Even For Me

eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. Samhain Publishing, Ltd. 577 Mulberry Street, Suite 1520 Macon GA 31201 Even For Me Copyright © 2008 by Taryn Blackthorne ISBN: 1-59998-916-6 Edited by Angela James Cover by Anne Cain All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: April 2008 www.samhainpublishing.com

Even for Me Taryn Blackthorne

Dedication This work is dedicated to everyone I said I’d dedicate my first book to (you know who you are). Most especially, I’d like to thank Angela for taking a chance on someone new, my family who believed, my friends who listened, my teachers who encouraged and my critics who said I’d never get this far. Sometimes you just have to push yourself to see how far you can go.

Even for Me

Chapter One: Aislyn Even for me, fourteen hours on a shift in Tammy’s Bar was pushing the limits. Still I knew where I was when I was working. The place was a wreck when it was clean. But tonight, or rather this morning, it was a disaster. I leaned over to pick up a pile of newspapers and the headline flashed across my brain: “Third Ghost Cat victim found in LoDo alley” by Susan Lucas. There was a reporter developing a reputation. I read the description of the victim and shivered, despite the heat of the room. “Don’t worry, baby.” A drunk threw his arm around me as he hollered into my ear, “I’ll protect you.” He belched to show his sincerity and I tossed his arm off me. I shook my head. At 2:00 a.m. Tammy wouldn’t be closing the bar for another hour at least. It was the Friday before Halloween and everyone was partying before the party, even with a serial killer on the loose. Then again, since I might actually be that serial killer, I was probably hyper-aware of the story. I stuffed the paper behind the counter and went in search of Tammy. The low lights of the bar hid a lot of the bad in Tammy’s Bar like the scuffed-up linoleum, the chipped Formica tabletops and the scarred, Zippo-burned wooden stools and chairs. But one thing they couldn’t hide was Tammy herself. A tall woman, and almost as broad, she stood out in the crowd. Her black skin didn’t reflect light, it absorbed it. If it weren’t for her bleached teeth and strawberry-blonde corn rows, you might mistake Tammy for a moving black hole. A lot of people were afraid of Tammy because her weight came from muscle more than fat and she had a tongue as sharp as her upper cut. She didn’t suffer fools, but then neither did I so we got along fine. I’d even go so far as to call her a friend if it weren’t so dangerous to give someone that label. I found my boss leaning one arm against the wall, towering over a nice-looking white boy who looked like he’d just gotten his first fake ID proofed in here. She was

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laughing pretty loudly at something he’d said. I slid up beside them, trying to be sneaky about it. “Yeah, honey?” She turned to me. Damn. I knew I was naturally quiet, but Tammy must be able to hear a Siamese cat walk up carpeted steps. It riled my pride sometimes. The guy she was talking to did the eye walk up and down me, apparently liking what he saw. He leaned back to give me a better look, showing off tight abs and wide shoulders, and I realized I’d misjudged his age by about ten years. I caught flashes of green eyes, a Southern smile and just a hint of the stubbly shadow that women seemed to find attractive. Not that I looked directly at him. “It’s been fourteen hours for me and I’d like to get some sleep before the rush tomorrow afternoon. Still got some things of my own to do.” Tammy waved me off as if she had more important things to worry about. I turned and practically ran before the guy in front of her had a chance to blink. My stomach had started growling just catching a peek from the corner of my eye. Yummy the voice in my head said. I really hoped it meant sex. What little light there had been inside the bar didn’t make it outside at all, but I had no trouble finding my bike. Of all the things I’d left behind in my other life, I just couldn’t bear to be parted with my Buell. It was the one constant in a life that sorely needed it. It had been stolen once, outside the bar. Between Tammy tracking it down for me, and me hospitalizing the thief, it had gotten a reputation. Hands off if you wanted to live. I straddled the motorcycle and felt the thrill and freedom I’d always felt on board. I could go anywhere, do anything and be all right on this bike. Hey, some girls like chocolate for comfort, I like a 1200. I started it up and tore out of Denver’s not-so-trendy section, through to LoDo, then onto the highway. I wore a helmet and visor, both black as tar, so the wind didn’t exactly rip through my hair. On the way to Littleton, all I could think of was what if the killer was me? I had less control over the things happening to my own body than a pregnant chick. And I hated it twice as much. At least pregnant there was an end to the tunnel. With this, I’d be lucky if I could find some sort of middle ground and rein it in.

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If I couldn’t get a hold of what was happening to me on a weekly basis, I was seriously considering eating my own gun. It was loaded with silver bullets, but I didn’t think that would matter. The fact that there would be a piece of metal stuck between my ears was what was going to kill me. I didn’t think it would make so much of a difference what type of metal it was. The ring on my right hand was silver and it didn’t burn. My foster mother had given it to me as a high school graduation gift. A symbol of her hopes for my future, she’d said. I was never much into jewelry, but this I’d always kept. At least someone had cared about what happened to me. Well, she had before the accident. I didn’t dare make contact with my foster family now. Not after I’d hurt them so much. Was I the Ghost Cat killer? Susan Lucas had dubbed it Ghost Cat after someone had done some research on cougar kills. The first two victims had almost been mistaken for wild cat kills. They’d been near Arapahoe and wild bears were sighted down that way all the time in the spring. But a cougar had been new. The claw marks and mauling had matched, according to the news. The next one had been in Washington Park, far too close for a cougar to get without being seen. It was the first case that had caught my attention, mostly because I’d woken up just outside the park the next morning naked, shivering and with a blood trail close by. And of course, no memory to speak of. Denver was a city that did have off hours, and a naked woman outside of Washington Park was something that would have been reported if anyone had seen me. I’d been lucky, that day. I had started carrying a spare set of clothes on my bike—after I split from home three months ago, I never knew when I’d have to make a quick escape— which I had found not too far from me, quickly dressed and gotten the hell out of there. They’d found the woman’s mangled body a few hours later. No mention of a bloody trail leading to the parking area, but that might be something the police had kept to themselves. This latest killing had been last week. In an alley in LoDo. And as a new facet to the developing story, I was beginning to remember small snippets from my weekly walk on the wild side. It was this last bit that had me really worried. I remembered stalking something, watching, being quiet. I remembered following some trail into LoDo, and

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loud music, so I must have been near one of the clubs. Then, hours later, I’d woken up trembling outside of Tammy’s Bar—behind a dumpster, thank God. I just couldn’t clear up what had happened in-between. And another girl was dead, outside one of the clubs. Tammy owned the whole building and had given me use of a room to bed down in. I’d jumped to the fire escape naked and quickly crawled up it to jimmy my window open and crashed on the mattress on the floor, covering up in the thin sheet there. Changes generally left me exhausted. That was four days ago. The press had surmised that given the regularity of the kills, tomorrow night was the next time the killer would strike. That and it was Halloween. When better to have a serial killer loose than when your kid was going door to door begging for candy? I would have never even thought about taking little ones out with a threat like this in my home town. But that had been before, when I’d actually had a real life. At first I’d tried to lock myself up when the Changes hit. Chains weren’t as hard to get as one imagined when you worked on the docks. But my foster brother had found me holed up in an abandoned building not far from where I’d worked, just before I’d managed to lock up. I came to the next morning and just managed to get him to the hospital in time. Barely. I’d taken off after that, and tried to make it to deserted areas ever since then. But the last time the urge to Change had hit me sudden, while driving around Washington Park, and I hadn’t made it. Now, here I was, a possible suspect for the Ghost Cat Killer just before Halloween. Not like I could tell anyone. I could just imagine walking down to the local cop shop and saying, “Hey, officer, could you lock me up until after tomorrow night? I might not be the murderer you’re looking for, but I do turn furry once a week so you’re sure to have a real interesting Halloween.” I had to be out of town before then. If I was out of town when the killer struck, then that meant the killer wasn’t me. If the killer broke the pattern because I broke the pattern, then I was screwed. And my gun would be looking really good. But I had to try something. I really didn’t want to be the killer. I couldn’t handle having lost everything I

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was and being a psycho too. I just couldn’t. I revved the engine and accelerated down the highway. If I could just go fast enough, maybe I could forget for a little while…

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Chapter Two: Jackson He pulled back on the highway, to give the girl and her bike some room. He couldn’t afford to spook her now that he was so close. He’d found a last minute job, just a quick clean end and he was almost through. Then he could get back to the others with the cash. It was almost too easy, but he’d been a little desperate. Everyone was supposed to keep the cash going and he’d been a little distracted with tying up loose ends from his last job. That remnant hadn’t been a remnant at all and he’d been backtracking the succubus’s trail all over North Dakota. It had been a while since he’d dropped coin in the piggy bank. Some of the hunters in his family did it with credit card scams, some hustled pool; others took on construction or oil rigging, something part-time. He couldn’t handle the lying (wasn’t that what made those he hunted so awful?) so he left off the hustling, and he wasn’t good at keeping his temper long enough to make money with the part-time jobs. He always wound up throwing hands if he was around civilians too long. So he picked up the odd contract. Strictly vengeance jobs where the police couldn’t or wouldn’t do justice. Always lower key cases, or cold ones. It wasn’t as lucrative or as legal as some of the cousins’ gigs, but it kept the money coming in. And his hunting skills were always fresh. Still, it would be a shame. She’d been sexy as hell in the bar. He smiled at the memory. Those blue eyes that sent a shiver down his spine and long, wavy brown hair down to her ass that he could tangle his hands in, had made him itch to hold her. It had been a while. He loved long hair on his women. She had smooth, honey-tanned skin peeking through the rips in her tight blue jeans, and the way the black T-shirt had plunged and hugged all the right curves made him ache. She knew how to move too. The way she glided around, avoiding customers pawing her, sashaying through the preHalloween crowd. He’d been picturing how she’d move under him when the bar owner, Tammy, had sidled up. 10

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“Like whatcha see there?” She’d pointed to the waitress as she bent to pick up an old newspaper (nicely displaying her ass), then Tammy had flashed what was supposed to be a comforting smile. It looked more like she was getting ready to eat him alive, but he’d smiled back. “Matter of fact—” his Texas drawl thickened around the woman, “—I do. Know anything about her?” The black woman had thrown her head back and howled with laughter. “Aislyn? Naw, that girl keeps to herself too much. Likes her bike, likes her privacy, that one. I haven’t seen her with anyone for more than one night since she came here two months ago. Chat with her about a thing or two, here and there, you know. Weather, neighborhood, loaned her a book or two. I talked with her about them poor girls’ dying. They all around her age, ya know.” “So do you think I’d…?” The woman had looked him up and down critically, as if inspecting him for quality and defects. His grin widened and he raised an eyebrow. He couldn’t help but like the old girl. “You’d do, if she’s interested. That's up to her though. You ask me, that girl could use a good rutting. Too wound up in whatever she’s running from. Good people though.” “How so?” He’d been surprised. Tammy had a reputation for putting the run to the bad seeds that showed up, but she’d taken this one in. It didn’t gel with all the facts he had, but not even Tammy was infallible. Could his source be wrong? The police had her as the prime suspect in the man’s disappearance back east, not that they could prove anything. Tammy had shrugged. “Watch her, see for yourself. She shows herself like a fog, little at a time and only when you up close. Be patient and she’ll clear for you.” Tammy nodded at him in time to her words, like someone spouting gospel or prophecy. He’d nodded back, like the good little boy she was expecting. She smirked, not at all fooled and he suddenly wondered if she could see his true intentions. “Don’t you go forgetting what Tammy done told you, boy, you hear me? Me grandmamma was Hoodoo and Tammy here, got a bit of the telling. Picked up on that

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girl right away and picked up on you too, soon as you set foot in my place. You two in for a world o’ trouble as it is, and that’s a fact. You gonna need someone and might as well be each other. Both being in the same stew pot anyway.” She’d thrown her head back and laughed again at her own joke, and Jackson had been lost. He’d felt the shiver down his spine and crossed his arms to get rid of it. Tammy had laughed all the harder and he’d just smiled. Aislyn had shown up right about then. The girl was slowing down, pulling into a no-tell motel ahead. He drove by, just to be sure, then doubled back, took a room and called the client. He was sure the teen would be pleased, and she was. She gave him an address they were supposed to meet at. The teen had stressed that the woman be taken alive and away from the city. He’d argued with her. He could make it look like one of the killer’s victims here in Denver. It would have been perfect. But the teen had been adamant. She’d wanted to see the woman up front, look into her eyes and watch as she paid for her crimes. He’d given up. She was the client, after all, and if it had been one of his brothers who’d “disappeared” with all that blood, he would have wanted to look in the killer’s eyes too. So he’d relented, wrote down the address, checked his equipment. He’d dispose of the body when it was all through so no one could identify it anyway. After he’d hung up, he’d wandered over to the woman’s room and peeked through the curtains. She’d been lying on the bed in nothing but her underwear. He took a deep breath and walked away. Damn, what a waste. Ah well, not like he’d done anything but break hearts all his life anyway. Hunting was too dangerous to involve civilians, let alone a woman civilian. Besides, going from place to place, fighting things most people didn’t believe in didn’t exactly lend itself to an open, honest relationship. Better to just scratch the itch and move on. He checked the woman’s bike, the door, walked around back to check her exits there and, when he was satisfied that she was snuggled down for the night, went back to his room. He settled down to get some sleep for a couple of hours. Aislyn had worked all day and had ridden out here before dawn. She had to be tired. He doubted his quarry would be moving much before morning. For all her bravado, she’d been leaving a city where a

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killer was roaming free, preying on women her age and hair color. She’d been running away. The guilty ones always ran away. He turned over, set the alarm and went to sleep.

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Chapter Three: Aislyn I needed a release and nothing on the television was going to do it for me. I needed to go for a run, but I didn’t trust myself just yet. I had lain in bed for hours, waiting for sleep to take me, counting sheep and the whole works before finally giving up and flipping on the tube. After tomorrow night, I told myself, if I could wait that long. It had only been four days since the killer struck. Tomorrow night would be five since my last Change, and then on the sixth I could go for a run out here. I’d call Tammy in the morning and tell her I needed some time off. She’d either fire me or understand. I just hoped she wouldn’t toss all my stuff before I got back to claim it. Some of those books had been expensive, not that they’d told me anything useful. I know a few of the titles would have raised a few eyebrows in the local Bible Belt, maybe even gotten me on someone’s black list. Maybe I should donate them or something instead of packing them up. I threw the remote on the bed. “Damn it.” I hated giving in to it. Meant I had no self-control. I got up and tugged on some sweats, to wander around outside. I needed something to take the edge off until I could Change. Anxiety always made it worse and I was worried about the killings. The air was crisp and clean up here. And thin. Sound carried better. I heard a couple in the next room over working out the kinks on the bed. I heard another guy watching what had to be a porno-on-demand. What did I expect from a hotel with this price range? I kept walking, away from the grunting and groaning. It growled inside me. It wanted to be let loose in some form or another. The one it was hearing was as good as any. I felt hot and the restlessness had nothing to do with being bored. I found myself walking towards the hotel bar without thinking and started to steer myself away. I worked in one all day and here I was heading for another? God, I had to be crazy. But the voice growled again. I went back to my bike, thinking I’d take a 14

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ride, when I caught a whiff of Bulgari. Hmm, my favorite scent on a man. It seemed too familiar somehow, had an undercurrent of something… Ah ha! The guy Tammy had been laughing at, it was his. He’d followed me out here. I followed the trail while It rumbled around inside my head with anticipation. I bent over, getting lower, closer to the scent, tracking. “Prey,” I whispered to myself. I stamped down hard and stood up abruptly, feeling totally schizophrenic. I counted to ten, breathing slowly. I started forward again, this time not doing my impression of a Navy SEAL. Walking past a dusty red pickup, I slammed my open palm into the hotel door the Bulgari trail ended at by way of knocking. I heard some hasty scrambling and rustling before the door opened as far as the chain would let it. “What the—?” He was rubbing his jade eyes with the back of his hand, in a wifebeater and polka dot boxers. His hair was messed up and his lips were slightly parted. Nice full lips and broad, muscled shoulders. I shivered. My head filled with all sorts of things to do to lips like that, ways to make that muscle flex and bend the way I wanted. I shook it. “Listen, lady, I think you got the…” “You’re following me. Why?” I always ended up blunt when I couldn’t seem to think things through. I just wish I could blame it on the divergence in my career choices. He looked at me like I was three kinds of crazy, shut the door and I thought that would be the end of things, but he took off the chain and came out to face me. “Who the hell do you think you are?” Some of the other hotel patrons shouted their thoughts about that question, but I ignored them. I could only focus on the better part of what was in front of me. I was staring directly at his chest and the voice was insistent on getting some of something tonight. If not the woods then it would settle for sweat-soaked sheets and leaving teeth marks on those perfectly shaped shoulders that were so very close. I turned and tried to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist and spun me around to face him. The look in his eyes said he was pissed. I loved it. She loved it. He drew breath to speak again but he never got to. My mouth was on his before he could utter another

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sound. This close, the smell of soap, sweat and his heat filled my nostrils. I let it fill me. I growled softly. I watched his eyes and let him have my hand, but ran the other up his chest, over his shoulder and pulled his head down so I wasn’t up on tip toe. He relaxed into the kiss. My tongue started to trace his lips and he released my arm to cup my face, his other hand sliding around to my back. Yes, hissed the voice in the back of my head. It was as if someone had splashed cold water on me. I pulled away sharply. He looked as dazed as I felt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I thought you were following me. I’m gonna go.” I turned around and sprinted to my room. I made it to my door, leaning my forehead against it, drawing slow deep breaths. I couldn’t hear anything above the pounding of blood. God, how could I have been so stupid? Don’t let it get control, don’t name it, don’t listen to it, YOU are commanding what does and does not happen in your own body! It tickled the back of my nerves, and I could suddenly feel the very wind as if it were stroking my skin in caress. The smell of the woods was so close, even the exhaust fumes couldn’t hide it. Then it snatched that scent away and replaced it with the Bulgari and him. I shook my head again, straining against the door when he was right behind me and I saw his hands rest themselves along the door frame on either side of me. “Lady, you are one strange character.” His breath hovered above my skin, making my spine bow. “I might just start following you.” Control, control, control. This is not you, this is not you. “Tammy’s Bar,” I spat at him. If I couldn’t back this off, maybe I could re-focus it. “Tammy’s Bar.” And he drew out the mm’s so he hummed by my ear. My breath came sharp and I curled towards him. “You were there.” I turned to face him. My pulse was in my throat again. Back off, I thought, but he did the opposite and closed the distance so he just lingered, not quite touching, above my skin. “I was there,” he said with the same tone. The look in his eyes said he knew exactly what he was doing to me, and he didn’t care, so long as he was there for the rest of the night.

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“You followed me.” “I’m going to Steamboat Springs. This is just about the last motel along the highway to stop if you want any sleep.” His gaze traveled over my forehead, examining my hair, going to my chin and finally back up to my eyes. I gave him points for not looking at my breasts. But his eyes had other things than sleep in them. “You being here is coincidence.” He closed the little distance to kiss me. It was just a quick brush, but my breathing stopped. “A very happy coincidence.” He smiled and my body trembled. “We’re both grown-ups. Not gonna hurt anyone if we just…” I pulled myself up against him, my hands slid up to his shoulders, kneaded the breadth of them and he slid his palms over my back, pulled the keycard out of my back pocket and opened the door. I grasped his hand, turned around and was halfway to the bed when I felt the taser bite into my upper thigh. She snarled and turned towards him in surprise. His eyes registered their own shock for a split second, then a second wave from the tazer hit me and I sunk like a rock in a lake. How did I miss this coming?

