Harlequin Nocturne May 2015 Box Set: Wolf Hunter\Possessed by a Wolf (17 page)

Chapter 23

T
hrough their rasping, spent breaths, Cameron heard the sound that outpaced his thundering heart, and thought he had to be mistaken.

No, there it was again, coming from the open window.

When he paused and stiffened, Abby looked up.

“Outside,” he said, on his feet in seconds.

Sure that Abby had risen with him, he moved to the window and cautiously looked out. Though he saw nothing, he sensed danger with a certainty that chilled the back of his neck.

Abby stood beside him, naked and as beautiful in her wild, rumpled state as anything he had ever set eyes on.

“Smell?” he said, and she took in a long, deep breath of night air, and then backed away from the window.

“Not humans, Abby?”

She shook her head. “Wolf. More than one.”

“I assume if they're friendly, they will come to the front door.”

“I think we might have ruined your front door when we came in,” she reminded him.

“Well, that's not good,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Anyone might waltz in here like there's an open invitation.”

Abby glanced to the hallway. “Or might have already.”

Again, Cameron looked outside. “Being Were sometimes has its perks. At least we know when someone else is in the vicinity.”

He knew the seriousness of having wolves in his neighborhood, and that this didn't bode well for someone. The three Weres he'd met that night had gone. As far as he knew, not many other people were aware of his address. No one that counted, anyway. He'd moved to a neighborhood far from the precinct on purpose, not keen to get cozy with his neighbors in case the wolf in him took a wrong turn. Also, he had a hunch that a lot of the rogue Weres doing damage in and around the park came from this area, and he'd hoped that with close proximity he'd be able to keep an eye on them.

“Stay here, Abby.”

She gave him a questioning look.

“I mean it. Please stay here. I'm going out for a better look around.”

“Kiss my behind,” she said soberly, and he smiled.

“Gladly. But give me a minute.”

Abby smiled back, and that smile lit up her face. She reached for her knife and found it missing.

“It's on the floor,” he said, wondering how Abby could be Were and handle that damn knife so easily, supposing that being Lycan had a lot to do with it. There were a lot of questions to ask those other Weres the next time they met.

The next sound from outside came from behind the fenced yard next door. “Too close for comfort,” he said.

“What are they after?”

“My guess is that they're onto our scent. Especially now that we've...” He ended that sentence differently. “And that just won't do.”

“I'll get out of here.”

“Yep. Right now, and with me.”

“The moon's still up,” Abby noted.

“Even better. No need to take the time to get dressed.”

Abby strapped her knife, in its leather sheath, onto her leg.

“You do realize you won't be able to hold that with claws?” Cameron said.

“Who said I'll have claws?”

“Hell, Abby, you are a freaking enigma. A lovely, freaking enigma.”

“Time to move, wolf,” she said over one bare shoulder as she raced from the room.

In reply, and with his eyes on that bare shoulder, Cameron growled.

Side by side, they left the house and moved into the street. Cameron figured there was only one place to lead a couple of bad wolves, when protecting Abby sat foremost on his mind, and hoped that going there wouldn't wear out his welcome. Like it or not, it seemed that the Landau pack was going to see a lot more of his sorry ass.

Tonight the Landau walls would be guarded. Quite possibly, their pack would have a presence in the park near enough to those walls to keep loafers well away from discovering a house full of Weres. If any of the purebloods there smelled like Abby, that compound would have to be very well protected.

Abby's scent was like candy. Like catnip. What better way to attract a wolf was there, than allowing it a whiff of her highly erotic she-wolf pheromones?

Cameron cursed the distraction that made another round of sex impossible. The light bouncing off rooftops hit him square in the face. It was party time. In this instance, though, he welcomed the magical voodoo intrinsic to that light. He'd be stronger, fiercer, faster, all furred up. He'd be better able to protect Abby, in lieu of carrying his daytime gig's weapon.

“Follow me” were the last words he got out before his shift began.

* * *

Cameron had never really seen Abby in full motion, other than in his bedroom. Yet here she was, running by his side, tense, determined and looking as though she could do some damage to whoever showed up to chase them.

