their victims’ terror and dying breaths, the Morphs fed on their energy. The Morphs holding him back loosened their grip on his arms. Taking advantage of their distraction, he broke free and shifted. Wolf greeted them, eager for the fight, desperate to carve his claws into them. Surprised, his captors drew back. He lashed out with razor-sharp canines, snarling. He downed one, as the others came for him silently.
There were too many. He had lost too much blood.
“Stop,” an authoritative voice ordered. “Leave him be.”
Blood trickled down his flanks, warm in the chilly air. Nicolas ignored the stinging pain and the burning in his side. He steadily regarded the Morphs’ secret weapon. Confident. Arrogant. Jamie presented a greater threat than the Morphs themselves.
He snarled. Instantly the Morphs closed ranks around Jamie. They’d die protecting the human who’d formed them into an army. The mortal whose blood manufactured disease and death.
He would not die as wolf. Nicolas shifted back into his human form to address the mortal. Because of Jamie, Damian was dying.
Naked, vulnerable, he refused to cower. “Jamie,” he uttered. “Your time will come.”
Low, amused laughter rippled through the air. Jamie pushed past the glowering bodyguards. “You can barely stand. We’ll destroy your leader, Nicolas. We already have, thanks to your help.”
Nicolas remained silent. Disobeying pack rules, he’d taught Jamie magick and she used it to join the Morphs and increase her powers. From her blood, they’d manufactured a disease that was killing his leader.
Another Morph shifted back into human form. Greasy brown hair, empty eyes, cruel twist to his mouth. Kane. The leader. Saliva dripped from Kane’s parted lips. Talons grew from his fingernails.
Nicolas tensed as Kane approached.
“Nicolas,” the Morph leader drawled. “Join us. You know you want to.”
“I’ll die first,” he growled.
“I have powers you’ll never have as a Draicon, Nicolas. Join us and see.” The Morph spread his long, thin arms. “I can take to the air as an eagle, swim the seas as a shark, race through the jungle as a jaguar. Can you do the same?”
Nicolas steeled his spine. “And you smell like the bottom of a garbage can. No thanks. I’d rather be a corpse. Then again, you are a corpse. No, something less pleasant.” He added colorful verbiage comparing Kane to a natural bodily function.
But Kane only laughed. “Words can’t hurt me. But you can. Do you dare?”
Nicolas remained silent, hands clenched into fists.
“Let’s kill him,” one Morph suggested.
“No,” Kane countered. “Do not touch him. We need him alive for Margaret, if she is the true empath. He’ll reawaken her powers when he seeks her to mate.”
Dread clawed at Nicolas’s chest. He had not feared them, even faced with death. He feared now for Maggie. “You’ll never find her. I’ll die fighting before you get your claws on her.”
Kane flashed an obscene grin. “We already found her, Nicolas. We infected her dog with our new disease. And you can’t stay away. The mating urge is claiming you even now. You can’t fight your nature.”
A mocking snort came from the Morph leader. Nicolas steeled himself against reaching out to strangle Kane. The Morph leader gave a thin, mocking smile.
“Leave the bodies. The law will blame the Draicon. Again.” Kane laughed.
Clever twist. More ammunition to hunt wolves, destroy his dwindling pack. Pain racked him. Slumping against the oak tree familiar with his scent and Damian’s, he watched the Morphs vanish into the forest. They would continue growing in power and strength, continuing their assaults. He couldn’t stop them.
He needed Maggie. Margaret, the empath prophesied to become the force capable of eliminating the Morph leader. His destined mate, who didn’t realize she was Draicon.
Dead leaves crunched beneath their feet. He waited until their stench no longer fouled his nostrils. On the wind, silent laughter followed his noiseless crawling out of the glen.
An hour later, his wounds healed, Nicolas hid beneath the recesses of an overhanging rock. He rested, staring at his beloved moon, listening to wind rustle the branches and stir the dead leaves. Hunger scraped his insides. Power he’d lost needed replenishing either by ingesting food, or sharing his body with a woman and absorbing the rich energy emitted during sex.
He needed to hunt. Too weak to change, he ignored the growling of his empty stomach. Must think of other matters. Focus. Softly, he began singing, in desperate hope of easing the agonizing hunger. It didn’t work. He switched his thoughts to Maggie.
Sweet, lovely Maggie. His draicara, his destined mate. Naked in the shower when he’d sunk into her mind yesterday.
A wave of desire rocked him as he remembered. Slender figure, full, rounded breasts and that mouth … ah, made for kissing. Nicolas felt his body tighten, thinking of the delicious things her mouth could do. Those legs, slightly padded with muscle, curved, silky smooth. He’d felt the brisk, impersonal glide of her hand as she’d soaped one thigh, bubbles frothing and popping. In her indifferent eyes he’d seen the thatch of dark red curls hiding her cleft, and he’d gone wild.
Nicolas had howled with lust, driven by the fierce need to claim her. Running his hands over her silky flesh, cupping her breasts, watching the nipples harden and peak. Gently parting her female flesh, testing her readiness, feeling that wetness as he slid a finger into her tight sheath. Then spreading those silky thighs wide open, mounting her, her yielding body pressed beneath his hard one, sinking into her wet, waiting flesh …
Hunger abated, replaced by lust as he focused on Margaret. Seeping into her mind like water percolating into the ground.
New agony assailed him. He raised his nose. Wolf inside him silently whined. Lust vanished. Thousands of miles away, he felt her stabbing pain as if it sank into his own chest.
She was crying over the dog again.
Last week, after years of searching, he’d found Maggie by pure accident. He’d been baling hay on his ranch when a wave of grief suddenly slammed into him, sharp as the pitchfork tines. Nicolas had sunk to his knees and moaned.
When he recovered from the initial shock, he’d sorted out the thoughts invading his mind. And realized he’d found his mate. Under extreme duress, a female draicara sometimes subconsciously projected emotions onto her intended mate, as if to summon him to her side at last. When he’d explored the mental trail she’d sent out, he realized who it was.
Margaret, the pack’s missing empath.
Nicolas drew in a deep breath, struggling to maintain his identity even as he now sank fully into hers. Absorbing her, sinking into every cell. Her breath as his. Her heart thudding rapidly, increasing his heart rate.
Her emotions his own.
Sweat erupted on his brow. His inner wolf whimpered, anxious to calm the spreading agony, human emotions twining with raw animal
