The Black Wolf

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  “Not like you...” she whispered.

  As she raised her hands to fight, Cara felt the sharp pop of claws springing through her fingertips. She called her wolf to the surface and made it obey. The wolf barreled upward and through her with the force of a runaway train.

  Her spine cracked. Muscles seized and began to lengthen as she took her first swipe at the darkness gathered around her with preternaturally curved claws that would be a match for any oncoming pair of fangs. The shift was painful because it went against her nature—she had chosen her wolf, instead of becoming like the fanged parasites breathing down her neck. Cara had never attempted this before, and she had to bravely hold on.

  Breathing became difficult. Her discomfort turned white-hot. Cara rode out the pain until her body finally accepted the shape that ruled most of her genetics. Werewolf. She-wolf. Not just any Were, either, but one with the ancient European designation of wulf that denoted the early masters of the breed who were powerful shamans.

  This is who I am. What I am.

  The urge to fight roared through her. The need to kill the creatures that had nearly killed her father here a long time ago became too difficult to ignore. She was strong, fast and fierce. Her wolf shared its soul with the spirit of a Banshee, just like her mother, and that spirit told her she was not going to die tonight.

  All she had to do was kill every last bloodsucking fiend surrounding her.

  Her blood sang with that goal until her head felt light. But her plan encountered a hitch. The vampires dropping from the trees didn’t come after her. Every one of them suddenly moved en masse in the opposite direction, as though they had been drawn elsewhere by something more appetizing. As though they hadn’t seen her at all.

  There was someone in the distance. Cara turned her head, and the sickness inside her tripled. Rafe?

  A ripple of horror accompanied the idea that Rafe had followed her, though she should have known he would. Rafe was a protector. He watched over her. As strong as he was, however, Rafe would be vulnerable without a full moon overhead to shift him. Against so many abominations, he’d have little chance of surviving an attack.

  She ran, plowing through the haze of vamps, wielding her claws like the weapons they were originally intended to be, slashing at everything in her way and swallowing growls of anger and the sudden fear of losing what she had only recently found. Rafe Landau.

  Her claws went through vamp bodies as if they were composed of air instead of strings of decaying flesh and bone. Although the vampires shrieked with terrible, unnatural voices, none of them noticed her. Not one of them fell.

  The shock of her inability to stop them tripped her up. Cara stared at the dark moving tide with wide wolfish eyes, seeing clearly, shocked by the sight in front of her and how she wasn’t able to do anything about it.

  Then her system was jolted with a new awareness. The gaunt creatures were attacking a fully wolfed-up werewolf, brown-furred and massive in size. Not Rafe. Someone else.

  The werewolf fought the oncoming horde like a pro, swinging his arms, using his legs, snapping his jaws. He fought hard, though he had to realize all that energy was useless against so many sharp teeth.

  Cara couldn’t stand to watch. She started again toward the rapidly tiring werewolf in the center of the fray and heard a voice in the distance say, “I’m here.”

  Or...had she uttered those words?

  She flew to the middle of the fight, whirled, lashed out and made no headway. The big brown Were, now tiring, didn’t once look her way. He looked past her at something she would have had to turn around to see.

  Another sound broke through the grunts and growls she and the brown werewolf were making. At first, Cara thought it was a howl of distress or a warning call going up about the fight taking place. But that wasn’t it. She recognized what it was. She had heard this sound before.

  The shrieking noise seemed to split the darkness into multiple shadows. The power in it sucked the fight out of Cara. She stilled, frozen in place as the scene continued to unfold in front of her.

  Helpless to do anything but observe, Cara witnessed the downfall of the beautiful brown wolf as it forfeited its life. Fighting on wouldn’t have helped the Were, she realized, because this scene wasn’t actually taking place in her current reality.

  The brown wolf wasn’t here. There were no vampires. What she was seeing was an image projected on the spot where this battle had happened in the past.

  Cold gripped her. Energy that had been white-hot now turned icy. She panted with the effort to understand what was being shown to her as her limbs trembled and spasms threatened to drive her to her knees.

  The Banshee spirit inside her hadn’t predicted death here. The shriek had been a Banshee’s cry, yes, but her Banshee hadn’t made that sound. Someone else had used the Banshee’s voice, but in a different way—maybe not to predict this brown werewolf’s death, but to save his life.

  And that just wasn’t the way things worked.

  Banshee spirits predicted death, and this one hadn’t. There were no other dark, death-bringing spirits in the area, except the one sharing space in Cara’s soul. And yet she had heard that wail.

  She stared hard at the scene that she now knew to be unfolding in a different time. Her claws had been useless against the monsters because they were ghosts, like the rest of the images she had been shown. She was experiencing a memory, a projection, an imprint of what had happened in the past, in this spot. And that meant the sound she had heard had to have been made by her mother...long ago.

  Others were coming, rushing toward the fight in this alternate reality. She watched with fascination as several Weres flooded the area. They had come to the brown wolf’s rescue nearly too late, drawn by the Banshee’s wail.

