The Lure of the Wolf Read online

  Erin was just slipping Jared’s amulet over his head. It was impossible to miss, considering that’s all he wore besides a yellow towel wrapped around his waist. Annette wasn’t sure what the ins and outs of the spirit world were, but apparently either clothes and it or clothes and shape-shifting didn’t mix. Jared always ended up naked.

  If Jared had his amulet, then whose amulet had she found? Had another Blood Hunter appeared?

  Clutching the symbol in her fist, she rose to her feet and swept the area with a sharp, searching glance, seeing only Emerald, Sam, Erin, and Jared.

  “Nette?” Emerald turned. The compassion and concern settling over her delicate features reached out to Annette just as they had many times over the past six months. Emerald had found Stefanie’s backpack that day and had called Annette, using the contact information Stefanie had carried in it. From then Annette’s life had been an unfolding horror. Now that Annette knew about Sno-Med, she’d have to start searching there for a reason for Stef’s disappearance. Thinking Stef had fallen prey to vampires made Annette ill. She shuddered again. If only she had called when she left the operating room that night…

  “What is it, luv?” Emerald asked. “Something more is wrong today. I can feel it.”

  Without thinking, without even really knowing why, Annette hid the amulet from sight, clutching it tightly in her palm. She cleared her throat and forced herself to take a deep breath.

  “I’m okay. It’s nothing,” she answered, too raw to share how much she’d failed her sister. And even though keeping the amulet secret made little sense, especially considering how much Emerald and all of her new friends had done for her, she couldn’t share it just yet. And she didn’t want to take the chance that Jared might want to keep it. She’d prayed for an answer, and finding the amulet exactly where Stef’s backpack had been left seemed like a special message just for her.

  “You canna give up hope on Stef. You just canna,” Emerald said. Her endearing Irish brogue always thickened with deep emotion. With the morning sun lighting her moon-blond hair and glinting in her green eyes, she appeared even more magical and elfin than ever. Her petite size and sprightly allure enhanced her mystical image as much as her talk of crystals and her visions of the future.

  “It’s hard to hold on,” Annette said.

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could see something more about Stef, but the Druids are silent. Yet the sense that she lives is with me.” Emerald moved closer, wrapping her arm across Annette’s shoulder and squeezing tight.

  “Don’t tell her that,” Sam said under his breath as he too moved closer, his dark countenance as rugged as a mountain peak. He zeroed his arctic gaze on Emerald. “Can’t you see that all of this Druid and mystical bullshit about Stefanie being alive is only making it harder for her?”

  The sparks that flew between Sam and Emerald had always been hot, but lately they’d been blistering. Emerald inhaled sharply, looking as if she was about to blow her gasket completely. And Annette couldn’t blame her. Sam had been a real bear lately, and nailing Emerald with a speeding ticket for rushing Erin to save Jared this morning hadn’t been one of his smoothest moves. She doubted Sam would file the ticket, but he’d been steaming mad, believing that Emerald had unnecessarily endangered everyone by not stopping when Sam caught up to her and letting him speed them to Spirit Wind Mountain. He was a macho guy who liked to be in charge, and Emerald was a woman who stood alone—no matter what.

  “We’ll talk later,” Annette whispered to them both as she returned Emerald’s hug. “Now’s not the time.” She forced a tight smile, knowing that when later came, she’d delay talking again. Only once in the six months since Stef disappeared had Annette let go of the firm rein she held on her emotions. Giving in to them meant losing control and being vulnerable. The surgeon in her avoided the first, and the woman in her avoided the last—at all cost.

  After a long, hard stare passed between the two, Emerald’s BlackBerry tinkled and Sam cursed.

  “Do your clients ever take a breather?” he asked.

  Emerald rolled her eyes. “Do you? You’re like a dragon who breathes nothing but fire, scorching everyone in his path twenty-four/seven.”

  “Better than being the call girl of the twenty-first century.”

