Wolf Born. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

all eligible partners and kept from pursuing any outside company at all, leaving her to wonder what everyone had been waiting for.

      She was sick of the tight ring of supervision surrounding her, and ready for her first close-up with a prime example of her species.

       Like you, pretty, brown-pelted wulf.

      Wasn’t finding a mate what she was eventually supposed to do?

      Had the brown Were considered her unworthy, when the whispers behind her back at the Landaus’ place had described her as special?

       Special...

      The dreaded Blackout phase wired into her family’s line had come upon her at thirteen, instead of the usual age of twenty-one. Surviving her body’s internal rewiring at so young an age had caused her to acquire a stellar repertoire of abilities.

       Special...

      At fifteen, she outdistanced her father in races. By sixteen, she could painlessly shape-shift in seconds whenever she chose to, with or without the moon. Even her father couldn’t do that.

      Tonight, at the matronly age of twenty, eight-foot-tall stone walls hadn’t stood a chance of containing her. One agile leap was all it took to escape the Landaus’ boundaries.

       Piece of cake.

      In her defense, she hadn’t planned on being outside those walls for very long. Merely one good sprint to calm her had been the justification...

      Until she felt the ongoing song of this male’s Lycan blood as if that song had been written for her. Until she had sensed him in the shadows as clearly as if he’d stood five feet away.

      Even now, his earthy, alluring scent pulled her like some sort of unavoidable undertow.

      Unsure of what to do next, because she actually was socially inept, and had been more or less a prisoner in her own home all of her life, Rosalind didn’t completely understand the feelings of wanting to catch up with the brown wulf in spite of his rebuff.

      Seconds ticked past as she stood there, longing to give chase. Her legs trembled with the desire to move. Her dark muzzle quirked at the thought of werewolves having one-night stands in public spaces, and how that would go down.

      So, which way to go? Back to her father, or after the rude brown Were?

      With a glance over her shoulder toward the Landaus’ walled border in the distance, Rosalind straightened to her full five-foot-five-inch height. Her black pelt—thick, rich, shining like polished obsidian in the moonlight—reflected the bright look of rebelliousness in her amber-green eyes as she made her decision.

      * * *

      As Colton had feared, the five-hundred block of Baker Street crawled with people. Too many people gumming up a crime scene always made a bad situation worse.

      He hit the side of a building hard with his left shoulder to shock his wulf side back to reality. Closing his eyes, blowing out a breath, he willed his beast into the background and corralled it with a word of promise. Later.

      The reversal of his shift was equally as hard on his body, but one hell of a lot quicker. Everything rearranged with a soft snapping of ligament and bone. On human legs, Colton cut a path through the hordes of neighbors out in full force behind fluttering expanses of yellow crime tape. But after those few moments of letting the beast out, the sensory bombardment of being near to all these human bodies weighed him down. Fresh from his run, his thermostat had yet to settle. He was damp with perspiration and needed about ten more deep breaths in a quiet place where he could fully recover before showing himself—a luxury he didn’t have.

      In spite of the distraction in the park, he had beat Davidson to the scene. Six other cruisers were parked along the street. Two emergency vehicles were in attendance with their back doors wide-open. Uniforms moved like an army of ants up and down sidewalks in the dark.

      Colton grabbed hold of a blue uniform whose name tag said EMT Smith. “What happened here?”

      “Homicide,” Smith said after checking out Colton’s badge.

      “Where? Who?” Colton’s voice cracked with emotion.

      “Name’s Connelly. And one officer was shot after arriving at the scene.”

      “Connelly.” Colton processed the news. “Which Connelly?”

      “All of them.”

      “What?”

      “The whole family was killed. Two adults and two kids. It’s one of the worst scenes I’ve been to. Blood and body parts are spewed all over the place. The house looks like a freaking horror movie set. No offense or disrespect, Officer, but I need some air. I’ve only been on this job for three weeks.”

      Colton felt a rush of adrenaline returning in a bad way. He knew the Connellys. His parents had socialized with that family on occasion. A year ago he had helped to build their kids’ swing set.

      But the arctic adrenaline dump jarring him was also an indication that he needed to chill out in public. EMT Smith was still looking at him as if the guy awaited permission to be dismissed, so that he could slink away and hurl his dinner.

      “Thanks,” Colton said. Staring at what Smith had called a house of horror, he added, “The injured officer? How is he?”

      “He’s been taken to Miami General. Took a bullet in the upper abdomen, but it looks like the gun might have belonged to one of the other victims, perhaps shooting at whatever moved. I heard another EMT say that if he’s in good shape physically, he’ll probably make it.”

      “His name?”

      “Don’t know. Sorry. Got to go.” Smith hurried back to his truck.

      Colton looked down the block to where a city streetlight should have been glowing and wasn’t. The bad feeling in his gut quadrupled in intensity. His parents’ house sat beneath that blown-out bulb. The front windows were dark.

      He ran. Ducking under the yellow tape with his eyes locked on his parents’ house, he rushed across the lawn and up the front steps. Forgetting himself and his innate strength, he tore the screen door off its hinges and reached for the knob.

      He stepped across the threshold, where the brutal odor of blood and exposed Lycan secrets hit him in a moment of monumental frenzy, and the severed head of his proud Lycan father lay on the carpet at Colton’s feet.

      Stunned by the sight, Colton let out a wail of anguish that nearly buckled him at the knees.

       Chapter 3

      Rosalind heard the sound of a Lycan’s roar and froze midstep. Registering the sounds as pain and loss, the intensity of the emotion in the roar rocked her. Hearing something so personal made her want to run away. Stubbornly, she stayed.

      Drifts of a dreadful odor hit her, tearing her from the shadows. Enemy stink. But what kind?

      After the darkness of the park, the revolving lights on the police cars hurt her light-sensitive eyes. She was in werewolf form and in danger because of it. She couldn’t be found like this. She didn’t dare follow the big male’s muffled howl of pain. She wasn’t used to crowds. With so many people around, changing back to her human semblance wasn’t an option, since she’d be naked if she did.

      Nevertheless, she was drawn to the sound of the brown Were’s pain, and moved through the dark spaces between houses on the opposite side of the street, her black pelt acting as camouflage in the night.

      She was stopped by the sight of three human police officers heading toward where she hid.

       Time to get away.

      She had to leave the wulf and what had happened here, and didn’t want to. That sound. The pain in it.