  Once the Were pack took up the fight, it became even more fierce and bloody. But Cara couldn’t be a participant, since this was a dream. She had seen this battle, had lived it, had experienced the horror of an event that took place long ago...all through her mother’s eyes. Rosalind Kirk had been here then and had made the call that had ultimately saved Colton Killion from death.

  The park had shown her another piece of the puzzle. What had happened here all those years ago had been so awful that it still resonated in this space.

  Witnessing the attack that had made her father what he was today made Cara’s knees buckle. Colton Killion. Ghost wolf. Outcast. Survivor.

  But how could he possibly have survived this?

  She closed her eyes to shut out the rest of the fight her parents had endured. It was a gruesome thing that made that sickness inside her grow.

  Releasing the breath she had been holding, unable to fight the wobble in her limbs, Cara slipped toward the ground without hitting the grass...saved from falling by the strong grip of two powerful hands that had come out of nowhere.

  Chapter 8

  What the hell just happened?

  The question echoed inside Rafe’s head as he reached Cara in time to catch her. She was breathless and wolfed up. He had no idea why her heart was racing so fast. There was nothing out here to see. He and Cara were the only two Weres in the area. And yet she, who was supposedly the strongest of them all, had folded up as if life had suddenly become too much for her to bear.

  He held a werewolf in his arms. Cara had shifted without the moon to guide her, and without other external stimulus. There were no furred-up werewolves present to initiate such a change. She had taken werewolf form as quickly as she had adopted the vamp semblance earlier. He’d have believed this was also impossible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.

  She was also incredibly beautiful, and he shouldn’t have noticed. In a shape that was more familiar to him than that of a vampire, Cara looked both feminine and feral. Yet she didn’t exactly look like any werewolf he had known. She retained more of her human features than was normal for Weres. Sa
me light eyes. Same dark, silky hair. There was no hugely elongated face or altered body shape. Upon closer inspection, it was easy for him to see the female he had met on the beach.

  She was taller, thinner, stringier. She had more angles. Sharp bones jutted under her skin, and there were shadows beneath her eyes. Ten curved claws edged her fingertips. Her spine, through the shirt she still wore, felt to him like a string of pearls.

  Maybe she had gotten stuck in a partial shape-shift. It was possible her shift hadn’t been completed before he’d found her, and because he looked human, her changes had hit a pause button. Whatever the cause of the way she looked at the moment, Cara’s uniqueness fell way beyond the scope of his experience.

  Rafe sank to his knees, holding her. Cara’s eyes were closed. Her face was chalky and pale. He wiped away the tears that glistened on her cheeks and listened to the growls rumbling in her throat. She’d had a shock of some kind that he hadn’t been able to share. His eyes had been on her and not their surroundings. Whatever had shocked Cara into her current behavior had been the impetus for this latest version of herself. So, what the hell was it?

  “What did this to you, Cara?”

  His only concern now was to make sure she was all right. While he wanted to point out the consequences of breaking rules put in place to prevent incidents like this, Rafe didn’t speak of those things. He didn’t take the time to search the area again in case he had missed something. All he could do was comfort Cara and encourage her to shift back to the shape that best resembled his in case anyone from the pack came looking for them—which would be any minute now.

  “Change back,” he whispered, his face close to hers as he pressed dark, silky tresses away from her cheeks. “Do it now, Cara. Do it for me.”

  She shuddered once before he heard the soft sucking sounds of her body realigning that meant her wolf was in retreat. Jutting angles melted back into curves as her tautness eased. Her face blurred back into full human mode, though it remained as white as a sheet. The last to go were her claws.

  With them together like this, the moment felt exotic. He was holding a she-wolf in his arms, one he was attracted to in spite of all the warnings and inexplicable phenomena he’d witnessed tonight.

  His inner wolf gave a roar that shook Rafe up. He swallowed back an inappropriate human-voiced growl. Were to Were, wolf to wolf was how attraction among his kind worked.

  Cara was again only half-dressed in the torn shirt he had loaned her. Her lean legs were bare. Broken buttons on the shirt exposed far too much neck and the graceful sweep of her collarbone for him not to notice.

  The scene was as rich as it was surreal. His wolf, tucked deep inside him where it belonged, continued to respond. Pressure built up in his chest, and these feelings weren’t supposed to happen. Shouldn’t happen. He and Cara were sampling a forbidden closeness that would get them into trouble with their respective families if they found out. Killion’s daughter was off-limits. Her presence in Miami was merely temporary.

  So why was it happening?

  Why was Cara here, uncomfortably out of her element? Who in their right mind had forced Cara to visit a world she knew so little of?

  When her eyes fluttered open, Rafe felt immense relief. “You’re okay, I think,” he said. “Am I right?”

  Chances were that she couldn’t talk yet. Maybe she didn’t want to. The air around them vibrated with questions he needed to ask her.

  “We have to get back to the house, Cara. This is far too dangerous. I’m not sure what just happened, but I’m guessing it wasn’t normal, even for you. There are tears in your eyes. You’re shaking. Please tell me you’re all right.”