  Ignoring Sam, Emerald turned away to type her response to whatever crisis one of her patients was in the midst of. Being an online sex therapist put her in high demand. It was the best way Emerald could be in America and continue to help the patients she’d been treating in her established practice in Ireland.

  Annette left them to duke it out and joined Erin and Jared.

  She’d met them only a few days ago, when Emerald brought them into her clinic for treatment. Since then, danger and a shared enemy had plowed through normal barriers, making her feel as if she had known them for years, but she still felt a little uncomfortable around them.

  Maybe it was because the love and passion between the couple was so strong, it was like a bright light you couldn’t help but gaze upon, but couldn’t look directly at either. Or maybe, she thought, it was Jared’s all-knowing air. Could werewolves read minds? Could he see her darkest secrets? Did he know how she’d failed her sister? Did he know she had a Blood Hunter amulet hidden in her hand?

  She’d learned the hard way that there was a whole lot more to Jared Hunter and his silent he-man-warrior manner than met the eye. Besides his werewolf strengths, like running and jumping with inhuman ability and healing from injuries rapidly, he could read faster than a speeding bullet and process information quicker than a data geek’s dream machine.

  Then again, the all-knowing look could come from the fact that Jared’s spirit was a couple of thousand years old.

  He would know whose amulet it was. She should tell him about it.

  Annette held her tongue, refusing to give in to the niggling voice inside her head. If he could read her mind, then he’d have to be the one to out her. She didn’t breathe until he shifted his gaze at Sam’s approach.

  “I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but we’ve got some major talking to do,” Sam said, joining them. “I can handle the FBI and the Arcadia Police Department, who are most likely parked in my office right now wanting answers about the fires at the Sno-Med clinic and research center. But this Vladarian vampires shit—masquerading as rich men, playing God with people’s lives, torturing them—”

  Something bad had happened to Sam in the past, something he’d left the Delta Force over. Something he never talked about. Annette and Emerald had pieced together that something had happened in Belize, that Sam had been blamed for something and nobody had believed the truth. Yesterday they’d gotten another clue in the mystery when he’d read one of the names off the list of Vladarian vampires Erin had compiled—Luis Vasquez.

  “You realize that siding with us puts you on the wrong side of the law you serve,” Jared said.

  “Yeah,” Sam replied. “But as I see it, there’s only one side to take. After being kidnapped and put on ice yesterday by Cinatas, I’d be a fool not to believe Erin’s story. Only I think Cinatas has murdered more people than the four she found drained of their blood in Manhattan. I’m still trying to absorb the fact that he’s feeding vampires with it, but I’m catching on fast.”

  “Faster than I caught on,” Erin said. “I worked for Cinatas for three months thinking he was curing cancer with the specialized blood transfusions.” She visibly shuddered. “Instead I was helping vampires.”

  “What I’m having a hard time facing is the number of rich, influential men that are on that list you gave us,” Annette told Erin, then shook her head. “Hell, let me rephrase that. Not men. Vampires pretending to be men.”

  “Well, as I see it,” Sam said, “Cinatas, Ashoden ben Shashur, and the rest of those bloodsuckers are about to meet their judgment day.” He smiled hard at Jared. “We may be a two-man army, but if we’re smart and plan right, we’ll get the job done.”

  Jared nodded.

&nb
sp; “Make that a two-man, three-woman army,” Annette said. “Stefanie worked for Sno-Med. Now that we know what they are, I’m betting they’re behind whatever happened to my sister.”

  “Jared and I will check it out. That I can promise you, but there’s no way you three are going to put yourselves in harm’s way,” Sam said. “Not while I’m alive.”

  Erin rounded on Sam. “I’ve been framed for murder, chased, shot at, and kidnapped. I’m currently wanted by the FBI, and I’m prime food for vampires. I’m already in harm’s way, and I refuse to sit in a corner and twiddle my thumbs. I’m fighting back.”

  “Count me in,” said Emerald. “We’ll meet at my place to plan. Sam, unless you’re interested in dying today, you’d best get over your bleedin’ self.”

