LITMIR.BIZ

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all right, Dr. Price?”

      “Yes. I... I just need time to process this.”

      “Did you remember something just then?” he asked.

      Rile shook her head. “Nothing that would help.”

      The detective nodded, turned and walked to the door. Riley tracked his movement without calling him back, though every cell in her body urged her to ask him to stay. At the door, he paused as if he might have been reluctant to leave her.

      “I don’t see myself as a victim,” Riley said.

      He looked at her over a broad shoulder. “I can see that you don’t.”

      As he crossed the threshold, she added, “Actually, the man who came to my rescue looked a little bit like you.”

      He paused again, then said, “I get that a lot. I’m thinking it must be the jacket. Good night, Dr. Price. Maybe we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

      As he closed the door, Riley took her first deep breath and headed after him. Changing her mind at the last minute, she leaned against the door and strained to hear the sound of the elevator, but felt as if she were listening for something else. Like the howl of a wolf. Or the velvety growl of a light-eyed, dark-haired, chisel-faced, half-dressed werewolf with the kind of voice that resonated, even now, in her soul.

      Just like Detective Miller’s had.

      Derek leaned a shoulder against the wall of the elevator and looked up, as if he could see through the ceiling to a couple floors up.

      “Good night, Riley Price,” he muttered. “He looked like me, did he?”

      He had taken a chance by coming here to speak with her, but at least he now knew the things she did and didn’t remember, and could take comfort in the fact that she hadn’t been able to identify him outright while standing several feet apart.

      “I’m no less interested, just so you know,” he added.

      She was safe up there in her office with the guard manning the front desk. At the very least, he didn’t have to worry about that. Her memory was another issue altogether. Psychologists were familiar with all sorts of tricks to spark repressed memories. Meeting her again would not be wise.

      And yet he wanted to see her again. He wanted to see her again right now and get to the heart of the werewolf remark she’d made on the street. But that would probably serve no purpose whatsoever other than to place his pack in jeopardy.

      He signed out and exited the building with a curt wave to the guard. From the sidewalk in front of the building, Derek glanced up at the moon and said, “Fine. Let’s get on with it.” He walked toward the car he had parked near here earlier in the evening, before the night’s antics had begun.

      He removed his jacket, tossed it on the seat and took one more look at the street corner from the shadows of the two buildings that hid Riley Price’s building from sight. Then he ducked into the alley, where the subtle scent of werewolves filled the night air like its own brand of dangerous perfume.

      From her window, Riley watched the detective turn the corner. He did look a little bit like the man who had rescued her. At least, she thought he did.

      Grabbing her jacket and her purse, she locked the door and went down to the street, determined to find the truth of what she now had come to suspect—that Detective Miller and the man who had helped to save her life could, in fact, be one and the same. If not, maybe Miller had a brother on the force. A twin.

      He had headed east with purpose, as though he knew exactly where he was going and what he’d find there. His stride had been graceful when viewed from above, and radiated confidence. Miller was a dangerous man in his own right.

      Riley gripped her cell phone tightly in her hand as she exited the elevator, signed out and started out after the detective, hoping she’d catch his trail before both sanity and the need to think about her own safety returned. The fact that she wasn’t alone helped somewhat. There were plenty of cars moving in both directions. Couples laughing and holding hands breezed by her, and she had a momentary pang of desire to be like them.

      She couldn’t really recall the last time she had shared a light, loving moment with anyone. The flicker of wildness in her nature made her want to find her soul mate instead of settling for anything less, and she had never found that certain someone.

      At the intersection, she paused, knowing Miller was long gone and that she was a fool for thinking she could have found him.

      But then...

      She heard a sound that made her hands quake. Was it an engine turning over, or could it have been a growl?

       You know better, Price.

       Go back to the office or go home.

      She ignored both of those options. As if tonight’s events had never happened, Riley crossed the street. She headed for an area where shadows pooled and moonlight failed to reach the sidewalk, drawn there for reasons that felt insane. If Detective Miller had been looking for trouble, the shadows were where he was going to find it.

       Chapter 8

      Derek again scented a problem.

      Two of his packmates had already come this way, and he could almost picture them in his mind. They were riled up and anxious because they had found something nearby. He knew what that something had to be.

      The alley he had entered was a dead end. He searched the dark before climbing over a short brick wall, and jumped down on the opposite side with both of his hands raised and ready for whatever showed up. But he didn’t step into the moonlight. He wanted to see what kind of creature would come out for a look at the man who had just possibly walked into a trap without realizing it.

      His packmates had beaten him here and were hidden from sight. One of them was on the rooftop, all wolfed up and as motionless as a Gothic ornament. The other wolf was behind a partially boarded-up window.

      If these vampires didn’t feel the danger in their midst and were inept as to how the supernatural world worked, they would soon show themselves, the way their cousins had earlier. If they were seasoned bloodsuckers, they would avoid three werewolves like the plague and ply their trade elsewhere.

      Derek kind of hoped for the latter on this occasion. He would have preferred more time to think about Riley Price, but just couldn’t allow personal issues to take precedence over his job. Nor could he afford to let a perfectly good full moon go to waste.

      “Anyone here?” he finally called out, lowering his hands and feeling his claws spring as he turned in place, very near to the light.

      His two packmates were silent, intent on what might happen next. Derek took in a breath that was tainted with a new and potent scent of Otherness before a figure appeared in the distance. Derek squinted to make it out. The damn thing seemed to be wrapped in its own fog, and that left its outline unclear. The creature also appeared to float several inches off the ground.

      The whole image was murky at best, and decidedly different from anything in Derek’s experience in dealing with vampires.

      He inched closer to the stream of moonlight next to him, ready to meet this thing head-on, and said, “Who are you?”

      The voice that came from the fog might have been either male or female. Derek couldn’t be sure as he heard it say, “You trespass here, wolf.”

      This was a seasoned vampire that knew a wolf when it saw one. And that could potentially make the task of taking this creature down a hell of a lot messier.

      “I could say the same thing about you,” Derek returned.

      “Werewolves belong in the forests,” the newcomer said.

      “And vampires belong underground.

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