Code Wolf. Linda Thomas-Sundstrom

calm. After a quick look at the two Weres, Dale asked, “Did I miss something?”

      “I think it must have been a ghoul,” Derek’s current fighting partner, still wolfed up and wild-eyed, messaged back. “That thing was seriously demented.”

      Though Dale looked to Derek for an explanation, Derek was already miles beyond thinking about the fight. There were new questions to be answered—carefully, cautiously and with as much diplomacy as possible. The thing they had faced had shown off new tricks, and also knew about Riley. It didn’t seem to want him hanging around her, and had issued that warning.

      It was possible the creature had purposefully allowed Riley to see the werewolf in this alley, so that she’d be frightened enough to stay away from the streets. Why, though? What did that creature have to do with her, and more to the point, what did it want?

      “Derek?”

      Derek glanced at Dale.

      “Maybe you can explain what happened after you’ve changed back, boss. Tonight was quiet everywhere else we patrolled. The pack is reconvening at the park for your summary and for further instructions.”

      Derek didn’t feel like downshifting. He felt like running. Like howling. Like tearing apart that damn fog in any way he could so that he’d be able to sleep.

      But who was he kidding? There’d be no way to sleep when he had to find Riley Price and convince her that she hadn’t seen what she had seen.

      There’d be no way to rest until he made her understand there was no such thing as a werewolf, and that she must have been mistaken due to the darkness of the alley if she thought there was.

      Those urges had to be tamped down for the moment, however, because his pack was waiting for their alpha.

      Was the weakness the vampire had mentioned about Riley?

      Did he believe that?

      There was no way to skip over this encounter with the vampire, or ignore what it meant. Either the vamps had evolved somehow and learned new crafts, or he had just come face-to-face, more or less, with their damn queen.

      Damaris.

      If that was true, he had, for the first time, experienced the power of a centuries-old vampire that had been around as long as there had been history. A powerful female bloodsucker that had gone after his ex-lover two years before and had caused McKenna Randall to accept the so-called blood gift that only a pair of fangs could offer in order to fight back. McKenna had accepted immortality by way of a Blood Knight’s kiss. Her new lover’s kiss.

      McKenna had been given the gift of an everlasting life span from an immortal warrior who had walked the earth for as long as Damaris had, and who once had gone by the name of Galahad. The same motorcycle riding superpower that had stolen McKenna’s heart, and then had taken her away.

      A goddamn immortal who rode a Harley instead of a steed.

      “Derek?” Dale called out.

      Derek backed into the shadows and absorbed the flash of pain that came with downsizing again. He headed for the street, already planning what he had to do to warn his pack about the future, before he’d try to find Riley Price and get to the heart of the problems piling up.

      In his mind, like a lingering echo, he heard that vampire’s message. She is not for you, wolf.

      It was no longer to be an average fight with a vampire. Whether or not anyone liked it, the stakes had just gone up.