The Black Wolf

by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

  “Colton Killion’s life among them. I believe Cara might have come here to find out about the past,” Rafe said.

  The remark earned him a thoughtful sideways glance.

  Rafe went on. “I don’t think Cara knows much about her family history or the part her parents played in Cara’s current situation. It’s normal for her to want to learn about her origins, isn’t it, and why she is the way she is?”

  “Do you believe it’s our place to enlighten her?” his father countered.

  “I do if she needs that information enough to have agreed to come here to find it despite her reluctance to do so.”

  His father paused near the front door. “What was calling to her out there?”

  “I don’t think it was a hunter she was after, but there were shots fired. After shifting, she got away too quickly for Cameron and me to keep up. Whatever it was that Cara found out there broke bones in her hand, and yet we didn’t see any intruders near where we found her and she wasn’t willing to speak of it.”

  His father searched the wall in the distance. “We heard that howl.”

  Rafe was sure he’d never forget the haunting sound Cara had made. “You sent Jonas?”

  “Without you here, he is the fastest.”

  “And the only shifter around tonight who is able to manipulate the moon for his own purposes,” Rafe added.

  “There is that,” his father agreed.

  “You do know that Cara won’t be a willing prisoner here or mindful of the rules?”

  “I never would have expected anything else from the daughter of an exceptionally talented Lycan like Colton Killion, even if Rosalind hadn’t been tossed into the mix.”

  Rafe followed his father’s gaze. The wall seemed darker by moonlight and even taller from where he stood. Cara had gone over it as if it was no obstacle at all. He had now seen three of her transformations and wondered how many more of them might be in store.

  He said, “Maybe you should tell Cara about her father, and what you know.”

  “That would be good,” his father agreed, “if I knew where to start. Colton wasn’t part of this pack. His family kept to themselves. His was a very old family line that was more powerful than most, and the Killions had no interest in being part of a pack. Their sole purpose was to fit into the world around them. They tried hard to do that.”

  Rafe turned, wanting to go to Cara but willing to give her the time to settle down after whatever encounter she’d had out there. Unanswered questions kept arising, chief among them: If not another vampire, what made you run?

  He didn’t ask that question of Cara over Were channels, though. The need to hop over the wall and have another look at the park was making him anxious. He wasn’t used to leaving hard tasks to others and hoped Cameron would return soon with news. Barring that, he’d have to find out what the holdup was without letting Cara see him leave. She would try to follow.

  “You’ll have plenty of time to find out what she was after if tonight is any indication of what we can expect,” his father said, noting Rafe’s fisted hands with a nod of his head.

  Rafe said, “You knew this going in, and the kind of trouble she could bring.”

  “Yes. I just didn’t expect things to happen so soon.”

  “Neither did I,” Rafe muttered beneath his breath.

  His meaning was different from his father’s, though. He hadn’t expected to bond with anyone, let alone their guest, which was what was already happening. The desire to go to Cara was like another fist curled up inside his stomach. He could hardly stay away from her. He couldn’t keep his gaze off her.

  Chastising himself wasn’t working, so he headed to the side of the house to find an out-of-sight spot to get over the damn wall. As confusing as the night had been, doing what he did best would put him back on track. Chasing the bad guys. Sweeping the park. Getting it done. He could forget Cara for a while.

  “Rafe?”

  He turned back.

  “I’ve been through this before, son. Nothing is different about this, and we can handle it,” his father said.

  Anxious to get going, Rafe shifted his weight nervously from boot to boot. “I’ll be back when there’s something to tell you, and not before then.”

  “Cara will be all right here,” his father promised.

  Rafe nodded. “I’d have no doubts about that if in fact you could keep her here.”

  Cara was in good hands with this pack on guard. The doubts he didn’t mention were about himself and what he might do next if he didn’t get the hell out of there.

  Cara wasn’t with him now, and yet it felt as if she were. Her taste was in his mouth. Her fragrance stuck to his skin. Each time he thought her name, the image accompanying it melted from one shape to another, just as Cara had done several times now.

  Maybe the pack could handle a shifter like Cara on a temporary basis. The question was whether they could handle her for much longer than that.

  I’m acting like a besotted fool...

  “Later,” he called out to his dad as he launched himself at the wall.

  He dropped down on the other side, relieved to be free to pursue other things than the compulsion to mate with the only female on the planet who was off-limits to him.

  * * *

  “That’s better,” Dana remarked as Cara completed her shape-shift. “Now, if you’ll put this jacket on, we can have a conversation. Are you good with that?”

  Cara took the offered clothing that smelled nothing like the shirt Rafe had loaned her earlier that night. She was sorry she’d had to ditch the shirt in the park.

  Dana was tall and wiry, with a more petite bone structure than her height suggested. Her hair, so like Rafe’s, was brown, but curly. Her skin, also like Rafe’s, was a smooth golden bronze. She had an ageless face and large eyes that took in everything around her. And all of her attention was on Cara.

