Half Wolf (11 page)

The fact that there were no vampires present at the moment seemed like a gift from someone keeping tabs on her ability to handle things. Surely wolves knew how to deal with other wolves? Michael had done so in the library.

“Good guys have arrived,” Devlin said, as if he knew that for sure.

“I certainly hope so,” Rena remarked, “since something is going down.”

Kaitlin’s vision cleared somewhat as a figure walked toward them. Her heart skipped ahead several beats when she saw Michael.

He wasn’t alone, and even she, new to this game, recognized the power hidden behind the outline of the Were following him.

Michael didn’t look happy.

“Dylan,” Michael said when he and the visitor reached the pack, “meet Rena, Devlin, Cade and... Kaitlin.”

The fair-haired Were nodded to each of them in turn. His gaze hesitated on her a few seconds too long before he acknowledged Kaitlin with a slight inclination of his head.

Though this new Were’s handsome face registered no reason for the hesitation, Kaitlin felt as though she had set off an internal alarm in the guy’s mind. Could every Were tell she wasn’t quite up to speed? Maybe he was wondering why she’d been included in this evening tête-à-tête.
That makes two of us
, she wanted to shout.

“Dylan is from the Miami pack, and therefore to be considered family,” Michael said. “He brought friends.”

Call her paranoid... Kaitlin felt Dylan’s attention on her when he wasn’t looking her way, as if Dylan possessed the ability to scan her mind without her permission and was seeking something none of the others gathered here had noticed. Possibly he was deciding if she could be trusted. Maybe he didn’t like hybrids.

Her chills returned as his scrutiny kicked up the detritus of more memory data. From deep in those memories, she heard an issued threat.

It’s a damn shame that if you live and decide to threaten or expose my kind, it will be my job to kill you. Saving your life tonight would have been for nothing.

The night she had been attacked, Michael had spoken those words. And Michael was looking at her now because he knew what she was thinking.

Chapter 12

O
nly Kaitlin’s heartbeats, registering inside his own chest, filled the silence inside Michael’s mind.

She was remembering the threat he should never have spoken aloud while assuming she was in a state that made hearing him impossible. He felt her trust begin to dissipate as if being swept away with the breeze.

The situation was precarious.

His thoughts locked on to hers.

You can trust me
, he sent to Kaitlin, careful to put up mental barriers that no one else in their present company could get past. Those words were for her. He offered them sincerely.

She wouldn’t make eye contact. That kind of rejection felt bad on a night when the term
bad
had morphed into something inconceivable. His pack was faced with a dire situation, and their Alpha could not tear his thoughts away from the latest addition to the group.

He shook his head to clear Kaitlin from it.

The escaped criminal Dylan and his friends hunted was a serious transgressor. It was said that Chavez bit every bad guy in his path. In this wolf’s gruesome underground bite rings, he pitted handcuffed cops against the worst werewolves in his pack, most of those wolves career criminals with no love for law enforcement. Most of them harboring grudges like the ones Dylan had spoken of in his brief explanations about why his traveling companions were on this hunting expedition.

Many that Chavez had bitten were continuously drugged and half-crazed like the Were in the library, so it was said. New understanding of what he had fought in that building took an ugly shape. He felt bad for letting that one get away.

Werewolves had far-reaching memories, and grudges were part of that. In his dreams Michael saw himself running through valleys that time had not discovered or named. He wished he could go back to those times now. The future didn’t look quite so rosy with a new caliber of monsters interloping.

Weres and vampires had always been at war. Their animosity was nothing new. The distaste werewolves had for vampires stemmed from medieval days when knights were somehow transformed into immortal guardians and after that, things went wrong. There had been a slip of the fang from a rogue immortal as far back as that, which created a whole new species living outside the rules in the golden rule book.

Michael had heard of good vamps, and was almost sure there had to be some, since part of an afterlife personality had to do with the former life and soul, but he had yet to find one. And those original knights hadn’t been heard of for centuries.

Again, his thoughts turned to Kaitlin, who seemed to attract both vampires and Weres, himself included. He wasn’t so blind as to have missed Dylan’s half-hidden scrutiny of the pack’s new addition. Dylan had been drawn to Kaitlin, perhaps for the same reasons everyone else was, with the exception of the ever-skeptical Rena.

Something else. Tonight, while in a daze, Kaitlin had spoken of those same hills and valleys he had seen in his mind as if she possessed wolfish memories she had no right to. Only Lycans belonged to the past and the years before the Flood. No other Weres could go back so far, see things so distant or past their own recent initiation into the wolf clan.

