Hotter After Midnight

“I gave her a burial in the way of our kind. I showed her the respect in death that bastard didn’t give her in life.”

A third victim. “You can’t do that, Niol. You can’t have your own laws, your own—”

“She was my sister.” His knuckles whitened as he fisted his hands. “He…broke her. Left her in an alley, with the garbage and the rats. Left terror in her eyes and left her in a bed of blood.” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. She was mine to protect, and I did for her the only thing that I could.”

The band stopped playing. A swirl of voices filled the brief silence.

“If I knew who he was, he wouldn’t still be out there, hunting,” Niol muttered. “The bastard would be dead.”

Colin believed him, and he also believed that Niol would have made the killer suffer, for a very long time, before he got the release of death.

A grim, humorless smile curved Niol’s lips. “Wonder which of us will find him first?” He leaned closer. “And wonder which of us will make the bastard scream the loudest for mercy?”

The animal within howled at the challenge. The man spoke through gritted teeth, “This isn’t just an Other matter. Humans have died. The law will punish him. The law will—”

“Then the law had better get to him before I do.” Niol inclined his head. “Enjoy your beer, Detective. And good hunting.”

Colin growled a response as Niol was swallowed by the crowd.

Good hunting.

If only it were that easy. If he could just catch the bastard’s scent…

Broodingly, his gaze once again scanned the crowd. Searched the nameless faces, saw—

Emily. His heart began to race in a hard, fast rhythm. She shouldn’t be there. He’d told her to stay away from Paradise Found.

And here she was, walking beside some blond guy, her hand on his arm, stroking him.

What the fuck?

A musky, familiar scent flooded his nostrils. Colin surged to his feet.

Emily and her mystery guy walked through the back door of the bar.

Without a second thought, he followed them, claws bared.

“Thomas! No, don’t!”

Colin ran forward at Emily’s shout, took in the scene before him in one horror-filled glance.

The man was gone. In his place stood a huge, black panther. A panther with fangs open, glistening, with a body tensed to spring.

A shifter. He’d known the instant he caught the bastard’s stench in the air.

Emily stood before the beast, her right hand raised, fear on her face. She stumbled back, whispering something he couldn’t hear.

The panther growled, stepped toward her, mouth ready to rip and tear—

No! Not Emily. Not his mate.

Colin snarled, and the panther’s head whipped toward him. The animal’s back legs bunched as it prepared to leap through the air.

Shit.

There was no time to move. To draw his weapon. The panther lunged and knocked him to the ground. The animal’s hot breath blew against his throat and its saliva dripped onto him as the beast lowered its mouth for the kill.

He hadn’t wanted it to be this way. Hadn’t wanted her to know…

Emily was screaming, running toward them.

The panther paused, its nostrils flaring, its head turning slowly, slowly toward her.

Human. Weak. Prey. It was the way of the beast. To hunt, to destroy the weak.

Not. Emily.

Razor-sharp claws dug into his chest, burned a path of fire over his skin.

And he knew there was no choice.

His teeth clenched as he opened the door of the cage inside…and let his own beast out.

Time to hunt. Time to kill.

Kill.

OhGodohGodohGod… “Thomas! No! Stop!” The panther was on top of Colin. Even in the dim light, she could see the blood streaming down Colin’s chest.

Thomas was going to kill him. She had to do something. Emily ran forward.

A long, angry howl filled the night. The hair on her nape rose. That howl…

The crunch and snapping of bones reached her ears. Colin’s hands lengthened, fur sprang from his flesh.

Shifting, he was shifting…

One powerful forearm caught the panther, sent it hurtling through the air.

Colin pushed to his knees, crouched. Went to all fours. His eyes were glowing. Bright, bright blue that shone in the night.

His face was changing. The cheeks becoming sharper, the jaw longer.

The teeth much, much sharper.

“Don’t…fear…me.” Not Colin’s voice. A rumble, a grating demand.

The panther growled, surged to its feet, glanced at her.

