Half Wolf. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

now,” he said, locking eyes with her large grays. “There’s no time to waste.”

      His Lycan power of persuasion helped to make sure she obeyed. They were still connected. His thoughts would become hers if he willed it.

      Kaitlin faced Cade, who was three heads taller than she was and twice as broad. Michael understood that she wanted to see the kind of monster that had attacked her so she could truly believe that kind of evil actually existed. But the word danger didn’t even begin to describe a situation where his pack had to worry about Kaitlin and fight the vamps at the same time.

      Kaitlin didn’t glance back as she left him. Her spine was rigid and she held her head high. He trusted Cade. Cade was the best of his pack and strong enough to fight his way through a crowd if he had to.

      The sandy-haired Dane followed his Alpha’s directives without question. Cade had been right, though, to want to question Michael’s plan. They were peacekeepers, not babysitters, and the big Were’s incredible reflexes would be sorely missed if push came to shove with fledgling bloodsuckers on a bender.

      Michael swore beneath his breath for having to make that choice.

      “I’ll second that unspoken filthy oath you just thought up and raise you one,” Rena said, observing him thoughtfully.

      Michael tossed her a look.

      “Raise you one what?” Devlin asked, glancing after Cade and Kaitlin. “By the way, you do realize that girl is...”

      “Is what?” Rena snapped.

      “Fragrant,” Devlin concluded.

      “She’s going to be one of us,” Rena said.

      “Is she, now?” Devlin grinned at Michael.

      Vampire presence made the air harder to breathe even for a Were whose system churned oxygen like a well-oiled machine. Michael’s wolf pressed against his insides with a desire to be freed. His body wanted to turn itself inside-out and become the thing he harbored.

      “Party time,” he said as night finally darkened the air, rallying the two Weres. “Under no circumstances can those vampires be allowed to reach the campus.”

      “Like you have to tell us that,” Rena muttered as they all moved toward the spreading blackness that heralded the approach of the undead.

      There was no mistaking the stench in the air. The two vampires heading their way moved in unison from shadow to shadow. Although they were youthful in appearance, these vamps were terribly fast, their whereabouts difficult to pinpoint until they passed through a glittering shaft of early moonlight. Then, as if they’d been trapped by a searchlight, both bloodsuckers paused to hiss their displeasure over having any type of light touch their colorless skin.

      The moon belonged to the wolves, while vampires were true children of the night—the darker the night, the better. Though Michael didn’t know for sure, he supposed that like bats—which were credited as the vamps’ distant relatives—bloodsuckers didn’t have proper-functioning eyes in bright light, which was why vampires sought out dark spaces and burrowed underground in the daylight hours. The darkness was where nightmare belonged.

      The moonlight made these two vamps angry and twice as dangerous. Neither had been undead for long, since both retained some pre-death musculature. Their clothes were in relatively good shape, if the bloodstains were overlooked. However, no one on earth could have believed these creeps were living, breathing humans after a first quick look. No way in hell.

      “Ugly bastards,” he heard Rena mutter.

      One of those bastards heard her and slipped away from the pool of light. Devlin moved after that slinking shadow, leaving tree cover to follow his pasty-skinned prey.

      The vamp in the light made a strange keening sound that Michael was afraid might be some sort of signal.

      “You’re heading the wrong way,” he said to it. “This area is protected.”

      The vamp swelled as if it had swallowed enough air to double its size, though breathing wasn’t its forte. It bared its nasty fangs.

      “Saw that trick in a circus once,” Rena said, unimpressed.

      Her remark broke the standoff. The fledgling moved toward Rena without changing its expression, perhaps incorrectly concluding that a female would be the weaker opposing link. At the same time, Devlin gave a shout as the vampire they had lost sight of came rushing at them from the right, with Devlin close on its heels.

      Michael had already torn off his shirt to soak up the moonlight. Calling upon the innate strength and reflexes of his Lycan heritage, he had one vampire by the throat before Rena had moved.

      There was no time to strip. Michael kicked off his shoes and listened to his worn jeans tear at the seams. Before his next big breath, his continuing morph gave him teeth and jaws to match the claws he had already been wielding.

      Loud cracking sounds accompanied the realignment of his shoulders. His spine snapped straight with a shock to the bones. Seconds later, his legs jumped on the bandwagon.

      As Rena reached for the vampire in his grip, Michael butted her away, allowing his wolf the room necessary to deal with a creature that had died once already and now needed a reminder that dead was dead.

      He howled as he completed his shift. After hitting the ground on his paws, Michael bounded back up to lunge for the vampire’s neck. Grabbing hold there with his sharp canine teeth, he shook the bloodsucker so forcefully, the creature shrieked.

      Rena wasn’t to be left out of this party. She came hurtling back, aiming for the monster’s chest with a short, sharp-tipped wooden stake. Putting all her muscle behind the strike, she hit the place in the vamp’s chest where a man’s heart should have been, and drove the stake deep.

      That was all it took to send one unholy bloodsucker back to wherever it went in the hereafter. The creature exploded into a funnel of swirling gray ash.

      “Dust to dust,” Rena said. “One down.”

      “Make that two,” Devlin announced with a fierce guttural growl as a second explosion came from the area between the trees.

      Michael knew they had lucked out with this batch of fledglings.

      Silence returned quickly, and as though nothing had happened to disturb it...which was exactly the way Michael had wanted things to turn out. Until, with his extraordinary connection to Kaitlin, he perceived the trouble she was in and whirled on all fours.

      * * *

      The guy beside her was blond, built like a brick house and looked capable enough to handle most of the things life might throw his way. Her new guardian, Cade, was the epitome of a modern-day Viking. Attractive. Make that a real heartthrob. And also a werewolf.

      Cade’s green eyes, similar in color to both Michael’s and Rena’s, stared straight ahead, never once veering from the path he led her down. He was concentrating on their surroundings. Kaitlin sensed his reluctance to break their silence.

      “Is something there?” she asked.

      He held up a hand and shook his head, gestures indicating that speaking wouldn’t be a good idea at the moment. There had to be more company up ahead. Dread began to blossom inside Kaitlin over what that company might be.

      With a firm hand on her shoulder, Cade urged her to pause. They stood side by side for a minute, listening, waiting. Then Cade stepped in front of her, acting as a protective shield against whatever was going to show up. Because something was.

      Kaitlin couldn’t see anything past Cade’s powerful shoulders and didn’t need to. Her neck stung with pain that was like having to suffer through her terrible ordeal all over again. In this case, her wound had become a built-in vamp-o-meter.

      Cade spoke to whatever hid in the darkness that lay beyond the meager glow of the closest light pole. “This place isn’t for you. Come to think of it, I don’t