marry a Lycan, someone so unlike him, and a creature he hunts with each full moon? What was that like for my mother?”

  Cameron pulled her closer, close enough to render his face a bronze blur in the darkened room. He placed a kiss on her forehead, and another one on her cheek. His large hands cupped her face so that she had to stay motionless.

  His lips brushed her mouth, then came back to linger. Not a real kiss—merely a breath and a touch and a reminder of the benefits of remaining with him. But she didn’t really need a reminder of that, and moaned when his hands eased over her neck, her shoulders and arms. He found her right breast, and closed his hand over her fullness with a palm made of pure, radiant heat.

  Unable to fight him, Abby shut her eyes. Just this once, and for one more time, she wanted to be Cameron’s partner.

  Her pulse quickened when he lightly rubbed his fingers over her. No one had ever touched her like this, as though each part of her nakedness was something to be treasured. Cameron wanted her. He might even love her.

  Arching her spine, she pressed herself against him. His reaction was to roll her onto her back. Wanting his mouth on hers, Abby reached for him. But he shook his head, having other ideas about where to place his lips.

  With a slow lap of his tongue over the raised bud of her nipple, he then closed his velvety lips over it, his tongue teasi
ng and darting in an agonizingly delicious process.

  It was too much pleasure for her, all at once, and in one night. Abby bucked off the bed. But one of Cameron’s arms slid beneath her, holding her firmly as he followed his caresses with a soft suckle that electrified her into stillness.

  And for her, this was...

  Was...

  Indescribable.

  He continued to lick and nibble and bite, holding her captive with each new action until the rhythm of her rising orgasm beat at her insides, threatening to end this session way too soon. She was completely helpless against the oncoming tide.

  Cameron halted that internal pressure by lifting his head. “Not done,” he said in a sexy, throaty tone of promise. “No need to rush. Go with me, Abby. Trust me. Let me have all of you tonight. Stay.”

  There was no way she could have replied. Again, the room was spinning. Cooler air breezed across the front of her dampened body as he moved backward, leaving a downward trail with his talented tongue. She felt his hand between her thighs, encouraging her legs to open. He rubbed her swollen sex in the same way he’d rubbed her breast, slowly, back and forth, adding pressure with each pass.

  She threw her head back, anticipating what he might do next.

  Clamping her teeth together to keep from screaming, she clutched at the sheet as Cameron again inserted one long, lean finger into her, parting her, testing her unnecessarily, readying the way for what she’d been waiting for. Her heart pounded. Her body throbbed as that finger brought more fire, more dampness, and a swift second rise of that distant drumbeat.

  And then the finger withdrew, and Cameron’s mouth replaced it. With a tender kiss and a quick dart of his hot tongue, he did that thing she had only heard of. He used his mouth to seduce her into an orgasm that burst with the light and fury of an exploding star.

  She groaned, screamed, as the climax went on and on, and Cameron’s mouth continued to give pleasure. But it wasn’t over. He wasn’t through.

  Before her climax had ended, he was inside her, his cock as seductive as his mouth had been. He moved in and out of her, not gently or taking his time, but with the real power of purpose. Cameron Mitchell would have her, take her, possess her until she’d have to deny all others and lose the will to leave. He’d mark her as his and split her in two if he had to, in order to get his point across. There was no one of them without the other. This joining was conceived of wolf magic and mystery.

  She came again in flashes of brilliant color and all-consuming flame, and then came once more after that. Her lover beat at her, tortured her with his strength and his prowess as a lover, not letting up until he could take it no longer.

  And then, as his own heat burst inside her, he lovingly whispered her name.

  Chapter 23

  Through their rasping, spent breaths, Cameron heard the sound that outpaced his thundering heart, and thought he had to be mistaken.

  No, there it was again, coming from the open window.

  When he paused and stiffened, Abby looked up.

  “Outside,” he said, on his feet in seconds.

  Sure that Abby had risen with him, he moved to the window and cautiously looked out. Though he saw nothing, he sensed danger with a certainty that chilled the back of his neck.

  Abby stood beside him, naked and as beautiful in her wild, rumpled state as anything he had ever set eyes on.

  “Smell?” he said, and she took in a long, deep breath of night air, and then backed away from the window.

  “Not humans, Abby?”

  She shook her head. “Wolf. More than one.”

  “I assume if they’re friendly, they will come to the front door.”

  “I think we might have ruined your front door when we came in,” she reminded him.

  “Well, that’s not good,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Anyone might waltz in here like there’s an open invitation.”

  Abby glanced to the hallway. “Or might have already.”

  Again, Cameron looked outside. “Being Were sometimes has its perks. At least we know when someone else is in the vicinity.”

