in her shoulders suggested that this sucker had an ominous vibe. Tonight wasn’t going to be easy. Even now, Tess breathed in the uniqueness of this creature’s essence.
Either a particularly powerful new werewolf had moved to the neighborhood, or she wasn’t worth the O carved on the hilt of her hunting knife.
O—the symbol for a pledge some ancient-based Owens had made to cull werewolf numbers.
O—a sign that was symbolic for zero, as in the number of werewolves that had gotten past her family since they had moved to the Dakotas thirty years ago.
O—for the look on miscreant werewolf faces when a well-placed silver knife or arrow terminated their freakish existence.
“And now you,” Tess said, pacing the yard. Although some were rumored to be good, she hadn’t seen the good stuff in any of the man-wolves she had hunted. Those creatures left a lot of damage behind. And she had never set eyes on a full-blooded Were, male or female, because Lycans, as those pure-bloods were called, tended to run in secretive, close-knit packs.
“So why are you trespassing where you don’t belong?” Tess whispered. “It’s my duty to catch you, you know. My job. My calling. I take my vows seriously.”
After her first hunting expedition with her father at the age of eight, she had accepted her role and had never looked back. At the ripe old age of twenty-four, she had the family name to live up to and didn’t take that honor lightly.
She was fast, strong. Her life depended on those things. One mistake, one too many hesitations and death would be the result. Even talented hunters didn’t usually last very long.
“I know you’re out there somewhere, wolf. Will you offer me a game of hide-and-seek or just magically appear?”
South Dakota wasn’t a hotbed for supernatural activity, unlike big cities in the West and East. There were slim pickings here for monsters, so a werewolf hadn’t crossed her path in months.
“Until you.”
She paused to scan more of the forest. Being alone for so long had made talking to herself out loud an acceptable habit.
“A beast like you took down both of my parents, leaving me without backup. But don’t assume that means I’m weak.”
On the contrary, the loss of her mother and father last year had energized her need to take care of problems that arose. So here she was, fighting back, fighting hard and willing to go to extremes in order to deal some payback to the creatures that had taken so much from her.
“I will find you. That’s a promise.”
If luck was on her side, the new Were wouldn’t get wind of her before she found it. Out of necessity, she had become good at stealth, but werewolves also had keen, fine-tuned senses that were apt to be better than hers. She bore the scars to prove it and wore those scars like notches in her belt to mark the fights she had not only survived but won.
Would this guy know about her?
“Twelve,” she said. “Twelve half-crazed werewolves have ventured too close to this part of South Dakota for their own good.”
She ran a hand down the left side of her face, tracing a line of lightly raised scar tissue. “Number seven did this to me, and regretted it.”
She raised an arm, showing off ridges on her left wrist. “Number nine.”
If the people in town knew about what she did—about how far she had to go and how much she had sacrificed to protect them from the monsters—her loner status would make sense. But they could never know.
“Can you hear me, wolf?”
Maybe it could hear her. And maybe not. Though the keenness of werewolf hearing was legendary, it wasn’t miraculous. They weren’t gods. Weres were just one of nature’s peculiarities.
Then again, possibly this one’s hearing was better than most.
Straightening up with a sudden jolt of insight that demanded her full attention, Tess focused harder on the trees.
Someone was out there.
Chills arrived before the next rush of heat obliterated them. That familiar flash of warmth, originating in her chest, quickly radiated outward to kick her adrenaline levels through the roof.
The creature was here.
Watching her.
The air around her vibrated with a telling whisper that said, Male werewolf. Big. Strong. Intense.
Tess gritted her teeth in anger. By coming here, that Were had crossed a line.
“I don’t care much for trespassers and haven’t asked for company,” she announced at a reasonable decibel. “Especially yours.”
No reply came.
He was sizing her up.
Tess shifted from foot to foot as a sudden external wave of heat blew in to raise her own rapidly escalating body temp even further. The damn heat wave was like being caught in a lava flow and so hot, her stomach turned over.
Tess widened her stance to meet that heat wave head-on. But it was gone as suddenly as it had come. Just like that, and as if the trespasser had merely called it back...
Leaving Tess breathless.
* * *
Jonas Dale stopped five feet short of the chasm dividing his land from his neighbor’s. Exceptional sight allowed him to peer through the trees.
The air was cool. An acrid odor of woodsmoke left a tang on his tongue. Aside from the normal forest fragrances of pine and scrub, he could detect a human.
He had heard about Tess Owens, of course. Word traveled fast and went something like this: hunter in residence. Wolves beware.
Coming here had been a risk. But he needed to be in the remote hills of South Dakota and about as far from his home in Florida as was geographically possible.
The choice of this location hadn’t been made without careful consideration. Tess’s family’s reputation preceded them. If the thing chasing him knew about the Owens family, surely it wouldn’t imagine he’d come here, so close to one of them.
In this case, he was using Tess Owens as camouflage.
Since word had come of the Owens deaths last year, Jonas figured he might get away with this. Still, extra caution would be needed when dealing with any member of that clan. Cunning and the power of persuasion might be the ticket to keeping Tess off his back if she would listen to reason.
Would she be open to hearing anything he had to say when her family was notoriously unforgiving to his kind?
He had come here today, near her home, for a quick look and to judge for himself about Tess. Finding her had been easy. She was standing in her yard, near enough for an agile werewolf with a grudge to take her on without the benefit of any moon-induced physical changes. He wasn’t that wolf, however. Not today. Not ever, hopefully, since his energy
