She inhaled deeply, wishing the air was cleaner and not tainted with exhaust and pollution. Maybe the next place she lived should be in a more rural setting. Her father had told her to stay in cities, but surely it wouldn’t hurt for her to live in a smaller town for a couple of months.
She chewed on her bottom lip, remembering the intensity in his eyes as he’d made her promise to stick to larger urban centers. That had been five years ago. She’d been on her own since.
She blinked back the tears that threatened. It did no good to cry, and she didn’t want David to think she was upset. He was hovering enough as it was. She was used to being independent and on her own. Her unusual upbringing, coupled with the fact that she was used to moving every few months, had taught her to depend only on herself. It was better that way.
Her strides lengthened and she adjusted the straps of her backpack over her shoulders.
Then she heard a noise. It wasn’t a normal, early morning city sound, but something nearby and out of place. Hannah slowed as she approached an opening between two buildings. The narrow alley was a good hiding spot for a person.
Or it could just be a stray cat or dog.
Still, she moved out to the edge of the sidewalk. Better safe than sorry.
She’d half convinced herself it was nothing more than her imagination when a man stepped out from between the two buildings. He was tall and fit and wore a hat pulled down over his face, keeping most of it in shadows. All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose. Goose bumps raced up and down her arms. Predator. She sniffed the air and her nostrils were assailed with a scent she hadn’t smelled in years.
Wolf.
“Who are you?” Unfortunately, she already knew what he was.
He took a step toward her. “You look lovely, Hannah.” She startled when he said her name, and he laughed. “That’s right. I know your name. It’s a pity I have to kill you.”
All the stories her father had told her, all the warnings he’d given her, coalesced in that moment. He’d been telling her the truth. She’d doubted him, especially when he’d left her, but he hadn’t been lying, hadn’t abandoned her because he’d wanted to. He had been protecting her the best way he’d known how.
Hannah lurched forward and started to run. She really didn’t think she’d be able to elude the stranger, but she had to try. She wasn’t about to roll over and play dead. Not for anyone.
He made no sound, but she knew he was right behind her. She could feel his presence. There was a sense of anticipation in the air, and she knew the bastard was enjoying himself.
He caught her roughly on the shoulder and yanked her around. She was already swinging as she turned, using the momentum to add power to her arm. Her fist hit a jaw that might as well have been made out of granite. His hat flew off and his eyes widened. He looked shocked that she’d actually had the nerve to hit him.
He growled, his eyes started to glow, and his teeth lengthened. He struck out, his hand coming toward her. By the time it reached her, it had changed, no longer a hand at all, but a paw tipped with lethal claws.
She threw her arm up to protect her face, but he went lower. Razor-sharp talons ripped through her sweater and tore at her skin. The scent of fresh blood permeated the air. At first, she felt nothing but cold. Then the pain began to radiate out from the wounds. She gasped and put one hand over her stomach.
Her attacker smiled, obviously pleased by her distress. “Run, little wolf. Run.”
She could tell he wanted her to run so he could chase her and bring her down. He obviously liked the hunt, relished her fear.
Hannah did the complete opposite. While he’d been talking, she’d surreptitiously snuck her free hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out the knife her father had given her. She pressed a switch and the blade popped out. She tightened her grip on the handle and attacked. She didn’t raise her arm, didn’t want to give him the opportunity to stop her. She knew he was fast, his reflexes most likely faster than hers. And hers were damn fast.
She swiped at his belly instead. It wouldn’t really hurt him, but it would startle him, maybe slow him down for a split second to allow her to go for a better shot.
He jerked back and howled his displeasure. “You little bitch.” He glanced down at the slice in his shirt and the blood staining the fabric.
The wound was superficial and already healing. That meant he was a full-blooded werewolf. Not that she’d had any real doubts.
“You’ll pay for that. I’d planned to kill you quickly. Now I plan to play.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. She couldn’t let him take her. If he was going to kill her, she was going to make him do it here. She ignored the pain from her wounds, which were much deeper than the shallow one she’d managed to inflict on him. She raised her free hand, ignoring the blood that stained it, and curled her fingers inward, in a come-and-get-me gesture.
He growled and started toward her but stopped at the last second. It was then she heard the voices. Several people were yelling, including David, who was shouting that he’d called the cops.
“This isn’t over,” her attacker promised. “You can’t hide from me.”
“Who are you?” She had a right to know.
He just laughed as he bent down, picked up his hat, and placed it back on his head. “You’ll know soon enough. These humans can’t protect you forever, and you can’t run anywhere that I can’t find you.” He blew her a kiss. “Remember me, sweet Hannah. Remember what I’ll do to you when I find you again.” He raked her body with a leer. “I plan to have some fun before I kill you.”
He turned and disappeared swiftly down the alley. She heard the pounding of footsteps and slowly fell to her knees. The knife clattered on the sidewalk beside her.
“Jesus. Jesus. Are you okay, Hannah?” David was by her side, staring in horror at her bloodstained sweater. “Of course you’re not all right. Stupid question.” He ripped off his T-shirt and pressed it against her stomach. “How bad is it?”
