Wolf Hunter

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  * * *

  “I sincerely hope the invitation to come here included her,” Cameron said to the Were in the doorway without having to look to see who it was.

  “And if it didn’t?” Dylan replied.

  “Then I’m sorry, and owe you one.”

  “You know we can’t let her go now that she has been here.”

  “I figured as much,” Cameron admitted. “I’m fairly sure Abby won’t want to go anywhere, anytime soon, though. She might even relish the break. This has been a long night for me, so I can’t imagine what it’s been like for her.”

  Dylan came closer to glance down at the bed. “I met Dana on a side street, under a full moon.”

  Cameron looked at him.

  “She was in the middle of her first shape-shift and had no idea what was happening.”

  Cameron nodded. “She told me you saved her ass.”

  “She fell out of her patrol car, onto the street. What law-abiding citizen wouldn’t have helped her, especially when she took off her clothes?”

  Sensing Dylan’s readiness to talk, Cameron turned to face him. “Yep,” he agreed. “It’s hard to avoid them when they start on their clothes.”

  When Dylan smiled, it was one of the most charming smiles Cameron had seen on a man.

  “You bonded with Delmonico that night?” he asked.

  “As if it was meant to be,” Dylan confessed. “I looked into her eyes and...well, no one else would do after that. She had gotten under my skin.”

  “Amen to that.” Cameron glanced again to Abby, who was now sound asleep. “Although I have no idea what Abby is, really.”

  Dylan sat down in the chair by the window Cameron had escaped from earlier that night. This time, Cameron thought, he had a reason to remain. That reason’s silky auburn hair fanned out across a floral pillowcase. Her face looked unbelievably pale.

  “Can you tell me about her, Dylan?”

  Dylan nodded. “Abby is the product of a liaison between two Weres whose bloodlines date back to the Flood. Before the Flood, no record of our kind exists.”

  Cameron interrupted with a question in need of clarification. “The Flood? You’re talking about the one of biblical notoriety?”

  Dylan nodded. “Some say that it had to be either on the Ark, or around then, that Lycans came into existence. But more evidence points to the figures etched in the tombs of the pharaohs, long before that. There were numerous depictions of men with the heads of wolves.”

  Cameron had seen some of those pictures in books and in documentaries on Egypt. He inclined his head, meaning for Dylan to go on.

  “Whatever our origins, like in most cultures, Lycan evolution is only as strong as the purity of its bloodlines. In order for the traits we possess to be contained and passed along, the mating of two pure-blooded Lycans is required.”

  “What about your mate? Delmonico?” Cameron asked.

  “Dana was bitten by a drugged-up madman, which rendered her blood suspect. In this pack or any other one, her children would never be allowed.”

  “That’s harsh.”

  “It’s the only way to protect ourselves from what has happened all around us.”

  “You mean the furred-up asses killing people all over the place, and the sudden explosion in their numbers?”

  Dylan nodded. “Our DNA is fragile. When a Were bites a human, the result is unpredictable. Bite a criminal, and you might end up with a supercharged criminal. The virus does nothing to fix a deviant mind, and, in fact, magnifies what’s already there.”

  Dylan looked to the window as if seeing parts of the past few months in the rapidly lightening dark. “The pack we cleaned out of the park last year was masterminded by a wolf that handpicked his followers for his own cruel purposes. He bit the initial few, then started the ball rolling as if it were some kind of psychotic pyramid scheme.”

  “Damn,” was all Cameron could say.

  “Most of that pack was killed when the warehouse housing them burned to the ground. A few missed their date with the funeral pyre and are around somewhere, cloning themselves.”

  “Easy as a bite or scratch,” Cameron said. “The police were there the night it all went down.”

  “They were on the periphery. Weres got there first.”

  Cameron blinked slowly. “Let me guess. There are even more Weres in the Miami PD than I know about after tonight?”

  Dylan smiled.

  “Are you one of those few, Dylan?”

  “I’m an attorney.” Dylan held up a hand. “And I’m aware of the jokes.”

  “What kind of attorney? One that specializes in werewolf issues?” Cameron said with more levity than he felt.

  “Something like that. I’m in the DA’s office.”

  Cameron blew out a breath. “District attorney. You’re that Landau.”

  Cameron shrugged and said soberly, “Dana and I won’t have children.”

  “Because it isn’t allowed and you’ll follow the rules?”

  “Because it’s important to others that we heed those rules.”

  Cameron smoothed a corner of the sheet covering Abby’s slumbering body, contemplating the personal stuff Dylan had shared.

  “You’ve imprinted with Delmonico,” he finally said. “This, according to you, means that you’ll be together forever, metaphysically speaking.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that’s okay with you? Not having a family, I mean?”

  “We’ll make do, and it will be worth every minute.”

  Cameron believed Dylan. He honestly liked the guy. Dylan was maybe a bit too handsome for some people to automatically take seriously at first, but his quiet inner strength and palpable Lycan vibe made him a serious contender for the term formidable.