She kept up, without the benefit of a partial fur coat to cloak her bareness. She was barefoot and naked, except for the strip of brown leather on one lower leg that was the sheath holding her knife. And she was very pale in the moonlight, with the colorlessness of a ghost.

He'd forgotten to ask her for more details about the hunters, such as if they prowled the park all night, or had set hours. If they stayed until sunrise, a direct route to the Landau compound for him and Abby would be out of the question. A werewolf seen running through the streets with a naked woman by his side would be equally as bad.

He'd have given anything right about now for his own cell phone and the gun he had locked up before heading out to the bar tonight for Stegman's wake—a gun that wouldn't have done much good against a nasty set of werewolves bent on trouble.

Had that fight in the park been only last night? Hell, he felt as though he'd lived five lifetimes in forty-eight hours.

He grasped tightly to Abby's hand, careful with his claws, needing to touch her. She ran like the wind, breathing through the bruised mouth he had repeatedly ravaged.

His block and the several beyond it had plenty of houses. The pathway Cameron chose cut through the worst parts of the area, where buildings marked by graffiti and littered with debris were the norm.

When cars passed, he and Abby hid in the shadows. There were, he knew, about three miles between his house and the Landau compound by street—a big circular pattern and a long way under any circumstances. In the dark, under a big moon, and with the wolf's urge to both pleasure and protect Abby, reaching Laudau's walls seemed a particularly difficult feat.

“They're coming,” Abby announced.

Inevitable
, Cameron thought.
And a goddamn shame.
His strength had been compromised by not only the silver bullet that had mercifully missed his heart, but by his energy output since then. Weres might heal miraculously, and he certainly had beat the odds of enjoying a nice, long hospital stay, but he felt more sluggish than usual. The bullet hole in his chest burned all the way through to his shoulder blades.

He hated when others were right, and he'd had to nix a full recovery. The timing of this new attack sucked.

“Building on your right,” Abby called out, already heading that way.

Why, Cameron again thought, didn't Abby Stark show the slightest bit of fear or distaste over his current wolfed-up state? Sure, she might be a werewolf internally, yet she continued to exhibit no outward signs of shifting. How did she control that? If it was a matter of willpower, hers had to be second to none.

They dived for cover from a passing car, beneath an overhanging roof beam, where they'd get a better idea of whom and what followed them. Seconds ticked by in silence before the assailants appeared. Two of them, as Abby had predicted, all muscled up and begging for trouble.

Abby's knife was in her hand, though that hand now trembled. Cameron felt the presence of her silver blade as strongly as if she had used it on him. The narrow piece of polished metal seemed to draw on the remaining slivers of silver in his system, so that his skin rippled and pulsed, and a wave of light-headedness struck. He made a sound that caused Abby to move the knife, and even that minor change made it easier for him to get air into his lungs.

When he breathed deeply, he caught a whiff of something foul. The potent odor of unwashed wolf. Bad guys, then, he confirmed, growling his displeasure over facing two hyped-up werewolves so near to the street.

Abby's hand wasn't the only part of her trembling now. Tremors rocked her stance. He heard her teeth snap shut, probably to keep them from chattering. But she didn't back down. Without a voice, appeasing her wasn't an option. They were backed into a corner and would have to make a stand.

“I'm ready,” she said.

Swear to God, he loved Abby Stark for that vote of confidence.

Chapter 24

A
bby had been around some fairly rough-and-tumble people in Sam's bar, and had often defended herself from unwanted advances, but none of those people had tried to kill her. Only Sam had been willing to pull a trigger.

And now this.

Being angry and upset, though, tended to give her a boost. Adrenaline pumped through her so hard her nerves sang. Brandishing the knife took both hands.

Her companion had bested bad wolves before, but he'd been injured too recently to predict a good outcome here. Another cop had died trying to keep the peace the night before when facing these bad wolves, and cops were trained to take down criminals. But cops weren't ready for mentally malnourished werewolves with a wicked agenda. Only Cameron, Sam and the rest of the hunters realized what this kind of trouble meant.

