Michele Hauf - Beautiful Danger

“Hey, demoiselle, you are lonely.” It wasn’t a question.

Lark rolled her eyes. Smoke and whiskey shrouded the man. The scent was obnoxious. But beyond the normal smells she’d expect from a patron lingering near a nightclub, something deeper clung to him. Wild and feral.

And then she sensed others. Two to her right and one to her left.

Shit.

“What do you say, boys?” the whiskey-scented man asked. “We need a little fun before we go for a run, eh? Too bad the full moon ain’t out.”

Lark bit her bottom lip. Werewolves? They gave off a distinctive aura that she sensed, more alpha than most mortal men were capable of. They had better not be from the Levallois pack, or she would insist on double her pay for enduring these half-wits when finally she had slain the longtooth.

“I’m not into dogs,” she said, and turned quickly, backing up to hold a firm stance with the open alley behind her.

A pack of four stood before her. Double shit. All of them looked like bodybuilders, arms flexed out at their sides, and wearing muscle shirts and blue jeans that enhanced their meaty, rugged builds. Wolves were rowdy but usually never gave her problems. They couldn’t know what she was—that she was trying to help them.

She didn’t need them to know.

Holding out her hand, she revealed the blade tucked against her palm, and bent it in a come-get-me gesture. She didn’t go so far as to say “bring it,” but she was thinking it.

“Oh, she’s spunky! Henri, you hold her down.”

“With pleasure.” A brutish blond wolf lunged for her.

Lark slashed her blade across his cheek and stepped aside to avoid the blood spatter. The wolves saw the gaping wound on their buddy’s cheek and charged all at once.

Not too proud to save her ass the smart way, Lark turned and ran down the alleyway but paused when she felt the breath of one at her back. Times like this she questioned her sanity.

She spun on one foot, swinging her leg up into a high roundhouse, and clocked him against the skull with the hard rubber sole of her boot. It was never easy to bring down a behemoth. The wolf grabbed her leg and toppled her off balance. She hit the cobbles, back and shoulders first, an unladylike grunt forced from her lungs.

She should have kept running. Panic had distorted the calm she had been trained to maintain.

Kicking at the next wolf who lunged for her, she slashed his jaw with the blade that sprang from the toe of her boot. Using her hands as springs, she jumped to her feet.

“She’s armed to the teeth!” one growled. “What are you, lady?”

“She’s a walking death wish,” one said.

“I like ’em feisty,” another said, revealing with a smirk his thick canines made for tearing meat.

Lark felt a beefy arm wrap about her waist. The shing of talons grazed her Kevlar vest. Another of the wolves shifted out his claws. Not good. She didn’t want to deal with four fully shifted werewolves. Did they dare shift in the city? So close to mortals?

“You don’t want me enough to risk exposure,” she said, and drew her blade across the wolf’s wrist, which granted her a howling release.

Lark stumbled against a brick wall, and realized the alley was fenced off with wrought iron topped by pointed spindles, a dead end. Four wolves stalked toward her, bleeding and flexing their muscles, each with a hunger for something she wasn’t willing to give them.

“I say we rip her limb from limb,” the one commented as he sucked at his bleeding wrist. “She’s too nasty to screw.”

“Me first!”

The big blond one named Henri charged her, and when Lark wasn’t sure what her next move would be, she slashed blindly through the air—yet impact of wolf to her slender frame did not happen. The wolf howled and landed up against the brick wall to her left.

And before her stood Domingos LaRoque, his back to her, standing tall, with arms out as if to shield her.

“Come on, puppies,” he said. He whistled, short and quick, as one would to call in a dog from the yard. Twisting his head to the side, he flipped back his wild tangle of hair. “Pick on someone your own size.”

“A bloody longtooth,” one growled.

“Get him!”

And the battle began.

Wrestling only momentarily with the weirdness of the vampire protecting her, Lark found her bearings and pulled out a stake. She preferred not to kill werewolves unless it was life or death, but she would do what was necessary to save her own life.

The vampire tossed one wolf down the alleyway as if it were a rag doll, and followed by crushing another’s face into the brick wall. His moves were erratic yet swift. Though tall, he was much leaner than the wolves, and anyone watching would have laughed to see the werewolves get their asses kicked by the slender vampire.

Henri grabbed Domingos from behind. Lark swung around her arm and stabbed the werewolf in the back with the stake. The wolf yowled but didn’t ash. She hadn’t expected him to. Only vampires were reduced to ash with a death punch to their heart. But the wolf did bleed and whimper at the well-placed strike that had, no doubt, pierced a lung.

Disengaging the stake, she swung toward the next attacker.

The vampire ducked and yelped, “Watch that thing! I’m trying to help you here!”

“Sorry.” But she didn’t mean it. If she could take out the vampire amid the ruckus, then bonus points for her. The stake landed in the skull of another wolf, and she had to tug hard to reclaim it. “Thickheaded beast.”

She kicked the slumped wolf aside, and turned to catch the vampire against her chest. The last two standing wolves had tossed him at her.

Hanging over her shoulder, his face close to hers and his breaths panting, he suddenly licked her cheek. “Mmm, tasty. But I knew you would be.”

Before she could shake off the disturbingly sensual shiver that tightened her nipples and react by plunging the stake into his heart, he pushed away from her and charged both wolves.

The vampire was truly insane, because the wolves were twice the size of him and surely twice as strong. The only advantages a vampire had against a werewolf were speed and stealth. Which he was utilizing to his maximum capability. But was it enough?

Domingos tossed one wolf over his shoulder, and Lark lunged to draw her blade across the wolf’s throat. Hot blood sprayed her legs and dripped down the shiny woven Kevlar that reinforced the thighs of her pants. Protected the femoral artery. A fashion must when slaying vampires.

A wolf yipped, and, being the last one, he smartened up and took off down the alley. Three wolves lay groaning on the ground, not dead, but one or two could be close.

Domingos scooped her into his arms and ran toward the wrought-iron fence blocking off the alley.

“What are you—?” She kicked the air but couldn’t manage to get free.

“You don’t want to stick around for those dogs to get their second wind, do you?”

He leaped to the top of the fence, and then the roof, as if he had wings and carrying her was no burden.

Lark pressed the stake against his shoulder, though it would do little more than damage muscle and bone. A direct hit to the heart was required for death. “Put me down!”

“More distance,” he hissed, racing across the rooftop. “Quiet the music!”

“The what?”

She struggled and managed to jump from his hold, but he tugged at her and tried to pick her up again. Lark’s boots slid on the tile rooftop. Trying to place the stake on his heart and maintain purchase on the slate tiles was impossible. She lost her balance.

The vampire grabbed her wrist and shoved her around against a chimney. “Ungrateful wench.”

“Bloody insane vampire. I don’t need your help.”