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Chapter Four: Tammy Tammy took a deep breath and started the walk up three flights of stairs. Her granny had taught her many a thing before she died, the least of which was not being afraid of the day. She couldn’t help worrying about Aislyn. She’d thought she’d have more time with the girl, get her to open up a bit, start telling her what it was that was chasing her so hard. Give her some real knowledge about what was riding her now. At least she’d seen to it Aislyn wouldn’t be alone. Though that boy was about as far as you could get from what Tammy would have picked out, if she’d had time. But he was the best she could do, because here the day up and arrived. You never could tell what fate would give you. The stairwell in her building was locked, mostly to keep people out of her offices and away from the two apartments and one room she rented above. There was no elevator. The benefit to having security doors on the stairs was that it also kept them cleaner. Customers from the bar couldn’t enter and exit this way. The tenants all had keys, as did her trusted employees, to the second floor. She could count on one hand the number of people who had keys to the third floor, and still have fingers left over. She should have been surprised by the fact that the door to the third floor was wide open, but she wasn’t. It was the day after all. The light bulb had been broken and the glass splayed all over the floor, so her shoes crunched under her. She yelled, the sweat starting to drip down her back a little. Could turn back. Could just turn around and go back down those stairs and let the day pass by like any other. Could see Aislyn and the boy through the mess they were getting into. You weren’t meant for dat, her grandmamma’s voice echoed through her. Sometimes we jus’ da ones dat set dem on de road. Dey got to walk it all by de lonesome. “Hey! Who be up here? Why didn’t no one close this here door? What’s the matter with you all?” she yelled into the darkened hallway, her Mississippi drawl getting thicker in fear. The apartments were locked up tight, as they should be. Only Aislyn’s room was 18

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left. Her door would have looked closed in the dark, except the wind blew it open just a hair. Wind from nowhere. Right. Things were moving as they should be, and she knew where she should be going, but did they have to shove so hard? Tammy pushed open the door and walked in. She looked at the girl’s stack of books, piled up neatly next to the banker boxes she kept her clean clothes in. It was all covered by a cloth. Purple and girlie. Tammy chuckled to herself every time she saw it. Must have been part of the other Aislyn, the one the girl was always running from. The Pepsi Center was having a game on tonight, so their lights shone bright across the way and threw a little enough in there to cause a shadow or two. She looked over at the girl’s mattress and pulled the sheets up, fluffing the pillow and getting the comforter out of the closet, putting in on for her. Might not be cold here in Denver, but the girl was gonna need some comfort. Tammy moved away so she wouldn’t get blood all over it. One of the shadows detached itself from the wall and made its way to the door, closed it softly and walked up behind Tammy. She saw it all though her back was turned to it. She waited. It seemed in no mood or hurry to talk. Finally, she put her hands on her hips. “Your girl ain’t here. She gone running from ya. And I don’t know where or when she be back, if ever. You got a mind to do what you gonna do, better do it fast. They waiting for me downstairs and gonna notice I be missing soon.” It still hesitated. “Well ain’t that something. Never thought you’d be a coward.” She heard a snarl and a flash, before she felt the first blow. She watched her own blood splatter in front of her and it was interesting, wondering if she could do a telling from the patterns. She turned as she fell from the second blow, put her hands up to block the third and fourth strikes. She looked into the crazed eyes and smiled. Seemed like it was driving it mad, that she wasn’t gonna scream. After, when it’d gotten its fill of the torture and no screams, it slashed her throat. She fell hard, and that would have rushed the air from her mouth, if her windpipe hadn’t been cut. She lay facing the door. As her blood started filling the cracks on the hardwood floor, she watched it walk away. Such a small body holding so much hatred.

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Aislyn and her boy better be up to that. Then her granny came and held her and she didn’t have to worry any more.

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Chapter Five: Jackson Jackson pulled into the barn on the ranch’s property and the headlights of his dusty red pick-up flashed over a thin little teen with Goth black hair, protruding collar bones and hollow eyes. The light sweater, jeans and blue T-shirt seemed to use the girl’s body like it was a hanger. Military-style boots peeked out from the turned-up ends of her pants. She looked like the Grim Reaper gone Emo. She waved him over to where she stood, next to a table with a knife, a black bowl of dark liquid something, a lit candle and cigar. He smiled grimly when he noticed the flare of embers at the end of the cigar. Burns always hurt. He got out of the truck and roughly hauled the woman out, threw her over his shoulder and huffed over to the girl. She’d laid a woolen blanket on the floor next to a post, and motioned for him to put the woman there. He noticed a set of handcuffs and locked the woman up without being told. The way she’d snarled had set him in mind of one of the things he hunted, but that couldn’t be the case. She’d have been faster, meaner, stronger and more bloodthirsty than what she was. A tazer just wouldn’t have done it, not even twice. And he’d have been dead. “Did she fight you?” The kid’s voice came out choked, like she was having a hard time. He hoped he didn’t just drag this woman here for nothing. He could have tortured her, gotten the kid her information on her brother’s case back East and been dumping the body by now. The woman was bad news; of that much he was sure. “Naw, kid. A couple of tazer shots and she was out.” “Couple?” The kid raised her eyes and pulled her sweater closer around her, backing away and bumping into the table. She scooped up some of the ash that had fallen off the cigar in her hands and looked at it. “It's nothing to worry about. She’s just stronger than she looks is all. What you got set out there should be fine. I’ll help. We’ll find out what she knows about your brother.” www.samhainpublishing.com

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He turned to put his hand on the kid’s shoulder and noticed a second blanket and cuffs set up on the other side of the room, exactly opposite of the woman. The sawdust on the floor seemed to be disturbed too, as if someone had drawn in it. He looked at the kid a split second before she blew the dust into his face. “Cluddio.” Her eerie blue eyes flashed with unnatural light. He coughed and sputtered, fighting the spell as best he could, but he was doomed the moment he stepped inside the witch’s circle. It was the first rule that his father had ever brow-beat into him and his brothers about witches; never willingly enter their sacred space. It gives them complete control. If he lived through this, the others were never gonna let him live it down. When he woke up, the kid was well into whatever ritual she had up her sleeve. She was walking the circle, sprinkling herbs and muttering in some language that he didn’t understand. His arms were above his head and he was half sitting up, his own weight making the cuffs cut into his wrists. He walked his ass back and glared across the room. The woman was awake as well, and in just about the same position. The kid had stripped them both of their shirts, but the woman had lost her pants, probably because of the addition of chains at the ankles. Her mouth was gagged with a shiny black cloth. His was too, so he couldn’t even talk to her, calm her down to make up for getting her into this. There was a black symbol drawn on her forehead in whatever was in the bowl, and he felt one on his as well. Stupid. He shook his head and tested the cuffs. Then he tried the wood. It wasn’t rotted enough to pull away. He pushed up onto his knees and turned to face the horse stall he was cuffed to, looking for a weakness to get him loose. “Stop that!” The kid came over and slapped his back hard, jumping quickly out of range again. It stung almost as much as his pride. He ignored it, or seemed to, and kept trying to pull loose, trying to draw the witch closer so he could kick or hit or disrupt her spell. But the witch went back to the table and started chanting at the candle, using the knife to nick her wrist and let the blood mingle with whatever was in the bowl. The stuff on his forehead started to itch and the woman across the way screamed behind her gag.

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She looked at the kid like she knew what the witch was going to do, and hated her. He felt the same way. The kid went back to whispering, picking up the cigar. Whatever power the kid was calling up, the weather was helping. Ozone filled the air up quick. A flash of lightning hit just outside the barn doors, illuminating everything inside clear as day. The kid’s shadow looked like a scarecrow but the woman’s shadow looked like a cat. A second strike and the woman screamed as if the lightning had hit her nerves. As he watched, the reason for the woman’s ankle chains became clear. Her skin shivered, like an ocean wave, and tawny fur rode the top, up to her face. One more flash of lighting and her teeth became fangs, her snout stretched and her pupils elongated and became thin slits that cut through the blue iris of her eye. She screamed, rage in her face, or at least she tried to. Cougars couldn’t roar, but she sure gave her version. Her body arched as the kid looked on, rapt, captured almost, the smoking cigar in her hand seemingly forgotten. The cougar looked at the kid and hissed in hatred. Her body fought and bucked and the wave rolled across her body again, but the fur retreated back down, the face became normal, save for her very cat-like eyes. She turned them on the kid and smiled around the gag. “NO! You have to Change! Don’t you understand? YOU HAVE TO!” The kid lost it, stomping around, and the lightning outside hit the roof. He smelled smoke and knew the old barn had caught. He tried to yell around the gag, but the kid didn’t seem interested in him anymore. He tried to kick the stall he was chained to. He pulled and yanked until he couldn’t see for the sweat running down into his eyes. Blood dripped off his hands, making them slippery. A witch and a Shifter. He was in it up to his eyeballs this time. The woman began to scream, clear and loud. He turned just in time to get smacked with a shovel aside the head, stunning him long enough for the kid to pull off his gag and wrap the woman’s around his left wrist. She then pulled the cigar up to her lips. He watched the end flare and blinked just before the smoke was blown into his eyes. He coughed and sputtered and gazed up at the kid through a haze that had blue edges to it. The girl smiled at him. She walked across the room to her other prisoner, seemingly unaware that there were now lit pieces of the barn falling all around her, and small fires

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burning in those stalls that had dried hay in them. She tied his gag to the woman’s left wrist and bent over the struggling, cursing woman. The kid blew smoke into the woman’s face and chanted all the way back to the center of the circle. She picked up the bowl of liquid and offered it to the storm outside. A soft rain had begun to accompany the thunder and lightning but he had small hopes that it would put out the fire before at least two of them roasted. The kid put the cigar into the liquid in the bowl and whatever it was caught. The symbols flared and burned on their foreheads and both he and the woman couldn’t hold back screeching. “Iallach a chur ar dhuine rud a dhéanamh,” the girl sang and lightning hit the center of the circle, then spread to hit both him and the woman. His body was raised off the ground two feet, every muscle stiff as a board. It felt like he was burning from the inside out, like his nerves were made of acid and caught on fire to boot. No sound could come out of his mouth. He felt, rather than saw that the woman, Aislyn, was in the same position. He had the sudden thought that she’d been running from this kid because this was the witch. He’d known that Aislyn was from the East Coast but now he knew she had loved swimming in the ocean, hiking along the rivers, had loved her small apartment in the old town boarding house. Aislyn had loved the smell of a bonfire on the beach with a guitar in her hand and friends gathered around her laughing. She had been so proud of her foster brother Mark when he had graduated and had made the whole family take the day off, closing the gas station/bus stop in their small town. She’d always been there for her foster mother, helping out in the small diner on her days off and in the evenings when she could. Felt how much she’d loved her small town. And it had been taken from her by the witch. He also knew she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what she was now, not truly. He felt something he never thought he would ever feel for a Shifter. Pity. She hated pity more than anything else, and he knew that too. It made her feel weak, defeated, violated, and defenseless. She’d been stripped of her life for no reason and pity made it worse. He looked over at the Shifter. Their eyes locked. For once he understood what a woman felt because he felt it, truly felt it as if he had a second personality inside him.

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“Damn.” He looked up at the witch, who smiled. “Master of the Hunt.” The witch threw a handful of herbs at him. Naming him, she was naming him for God’s sake. The kid threw a fistful at the woman and whispered, “Mistress Hunter.” Then she collapsed, and a beam from the roof fell across her, blocking his view. Although that could have been the thickening smoke burning his eyes. Oh good, he wouldn’t die from roasting alive, but smoke inhalation. Yeah. Looking up, he saw the stall he was cuffed to get licked once, twice, three times with flames from the fallen beam before it caught and started eating away. The heat was getting worse; he could feel the blisters starting on his skin. He started to cough and couldn’t stop. He pulled and shouted and yelled, but nothing seemed to be working and he was using up a lot of oxygen he didn’t seem to have anymore. He wondered if his family would be able to claim his body or if it would go into an unmarked grave, the same as his older brother’s had last year. It was his last thought.

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Chapter Six: Aislyn Heat. The fire was licking my face, but I looked up to see my half of the barn hadn’t caught as badly yet. Him. Somehow I was connected to him. And I was getting a front row seat to his death. Great. Another little joy I could lay at the little brat’s feet. Witch. I yanked on the cuffs and was surprised to find them come apart. I had pretty silver bracelets now. The smoke was getting bad. I was coughing and all instinct now, the cat rushing at my hands while they worked on the ankle chains. The iron pulled apart easily. I stared at it for a second, thinking. Adrenaline? Or had the cat learned a new trick from the witch’s spell? I felt the first flame sear across my hand and looked down to find that nothing was there. It was him. I was feeling what was happening to him, somehow. Damn the witch to hell for this too. I got up, fully intending to get myself out, and instead found myself crawling across the room, going straight into the heart of the smoke and fire. I found him without any problems at all, like I knew where he was all along. I tugged at his cuffs and they came apart just like mine. Goodie. I dragged him out of the flames far enough so that I could throw him over my shoulder and turned round to get back out. Fire blocked a lot of the way. I crouched down and saw a glimmer of metallic red in the distance. Was it the man’s truck? Flames leaped up and blocked my view again, but I had a direction. I just hoped I wouldn’t smack into anything or handsome here might just not wake up at all. I gathered my legs under me, bent at the knee and jumped, almost to the roof, then landed hard two inches from the truck. Holy crap. Okay, I needed some work on the superhero part of this nightmare, but I didn’t have time right now. I prayed for a little luck and got it; the keys were still in the ignition. I tossed the guy in the truck bed with a satisfying clunk, revved the engine and threw it into reverse. Not my brightest idea, but I couldn’t really call what I was doing thinking either.

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We crashed through the barn wall, wood and fire splintering and cascading around us. But we were out and relatively safe. I kept running though. The thought that the kid might still be there in the barn ate at me for all of twenty seconds. If the witch burned, that was great. I didn’t have to run from her anymore. If not, oh well. Let her explain herself to authorities if she got out alive. I found a little dirt track that must have been a road during the dry seasons, but right now was all about the mud. Typical Colorado weather turned roads like this into traps, but the grassy sides might be just as dangerous. I chose to ride the grass alongside the road, just in case. I didn’t want to get stuck when the cops and fire trucks showed up. Especially when the old house sitting next to the barn caught fire like it looked as if it was going to. There were no lights on and we’d made a hell of a racket breaking out like we did, so either no one was home or they were already dead. I really hoped no one was home. I had a sudden vision of the witch knocking people out with a spell so they couldn’t wake up, the vision so fierce and overwhelming that it knocked the wind out of me. But I couldn’t stop and make a clean getaway either. Damn the witch for this. It was all her fault. I might not be the one doing the actual killing, but the people inside that house would be just as dead. Another set of murders at my feet. It made me hyperventilate. Okay, I had to calm down a bit. I couldn’t stay in this state anymore, obviously. I had to grab the emergency cash and alternate IDs stashed on my bike before I could go anywhere and I had to get rid of my passenger while I did it. Hmm. That sounded logical and reasonable. Then I could figure out what the hell the witch had done this time. I stopped the truck and got out, listening for sirens above the now diminishing thunder. The storm was disappearing quickly. I jumped into the back and checked Jackson’s pulse. Jackson? Where had that come from? He stirred and I knelt beside him, listening to him breath. Slow and steady. He was alive, singed but okay. And it looked like he’d have a hell of a scar along his right hand where he’d started to cook. I had intended to dump his ass off the truck, but found myself lifting him gently and taking all the impact from

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jumping onto the ground. I found a jacket in the back and I laid him on it, using a shirt to cover him. I bit my lip and judged the distance from here to the house. The gnawing inside my chest left me no choice, even if the cat inside my head was yowling at me to run. I rushed the house, smashing the door down. Whatever luck I had got used up immediately as I spotted the old couple laying three feet from their doorway. I hauled them out, praying that leaving them in the damp far enough away from their now-burning house wouldn’t give them pneumonia and kill them anyway. I sprinted back to the truck, leaped over Jackson and slammed the door. I pulled away slowly, watching in my driver’s side mirror to make sure he was gonna be all right. Then I sped back to the hotel. The rain had disappeared when I got back and I parked next to my room, close as I could get. The key had disappeared, as had my clothes, so I popped the lock right off the door and went in, gathering up clothes into my backpack and toweling off the worst of the mud and dirt so I could put on fresh ones. The television was still on and the early morning news report was broadcasting. The anchor was tossing the feed out to some poor slob in the field. “Susan Lucas has the story.” “That’s right, Dan, we have unconfirmed reports that the Ghost Cat Killer has struck again.” I froze, peeking from under the towel I was using to hastily dry my hair. “The body of an as yet unidentified woman was found brutally murdered atop this local bar behind me.” The camera panned and focused on the third floor of Tammy’s Bar and the lungful of air left me in a whoosh. “The body was discovered around 6:00 a.m. this morning by a resident of the building leaving for work, who saw blood leaking from a door. No one reported hearing screams, no one seems to have seen anyone suspicious entering or leaving the building and…wait…here comes the lead investigator on this. Detective Rodriguez, can you give us any information on what has happened here this morning?” A man in a badge, tailored suit and an air of authority tried to push his way past the lights and cameras towards the scene to no avail. He was tall and athletic; darkskinned and had light amber eyes. It was lust at first sight for the reporter, and I couldn’t really blame her. He appeared all business, however and sighed, realizing he wasn’t getting through without some sort of comment.

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“The victim is an African-American female, approximately thirty to forty years of age. That is all I am prepared to discuss at this time until next of kin have been notified and our preliminary investigations of this scene are complete. Thank you and I will be in contact with your offices later this morning. Thank you, thank you.” The man pushed through the reporters to just beyond the tape. The camera still focused on him and I saw the body being carried down the stairs in the bag strapped to the gurney. It was taking four men. Tammy. I was on my bike heading for Denver before the door finished swinging.

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Chapter Seven: Jackson When he got a hold of the woman, she was dead. Not the easy death he would have given an innocent mixed up in this, but one with all the bells and whistles. He was gonna… “Mr. Haven?” the deputy interrupted his tirade. He waved at Jackson and Jackson had to rush over like the good little boy he was pretending to be. He retrieved his ID (which had been in his jacket pocket), and listened to the good policeman explain to him what had happened. People usually told you what they wanted to hear if you just listened close enough. It saved time and he was in a hurry. She was heading for Denver; he knew it in his gut. Why go back there? What was so damned important if she was running? “You sure are lucky we happened by, mister. We saw the fire from the highway and we just about drove off the road. I never saw a fire that big since the Haymen fire. Well, not that we saw that, just the smoke down here. We were sure Dorothy and Arnold would have moved into town for that, but they stayed right out here until today. We found them out here just after we found you. You should have called for help instead of trying to go into a burning building.” Deputy Do-right was nodding, saving Jackson the trouble. Yeah, the others were definitely not going to let him live this down. He could almost hear his cousins now. “Pity about your truck being stolen, but then you never can tell about hitchhikers. Especially women. You know, there was this one fella, a while back…” “Did you find anybody or animals in the barn? It looked like it was the first to burn when I got here.” He gritted his teeth and the officer took it for a smile in the dawn light. He felt more than heard a growl up his spine. Hunting, the woman was going back there to hunt. He had to move. “Nope, like I said, you were lucky.” The deputy turned away at that moment, upset that Jackson had interrupted a perfectly good story, otherwise he would have caught Jackson narrowing his eyes. The witch had made it out alive. Where was she heading? 30

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One problem at a time there, Jackson old boy. He needed to come back to the others with at least one of them out of the way, for his pride’s sake if nothing else. The Shifter was the more dangerous. He’d go after her and then backtrack to the witch. He smiled and signed the forms the nice people handed him, gave them the false address he always did for out-of-state police use and was surprised when they told him the hotel had reported his truck returned to the parking lot a while ago. The door to the room had been broken into and would he mind taking a trip to the station with them? Great. Women were disappearing in Denver, the hotel room was probably registered to a woman (a Shifter, but they didn’t need to know that) and his truck was parked outside. He bet it looked like it had been ransacked too. She was smart; he had to give her that. It had all the makings of a hook-up gone bad and the fire being a cover up. Although why start a fire in the middle of nowhere to cover a body when you had a perfectly good excuse to use in Denver? Then again, it was a couple of good ole boys up here. Why hunt for suspects when you had one right in front of you? And a stranger at that. He must have seemed just about perfect to them. “Deputy.” A small voice came from the dark and they all turned to see the kid walking towards them. She was covered with soot and limping, but everyone didn’t seem to see that. The older couple (Dorothy and whatever the man’s name had been, he guessed), who’d been hugging themselves off to the side, sighed with relief. Jackson pressed his lips together and bit his tongue. Hard. If he played this just right… “Laura!” The couple hobbled over to her. She accepted their relief with a nodding head. No one seemed worried that a search of the area hadn’t turned up any evidence of a kid in the house or barn, but everyone was acting as if this girl was supposed to be here. As if she was a regular part of the family. He wondered if the old couple even had any kids. The witch was good. All these people were under her weirding. She was so far from her territory and injured that it must have been incredibly draining. The Shifter might be more dangerous because of her nature, but this one was going to be a problem due to sheer power.

