LITMIR.BIZ

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all ears,” Derek said.

      “The thing is, I’m not sure I owe you anything, certainly not an explanation for my existence. I just am. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

      “And you’re here now, in this alley, for what purpose?” Derek asked.

      “I came to warn you.”

      “About?”

      “Where to find your next fight.”

      “You mean the next fight after dealing with you?” Derek said.

      As he watched, the fog began to dissipate slightly. Not enough to actually see the thing hidden inside it, but Derek did see a tall, thin figure of unknown gender.

      “You can’t fight me, wolf,” the creature warned. “I think you already know that.”

      “I’m not sure I do. Why don’t you enlighten me?”

      The creature’s reply was as cryptic as the rest of this conversation. “I believe you have better things to do at the moment than to deal with the likes of me.”

      “Such as?” Derek said.

      The fog floated to the left, which gave Derek a decent view of what was beyond it. He saw the street, and cars going by. Then he saw someone stop to peer into the shadows in the break between the buildings.

      He felt a chill on the back of his neck. His heart gave a thunderous roar and a few treacherous beats.

      “It helps to find out that wolves have not only soft underbellies, but other vulnerable spots as well,” the creature remarked.

       Damn it...

      The wolf on the roof began a quick descent. In seconds, one of Derek’s packmates was standing beside him looking big, dangerous and lethal, with his sharp canines exposed. The fog remained on the sidelines, like a dark cloud that had swallowed whatever the thing was that used it for camouflage.

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek said.

      But he did know, of course. And for the first time, Derek also understood that he had exposed himself to the vampires tonight in another way. A new way. Because it was Riley Price who stood there on the street, looking on.

      And there was probably a vampire to keep him from reaching her if this vamp had brought friends.

      Riley hit the wall with a shoulder that was already sore, and winced. The protests she wanted to utter got stuck in her throat. Either the shadows were playing tricks with her eyesight and she actually did have a concussion from hitting her head earlier, or there was a werewolf in this alley.

      A real, live werewolf.

      No joke.

      She stumbled back and toward the street, numb with shock. The fact that she had wanted to find a werewolf melted away behind the actual sighting of one. The phrase that kept repeating over and over now in her mind was that she wasn’t insane after all, and might never have been.

      Still, she refused to believe that seeing a werewolf in Seattle was anything other than the very definition of insanity. So she turned around and walked away, heading back toward her office with her skull humming and her pulse hammering away at warp speed.

      She’d call Detective Miller and tell him about what she had seen. Would he think she was crazy? Could he possibly understand that no governing body would issue a license to a therapist whose own sanity they doubted? As for proof of what she had seen...by the time she got to the precinct or found another way to reach the detective, that werewolf would probably be long gone.

      As Riley consciously willed her legs to carry her forward, she knew there was no way she could win this, prove this, or convince anyone about what had been in that alley. She also knew that she had to try.

      Derek glided into the moonlight to join his packmate in a standoff with a vampire that was far too enlightened for anyone’s good. He wondered what the wolf beside him thought of this discussion.

      There was a chance the abomination hadn’t meant its remark the way Derek had taken it after seeing Riley there. Yet it had sure felt that way. The comment had seemed pointed and personal.

      He knew that Riley had to have seen his packmate in full moonlight, and that for her the werewolf comment she had made earlier had now taken on new weight.

      What would she do next?

      Where would she go to feel safe?

       Who will you tell, Riley?

      His shape-shift took seconds. Derek roared in the moonlight, daring the creature in the alley to challenge two Weres in spite of what it had said. But the creature, which had to be some special kind of vampire, didn’t rally. It hovered near the street for some time before Derek decided to break the face-off.

      He rushed forward, wanting to get to Riley, knowing that in order to reach her, he’d tear this bloodsucker apart if he had to.

      Intending to ram the vampire’s body, Derek barreled forward with his backup on his heels. The foggy bastard he lunged for wasn’t solid, so he passed right through it and pulled up a few feet from the street, snapping his not-quite-human teeth.

      His packmate had no better luck.

      Angry, Derek whirled around to try again. But the vampire remained elusive, shifting in time to avoid any direct confrontation as it drifted over the Weres. It was as if the spooky sucker had the ability to fly.

      Again and again, Derek and his mate challenged, spun and went for the abomination. Time after time, their teeth and claws came away empty. Finally, the bloodsucker floated to the street and spoke. “You see, wolf, that I was right to warn you, and to call to your attention the vulnerability attached to your new weaknesses.”

      The next remark the vampire made came in the form of a touch on his mind.

       “She is not for you, wolf. Stay away from her or our next meeting will not go nearly as well as this one.”

      Derek clutched his chest—he was suddenly short of breath. He hadn’t been wrong. The warning had been pointed and had pertained to Riley Price. Who else could this sucker have been talking about?

      Madder than ever and refusing to give up, Derek and his packmate sprinted toward the creep like rabid animals, biting, clawing and punching at nothing even remotely physical enough to maim or injure. They kept this up until the vampire simply disappeared, as if it had never really been there at all.

      Derek stared at the empty alley with his heart racing. When his packmate turned to him in an equal state of confusion, Derek sent a message. “I hope to God there aren’t more of those things around.”

      It was at that moment that Dale arrived, alone and calm. After a quick look at the two Weres, Dale asked, “Did I miss something?”

      “I think it must have been a ghoul,” Derek’s current fighting partner, still wolfed up and wild-eyed, messaged back. “That thing was seriously demented.”

      Though Dale looked to Derek for an explanation, Derek was already miles beyond thinking about the fight. There were new questions to be answered—carefully, cautiously and with as much diplomacy as possible. The thing they had faced had shown off new tricks, and also knew about Riley. It didn’t seem to want him hanging around her, and had issued that warning.

      It was possible the creature had purposefully allowed Riley to see the werewolf in this alley, so that she’d be frightened enough to stay away from the streets. Why, though? What did that creature have to do with her, and more to the point, what did it want?

      “Derek?”

      Derek glanced at Dale.

      “Maybe you can explain what happened after you’ve changed back, boss. Tonight was quiet everywhere else we patrolled. The pack is reconvening at the park for your summary

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