Kaitlin had shared his visions, though. She had felt what he had felt in that moment—the spontaneous wildness, and his desire for the simplicity of an existence long past. For this to happen, their bond had to have been sealed tight, just as he had predicted.

“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Rena, first to break the quiet, asked.

Michael heard Dylan answer Rena’s question as if the conversation was taking place in the distance and didn’t include him. Kaitlin was tuning in to his thoughts, as he tuned into hers. Her face, so white and beautiful, reflected her unease. How different was she, and what did that mean? He wondered if he had overlooked something important, due to their closeness.

You have no choice really but to trust me, trust us
, he sent to her.
I’m sorry that seems so hard.

She responded aloud. “There must be someplace you can put me, send me, while I wait to see what the moon will do. Or, hell, why don’t you use me as bait to catch your rogues, since I seem to be the draw for most of the monsters around here?”

The conversation around them ceased. Michael shook himself back to the present, enough to realize that he had taken several steps forward and now stood nearly chest to chest with Kaitlin. She was the only wolf here who wasn’t looking at him, and hers was the attention Michael wanted the most.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said to her. “We have promised you protection, not to dangle you like a carrot.”

“What about Michael, Rena?” he heard Devlin ask. “Aren’t you going to make a comment about his libido?”

“It’s none of our business,” Cade said, quelling that joke.

Dylan cleared his throat to regain their focus. Although this truly wasn’t any of his business, he said to Michael in a steady voice, “She has Lycan blood.”

Michael said, “Yes.”
So sue me.

Dylan didn’t need to ask how that happened, or whose blood Kaitlin’s veins contained. That had become obvious from Michael’s behavior so far.

In a lowered voice, Dylan said, “Was she entirely human to begin with? I hope you realize what you’ve done.”

Michael tore his attention from Kaitlin as she said to Dylan, “What are you talking about?”

“I tried to tell you,” Devlin said to him.

“I hope you’re going to tell us what that other thing is,” Rena said to Devlin. “Otherwise, we’re wasting time by standing here.”

“The Irish sometimes possess other qualities if their families go back far enough,” Devlin said. “And Kaitlin’s family is Irish.”

Kaitlin stared at Devlin as if he had suddenly gone mad. Michael knew she wouldn’t show more signs of vulnerability now, in this crowd. She had mentioned hating the limelight and that she never wanted to stand out. This conversation was testing those issues.

Bless her, she had proved herself tough enough to handle what came her way tonight, making some headway into being accepted by his pack. Vampires in the park. The werewolf in the library. She wasn’t used to being half wolf, and now there was a suggestion she might not fit the half human part of the equation.

None of that mattered here, he supposed. He had to get the heat off Kaitlin and allow her some breathing room. Everything else could be handled in private. There was a criminal to catch. Everyone here was at risk.

The arrival of Dylan’s friends was both a relief and a distraction. The two Miami wolves heading their way garnered everyone’s attention.

“Tory and Adam,” Dylan said by way of introduction.

It didn’t take Michael long to observe the details of what amounted to a super team of hunters. These Miami Weres radiated strength and power. Existing in a big city like Miami would mean they were tough, resilient and experienced.

Tory, the Lycan female, was a stunner with long, curly red hair and perfectly white, flawless skin. In spite of the balmy night, she was dressed in leather.

Her light-colored eyes gave him the impression she had seen a lot, been through a lot. In that gleam lay the hint of a world filled with pleasure and pain in equal doses. Her serious expression revealed a depth of sadness that didn’t quite eclipse the tension she tucked inside her deceptively svelte body.

The other Were was male, tall, well-built, with a dangerous aura most career cops had. Adam Scott had dark hair and a tan complexion marred by a scar that ran down the left side of his face. He carried a gun, and was too far out of his jurisdiction to exhibit a badge. That scar would have proved he wasn’t a Lycan if his scent hadn’t. If he’d been Lycan, no evidence of past battles would have remained for public viewing. And that gun he carried had to have been modified for a Were’s aversion to metal.

Miami had sent an A-team after Chavez.

Still, something else about this pair needled at Michael’s mind before he figured out what that was. The red wolf and the cop were a pair. A couple. The fact that they had imprinted was written all over them, from the way the cop let Tory take the lead, to the way her expression eased when she looked at Adam Scott. They were lovers. Mates.

Michael looked to Kaitlin and back to the pair, wanting to question the validity of his perceptions. These two, from different backgrounds, had imprinted and had been accepted into Judge Landau’s Miami pack. Lycan rules about preserving undiluted Lycan blood had been broken with this pairing, and no one seemed to care.

“What about the rogue I saw?” Michael asked Dylan, getting back to the situation confronting them and the reason for their visit.