  “I’d like to know what made you go out there, against the suggestions we made for your protection,” Dana said.

  Blunt and to the point. Cara was used to this. Telling Dana part of the reason for her escape couldn’t hurt. She didn’t have to lie to her hostess.

  “I heard a call,” she said. “Something called my name.”

  She watched Dana process this. “Does anyone else know you’re here in Miami?”

  Cara shook her head. “No one any of us would like to meet or acknowledge. That doesn’t mean certain beings can’t find me if they’re in tune with what’s going on around them.”

  “Like the vampire at the beach?”

  “The vampire was an accident. It hadn’t gotten wind of me before I sensed its presence.”

  “And Rafe just happened to be there when you all met up?”

  Withholding information that Rafe might find personal and sensitive wasn’t lying, so Cara said, “Unlike the vampire, Rafe sensed my presence on the beach and found me first.”

  Rafe’s mother took some time before speaking again. “I’ve fought vampires on several occasions. They pass along information on channels similar to ours. Could it have been one of them calling to you in the park?”

  “No. Not a vampire.”

  Cara could tell Dana wasn’t saying what she was thinking, though she had to know Cara could guess what that was. If not a vampire, then what kind of creature had detected Cara so soon? That’s the question Rafe’s mother would likely want to ask. And since Cara didn’t want to lie outright, she had to evade the question before it was voiced.

  “If you press me, I’d have to tell you things you might not want to hear,” Cara warned.

  “And if you withhold important information that could potentially harm this pack, you’d be responsible for whatever might happen,” Dana countered.

  “Not wanting anyone to be harmed on my behalf is one of the reasons I didn’t want to come to M
iami.”

  “Yet you ultimately agreed to come,” Dana pointed out.

  “I’m trying to make peace with my decision, which isn’t so easy for someone like me now that I’m here and trouble has already begun.”

  Dana’s scrutiny was like having a bright light turned Cara’s way. “But you like Rafe,” Dana said.

  Cara needed a moment to process the remark. Was it a change of direction intended to trip her up?

  “Yes. I like him,” she replied. “Just as my family must have liked their hosts and the Weres here who fought beside them in the ghost war.”

  The term ghost war caused the she-wolf across from Cara to flinch. Dana said, “You’re alluding to the fight near Fairview Hospital?”

  Cara mentally filed away what Dana had said about a hospital. There had been a battle near a place called Fairview, and that was information she needed in order to piece together more of her family’s history.

  “I was alluding to the attack in the park that left my father a white wolf and introduced him to my mother.”

  “Ah, yes.” Dana’s tone was solemn. “If we listed each and every time we came up against creatures unlike us looking for a fight, that list would extend from here to the ocean and back several times.”

  “I’m only interested in one of those incidents,” Cara said. “For now.”

  “Of course.” Dana nodded. “I can tell you what I know, having been in the fight near Fairview, if that’s what you want, but how about if we postpone that conversation for a while and get you inside? I don’t like the way the wind has changed in the last few minutes.”

  Cara inhaled the night air. “Humans,” she said.

  “Well, that’s a relief.” Dana sighed and took a quick look down the driveway. “After all, we’re just like them, as far as they are concerned. I used to be one of them, you know.”

  Cara did know that. The she-wolf across from her was the reason Rafe had a human scent mixed with Were. Dylan Landau had mated with a human who had been either accidentally scratched or bitten by the wrong kind of wolf, because no human would willingly defect from the known world to a much darker and more secretive one in the shadows.

  Everyone had a story, it suddenly seemed to Cara. Though her story had to come first.

  In spite of what Dana had said, Rafe’s mother was showing outward signs of being concerned about the human scent that now permeated the air. She fixed her attention on the gate in the distance long enough for Cara to follow her line of sight, then looked at the wall.

  “A hunter wouldn’t come here, surely,” Cara said.

  “No hunter in his right mind would. But then, hunters are by their very definition morally off track.”

  “I didn’t get a sense of humans in the park where we were,” Cara noted.

  “But you heard the shots?”

  “Yes.” One of those shots had sent that demon back to the hell it had sprung from, saving her the task.

  Dana was looking at her when Cara turned back. She said in a tone reserved for sharing secrets, “How did you hurt your hand, Cara?”

  Cara focused her senses outward in search of something to use as a diversionary tactic to avoid Dana’s question. She found it.

  “They have found your hunter,” she said.

  Dana stepped forward to see who might be approaching by way of the manned front gate, but it was too far away to get a good look, even for Weres. She again glanced at the wall, sensing what Cara had. The human presence was strongest there.

  “Human male,” Cara explained. “Smells like metal and hatred.”

  What she didn’t say was that it also smelled like death, and that the Banshee’s stifled cry in the park had been reserved for whoever this was.

  Dana turned to her. “Hatred has a scent?”

  Cara pulled the borrowed jacket tighter around her and nodded. “It’s like nothing else.”

  “Please go to the house and wait there, Cara. Will you do this one thing I’m asking?”

