head was the problem.
“I can’t just walk in there.” She indicated the sweatshirt that barely reached the top of her thighs. “What if they don’t know me?”
“Don’t worry. I’m going ahead of you.”
She wished she could get a proper look at him in the moonlight. Something flashed through her mind. Something about prospects. About what the word really meant. How having prospects wasn’t about power and wealth, it was about how well a man would take care of you. It was a fleeting thought, gone almost as soon as it appeared.
They were in the backyard of the house now, and she could see a few people nearby standing around drinking and talking. On the immediate edge of the yard, where it joined the forest, a group of three young men appeared to be attempting to restrain someone.
“Roko, wait here. This could be a trap.” The man spoke in an urgent tone.
“Too right it could.” The response was panicky, almost terrified. “You know what he’s capable of, Teo. He could have snatched her from under my nose.”
Nate moved forward. “Wait here.” He motioned her to step back into the shadows.
It was too late. The man called Roko had already caught sight of her. Breaking free of his friends, he started toward her. “Violet! What the fuck...?”
She frowned. Surely she would remember this man if she knew him. He was very handsome. As he reached her, Roko made a grab for her hands. She shrank away from him in alarm, moving instinctively toward Nate.
Nate positioned himself between them. “Who are you?”
Roko bristled. He scanned her face, his expression changing, becoming even more annoyed. “This is a joke, right? Tell this guy to butt out.”
As he spoke, something was happening inside the house. There were shouts, crashes and sounds of glass breaking. Looking up, she saw what looked like a dozen people erupting from the house into the yard. They appeared to be running from something.
Roko turned to his friends. “You said we’d be safe. You promised they wouldn’t find us here.”
As he spoke, he gave a signal to his friends. Kicking off their sneakers and shrugging out of their outer clothing, they shifted. Just like that. No big performance, no whisper of sound, no creaking of bones or sprouting of fur.
Within seconds, the young men were gone. In their place, a pack of sleek werewolves dropped to their haunches, shaking themselves free of the final remnants of clothing that had been shredded during their transformation. Baring huge fangs, they crouched low, preparing to face the group that had emerged from the house.
Nate pulled on her arm, drawing her back into the shadows where they could see what was going on, but not be seen themselves. Her instinct was to run from this scene, but she understood what he was doing. Roko—the man who had just shifted and become a werewolf—knew her. There were clues to her identity here.
The five werewolves who approached from the house dwarfed Roko and his friends. Huge and black, with eyes that glowed gold by the light of the moon, it was clear they meant business. The crowd that had followed them from the house was a combination of humans and werewolves, and the atmosphere thrummed with a cocktail of fear and anticipation as the two opposing packs lined up.
Crouching low, the black wolves rippled with muscle and menace. Vicious snarls rent the night. The space between the warring forces crackled with rage. Roko and his pack barely had time to answer back before the black werewolves sprang at them. The fury of the attack was so intense she felt its force even from her hiding place in the darkness. Instinct made her draw closer to Nate, and he placed a steadying arm around her shoulders.
In the golden glow of the garden lamps, blood sprayed and fur flew. It was clear from the start that Roko and his pack were hopelessly outclassed, but they fought bravely. The black wolves tore into them, ripping chunks of flesh from the smaller werewolves, forcing them onto their backs and into submission. It was clear this was an organized fighting force, used to working as a team, used to getting what it wanted.
Within the watching crowd, there were screams and shouts of outrage.
“Can’t we stop this?”
“Who are they?”
Even as some of the partygoing werewolves who had emerged from the house made a movement toward the fight, it was already over. The black wolves, having subdued Roko’s pack, were shifting back into human form. Five naked, muscle-bound men stood over the injured werewolves.
One of them addressed himself to the partygoers. “Apologies for any inconvenience. We won’t disturb you any longer.” Reaching down a giant hand, he grabbed Roko by the fur at the scruff of his neck and hauled him to his feet. “This is what we came for. He has something belonging to our master.”
Dragging Roko and the other wounded werewolves with them, the five men strode through the watching crowd and out through the front of the house.
* * *
“Violet...is that your name?”
Nate still had his arm around the woman, and he could feel the tremors that ran through her slender body. He wasn’t surprised. A brutal, bloody attack like the one they’d just witnessed was enough to leave anyone shaken. Following on from the earlier events of the evening, he was amazed to find she could still answer him coherently.
“It’s what he called me, so I guess it must be.”
“Wait here while I see if I can find out what that was all about.”
She slid her hand into his, those huge, trusting eyes fixed on his face. “Don’t leave me.”
Something lurched in the center of his chest. In a place where he hadn’t felt anything for a very long time. Six years, to be exact. He gave her a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be two minutes.”
Reluctantly, she let go of his hand. An answering smile trembled on her lips. “I’m timing you.”
Nate strode out of the shadows. The party atmosphere was understandably subdued following the fight, and people were standing around discussing what had happened. He approached one group, slotting in as unobtrusively as he could.
“Who were those guys?” Nate turned to the man next to him.
“No one seems to know. Looks like they were gate-crashers who had a grudge against the other group, the ones they dragged away with them.”
“So no one knows who they were, either?”
Another man joined in the conversation. “Teo is a regular at these parties, but the others hadn’t been here before.”
“I heard Teo call one of his friends Roko,” Nate said.
“Name means nothing to me.”
“Me neither.” Both men shrugged.
Conscious of Violet—since that seemed to be her name—waiting anxiously for him in the shadows, Nate tried the same questions on a few other people. He got similar responses. Teo was known, Roko wasn’t. No one seemed to know
