“I suppose I should thank you for the assistance,” Stark snarled soberly. “But I don’t speak monster.”
Cameron figured that he was supposed to believe that a very untimely ending had come, and almost bought into it. But if cops believed there was no way out of messes on a regular basis, no one would wear a uniform and a badge. Add werewolf into the mix, and...well...the unexpected was always around the corner.
The big plus here was that Sam Stark didn’t know the first thing about him, or his identity. According to what Abby had said, Sam didn’t stop long enough to care about his targets.
It might not have made any difference if Stark recognized a cop when he saw one, or not. Monster was the word Sam had used, and that kind of name-calling said it all.
“Get up,” Stark ordered.
Cameron stayed put, on his knees, holding Abby, whose eyes had fluttered shut. She’d been drugged. He pulled the dart from her neck and tossed it aside.
“Don’t you hurt her,” Stark snapped.
That’s going to be your privilege? I’ll bet you’re hard just thinking about it.
“I have another dart loaded and aimed,” one of the nameless hunters said.
Sam Stark gestured for the man to wait and said to Cameron, “Leave her, wolf, and get up.”
And if I don’t?
Dealing with werewolves was so much simpler, he thought. With one growl, Weres knew when danger was at hand. With humans, things were never so easy. Some people looked okay, but hid a rotten core that produced child-abusers and other types of hardened criminals. It sometimes took the escalation of a problem to see the truth. Sam Stark smelled of anger, and had taken on physical aspects reminiscent of the dark angel of death. The man appeared sane, yet was barking mad. Why? He had been willing to kill Abby not long ago. Did he hope to reserve the pleasure of seeing that through now?
Stark’s ultracalm demeanor and iron scent suggested to Cameron that Abby had been right about Sam. For Sam, hunting wasn’t merely a sport. It was much more than that, and the culmination of something he had been waiting for. Something bigger than bagging a werewolf or two for a bankroll.
As a cop, Cameron had seen this kind of attitude in cases where a personal vendetta ruled a man’s actions. Payback for an affront or an offense.
The man Abby had presumed to be her father was seriously messed up inside, and seeing Abby’s claws clinched whatever issues Sam had going on.
He had to get Abby out of here. Out of Stark’s reach.
He had to try.
Cameron got to his feet slowly, pulling Abby’s limp, glistening body up with him. With a swiftness that made the hunters jump back, he swept her into his arms.
“Shoot it,” Stark directed. “In the back if you have to.”
Cameron heard the swishing sound of the hunter’s black vest moving. He looked down a rifle barrel and growled.
The sound of hell breaking loose came soon after.
Chapter 25
Sirens, heading their way with great speed, rent the night with the eerie wail of distant gods keening. The suddenness of the sound made the hunter’s finger hesitate on the trigger, and in those few seconds lay the difference between this life and the next.
Cameron took full advantage of the pause.
Turning on his heels with Abby in his arms for the third time since they had met, Cameron utilized the speed and dexterity of a wolf in full bloom, under what was left of a full moon, and heard the metallic ping of the dart strike the wall beside where he had been standing.
He took off, gripping Abby tightly enough to crush her bones, and without stopping to catch his breath or look behind. Cops were on their way, heading into the area fast. He heard Stark’s hunters scramble for cover. They would be hard-pressed to explain the guns and the darts, the blood spatter on the ground and the whole idea behind the “hunter” scenario to the Miami PD.
Cameron wanted to kiss the officers answering this call. Maybe he would, if he and Abby got out of this in one piece.
Darkness swallowed him up when he reached the next street. There were no homes here, just rows of factory after factory, most of them either closed for the night or abandoned altogether. At the moment, and while making a getaway, Cameron couldn’t have asked for anything better.
Abby didn’t move or speak. She lay huddled against him as lifelessly as if her bones had melted. Her claws had disappeared as soon as she closed her eyes, yet as he carried her and felt the heat of her bare skin on his, Cameron sensed her life’s spark. She was out of it, but alive, and a series of ongoing changes were taking place inside her.
