Claiming the Wolf

I’m supposed to hate you. Like she wasn’t sure whether or not she should?

“Hart,” he offered briskly. He never used his first name; Christian was too sissy. “You can take the towel with you. Just get the hell out before I decide to serve you as chum for the pack.”

Wrapping the towel about her shoulders, she opened the door. A sigh preceded her darting glance at him. Sadness wafted through the air and permeated Hart’s chest. He felt the hit directly and sucked in a breath.

“Name’s Danni Weber,” she said. “Tribe Zmaj. I know it doesn’t change things, but...sorry about the bite. I was in survival mode.”

With that, she closed the door, and Hart let out his breath.

“Sorry? About changing my life forever?” He grabbed the nearest thing—a pillow on the couch—and hurled it at the door so hard the seams split and out spilled thick white stuffing.

Hart slapped a palm to his neck. The wound was achy and hot. He would have preferred death over a bite, any day.

Two

Danni stood naked before the mirror mounted on the back of her bedroom door, inspecting her smooth stomach. Gliding her fingers up the skin, taut with underlying muscle, she frowned at the absence of a scar below her ribcage. That her body healed at an insanely fast rate did not cease to bewilder her. It was unnatural. Wicked. Perhaps even demonic.

Truth was, it was vampiric. And thinking the V-word ignited a wrenching twist in her gut. She hated what she had become. Or did she fear it?

A little of both, for sure.

Pressing a palm to the mirror she opened her mouth and watched as she willed her fangs lower. It didn’t hurt, but accompanying their descent, she felt a strange tingling for fulfillment, to satiate her needs with blood and sex. Another wicked, demonic thing that had become a part of her life.

It was all Slater’s fault.

She’d not called him this morning to check in. Revealing her incompetence wasn’t so much a risk to her status in the tribe as it would be to her brother’s neck. Literally. No, she had to avoid Slater for a few days until she could again put herself near the pack leader, Remington Caufield. And this time she wouldn’t screw things up.

The sticky tracking device had slipped off her finger before she’d gotten it on the principal. And the device being miniscule, she hadn’t a chance to find it in a dark nightclub. She’d fled in a panic. The pack wolf who had pursued her—Hart—had been a surprise.

This lurking about and spying business wasn’t her thing. Though tribe Zmaj seemed to think it was. As a former soldier, Danni could reconnoiter a site, sneak up on the enemy, and had even begun training to scout out landmines. Getting close to a werewolf to plant a tracking device? So out of her comfort zone.

But she had to do this. She must not fail a second attempt. Or David, her brother, would suffer for it.

She tapped her fang and sneered at her reflection. “I won’t let this happen to you, David. If it’s the last thing I do.”

Hart plowed a right hook into the punching bag, held by fellow pack member Tony Santenolli. The wolf grunted and let go of the bag, stumbling backward.

“Hart, I think you’ve got it. You got something anyway. Why so angry?”

Angry? Light on his feet, Hart dodged side to side, fists wrapped in tape up by his face in defensive position, before he swung again, and sent the bag flying toward Tony’s growling face. He wasn’t angry. He was...

Hungry. For something he couldn’t quite name. Not food, that was sure. The hunger had been gnawing at him for days, since he’d woken the morning after his swim in the Seine. And yet, that deep, dark twist in his gut and curdling at the back of his throat did have a name. It coiled in his nostrils, drawing in Tony’s musky, metallic scent from beneath his skin.

Blood.

“I’m cool,” Hart huffed. He delivered another iron blow to the bag and felt the sting in his forearms. The best way to avoid the truth? Beat on something.

“Yeah? Well, I’m wrecked, man. You’re beating me bloody.” Leaner, and not as dedicated to the gym but still a powerful force, Tony shoved off from the bag and swiped a hand over his sweating brow.

“I don’t see any blood on you. Come on, bloke!” Hart delivered a high kick to the bag with his bare foot. Mixing in Muay Thai with standard boxing moves was his thing. He loved the martial arts workout and never missed a day. “Give me a challenge!”

Tony waved him off and grabbed a water bottle from the weightlifting bench.

It had been three days since Hart’s plunge into the Seine. He’d thought to walk it off, get on with his life. He’d detailed his chase after the vampire assassin to his principal, but had left out the part about her being a female—and biting him. Pack Levallois would banish him if they knew he’d been bitten. Which is why he had a workout towel draped about his neck right now. The bite mark had scarred and had not gone away as most wounds did within hours.

And every day he felt it more. The gnawing hunger. The deep, gut-clenching desire to sustain himself on a substance no sane wolf would consider. Werewolves didn’t need blood. His breed lived alongside mortals, and to each his own. But consume their blood for survival? Hell no.

The day Hart started drinking blood was the day he gave it all up. He had a good life. He worked hard to protect the pack and in turn was surrounded by the family his soul required. Someday he hoped to take a mate and begin his own family. It was all he needed.

Damn it! Everything he needed was now thoroughly shagged thanks to—her.

“Stupid vampire,” he growled, as another punch pummeled the sand-filled bag.

“What was that?” Tony set aside the water bottle.

“Nothing. Get out of here, man. I’m almost finished. Thanks for sparring with me.”

“No problem. You going to the games tonight?”

The blood games pitted two half-crazed vampires against one another to the death. Right now? Hart would love to see a vampire get its throat ripped out as a small means of recompense against the travesty committed against him. But if he smelled blood, let alone, saw it fly through the air and stain flesh, floor and walls? He’d lose it.

“Nah. Have a...date,” he summoned.

“Cool. Talk to you later.”

Date? He punched again, this time feeling the bones crunch in his knuckles and wincing through that small pain. Who the hell was he trying to fool? He had a date with the weights at his home gym because if he didn’t find a focus, his mind and body would stray toward the hunger.

Wicked, unnatural, wrong—so wrong—hunger.

As it stood, he wasn’t sure he could make it home, walking the streets filled with innocent mortals, smelling the hot blood gushing beneath their skin, calling to him, beating, pulsing, thumping...

“Aggh!” Hart kicked the bag and the chain snapped, sending it flying. It hit the wall, and knocked a hole in the plaster.

“Exactly how I feel.” Like a hole had been kicked in his gut. And the only way to fill it required a dark deed. “I have to resist.”

* * *

Her best bet was to return to the Lizard Lounge tonight. From the intel tribe Zmaj had obtained about pack Levallois, Remington Caufield frequented the place. Danni had to use caution inside the nightclub. Supposedly faery dust was dangerous to a vampire. Getting some on her skin would give her a contact high, and the place had glittered with the stuff. She’d suit up in head-to-toe Gore-Tex again and cross her fingers the second time proved the charm.

Masculine clothing was sort of her thing. Wearing form-fitting workout shorts, which reminded her of men’s boxer briefs—she loved them on a man—and a military-issue tank top, Danni leaned over the kitchen counter. The tiny tracking device was stuck to an adhesive tape she could wear inside the wrist of her glove. Slater had provided her with three. Because he’d suspected she would need the extra chances? The man was a self-possessed asshole whose crooked snarl always sent a chill up her spine. Yet his bite was frustratingly erotic.

Setting the glove aside, she turned to go gather her work clothes, when someone pounded on her apartment door.

Grabbing the nearest weapon, a bowie knife she’d been sharpening on a whetstone earlier, Danni stepped lightly and cautiously to the door. Could be someone from the tribe, in which case, she’d keep the weapon in hand. No love lost with any of her tribe mates.

Tightening her jaw, she leaned forward and turned the knob, stepping back and raising the blade to attack.

She lowered the blade, her jaw dropping as well.