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Should he push it? See just how much her spell could stand? How powerful she really was? The right questions from him, a few doubts to push everyone else into thinking and her glamour would crumble and they’d both be in jail. He ground his teeth together. He was sorely tempted to ruin her spell though, just for the hell of it. “My grandparents and I had picked this guy up and were giving him a lift home to use the phone. We saw the fire and I rushed in to get my horse out, but kind of fainted from all the smoke. If it hadn’t of been for this guy, we would have never gotten out alive.” Laura turned those bright shining eyes towards Jackson and he had to turn his laugh into a choke. Her story was as thin as could be, but they all bought it. No one would question anything as long as they didn’t examine anything too closely and why would they? The owners, their “granddaughter” and the stranger’s stories all seemed to track. The evidence would magically appear to support the story. Everything would be just one more yarn for the deputy to tell later on to some other stranger. He hated the way witches just bent things any way they wanted, even if it was helping him out right now. Jackson got a ride back to the hotel and the witch tagged along, just to make sure everything was all right. No one blinked at the flawed logic. A teen wanting to tag along with an older man to his hotel room was okay? The inside of his cheek was going to be sore from all the biting he was doing to keep quiet. Just smile and nod and agree to everything the witch was saying, he kept telling himself, she’ll be dealt with. He grinned at the officer, shook his hand and turned to the ruined door of the woman’s hotel room. He didn’t hear what the witch was saying to explain it away. He was sure it was equally as thin. The girl came up behind him as the officer was leaving. He turned sharp, about to yell but kept his hands very still at his sides. He mustn’t threaten the nice witch. The officer looked concerned and he tried a smile, though it felt like he was growling at the man. The deputy waved happily and continued along on his day. “I survived the fire.” She was standing in the ruined doorway as if expecting him to invite her inside. He moved out of the way.

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“So I see.” “Where is she?” The witch began rummaging around, playing detective. He watched her for about two minutes while he counted backwards from one hundred. “What makes you think I am in any way about to help you and not skin you alive?” They didn’t actually skin witches, just tended to box them or if they were particularly naughty, kill them outright. Guess which one he was going to recommend to the others? “You have to help me. I won’t undo the binding if you don’t. And you’ll be stuck with her. I know what you are, even if she doesn’t yet.” The kid found a garbage pail and dug through it for clues, not making eye contact with him “Help you what?” He walked up to her, putting himself an inch from her body. The kid didn’t back away, though he saw the twitch in her eyes that said she wanted to. “What binding?” He leaned closer. This time the kid did back away, biting her nails. “It worked, I know it worked.” She pulled her blackened sweater down around her hands and ran the edges over her mouth, like a baby would a favorite blanket. “You should be able to hear her thoughts, see where she is and make her do what you want. You’re the Master of the Hunt. That’s what’s supposed to happen, I think…” Her voice trailed off and she peeked at him, her wide eyes brimming with tears. He leaned towards her. “Supposed to? You don’t know?” He shivered. Witches were one thing. New witches with all their powers turned to the on position were rare but not unheard of. One thing everyone, even non-witches, agreed on was that trying a spell like that without knowing what was going to happen was bad. The power could go wild, the target could reverse itself and come after the witch, and the spell could become something totally different, according to whoever had a will that was more powerful than the witch’s. There were so many things that could go wrong; he was a heartbeat away from calling in a full-scale assault. “She’s the key, the key to making it all work. I know I can fix it with her. She can stop it.” He backed away a bit. She was pacing and muttering to herself and it was starting to give him the creeps. Witches didn’t take chances. They didn’t draw attention to themselves, it was what made them so hard to find. This one seemed unhinged

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somehow. He was looking for something to knock the kid out with when she wheeled on him. “We have to find her! You have to bring her back!” She flicked her wrist for a spell, a flash blinding him and a bang knocking him down. She was gone when he got up off his ass. He'd been whacked around by the same witch twice. There was no justice to the world. There was a note with a phone number to call when he found his Mistress Hunter. There was also a threat that if he brought in any of his friends she would just disappear, leaving him permanently bound to a Shapeshifter. And that would be bad, read the note, since if she dies, so do you unless I undo the binding. This just kept getting worse. The witch was off her rocker and apparently one of the most powerful he’d ever run across. She’d tied him to a bloodthirsty Shifter, and was using him for an errand boy. He couldn’t even call for help. The others would kill the Shifter anyway and so sorry for him. He hated everything right now. He shook his head, stuffed the note in his pocket and rumbled out to his vehicle. The Shifter had left the keys in the ignition. He was pleasantly surprised to find all his gear still hidden in place. Guns, knives with high silver content, silver bullets, standard witch hazel switches and the vials of holy water, wolfsbane, and rose water were stored neatly and covertly. He smiled. This was his job, after all. He cranked the engine, ignored the whine of protest and stomped on the gas. The witch was right about one thing. He had to find the Shifter before she killed again. At least that was something he knew how to deal with. He chomped down on a cigarette, sucked back too quick and choked. Damn things usually just came at him swinging, not all this crap. This was just getting too complicated and messy. His head ached. He was never gonna live this down.

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Chapter Eight: Ghost Cat The rapid rain did not dissuade the Ghost Cat. The prize had to be nearby. The black woman should not have been there. It should have been the one Ghost Cat had wanted all this time. Patiently waiting in that tiny cramped room all day should have been the last indignity this mighty hunter would have had to face in this game. Then the wrong woman had walked in after all the careful planning, and Ghost Cat’s resolution had slipped away for a moment, lost in rage and blood. Hard work and practice had helped hone the hunter’s skills over the years and it would not be thwarted because of simple chance. Lingering near the latest hunting grounds, holed up across the street in a doorway, the hunter could afford to wait for the real prey to return. A true Ghost Cat would have blended in with its surroundings, and so too did this hunter; appearing to be a vagabond. The other homeless didn’t blink. It was a talent, becoming one with the environment, one that came naturally to all wild hunters. At first this had been a hardship, constantly being the one ignored, shoved aside by those who should have cared, and invisible to the world at large. Then, while trapped in steel-lined windows by those who dared call themselves “family” the whispers had started and revealed the reason for this talent. Hunters in the jungle of man needed to be able to walk right up to their victims and have not one realize the hunter’s true intentions until it was too late. But the game had become stale, lonely, with only the whispers in the background to comment on the skills of this hunter. Then a wonderous thing had happened. The whispers had told of another Ghost Cat that had arrived. Perhaps a mate? Someone to hunt with? At the very least, another cat should notice the skills being exercised, should appreciate the proficiency and effectiveness with which each hunt was accomplished. Another cat should know that there already was a hunter in this territory and make some overture of friendship or peace, or acknowledgement. www.samhainpublishing.com

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There had been nothing. No appreciation, no recognition, nothing. Once again, the hunter had been disregarded. The whispers had said what an insult this was to a hunter’s skills. To be considered so little a threat that the other cat hadn’t even conceded to ask permission to stalk the streets at night. That was something that should not go unpunished. The whispers had suggested a new game. Hunt the cat. To hunt a cat in her own territory would be the greatest challenge, great fun and show the world which of them was the superior hunter. So the Ghost Cat sat outside Tammy’s bar and waited for the true prey to return. The police seemed to think that she had gone, and the sudden realization hit that the authorities were giving all the hunter’s kills to this intruder. The hunter forced angry shoulders to relax. Tight muscles would interfere with the hunt if a quick movement was required. There was a roar of a bike and the Ghost Cat huddled under some discarded cardboard. Scrutinizing the prey as it dismounted, the hunter sucked in a breath at her beauty. Perfect, every inch of her. The Ghost Cat watched as she climbed the rusted fire escape, levied open the window and crawled inside. No cat-like agility used there, no feat that any sufficiently active athlete couldn’t perform. Did this cat take no pride in her skills at all? Did she even use them? Could she sense a presence? Would she know that a predator was so near, waiting for her? A door slammed close. The detective who’d been on television earlier had run across the street, with his gun drawn. He’d been lying in wait as well then. The hunter smiled towards the third floor window. This would be a test of worthiness. A gift for the lovely kitty. A nice policeman was coming so she could demonstrate all her beautiful talents before the Ghost Cat came for her. The hunter almost purred.

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Chapter Nine: Aislyn I couldn’t smell a damn thing in my room. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. I could actually smell too much. It smelled worse than the bar. I was supposed to be this great hunter with all these otherworldly powers and I usually had a hard enough time trying not to throw up. I cleared my head with a little shake. I had to do this, for Tammy. There, things were finally starting to come into focus. I could smell the various forensic team members, at least four of them in here. Forensics because they didn’t have gun oil and their scents were fainter, like they took care not to mess up the scene. A man and three women had walked all around the body. I could smell where Tammy had lain, where she’d been killed and my throat closed up. I had to focus on breathing for a minute, and then bring my head back into the game. Here had been the police officers. There were maybe six I could smell; they’d had the distinction of wearing shoe polish with their guns. Had to look pretty in case someone got you on camera, didn’t you? There were a couple more scents all around the room. Coroner, maybe? Photographer? Who knew at this point and I sure as hell wasn’t a cop. Over top of everything was the unmistakable scent of blood and offal. Tammy’s blood. For once my cat didn’t seem to be tuned into that. It seemed that she was quietly waiting. Both our territories had been invaded. She was poised, ready for a target; I just had to give her one. On one hand, I was relieved to find that I wasn’t the Ghost Cat Killer. I didn’t have this under control by a long shot, but I knew that I could at least stop Ms. Kitty from random acts of savagery now. That was good. What was bad was that Tammy had paid my price for me. My throat threatened to close up again. I pushed up from the squat I’d been in to look around my room in the dim light some more. There had to be something in here that would help. Something that the police

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hadn’t taken along because they couldn’t see it and I could. Something that I could find with my jazzy new superhero powers. Even I growled a little at myself for that. Some of my books were missing. I leaned over and counted the stack again. Not all. The romances and the how-to-write-a-movie books that were my cover were still there. But the reference books on cat physiology, every occult book I could find that had any mention of shapeshifters, every single medical text I’d gotten to see if there were allusions to any condition that could possibly explain my blackouts and sore muscles and sudden desires for catnip—all were gone. Probably to some specialist to form some sort of profile about me. I thought about how I’d marked up the texts with questions and notes. Oh yeah, I was in big trouble. I should just book it out of here. But Tammy had been the closest thing I had to a friend. And Tammy’s Bar had been my home. Damn it, this was my place, my town, mine! The cat in me rumbled, and I had an image of a tail flicking in annoyance. My other half was trying to tell me that I had better get a move on before she took this hunt away from me. Funny, I couldn’t have put it like that before. She was almost separate from me at this point. Still inside my head, but it was like there was room for her now, a little forest of her own she could run around instead of getting tied up in my thoughts. Or I was developing schizophrenia. Oh joy. I was digging around for a clue when a breeze through the open window swirled the traces of aroma. I noticed a new scent that seemed different from the others. I tracked it, nose to the floor like a dog. It was coming from the corner, behind my hallway door. I sniffed the floor. All up along the wall, right to the corner, where one could look out the window if bored, a scent stained the ground. That was almost as good as a pile of cigarette butts from a chain smoker. Here was the clue they couldn’t find. They might have lifted shoe prints, might have even found fingerprints belonging to everyone in this room, but they didn’t have this. It was the killer’s scent. It was a mug shot I could use to compare if I got within a fifty-foot range. I walked around a bit more, just to be sure. I tried to pick out something unusual and the only thing I could think of was toner from an

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ink cartridge. Great. The Ghost Cat Killer worked in an office building. Stop the press! Lightning flashed from the storm outside and I had a glimpse of the blood stains on the wall. I had no words for what she must have gone through. The blood was splattered as if it had been cast off from claws. I was suddenly and completely angry. The cat growled too. Wasteful, it seemed to say. No practice in hunting, no adrenaline from playing to make it tastier, no threat to self or territory, no sense to the killing at all. That last point was about all we could agree on. She hissed her displeasure again. I walked over to the window, about to jump down when a gun cocked and stopped me. “Don’t move.” His voice was low. “Hadn’t planned on it.” “On your knees. Hands above your head. Slowly.” I heard him step into the room. “You’re alone. If I am the killer, you have to shoot me now or you’ll never get out alive.” The cat in me purred. It liked this game. I was pretty sure that there was sweat mixed in with the rain on my face from the fear, but the cat was enjoying herself. “What makes you so sure of that?” I listened to him step closer to me, now that I was down on my knees, hands waiting to be cuffed. The cat was nearly dancing with joy in my skull. I had to be patient and wait a bit if I didn’t want to be shot. I perceived the metallic clank of cuffs being prepped and twisted, grabbed his wrists abruptly, pulling him onto the bed, on top of me with both our hands extended over our heads, making the gun useless at this angle. I hooked my knee behind his and flipped over; sitting on him, using my feet to keep pressure on his knees so he couldn’t flex and throw me off. I reached up, grabbed the now useless .9mm and let the clip fall. The cuffs I let him keep, attaching them to the radiator under the window and his wrist in one smooth motion. The entire operation took less than two seconds. I was looking eye to eye with the yummy detective in charge of finding Tammy’s killer. He was wearing aftershave, a musky sort of one that enhanced his own scent and made things down low tighten quick and sharp. After a few swallows, I found my voice.

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“If you’d been with any half decent sort of back-up, I’d never have gotten to do that.” I was still sitting on him, which probably wasn’t a good thing, given where my thoughts were leading and the fact that I couldn’t actually form words anymore, just pictures of where I wanted things to go. Then I noticed the shiny bracelets I still had and began searching his belt for the key. They all had the same key, right? “I’m Detective Rodriguez.” I barked a laugh. “I’m not your killer, Detective; otherwise you’d already be dead.” I found the key and unlocked my broken cuffs, flinging them out the window and into the waiting dumpster below. “Let’s say I believe that for a second. Why come back here if not to collect a trophy?” He let his eyes slide over me in a possessive fashion. He probably wanted to piss me off. It wasn’t that ineffective. “Let’s say I do want a trophy from the woman here. Why not take it when I’m butchering her? Like say one of Tammy’s fingers, hey? Or maybe a bunch of her hair? She’s got a gold tooth in the back, you can see it when she laughs, how ’bout that!?” I leaned over and shouted every one of my insults into his face. The cat growled and so did I. I backed away, got off of him and stalked to the now open doorway. I took several deep breaths. I pulled my hair back from my face and looked at the yellow do not cross police tape across my door. “Unlock the cuffs.” It was an order, but gently given. “What?” I whirled around. My eyes had welled up and I hated that they had betrayed me. I swiped at them savagely. He had pushed himself into as much of a sitting position as he could and was watching me. “You’re the woman the victim had been renting this room to. The waitress that was unaccounted for. Someone said you had taken off early yesterday.” It was my turn to just stare, and then I started to shake. I hated this. I hated feeling like this rollercoaster was going on inside of my own head and all I could do was hold on and hope to hell it stopped before I hurt someone. The last twenty-four hours welled up

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inside me and broke down the wall I had built up against it. I started sobbing, real hit-thefloors, can’t-get-a-breath, my-world-is-breaking-apart sobbing. “Come here.” He patted the bed gently. It was stupid, but I went. I lay down and curled up beside him and he spooned me. He held me while I shivered and cried, ran his free hand down my face, rubbing my arm, holding me close, whispering things in my ear that I really didn’t care about so long as he was nice. He calmed me down enough so that I could feel the exhaustion. Until I didn’t have anything left in me anymore. And then he cuffed me. Shit.

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Chapter Ten: Aislyn I was sitting in a dark room with a metal table bolted to the floor and an old cloth chair that looked as if it had survived the seventies from sheer force of will. It sure wasn’t comfortable. I waited. Contrary to popular belief, cats are not the most patient of beings. I was not that happy either. I had one thing going for me at the moment. The city of Denver. I know, it sounds crazy, but Denver has this weird split personality. If someone blames the poor, the downtrodden, a different race, creed or color, or if the kids are involved somehow, the cops are automatically assumed to have screwed up. Public opinion was already against the police with their inability to catch the Ghost Cat. All I had to do was cry scapegoat to the local press and I’d be out of here. With my face plastered all over the place. I hated that part of the plan, but it was the best I had at this point. It wasn’t as if I didn’t match the look of the other victims. A thought suddenly occurred to me, a way to explain things away should the books or why I had taken off come up. I looked around in a decidedly more cheerful mood. The room would have been claustrophobic if I couldn’t have seen through the twoway mirror. The light in the other room was low, blue and a human’s eye couldn’t have seen through it. But I wasn’t quite human anymore, though I hated to admit it. For the first time in a while I actually considered that a good thing, in this situation anyway. Rodriguez was in the other room with two other officers, watching me. At least he was now. I had imagined the words that went along with the finger shaking and the veinpopping moving mouth that I saw a couple of minutes ago from his superiors in the suits. Now they just watched me and I sat there, waiting. Rodriguez apparently had decided that I’d had enough silent treatment and left. He reappeared a second later in my little cell. I leaned back and looked at him. He was still in his jeans, ripped and worn in a few places so I knew they were comfortable. 42

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His thighs were thickly muscled and strained against the fabric, making the jeans tight. I really wanted him to turn around so I could see him from behind but I doubted he would have obliged. I just let my eyes wander north after pausing briefly on his groin, which had tremendous potential if what I was seeing was any indication. I noted the way his grey T-shirt was loose enough to billow around the waist, but seemed to pull across his chest. He worked out for those kinds of pecs. I bet the abs hidden underneath were just as sculpted. And the biceps that nearly burst through the arms of the shirt were nice too. Not that he was a candidate for WWE or anything, just a well-built, solidly muscled, hardbodied man. Just the way I like ’em. His hair was soft, feathery and that raven black that shines blue. I would have sat on my hands to keep from running them through his hair if they hadn’t been shackled already. Combined with his Latin skin and amber eyes he was a feast fit for the gods. And here he was going to interrogate me. Yummy. I crossed my legs and waited for the show to begin. “What were you doing at the scene?” He sat down across from me and slapped a file folder on the table between us. I eyed the folder. What kind of leverage was he going to use on me to get me to “talk”? “I live there. It’s my room.” I looked at him, starting to get just a bit angry. He’d played me at the scene. I had a right to be a little pissed. “You rented under the name Aislyn Rivers, correct?” He’d checked his facts on a notepad from his back pocket. I nodded. I think I knew where this conversation was heading. “Were you aware that there were documents found that had your face, but another name?” Yeah, I was planning ahead, but I couldn’t exactly tell him that. Or could I? “Yes.” He sat back a little. He’d expected a denial and backpedaled his thoughts, discarding his next question. I was having fun with this game and almost purred. “Would you mind explaining them?” “I needed to be ready.”