  He knew the seriousness of having wolves in his neighborhood, and that this didn’t bode well for someone. The three Weres he’d met that night had gone. As far as he knew, not many other people were aware of his address. No one that counted, anyway. He’d moved to a neighborhood far from the precinct on purpose, not keen to get cozy with his neighbors in case the wolf in him took a wrong turn. Also, he had a hunch that a lot of the rogue Weres doing damage in and around the park came from this area, and he’d hoped that with close proximity he’d be able to keep an eye on them.

  “Stay here, Abby.”

  She gave him a questioning look.

  “I mean it. Please stay here. I’m going out for a better look around.”

  “Kiss my behind,” she said soberly, and he smiled.

  “Gladly. But give me a minute.”

  Abby smiled back, and that smile lit up her face. She reached for her knife and found it missing.

  “It’s on the floor,” he said, wondering how Abby could be Were and handle that damn knife so easily, supposing that being Lycan had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of questions to ask those other Weres the next time they met.

  The next sound from outside came from behind the fenced yard next door. “Too close for comfort,” he said.

  “What are they after?”

  “My guess is that they’re onto our scent. Especially now that we’ve...” He ended that sentence differently. “And that just won’t do.”

  “I’ll get out of here.”

  “Yep. Right now, and with me.”

  “The moon’s still up,” Abby noted.

  “Even better. No need to take the time to get dressed.”

  Abby strapped her knife, in its leather sheath, onto her leg.

  “You do realize you won’t be able to hold that with claws?” Cameron said.

  “Who said I’ll have claws?”

  “Hell, Abby, you are a freaking enigma. A lovely, freaking enigma.”

  “Time to move, wolf,” she said over one bare shoulder as she raced from the room.

  In reply, and with his eyes on that bare shoulder, Cameron growled.

  Side by side, they left the house and moved into the street. Cameron figured there was only one place to lead a couple of bad wolves, when protecting Abby sat foremost on his mind, and hoped that going there wouldn’t wear out his welcome. Like it or not, it seemed that the Landau pack was going to see a lot more of his sorry ass.

  Tonight the Landau walls would be guarded. Quite possibly, their pack would have a presence in the park near enough to those walls to keep loafers well away from discovering a house full of Weres. If any of the purebloods there smelled like Abby, that compound would have to be very well protected.

  Abby’s scent was like candy. Like catnip. What better way to attract a wolf was there, than allowing it a whiff of her highly erotic she-wolf pheromones?

  Cameron cursed the distraction that made another round of sex impossible. The light bouncing off rooftops hit him square in the face. It was party time. In this instance, though, he welcomed the magical voodoo intrinsic to that light. He’d be stronger, fiercer, faster, all furred up. He’d be better able to protect Abby, in lieu of carrying his daytime gig’s weapon.

  “Follow me” were the last words he got out before his shift began.

  * * *

  Cameron had never really seen Abby in full motion, other than in his bedroom. Yet here she was, running by his side, tense, determined and looking as though she could do some damage to whoever showed up to chase them.

  She kept up, without the benefit of a partial fur coat to cloak her bareness. She was barefoot and naked, except for the strip of brown leather on one lower leg that was the sheath holding her knife. And she was very pale in the moonlight, with the colorlessness of a ghost.

  He’d forgotten to ask her for more details about the hunters, such as if they prow
led the park all night, or had set hours. If they stayed until sunrise, a direct route to the Landau compound for him and Abby would be out of the question. A werewolf seen running through the streets with a naked woman by his side would be equally as bad.

  He’d have given anything right about now for his own cell phone and the gun he had locked up before heading out to the bar tonight for Stegman’s wake—a gun that wouldn’t have done much good against a nasty set of werewolves bent on trouble.

  Had that fight in the park been only last night? Hell, he felt as though he’d lived five lifetimes in forty-eight hours.

  He grasped tightly to Abby’s hand, careful with his claws, needing to touch her. She ran like the wind, breathing through the bruised mouth he had repeatedly ravaged.

  His block and the several beyond it had plenty of houses. The pathway Cameron chose cut through the worst parts of the area, where buildings marked by graffiti and littered with debris were the norm.

  When cars passed, he and Abby hid in the shadows. There were, he knew, about three miles between his house and the Landau compound by street—a big circular pattern and a long way under any circumstances. In the dark, under a big moon, and with the wolf’s urge to both pleasure and protect Abby, reaching Laudau’s walls seemed a particularly difficult feat.

  “They’re coming,” Abby announced.

  Inevitable, Cameron thought. And a goddamn shame. His strength had been compromised by not only the silver bullet that had mercifully missed his heart, but by his energy output since then. Weres might heal miraculously, and he certainly had beat the odds of enjoying a nice, long hospital stay, but he felt more sluggish than usual. The bullet hole in his chest burned all the way through to his shoulder blades.

  He hated when others were right, and he’d had to nix a full recovery. The timing of this new attack sucked.

  “Building on your right,” Abby called out, already heading that way.