“They smell,” she said as Cameron took one more step forward. Abby recognized the odor and the feel of their evil intent without waiting for them to prove it. These rogues had the watery black eyes of rabid dogs, and stank of smoke and grimy pavement.

They materialized in a tiny patch of moonlight and kept purposefully inside that light. Their everyday human shapes wouldn't rival the scary picture they presented, and for them, image was probably everything.

These werewolves were nothing like Cameron—weren't creatures of beauty and natural animal grace in their furred-up incarnations. Both of them were varying shades of brown, with short, shaggy fur that lacked sheen. She'd seen drunks with that kind of dullness to their skin, leached of color and energy due to too many years of nights on the town.

Their muzzles were grotesquely elongated, showing off mouthfuls of big yellow teeth. They panted with the effort of holding back their desire for a kill. One of them growled. Undeterred, Cameron growled back. When the larger wolf raised its paws menacingly, Abby raised the knife so that the silver caught the light.

Their eyes moved to her, and what she held.

Cameron stood a good head taller than the biggest wolf, and in Cameron's spectacular stance of defiance, he seemed to Abby like the prince of menace. His muscles rippled as if they were alive and capable of moving on their own. His hair hung in his eyes, giving him an air of untamed wildness. This tense demeanor spoke volumes.
Come and get it, if you dare.

She'd have hit the road if she'd been his opposition. These two idiots had other ideas—one of those probably being that two jacked-up werewolves against one wounded animal and his small mate were damn good odds.

In unison, the werewolves sniffed the air, their attention shifting back and forth from Cameron to her, their eyes intent on the blade. Abby thought she saw confusion cross their misshapen features. What wolves were doing with a silver weapon had to be the question they were asking themselves before getting on with their attack.

The shudder of anticipation that ran through Cameron also ran through her, contagious and cold. Able now to hold the knife in one hand, Abby placed her other palm on Cameron's back, allowing his radical electrical charge to surge through her.

Her body responded immediately to that influx of power. Claws sprang from all ten of her fingers simultaneously with the tearing of sensitive skin and a single crack of pain. That first jolt caused another one, and like a game of dominoes, where one domino leaned into another and everything tipped over in a predisposed pattern, the dark thing she carried inside her that she'd ignored all these years rose to the surface with the all-consuming intensity of an impending sexual climax.

This new thing hurled itself upward and outward so fast that Abby didn't have time to acknowledge what might happen. Knocking internal organs out of its way, coating everything inside, in seconds the darkness spread through her, causing upheaval and pain so violent she wouldn't have imagined it possible to withstand the surge.

She dropped the knife and uttered a curse that tapered into a howl. She spoke to herself.
Do not close your eyes. You cannot afford to lose ground, or lose this battle.

But she had to shut her eyes. The pain flooding her body was too great to withstand. It seemed too great to survive.

And in that instant, when the world went dark, the rogue werewolves sprang.

* * *

A sense of urgency beat at the air as Cameron heard Abby whisper his name. He could not turn his head, had to leave thoughts about her behind for now, if they were to stay alive.

That was the name of the game. Live, or die.

His opponents were large, but clumsy, and for that, Cameron was grateful. The smaller of the two snapped its jaws repeatedly as it came on with misplaced self-confidence. Its needle-sharp teeth caught Cameron in the hand as he reached for its neck, and the blood spurting from the wound hit the oncoming werewolf in the face. But not before Cameron began to squeeze the breath from his attacker.

The big wolf was on him in a flash, its mouth and claws seeming to come from all directions. This hulk had a powerful punch. Taking a blow to his shoulder, inches from his previous wound, forced Cameron to spin full circle. He dragged the smaller assailant with him in the turn with his hands still on the wolf's thick, matted neck. The two attackers' bodies collided with each other, knocking the bigger bastard off its feet.

Out of the corner of his eye, Cameron saw Abby move. She picked up the knife. He caught the glint of her bright eyes as she jumped on top of the downed werewolf and struck at it with her blade. But this wasn't Abby, wasn't exactly the woman who had been behind him the moment before. She hadn't fully shifted, but some kind of change had taken place.