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“For?” He raised his eyebrow. “Running.” “From?” “This could get boring, so let me save you some time. Why would a woman with no record, as Aislyn Rivers is my real name, by the way, have documents, cash, fake IDs and keys stashed on her? I was prepared to run at a moment’s notice from someone who has been following me. Who would be following you?” I did a fair imitation of his eloquent elocution which brought a chuckle from the men in the other room that I wasn’t supposed to hear. “Good question, Detective. I was running from the girl who thinks for some strange reason I murdered her brother back east. Why would she think that?” I turned in my chair as if talking to someone directly beside me. “Well, as I was questioned, examined and ‘held’ and the police found nothing, I guess you’re going to have to ask her that. There was no evidence linking me to any crime and as is my constitutional right, it was assumed that I was innocent until proven guilty. I was set free. Except that when you do find her, could you give me a heads up? She’s made my life a living hell for God knows what reason. But that’s all in the police report that I’m sure you’ve already read. Oh and don’t forget that I’ve had a restraining order put up against her.” His eyes had gotten dark as he listened to me and he leaned forward. “And so here you are in Denver, at the scene of another murder, another person you knew now dead.” I felt the physical blow of those words. I narrowed my eyes at him and he leaned back in his chair, flipped open the file and pulled out a picture of the murder scene, the ball back in his court. Tammy had been gutted. Her stomach was ripped open and her intestines pulled partially out, her rib cage broken and her heart and lungs looked like someone had been gnawing at them. But that wasn’t what had killed her. Cats traditionally attack the neck, going for the main artery there. Tammy’s neck had been sliced open three times giving her a second, third and fourth smile, almost as if it were a set of claws. She’d have bled out almost instantly. It would have been quick, but

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definitely not painless. I covered my mouth, my mind connecting the smells from the room to this visual. I tried real hard not to throw up. He just watched me. “Why would they do this to her?” I looked at him for a long moment. “I don’t know.” I looked down again, but couldn’t keep my eyes on Tammy’s photograph. “What would make a human being do something like this?” He laid out the other pictures of the room, the blood, pictures of the autopsy, and then added to the pile. I watched him lay out pictures of other women around my age, my build, my hair color. I watched him lay out their crime scenes and I couldn’t look away. I was numb. “The victims were all approached by someone they did not find threatening. It was the only way he could have gotten close. This woman here was about to get into her car.” He pulled a photo closer to me, trying to get me to look at it. I would have stood up if I hadn’t been cuffed to the table. I tried anyway. I managed a hunchback sort of look, like a cat arching its back to make itself look bigger against an attacker. He immediately rose and put his hand to his hip. Other officers were suddenly in the room. I worked real hard on counting to ten in every language that I knew. The cat in me was getting cornered and nervous and pacing inside my head. She wanted out, away from these men to the dark, where she could crouch down and hide. I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood and it seemed to bring me back to myself enough so that I could glare at those around me. “The other victims…” “I don’t care about them.” “What do you care about then, Aislyn? What would bring you back to that room?” His hand was still on his gun. Jesus, did he really think I was the killer? You had thought you were too until a few hours ago, a voice whispered in the back of my head. It sounded suspiciously familiar and I stomped on it, hard. I spat out my rehearsed explanation. “The newspapers described the other victims. I look like them. He’s the Ghost Cat Killer. Cat kills, physiology, medical texts, superstitions, anything that might be related I looked up. I wanted to find out about that

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kind of stuff. Can’t defend yourself against it if you don’t know anything about it.” The lights hummed and Rodriguez didn’t look like he was buying my answers. He was just looking at me. I started to get as nervous as the cat in my head and just started blurting things out. “I can’t remember where I was for all of the murders. What if the killer had been following me? What if I lead the Ghost Cat to these women and I didn’t even know it? What if one of these women was supposed to be me?” I realized with a start that I was telling the truth. Dear God, those poor women. They couldn’t have defended themselves, not like I could have. Did the Ghost Cat know that? Did the Ghost Cat know my secret? “Ghost Cat took Tammy instead of me. The killer took Tammy because she was in my room and I wasn’t.” My gorge rose and I banged the table with my fists so hard it left dents. I would not cry anymore. This guy would not get any more tears from me. “I don’t know what Ghost Cat looks like. I don’t know why he picked me.” I lied and it tasted bitter in my mouth, but I couldn’t tell them the truth. Ghost Cat couldn’t resist hunting a hunter. I kicked my chair back so hard that it splintered when it hit the wall behind me. “My friend is dead! I took off for a break and she dies! I see it on the news! On some level I must have know the killer was hunting me.” I felt the cat in my head cringe and realized that she had known I was being stalked. I was too angry to be around people, but they wouldn’t let me go. I ripped a photo of one of the women. “My height!” I screamed as much at the cat in my head as at the men in the room. I grabbed another picture. “My hair!” Another picture shredded as the men just watched. “My face!” I threw the pieces at Rodriguez and screamed, gripping the table. I screamed again, doubling over from the force of it tearing out of me. And the cat in my head was finally afraid of what I was going to do to it instead of the other way around. The men in the room just stared. Most had their hands on the weapons. A few had them drawn but pointed at the floor. A crying woman they could have handled. A shaken, frightened woman they were ready for. A woman professing innocence and begging was what they had hoped for, but one just so unbelievably pissed off was nowhere on their man radar. They couldn’t comfort me, couldn’t arrest me, and couldn’t beat me into

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confession. I’d effectively shocked some of the most jaded men on the planet and couldn’t even take any pleasure in that. The screaming was done. I was still doubled over, looking up through my hair at the men surrounding me, watching to see if they would make a move towards hurting me. The only sound in the room was harsh, grating against my ears until I realized it was my breathing. I winced as the air I sucked in rasped against my raw throat, but the cat thought that was good. That it focused me. “What were you doing in the room?” Rodriguez looked at me with wide eyes. I think he just asked because he had no idea what else to say. I pulled myself up a bit. Ghost Cat had taken away the little piece of my life I had managed to get back. I met every single pair of eyes in the room, waited until I saw their natures bubbling through, until I saw the hunter in each of them, because make no mistake, there is a hunter in every cop breathing. Then I looked back at Rodriguez. “I was looking for something to nail the son of a bitch.”

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Chapter Eleven: Jackson Jackson pulled into the parking lot of Tammy’s Bar and tried to figure out what his first move would be. The news had been broadcasting reports of the latest Ghost Cat victim and he knew this was the scene of a crime, that she’d be here. Tammy had been someone important to her. Someone she was willing to go out of her way for. Someone she was upset over losing and she’d lost a lot of someones in her life. This was going to be the last one. The fact that strange thoughts like that flitted through his head disturbed him at first. He had grown up hating anything that wasn’t human, been trained by the best of the family to hunt down and kill them. He’d taken on his first Shifter solo when he was thirteen. He still wore the scar on his stomach from the claws and could hear every syllable from his father’s tirade after they stitched him up. He hated Shifters, witches, demons and everything paranormal. They weren’t part of the natural scheme of things and shouldn’t be here. Somehow, Aislyn had changed that outlook, radically. He knew it was a spell of some kind. Knew that the witch had done something to him that made him see the Shifter as a little more human than what she really was. But it felt so real. Her loss and pain at Tammy’s death couldn’t be faked. Shifters were historically callous and bloodthirsty, not guilt-ridden and remorseful. Shifters were violent and self-centered, not going into burning buildings and picking up stupid, unconscious men. It was almost as if she were regaining some of her humanity. He was confused about that and what it meant. He’d hated for so long he really didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. Truth be told, he’d liked the bar owner as well. She’d been a little crazy, bordering on witchcraft herself, but she’d seemed to genuinely care about the people who walked into her place. That was a rare thing in this world. He was sad to have lost the opportunity to get to know her better. She would have been a good friend and he didn’t have many of 48

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those. She might have even been able to handle the truth about the others, the group of family that had raised him and what they really did. What he really was. He wanted to help Aislyn solve this murder, to bring the right person to justice, if nothing else. He was about to get out of his car when he spotted a man coming out of the building with Aislyn, her arms behind her back. Jackson gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. Aislyn was placed in the back of a unmarked police car, a hand gently guiding her head so she didn’t bump it. The man buckled her in tenderly when she didn’t move. He put a coat around her when she began to shake and he absently wiped away some of the rain from her face. She didn’t fight or even look up. Then the man got into the car and started it up. He turned to check on the woman in his back seat once, as if to say something to her then shook his head and pulled out into the light traffic. Jackson started up his truck and followed. The cop took her back to the police station. Jackson drove past and wondered what his next move should be. He pulled into a gas station to think. A mother and her daughter looked at him curiously, and he absently stared back at the bunny costumes. He’d almost forgotten it was Halloween tonight. He couldn’t just waltz in there and grab her. She was likely pulled in to be questioned about the murders, at least why she was at the scene of the last one. She didn’t look like she’d been thinking all too clearly. Since she had been up in the mountains with him around the time the murder took place, he knew she should be able to talk her way out of this. But she’d been docile, just letting the cop put her in the back of the car, not fighting, not looking for an escape route, nothing. What had happened to the ferocity that Shifters were known for? Would she even offer them up an alibi? Would they bother to check? He had to go in there and give them one. Hope that she would play along with what he had planned. He turned over the engine and drove back, parked outside in the visitor’s space and walked up the steps. He passed a kid with sunglasses trying to look cool on a bench outside and shook his head. Had he ever been that young and stupid?

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He went straight to the desk sergeant and asked to speak to someone about the woman they’d just brought in. The one who had worked at Tammy’s Bar. The desk sergeant jerked in his chair as if he’d been shot, then led him to his own little cell. The sergeant said that someone would be with him in a moment. He had no doubt that was true.

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Chapter Twelve: Aislyn I waited while the entire room got real focused on what I’d just said. Rodriguez looked me up and down, but there was no hostility. It was as if he was seeing a different layer to me all of a sudden. “Where did you go, Aislyn? Why weren’t you in that room?” The room was still filled with tension, testosterone and weapons. I had to defuse it or I wasn’t going to leave. “I went up into the mountains for a ride, to blow off some steam. I just finished working a double. I get grabbed all the time. I was on edge and thinking I was paranoid. The papers said it would have been either last night or tonight for the next murder to happen. I just wanted out of the city until it was over with. I left. I didn’t want to be around anyone in case I was right, the Ghost Cat was following me and I wasn’t paranoid.” Rodriguez nodded; checking his facts in his notebook then he took his pen back up and added more notes. “How did you know Tammy had been killed?” “News. You looked good on camera, by the way.” I was starting to loosen up and my mouth was starting to show it. He didn’t look up but he smiled. “Why didn’t you contact the police?” “I have trust issues with authority figures due to previous encounters.” I thought that sounded relatively politic given the circumstances. “Why were you wearing handcuffs?” He eyed me for this. I flushed crimson. There was only one good lie I could think of and my virtue was going to suffer for it. “Part of how I was unwinding.” I ducked my head and wished I hadn’t kicked the chair across the room. Rodriguez’s cuffs had me locked to the table and I desperately wanted to cross my arms to cover my chest. The cat in my head regarded me curiously, wondering why I was ashamed.

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Rodriguez raised an eyebrow at me and the other men in the room took their hands off their guns and eyed me in a new light. A light that I didn’t particularly like being examined under. It quite clearly read “prospect” in flashing neon. Rodriguez waited patiently for me to elaborate, pen poised over his notebook, legs crossed professionally despite his casual attire. I stifled a growl of frustration and glared back. The lights hummed and someone shuffled their feet. A couple of eyes were brimming with a few unshed tears of mirth as they waited for their superior to get it. It stretched out too long and I huddled in on myself as much as possible, hating the corner I had painted myself into. “Sex, okay? I picked up a random guy and I was gonna get laid, he even had a cheap set of cuffs. There, happy?” There were a few snickers in the room and Rodriguez glared them into silence. “Do you like rough sex?” He sounded as if he were asking me to pass the sugar or would I like milk. I ground my teeth together. “Do you want a demonstration?” I clenched my teeth. That got me even more snide looks and laughter. Rodriguez cleared the room then. I waited, standing since they weren’t going to give me another chair. Rodriguez took a little longer than just clearing a room should have taken, and I wondered if he were picking the coffee beans he was going to grind into blend before he filtered them into a hot cup. Something nagged at the back of my brain. The cat swished her tail at my stupidity. Rodriguez entered, looking flushed and flustered. I resisted the urge to smirk. Had he been picturing me naked and chained to the bed the way he had been? Did he need a little alone time to get himself under control? Aww, poor baby. They had nothing really to hold me on save for trespassing and fake IDs and I could probably worm my way out of it on the basis that they had a plausible excuse for most of my behavior, and I would willing give up my source of IDs. Rodriguez eyed me speculatively, and then slid the keys to the cuffs over.

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“Can you describe your one-night stand?” He was stiff backed, arms crossed and not making eye contact. The sex talk was unnerving him. He sat and looked resolutely at his notebook’s blank page. “You like dirty stories, Detective?” I rubbed my wrists. He was stalling, I could feel it. “His or her appearance, any names you might have gotten, if you bothered with that much.” His tone was cavalier, but his eyes were watching me for my reaction from underneath his brows. I walked to the back of the room and leaned on the wall, crossing my arms. “Jackson something or other. He was tallish, blondish, strongish, green eyes, nice ass, great kisser and his hands weren’t bad either. We’d left the TV on and when I heard about Tammy, I just split.” I had no idea about the truth of the name. It’s not like people gave their real names when they hooked up for a night anyway. Rodriguez snapped his notebook closed. His lips were pressed tightly together and he narrowed his eyes. He did not look pleased at all. “He’s here.” “Who?” “Mr. Handcuffs is out front. Seems he was worried about you when you took off in such a rush. Your stories corroborate each other, so technically I have to release you.” His tone made me think that he would like nothing better than to lock me up for no good reason, but he couldn’t because he was being watched by his superiors. Instead he rose and walked to the door, looking around at me and raised his eyebrows in polite query. I walked forward; unnerved at the courtesy he was showing me. Actually chivalry itself tended to unnerve me. I didn’t trust it. But if he was going to let me go then who was I to argue? He opened the door for me. The cat paused in her pacing to regard the man. She crouched down in my head, wary, ready to pounce should he make the wrong move. I agreed. Rodriguez wasn’t a man who let things go easily. He leaned into my ear as I came up even with him and whispered.

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“I don’t believe you are the killer.” I turned to look at him. “But you’re not telling me the whole story. You and the facts don’t add up, Aislyn.” I don’t think he intended for my name to slip out as a caress, but it did. “What do you want from me?” I gazed up into his eyes. He leaned over me, forcing me to either back up against the now open door or let him into my personal space. He was trying to intimidate me where we wouldn’t be seen. I didn’t move and he moved so close I could kiss him. “I want this killer off my streets, Aislyn.” I saw how he was haunted by the deaths. I glimpsed the man behind the shield. He protected what was his with a ferocity and dedication few could understand. “I want that too. Let me know what I can do to help.” And I kissed him. Just a quick brush of lips, but he jumped back as if I’d struck him. He looked as if seeing me for the first time. “You’re serious. And you’re not afraid of this guy? You fit his victims’ profile. He knows where you live. I should put you in protective custody just on principle.” “But you have something else in mind, don’t you, Detective?” I leaned into his space now and he regarded me like a man holding the wrong end of a snake. I smiled and the cat in my head purred. “He’s going hunting tonight. Probably to find a replacement for you.” Rodriguez watched my face, trying not to reach up and touch me. “You’d be safer in custody, out of sight until this thing is over, but you wouldn’t do that would you?” His voice was soft, full of wonder at the creature he was looking at. “What would you do, if you…” He stopped. It was as if what he was asking was too crazy for him to even consider saying, but here he was saying it anyway and he couldn’t quite believe it. “Were his bait? Would I let him hunt me?” I put my hands on his chest and started to lightly knead his shirt. “Would I make him come to us? Yes, Detective. I would.” He looked at me like I was insane, and I smiled up at him. “I’ll take you to a safe house until nightfall. It will take us that long to set up the surveillance. Then I’ll come and get you, Aislyn.” He spoke slowly, the words dragged

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out of him. I backed up and his hand almost grabbed my arm, as if he didn’t want me to move away. He took a deep breath and shook his head, eyes closing. When he opened them again there was nothing but cop there. He motioned for an officer to escort me out. I was almost to the front desk when it hit me. Jackson, or whatever his name, was there and he’d tried to bail me out. Much as I hated it, I couldn’t just leave him at the station. We were going to be stuck together on this one, whether we liked it or not.

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Chapter Thirteen: Aislyn Jackson was right there at the front desk, grinning happily at me when I walked down the hallway. He reached out and I had to force myself to let him touch me. We’d just been “lovers” after all. I couldn’t react in a bad way or every cop in this building would be suspicious and I was too close to the door. I could practically smell the asphalt on the road and wanted to wipe my chin to see if there was drool. The cat was happy and scampering around my head like an idiot. I could feel the need to Change itching in the back of my skull. I needed to find a distraction if I was going to be in police protection for the next twenty-four hours. Damn it, just when I thought I was getting out of this mess, something went and sucked me down again. I pulled the grinning idiot to me, smacked a deep and passionate kiss on him for the entire world to see and turned to the cop escorting me to his car. “What about Jackson here? If the killer finds out that he was the one keeping me from his little surprise, won’t he be in danger?” I blinked for effect and every male in the place seemed to stand a little straighter while every female either chuckled or glared daggers at me. At least most of the males seemed to react. Guess the don’t ask/don’t tell rule extended past the military to cops too. Jackson’s grin tightened around the corners. This wasn’t what he wanted, either, but I couldn’t have him running around loose while I played rabbit for Rodriguez. And my point was valid. The killer did know where I lived, seemed to know an awful lot about me, if the method used in killing Tammy were any indication. I hadn’t really looked at the other victims’ pictures, but I bet they would have shown me the same raking of the gut (like a cat’s hind claws ripping open the stomach while the teeth were busy with the throat). The thought brought me up short. The body hadn’t been like that. That was the most likely way for a cat to kill its prey from a frontal attack and Tammy’s body hadn’t been 56

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like that at all. If a cat attacked from behind it brought down the prey, held it with its paws and teeth went for the jugular or spine. Tammy hadn’t been like that either. But everyone had assumed it was a wild cat, a cougar, a Ghost Cat. Why? And how the hell could I tell Rodriguez this without being obvious about it? After a little debate from ruling brass, it was arbitrarily decided that Jackson would come with me, just to be safe. It would save the whole don’t-leave-town speech anyways, since in some book somewhere we were both still suspects. I was still thinking how to drop the subject of the kills to Rodriguez when everyone started moving towards the unmarked cars except me. Jackson bumped into me and I turned around, ready to blast him for it. He looked down at me with those green eyes and a dimple formed. He was daring me to do something stupid. “Something wrong, darlin’?” The Texas drawl was back and thickening. He was gonna be all good old boy charm until we were alone. I wondered what had brought him galloping in to my rescue. He had given me to Laura, but I doubt he would have gone along for the ride if she’d told him what she really had planned. Laura tricked a lot of really smart people into doing exactly what she wanted without using any of her magic. It was how she’d survived so long. “Hey, love birds.” The cop behind both of us stopped short and glared. He was older and had the bulging belly and disposition that said he was unlikely to ever get out of his uniform. “We need to be moving forwards, towards the cars. I need to get you both tucked into the safe house before my shift ends.” He motioned us forward. “Then you can be alone with each other and I’ll even loan you my handcuffs for the night.” The rest of the cops around us guffawed. Jackson had a smile plastered on his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes. He grabbed my elbow just a little too hard to steer me in the right direction. I managed to keep a blank face, but the cat in my head was wheezing with laughter. It was hard not to join in. The hotel the police were putting us up in was on Colfax. Every city had a street like it. It was the one where drug dealers and hookers worked out of motels that charge by the

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hour, and where you could get things really cheap if you didn’t look too closely at them and didn’t care where they came from. What wasn’t a hotel, fast food joint, pawn shop or used car dealership worked really hard at making their little section of the block respectable. You could find a bank or two, close to the nicer neighborhoods, but for the most part, Colfax was the street you didn’t want to end up on if you were lost. It was the flagship for trouble. So why put us up in a skuzzy hotel here? It was as far away from downtown, LoDo and all the other trendy murder scenes as you could get. No one would be looking for us here, and those who saw us, didn’t see us. Not if they wanted to do business anywhere near the cops again, or with them since most turned informant when they were strapped for cash. It wasn’t as if the killer was paying people to find me anyways. At least I hoped not. The kindly officer made good on his promise to drop his handcuffs on the nightstand before he left. They were the only bright spot. The room was dingy wood panel, velvet art, faded flower prints and sickly sweet smelling. The sweet didn’t quite cover some of the sins from past owners but I’m sure I was the only one who could tell. Jackson paced around the room, echoing the cat in my head. I sat on one of the double beds and watched them both for a while, not thinking anything. Jackson kept checking the windows, picking up the phone then putting it down again, then going back to the windows. We were on the second floor and it was still light out, but only just. The kiddies would be tricking and treating in a couple of hours and the traffic was light right now. “Want to get something to eat?” I doubted the place had room service, but there were golden arches across the street. I was sure the detectives could either watch us or go get us something. He jumped, as if he’d forgotten I was in the room. An awkward moment passed and he sat on the bed, facing me. He looked about to start speaking a dozen times, but shut his mouth on every one. Finally his eyes lit on the handcuffs and he pointed to them. “Do I want to know what they were talking about?”