“Not too bad.” It was already healing. It would mend much faster than if she were fully human, but not nearly as fast as her attacker’s wound had. She was a partial werewolf, but her healing abilities weren’t as good as her father’s had been. A fact that had often bothered him.
Sirens sounded in the distance. She didn’t want to go to a hospital. Secrecy, and the need for it, had been drummed into her from the time she was a toddler. She couldn’t let the first responders take her.
She didn’t know if she could stop them.
She’d be vulnerable there, especially if they drugged her, maybe even knocked her out to repair her injuries. No, she couldn’t allow it. She struggled to get to her feet.
“What the hell are you doing, Hannah?” David pushed her back down to a seated position. “Don’t move. The paramedics are almost here.”
“No hospital.”
David shook his head. “You don’t have any choice. Don’t worry. You have insurance through work. You’re covered.”
It wasn’t the cost that bothered her, but the vulnerability. “I can’t go.” She tried to grab David’s hand, but he was busy waving at someone behind her.
She heard a man talking in a loud, calm voice, giving instructions to the small crowd that had gathered. Another man and a woman knelt beside her. “What have we got?” the woman asked.
Hannah licked her lips but David answered before she could. “Some guy attacked her. I don’t know what he got her with, but she’s bleeding a lot.”
“Knives,” she managed to get out. The blood loss was making her woozy. She couldn’t exactly tell them her attacker had used his claws on her.
The woman gently lifted the makeshift bandage, took a look, and then pressed it back down. There was a flurry of activity as they cut open the front of her sweater and replaced David’s bloody T-shirt with thick pads and tape. They talke
d to her, asking her questions, most of which she answered. A stretcher seemed to appear out of nowhere and then the buildings were rushing past as they carried her to the waiting ambulance.
David was right beside her all the way. “I’m going with you,” he told her.
She shook her head. It wasn’t safe for him or anyone to be around her. Not when a deadly killer had her in his sights. “No. You stay here.” They lifted the stretcher and pushed her into the vehicle.
“Are you sure?” David looked hurt.
She nodded. “Knapsack.” In the excitement, she’d forgotten all about it. One of the paramedics had slipped it off her shoulders at some point. It was all a blur.
David held it out in front of him. “Do you want it?”
She reached out for it. It was instinct to keep it with her. It had her identification, money, laptop, camera, phone, and a change of clothes. Everything she might need if she had to run.
“I’m coming to the hospital,” David told her just as the doors were shut.
She heard David and one of the paramedics talking outside the vehicle, and then the ambulance was moving. The siren hurt her head. The female paramedic continued to talk to her on the ride to the emergency room.
Hannah felt the prick of a needle in her arm. A line was running up to a bag filled with clear fluid. She had no idea what they were giving her.
She closed her eyes and shivered. All she could see was the malevolent smile of the man who’d attacked her. That and his golden-brown eyes that had promised he wasn’t done with her yet.
Chapter Four
Reece had just settled back in his truck, cup of coffee in hand, when his phone rang. He set the coffee in the holder and pulled out his phone. “Gallagher.”
“Assault on a female.” Sean’s voice was terse, and Reece knew his partner had found out about his resignation. Sean gave him the address and hung up on him.
“Fuck.” Talk about a shitty day, and it was barely past sunrise. He knew he should have told his partner about his resignation, but that was water under the bridge. All he could do now was explain his reasons as best he could.
He couldn’t tell Sean the truth. His partner had no idea that werewolves weren’t the stuff of legends, that they truly existed. Nor could he explain how his heightened senses made each day he worked and resided in the city a living hell. They worked violent crimes, which meant Reece smelled, saw, and heard the worst of humanity. His wolf howled and protested being in the urban jungle, even as the creature understood they were here for a purpose.
But Reece no longer believed in that purpose. Ten years. An entire decade of his life gone to a dream. One that only he knew about. He’d never even told Sage about the woman in his dreams. Hell, he’d never even seen her face. All he knew was that she was out there somewhere and she needed him.
It sounded stupid to him now, that he’d rearranged his entire life for a fantasy. But there was no changing the past, only the future.
He tucked away his phone, started his truck, and headed out. It didn’t take him long to get to the crime scene. It was still early enough that traffic was fairly light. He stepped out and gave his coffee a regretful glance. He’d only managed to drink half of it on the drive here.
Sean was waiting for him on the sidewalk, his body posture rigid, and his jaw tight. “I’m sorry,” Reece told the man he’d worked alongside for the past three years. “I should have told you first.”
Some of the starch went out of Sean. He dragged his fingers through his hair and sighed. “Shit, if you’re going to apologize, I can’t be mad at you, can I?”
“Sure you can. Just not as mad as you were.” Reece stopped in front of the closest thing he had to a friend in this city. “I just need to get out. I can’t do it anymore.”
Sean nodded. “I’m surprised you made it this long. I know you want to be home with your family.”
Sean knew Reece had a brother and family in North Carolina, but that was about it. He didn’t talk about his personal life.