“It’s likely that one was created recently, which is why we have to find Chavez as soon as possible. We don’t have long until the full moon,” Dylan said.

“Clement is a small city. There’s no room to hide a force like Chavez and his gang. If there were to be a bite club, it would be big news.”

“That’s why we need to catch him here, before he moves on to a larger city. There are fewer places to hide here, and as you say, a population this small would notice a missing person or two.”

“Hell,” Michael muttered. “Clement wouldn’t know what hit it.”

“Let’s hope Clement doesn’t have to,” Dylan said.

Kaitlin retreated several paces. Michael felt her fatigue and flagging energy, a state made worse by the reminder of how close the next full moon was.

He wanted to hold her, and couldn’t do that. Being Alpha of his pack and acting like one had to take precedence over his emotions.

“What else am I?” Kaitlin addressed Dylan, interrupting with wide, innocent eyes. “If you know so much, maybe you can tell me that.”

Dylan Landau turned his light eyes her way. “I really don’t know. I have met only one other female who had a vibe similar to yours.”

“What was she?” Kaitlin pressed.

“Something dark,” Dylan replied. “Though it turned out okay.”

Kaitlin faced Devlin. “What were you suggesting I might be, with your Irish remarks?”

Devlin shrugged. “It’s not for me to say.”

“That would be a first,” Rena quipped wryly.

The importance of catching a fiend like Chavez took a momentary backseat to the female Michael called his little wolf, and who two Weres had just insinuated might turn out to be so much more than that.

Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell was going on.

* * *

Nothing Dylan had said about her made sense, Kaitlin thought. She was as human as anyone else in Clement. At least she had been until last Friday night.

Had everyone gone crazy?

Had she?

Scanning the faces in this circle of Weres, she couldn’t read any of their expressions. She did sense the emotional turmoil under the surface that no one was showing up front.

“So,” she finally said, refusing to let this go when it was so damn important. “If that’s true, and you all think I’m something else, as yet undefined...what would that do to the half human, half wolf classification this pack has already given me?”

No one seemed to be able to answer to that, or dared to give an answer a shot. Kaitlin again looked to Devlin. “Why don’t you give it a go, since you brought it up in the first place?”

“Well,” he said. “I suppose the rest would depend on what percentage that other part might be.”

“Which is what we all picked up on without understanding why,” Rena said, catching on. “And again, can we get on with the creeps who have invaded out town?”

“Yes,” Michael agreed. “Kaitlin’s heritage isn’t our problem. Mad werewolves who chew on others for sport are.”

Tory, the Lycan female, spoke up. “I’m guessing more than one of these buildings has a basement, and that Chavez would pick a place like that to hide in.”

“He’d have to share it with vampires,” Rena said.

Adam Scott had a deep, authoritative voice. “That means we either do a sweep, building by building, and preferably after everyone in those buildings has gone home for the night, or we wait until the next moon and watch the fireworks as Chavez reappears with whomever he has bitten between now and then.”

“Hell, how many wolves could that be?” Michael asked.

“You don’t even want to know,” Adam replied.

Kaitlin zeroed in on the scar on Adam Scott’s face, then touched her neck to finger what remained of the injury that would also leave a mark like that. She wondered what had caused Adam’s wound, and if it had been an injury on his day job or the antics of a crazy werewolf like the one that had cornered her in the library. Was Adam here for retribution?

Cade spoke. “In the meantime, we potentially face a slew of vampires in each of those places, all of them up and kicking in the dark.”

Kaitlin searched the faces in the circle, not certain where things would head next. Night air sparked with the power of the combined presence of these Weres. She should have been proud to be one of them, and accepted by them. At the moment, and with all the cryptic insinuations about her possible heritage, she would have preferred to stick to the part human, part wolf description...with no room for housing anything potentially far worse.

“What do you think, Kaitlin?” Dylan was asking her.

“What do you mean?” she returned.

“Can you venture a guess as to where the rogues might be? Or where they won’t be because of a nest of vampires?”

She was shoulder to shoulder with Michael. His tension increased with Dylan’s question.

“You think I’d know that?” she said.

“Didn’t a vampire hurt you?” Dylan asked.

Her hand was on her throat, which meant that Dylan didn’t miss much.

“If one did, you might be able to sense them better than we can,” Dylan continued. “From farther away.”

She thought back. It was true that she had sensed vampires tonight and had warned Michael, but how she had done that was a mystery. Fear of being out of her league among these experienced Weres kept her from speaking. Michael was looking at her. They all were.

“It can’t hurt to try to locate them,” Dylan suggested. “Maybe part of you understands how to do that.”