LITMIR.BIZ

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Two buildings stood apart by maybe two hundred feet. One was an old farm‐style house, run down, with peeling paint and at least one broken window covered with plywood. The other structure looked like a large yellow workshop‐style metal building. It appeared much newer than the house itself and was in better repair.

      What worried her was the number of vehicles in the driveway. Counting the old truck she followed, there were five in total. The number suggested there might be a lot more people there than she was prepared for.

      Her original plan was to wait until tomorrow when he’d be back at work and Amber might be alone. But with so many vehicles present she had to rethink quickly. Either something was happening—which certainly didn’t bode well for Amber—or there were always people there.

      In case it was the former, she quickly decided to go ahead and get Amber out today, now, before it was too late. If she made it this far, and got this close, only to have Amber die at the hands of her captor on the eve of her rescue, she’d never be able to live with herself. If her sister was in that house, she was either going to get her out tonight or die trying.

      Just under a mile from the house, she pulled her rented car onto a service road and parked. She saved the coordinates on her phone and turned it to silent before she slid it into her back pocket, then closed her eyes for a moment to gather her courage. Nothing was going to stop her from finding Amber. Since the police had already proven they had no intention of helping, she was on her own.

      Her new plan was simple. Find Amber and get them both out undetected. She had no delusions of grandeur. It wasn’t like she was She‐Man the Warrior Woman. She tipped the scale at a whopping one hundred and forty pounds—much of it muscle, she told herself firmly—and she had no chance of taking on a werewolf, though she had come prepared, just in case.

      She opened her eyes, pulled her gun out of the glovebox, and slid it into the waistband of her pants. In her front pocket was a gaudy silver cross necklace covered in rhinestones of all colors. Her other pocket held an extra clip of silver bullets. She’d acquired a small bullet‐loading machine to design her own ammunition and made a surplus in preparation.

      When she had everything she thought she might need, she took a final deep, resolved breath and left the relative safety of her car. It was only a few steps to cross the road and get into the line of trees on the other side. It wouldn’t do for her to come walking up the road and give them plenty of time to prepare for her arrival. With luck, she could sneak up to the house and look in the windows unnoticed until she found Amber, then smuggle her out with no one the wiser. Maybe extra people was a good thing, she decided while she made her way toward the house. Maybe it would keep Amber’s captor distracted while she mounted a rescue.

      If the car ride following the leader had seemed long, the walk toward the house seemed like eternity. Every breaking twig, every movement from the corner of her eye put her more and more on edge until she was such a tight bundle of nerves that if a butterfly brushed her arm, she might just scream in terror.

      Somewhere, she’d heard that real courage meant being afraid and doing something anyway. With that in mind, she decided she was the bravest woman on the planet. Now, if she could just get her knees to stop knocking, she might be able to sell herself a little more on her courage.

      With trembling fingers, she touched the gun in her waistband. The metal was cold and comforting. A class on firearms and countless hours at the range meant she knew how to use it.

      She wasn’t helpless.

      She pressed her back against the rough bark of a tree and took a few deep breaths to slow the rapid rhythm of her heart. Once she felt her nerve a little more steeled, she searched the house across from her. No movement indicated alarm. A window sat facing her, and she decided it was as good a place to start as any.

      Head down in determination, she pushed off from the tree and headed toward that window at a dead run. When she arrived at her destination, she didn’t even pause to breathe. Who needed to breathe with so much fear in their veins?

      She stood on tiptoes and peered into the room. It was a dark space with very little furniture except for a bed with a bare mattress in poor repair in one corner and a plastic dresser beside it. No sign of Amber.

      A quick look around showed no sign of anyone coming her way. She slid down the house to the next window and found a similar empty space, then the next one. She waited beside the glass for a moment, straining to hear any sound from the room.

      There was something.

      It was a sound she couldn’t quite place. Not a voice, exactly, but a soft whimper came again and again.

      Amber.

      Emily slowly leaned over just far enough to see in the room. It was furnished much like the other ones had been, with cheap furniture. On the bed she could make out a shape that could only be her missing sister.

      A jolt of excitement flew through her.

      She tapped on the window, trying to get the person’s attention. But the figure never moved. Thinking she may have been drugged, Emily tried the window. It was old, and the frame had years of paint layers holding it down. With her nearly frantic fingers, she was able to pry it lose after a few attempts.

      It didn’t open quietly, however.

      Giving a screech that sounded louder than a gunshot to Emily’s ears, the window reluctantly slid on the track. She didn’t consider the danger as she wriggled through the small opening. Not until her feet hit the uneven wooden floor and a hand clamped around her mouth from behind.

      Chapter 2

      William sat at the butcher‐block table in the small kitchen of the house he shared with Paoli. He stared at the paper before him—scripted in Paoli’s neat handwriting—with open surprise. On the page was a single name and species along with location.

      “Are you sure this is right?” William frowned at the paper.

      “It’s right,” Paoli confirmed without even glancing at him on his way past.

      “When was the last time we had a female werewolf?” William raised a skeptical brow, and his gaze followed Paoli around the table.

      “It’s rare they’re marked,” Paoli agreed. “But it happens.”

      He took the chair across from William and propped his bare feet on the edge of the table for no reason other than it bugged William.

      Paoli was one of the oldest vampires William had ever met and by far the least conspicuous. He stood only about an inch shorter than William himself, which put him just shy of six feet. Where William’s hair was raven and cropped short, Paoli’s was a dark blond and long enough to rest on his shoulders. He had none of the dark characteristics a person would usually associate with a vampire—especially a vampire as old as he was. Instead of being intimidating and tortured, Paoli was always the first to laugh and the last to take anything—including himself—seriously. He had a lighthearted and fun‐loving nature that kept him very popular with the opposite sex, which—according to Paoli—accounted for his lighthearted nature.

      “We haven’t had one in the last . . . what, hundred years?” William reached out and flicked the end of Paoli’s toe hard enough to send an electric jolt of pain halfway up his leg.

      Paoli howled and snatched his foot back. Humor glittered in his eyes as he cradled the injury. “Now that just wasn’t nice,” he proclaimed.

      “Keep your nasty feet off the table.” William gave him a pointed stare. “If we’re going after a female wolf, you need to focus. She probably has a whole pack surrounding her. You’ll have to help this time. It’s going to be dangerous.”

      Paoli gave him an impish grin and folded his legs neatly under him before he offered an indifferent shrug. “I don’t mind hunting werewolves,” he said offhandedly. “It’s the vampires that give me the creeps.”

      William shook his head at the irony of that statement. “How can vampires give you the creeps? You are a vampire.”

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