“Yeah.” He left it at that. After all, there was nothing more he could say. “What have we got?”
His partner gave him a hard stare and then let it go. “Female—Hannah Burdette—twenty-three years old, attacked on her way to work.” He pointed toward a coffee shop not far down the block. “Boss was watching for her and saw her being attacked.”
“Why was he watching for her?” Reece was immediately suspicious.
“Seems she thought someone was following her two days ago. Her boss wanted her to take cabs to work, but she insisted she was fine. Yesterday passed without incident, but he decided to keep an eye out for her this morning just in case.”
“That him?” Reece pointed to a bare-chested man who was gesturing to the road.
“Yeah. He wants to get to the emergency room to check on her.”
Reece noted the droplets of blood on the sidewalk. A switchblade lay abandoned on the concrete. He stopped and bent down, careful not to touch any of the stains or the weapon. He sniffed the air. Two different scents. Most of the blood belonged to the woman, but the blood on the blade was different. She’d cut her attacker. Good for her.
He leaned closer and sniffed again. The breeze was a problem, but there was a faint, almost dissipated scent of what could be wolf. It was difficult to detect above the regular city smells and that of the blood. Reece stood and his eyes fell on the alley. “Did he hide in there?”
He was already walking toward it when Sean answered. “We think so.”
The sun wasn’t high enough for the light to really penetrate the thin opening between the buildings, but Reece didn’t need it in order to see. He opened up all his senses as he peered around the small space. It didn’t dead-end and eventually opened up onto the street behind, giving the attacker a place to run.
He was long gone, but his smell remained. It was thicker here, more condensed, as if he’d leaned against the building for a while waiting for the woman. Was she his target or was it just random? Was this the same killer from the arson case or was this a different wolf?
Reece thought it probable they were one and the same. Wasn’t likely they had two violent werewolves attacking citizens of the city all of a sudden, but strange as it might be, coincidences did happen.
Who was the woman? Why had he attacked her in broad daylight? The arson and murder had been carefully planned out and taken place at night. It didn’t make sense.
He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.
Sean was right behind him, watching him intently. “I need to speak to the woman,” he told his partner. He needed to know if she was human, a half-breed, or a full-blood. That would go a long way to help him figure out what the hell was going on in the city.
“We need to talk to her,” Sean corrected. “And first we need to get statements. Unlike the murder case the other night, there are witnesses who want to talk. The coffee shop is popular and a lot of folks go there. A couple of regulars arrived early today, hoping to get their coffees. They saw everything. Not to mention the boss.”
Sean was right. The woman would be getting medical care at the hospital. They could talk to her after the doctors had patched her up.
It wasn’t like he could share his theories with anyone. Until the victim confirmed she’d hurt her attacker or witnesses confirmed it, they’d have to wait for the lab report to verify there were two different types of blood spilled at the scene. Reece couldn’t just tell them he could smell the difference.
Yeah, he could just imagine how well that would go over.
It was a constant challenge to hide who he was from everyone around him. Not only would they not believe him, they’d send him to a shrink. Yeah, that wasn’t happening. The effort to rein in his heightened abilities was draining and kept him isolated. Another good reason for him to pack it in and go home.
Reece
followed Sean back out to the crime scene. The first person he wanted to talk to was the boss. “What’s the guy’s name again?” he asked Sean.
Sean checked his notebook. “David Kaufman. Owns and lives in the building that houses the shop. Inherited it from his maternal grandmother. Thirty-four. Single. Says he hired Hannah two months ago, that she’s a good worker and well-liked by customers.”
“If you know so much, why are we talking to him again?”
Sean pinned him with a stare. “Because people tell you things, whether they want to or not.”
Reece had a reputation for getting people to talk to him just by staring at them. It was his wolf they were reacting to even though they didn’t realize it. He didn’t care as long as they told him what he wanted to know. But a lot of cops looked at him warily, almost afraid to speak with him, as if he could somehow make them talk about things they didn’t want to. Made him wonder what they had to hide.
Not that he could talk. He had more secrets than any of them could imagine.
“David Kaufman.” The man turned when Reece called his name.
“I need to get to the emergency room to see Hannah. I’ve told the other officers everything I know.”
Reece nodded. “Just one more time. Please,” he added. “It would really help.” And he hoped Kaufman would hurry. He wasn’t the only one who wanted to get to the hospital. Reece wanted to meet and speak with Hannah Burdette. He needed to find out exactly why a wolf had attacked her.
* * * * *
Hannah was aware of what was happening, even if it was too much trouble for her to open her eyes.
“Ms. Burdette.” A woman called her name. She felt the rest of her sweater being cut away and briefly mourned it. It had been her favorite. Then her bra suffered the same fate. “Hannah.” This time the voice was more insistent.
She forced her eyes open and blinked at the bright light shining above her. A woman bent over her. She had dark brown hair and bright blue eyes behind the dark frames of her glasses. She was wearing white. A lab coat.
Wolf in her Soul: Salvation Pack, Book 8 Page 4
