lengthened his stride to reach an area of what in Miami passed for a forest of trees. Liquid moonlight had already begun to move through his veins as if he had injected it into an artery. The phantom sensation of an elongated muzzle made him reach up to check that it hadn’t materialized yet.
Those cops behind him couldn’t see that. There was no way they would understand having a Lycan in their midst, and that a searing, breath-robbing heat was spreading outward from deep inside his chest where a sleeping beast lay curled, craving the night, awaiting its freedom.
“Killion! Wait up!” Julias Davidson, the officer responsible for this beat yelled, the strain in the man’s voice due to him being shamefully out of shape and having to run to the cruiser parked on the street.
Colton didn’t care about the identity of the officer loping along in Davidson’s wake. He was more concerned that Davidson, usually nosy as hell, hadn’t asked why Colton had been passing through this way in the first place when he was officially off duty.
Good thing he hadn’t been asked that question, since Colton didn’t know the answer. He’d just acted on a feeling that something was up with this park and had dropped by for a look. Most of the time, he paid attention to those little sparks of intuition.
“Hell.” In deference to the unanswerable why he was here, Colton found himself in a precarious state. With the muscles of his neck throbbing and the skin on his bare arms undulating like disturbed water in a pond, restraining his lupine abilities took every ounce of willpower he possessed.
The moon called to him, but there was also an officer down just two doors shy of his parents’ house. And the sudden notoriety of an injured or, God forbid, dead police officer would be unwanted attention for a family like his that had a lot to hide—and even more to lose, if they were identified as Lycan.
“Hellfire!”
The whitewashed oath didn’t satisfy him, or take the edge off his anxiety. “I’ve got a bad premonition about this dispatch to Baker Street,” he whispered hoarsely. In fact, his gut told him he shouldn’t wait for the others, and that he would get to the crime scene faster if he ditched the limiting human persona.
Too late now. He had company. Turning, he said to a breathless Davidson in a steady voice, “I’ll go ahead,” as Davidson hit the edge of the trees.
“On foot?” Davidson tossed back.
“I know a shortcut through the park.”
“This park’s dangerous enough with three of us out here.”
“There hasn’t been much real trouble since Scott, Wilson and the other boys cleaned it up last year,” Colton said.
Key word there: Other boys. Capital O. There weren’t many completely human bones left in the bodies of detectives Adam Scott and Matt Wilson, whose lives had radically changed after receiving rogue werewolf bites less than a year ago, and who now had their own secrets to keep.
“Yeah? Well, suit yourself, Killion,” Davidson said. “Some bastard shot a cop, and we need to be there.”
Without stopping for anything longer than two quick breaths, Davidson and his partner took off again. Colton watched them go, his own breath regulating now that he was about to be alone.
Or almost alone. That initial spark of intuition nagged at him again. The night had a strange feel to it that was thicker, denser than a normal night. It felt to him like too many unseen things moved through the dark, taking up space and crowding the atmosphere. Notable oddities like these seemed to hint at an unusual kind of energy massing on the park’s periphery.
He could taste that wayward energy. The word to describe it was wild.
Raising his face to the moon, he absorbed the tingle of light on his skin, and sniffed the air. Most of the scents under the trees were familiar to him. He often worked this part of Miami.
He sniffed again and waited to make sure no intruders appeared, knowing that he had to let the moon have her way this time. He had to let the beast out because of his need to get somewhere fast. Werewolf speed was legendary and what he needed right now was to beat the other officers to the crime scene.
In order to beat Davidson and the others to the crime scene on Baker, Colton Killion, officer of the law, but also much more than his seemingly human appearance or profession, needed to morph into a creature that really wasn’t an entity other than himself, but an integral part of him.
Not a metaphorical twin or the symptom of a split personality with an evil side, his beast was something he birthed by merely turning himself inside out to expose what lay beneath the surface of his skin.
All true Lycans, with pure, undiluted Lycan blood in them, were born to this. Lycanthropy, the oldest form of werewolfism, meant housing a rare blood disorder that predated history, escaped explanation and encompassed the strongest, fiercest of the beings falling under the heading of wulf.
Man-wolf hybrids. Not wolf, but wulf. Royal-blooded werewolves, able most of the time to blend in with human society in a world that had unknowingly absorbed them.
“Okay,” he said with calm finality. “Bring it on.”
Lupine euphoria hit before he finished the invitation. His body quivered with excitement. His core temperature rose in a lightning-fast ascent, reaching the level of “sizzling” before his next intake of air.
Claws popped from the ends of all ten of his fingertips like spring-loaded blades. Brief, swollen seconds of what felt like dark-dipped madness came and went, a throwback to a state people once called Lunacy. And then the process of a man becoming a werewolf took over.
Bones snapped. Ligaments stretched. The sound of hot, wet flesh tearing echoed in the night as his muscles redefined themselves. Colton’s stomach knotted and clenched, doubling him over at the waist for a few more tense seconds as rich brown fur sprouted from his pores.
When he again stood upright, feeling inches taller than his usual six-two, and confined and claustrophobic in his clothes, he opened a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth and issued a low guttural growl that mimicked the sound of distant thunder, a sound that was both a response to the temporary pain of this shape-shift and a keen acknowledgment of being something other than one hundred percent human.
Following that, he belted out a harrowing, piercing howl that rolled through the park’s vast emptiness with a feral quality that would have sufficed to make any animal’s skin crawl, and was meant to do just that.
But as he gathered himself, ready to utilize the animal’s agility and superior speed, Colton’s senses suddenly jerked again to a state of full alertness. The feeling of not being alone made a comeback.
And then, out of the silver-coated darkness, came the surprise of an answering howl.
What the hell?
Had he missed something out there?
Colton’s fur stood on end. He backed up a step, stunned as another howl followed the first. This one was higher in pitch than his own vocalization and no less menacing. But it was also tantalizing and seductive.
Colton glanced up, thinking that the moon must have been playing a trick. But a third sound came soon after the second, closer this time, and from ground level.
Haunting, preternatural, seductive in nature, this howl originated from the part of the park where he’d sensed strangeness but had seen no one. No human, anyway.
The wulf’s immediate natural instinct was to find what had made that sound and mount it, instead of dashing off in the direction he needed to go. The animal’s need to chase down whatever had made those wolfish sounds was so strong and insistent that Colton tightened his mental leash on the beast.
Despite the check of restraint that had him frozen to stillness, Colton’s insides writhed with the new dilemma he faced due to hearing that answering howl. Should he hurry to Baker Street and see what had happened there, or take the time to