Claimed by the Alpha. Saranna DeWylde

and as such expendable. The woman who’d been sent must be Van Brunt’s partner. One night, over too many honeyed vodkas, Evan had admitted his investigation was unsanctioned. Luka had done his best to get him to leave, and had finally decided to have him removed forcibly.

      But before he could do so, Van Brunt had been ripped apart this morning. Luka didn’t know why the beasts hadn’t consumed him like they did their other kills. He didn’t want to think about what it meant if the virus changed again and the zombie werewolves had become reasoning beings. Ones who had deliberately left him infected to increase their numbers.

      Luka didn’t have time to babysit the woman cop—he had people to kill. The infection had to be contained at any cost. Of course, if Evan Van Brunt woke up hungry, the woman would need his help to protect herself.

      Leaving the inn, he walked with measured purpose down the aged and cobbled brick roads to where he’d left the body for processing. A sweet scent slammed into him before he even got a glimpse of Van Brunt’s partner.

      Gypsy blood. Gypsies and wolves were either oil and water, or gasoline and a match.

      By the delectable scent of roses and sugar that taunted him, Luka was sure that he and this woman would be more like a nuclear reactor at critical mass. Luka definitely couldn’t afford that kind of distraction.

      Mine. His beast roared in his head.

      He stopped and closed his eyes. No, not a mate. Not now.

      If he couldn’t protect his Beta from the virus, how would he protect anyone else? Especially a Gypsy mate? Rage bubbled under his skin, hot and volcanic, as the beast tried to erupt from inside him. Luka’s iron will locked down the wolf and he swallowed hard, centering himself and focusing on the task at hand.

      He reminded himself that she was a Gypsy investigating deaths that appeared to be at the jaws of a werewolf. Gypsy girls were warned from a young age about his kind, about the draw between them. If he showed up all fangs and claws, he’d never be able to protect her because she wouldn’t allow it. She’d stuff him full of silver and probably try to cut off his head.

      That, he could get over. The silver and the ax would be uncomfortable, but not like the burning fire of a mate found, but left unclaimed.

      Mine.

      Part of him hoped she’d be physically revolting. No mistake, he’d still have to have her, but he’d be able to put it off until the virus had been contained. Then he could seduce her, make her fall in love with him. Gypsies were more like humans requiring such seduction, the building of these emotions like constructing a pyramid, layer by layer. Wolves were much simpler. He recognized his mate. He’d live for her, he’d die for her. Only her. Forever.

      Even so, he still hoped her face was unpalatable.

      Fate was happy to inform him she had other designs when he rounded the corner.

      The woman wasn’t only beautiful, she was a feast for his senses. Everything about her had this sudden hyperclarity, as if the world around her faded to gray and she was the only thing in color.

      Her hair was black and thick, glossed with a pretty sheen like a raven’s wing. His fingers already itched to be tangled in it at the nape of her neck, tilting her head back for his kiss. Those red velveteen lips would part with a shuddering exhale, she’d taste like sugar and rain. The ethereal glow unique to Gypsy blood made her flesh look like pristine, white silk and he knew it would be just as soft.

      There was an aura of strength about her, though. For all of her softness, the lushness of her body, there was steel in her bones. The mark of the Abyss, the trial she’d faced to become a Guild cop. Necromancers ripped a hole in the world and cadets were flung back into the vast primordial darkness that spawned them all, a place that was equivalent to the mortal Hell. They had to fight their way back. Most failed, but those who succeeded were forever changed. A necessary thing to do the job required of them. It pleased him to sense such power in her. She’d need it to be mated to him. The mark of her people flashed with magical life on the back of her neck.

      Obviously intelligent, highly educated, his mate collected samples from the dead man like a forensic tech—inspecting and labeling each item before filing it in its proper place inside a small, leather case she carried with her. Underneath her scent rippled sour currents of fear. She was afraid, but she did what was required of her anyway.

      It was inherently wrong that his mate should ever know a single moment of fear. Fury ratcheted up another notch, like mercury in a thermometer.

      It will be you she fears if you don’t control yourself.

      The mark of her people flashed with magical life on the back of her neck and a string of profanity longer than the village charter flared just under his breath.

      This cop wasn’t just any Guild. She wasn’t just any Gypsy.

      She was Zoranna’s granddaughter.

      In the same way that he was the Alpha of Alphas, the Adam of his kind—Zoranna was the Eve of Gypsies. There was no way she’d allow her granddaughter to be claimed by a wolf. Not even Luka.

      Her daughter had been murdered by her wolf lover.

      Luka’s ears perked to the chorus of unnatural howls still too far away for anyone to hear but him.

      The beasts were coming.

      And they were hungry.

      Chapter Two

      Blood never bothered Marijka Zolinski.

      It was an intrinsic part of her culture, of stories handed down from Baba Zoranna around a crackling orange fire as it climbed high into the chill night air. A common thread to bind the secret ingredients of spells, curses and wise-woman cures. Blood could stain the ground for all eternity with a rage that anchored the past to the future. Or it could wipe the slate clean, a crimson blessing to wash away sins of the fathers.

      No, blood was simply a tool. Like sage, a packet of peacock feathers, or a sacred stone pried from deep within the earth.

      She could handle blood. Even if it belonged to her partner, Evan Van Brunt.

      Evan had been out of contact for four days. Marijka had accepted he was dead after day one. Guild members lived hard and fast—their flames burned hot, but were extinguished quickly.

      And horribly.

      By even being at the scene, Marijka broke standard operating procedure, but she was the only Guild officer within two days of travel, and two days was much too long with the full moon occurring tomorrow night. Evan’s body had to be processed before then, or by the Guild’s treaty with the Aeternali, he’d be cursed.

      Before his disappearance, he’d forwarded her recon he’d done in Nuremberg, evidence of a village outside of Ostrava where the villagers all suffered from a derivative of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. At first, he’d thought it was Kuru, another form of spongiform encephalopathy—a disease that turned brain matter “spongy” with holes, contracted through cannibalism, but the protein behavior was different. Something similar to undead proteins; the Zombie Virus. Because the villagers were still walking around, functioning. Kuru and CJD were both fatal.

      All thoughts of scientific study died when she’d first seen Evan.

      The first thing she’d noticed was the stark, white pieces of his skull. The rest of his body had been ravaged—torn apart by animals with unnatural jaws and teeth. His chest cavity had been cracked open, his body gutted from throat to belly. His organs were gone.

      Eaten.

      Just as her mother’s body had been on that January night so long ago. She fought against the rising tide of memory that was never more than a breath away from her awareness. Marijka breathed in deep, the eucalyptus from the Vicks VapoRub she’d put on comforting her. It calmed her, soothed away the terrors as much as it blocked the stench of decayed and rotting flesh.

      Marijka’s gaze was drawn unwillingly up