I can't help.

Abby, hang on.

Pain sharp enough to make him nauseous stabbed at Cameron's chest as he forced the wolf he had hold of to its haunches. The furry bastard flailed, growled and spat. Its fur was soaked in Cameron's blood, and the scent made the wolf ready to do anything to eliminate the hand cutting off its air supply.

With a push of its heavy thighs, this rogue tried to propel itself upward. But Cameron had been ready, and had been trained to fight. Tightening his grip, gaining better access to the wolf's windpipe as the wolf struggled upward, Cameron squeezed. The wolf's eyes widened with surprise. It thrashed around before it finally gasped, shuddered and lost the fight. Cameron held on until the breathless bag of bones fell to the ground.

Satisfied to be rid of one fanged idiot, Cameron whirled to find Abby and the other rogue on the pavement. It took him more precious time to figure out what had happened.

Blood spewed from a small round hole in the werewolf's right shoulder, but that wouldn't have taken it down unless Abby had delivered a well-placed silver blow.

She glanced up at him from her crouched position with the light of success in her beautiful eyes...and a red-feathered dart protruding from her neck.

Abby! No!

Dropping down to support her with his bloody hands, Cameron's senses warned that the fight wasn't over yet. There was more scent on the wind, which meant more intruders.

Not wolves.

He should have foreseen this, in hindsight. Should have predicted it. They'd taken too much time here, time they didn't have.

Sam Stark strode into the moonlight, dressed in black and looking like the grim reaper. Two silent, fully armed hunters flanked him on either side.

“I suppose I should thank you for the assistance,” Stark snarled soberly. “But I don't speak monster.”

Cameron figured that he was supposed to believe that a very untimely ending had come, and almost bought into it. But if cops believed there was no way out of messes on a regular basis, no one would wear a uniform and a badge. Add werewolf into the mix, and...well...the unexpected was always around the corner.

The big plus here was that Sam Stark didn't know the first thing about him, or his identity. According to what Abby had said, Sam didn't stop long enough to care about his targets.

It might not have made any difference if Stark recognized a cop when he saw one, or not.
Monster
was the word Sam had used, and that kind of name-calling said it all.

“Get up,” Stark ordered.

Cameron stayed put, on his knees, holding Abby, whose eyes had fluttered shut. She'd been drugged. He pulled the dart from her neck and tossed it aside.

“Don't you hurt her,” Stark snapped.

That's going to be your privilege? I'll bet you're hard just thinking about it.

“I have another dart loaded and aimed,” one of the nameless hunters said.

Sam Stark gestured for the man to wait and said to Cameron, “Leave her, wolf, and get up.”

And if I don't?

Dealing with werewolves was so much simpler, he thought. With one growl, Weres knew when danger was at hand. With humans, things were never so easy. Some people looked okay, but hid a rotten core that produced child-abusers and other types of hardened criminals. It sometimes took the escalation of a problem to see the truth. Sam Stark smelled of anger, and had taken on physical aspects reminiscent of the dark angel of death. The man appeared sane, yet was barking mad. Why? He had been willing to kill Abby not long ago. Did he hope to reserve the pleasure of seeing that through now?

Stark's ultracalm demeanor and iron scent suggested to Cameron that Abby had been right about Sam. For Sam, hunting wasn't merely a sport. It was much more than that, and the culmination of something he had been waiting for. Something bigger than bagging a werewolf or two for a bankroll.

As a cop, Cameron had seen this kind of attitude in cases where a personal vendetta ruled a man's actions. Payback for an affront or an offense.

The man Abby had presumed to be her father was seriously messed up inside, and seeing Abby's claws clinched whatever issues Sam had going on.

He had to get Abby out of here. Out of Stark's reach.

He had to try.

Cameron got to his feet slowly, pulling Abby's limp, glistening body up with him. With a swiftness that made the hunters jump back, he swept her into his arms.

“Shoot it,” Stark directed. “In the back if you have to.”

Cameron heard the swishing sound of the hunter's black vest moving. He looked down a rifle barrel and growled.

The sound of hell breaking loose came soon after.