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“I had to think of something to tell them about Laura’s bracelets.” I wondered what had happened to his. He nodded and I thought that would have been the end of the conversation, but he pulled a note from his pocket and handed it to me. “What do you make of this?” His tone was over chipper, like he was forcing his way through social graces with someone he hadn’t thought deserved them up until this point. The handwriting was Laura’s. I flashed him an angry look, but he missed it, looking at the paper in my hands. “Laura gave this to you.” He nodded. I waited. He finally looked up at me.“Should we call?” I glared at him. He got up off the bed and walked over to the window again. “She did something to us. Can’t you feel it?” He sounded lost, like a little boy. “What did Laura say when she gave this to you?” I flicked the note at him. He squatted, picked it up off the floor and looked up at me. “Something about Mistress Hunter. What she said during the ritual. That she’d undo the binding if I brought you to her.” “Unlikely.” I crossed my arms. Then I got up off the bed and paced as he had done earlier. He made room for me to pass him but other than that did not move. “You don’t know her like I do. Trust me when I say we’re better off figuring this out for ourselves. Why do you want this gone so badly anyways?” “You know how Shifters are made?” I turned on him, trying to decide whether to laugh in his face, or smack him. “Not all are created the same, you know.” He raised his hands defensively. I sighed and he relaxed a hair, but didn’t continue. I knelt beside him, slowly to show him I wasn’t any danger. He never took his eyes off me. After a while he started back up. “Shifters are created in three ways. One, they’re born and inherit it like a disease. It usually presents itself around puberty. Those ones are usually pretty tough to spot. They live in packs, prides or whatever and the family hunts together. They keep each other hidden as best as they can, never more than a dozen in any one place.” He stopped and I leaned in closer, to encourage him to speak. He took a deep breath.

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“The second one is rarer. A witch with enough power and know-how can call a Shifter into being, as long as the person they’re changing has something in common with the animal. They usually use the Shifter as a sort of slave that can carry magic for them, keeping them under some sort of control. These ones are easier to spot. A person first Changed has no idea how to stop the urges and instincts and usually goes overboard. The witch ends up dead first, followed by a whole lot of others. It generally happens in the first few weeks. Shifters tend to lose what made them human and start seeing everyone around them as either prey or rivals to be fought. Not their fault, really, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re just as dangerous.” This was how Laura had made me a Shifter and he must have suspected it. Now he knew that to bring me back to Laura was to make me a slave to her. Was this his idea of an apology? He kept looking at the paper, like it would tell him something. He was distracting himself as much as anything. His nostrils flared and he inhaled. I crawled on my knees, between his, forcing him to look at me. “What about the third way?” He was upset. I could feel it vibrate out of him and even the cat wanted to cuddle and make it stop. I put my hands on his bent knees, sliding them up his legs and he sucked in breath and stood abruptly. I kept my hands on his thighs, looking up at him. I wanted to show him I was no threat. He looked down at me and put his hand in my hair. I curled into his hand, closing my eyes to show trust. He wouldn’t hurt me, not at this precise moment. I knew that, as sure as I knew he was anxious about something. I rubbed my cheek against his groin, his hand still tangled in my hair. I opened my eyes to look at him. His hand tightened in my hair and I stopped rubbing, but kept my hands and face where they were, ignoring his groin’s involuntary hardening. “The third type just appears. You can never predict where or when, but every few years someone goes walking in the woods or rock climbing or exploring caves and is sighted a few days or months later, gone completely mountain man. There’s no bite marks on them, but it’s where the stories started. They just Change. They’re the most

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dangerous of all. Highly territorial, practically animal no matter what form they’re in. No way to talk or reason with them at all.” He paused and pulled a breath in through his nose again, but couldn’t seem to remember what he was about to say. Another deep breath through his nose, then another, did nothing to ease the tension of his body. His heartbeat quickened and I could feel his pulse start to throb. He threw me abruptly from him and I hit the other bed. I shook the cobwebs away from my vision to find him pressing down on me. He had my hands over my head and was just looking at me, wild eyed. His nostrils flared again and he took a deep breath. “You smell so damn good.” He buried his face in my hair, licking my throat. My human mind was trying to sort things out. Unfortunately my cat side was already kicking in, arching back to give him better access. He took the opportunity and ran his lips and tongue down my neck, pushing the T-shirt I had on down with his chin to work between my breasts. One of his hands came down and ripped my shirt so he had better access. It was abrupt and fast and sexy as hell. My breath came a little faster and my free hand pressed him tighter to me. His other hand released mine and pulled the remnants of my shirt off, exposing my bra. He rolled his eyes up to mine as his hands slid underneath me to undo the clasps. The bra followed the shirt to the floor right about the time his mouth found my breast. I arched again for him and felt him smile. The cat began to purr in me and I scratched at his hair, trying to pull him off me. He bit harder and I growled. His hands slid my pants off like they weren’t even there and I had a moment where I couldn’t think. When I forced my way up from the fog, he had his pants off, his underwear doing little to keep him contained. He was up on his knees, his hands above his head as he pulled his shirt off. I watched rippling muscles and traced a light scar on his flesh with my eyes. He was strong. I wanted to taste skin. Wanted to nip and taste just the tiniest hint of blood. Wanted him to do the same. Wanted the feel of him inside me, I wanted him claiming me.

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I balled my fists on either side of his hips, intending to rip the last barrier off when I realized I was full-out growling. The cat was winning. It sobered me immediately. He threw his shirt off and pulled me roughly up to meet his lips and force me against the wall. I was so busy fighting the cat back that I couldn’t fight him. He kissed me like he was going to eat me from the inside out. I fought for air, turning my neck to his mouth again, and he took it as encouragement. What had brought this on? I tried to remember as his tongue found my earlobe, one hand at my breast, the other sliding between my legs and bringing a gasp and growl from my throat at the same time. He had said I’d smelled good. He’d been breathing deep, through his nose. Scent. I must smell different. His fingers found my clit and I shivered. It took all I had to focus on my train of thought. Heat. I must be in some kind of heat. I gripped both his shoulders and shoved hard before his hands did anything else delicious. The cat in me screamed and I had a moment combating the Change bubbling across my skin, pure agony screaming across my entire body. He stood up at the end of the bed where I’d thrown him, watching. His face turning from that dark, primal look all men got during sex to confusion, finally settling on horror. I’d managed to force it back. It left me exhausted and gasping, sweat-drenched from pain, naked chest heaving. I looked up at the face he turned to me and something broke. I was a monster. It was written plainly on his face. I could never be anything but a creature to be feared and hated. I curled on my side and let the tears drip out, too wiped out to fight them. He curled up behind me a few minutes later. He tried. To give him credit, he did try. But I didn’t want to be touched and pulled away. I’d seen truth in his eyes and didn’t want to be around anyone or anything. I slid off the bed, grabbed jeans and his shirt and was out the door with the smooth grace and speed of the beast that had come to rule my life.

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Chapter Fourteen: Jackson Jackson pushed up off the bed in time to see the door click behind her. By the time he’d found his pants, realized Aislyn was wearing his one T-shirt and peeked out the door, Rodriguez had his hand on the small of her back, guiding her towards a ratty old van that even he could tell was a front. They might as well write Denver P.D. on the side of it. He slammed the door closed. He couldn’t believe he’d let things go so far. A little kissing to bait a Shifter in the trap with was one thing, but this? He’d almost been sheathed inside her when she’d pushed him away. He tried really hard to be disgusted, angry, anything but turned on. He found himself completing the fantasy in his mind’s eye. He sat back down on the bed and picked up the remnants of her T-shirt and bra. He put the clothing to his nose and inhaled deeply. Her scent was like honeysuckle and roses. He breathed in again, finding snippets of fresh pine and autumn wind. He loved that scent. Her hair had been soft and silky against his face. He wanted her here again. He wanted the Shifter here in his bed. What? The thought sobered him. He wanted a Shifter? Was he going crazy? The witch, the spell, it had to be because of the spell. This was all the witch’s fault. He wanted to sleep with a monster because of her. Monster. The word echoed hollowly in his brain and he had a sudden vision of what she’d seen. Of him looking at her when she’d fought off the Change. He was proud of her that she fought and won. But you weren’t supposed to be proud of the monsters; you were supposed to kill them. He saw her lying on the bed in a ball and crying. In her human form. That wasn’t fair. The monsters weren’t supposed to cry. They weren’t supposed to have feelings. He hadn’t wanted her crying. He had curled up beside her and tried to soothe her, to make it all right. He’d tried. But she wouldn’t let him hold her. She wouldn’t let him play with www.samhainpublishing.com

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her hair and tuck her into his arms. She was so much smaller than him, really. He must have a foot of height over her at least. It would have been easy to snuggle her against his heart, stroke back her hair behind her ear, whisper he was sorry. But then she’d taken off like that. She’d left him there, in the bedroom with nothing. The farther away she got, the clearer his head seemed. The cops didn’t seem affected by the way she smelled. Her beast was infecting him somehow. That was why she was acting so human and he was acting so crazy. Things were so mixed up. It had to be his connection, his binding. It spilled some of her capabilities into him. That was the only reason he could be falling for a monster. He was sure of it. Damn that witch! His family would kill him if they ever found out. Literally. He got his jeans off the floor and jammed his legs into them, yanked on the fly and stuffed his feet into his shoes. He was going for a walk to clear his head. He passed the car where the plainclothes sat, eating donuts. He crossed the street (not smart after dusk, despite the fact that his shirtless condition made him easy to see) and was about to go into the restaurant when a kid in the uniform met him at the door. “No shirt, no service, sir.” He turned the lock. Jackson slammed his fist into the door, making the glass vibrate and the kid start, but he turned around and started walking again. The cops in the car were yelling at him from across the street but he kept going. He passed by several youngsters out trick or treating and was several blocks away when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He was being followed. Stupid! That woman had him all in a tangle and he hadn’t even taken any of the basic precautions he’d been drilled in since he was old enough to hold a gun without shooting someone by accident. In his family, that had been before the age of nine. He took stock of where he was. His momentum had taken him several stop signs down Colfax, to an even worse section of the street than the one the safe house had been on. He grimaced. Shop windows were barred and closed up tight, though the sun had barely set. He glanced behind him once, in hopes of seeing the unmarked car cutting across the grid-locked traffic to come get him. He wasn’t the star witness that the woman was, though, so he doubted they were going to come to his rescue. He told himself he didn’t

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need them anyway. With all the masks and costumes, it was difficult to pick out which one was actually following him and which ones were just out for the night. The crowd was getting older as the night got darker and rougher and his pale skin set him up as a target regardless of who it was following. He ducked into a doorway to watch those pass by. He tried to look through the glass window to see if anyone stopped or a car that slowed down, but nothing jumped out at him. He crossed his arms, cold. This was wrong on so many levels. He shouldn’t be the one being hunted. He decided to cut back and make his way towards the safe house, taking his chances that he wouldn’t walk right into whoever was following him. He passed the closed-up shops again. Passed the kids out with their moms and crossed the street. He was within sight of the plainclothesmen, sitting in their sedan in traffic when he felt the bite of some sharp metal in his skin. He pushed away, but stumbled. He felt the drug course through his system quickly. He felt his heart pause a beat, then longer. It should have started by now. He would have panicked, but for the echo of another heart farther away. Aislyn’s heart. It was reminding his of what to do, despite the drugs that should have stopped it. He knew he should call out, but couldn’t make his mouth work. The people around him dismissed him as just another drunk out when he shouldn’t be. Some of the older folks hid him from the kids, and also from the view of the help in the sedan. He knew the dose of whatever was coursing through his system was too high, that if it hadn’t been for his link to Aislyn he would have been dead already. A tender hand helped him fall into the back seat of the darkened jeep, and he watched the plainclothesmen pass by. He was scared. Not that he would die, but that he wouldn’t get the chance to fight back. That it would be that simple to take him out. He was used to the things he hunted not playing dirty. He watched as his captor got behind the wheel of the Cherokee and cursed himself. Now he really felt stupid. Big bad huntsman that he was and this little bit of a thing had taken him out without even a fight. Sleep. He just needed a little sleep and he could figure this out. The jeep started up and moved into traffic.

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Chapter Fifteen: Aislyn I was in the van with Rodriguez, heading to LoDo when I felt a sharp pain in my side. I flinched. Rodriguez had been explaining how I was supposed to put this little microphone and transceiver into my person somewhere and looked up at me. In the darkened interior of the van, he raised an eyebrow. I shouldn’t have been able to see it, but I did. I shook my head, not sure how to answer him. I waved for him to continue with his lecture and he began pointing out some of the limitations of the bug I was going to wear. “It only has a five-hundred-foot radius, so we need to be close when he grabs you. You should be trying to get him to talk as much as possible. The profile suggests he likes to feel in control of his victims, so let him feel as if he calls all the shots. He’ll feel more like talking that way. Ask him why he chose you, any details of what he’s going to do to you, anything like that. We’ll have ears but if you go somewhere we can’t follow, you’ll have to give us some time to get to you. If you can’t see us and need backup for whatever reason, just ask for Phil. Then we’ll know to come and get you.” He started to fiddle with the bug, making as if to pin it to my shirt. I took it and the ready piece of tape from him so he wouldn’t feel my lack of bra, and stuck the bug firmly to the skin between my breasts under the cover of Jackson’s T-shirt. It still had his scent lingering to it and my cat whined. I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball and lick my wounds myself, so doing something proactive like this was exactly the right sort of distraction. “‘Phil’?” He turned his head from me and motioned for the other cops to pull into a parking garage while we talked. “My first name is Felipe. In English it’s…” “Philip. Nice.” He turned to me and I realized abruptly that he was shy. How a man this beautiful could ever be shy around women was beyond me, but he was. I smiled at 66

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him and he ducked his head. The cop driving glanced back in the rearview mirror and winked at me. I better be careful what I said or I was going to get dear Detective Rodriguez into trouble. I had a sudden shooting sensation of panic, arching my back, sucking in breath and reaching out to grasp wildly. My heart echoed too loudly in my ears and I felt the strain as it pumped blood for two, then a second heartbeat began echoing and my body relaxed enough for me to draw a breath. Rodriguez’s arms were naturally under my hands. “If you don’t feel comfortable with this…” “Jackson,” I breathed. My throat constricted in fear and the knowledge that I couldn’t fight back. Help couldn’t see me. I was alone and I was powerless. I couldn’t fight. The frustration in that thought brought a hiss from my mouth. “Sanderson, get Dicks and Chase on the horn,” Rodriguez snapped, while hanging onto my forearms, even though my grip had to be bruising him. The cat in me yowled and I struggled not to echo it out loud. Jackson was in trouble. I needed to get him. He was mine, not the way Tammy had been mine or the way Rodriguez could be, but he was still mine and I needed to protect him. Just as the other officers were about to pick up the radio, it sparkled to life. “Boss, we lost the guy. One minute he was walking right in front of us on the sidewalk and the next he was just gone. Should we look for him?” Chase and Dicks would not make a higher grade. Rodriguez cursed soundly in Spanish. I relaxed my back one vertebra at a time as he uttered each word. I hadn’t done it before, so I was afraid how much I could control it, and I certainly didn’t want to do it full on with the cops in the car, but I let the cat out of her forest, just a little. “What do I do now?” I asked her. “Trail him,” came the unmistakable answer. I needed to follow the trail that Jackson was laying. I could still feel him, his fear and panic at not being able to move. In my mind’s eye, I could see it. Wolves might have scent nailed down, but cats have the market cornered on sight. I could follow the trail in my mind. I knew it. The fact that the

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Ghost Cat had kept him awake was something in and of itself. Ghost Cat wanted to be found and wanted me to find them. I tensed up again, this time in anticipation of the hunt. First things first, I had to ditch Rodriguez and company. They were babbling about what had happened, possibilities and who was to blame. Rodriguez never took his eyes off me. “Ghost Cat has him, doesn’t he?” Rodriguez’s tone was mournful. He snapped an order to the driver. “Back to the station. We’ll wait for him to contact us there. Dicks and Chase stay where they are in case Jackson gets away.” He turned back to me, and I realized his arms were still under my hands. “He’ll be all right. Ghost Cat doesn’t want men.” Neither one of us believed it. As we pulled into the station, I noticed Jackson’s red pickup in the parking lot. It would have everything I would need and I smiled at the first real piece of good luck I’d had all week. I followed everyone into the station, and then asked to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t the most original idea, but there was a reason it worked so well in the movies. Rodriguez had gone ahead to review his information, set up APB’s and the like. That left Winker and me at the ladies’ room. He was a gentleman insofar as he stayed outside to guard me, but that was all. It was a standard public restroom, eight stalls along one wall and four sinks on the other with two mirrors and a tampon dispenser in-between. Obviously it had been designed by a man. Then again, it was a cop shop. I looked for a window and realized that I couldn’t find one. At least that explained why Rodriguez had felt safe letting me go potty. Oh well, on to plan B. I opened the door a crack, listening close. Winker was walking up and down the hallway, waiting. He was a pacer. Perfect. The hallway was narrow and unoccupied. I looked up quick and couldn’t see any telltale dark bubbles for the security cameras. One of the bulbs had burnt out, dimming the hallway. Finally something was going right. I waited until I heard Winker all the way up at the opposite end of the hallway and snuck

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out, up behind him and hooked him around the neck. Thirteen seconds later he’d sunk to the floor and no one had come out of either bathroom. I was freaking blessed. I ran out to the lobby area and started yelling that Winker had fainted. Within minutes, every cop there had run down the hallway to see. That late at night there weren’t any civilian employees left around to see me duck out the front in all the confusion either. I kept in the shadows until I reached Jackson’s old truck. I know that it would have been cool to just strip a couple of wires and hightail it out of there, but I didn’t have the time to figure it out. I put it on my list of things to learn for next time, if there was a next time. I yanked the door open and rummaged around until I found a set of keys that I somehow knew would be there. I pulled out of the station before anyone thought to check where I was.