Her body began to exude a new scent. Her skin had a different feel. He remembered the extraordinary flash of her eyes when she’d faced down the rogue, and recalled hearing her whisper when Sam appeared out of the blue, “I’m sorry.”
Hell, Abby, I’m the one who is sorry.
One block. Two. Three blocks, and he’d covered all the miles between his residence and the side of the park he needed to find the hard way. Sirens in the distance had stopped, which meant cops had arrived at the scene he’d left behind. Chances were good that Stark and his cronies also had a head start on a getaway. They’d be flirting with disappointment and fuming over having lost some of tonight’s booty.
Possibly, if the rogue Weres Sam chased every month had changed back to their human shapes after they fell, old Stark would have given his hunters their money back—if they had paid for their hunting privileges and weren’t satisfied with the way events had unfolded.
How much had Stark promised? At the very least, those guys got to see a werewolf or two up close. Bad thing was, they had also seen the woman they knew as Stark’s daughter, and had to be wondering what that was all about.
Pondering things brought up too many ways things could go. Any way he looked at it, Abby’s situation marked a change for everyone.
He couldn’t take her to her home, or back to his. His comfy little nest had been discovered by bad guys because it had been saturated with wolf scent. Between himself, Abby, Dylan, Delmonico and Wilson, it wouldn’t be a safe haven again for quite a while. Only one place met the criteria now.
The corner of the park near the boulevard lay just ahead, slightly ominous now that so much had happened in and around the boundaries. Stark had to have run the opposite way with his specialized weapons of wolf destruction. No reek of guns or human sweat tainted the night.
Personally, he didn’t give a flying fuck for Stark, a sentiment that was probably mutual. Stark had lost this round, but there were thirty days between this night’s full moon and the next one—plenty of time for Sam to widen his search for Abby.
Cameron paused long enough to place a tender kiss on Abby’s damp forehead before continuing on.
He circled around the farthest tip of the park, relieved to see the colored stucco and brick walls of the Miami mansions he’d been seeking. The night was dead quiet here and lacking signs of disturbance, but as soon as he approached the wall he needed to scale, an unfamiliar voice above it halted him.
“Glad you made it,” a half-furred-up, red-haired female said, gesturing with her claws for him to wait while she went for help.
So, how many Weres did Landau have in this pack? Who was the red-haired she-wolf?
Two big males landed beside him and attempted to take Abby from his quivering arms. No, you don’t, he silently sent to them. This treasure is all mine.
* * *
“Knocked out, but she will come around,” a hazy voice stated.
“When?” The familiarity of this second voice made Abby’s heart kick.
“Give her some time for the healing you refused. She’s safe here, so there’s no need to rush.”
This speaker, an older woman by the sound of her tone, radiated the confidence of a heale
r. Was she in a hospital for freaks? Had she died and gone to werewolf heaven?
“She moved.”
“I think she hears us. Abby?”
She didn’t want to answer. Wasn’t ready to wake up.
“Abby.” Cameron’s voice was a welcoming lifeline dropped into utter darkness. “Abby, it’s all right. We got out of there and are with friends.”
She shook her head slowly on something silky and feather-soft. A pillow? Depleted energy left her with only the breath for one word. “Sam.”
“Gone,” Cameron said. “At least for now.”
She managed to stammer, “G-got away?”
“We did. I think you were my good luck charm.”
It was okay to relax and give in to the need for sleep. Cameron was there to watch over her. He wouldn’t let anything happen.
Warm fingers rested on her forehead. “Sleep, my love. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Should she thank him, kiss him or beat at him with her fists for making her understand why she had previously wallowed in darkness? Abby contemplated all of those things.
“Abby, can you hear me?”
She was too weak to reply, and kept her eyes closed.
“You know. You do know what you are,” he whispered. “You can heal quickly if you want to.”
“Like her...” Abby replied as the color behind her eyes lightened and she was cast adrift on the tide of fatigue. “Like my mother.”
* * *
“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 take 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.”
Harlequin Nocturne May 2015 Box Set: Wolf HunterPossessed by a Wolf Page 20