  “I was bitten in a raid,” Cameron said. “Like Delmonico was. And I believe you’re telling me all of this about rules and DNA as a subtle lead-up to the fact that Abby is like you. She’s a DNA-kissed Lycan who has imprinted with a bitten Were male.”

  “Thanks for making this easy,” Dylan said.

  “Nothing deviant about my brain,” Cameron remarked.

  Dylan gestured to the bed. “She’s been stunted, but has started her change.”

  “That sounds ominous, Dylan.”

  “Do you remember what you went through after receiving that bite?”

  “I’ll never forget it.”

  “Hers might be worse.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Cameron said.

  “What you went through is called a Blackout.”

  “Jesus. It has a name?” Cameron ran a hand through his hair and let out a long, slow breath.

  Dylan continued. “It’s what happens when the body rewires itself, reconfiguring into the new thing it will become.”

  “Aren’t Lycans wired from the start?”

  “The blood is in the veins, and the virus is in the blood, but for Lycans, it remains static until we come of age.”

  “Abby has to be twenty-three or four,” Cameron said.

  “She’s late for her date with the moon, but that’s not unheard of, given where she’d been living.”

  “She’ll go through that Blackout thing now that the changes have started?”

  “Yes. And for some reason, it can be a far worse ordeal for females to get through.”

  The hair at the nape of Cameron’s neck stood up in anticipation of more bad news he was sure would come.

  “There are relatively few female Lycans,” Dylan explained. “Maybe that’s because their systems are fragile, and maybe because their trip through puberty is rougher than ours and takes a toll with other kinds of blood loss. Whatever the reason, pure-blooded Lycan females are rare, and coveted.”

  Cameron got to his feet, suddenly very anxious about where this was going.

  “Sit,” Dylan suggested. “Please.”

  “I don’t think I want to.”

  “It’s okay, Cameron. You have imprinted with Abby, and no one can ta
ke that away from you.”

  Cameron eyed Dylan skeptically.

  “What I’m trying to say is that I have a theory that might explain her circumstances and the reason she’s here.”

  “I’d love to hear it.”

  “Someone might have been waiting for Abby to rewire,” Dylan said. “Someone close to her.”

  “By someone, you mean the only person who might have known about her all along, and about what she is.”

  Dylan said, “Sam Stark.”

  Cameron’s stomach would not calm down, nor could he make it. There was something so bleakly ominous in what Dylan had proposed, it took some time for him to wrap his mind around what Dylan’s theory might be.

  Good thing his own mind still worked like a steel trap.

  “A hunter raises a wolf for what reason?” he asked, and the answer he immediately came up with made him sick. “His own private pelt factory? Something to torture? Hell, Dylan, you aren’t suggesting that?”

  He was getting sicker by the second.

  Dylan held up a placating hand. “Sam Stark used Abby’s innate ability to ferret out other Weres. You don’t suppose he wondered how she could find those Weres, and why she was the only member of his team who could?”

  “If we followed that thread, we’d have to believe that he actually has known about her all along.”

  “Oh, it’s quite possible that he knew. Probable, in fact.” Dylan reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it out on the bedside table and handed it to Cameron.

  “He has been feeding Abby silver, in small doses, for years. My mother sees things like that. It’s why Abby has been able to keep the changes at bay, though they couldn’t have been resisted much longer.”

  Cameron shifted his glance to Abby as Dylan pointed to the paper and went on.

  “Here’s an interesting fact about Abby’s mother. I thought you might like to know the story.”

  Cameron did not want to pick up that paper. He told himself not to touch it. But in the end, he had to know what the hell Dylan Landau was talking about.

  Chapter 26

  Abby heard every word of this conversation between Cameron and Dylan. The information filled in a few blanks, but she wanted more than anything in the world to rip that paper out of Cameron’s hands. He had read information that was important to her. Didn’t they realize she had been groping for clues?

  Screams never made it past her throat. Shouts would have been premature. Tonight, out there in the park, she had briefly contemplated the theory Dylan Landau had just proposed. Sam had been watching her, waiting for her wolf to make an appearance. Maybe he did so for the pelt that soon might cover her body. Maybe Sam had, in effect, been raising his own Lycan for lurid purposes. Or else he could have merely used her to ferret out werewolves for as long as she’d be able to.

  How could those ideas be proved?

  None of that helped to explain about her mother. Who Sonja Stark really was, and why a Lycan tolerated a man like Sam. That just didn’t sit right with Abby.

  Patience was no longer on her list of accessible personality traits. She had become increasingly impulsive lately. Her secret fears had been shared. She was no longer fully in control of her body because a wolf curled up inside her, getting ready for its birth. That wolf might be pissed over the transition taking so long.

  Sam had fed her silver to delay the process.

  Possibly that was why she could handle her knife.

  Go on, wolf, she refrained from shouting. Do what you need to do. I need to get on with this.

  She might not get her wish right now, though. Not yet. With her eyes shut tight, Abby knew the moon had waned and that finally the longest night in the history of time was finally coming to an end.

  “Why didn’t they charge Stark, Dylan?” Cameron broke the silence. “Who handled the case?”

  “It was before my time in office,” Dylan replied.