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Chapter Sixteen: Ghost Cat The bait was docile in the back as County Line Road wound along in front of the jeep. It wasn’t long until the ranch would be coming up. It was a nice, isolated spot that would avail itself to the trap being set. It would take a few hours for the whole set up to be constructed, the obstacles set and the bait properly placed. Then this Ghost Cat had to wait for the call to be placed and the police to be distracted. But the false cat would know which trail to follow. The false cat would come willingly into the trap and become the prey. Everyone would be satisfied, even the whispers. The turn off the road came up too quickly. Passing through the gates was exciting now. This had been a haven and opening it up, hunting on sheltered land, was going to be both thrilling and dangerous. It would necessitate leaving and that would be sad. This place had served a higher purpose. This place had made the hunter more effective, more seductive, and more confident. It had gone from being a place to dread to a holy place. The barn ahead had long ago been converted to a sort of warehouse used for the rehabilitation of horses. There were plenty of uses the empty pool could be put to, but the hunter had something specific designed for this occasion. The bait was placed deep within, and then surrounded with extra discouragements. Fencing originally used for guiding livestock in certain directions was deliberately placed on the outskirts of the way in. Concrete areas were liberally scattered with crisp dried hay, then a line of gasoline was added. After a few hours, all was complete. The collection of trophies was within the house proper, and it must be visited. Traveling through the main doors, up the stairs to the attic, the Ghost Cat made a final pilgrimage. Here was a feast for the senses. Hair from the first prey ever taken, braided and lovingly laid aside. Blood-splattered crucifixes from the second and third prey. Relatives, if memory served correctly. Teeth from the fourth and fifth. Then there was a scattering of limbs in jars. A finger here, a toe there, all proof of 70

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skills gained and honed. Finally, the pictures led to the practice kills for the cat. A dried mouthful of each of the five women lay under a picture of the cat, offered in homage. Each killing had increased the skills the predator’s claws used, represented the worthiness that had been tested. One braided corn row from the bar owner laid on the altar as the offering it had been. Soon the final test would come. The ultimate hunt would begin, and true worth would be established. The cat would unequivocally establish that here stood the greatest hunter. Here stood one who was worthy of the rewards and promises made. Here stood one of great significance and the world would weep when it discovered how that significance had been treated. And it would tremble in terror, beg forgiveness and be punished. Preparations had to be completed. Leaving the shrine, though heartbreaking, was necessary. Retreating to the second floor, the proper incense was lit. To treat this as anything less than a grand ceremony would diminish everyone involved. Herbs were burned and the smoke inhaled and washed over spirit to cleanse it of impurities. A bath was drawn and proper ingredients added to cleanse the body. A candle was lit inside of the chalk circle in the empty bedroom and was knelt in front of so the mind could be cleared of contamination. When all was judged ready, the armoring of the wild hunter began. First black leather gloves glided over hands, the fingers cut out. Then soft cloth-covered legs. Inside pockets was placed the appropriate symbols. A rotted tooth, a bit of fossilized wood, a funeral tear, a bit of corpse wax, all placed in a circle around the waist. A light dagger was tied around the right leg. The shameful addition was given to the left. Chain mail half-vest covered the chest and stomach. And brass claws were drawn over the hands at last, to protrude from the knuckles past the fingertips. Black leather covered all down to the ankles, which had been encased in hard black boots up to the calves. A final look in the mirror would have revealed nothing but a Goth clubber to the untrained eye, but a killer now stood before the silver and glass.

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Once all preparations had been made, the words chanted, the proper petitions sent, the way was made to the bait. A careful threading through the obstacles, dormant for now, was made. In the pool the bait lay on a roughly constructed stage. A living altar, as it were, chained and gagged and ready for sacrifice. Kneeling over the bait, watching as the eyes widen at the hunter’s Changed appearance was enjoyable. Waiting for the prey was not. At the appointed hour, the police would be called; the plan would be set in motion. All would be successful if properly followed. It was with great dismay, therefore, that the sound of a truck coming up the drive was heard. The prey was, unfortunately, early.

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Chapter Seventeen: Aislyn The trail was almost glowing in front of me. By the time I’d gotten out of the city, I’d lost most of the busier street traffic. I’m sure there was some sort of APB out on me, and I probably should have been on the lookout for state police, especially once I reached I-25, but I had to trust that whatever luck had gotten me out of the police station without being seen was going to keep riding me. On the highway, I gave over most of my thinking to the cat. She…I saw things I couldn’t have seen otherwise. I whipped in and out of traffic, avoided collisions that human reflexes couldn’t have. And the trail in front of me superimposed itself onto the road. I could see the line that connected Jackson and me like a thin thread, leading the way as I came along behind and gathered it up into myself. I growled in frustration as the Mouse Trap loomed before me. The trail left off the County Line Road exit. I pulled back from the cat enough to begin feeling around the truck. A catch, imperceptible to human touch unless you knew it was there, lifted the passenger seat to reveal a small cache of weapons. Silver throwing daggers gleamed in the passing street lamp’s glow, as well as a small 9mm with shimmering ammo clip. I loaded the gun and tucked it into my back waistband. A couple of the knives went, sheathed, into a few belt loops up front. There were vials of some liquid and instinct told me to tuck those into my pockets as well, so I did. I closed the seat up and put both hands on the wheel, watching the traffic peter out and the trail become more solid. I was getting closer. Ghost Cat was close. I slowed down as the dawn light started to confuse my eyes. I shifted back to mostly human, the better to see with at this point of the day. The trail pulled into a ranch up the road. The sign overhead announced the Lay-Z Ranch in dilapidated lettering. The fence was broken and the place looked like it had run aground years ago. A For Sale sign hung just off the side. I pulled up the long driveway to the two buildings left standing, an old www.samhainpublishing.com

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farm house and a two-story high storehouse of some kind. I parked the truck a ways back, trying to hide the fact that I was alone and got out. The trail led to the storehouse. There was no chance that I hadn’t been heard coming up the drive, but I walked silently towards the propped-open doors and the darkness inside. I must have been within fifteen yards when a single shot rang out and the fire started. It lit up the open doors like a Christmas tree; the smoke and light effectively blocked what was behind it from view. The cat shied away but I grabbed hold and got as close to the way in and heat as I could stand. Gathering my legs underneath me, I jumped, cleared the fire, and had a split second to cough through the smoke before crashing painfully into rodeo fencing. Shit. So much for making a silent entrance. I fought free of the metal to clear ground and turned to face the center of the building. My ankle hurt like hell and I was pretty sure I’d cracked a rib or two. I shook off the pain and concentrated. There was a pool. The trail, wide and easy to spot even to my human eyes, led directly to it. And directly past about twenty rabid-looking dogs. They were the size and shape of Doberman Pinchers, but something about them was off. The way they circled around me, the way they waited to gather and cut off all means of escape except back into the fire, didn’t seem right. Normal dogs would have barked at the fire, would have been trying to find their way out, even if they were sick. Selfpreservation demanded it and was the most undeniable instinct. A dog snapped to my right, forcing me back onto the unstable fencing footing. I blinked a few times to bring up my cat eyes and that’s when I saw it. The same sort of vision that let me see trail clearly also let me see what was wrong with the dogs. Or at least what was inside of them. Red-eyed clouds seemed to form each animal, pulling and pushing this way and that, fighting the natural instincts to flee the fire and instead hound me in. I looked over them, towards the pool, wondering how much time I had. Even if I hadn’t lost the gun in the fence fall, I didn’t have enough ammo in one clip to take all the dogs, and with my ankle I doubted I could jump all the way to the pool, cat or no cat. Changing wouldn’t help either. A cougar can take a dog, hands down, but not a pack. I fingered the throwing knives at my waist and saw the spirits hiss, making the dogs

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growl. I took one out and hit one animal in the eye. The animal’s body turned to ash instantly and the devil cloud over it seemed to steam, twist and scream until it evaporated. Interesting. My cat tickled the back of my head in pleasure. The other dogs closed in now, but I was almost to the fire. The spirits were having a hard time fighting the form’s instinct to run from this much danger. I could smell my hair, pulled back in a rough pony tail, begin to smoke and singe, just a bit. I crouched down, into the flames and searched the wreckage of the fence I had landed in. There, about six feet to my left and near one of the more excitable dogs, lay my gun. I threw three out of four of my remaining knives quickly, to the right of me. The demon dogs disintegrated and the others howled. A six-foot jump I knew I could make, even with a bum ankle, but it still hurt like hell. I hit the fencing, grabbed the gun and rolled under the dog, stabbing it through what would have been the heart with my last knife as I twisted up onto my knee. I didn’t wait for the thing to die; I just started shooting over the perverted death throes of the animal. I rapid-fire shot those closest to me before the spirits changed their direction and faced me. I now had seven more creatures to face and exactly four bullets. Hopping away on my uninjured foot towards the pool seemed to excite them, so I gingerly planted both feet in a shooter’s stance. “A gun and knives. How disappointing. I had expected a better showing from you, Shapeshifter.” A voice floated up from the pool. “Eat me.” The dogs were advancing and I had no energy to spare for the Ghost Cat or witty repartee. I sucked up a deep, smoke-filled breath and squeezed the trigger. Cat reflexes aside, it was hard to miss this close and the devil clouds were more about numbers than strategy. The bullets didn’t kill them like the knives did so as the animals died, the spirits were let go like malicious balloons to hover close to the ceiling with the smoke. They didn’t seem to be able to influence the others, though so I counted my blessings. At least I would have if the remaining dogs hadn’t all jumped me just then. I went down with three beasts all trying to get at my throat. I didn’t even feel my hands Change. Suddenly I had paws that ripped yelps from the demon puppy whose teeth

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were sunk into my right shoulder. It wasn’t dead, but with its leg that injured it wasn’t going to be joining in the fight that quickly. I dug into the dog leaping for my throat and tossed it over the fire into the yard beyond. I heard a satisfying howl and could concentrate at the beast with its fangs sunk deep into my left arm. It was yanking, trying to pull me off balance and buy some time by shaking me like a rag doll. I Changed my free hand back and pulled a vial out of my pocket, smashing it down on the dog’s snout. Steam hissed and fizzed from the dog’s eyes where the liquid had splashed and the devil cloud was released. With it went the dog’s summoned form. I made a mental note to ask Jackson where he got this stuff from. I turned my attention to the pool at last and heard clapping. That pissed me off. “Glad you enjoyed the show.” I cocked my head. I could hear sirens, too far off to reach human ears. They abruptly cut out. I wondered if they were within 500 feet yet. “So, you going to do the decent villainous thing and monologue or something while I check out how wounded I am? Tell me all about how you plan to kill me and my friend? How about the girls? Wanna tell me about them? Or Tammy?” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice when I said her name, and the specter chuckled. I raised my arm to see how bad the bleeding was and watched as the wounds closed up right before my eyes. My ankle didn’t seem to bother me much either and I could almost take a whole deep breath of the clearing air without the sharp pain of bones jutting into lungs. This cat thing was developing a few benefits. She swished her tail in an I-told-you-so motion in my head and I smiled. “Your offering of your friend was appropriate.” The voice echoed. I could finally concentrate on it and was surprised to find that it belonged to a woman. Reaching the lip of the pool, I gazed down past a floor littered with broken glass, metal piping, jagged car frames and other objects with shining, deadly points. In the center was a wooden stage, where Jackson lay under the woman’s hands. With my vision, I saw a shadow shimmer around her and knew how such a tiny woman had managed savage feats of strength that a grown man would have trouble with.

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Her demon seemed to not be controlling her, but just beside, whispering in her ear, then weaving in and out of her body, giving strength to just the right parts at just the right time. It was with a start that I recognized her. The reporter, Susan Lucas, stood draped in front me and it all clicked into place. The newspaper articles with the most details had come from her. They would have earned her an on-air correspondent position. And she could control how much information was leaked out, what details she’d give the press. She was her own best source, after all. She’d even chosen her own handle, Ghost Cat. And she had her brass claws lightly pressed against Jackson’s throat. I slipped my human form and shook out of the clothes. They fell away to be torn to shreds on the points below. I didn’t care much now. Lucas threw back her head and laughed with glee. I’d just given her what she wanted. She started talking again, but I was too far gone to hear. I leapt in the middle of her confession, silent. She brought up a knife in her hand from under her cloak and I twisted in mid-air to land on the lee side of her, putting Jackson’s inert form between us. The dagger flashed, not towards me but down into Jackson’s chest and a very human scream escaped my mouth. I slashed at her with my paws, about to leap at her throat. The demon shimmered in delight, egging me on. “Aislyn!” A few shots were fired. Susan Lucas’s body slumped in front of me, a gun raised right to my forehead, the demon urging her to pull the trigger. Her eyes gleamed with the joy of the insane and her lips moved in whispered benediction even as she was dying. I shoved my head into her and she fell backwards, off the platform, onto the waiting jagged metal ring she’d set up for me. The demon-shadow disengaged itself from the twitching corpse and glided towards Jackson. I Changed again, even though my reserves were wearing thin at this point. I pulled Jackson onto my lap and yanked out the knife. Tears were dripping, mixing with the ever-growing pool of blood. I thought about the way my arm had healed, tried to clear my head. Panic swelled. Whatever made me different, a monster, a killer, a hunter, I poured through that link between us.

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“Please, Jackson, please.” But he didn’t move. A shimmering caught my eye. The demon started to worm its way towards Jackson, arrowing into his wound and he cried out. The demon was trying to gain control of Jackson and through him, me. His back arched, his feet pedaling. I screamed again and felt something outside of me. Felt a tug and looked around. There was a trickle of light, sluggish and clogged, that the demon had leached onto. It was poisoning it, and then using the polluted flow to feed. I reached behind the demon. Light flowed towards me, a little at first, then faster, finally gushing like the river it was supposed to be, pure and cleansing. The demon let one unearthly screech out and fled. My vision flickered and the river disappeared from view. I didn’t understand it in the least. I looked down at Jackson in my lap. His chest was bleeding, but the wound was much shallower, not reaching the bone beneath at all. My own blood dripped onto his closed eyes and I saw all my recent wounds had opened up again. I was weak and alone. The cat was silent in my head. But I could still feel her, curled up to recover. I looked up to the lip of the pool and found Rodriguez looking down at me. A couple of men raced up behind him, guns drawn, ready for anything, searching the room. They looked down at the tableau in the pool and brought themselves up short. I looked in Rodriguez’s eyes and didn’t see the revulsion I had seen in Jackson’s. Only shock, wonder and around the corners of his eyes, fear. In its own way, that was as bad. But fear I could live with right this moment. The cat stirred enough to utter one command. Sleep. And the world went away.

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Chapter Eighteen: Aislyn I woke up days later, in the hospital. The cat was still quiet in the back of my mind, which must have explained why I was healing so slowly. They had taken blood samples and determined that there was an “unidentifiable element” in the sample, taken more and realized it was just my blood. I was under observation until they figured it out or I got restless. I was content for the time being to watch TV and read the papers. The press had been shocked and dismayed to find that one of its own had been behind not just those five murders, but several more. Rodriguez got the collar, even though the trail and the tracker he’d planted on my shirt sleeve had led him outside of his jurisdiction to Douglas County and the sheriff department there. I wasn’t sure if it was the fact that Rodriguez fought for it, or that the other department didn’t want to be responsible to clean up all the mess. It seemed everyone was anxious to avoid mention of two civilians being connected in any way with the word “bait” in the press or official reports, so few knew that Jackson or I had been involved. It all sort of felt anti-climatic to me. Susan’s shrine was much more interesting to report. The press was absolutely in love with all the gore. And with Rodriguez. Seemed I wasn’t the only one who thought he looked good on camera. He was in high demand as the hero of the hour. On one local talk show, Rodriguez was able to make a few vague allusions as to how he put things together. How Lucas hadn’t emulated a true Ghost Cat’s style at all and that led him to wonder about her news sources and how the pattern of her introducing a fact and everyone else repeating it emerged. How he’d tracked down any outlying property (since they weren’t having any luck staking out her home or office) belonging to her or her family had led to the farm. The rest of the story he kept for me, when he came to visit. “The farm had gone bankrupt several years before due to mounting medical costs for therapists’ bills. Susan hadn’t been a happy child.” He walked over to the window and www.samhainpublishing.com

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looked down at what little view there was. My neighbors (all elderly women) had decided I needed to be alone with my “fella”, then giggled and left, so it was just the two of us. Let me tell ya how sexy a Johnny shirt makes a girl feel when you’re looking at a hot guy—insert eye roll here. I watched him for a few minutes more before I noticed the tensed shoulders and the knots on the neck. He looked at me in the reflection of the window and I patted the bed next to me, smiling in what I thought was an inviting way. He turned, crossing his arms in front of him, putting as much between us as he could. “When her family lost the farm, she kind of just lost it.” It took me a minute to remember he was talking about Susan Lucas. I wondered when and how the demon came into the picture, but there wasn’t exactly a good person around to ask that. He leveled a look that would normally have me puddling if I didn’t feel so ridiculously underclothed. “What are you?” I sighed and lowered my gaze. Here it was, the question from him I’d been dreading. I made weird hand gestures for a minute or two while I organized my thoughts. “Jackson calls me a Shifter. I guess that’s what I am. I’m kinda new at it though.” I tried to make it a joke but the air was too tight, so I took a chance. “I’m a freak,” I admitted, even to myself. “I used to work in a warehouse, schlepping freight around in a forklift for twelve hours a day, then working at my foster father’s gas bar on my days off and weekends. No money, no prospects, no life. Then I met this really cool guy—” My throat closed up for a second at the thought of my ex-boyfriend. I started again. “I met this really cool guy and we started to date, so I thought my life was getting better, until he wound up ‘disappeared’. After that, his little sister shows up with a light show, some mumbo-jumbo, and bam, I get furry once a week. Not exactly something that you can explain to anyone or go to the clinic to get fixed. I wigged out and took off, where I wound up in Denver. You pretty much know the rest of the story from there. Me in a nutshell.” “Or nut house,” Rodriguez muttered. He returned to contemplating the window, then whirled around. “You know I covered for you.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but just tossed up his hands. I pulled my knees up to my chest and put my chin on them,

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patting the bed again. He rubbed his eyes, then came over and sat at the edge, as far from me as he could get. “Thank you.” My voice sounded tiny, even to my ears. Rodriguez moved so he was beside me and pulled me against his chest. I wrapped my arms around him, giving as much comfort as I was getting, I hoped. Eventually he kicked off his shoes, pulled the blanket over the two of us and stretched out beside me. I curled into him and we lay there until the sun went down. When I woke up again, Rodriguez was gone but had sent me flowers with a note. It just said three words: When you’re better. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but I wanted to find out. He’d seen me Change and he was still here. That was something, I guess. Jackson wheeled himself down to see me a couple of times. Rather the nurses wheeled him down to see me. Seemed he was getting quite a few sponge baths afterwards too. Seems the drugs Susan had given him had done some damage and the knife wound was taking some time to heal. He was going to have another scar across his heart. He didn’t like that. The nurses didn’t seem to mind as long as it kept him around a little longer. I didn’t care. It did bother me that he was hiding something from me. With all the people around, he kept refusing to explain how he knew so much about Shifters. He reserved the right to tell me later. I was too tired to argue much, right then at least. We didn’t know what the link meant between us but we were grateful that it was there, this time. Dealing with Laura seemed a long way off. He still wanted the binding disappeared, but I wasn’t sure it could now. He wouldn’t Change like me, but he wouldn’t be normal again either. I’d mixed us a little too much trying to save his life. There were two things I knew. One, that Jackson and Rodriguez had become mine. Jackson because Laura had forced him to connect to me, Rodriguez because he’d gone against his own rules and lied for me, choosing me over his brothers in blue. The second was that this was my territory, I was done running. It just seemed right somehow, like that river had done something to me too. A lot of things were up in the air right now, a lot

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of things were unexplained and most things were really weird. But two things I would die defending from here until doomsday would be my friends and my territory. As for being a Shifter, well, the cat and I had an understanding however temporary. For now things were even. Even for me, at least.

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About the Author An adventurer by accident, Taryn Blackthorne often wonders how she winds up in her current situations. “I gave up seeing things as problems, now they are just learning opportunities,” she says. Her opportunities have included moving to the US just before 9/11, being in Colorado for the worst forest fire season, and living on a First Nations reserve in Northern Canada during one of the coldest winters on record. Her current adventure has her teaching in northern Manitoba. You can read about her daily “mis”adventures by visiting her blog at www.tarynblackthorne.com.

Is Emma ready for a bite?

The Wallflower © 2008 Dana Marie Bell A Hunting Love story Halle Puma Series Book 1 Emma Carter has been in love with Max Cannon since high school, but he barely knew she existed. Now she runs her own unique curio shop, and she’s finally come out her shell and into her own. When Max returns to his small home town to take up his duties as the Halle Pride’s Alpha, he finds that shy little Emma has grown up. That small spark of something he’d always felt around the teenager has blossomed into something more—his mate! Taking her “out for a bite” ensures that the luscious Emma will be permanently his. But Max’s ex has plans of her own. Plans that don’t include Emma being around to interfere. To keep her Alpha, Emma must prove to the Pride that she has what it takes to be Max’s mate. Warning: This title contains explicit sex, graphic language, loads of giggles and a hot, blond Alpha male.

