breathing was harsh, her chest taxed. Over the sounds she made, she heard their pursuers. At least two of them, and maybe more. These were Weres the one holding on to her didn’t want to meet, or didn’t want her to meet.
The park was brimming with monsters tonight. The one gripping her hand dialed back his speed after calling for more of it, considerately matching his stride to hers. Leaving him would have been a good idea, if it weren’t for the other creatures not far behind that likely had the scent of her bloody leg in their noses.
Every few seconds, she stole a glance at her lover, wondering as she watched his shirttails fly and his bare chest muscles ripple, how anyone on the bad end of society, including his own gene-spliced alternate species, could possibly expect to deal with him in any confrontational circumstance.
She felt the power in him, and had taken some of that power inside her. Remnants of that energy washed over her now, and yet every move he made seemed angled to make him appear human. Nevertheless, could an angel hide its wings for long? Could a devil hide its horns? A werewolf was a werewolf, and she had just been intimate with one.
Oh yeah, and guess what? She had liked it.
“Don’t slow down on my account,” she said as they rounded a corner. “I can take it.”
Her mind clung to the thought that if she had mistakenly accused her father for her wound, and didn’t call in soon, Sam would come after her for real—maybe not out of fatherly love for his daughter, but out of a strong business sense. There had never really been much love or admiration between them. Hardly any at all. Actually, none at all.
With her fingers securely curled in the Were’s hand, they raced past a brick wall that had seen better days and smelled of moss, finding an alley of palms. Dogs barked behind the tall fences, pinpointing Otherness without having to see it as she and the wolf passed.
Although the uneven earth here made sprinting difficult, Abby was determined to shake the Weres on their trail and remove herself from the picture. She was eager to pretend tonight never happened, and hopeful that the guy next to her would do the same. She had tucked into her mostly boring little life of being an animal control officer by day and a bartender by night.
All for the best.
When she got back to the office, she’d report the bad guys like she was supposed to do and pray that this big, beautiful Were would take his moonlight shift someplace else. She’d be convincing. She would get over this, and forget about him. The grazed leg she’d keep to herself.
Without a hint of warning, her companion slammed to a halt. He spun her around to face him and said soberly, “Go. Now. Don’t look back.”
“I can...”
“Now.” It was a command. “You do know your way? You weren’t lost?”
“I know where I am.” Abby barely got that out before again feeling his breath on her face. Her eyes closed as his mouth met hers almost angrily, and in the manner of someone who might never get enough of what he’d found. His tongue swept over her teeth, and across her lips. She kissed him back.
Lord help her, this wasn’t over. Can’t be over.
The kiss lasted only seconds before he tore himself away. Letting go of her hand, he gave her a shove.
“Go,” he reiterated. Whirling from her, he began walking, not away from the creeps following at a distance, but toward them, with his head lifted and his long stride purposeful.
The sheer weight of his larger-than-life presence filled the night as Abby watched him go. Her heart did not stop its infernal pounding.
Sensing her hesitation, he stopped only once to glance back. Across a span of withered grass their gazes met. He didn’t acknowledge a similar reaction to the one that had her reeling, or let on that he felt the same. Blood striped his shirt. Her fingernails had put some of it there. Her injury had done the rest.
Mirroring the twitch that set his shoulders, Abby finally spun around. Without reaching for her phone or making the call that might have sent the team scrambling, and maybe even helped this one lone wolf in the short run, she sprinted for the road.
She’d take no chances. This big Were was nothing she’d be willing to share. He’d be her secret. Her very private secret, added to so many others.
On the plus side, she might have been a fool tonight, but at least she wasn’t going to be a dead one.
The TTD motto served her well here.
Live to fight another day.
Cameron felt himself distancing from normal human perceptions of his surroundings, as though his humanness danced on a last remaining thread of control.
Angling his neck, he heard a crack. Then another. But this wasn’t a night for the beast to exert itself to a full extent—at least, as far as he knew. So whoever was out here would be in the same boat, minus the badge tucked inside his pants pocket.
As if he had wished them into existence, the miscreants came around a corner in single file, which would have presented him with an opportunity to gain something of an upper hand in a fight, if it weren’t for the fact that they had moved too close to a busy street for a fight to go undetected.
“Are you boys heading in the wrong direction?” he called out.
“What direction would that be?” the shaven-headed guy in front responded.
“Oh, I don’t know. Toward trouble, maybe?”
They didn’t laugh. Halting a couple yards away and meeting shoulder to shoulder in a united front, as animals in the wild sometimes did when eyeing a potential meal, they studied him impersonally with flat black gazes. The odor of wolf gone bad hung heavily in the air.
Cameron held up his hands and kept his voice light. “Just doing my job. Keeping the streets safe.”
The tallest of the gang, wearing a torn white T-shirt and baggy pants, took the initiative. “Why don’t you do your job someplace else?”
Cameron shook his head. “No can do. This is my beat.”
“You’re a cop?”
Cameron shrugged.
“A filthy badge-carrying pig?” The speaker turned to his companions. “I thought I heard him squeal.”
The other three gangbangers chuckled on cue, cut off when the lead dog spoke again. “Or was it the girl that squealed?”
Cameron’s hands opened and closed, readying for a skirmish. “What girl would that be?”
“The one you let get away. The naked one.”
“Well,” Cameron said, “I’m wondering what that has to do with you.”
“That bitch needs riding. She’s been broken in.”
Cameron
