them.
“Okay,” he said with calm finality. “Bring it on.”
Lupine euphoria hit before he finished the invitation. His body quivered with excitement. His core temperature rose in a lightning-fast ascent, reaching the level of “sizzling” before his next intake of air.
Claws popped from the ends of all ten of his fingertips like spring-loaded blades. Brief, swollen seconds of what felt like dark-dipped madness came and went, a throwback to a state people once called Lunacy. And then the process of a man becoming a werewolf took over.
Bones snapped. Ligaments stretched. The sound of hot, wet flesh tearing echoed in the night as his muscles redefined themselves. Colton’s stomach knotted and clenched, doubling him over at the waist for a few more tense seconds as rich brown fur sprouted from his pores.
When he again stood upright, feeling inches taller than his usual six-two, and confined and claustrophobic in his clothes, he opened a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and issued a low guttural growl that mimicked the sound of distant thunder, a sound that was both a response to the temporary pain of this shape-shift and a keen acknowledgment of being something other than one hundred percent human.
Following that, he belted out a harrowing, piercing howl that rolled through the park’s vast emptiness with a feral quality that would have sufficed to make any animal’s skin crawl, and was meant to do just that.
But as he gathered himself, ready to utilize the animal’s agility and superior speed, Colton’s senses suddenly jerked again to a state of full alertness. The feeling of not being alone made a comeback.
And then, out of the silver-coated darkness, came the surprise of an answering howl.
What the hell?
Had he missed something out there?
Colton’s fur stood on end. He backed up a step, stunned as another howl followed the first. This one was higher in pitch than his own vocalization and no less menacing. But it was also tantalizing and seductive.
Colton glanced up, thinking that the moon must have been playing a trick. But a third sound came soon after the second, closer this time, and from ground level.
Haunting, preternatural, seductive in nature, this howl originated from the part of the park where he’d sensed strangeness but had seen no one. No human, anyway.
The wulf’s immediate natural instinct was to find what had made that sound and mount it, instead of dashing off in the direction he needed to go. The animal’s need to chase down whatever had made those wolfish sounds was so strong and insistent that Colton tightened his mental leash on the beast.
Despite the check of restraint that had him frozen to stillness, Colton’s insides writhed with the new dilemma he faced due to hearing that answering howl. Should he hurry to Baker Street and see what had happened there, or take the time to find out who or what else roamed this park?
He and his beast weren’t completely at odds over voting for the last one. It was, however, an unexpected trip in the agenda when timing might be critical.
Waiting out several more thunderous heartbeats, the blood inside his distended arteries began to burn. Judging by his arousal, he knew that the unexpected visitor was female.
Not just any female, either. Not with a voice like that. This was a she-wulf—powerful, practiced and pure Lycan, or he was a sorry son of a bitch who didn’t know a Lycan from a hole in the ground.
Who are you?
Where did you come from?
He hadn’t met many purebred female Lycanthropes.
The rarity of full-blooded she-wulfs was the reason true Lycans as a breed were slowly dying out. Females often weren’t wired correctly for the transition from human to werewolf, and many of them didn’t make it past the Blackout phase of their coming-of-age party for reasons no one actually knew. Special Lycan matchmakers traveled the world to find females to bring home to a qualified clan. He, himself, had been waiting ten years.
And what? One of those rarest of creatures has just announced her presence here in Miami, on the edge of this park? To me?
The acknowledgment of this possibility hit Colton with the force of an oncoming train. His wulf-heavy limbs shuddered. His teeth snapped together, filling his mouth with the acrid taste of his own blood. He grew hotter, and a little confused.
Hell, his human side wanted to chase after whatever had made those sounds as much as the beast did. Finding a She fulfilled a powerful need and provided a possible solution to a lot of problems of sheer physical necessity for a male. Keep the line going. Keep it strong. Choose a mate.
But damn the timing of finding this female. Not only did duty call, it also called with an overriding personal necessity that meant the possible welfare of his family. He had taken an oath to protect and serve not only the population of Miami but the few Lycans left in his scattered clan. Oaths were binding for werewolves, and lifelong.
In addition to that, he might know the cop who had been shot.
Shit. He visualized the scene. There would be officers, CSI techs and television crews all over the place, knocking on doors.
And a she-wulf appeared now?
Really bad timing. Effing bad.
Worse yet, his beast had already driven him to take a step toward the female’s invitation, stretching at its leash.
Colton hauled himself back with difficulty and a barked chastisement. Can’t have this. Get a freaking grip. There’s too much at stake.
Good advice in the best of times, but the beast’s needs were elemental and approaching the point of no return. It was hungry to bury its cock in that female’s damp, furry, feminine folds, and angered by the restraint.
He had to get away, though leaving this spot would be one of the hardest things he had ever done. He had to ignore this she-wulf, knowing the odds of ever finding another one.
Resolutely, regretfully, he echoed the she-wulf’s call with a low-pitched howl that could have been translated as: You have no idea how sorry I am for having to go. Though it actually meant so very much more than that, and perhaps even the extinction of his family’s line.
Stepping out from under the trees, and filled with regret, Colton took off. Alone. Into the night. Toward the scent of a downed cop’s blood in the distance.
Rosalind Kirk dropped to her haunches and slammed a furred-up fist into the ground to keep herself from following the Were in the park, whose scent was new, feral and overtly masculine.
Her hackles rose with a mixture of curiosity and anger.
That wulf had ignored her invitation.
She stared at the way he cut a smooth swath through the trees, running faster than anything she had ever seen. He was a big werewolf, tall and powerfully built. His brown