  Emerald didn’t wait around to hear Sam’s reply. She marched ahead down the path leading to the cars. This time it looked as if Sam was going pop his piston. All things considered, Annette thought it was pretty miraculous Emerald and Sam hadn’t done each other in by now.

  She clutched the amulet tighter, pressing the warm metal deep into the flesh of her palm as she followed Emerald away from the Sacred Stones. A miracle, she prayed. She really needed a miracle.

  Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik floated through Pathos’s state-of-the-art war room in Zion, the Austrian estate from which he directed the lives of his many offspring and collected data on every creature on earth and among the damned. His plan to rule both Heldon and Logos was taking shape nicely. Another century, and he just might clinch the prize.

  Trouble was, he didn’t know if he could stand dealing with the Vladarian vampires for a hundred years more. As much as he needed them to gain the power he wanted, their petty infighting was becoming more and more tedious—and now they were showing signs of insolence. They needed to be taught another lesson. But doing so would set in motion things Pathos wasn’t ready to let happen yet. Since Pathos had led the Vladarians from being mindless beasts, they’d aligned themselves with different demon factions. To punish them now would lead to a war within the Fallen realm he wasn’t prepared to fight.

  Pathos glanced over at Nyros. The red demon had been serving him for the past century and was quickly proving that the red were the most intelligent of Heldon’s demonic factions. The blue and green demons who’d served him prior to Nyros had been a disappointment. Pathos hoped that when the time came to take control of the Fallen realm, the red demons would side with him.

  “Did I ever tell you about Amadeus, Nyros?”

  “I don’t recall the name,” Nyros replied.

  “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is the genius composer of the serenade you’re listening to. In a single night I killed half of the existing Vladarians over him.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d forbidden the Vladarians to harm certain humans who had Elan blood. Amadeus was one of my protected.”

  “I thought all Elan would be prey to one from the Fallen realm,” replied Nyros. “I’ve heard of how pleasurably exciting their blood can be. Makes me wish I drank blood.”

  Pathos smiled indulgently. “When I first joined the Fallen, I too thought nothing of eliminating all Elan from the world. That was before I realized how necessary it was to have a number of them among the world’s masses, especially those of unique achievement. It took almost five hundred years before the world recovered from our mass annihilation of the Elan. The Dark Ages were a dreary time of few creature comforts, and I do so enjoy those. So, I started a list of Elans that were not to be touched and the world was ‘reborn.’ Amadeus was on that list. His musical genius was beyond compare.”

  “What happened?”

  “A number of Vladarians hated living under a were-being’s rule and one in particular hated me. Drakulya. Upon learning that I took great pleasure in Amadeus, Drakulya secretly had Franz von Walsegg commission a requiem mass from the composer. Amadeus never imagined he was composing his own funeral. Every night Drakulya drank Amadeus’s Elan blood a little at a time until Amadeus breathed his last. I found out too late. And that night I tortured half of the Vladarians into extinction. What do you think would happen were I to chastise the Vladarians like that again?”

  Nyros shifted and settled his gaze on the floor.

  “Come, I asked for the truth. Feel free to give me your opinion.”

  “I think you’d have a war in hell. All I can say is that the red demons would fight for you rather than against you.”

  “That would be a good choice for your faction to make, one with everlasting rewards. And you’re right about the war. I’ll have to come up with another way to bring the Vladarians back to heel, which is a shame. Extinction is such a simple solution.”

  “I’m sure genius will strike you, Pathos. It always does.”

  Pathos smiled. He liked having his ass kissed. “Perhaps by tonight I’ll have an answer. Plan on a guest for dinner. Make it special. Hire a full ensemble of classical musicians. Fly in a gourmet chef for each course and I want a case of Chateau Petrus’s finest reds here as well.”

  “And roses for the lucky woman as well?”

  Pathos couldn’t remember the last time a woman had interested him enough to share a meal or anything else with her. That was the trouble with long-term overindulgence—all pleasure faded. “Roses will be fine, but they’ll be for my son. It’s time Dr. Anthony Cinatas met his real father.”