  Deciding to honor the request, Cara headed for the house. Yes, she could do this one thing, because who the hell cared about hunters? Humans were no match for werewolves. Weres had three times their strength and five times human speed. If a handful of humans knew about the existence of werewolves without understanding those facts, then hunting werewolves had to be a doomed sport.

  The real reason for going to the house, however, was Rafe. Avoiding him right now was a necessity for everyone concerned.

  This had been a night full of surprises...

  And it wasn’t over yet.

  By the time she reached the porch, her arms were tingling in a reaction reserved only for her. Rafe was still close. Though she couldn’t see him, she had picked up on the beat of his heart as though hers had been jump-started. Her hands began to shake with anxious excitement over how she was able to differentiate Rafe’s presence from the others’ and perceive his approach so easily.

  There was shouting near the wall, but Rafe’s wasn’t among the raised voices. His scent had accompanied the smell of the human she had detected while standing with Dana on the lawn, though.

  And now he was here again, moments later, on this side of the wall, Cara’s senses screamed. Rafe was closing in as the attention of others was drawn elsewhere.

  He was in front of her. Beside her. Pressing her against the brick with a replay of what had happened in the park, and with a body that was strong enough to steal her breath away.

  He was looking at her, and she could not look away.

  Rafe’s blue eyes were bright. He wasn’t smiling or willing to explain his actions. His lips brushed hers, creating sparks that lit up her insides. When his mouth covered hers with a hungry, almost angry devouring, it seemed to Cara as if no one else existed.

  His kiss was very wicked in the way it tortured her. His body was unrelenting in the pressure it applied. Rafe’s needs formed their own kind of power that wrestled with her former desire for independence. She was afraid that this time, she wouldn’t so easily get away.

  She was slipping, becoming someone she didn’t recognize, and was aware of the moment her carefully guarded restraint started to go.

  For someone like her, losing control was never a good thing.

  Chapter 16

  Seconds.

  They had mere seconds to break the rules this pack had set in place and be together.

  Rafe hadn’t planned to behave like a madman, but he wasn’t completely surprised by the impulsive forwardness of his actions. He had reached Cara here without the usual argument with himself. Nor had she offered any.

  It was now pretty damn clear they were going to be together for long periods of time no matter what anyone could have expected. Detective Rafe Landau had been cuffed to this incredibly beautiful hybrid without a key to extricate himself. Did that make him weak, or merely smitten?

  Too late to decide...

  Already, he was caught in an inexplicable undertow of feeling, though in the periphery Rafe heard the voices that were getting closer. He was needed at the wall and wasn’t there. If he and Cara were discovered in a wayward embrace, it would prove to be worse for her. The pack might send her home if they were to comprehend the rapid evolution of the bond forming between two unsuspecting souls.

  Cara’s breathing came in rasps when their lips parted, and he fared no better. She was waiting for his eyes to find hers, and she shook her head when they did. It was possible that Cara, who hadn’t seemed frightened of anything since he had met her, might be afraid of him.

  “There can be no shape-shifting your way out of this one,” he whispered to her. “We just have to be sure about what this is.”

  “Is insanity the conclusion you’ve come to?” she asked.

  “Yes, possibly. Probably, in fact. But does that realization change things?”

  “It mea
ns I can’t stay.”

  “Doesn’t it also mean that you can’t get away?”

  “Watch me,” she said.

  Rafe took a step back to allow Cara to test the truth of her reply. She didn’t accept the challenge.

  “You should tell me now if you’ve made this happen,” Rafe continued. “Is this a trick that you wield?”

  She was all eyes and lips and velvet-smooth skin. He wanted to drink in that beauty. Now that he had gotten that kiss out of his system, a replay was first on his agenda. However, the voices at the wall were now almost right on top of them.

  There was to be no next kiss or further closeness. The stolen seconds had been used up, and the world was again encroaching.

  After the voices, a sudden hush made the absence of sound seem sinister. Rafe’s duty to his family and his pack made him turn. Behind him, Cara said, “Death has come,” in a soft, knowing tone that instantly cooled him.

  Hell. How did she know? How could she?

  Troubled by a long list of seemingly impossible theories about Cara and tonight’s events in the park, not to mention her latest announcement, Rafe left her. He hustled back to the wall, feeling her heated gaze follow.

  Death had come. Yes. And it had struck while Cara was in the park. Since Cara was also part Banshee, he wondered if her howl had been for this poor human being they had found, and if she had covered up her knowledge of that death with a timely, wolfish shape-shift.

  Hurling himself over the wall, Rafe found that his father, Cameron and his mother had gathered there. They were all quietly staring at the lifeless body lying at their feet.

  This was not a Were they looked at, and no one Rafe recognized. Still, the shock of Cara’s prediction about the body he and Cameron had found left Rafe uneasy.

  “This could be our hunter,” he said to the others.

  “I believe so as well,” Cameron agreed. “There’s a smell of metal on him, though we found no weapon.”