Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Desert Wolf

But damn...

The whole raw meat thing surrounding the freak he was after was a strange twist on abnormal. No werewolf Grant knew of went after cattle on the hoof. Most Weres, including him, preferred their burgers well done and on a bun.

These days, most Weres were as civilized as their human counterparts—at least 99 percent of the time. Humans just wouldn’t like the fact that some police officers, nurses and even ER techs could actually be more than they seemed each time a full moon rolled around.

This trespasser was messing with those secrets. Grant couldn’t afford to let angry ranchers get too close to his place of business. Keeping neighbors out of his hair and away from Desperado was imperative to protect the special beings harbored behind the old ghost town’s shuttered windows.

Grant raised his head, sniffed the air.

A bittersweet scent left a tang on his tongue. Moonlight ruled the desert tonight in an almost-full phase. His inner wolf was expanding, waiting in anticipation, as the moon rose above the trees.

Unlike most Weres, Grant didn’t have to give in to the moon’s mystical allure. He could refuse the call if he chose to. A special gift had been twisted into his heritage, giving him the ability to shift with or without the moon calling the shots, when resistance for many others of his kind was futile.

“Just a few minutes more,” he mused, almost ready for his transformation. Wolf blood made him faster and more flexible. It also made him lethal.

The first claw popped out as his fingers uncurled. The rest of them followed in rapid succession, long and razor sharp.

Pressure inside him was building. Ten seconds was all it would take to complete a full shape-shift. His unique abilities, combined with the purity of his bloodline, made him alpha of his own desert pack. Rattlesnakes and crazed lunatics aside, he was probably the most dangerous creature in the area.

“As for you,” he said, speaking to the interloper he waited for. “Are you an unlucky bastard who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Were you infected by a bite or scratch from a bad wolf and surprised when the next full moon came around? Because it seems no one has taught you how to behave.”

Even after a bad bite or scratch, Grant knew, if a human being had been a good human before, he or she would be a good Were now. And good guys weren’t cattle rustlers.

“You would have garnered sympathy if you had come knocking. Now look. The problems you’ve been causing have to be dealt with.” The secrets hidden inside the town called Desperado were at stake and Grant was uncomfortable with how close to Desperado’s gates he was standing. “So, come on. What are you waiting for?”

He searched the area for a hint of the trespasser and spoke again. “I am leader, watcher, gatekeeper, secret holder, guardian and reluctant ruler of a pack of like-bodied, like-minded Weres. Do you purposefully taunt me?”

His patience was wearing thin. Grant glanced once more at the moon then did a quick scan of the mountain range, sifting through the night smells in search of anomalies.

The air was loaded with unique fragrances only found in the West: a combination of sand, brush, overheated rock, animals, cactus and the trees that tenaciously clung to the hillside despite a general lack of water. All those smells fit neatly into his mental data banks.

Except for one.

That one stood out like a shout.

Wrapped in the breeze was the unmistakable odor of blood. There had been another fresh kill, the third in as many passing months. That pissed him off.

“Damn fool.” His voice rumbled. “Who the hell do you think you are to put all of us in jeopardy? It’s only a matter of time before we find you.”

The fact that the creature out there had so far eluded capture was also an anomaly with a wolf pack on the prowl. The only question to consider was whether this trespassing idiot would turn out to be adaptable if offered a choice.

Grant turned upwind. His shoulders twitched again. “If you’re a Were, and in the vicinity, you should be able to pick up my thoughts.” Grant silently sent the message over the telepathic channel most werewolves used to communicate. “Barring that, maybe you can hear my voice.”

He detected no response at all.

“Okay. All right.” Grant raised his face to let the moonlight soak in. “It’s time to up the ante.”

Waves of cold penetrated his bronzed skin and sifted downward, layer by layer, to take control of muscles and nerves. The pain the cold brought was immediate and terrible, but was quickly replaced by a searing heat that would fuel mounds of muscle.

Grant welcomed the discomfort. He welcomed the wolf. Vestiges of his human shape began to shred as he became one with the song that sang to him now. Wolf music. The call of the wild.

I am Lycan, alpha and a servant of the moon. Whatever the hell is going on around here needs to be set straight.

Muscles trembled as they began to expand. Grant’s jeans felt tight. His boots felt cramped and his face stung. With his last speaking breath, he warned, “Time to face the consequences of your actions, whoever you are,” knowing that any rogue wolf with half a brain would run the other way.

Cheekbones rearranged with a rub of ligaments. Vertebrae crackled with sounds no human would ever want to hear. Rabbits scurried. Coyotes whimpered and tucked their tails as Grant Wade, now half man and half wolf, straightened up in the light...his transition punctuated by gunshots in the distance.

Hell, had ranchers found that rogue?

Voiceless now, his body corded with tense, fine-tuned muscle, Grant issued a roar that echoed along the red-rock canyon walls behind him...and began the steep slide downhill.

Chapter 2

Paxton Hall wrinkled her nose as she stepped off the plane.

She pressed her blond fringe of bangs off her forehead and squinted at the scene in front of her. The jet had parked its little tin-covered ass in the middle of nowhere, it seemed to her. Unlike private airports in the East, this Arizona stopover would require a long-distance sprint across an acre of molten tarmac in the blazing sun to get to the terminal. And she was wearing heels.

“We’ll unload the luggage,” someone said from behind her. “You can pick up your bags at the gate.”

Swell. Her bags were going to get a ride. Maybe she could hitch a trip to the terminal along with them.

“Thanks,” she said, watching heat rise from the asphalt like a wavering mirage. She hadn’t forgotten the extremes of Arizona weather and the scorching wind that made everything look barren, but being born here wasn’t an automatic passport to feeling familiar with it now.

Paxton didn’t reach for the metal stair rail, which would have been a sure way to scald her fingers. She was seriously reconsidering the viability of this trip, not quite sure why she was in Arizona. She had her own gig in the East and a nice rented town house. Her income was steady, if not fabulous, and good enough to support her current lifestyle.

So, why did she really need this Arizona property her father had left her, other than for a trip down Nostalgia Lane and the small chunk of change a couple of hundred acres in the middle of nowhere might bring when it sold?

Except that she couldn’t actually sell it, as things were, since her father, God rest his soul, had left the old tourist attraction that sat smack in the center of all that land she had inherited to someone else. Someone unrelated to the family. An unfamiliar name in the will.

Who the hell was Grant Wade, anyway?

How was she supposed to sell a parcel of land that circled, but didn’t include, the central piece?

“Safe journey,” the attendant said politely, interrupting her thoughts. “Will you need anything else, Ms. Hall?”