  “As you wish,” Nyros replied.

  It always is, Pathos thought, utterly bored with his existence. With a sucking pop of air, Pathos left Austria for the United States to invite Cinatas for dinner.

  Since moving to Twilight, Tennessee, Annette had come to the conclusion that the darkest hour wasn’t before dawn, but the creeping twilight that sneaks up and bites you in the ass at the end of the day. That’s when the gears of life in Appalachia ground to a screeching halt and small-town USA hunkered into its cozy homes, belonging places bulging at the seams with the essence of kinfolk—an elixir distilled from generations of shared history and love.

  She didn’t have to smell the home-cooked meals on the tables or hear the conversation to feel her isolation. And it wasn’t hard to see how she’d ended up all alone in life either. She’d buried herself in schools and then in big metropolitan hospitals, where it had been easier to rev up on caffeine and pull another six hours than to have a relationship. Easier to work until she dropped for a few hours before starting the cycle again than to have any sort of personal life at all. Her drive had made her a good cardiac surgeon on the cutting edge of robotic medicine, but it had taken away everything else.

  At thirty-five she could count on one hand the number of relationships she’d had and the number of years they’d lasted. Worse yet, she’d put the people she loved on hold, and now it was too late. Even after the sudden death of her parents two years ago, and her vow to bridge the gap between her and her sister, she hadn’t done it.

  Habit had Annette walking through her empty cabin without turning on the lights as she came home from work. Though having the Blood Hunter amulet in her pocket kept her from feeling as alone as she usually did, she still went to her lounge chair on the back deck where the fireflies could keep her company.

  Tonight, even her closest neighbors weren’t in. Annette had stopped by the Rankins’s place across the road before coming home. She’d been trying to reach Celeste Rankin all afternoon, ever since the woman’s blood work had come back from the lab with disturbing results. Surely there had to be some mistake. They’d have to redo the test, but Annette could assure the woman that she wasn’t pregnant and that she absolutely was not anemic. Quite the opposite. The lab had never seen such a high concentration of red blood cells, and said they would need to repeat the test before they could give Annette an “official” level. It was almost impossible that the lab report was right. Celeste’s polycythemia was so high that her blood was worse than sludge, making blood clots imminent and putting the woman practically at death’s door for an embolism or a stroke.
/>   Annette owed Celeste and Rob Rankin a lot and felt bad that she hadn’t spoken to them in a while, not until Celeste had come in for a pregnancy test a few days ago. But the situation had been difficult. Celeste had been a friend of Stefanie’s, and Rob had worked at Sno-Med with Stef. When Stefanie went missing, the Rankins had spearheaded organizing the volunteers to search for her. When those searches ended, it had been hard for Annette to accept that Celeste and Rob had given up.

  Almost as hard as the outcome of the meeting at Emerald’s this morning. The men had decided to wait, to keep the half-burned Sno-Med Center under surveillance until tomorrow, giving the various authorities time for their investigations before disturbing the area. Annette was more of the mind to get in there now and destroy any surviving patient records or blood samples from the health expo. She also wanted to see if any information about her sister was in the computer systems. Sam had pointed out that because of the fire, the place had no utilities, and one day to avoid running into the authorities wasn’t going to hurt.

  So investigations would have to wait. After the meeting, Annette had gone to the clinic to see patients for the rest of the day, and she was tired. There’d been little sleep over the past few days. Make that months. She hadn’t slept well since Stefanie had disappeared.

  Pulling out the Blood Hunter’s amulet, she let it rest in the palm of her hand a moment, studying the beautiful, almost iridescent quality of the metal and the intricacy of the twelve-point star engraved upon it. The thing had consumed every spare minute she’d had during the afternoon. Though the tingling sensation she’d had when first touching it was gone, the amulet had stayed warm, as if still being heated by a bright sun. Even after she’d stuck it in the refrigerator, its temperature didn’t change.

  Then she’d worried about radiation, but a quick check with a gamma-detecting device from her old offices in Atlanta had ruled that out.