Tess Owens didn’t like dark things. Or the full moons that brought dark things out of hiding.
Standing in the front yard of her secluded South Dakota home, she could see a vague imprint of the moon rise over the treetops. Familiar sensations tied to the big silver orb flooded her system in waves. Flush of heat. Spikes in her pulse. A sudden upswing of anxiety.
Full moons messed with her nervous system in a way Tess supposed similarly affected the creature she’d go after tonight when the stars came out. Although it was only late afternoon, her body was doing its thing, readying, gearing up for the time when adrenaline would push her beyond normal human limitations and she’d become the thing she had been created to be. Hunter.
Tonight, she’d need every ounce of strength she possessed if she met up with the dark thing that had taken up residence in the area. Because tonight was going to be special.
Rumors about the newcomer had been spreading throughout the towns nestled in the hills of South Dakota for a few days, and those rumors didn’t begin to address the level of danger this new threat posed. She had been aware of the trespasser since it arrived.
The thing in these woods wasn’t human. Its otherness was rich and dangerous. Acknowledging it gave her a thrill, because hunting anomalies is what her family had done best when they were alive. As bad luck would have it, she just happened to be the only Owens left in this part of the Dakotas, so the job was hers.
Hunting big bad creatures after nightfall wasn’t for everyone and definitely not for the faint of heart—especially the kind of hunting her family was known for among certain circles. As far back as anyone could remember, the Owenses had been big-game specialists, not after lions or tigers, but wolves of a certain variety—the kind that walked upright on two legs and often looked like everyone else until a full moon rolled around.
“Plenty of light tonight,” Tess muttered.
There were no clouds and not one hint of a storm system rolling in...unless she counted that damn newcomer as a special kind of storm. The werewolf that had dared to come here.
“Wolf,” Tess said, standing near her front gate and searching the area west of the tall pine trees. “I know about you. I can taste your presence.”
The fact that ninety-nine percent of the world’s population didn’t know Weres existed was a testament to how talented that species was at keeping secrets. But Tess and her family had been wolf hunters for nearly as long as werewolves had been around.