Enjoy the following excerpt for The Wallflower: Emma realized Max had stopped moving. Looking up at him, she found him staring down at her with a quizzical look. “Well?” Emma blushed. She’d been rubbernecking in Max’s house, trying to take in everything at once. “It’s incredible.” He smiled with satisfaction. “If there’s anything you want to change, you’ll have to let me know.” Gently he placed her on the quilt. “This is now as much your house as mine.” Emma’s mouth fell open as he toed off his shoes and socks. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Max began unbuttoning his shirt, diverting her attention from his whole “Mi casa es su casa” attitude. “I was in Simon’s shop when you called about the Madonna, you know.” “Oh. Really?” she replied absently. She could barely speak as Max unveiled the finest chest it had ever been her privilege to see. It was lightly sprinkled with light brown hairs, trailing down his stomach to point directly into his pants. Dark brown nipples peeped out from the hair, tempting her into some very sinful thoughts. “Yes, I was. And you know what?” Emma didn’t know her own name; Max was unbuttoning his jeans. “Um, nope.” “You live up to your voice,” Max purred as he slipped his jeans down his legs. “Urgh,” Emma choked, “naked.” She could feel her eyes bugging out of her head. Max went commando. A sinful buffet of man-flesh was laid out before her in one single sweep of his hands. She didn’t know whether to sigh or to sob. “Yes, I am.” Max laughed huskily. “Now it’s your turn.” Emma bit her lip, a sudden attack of shyness nearly paralyzing her. Max didn’t know it yet, but he’d be her first, and from the look on his face she’d better tell him soon. “Max?” Emma sat there, her hands clenched in her lap, her gaze riveted to his cock. The thing looked huge, all veined and red, and pointed straight at her. A small drop of liquid seeped from the slit. It twitched a salute to her rapt attention. “Yes, Emma?” Her gaze lifted to his; unknown to her, they’d turned pure, molten gold. “You remember the talk of other men?” He growled low in his throat and crawled onto the bed. “Eep,” she whispered, lying down as he prowled up her body. “You were saying?” he whispered huskily as he settled his naked body between her thighs. He brushed against her cheek with his lips, a caress so soft she barely felt it. It sent a shiver down her spine. Those same lips continued their incredible journey, trailing down the side of her neck to settle on the bite he’d given her outside the restaurant. Goose bumps raced up and down her arms as he moved his hips in a sinuous motion, brushing his naked cock against her mound.

“Um, there weren’t,” she squeaked, unconsciously arching up into his body as he scrapped his teeth along his mark. “Weren’t what?” he muttered, one hand moving up to start sliding her camisole up her stomach. He paused long enough to caress her there, trailing fire in his wake. “Any other men.” His hand stopped. His mouth stopped. His hips stopped. She was really sad when his hips stopped. “You’re a virgin?” His voice sounded oddly strangled. “It’s not a crime to be one, you know. I’m not the Oldest Living Virgin, or anything. It’s not like I’m in the Guinness Book of World Records,” she babbled. “Besides, I’ve done other things…oh!” His hands had started moving again, with a swiftness that startled her. Her camisole was toast as he ripped it literally from her body, his claws barely scrapping her skin, sending shivers of need once again down her spine. Claws? Emma had barely registered the fact that Max had used his claws to ruin her favorite shirt when he started working on her jeans. “No! Bad kitty!” She slapped him on the top of his head, determined to save at least some of her wardrobe. He lifted his head, his eyes golden and burning, a rumbling sound emanating from his throat as he pinned her hands above her head. Emma thought about struggling, but something about the way he looked had her lying passively. “You’re a virgin.” Emma blinked, unsure how to respond. “Duh.” Max stared down at her, his eyes narrowing as he studied her features as if seeing her for the very first time. “No man has ever touched you.” She thought about telling him about the make-out sessions her one and only boyfriend had talked her into, the oral sex they’d indulged in a few times, but decided that discretion was the better part of valor. Jimmy was a nice guy, and deserved to live. “Again. Duh.” “No man will ever touch you again.”

Emma studied granite-like features above her. “Even you?” The growl deepened. She sighed, inexplicably happy to hear that sound. “Okay.” She rolled her eyes. “Duh.” She grinned. “By the way, Lion-O, that was my favorite shirt.” He looked down. “Damn, Emma.” “What?” She looked down, expecting to see something odd, like very dried alfredo sauce decorating one boob or something. Instead she saw the pale pink lace bra she’d put on that morning, the one that was completely see-through. It helped give her confidence to feel the sexy lingerie against her skin, so much so she’d replaced all of her old undies with the lacy stuff. From the look, and feel, of things, Max definitely approved. Max switched her wrists into one hand. The other trailed down her body to her jeans, undoing the snap and zipper with ease. “Lift your ass, Emma,” he commanded. She obeyed without thinking, shifting so he could ease her jeans down her legs. He hissed out a breath at the sight of the pale pink lace panties that matched the bra. Underneath, she was hairless. “A full Brazilian,” he sighed. “Uh-huh.” He moved his hand and began petting her over her panties, cupping her intimately. “Mine,” he sighed. His golden eyes bored into hers, a silent command in them. “Keep your hands where they are.” “Why?” Emma complied as Max moved his hand slowly from her wrists, trailing down her arm to the side of her breast. “Because I’m not ready for you to touch me yet. I want this first time to be yours.” “I’d rather it was ours.” She gasped as his hand gently embraced her breast. His thumb strummed gently over her nipple, causing it to peak under the pink bra. “Trust me, Curana. The pleasure will be ours.” Slowly, oh so slowly, Max lowered his head. His tongue snaked out and licked over her nipple through the lace, watching her reactions as she gasped softly. “I’m going to get you naked now, Emma.” He lifted his head from her breast. “Leave your hands where they are. Remember, Emma.” Max gently pulled the cups of her bra down, resting her breasts on the lowered cups until they looked like an offering laid out on pink lace. He bent and suckled one nipple

into his mouth, stroking it with his tongue until she writhed against him, panting and moaning in need. He switched to the other nipple, suckling and nipping with such force it was nearly painful. Emma panted, damn near coming from the sensation. He pulled away from her. “Uh-uh, little Emma,” he purred. “No coming unless I’m in you, remember?” She groaned as he moved down her body. His hands went to her lacy panties, thumbs hooking under the band. With slow deliberation he pulled them from her body, slowly exposing her to his hot gaze. “You were right, Emma, to stop me before.” He looked up with a grin that made her moan. “I’d forgotten how much fun it is to play with my food.” And with that, Max began a sensuous torture that had her writhing with need.

Can love tame a jaguar god?

Treasure Hunting © 2008 Jenna McDonald A Hunting Love story. A good tromp through the jungle fending off giant bugs and hunting for long-lost ruins in South America is exactly Meg’s idea of a great vacation. She takes the sudden appearance of a wounded jaguar in stride, thinking it’ll make an interesting story. But when she wakes up to find a man in place of a cat, she wonders who’s going to believe it! Santiago has learned the hard way that he and human women just don’t mix. When you can change into an animal at will, it tends to upset people. But despite his best intentions, he finds himself falling hard for the little blonde who saved his life. It’ll take a leap of faith-and of love. Or this treasure will slip through his fingers. Warning: This work contains graphic m/f sex, bad language, and terrible humor.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Treasure Hunting: “How far is your camp?” Meg rubbed the back of her skull against the headrest, itching at the sweat trickling across her scalp. Santiago’s eyes were closed, but she knew he wasn’t resting. His muscles were tense, beads of sweat standing out against his chest, along his temples, making his black hair damp. She dragged her eyes back to the road, scolding herself half-heartedly that this really wasn’t the time to ogle him. But lordy, he had a nice chest. Simply not looking didn’t mean she couldn’t remember it; all angles and planes, hard muscles and very little hair—just enough to emphasize shadows on golden skin. She thought of his purr, and nearly purred herself. She sighed. The weight of a gaze pulled her eyes back around, and she saw Santiago peering at her sidelong, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth as if he knew exactly what thoughts ran through her mind. Clearing her throat, she shifted in her seat, suddenly warm. Okay, she’d been warm before, but now she was downright toasty. “Um. Your camp?”

“It’ll be a while.” His voice was like rough velvet stroking down her flesh. “A few days.” “Oh.” Well, that was unexpected. Damn. “Maybe we should have lunch,” she suggested, and snuck another look at him. He’d grown quieter as the day crept on, lines of pain slowly etching into strong features. “Yes,” he rumbled. “That might be good.” The nice thing about the jungle, despite bugs the size of small airplanes and heat like a volcano, was that you didn’t have to look for parking when you decided you were ready to stop. Meg stopped, stomped on the emergency break, and declared them parked. “Do you need help?” She glanced over at the man beside her. Lips pursed, eyes staring straight ahead, he nodded once. Concern threaded through her. In her experience, men didn’t admit to needing any kind of help. He must have been hurting. “Hang on.” Unpeeling herself from the vinyl, she slid out of the car. He hadn’t moved by the time she got around to the other side, and she spent a moment wondering if he expected her to lift him out. Things could get awkward in that case. She supposed she’d at least cushion his landing… Squashed under a hunka hunka burnin’ love. There were worse ways to go. Then he twisted carefully, a warm hand settling on her shoulder for balance as he climbed from the Jeep. She didn’t move, trying to be as rock-steady as he might need. When his feet landed on the ground and he was no longer swaying, she came eye-topectoral with an utterly perfect torso. Sweat inched down the crease between his muscles, sped over the ridge above his abs, and slid helter-skelter down the center of a six-pack. Maybe even a twelve pack. It hit a snag in his belly button, worked its way out, and dropped past a flat abdomen before soaking into the blanket, which sagged low on his hips. Meg swallowed. Nope, she still felt utterly incapable of thought. She licked her lips. It didn’t help.

She even cleared her throat. She could still taste what she imagined he’d be like. Oh, God. She could smell him, all male and musk and something a little wild. “Ready?” he asked. She closed her eyes to break the spell. That worked. A little, anyway. Taking a deep breath she opened her eyes and met his gaze, her gut clenching in expectation. Her last boyfriend had hated it when she’d stared like that. Then she looked up—way, way up— into Santiago’s face. Full lips curved, black eyes warm, the sharp planes of his face softened by amusement. Meg grinned and relaxed. “How’s it feel to be a sex god?” she asked before she realized what was in her head. She blanched, then heard her words and knew someone was looking out for her. She’d spoken in English. He lifted a single black eyebrow questioningly. “Never mind,” she said in Spanish, feeling a blush creep up her neck. “Lunch?” This time, she managed to stop any more sexual remarks before they left her mouth.

He could smell her, sweat and jungle and that indefinable female smell. Even worse, the very definable smell of lust. His shoulder hurt, and he somehow doubted he could do anything about the lust-smell, and yet it hovered in the damp air between them like some sort of drug. On the other hand, at least he knew she was attracted, too. Santiago sat, uninjured shoulder braced against a tree trunk, and watched her move from the Jeep to the spot they’d chosen. Her clothes brushed against her like a lover’s hands, hiding and revealing with every step. He shifted his legs and tried to think about something less sexual. Trees. Trees were completely and totally nonsexual. He’d had sex in a tree, once. He cursed under his breath and finally moved, rubbing his injury against bark. That got his mind off the woman.

“You okay?” she asked in Spanish, frowning as she dropped a duffel bag of food on the jungle floor. “You look pale. Let me see your bandage.” “It’s fine.” His words were quick; he was half afraid that if she touched him it’d be more than he could stand. He knew she’d have soft skin, the hands of someone who spent most of their time indoors. Gentle fingers would glide over his shoulder and back, stroking down his spine as if he wouldn’t notice— Damn it. She hadn’t even touched him and he’d lost the battle. Santiago shifted his legs, and the blanket with them, into a slightly more concealing pose. “Don’t be dumb,” Meg said, apparently unaware of his dilemma. “Let me see.” She’d already kneeled behind him, wedging herself between the tree and his skin, one leg tucked up against his ribs. He imagined her flesh beneath her clothes, soft and pale, muscles defined but not bulging. Delicate hands swept his hair out of the way, then skimmed down his shoulder to the medical tape. He winced as she peeled it off, focusing on the pain to bank his arousal. “Well, the infection hasn’t gotten any worse.” Her breath ghosted over his ear. She moved, her thigh brushing against his hip. His stomach tightened, and he resisted the urge to turn and see just how close her mouth was to his. “Good.” His voice came out in husky tones. Seemed like it had been husky since he’d first woken to find her kneeling before him. “I’m just going to change this.” She stood and strode back to the Jeep. Tossing the old bandage inside, she fished out a new, clean one, and walked back. Santiago took a deep breath to settle himself, to steel himself for the torture about to come. Oh, God, he didn’t know if he could take much more of this. She knelt behind him again and the very air seemed to warm. Then she rubbed cool cream over the wound, making the pain subside. Next came the cloth itself, and the worst bit—the tape. Specifically, the way she smoothed the tape over his skin, the pads of her fingers over his damp flesh, the occasional graze of a nail. Just lust, he reminded himself, and a tourist probably wouldn’t appreciate being bedded by someone she’d seen turn from a jaguar into a man. Besides which, it’d hurt his shoulder like hell itself.

He clung to that thought, even when the scent of heightened arousal spiked at his back. Damn women. Then he smiled slowly, entirely too self-satisfied. Maybe in a day or two, when the infection was better, maybe she wouldn’t mind so much being bedded by a Tezcatlipoca. She was certainly interested. He angled his head to watch her over his shoulder. Her pupils were large in clear blue eyes, dilated despite the sunshine. Definitely attracted.

Mountain man or mountain lion? In his case-one and the same.

Rachel’s Totem © 2008 Marie Harte A Feral Attraction story. When Rachel arrives in Cougar Falls for a reading of her aunt’s will, she finds herself in a typical mountain town. Except that it’s not quite…typical. It’s full of the requisite, rough-hewn mountaineers, but these men seem more animal than man. And one of the rude strangers brings out the animal in her during an embarrassingly orgasmic-and scorching-sexual encounter in an alley. The fantastic tales that the townsfolk tell about the Ac-Taw, a clan of people who can shift into animals, are nothing but folklore. Or are they? Burke is stunned by his response to Rachel, and even more so when she innocently shows signs of possessing Ac-Taw blood. And this puts her in more danger than she knows, danger that only increases the urgency to mark her as his own. Rachel comes to realize she’s inherited much more than just property. She has also inherited a destiny to protect her newfound home. For the Ac-Taw aren’t just legend-they’re real. Warning, this title contains the following: graphic language, ménage a trois, growling, and hot, steamy sex between shifters in love :)

Enjoy the following excerpt for Rachel’s Totem: “I’m not sure.” Gerald frowned and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rachel. Not exactly polite to discuss other matters when you’re here for Charlotte’s will.” “No, that’s okay. I’m in no rush.” Well I am. Burke took a seat next to Rachel across from Gerald, who sat in a huge leather chair behind his desk. Let’s find that totem and get back to the important things in life. Like how I’m going to seduce Rachel before she turns all prickly again. “It’s just that my assistant, Julia, is always a rock, always here and helping. And something came up with her family in Washington so she had to leave yesterday—”

“Gerald, can we please get on with this?” Burke sighed. Gerald cleared his throat and smiled apologetically. “Right, well. Before we begin, is there anything I can get you, Rachel? A glass of water, a soda, or maybe some coffee?” Rachel shook her head. “Thanks, but Burke’s right. Since we’re here, no sense putting it off any longer. You might as well tell me what Aunt Charlotte wanted done with her things.” “Of course.” Nice how the SOB completely ignored Burke, who could have used something to drink. In a steady drone, Gerald read through most of the generalities of the will. All of Charlotte’s personal possessions and money, investments and the like, went to Rachel. “And as the only relative Charlotte truly cared about since your father passed away, you’ve inherited everything she considered dear to her. Including the house.” Shit. “The property, however…” Gerald paused, and Burke wanted to punch him for drawing this out. “The property is divided between you and the Chastells.” Gerald turned to Burke. “You’ve been wanting to buy from Charlotte forever. Well, Burke, now’s your chance. If Rachel decides to sell, everything on the property, to include the house and the material within it, becomes yours.” The totem, he meant but didn’t say. With the totem back in the hands of protectors who both understood and respected the ancient relic, peace would surely return to Cougar Falls. No more clan wars, and no more threats of strangers having a hold on something as valuable as the totem. Rachel stared at Gerald, her gaze narrowing with suspicion as it lit on Burke. “Are you saying Mr. Chastell wants my aunt’s property? And that she steadily refused to sell it?” Burke had a sudden ache in the pit of his belly, a feeling that often preceded something bad about to happen. “That’s what I’m saying.” Gerald stacked his papers and squared them. “Charlotte’s property and the Chastells’ border one another. They’ve always been friendly, don’t get me wrong. But it’s no secret Burke and his brothers want to reclaim the land that their great-great grandfather gave to one of your relatives so many years ago.”

“I see.” She glared at Burke, and he stared back, confused. “What?” “Nothing,” she snapped. Turning back to Gerald, she pasted a sugary-sweet smile on her face. “So the house is mine, and the property is split how?” “It’s a bit complicated. I’ll drive you out to the property so I can show you both. Charlotte was very clear about this.” Gerald turned sharp eyes on Burke, as if willing him to listen. Burke, however, didn’t understand what the hell had crawled up Rachel’s ass. He couldn’t deny her fury made him hot, but he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. Was she suddenly blaming him for their time together in the alley? It wasn’t as if he’d staged that fight with those knuckle-dragging wolf Shifters. And he sure as hell hadn’t planned to come in his jeans while dry-fucking her against a dirty brick wall. “Burke, I said I’ll drive Rachel out to the property now. Perhaps you’d care to follow, so I only have to do this once?” Burke nodded. “Fine, sure. Look, why don’t you go file your papers or something? I need a word with Rachel.” “Yes, Mr. Winter. I’d like a word with Mr. Chastell as well.” Rachel’s glare could have cut steel. Gerald glanced from Rachel to Burke and unsuccessfully masked a grin. “Fine. I’ll be waiting outside when you’re through.” Grabbing his papers and shoving them in his briefcase, he left the room, closing the door behind him. The minute he left, Rachel stood ramrod straight and glared down her sexy little nose at Burke. “You arrogant asshole.” “What’s your problem?” Burke honestly had no idea why she’d grown so upset. “You thought screwing me would sway me into selling my aunt’s place to you?” Burke scowled. “Now wait a minute, Rachel. I—” She leaned down and poked him in the chest, hard, stirring his instincts to fight back. Or perhaps, to turn their tussle into something more…intimate. “You wait a minute, Chastell. If you wanted to buy the place, all you had to do was ask. That scene in the alley was totally unnecessary. And not that good to boot.”

He launched himself out of his chair to glare down at her. “Not that good, Miss Penny? First of all, that ‘scene’ in the alley, as you put it, was not staged. Second, that was anything but a real fuck. We had all our clothes on, for Christ’s sake. And third.” He paused to close what little distance remained between them. Staring directly into her eyes, nose to nose, he growled his last words. “The orgasm we shared was more than good, it was explosive. Lie to yourself if you want to, but you came hard, like a shot.” He licked his lips, unable to help how turned on she made him in her anger. “And I can still smell your come creaming your panties. Hell, right now you want nothing more than a hard fuck right on Gerald’s desk, isn’t that right?” Her pupils dilated with lust, and her scent filled the room. Pure, unadulterated sex. “Fuck. You.” “Sure thing, honey. You just name the time and place.” He watched in amazement as her pupils began to elongate. He could smell the familiar scent of feline musk flooding the room and waited, his breath held, as Rachel amazingly began to turn. Her hair began to rise as her body was covered in a field of static energy, and her teeth grew sharp as she hissed at him in anger. God, she made him burn. The mixture of mountain lion and woman was almost more than he could take. Glancing at Gerald’s desk, Burke figured he could have it cleared in one swipe of his arm. He’d bend her over the solid oak on her belly and yank those jeans and panties off her legs. Within seconds he’d lower his own clothes, just enough to spring his cock free before he’d shove it hard and deep into that honeyed, wet pussy. Rachel’s hands fisted into paws as she raised one arm as if to strike. Do it. Please, touch me and I swear I’ll mark you as one of mine in a heartbeat. The choice, even unknowingly made, had to be hers. Gerald, damn his ass, chose that minute to knock at the door. “Hey, is everything all right in there?” Son of a bitch. Burke knew Gerald could smell the passion raging in the room, the scent of a female in heat overpowering enough to easily reach the lawyer outside the office.

