LITMIR.BIZ

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noticeably stronger as he rounded a corner. In case he changed back to a more human form, the gun strapped to his belt was loaded with silver bullets, one of which could take down a vampire if the shooter had good aim.

      A small dose of silver to the head or chest would send those undead bastards back to the kind of afterlife they should have been experiencing.

      Of course, a sharp wooden stake would also suffice...though a proper staking would require meeting a vampire face-to-face and up close and personal. Which he’d never advise.

      Following the fetid trail, Derek slipped into the narrow space between two buildings, where the atmospheric pressure he had noticed earlier got worse. He ended up in an alley that appeared to be deserted, but wasn’t.

      The stench he sought had competition here. Overflowing garbage receptacles lined the walls. Beer cans and paper littered the ground. Although there were no artificial lights, broken shards of glass glittered like gems in the thin streams of moonlight shining down from overhead.

      Other than his breathing, there was a marked absence of sound. Yet somewhere in all that darkness, among the discarded detritus that could have masked their presence, a couple of pale-faced lunatics hid.

      Her pale-faced lunatics. Minions of Seattle’s vampire queen. Two of them, at least, were using this alley for their hidey-hole and probably waiting to do their Master’s bidding.

       Got you...

      Derek took another deep breath to process the danger. The air here was rife with Otherness that only supernatural beings were attuned to. From experience, he had a good idea these vamps would be fledglings. The degree of foulness saturating the air hinted at this being the case.

      There was no mistaking the metallic scent that pointed to the blood meal these vamps had recently ingested. The pair had been sloppy at the dinner table and were coated in the evidence. It was unlikely that their victim, or victims, had survived.

      His next growl echoed off the mildewed walls, sounding like thunder.

      I met your queen once, he would have told these abominations if he had proper vocal cords in his Were state. I saw your grand dame near here on the night my ex-lover was almost killed.

      The thought sickened him to this day.

       I know your Master’s name. I’ve seen her face.

      He had heard that vampire’s name whispered during a midnight battle with her kind, and afterward had caught a glimpse of the black-haired soulless diva whose talent for drawing every bloodsucker within this city’s boundaries to her side was no joke.

      The fanged bitch was like a black widow spider, thriving in her lair while her creepy hordes fed off the living and created an army. Damaris was her name. Most divas only had one.

      He owed her a good fight for personal reasons as well as professional, so Derek scanned the darkness with his claws raised, ready to do some damage.

      As he waited, Derek adopted a wide stance and slowed his breathing. Seconds passed. The fangers would have to eventually acknowledge his presence, if they dared.

      Derek was counting on his formidable appearance to provide an edge. His normal height of six-two stretched upward when he shifted. All that new muscle rippled with anticipation over how this might go down.

      He moved his jaw, clenched his teeth. His face might have been more human than wolf, but it wasn’t enough like a human to confuse the two species. It was helpful in this instance that one of Seattle’s most decorated detectives looked like everyone’s worst nightmare.

       Come out, you filthy bastards.

      Nothing moved. The vampires would be sizing him up and preparing their response. Finding and dealing with them like this was vigilante justice, but justice nevertheless. They couldn’t be allowed to kill more of Seattle’s citizens or break the spell that hid Were existence. For humans, the supernatural world didn’t exist.

      His pack and other packs like it policed the shadows, exacting payback on misbehaving monsters that preyed on the humans in this jurisdiction. The goal was to keep the peace and maintain Were secrets, and Derek had taken this goal to a whole new level after the woman he had loved left Seattle because of the influx of monsters.

      There was also the fact that his ex-lover hadn’t known about his secret wolfish life and the moon that ruled his kind. But that was history.

      His fault.

      Long story.

      The packmate he had been expecting silently slid into place behind him, barely ruffling the air. Derek didn’t have to turn around to know who this was. Dale Duncan was a fearless cop and no stranger to things that went bump in the night. Officer Duncan was good to have around no matter what outline he presented to the world.

      The two of them could have taken on a slew of vampires. These fledglings had to know it. Word traveled fast in underground circles.

      Bathed in moonlight, he and Dale stood like sentries near the entrance to the alley. There was nowhere for these bloodsuckers to go. As newbies they’d be full of themselves and energized by their recent kill. Maybe they didn’t yet know about all that ancient enemy shit between Weres and vampires, and that it continued today. Was it possible they believed vampires were the superior species?

      When Derek’s packmate growled menacingly, the ground shook. Near the opposite end of the alley, a tin can rolled.

      “Monsters have to try to fit in now,” Derek silently chastised. But the warning wouldn’t have done much good if the vamps had heard it.

      He added, “Werewolves, for the most part, have evolved alongside our human counterparts and most of the time can fit in with the society surrounding us. You guys have obviously never gotten the memo.”

      A slight, sudden wave of extra pressure in the darkness suggested movement. The back of Derek’s neck tingled in acknowledgment of what that meant.

      “Any minute now,” Dale messaged.

      What Derek failed to mention in all this was his anxiousness over finding himself less than half a block from the building his ex-lover had once occupied—the same building where real vamp trouble in Seattle had begun two years back. His pack had cleaned out this area after that event. Keeping the public from finding out about it had been a cleanup job worthy of the Nobel Prize.

      So what the hell had happened?

      Why were the vampires back?

      Even the smallest twitch was a waste of energy, but Derek rolled his neck to ease some of the tension building there. Waiting made him angry. There were too many memories in and around this place.

      When he heard the swish of a swipe of claws, he nodded. Dale had torn holes in his jeans, and the scent of blood filled the air. “Smart move,” Derek messaged. That smell might draw vampires lacking the facts about how bad furred-up werewolves tasted.

      However, a positive outcome was never completely assured when dealing with fanged hordes that were almost subliminally fast on their feet and ruled by an outrageous thirst that no one alive could possibly have understood.

      Derek dared a quick sideways glance to calculate the exact distance to the building he had often visited in the past in order to court and bed McKenna Randall.

       Too damn close.

      His nerves buzzed. His skin burned white-hot. Hell, he still missed having a talented bed partner.

      “The place is cursed,” Dale messaged to him.

      Derek grunted in agreement.

      Both of them knew what to expect here. There weren’t going to be any surprises in this alley tonight, hopefully.

      To catch more moonlight, Derek took a step forward. Silvery moon particles settled on his bare shoulders like a hot lover’s breath, setting off a series

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