  She reached up to encircle his shoulders with her arms, in what amounted to the first show of vulnerability he had seen in the short time he’d known her. The slide of her palms across the back of his T-shirt felt extremely sensual and gratifying, though he knew better than to classify it that way.

  Her face was so close to his, he had to look into her eyes. The hardest part of this whole ordeal was the effort it took him to keep from kissing her...because that would have been a really stupid thing to do under these circumstances.

  As he fought that internal tug-of-war, Cara drew back suddenly, possibly only then realizing the position she was in. She pushed him away and scrambled to her feet. Looking down at him, she said in a quavering tone, “Don’t tell them about this.”

  Rafe got to his feet. “Tell them what?”

  “Swear,” she said.

  Didn’t she know it was too late to hide her show of rebelliousness? As of a few seconds ago, they already had company. Of course she would have noted that, so what, exactly, was she asking of him?

  “They know you’re out here. It wouldn’t be wise to forget that you are a special guest,” he said. “I have already mentioned our responsibilities regarding your safety. You do understand that going against what’s asked of you doesn’t win you any points?”

  “It was something I had to do,” Cara said.

  “And it was terribly dangerous.”

  “Dangerous for my father. Not for me.”

  Her remark dropped a big black net over the conversation, stifling anything Rafe could think of to say. He didn’t know what to make of her words as he ventured a glance over his shoulder at the park.

  “This is where it happened,” she explained. Her shaking hadn’t eased, and not much of her color had returned. “This is where my father nearly lost his life.”

  Rafe’s gaze drifted back to her. “How do you know?”

  “My mother told me.”

  “When?”

  “Minutes ago.”

  Rafe rubbed his forehead, trying hard to follow what she was saying. “You didn’t have a cell phone. No place to hide one. How could she tell you that?”

  “She called me to this place in another way.”

  Could he believe her? Rafe wasn’t sure. There were so many odd and questionable things about Cara Kirk-Killion, he didn’t know where to begin to catch a glimpse of the full picture.

  She was a complex creature and way out of his league, but did that lessen his desire to kiss her?

  No.

  He was hot, energized and on edge. He also knew exactly how far he had to move to again enfold her in his arms. His attention kept returning to her face and the sensual mouth that had trembled with vulnerability a moment ago. Though no trace was left of the tears he had wiped from her cheek, those tears had been there for a reason. When she had first opened her eyes, they’d contained a silent plea for support.

  So...no. The desire to hold Cara and kiss away whatever had shaken her was strong, even though part of her allure could be a trick. She could have been using her wiles to attract him.

  Yet what she had gone through had seemed real to her. He had seen that in her eyes.

  Confusion over this dilemma drove him to silence. Cara moved first. She pointed a slender finger at the darkness they both had the ability to see into.

  “This is the place,” she repeated. “I now know why my father became what he is. I saw how it happened. I experienced that fight with the vampires as if I also took part in it. But I wasn’t there when he was. I didn’t run to help the brown Were fight off so many fangs. It was my mother who did that. She moved in to help. I saw all of this through her eyes.”

  “Because she called you here,” Rafe said with a skepticism he couldn’t hide.

  Cara shook her head. “This place called to me with her voice. Violent acts leave residue on a place. This was a memory for me to access because I have that brown Were’s blood in my veins. My father’s blood. After the attack, my mother’s spirit became tied to those vampires, not out of any choice she made, but because she was born special in ways that left her open to roaming demons.”

  Weird as it might have been, Rafe was starting to believe her. As a co
p he sometimes experienced sensations tied to past events at certain locations. At least, he imagined he could. To see those past events firsthand was an entirely different matter, and a level of awareness well beyond his capabilities. However, who was to say that Cara didn’t have those kinds of talents, and that she spoke the truth?

  Meanwhile, they were taking too much time outside the wall. He wasn’t exactly sure how many minutes had actually gone by, but it had been long enough for the pack to find them. Others were close now, and closing in. The night had become pressurized due to his packmates’ imminent arrival.

  “How will we explain your quick exit if we don’t mention what you saw?” Rafe asked.

  “Will we have to?” Cara asked.

  “Yes. They’re coming now, as you well know, and are merely giving us some time to work this out. They will be watching us to see what we do next.”

  What she did then beat every single explanation Rafe could have thought up. She closed the few inches of distance separating them, stood on her toes, lifted her face...and pressed her lips to his.

  Chapter 9

  She had meant to distract the pack that was observing from a short distance away, pretending she and Rafe had retreated from view for a few private moments alone. But something unexpected happened.

  The second her lips met his, Cara felt another kind of shift taking place. Not a physical alteration. Something different, new and exciting.

  Rafe’s mouth was hot and unmoving. He had been as surprised by her forwardness as she was. The heat he radiated through this meeting of their lips flushed her face and throat. The charge created by touching him so intimately quickly spread to her chest, where her heart raced.

  She had done this without thinking, and sensed that this latest move had been dictated by the spirits she harbored. What did she know of kisses, feelings, planned distractions and relationships? She’d had a vision that had shaken her and in the aftermath had wanted to share her wayward energy with someone. Rafe Landau just happened to be the easiest to reach.