Danger. Run. Kill.

Thomas’s thoughts blasted her, and she could only shake her head. Who was more dangerous to her? The panther, her lover…

or—

Colin tossed back his head and howled.

A wolf’s howl.

“No,” she whispered.

His clothes ripped, the fabric split apart. His body shifted, changing before her eyes from man to beast.

In seconds, Colin was gone. In his place stood a large, muscled, fangs wide-open wolf.

A fucking wolf. Colin wasn’t just any shifter. He was a wolf.

The black wolf’s bright stare centered on the panther. He growled.

And she knew that both she and Thomas were in serious danger. The wolf shifters are the strongest, the deadliest. By far, the most dangerous of their kind. She tried to touch Colin’s mind. Found only a tangle of animal rage and primitive instincts demanding a kill.

Oh God. She had to try and reach him. Emily lifted her hand, palm out. “Colin. Colin, no.”

The wolf’s head turned toward her. Stared at her with eyes bright with blood hunger.

The wolf padded toward her, head low to the ground. The panther didn’t move from the corner, the creature sensing the deadly threat before it.

Emily found she couldn’t move either. Fear held her immobile. If she fled, he’d just chase her. Wolves were notorious in their lust for the hunt.

The wolf stopped less than a foot away from her. Watched her with his fangs glinting. Then he leaped forward, driving his head into her thighs.

Emily cried out, stumbling back.

This can’t be happening. Not Colin. I never thought he’d hurt me. Never thought—

Her back was against the wall of the alley. The wolf was in front of her.

Thomas snarled, advancing.

“No! Stay back!”

The wolf spun around, hackles rising. His claws dug into the ground as he faced the panther.

As he faced the panther.

He wasn’t attacking, not yet. He’d pushed her into the corner, put himself before her and—

He was protecting her.

Emily shook her head. If he’d wanted to kill her, she’d have been dead already, she realized. But he wasn’t hurting her, he was placing his body between her and the panther.

I control the beast. He doesn’t control me.

The panther swiped out with his claws, trying to catch the wolf in the throat. But the wolf was ready. He jerked to the side and snapped his teeth down on the panther’s front leg.

The panther cried out in pain. Jerked back, limping slightly. The panther was bigger than the wolf, but only by a slim margin. Both were heavily muscled with powerful claws and razor-sharp teeth.

But the wolf—there was no creature on earth stronger than a wolf shifter, and while the panther might be able to fight him for a time, in the end he would lose.

He would die.

“No,” she whispered. Dammit, she couldn’t reach Colin’s mind. The red haze of bloodlust was too strong. But maybe she could stop Thomas, send him away. “Thomas…” The panther’s head jerked toward her. “Go, Thomas, go. I’ll be all right.”

The panther’s eyes slit and his body pressed tightly to the ground as he prepared for another attack.

The wolf growled, raking the ground with his claws, leaving deep grooves in the pavement.

“Thomas, go! ” She screamed the command with her voice and her mind. Used every bit of her psychic strength to push the order at the panther.

The beast whimpered, then sprang toward the street, disappearing easily into the blackness of the night.

Thank God. One beast down. One to go.

Thomas would be okay. The panther shifter had been unable to transform since the death of his mate, and he’d feared an uncontrolled change in public, before human eyes.

But he’d managed to hold onto his human form until she’d arrived and then he’d shifted easily under her watchful eye in the alley.

Yes, Thomas would be fine now. But, well, she might not be.

All alone with a wolf shifter. What, was she insane? Emily gulped as the wolf swung to face her, blood dripping from his mouth.

Damn. Wolves are the most dangerous breed. They can kill without remorse. Catch had told her that, when he’d started her Other training. Beware of the wolves. They have loyalty only to their mates…everyone else is just prey to them.

You don’t want to be a wolf shifter’s prey. She’d believed him then, and everything else she’d learned about the wolves had only reinforced her fear of the unpredictable breed.