  “How did you find this information?”

  “It’s the digital age, Cameron. My office takes full advantage of that.”

  “Here? At this hour?”

  “Contrary to some of those jokes, attorneys do sometimes earn their paychecks by taking work home on a regular basis. I have a computer at the cottage that’s tied to my office. All it took was striking a few keys on our secure database.”

  “Abby will want to see this stuff.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  More silence before Cameron said, “Hell, I’m not certain of anything.”

  Footsteps led away from the bed. Cameron’s voice stopped them.

  “Was yours bad, Dylan? Your Blackout?”

  Seconds ticked by before Dylan said, “If I’d had a gun with me at the time, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today. You?”

  “I had a gun, but didn’t use it.”

  She heard a door open, and Cameron say, “Delmonico made it through the Blackout.”

  “Dana,” Dylan said, “is one tough cookie.”

  “Did you help her?”

  “I tried to take her mind off what loomed.”

  “How?”

  “We made love like the animals we were, on every available surface.”

  “Nice image, but not the truth?”

  “The truth is that some people are built to be tougher than others. Dana rode it out. It didn’t take her long to cross over, and she survived. Who knows why? She’s the daughter of a cop and has risen through the ranks as an officer on her own merit. She is merciless on crime, a respectable adversary to those on the wrong side of the law, and a genuinely nice person. Dana is one in a million, and thankfully all mine.”

  The door closed on Dylan Landau’s last remark. More silence followed before Abby felt the depression of the mattress and a soothing voice said, “Well, if fornicating is what it takes to ease the pain of a Blackout phase, I’m all for it. How about you, Abby?”

  When she said “Okay,” Cameron said, “I knew you were awake.”

  She opened her eyes. “Have I been drugged?”

  “Yes, by a dart in the neck from one of those hunters.”

  “Do I have you to thank for getting me out of there? You’re becoming quite the white knight.”

  “Can you move?” Cameron asked.

  “I feel like I’ve swallowed lead.”

  “You did, you know. We can’t know for how long.”

  “Why didn’t the silver kill me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What was in the dart?”

  “Don’t know that, either. Dylan’s mother gave you something to combat the drug. So, what did you hear, Abby? How much?”

  She said, “We’re in Dylan’s house?”

  “His parents’ house.”

  “And it’s an oasis for people like us?”

  “That appears to be the case.”

  Abby attempted to move her right arm, and succeeded in raising a hand to her temple, where the current ache was centered.

  “What’s on the paper?” she asked, observing how Cameron stared at it.

  “Can it wait until morning, Abby?”

  “No. It can’t.”

  The intensity of his gaze told her he was trying to gauge her state of mind.

  “I suppose you come from a happy family,” she managed to say. “With a mother and father, and a brother or two. You had dinner on the table when you got home from school, and Sunday picnics by the water.”

  He remained sober. His brow creased. “The brother you mentioned died in combat in Iraq. There was only one Mitchell sibling.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “They both died in a car accident two years ago.”

  Abby took a steadying breath. “Then you understand that the hole created by loss never goes away, and that the heartache of losing someone remains long after they’re gone.”

  “I do understand that.”


  He waited for her to go on.

  “I don’t remember much about my mother,” Abby said. “It’s obvious now that I knew even less than I thought, since until tonight I believed Sam held the position of father.”

  “I suppose you’re relieved to have that position reopened, given that Sam Stark has proved himself a murderous bastard.”

  “Sam didn’t need one specific night to prove that to me.”

  “Did he hurt you, Abby, in the past?”

  “Besides tonight’s damn dart, he hurt me only in ways that he and I appreciated. Psychological stuff, mainly.”

  “Why did you stay there with him, around him?”

  “I stayed because of her memory. Because my mother had walked through those rooms where I walked, and because I hoped that Sam would one day tell me about her. Also, and in part, I stayed to keep tabs on Sam.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “I suppose for reasons that would have seen him behind bars someday if he went too far with his games.”

  “You mean the hunting games that led him to you and to me?”

  Abby moved her hand to her neck, where tiny pulses of pain jabbed. “You were out there patrolling because you also were aware of what roamed that park. One of those creatures bit you, setting your own search in motion, so you hunted them, too. For a while I believed Sam’s hunting club had a beneficial purpose. Until...”

  “Until you met me.”

  “Yes.” Her lashes covered her eyes. “Until I met you, and my deepest fears about Sam’s lust for Were genocide was confirmed.”

  The intensity of Cameron’s gaze demanded that she look up.

  “Landau’s pack gathers here, Abby. It’s a real pack, and I wasn’t even sure what they meant until I saw them in action. You’ve met some of them and have seen what they’re like. I don’t know if they’ve lost their own good people to hunters and bad guys, or not, but they do watch what’s going on. I wasn’t alone out there. Sam isn’t alone in the hunt for criminals who can change shape. The difference is that Landau’s pack knows the difference between a good wolf and bad wolf.”

  Abby turned her head away from him, and said, “Something fierce fuels Sam’s hatred of your species. That’s what usually spurs hatred on, isn’t it?”