Moon Marked. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

to do here, near this alley, big male Were, or not.

      Slowly, with her eyes trained on the darkest spot, Nikki reached for her weapon, updated since her previous outing.

      “Shoot first.” She raised the dart gun, took aim. “And dream about sex later.”

      A sensual, steadying sigh passed through her lips. Her heart upped its tempo as the night, like liquid, slid over her, further dampening the space between her thighs.

      “That’s right,” she whispered. “Come out, you hairy son-of-a-bitch.”

      The blackness across from her seemed either to stretch or fill up and expand, its supernatural content pushing at its edges. Feeling this reconfiguration of the shadow’s boundaries in the pit of her stomach—in the way all genetically enhanced hunters were able to do—and sensing the shape and species of the creature within the nearby pool of darkness, Nikki sucked in a quiet breath.

      The shadows moved. Nikki remained motionless.

      Like Mom before me, I’ve been born to this chase, she reaffirmed to calm herself further. Mother to daughter was how she had inherited the special sensory elements required for this work. Good old mom had passed along some pretty interesting genes that enabled her to perceive Otherness in its many forms and invest in the desire to do something about it.

      She was special, she’d been told. One of very few people privy to the knowledge of the secret society of hunters, and who could actually attempt to take a werewolf down.

      And she was right on track in her training. Dangerous, even. If no external distractions got in her way, and if this large male werewolf in the alley proved to be unregistered or unmarked by the moon’s brand, he would be toast. Then she could vent the thrill of the tagging with an orgasm—as soon as she got home, and alone—to ease off of the incredible high and fulfill the cravings that hunting these creatures created. Sexual cravings inherent in the symbiotic relationship of hunter and hunted, male and female.

      An age-old game.

      More movement in the shadows at the top of the alley made Nikki ready on the trigger. Her body buzzed with live, channeled energy directed toward those shadows. Again, deep down inside of her, a hot, wet longing built up in unmentionable places. The big guy was real close now and smelling strongly of the pheromones his shapeshifting produced. Wolf testosterone was over-the-top, and this guy had already morphed, having been touched by moonlight somewhere within that alley space.

      Moonlight on a pelt of werewolf fur had its own distinct, unforgettable odor that drifted to Nikki now. For a hunter attuned to her prey, it was a complete turn-on.

      In ten seconds, max, his large carcass would appear. An angry mass of unending muscle, sinew and bone with no purpose at all, really. One of God’s mistakes.

       One second.

       Two…

      “Easy does it, Nik. Wait.”

      She heard the lumbering pad of his feet on the pavement and the soft scraping sound of claws on the brick. The longing inside of her began to blaze, in the manner of an internal searchlight trying to burst out of her skin.

      “Come to mama, beast.”

      Then there he was, emerging from the dark. As tall as the street sign, his head was thrown back and his jaws were open, exposing rows of jagged, lethal, gleaming yellow teeth.

      Nikki applied pressure to the trigger without squeezing all the way, halted by the sudden terrible realization that the big guy wasn’t alone.

      “Shit.”

      Her whispered oath had been soft, but vehement enough for a werewolf’s miraculous hearing to pick up. The big head, shaped nothing like a wolf’s really, and more like a Frankensteinish version, swung her way. A menacing growl pierced the dark, damp air, reaching Nikki with the efficacy of a shout.

      Shoulders twitching annoyingly, Nikki stood her ground. Peering down the barrel of the gun, she shouted, “I’m fairly sure you are just one wolf too many.”

      She squeezed the trigger, adding as the dart winged its way toward its target with the speed of a lightning bolt cutting through a cloud, “And we just can’t have that, can we?”

      She knew she was in trouble the instant the dart hit the werewolf and it roared its displeasure. An impression of the approach of the second Were, too close for comfort, possibly too late to do anything about, arrived hot on the heels of her tag.

      Spinning in place, she raised the gun, reached to reload—and felt a set of dagger-sharp claws penetrate her protective layer of clothing as if that leather was…butter.

      Jonathan Baird ducked beneath the overhang of a green-and-white-striped awning, his attention fixed on the shapely leather-clad vixen down the block. The one with the gun.

      She was intent enough on the alley not to have noticed him yet, though he could see her quite clearly. It would be only a matter of seconds until she became aware of his presence.

      He recognized the striking brunette at once, of course—the woman who interfered with his work and wore her hair in a ponytail. Who could miss her? He’d kept his eye on her from his first sighting, liking what he saw, although she was, in essence, his rival. His opposite, if you considered her take on the word species.

      The hunter was tall, maybe five-six or -seven. She was young and slim, her arms, abs, and legs toned to tautness and shown off to perfection in that skintight outfit. She held a dart gun professionally steady in both hands.

      Jonathan found himself wondering, in spite of the danger of the moment and her preference for donning leather in Miami in the summer, what color her eyes were, and what her voice might sound like. Things he couldn’t use his enhanced senses to find out about from a distance, but were on his mind.

      Details don’t matter, he reminded himself. I’m here to watch her, not to bed her.

      Yet he would have liked nothing better than to bed her.

      Every single part of him agreed with that.

      Immediately, his decision about details not mattering aside, he imagined what peeling those leather pants off her would be like, and what he might find beneath. Lightly tanned, creamy skin beaded with moisture? Her own jet-hued triangle of fur between her legs that he could slide into?

      “Pure fantasy.” He shook his head. He was here because it was his business to feel his way around the members of the secret society she belonged to, not her body. She actually was a rival, or would have been at one time until the path of her society and his own organization had begun to run with a parallel purpose. The hunters kept an eye on the werewolves, and the werewolves kept an eye on the hunters.

      If it got more complex than that, the world would be in serious trouble.

      Tonight, however, this shapely hunter, who had been on his mind and in his dreams, wasn’t thinking clearly, he was sorry to note. She showed no signs of realizing the danger she faced by staking out that particular alley a second time. Alone.

      She’d been there last month. Same place. Obviously, she hadn’t planned on remaining on that unholy pack’s radar. What kind of handler wouldn’t have taught her about retaliation in lesson one? Werewolves were humanlike most of the time—twenty-eight days out of thirty, give or take a few hours. Even when fully morphed and furry, human minds drove the beasts.

       Perhaps this hunter harbors one flaw too many in that luscious body of hers for her to last long at this job…

       Possibly she has a tendency toward revenge and a need to pick up the pieces. Would those traits get her killed tonight?

      The pack she stalked was nasty and a bane to other Weres, as well, which was the reason he’d returned here, himself, beyond his desire to see her again.

      There were werewolves and then there were werewolves. As with any population, a mixture