Rachel blinked, and that suddenly her shift vanished as if it had never been. She swayed and righted herself, still miffed enough not to want Burke’s touch. “Come near me again and I’ll geld you.” Sniffing, she turned on her heel and stalked out the door, nearly knocking over Gerald, who waited impatiently on the other side. Gerald watched Rachel go with amusement, his lips quirked in an aggravating smirk. “Not one word.” Burke stormed through the door, knocking Gerald into the wall as he passed, heading for the bathroom to finally clean up. “Not one fucking word.”

Red-hot animal attraction.

Claiming Their Mate © 2008 Paige McKellan A Feral Attraction story. Jules Kingston is a WereLion destined to be the next Lioness of the White Sands Pride. Her fathers, having decided to step down as Leos, have put out a call for a pair of lions to mate with their daughter. Before settling down with mates and a litter of cubs, though, Jules wants to spread her wings. Of all the Lions in the Pride, Gabriel and Lucas Beckett are the only two who make her panties wet-and the last two she would ever take on as mates. When the brothers stake their claim, she runs, cursing her hormones for reacting to such prime specimens of her species. Gabe and Luke have known for years that Jules is meant to be their mate. The trick will be to convince their woman she belongs to them. As expected, Jules leads them on a merry chase. Then a mate fight and hunt is called by a rival pair. To win Jules as their own, Gabe and Luke must prove their dominance over the Pride-and their woman. Warning: Contains explicit sex, graphic language, stubborn men, an independent woman and red hot romance.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Claiming Their Mate: There were so many parts of this mess that made her angry she didn’t know what to scream about first, but that would have to wait until she was on the road. Jules grabbed the duffle and slung her laptop case over her shoulder then opened the double French windows overlooking the back of the driveway and the pastures beyond. The last time she had snuck out of the house through this window was during her senior year in high school to meet a boyfriend her fathers had not thought highly of. It was ironic this trip out the window was to get away from two men her fathers expected her to get involved with. Somehow she thought the irony would be lost on them.

A quick look out the window told her the coast was clear. For her sake she hoped all the people she was trying to get away from were still in the dining room, on the other side of the house. Jules dropped the duffle to the ground, and reached through the open window, latching on to the ivy trellis. It was only a twenty-foot drop, one her body could handle, but she opted to climb down halfway and not risk an injury she’d have to shift to heal. She felt ridiculous sneaking out; she was twenty-three, not thirteen. She should be able to hold her head high and walk through the front door like an adult. And she would have if Gabe and Luke weren’t downstairs. Seeing them again was a risk she wasn’t willing to take. For so many, many reasons. Hitching her computer case higher, Jules put one leg out the window, found a foothold on the trellis, then pulled the rest of her body through and started down. Midway between the window and the ground she let go and jumped. Into the strong arms of one very pissed-off Lion.

***

Luke heard them before he saw them and when they finally came into view he laughed as his brother came around the corner of the house, or rather limped around the corner of the house, with a very angry, very loud mate, ass end up over his shoulder. “Put me down you rotten, no good—” Jules demanded, her words punctuated by the blows she rained over Gabe’s back but cut short by the hard smack of his hand on her ass. “Ow! Damn you! You have no right—” “I have every right, Jules. Settle down!” When she failed to comply he smacked her ass again, this time harder, which only made her fight him more. “Damn it, I said stop!” he yelled when her fist connected with his kidney; she was no match for a Lion in his prime but her blows packed enough punch to bruise. “That’s enough. As soon as we get you home I’m going to paddle your bare ass until it’s bright red if you don’t stop acting like this.”

“Home?” she screeched. “I’m not going home with you. I’m not going anywhere with you. Let me go!” “Need some help, Gabe?” The smile in Luke’s voice was as big as the one on his face. “Take her bags,” he grunted, tossing his brother her duffle and computer case. “What are you so damn happy about?” “That she decided to sneak out the back instead of coming out the front.” Luke caught the bags with one hand, reaching out to tug on Jules’ hair hanging over his brother’s ass with the other as Gabe came up next to him. Luke laughed again as Jules swatted blindly at him, letting out another screech. “If she had come my way I’d be the one limping, not you.” “Luke, make him put me down. He can’t do this.” Jules arched her neck, raising her head to look at Luke. She had always thought of him as the more reasonable brother and hoped to find help in his quarter. The smug smile creasing his handsome face had her back to cursing instead of asking for help. “This isn’t right. I don’t want to go with you.” “If I were you I’d listen to Gabe and calm down.” “What is it going to take to get you jerks to understand that I don’t want you? I am not going to mate with you.” “You’re already our mate, Jules. Once we get you back to the ranch and claim you, you’ll understand that.” This edict came from Gabe as he yanked open the passenger door of their pick-up truck. Claiming? Back to their ranch? No. No, no, no. “There is no way I’m going to your ranch with you so you two can fuck me. I decide who I fuck and you can damn well bank on it not being you two.” Smack, another hard swat on her ass from Gabe before he lifted her off his shoulder and pushed her into the truck. “Don’t talk like that, Jules. That kind of language doesn’t suit you.” “How do you know what suits me or not? You don’t know me.” In the truck she was pulled onto Gabe’s lap, his arms wrapped around her, keeping her hands trapped from doing any damage. She ignored the dark look Luke sent her way as he got behind the

wheel. Neither one of these men were listening. “My parents will not put up with you taking me.” She hoped that was true but their complete lack of concern cut that line of reasoning short. “Your fathers know we’re taking you to the Roaring Lion. This is a done deal, Jules. Start accepting it.” Luke started the truck then headed down the long drive to the main road. “Your body already has, Jules. Open your mind to what your body already knows and this will be easier for you.” The casual mention of her attraction and resulting arousal to the brothers filled the truck cab like humidity filled the late summer air, making it hard to breathe and her body uncomfortably warm. Gabe’s erection pressing into the curve of her ass showed her she wasn’t the only one affected by Luke’s comments. The fight didn’t go out of her, instead it shifted from thoughts of escaping these two to controlling her reaction to them. “Don’t flatter yourself. Yourselves. What you think is attraction to you is nothing more than my having a normal, healthy sex drive.” “How many other pairs have you let know about your healthy sex drive?” Jules snapped her mouth closed. That was the whole problem, why these two worried her more than all the others combined. No other pair affected her the way Gabe and Luke did. If she thought she could get away with it Jules would have lied through her teeth, claimed she’d had a similar reaction to another man or men, but she didn’t. She kept her mouth shut. If she wasn’t able to believe the lie how would they? The remainder of the short ride to the Roaring Lion was completed in silence. No one was talking but that didn’t mean nothing was going on. Jules sat stiffly on Gabe’s lap, trying her damnedest but failing miserably at ignoring his hard-on. The sexual tension inside the cab was stifling. The Beckett brothers were determined to take what they wanted and Jules was silently scrambling to think of a way to stop it.

From exile to queen-whom can she trust?

Tiger by the Tail © 2008 Kaye Chambers An On the Prowl story. Alexandra “Sasha” DeStephano has long been exiled from her own kind, thanks to parents who had no wish for her to grow up in the “tiger mafia”. Now that she’s been issued an engraved invitation to appear before the society elders, she finds herself plunged into a dangerous battle for power, urged on every side to give up her birthright to make room for a new regime. On every side, that is, except Colton Reyes, a rogue alpha. Cole plants the idea in her mind that, under the current leadership, the tiger society is headed down a one-way street to disaster. And she is their only hope. Spurred on by a man who flips all her sexual switches, Sasha steps up to the plateand finds herself promoted from Tiger Princess to Queen. The resulting consequences are far more than she ever imagined. In this game of danger and intrigue, almost no one can be trusted. Cole’s best chance to protect her? Pretend to claim her as his mate. Except pretending is the last thing on Sasha’s mind.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Tiger by the Tail: “Thank you, all. I understand I’m allowed to choose some advisors to help me?” “You are, madam.” Lord DeLuca was entirely too smug for my liking and I wondered how much of a dissention factor was running in the crowd tonight. If this went to hell in a hand basket, I was blaming him, personally. I hoped he understood that. I read the house badges on the young men who were edging to the top of the crowd. Blinking, I realized the nagging little detail that had bugged me when I’d arrived. Cole had been announced as a lord, but his coat was lacking the golden embroidered badge that signified his status. In fact, his

coat was lacking any adornment, at all. He wore a plain black tux in lieu of the formal dinner jackets around him. Of course, that made him stand out like a sore thumb. “Lord Reyes, please step forward for the honor.” Why did I give him what he wanted? Simple. I didn’t know anyone else there and I could always disappoint him, later. Besides, he was part of the reason I was in this mess, so he might as well be part of the solution. Power was a wonderful thing. If I’d not appointed anyone, the speculation would have been that I was going to try to muscle my way through things or that I was ignorant of the ways things were run. I wasn’t brave or hungry enough to want to muscle my way through anything tonight, and I couldn’t afford the weakness of assumed ignorance. I knew enough to get me killed. I was going to trust Cole not to let that happen. Unfortunately, Cole wasn’t the one who stepped forward. I watched a blonde young man about my age start up the steps with a frown. “Who are you?” “I’m Lord Thomas Reyes, Lady Alexandra.” That he neglected to give me my title meant that he thought he was my equal. The look on his face said he wanted to be my superior. I disliked that and him. Raising my hand, I shook my head. Two could play at that game. “I didn’t mean you, Mr. Reyes. I meant Cole.” His face flashed with temper and I knew I didn’t like him for a reason. I rarely went wrong when I trusted my instincts. “I am the legitimate heir to the Reyes House. You called for me.” “My oversight, Thomas.” “Thomas, step aside.” Lord DeLuca was gaining a lot of bonus points with me tonight. “I refuse to step aside for a Spanish whore’s bastard.” Well, if the jury had been out on my opinion of him that would have settled it. I watched Cole’s face still. Stepping up on the steps, he walked across them until he stood opposite Thomas. Standing side-by-side, the resemblance was striking. While they were

polar opposites in coloring and manner, they had the same sharp, aristocratic bone structure. “My lady, I ask your permission to address this insult.” There wasn’t any asking in his tone, but I understood the point. The formality of the situation made him say the words. I don’t normally approve of violence to solve a problem, but I had a suspicion that Thomas wouldn’t settle it any other way. Some boys just had to have the sense beat into them. “Go right ahead.” “So it’s challenge for the right to her, then?” Did every man here think I was a prize to be won? I had always understood my parents’ decision to leave society to live their own life, but for the first time, I sympathized. If this was what my mother had gone through, it was a wonder I’d been born at all. “No, Thomas, the challenge is for the slight to my mother. Lady DeStephano can answer her own challenges, if you’d like to issue one? You’ll still have to face me in the challenge circle, though.” “You’re awfully sure of that, Cole. What have you been doing when the rest of us haven’t been watching?” The way his gaze slid over me let the insinuation be all the worse. That some of the people in the crowd followed it and whispered behind their hands really made it worse. Cole’s temper flared and it washed hot across my skin. The tiger liked anger and mine responded. It took all of my control to keep my power from washing out to meet his. I had enough problems without advertising that my parents had bred true and my tiger was begging to join in the fun. Without looking at me, Cole stalked away with Thomas behind him. From my seat, I saw the crowd part and ring a marble circle set in the middle of the garden. It was gorgeously arranged as a focal point with paths branching off into the deeper recesses of the garden. Until the people ringed it, I wouldn’t have called it a challenge circle. Whoever had designed this garden had been a genius.

I was fascinated with it all to the point I didn’t notice the two men slowly undressing. By the time I realized it, Cole was turning his back to strip off his pants. It took a moment for it to register and I had to look away. The guy already hit my radar and the last thing I wanted to do was gawk at him. I did see enough to know that his coloring was absolutely natural. Well, either that or he tanned in the nude. That thought alone reinforced the urge to jerk my gaze as far away from him as I could manage. “Don’t turn away.” I blinked and found myself in company I’d not even sensed. Hot embarrassment flooded through me and all I could do was blame it on the hormonal overload. Grinning at Lord DeLuca, I waved him to the bench to sit beside me. Instead, he dropped to sit on the cool marble, heedless of his elegant slacks. “Thank you, but I’m not exactly in the habit of watching men strip. I’ll preserve my modesty, thank you very much.” My tone was tart enough to make him laugh, which brought an answering smile to my face. “Modesty. I didn’t realize it still existed.” My mouth dropped open and I laughed with him. “Well, maybe if you started asking everyone not to strip out in packs to go running under the moon, there might be a little bit more of it.” “Ah, too late for that.” I followed the direction he was looking and saw what I’m sure Thomas wanted me to see. He stood facing me, letting me get an eyeful. Putting on a bland face, I looked directly at his face and waited. I wasn’t sure what upset him more, the fact I didn’t check out what he was offering or that I didn’t turn away in embarrassment. Either way, he snarled and shifted in a flow of magic and blinding light. One moment, he stood as a man, the next, as a tiger in burnished orange. I was surprised to see his color, though. My mother had platinum blonde hair like my grandfather and they were both whites. My father had passed on his dark hair and his golden color on to me. Genetics are a wonderful thing. I’d have expected Thomas to be a white from the fairness of his skin and hair, too.

Cole earned a few extra points in my book by not making a display of himself. Instead, he shifted with his back to me and his color surprised me, too. He was the rarest color of them all—black. I wondered if I’d be able to see the black stripes on the black coat in the daylight like the black jaguar I’d seen in the zoo, but let the fascinated thought pass. He turned to me with a graceful twist of his body, bending a knee in salute. I’ll say this for the guy; he certainly had flare and style. Guess some guys are just born with it. In size, the two cats were in the same class. They began to circle one another in a slow stalk. Thomas swiped a claw out, but Cole dodged back easily. I suddenly had the horrible realization that this could turn ugly, fast. “Tell me they’re not going to…” I waved my hand, trying to find words that didn’t sound so, well, fatal. “First blood, only, princess.”

To stop a killer, would you become one?

Even for Me © 2008 Taryn Blackthorne An On the Prowl story. Aislyn used to have a life, a family and a home until a witch on a mission shattered everything in one night with a spell. Now Aislyn is on the run, holed up in Denver, and fighting the Changes that ravage her body and mind while struggling to keep her humanity. Jackson Havens is a ghost hunter short on cash. All he needs is quick proof that Aislyn is the Ghost Cat Killer, and he can get back to his day job. One pair of handcuffs and a double-crossing employer later, Jackson finds himself bound to the sexy Aislynand racing to catch the real killer before someone puts Aislyn down. For good.

Enjoy the following excerpt for Even for Me: Whatever power the kid was calling up, the weather was helping. Ozone filled the air up quick. A flash of lightning hit just outside the barn doors, illuminating everything inside clear as day. The kid’s shadow looked like a scarecrow but the woman’s shadow looked like a cat. A second strike and the woman screamed as if the lightning had hit her nerves. As he watched, the reason for the woman’s ankle chains became clear. Her skin shivered, like an ocean wave, and tawny fur rode the top, up to her face. One more flash of lighting and her teeth became fangs, her snout stretched and her pupils elongated and became thin slits that cut through the blue iris of her eye. She screamed, rage in her face, or at least she tried to. Cougars couldn’t roar, but she sure gave her version. Her body arched as the kid looked on, rapt, captured almost, the smoking cigar in her hand seemingly forgotten. The cougar looked at the kid and hissed in hatred. Her body fought and bucked and the wave rolled across her body again, but the fur retreated back down, the face became normal, save for her very cat-like eyes. She turned them on the kid and smiled around the gag.

“NO! You have to Change! Don’t you understand? YOU HAVE TO!” The kid lost it, stomping around, and the lightning outside hit the roof. He smelled smoke and knew the old barn had caught. He tried to yell around the gag, but the kid didn’t seem interested in him anymore. He tried to kick the stall he was chained to. He pulled and yanked until he couldn’t see for the sweat running down into his eyes. Blood dripped off his hands, making them slippery. A witch and a Shifter. He was in it up to his eyeballs this time. The woman began to scream, clear and loud. He turned just in time to get smacked with a shovel aside the head, stunning him long enough for the kid to pull off his gag and wrap the woman’s around his left wrist. She then pulled the cigar up to her lips. He watched the end flare and blinked just before the smoke was blown into his eyes. He coughed and sputtered and gazed up at the kid through a haze that had blue edges to it. The girl smiled at him. She walked across the room to her other prisoner, seemingly unaware that there were now lit pieces of the barn falling all around her, and small fires burning in those stalls that had dried hay in them. She tied his gag to the woman’s left wrist and bent over the struggling, cursing woman. The kid blew smoke into the woman’s face and chanted all the way back to the center of the circle. She picked up the bowl of liquid and offered it to the storm outside. A soft rain had begun to accompany the thunder and lightning but he had small hopes that it would put out the fire before at least two of them roasted. The kid put the cigar into the liquid in the bowl and whatever it was caught. The symbols flared and burned on their foreheads and both he and the woman couldn’t hold back screeching. “Iallach a chur ar dhuine rud a dhéanamh,” the girl sang and lightning hit the center of the circle, then spread to hit both him and the woman. His body was raised off the ground two feet, every muscle stiff as a board. It felt like he was burning from the inside out, like his nerves were made of acid and caught on fire to boot. No sound could come out of his mouth. He felt, rather than saw that the woman, Aislyn, was in the same position. He had the sudden thought that she’d been running from this kid because this was the witch. He’d known that Aislyn was from the East Coast but now he knew she had loved swimming in the ocean, hiking along the rivers, had loved her small apartment in the old town boarding house. Aislyn had loved the smell of a bonfire on the beach with a

guitar in her hand and friends gathered around her laughing. She had been so proud of her foster brother Mark when he had graduated and had made the whole family take the day off, closing the gas station/bus stop in their small town. She’d always been there for her foster mother, helping out in the small diner on her days off and in the evenings when she could. Felt how much she’d loved her small town. And it had been taken from her by the witch. He also knew she didn’t understand. She didn’t know what she was now, not truly. He felt something he never thought he would ever feel for a Shifter. Pity. She hated pity more than anything else, and he knew that too. It made her feel weak, defeated, violated, and defenseless. She’d been stripped of her life for no reason and pity made it worse. He looked over at the Shifter. Their eyes locked. For once he understood what a woman felt because he felt it, truly felt it as if he had a second personality inside him. “Damn.” He looked up at the witch, who smiled. “Master of the Hunt.” The witch threw a handful of herbs at him. Naming him, she was naming him for God’s sake. The kid threw a fistful at the woman and whispered, “Mistress Hunter.” Then she collapsed, and a beam from the roof fell across her, blocking his view. Although that could have been the thickening smoke burning his eyes. Oh good, he wouldn’t die from roasting alive, but smoke inhalation. Yeah. Looking up, he saw the stall he was cuffed to get licked once, twice, three times with flames from the fallen beam before it caught and started eating away. The heat was getting worse; he could feel the blisters starting on his skin. He started to cough and couldn’t stop. He pulled and shouted and yelled, but nothing seemed to be working and he was using up a lot of oxygen he didn’t seem to have anymore. He wondered if his family would be able to claim his body or if it would go into an unmarked grave, the same as his older brother’s had last year. It was his last thought.

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