But she didn’t have much choice now. Running wasn’t an option. The wolf would just love the hunt too much. And he would catch her, she knew that. No way could she outrun a wolf shifter in his prime.

No, running wasn’t an option. Only one choice left.

Emily fell to her knees. Stared into the monster’s eyes.

Her hands lifted.

The wolf tensed.

The thick scent of blood filled her nostrils. The wild musk of animal wrapped around her.

Old, half-forgotten phrases from her childhood danced through her mind.

What big teeth you have.

The better to eat you, my dear.

He could kill her in a heartbeat. Could rip her throat out in one bite.

Emily licked her lips. Pushed her trembling fingers against the beast’s fur.

She wasn’t Little Red Riding Hood.

Time to stop being afraid of the big, bad wolf.

Chapter 15

Blood was on his tongue. The warm, wet blood of his enemy. Colin threw back his head, howling in victory. He wanted to chase after the panther, to finish the kill, but—

But Emily knelt in front of him. Her glasses gone. Her eyes wide and her face too pale. He could smell her fear in the air, and as always, that heady smell roused the beast.

He crept closer to her, wondering if he’d be able to taste her fear on her skin, in her blood.

Her hands were on him, trembling as they stroked his fur. She was fucking terrified, but she didn’t run.

And that fact made him angry. He’d wanted her to run, then he could have hunted her, claimed her.

The man fought to leash the beast once again. Grappled to harness the strength for the shift.

Claim her. Have to claim her. The words were burning in his mind. His blood. There was no choice any longer.

Claim. Mate. Take.

The animal’s instincts blended with the man’s, became one.

Mate. Take.

Mine.

He’d fought for her, drawn blood for her, earned her.

Mine.

His muscles burned as the fiery pain of the shift swept through him. Bones stretched, snapped, reshaped. Fur melted from his body.

Hands, legs reappeared. He shuddered as his body transformed. Anger filled him, furious rage. Emily was watching him, seeing what he was.

The monster.

Not a man, never a man.

He opened his mouth, howling, screaming into the night…and as the shift ended, the howl changed into a man’s bellow of fury.

He was crouched in front of her. Emily’s hands had fallen away from him. She stared into his eyes, her breath too fast, her pulse thundering at the base of her neck.

“Colin, are you all—”

He grabbed her, surging to his feet. He was naked, but he didn’t feel the bite of the cold night air on his flesh. He only felt…her.

Claim. Mate. Take.

Was it the beast or the man? He didn’t know. Didn’t care.

He jerked open her shirt, sending buttons flying. Shoved aside her bra. His mouth locked on her nipple, sucking hard, pulling her ripe flesh deep into his mouth.

“Colin!” Her hips twisted against his. “Not here, we can’t—”

“Here.” Guttural. “Now.” His cock was fully erect, thick with lust. He wanted inside her. Needed to feel the tight clamp of her sex around him.

Mate.

He took her other breast into his mouth. Sucking. Licking. Biting.

She shuddered and moaned, a hungry, desperate sound.

Emily wanted him. Euphoria ripped through him. She knew what he was and she still wanted him.

She wasn’t turning away. Her fingers were gripping his shoulders, her hips thrusting against his.

Fuck, yes.

She was wearing a skirt. A loose, black skirt that fell to her ankles.

He grabbed the material, jerking it up to her waist. His left hand found her through her panties, stroked the plump folds through the cotton. The rich scent of her arousal flooded his nostrils.

Take.

He spun her around. Her hands flew up, steadied against the wall.

Colin was shaking with the pulsing hunger thundering through him. He knew he was being too rough, but he couldn’t stop.

He had to claim her. Take.

Her panties tore beneath his fingers. The lush curves of her ass beckoned him. So tempting.

He grabbed his cock, stroked the length. A drop of moisture was already on the tip.

Inside her.

Colin parted her delicate folds, lodged the tip of his cock against her opening.

“Not…gonna…be…gentle.” He couldn’t be. Not with the lust riding him so hard. Sweat coated his body. His muscles quivered with the effort of holding back.