Wolf Hunter. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

her body strained to get closer to the wolf in his human skin, while her mind struggled to find a way out of this standoff that made sense.

       Do the smart thing. Turn and sprint. Hope he won’t follow.

      Why hadn’t she at least tried that?

      Was he touching her? No. Yet she felt as if he were.

      Could he be holding her there physically with his wolf aura? Yes. Hell, yes.

      This wolf was the real deal, times ten. And he was what? Being friendly? They were having a chat, as though the word species didn’t matter?

      If this Were internalized her scent, or any other of his cousins trapped her with a purpose the next night, she’d make the obituaries, or worse. One swipe of a claw or a bite that deeply pierced her skin and she might become one of them.

      Considering that she survived at all.

      Abby’s lips parted for a speech she didn’t make. Without thinking she inched toward this Were like a bug drawn to light, her body, independent of her mind, urging that forbidden touch as if part of her actually wanted to burn. As if the secret guilt she had built up over the years about the whole hunting scene, as well as the lectures from her father, the loneliness she’d endured for so long and the image of werewolf pelts hanging from ceiling beams, would burn with her.

      Swallowing the lump in her throat, Abby waited for sanity to intervene, hoping it would hurry.

      “Will you let me go?” she asked breathlessly.

      “Of course you can go. Though I really would like to make sure you get where you’re going safely.”

      An offer of safety from the scariest thing out here?

      As if she was supposed to believe him.

      “Nights here are always dangerous,” he said. “Tonight feels especially tense. Do you sense that?”

      “Why care about me at all? You don’t even know me.”

      “It’s what I do.”

      “You make a habit of accosting women in dark places, and then woo them with the promise of a compromise?”

      “I try to make sure that no accosting goes on, actually.”

      “Are you some sort of vigilante?”

      “Something along those lines, yes.”

      “I don’t recall asking for your help.”

      “Can you assure me that you know the difference between looking for danger and actually finding it?” he countered. “No one comes to this park after dark for fun or shortcuts. Not even if they carry a knife.”

      Okay. So she hadn’t really supposed he wouldn’t know about the knife, scent being one of a werewolf’s strongest attributes, and silver being repugnant to them. But why hadn’t he hidden his knowledge of the knife, when it couldn’t be seen? The forged silver blade would be a wolf’s worst nightmare if it touched skin. No human could have smelled it.

      Maybe that knife was why he hadn’t made his move.

      Tilting his head slightly, he said, “Something about you drew me to you, if you want to know the truth.”

      “Yeah, like I haven’t heard that line a million times,” she said. “I work in a bar.”

      No matter how hard it became, she had to keep reasonably calm, at least on the outside. A frightened human’s scent, she’d been told, was a veritable aphrodisiac for hyped-up hybrids.

      But how did their sense of awareness translate to a human that might not be frightened enough and, instead of fear, held an illicit fascination for this one?

      “Are you really so fierce, I wonder?” he asked.

      “You have no idea.”

      “You’ve no need for company?”

      “Not yours.”

      He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Then go, and I’ll watch your back.”

      “Or stab me in it.”

      “Direct, but way off the mark. I don’t have any reason to harm you. And you have the knife.”

      “Maybe the weapon deters you?”

      “Honestly, I like to think of myself as one of the good guys. What does that knife say about you?”

      It was a good question. Because of it, Abby’s conscience nagged. What if he turned out to be okay, after all? There were decent folks along with the bad in most cultures, though her father had not once mentioned that possibility with werewolves.

      She did know about this good-bad thing in other animals, though, being an animal control officer three days a week. There were nice dogs and bad dogs, and she had quickly learned how to tell the difference. Telling signs started with the eyes.

      Could that ability translate to decoding good and bad Weres?

      Who was he really?

      How different was this Were’s world from hers?

      What did it feel like to carry a fully formed wolf inside, and be part of such a dangerous minority that had to hide from the masses?

      No one had explained those things to her, because no human she knew had the answers. Her father killed werewolves on sight. If he had interrogated any of them, she’d never heard about it.

      Here was her chance to find out about the so-called enemy, and she couldn’t afford to take that chance. Not out here. Not like this, when it had become increasingly obvious that she wasn’t thinking properly.

       Will you really let me go, wolf, or is this some sort of cat-and-mouse game?

       Time to find out.

      “Well, then, I’ll be on my way. I’d like to say it’s been fun...” Her sentence faded when he took another step forward, bringing his heady physical powers of persuasion with him.

      Abby widened her stance defiantly, her body exhibiting more visible signs of distress. The mere fact that she had questioned herself and her motives for being here meant that she’d started to cave. The Were knew this. Animals zeroed in on weakness. His silence told her he recognized what her body wanted in spite of her arguments to the contrary, and in spite of their differences.

      He would have noticed her flushed face and averted gaze. He’d feel the return of heat she gave off and intuit with his wolfish senses about the very private spot between her thighs that had seldom been accessible to anyone, yet had become a quaking mass of need for a stranger.

       Not just any stranger.

      What was wrong with her? Who could interpret the idiocy of what she’d been thinking and feeling? One more step, and she’d feel his breath on her face.

       This is not okay.

      “But you’d be lying.” He completed the sentence she had left dangling, in a tone that wafted over her like a length of fine, drifting silk. “About the fun.”

      “Yes,” Abby admitted. “I’d be lying.”

      She knew right then and there that it was too late for escape. Electrified excitement charged through her. Moonlight sparkled around them like a desert sandstorm, dulling the edges of reality, making closeness to a wolf seem viable. Making sexual fantasies with one seem viable.

      Hell, possibly she did have a death wish.

      And God...his eyes, drawing her to return his gaze, turned out to be gold, like the rest of him. A light, pure gold.

      “I won’t hurt you. Go on. Take off.” The gruffness of his voice suggested that he might be sharing her inner turmoil.

      “If you follow me, you’ll