Linda Thomas-Sundstrom - Wolf Born

The cop side of him wanted to fill the holes in his reasoning so he could understand his current state. Cops were trained to fill in gaps and connect the dots. But he just didn’t seem able to do that.

Pertinent lapses in memory could be his mind’s way of reaching for a temporary peace after encountering the rabid side of chaos, he reasoned. Those lapses could just as easily mean that consciousness continued for a time after the body formerly housing it had succumbed to its final loss of breath.

But he hadn’t lost his breath.

He was breathing now.

Colton suddenly sensed something else. He reached out to this new presence with his senses.

“Hey.”

The voice cut through the swirl of gray. He classified the sound as a word. Beyond it lay a familiar fragrance that was nothing at all like the stench of vampires.

Flowers. Musk and flowers.

Not hell, then.

“Can you open your eyes?” the soft voice asked.

It was an odd request, he thought, since he’d been sure his eyes were already open.

“Can you see me?”

This was said in the slightly husky tone of a female’s whisper.

Turning his head took effort.

“I’m not supposed to be here, but I had to see you,” she said. “My father will take me away tomorrow.”

Father? Some feeling came, centered in Colton’s chest. He knew that particular word because he had a father.

Sharp pain struck without warning, as though an arrow had pierced him. It was the arrow of past tense. He’d had a father. But not anymore.

“Can you talk? Will you make the effort to speak to me?” the female asked, her breathy voice bringing with it another hint of the taste of a floral bouquet. Roses. Bloodred roses, rich in color and sprinkled with dew.

No. Not dew. These roses were covered in fur.

Black fur.

Memory zigzagged. Colton wanted to slap his head to make things work more smoothly, but couldn’t move his arm.

A Were with a black pelt? Had he seen that out there?

Absurd.

Why should he remember that, when there were no true black-pelted Weres? Dark brown, yes, but not black. The color itself denoted unfathomable darkness. Even black-haired Weres in human form shifted to a different color.

“Yes,” she, whoever she was, coaxed. “I’m here. If you open your eyes, you’ll see me.”

The voice struck a distant chord. It was filled with submerged emotion and as demanding as it was inviting. This voice was the human equivalent of the howl of invitation a she-wulf had issued to him in that blasted park.

It’s her.

You.

Wanting nothing more than to see who was near, Colton struggled to do as she asked. His eyes hadn’t been open, after all. He opened them, sorry that he had when a glare of hurtful light hit him.

“Wait. I’ll dim the lamp,” she said. “It’s just one lamp, by your bed.”

Absorbing the ache that followed so much time spent in darkness, Colton forced himself to focus. His vision took a while to get into working order, and then he found himself gazing into a pair of large green eyes, very near to his.

His insides stirred restlessly.

There was something about those eyes. Not exactly familiar, but...

A surge of heat broke through his numbness. Again, he heard a howl, far away now, but there, all the same. He saw a dark-pelted wulf charge in to help him, and join in the fight.

His nerves began to simmer, then fry, which in turn caused feeling where there had been nothing but a wasteland.

The fire spread.

Hunger came upon him, heated, and with a ravenous need for the She with that mesmerizing voice.

His biceps tensed. His toes curled. He heard the crack of his spine straightening as whatever power those green eyes held hurled him toward full consciousness.

The flames tearing through him called up his beast. His wulf unfurled as fluidly and easily as if he’d merely spread his arms, the shift silent and uncommonly fast. It came on in a wave, similar to a smooth ruffle of air between two breaths. No extra pain. No forethought. No moon necessary.

Left panting from a transition that had no right to have happened in the first place, Colton, in werewolf form, squatted on a soft blue cloudlike surface, trembling and in shock. All he saw was the brilliance of the green eyes across from his that had not wavered in intensity or retreated by so much as an inch.

This female wasn’t afraid of him.

I know you , he thought again.

His growl was the sum total of his strange new feelings of hunger and longing, and lingered in the space around him.

“I knew it,” the green-eyed woman beside him said. “You’re still in there.”

* * *

Rosalind felt the throb of this werewolf’s blood in her veins. The erratic rhythm of his heart spoke of the depth of his inexplicable need for her.

There was no second-guessing what this need was. It came across as primitive, hotly sexual, and was, Rosalind would have known without the rapid acceleration of her own pulse, very much reciprocated.

She wanted to be with him. Be like him. She wanted to meet him wulf to wulf. Wanted everything this male had to offer.

Exerting pressure to control herself, Rosalind knew that she had been right. They had imprinted not long ago, without their eyes meeting, a fact as unusual as this wulf’s snowy-white pelt. Their hunger was mutual, no matter what shape he was in.

Rosalind was glad she had locked the door. As she stared into his eyes, she could barely keep her hands off the wulf on the bed. Her beast was starved for his beast. She craved his touch, and was left trembling.

“Yes,” she whispered. “We have bonded.”

Tremors rocked her. Similar tremors moved through the white wulf beside her. He was sharing the effects of their bond. He felt what she felt.

“I don’t understand why they would separate us,” she said, tilting her head, trying to speak slowly. “You’ll need details of what happened, some of which you probably already know.”

Rosalind swallowed her beast’s needs down and lowered her voice. “You’ve been badly hurt, attacked by bloodsuckers in the park. The same suckers that killed your family, I suppose. We’ve taken care of those fiends, got rid of them. My father and the judge brought you to Landau’s house. Judge Landau’s wife has been treating you.”

Placing a hand on her chest, as if that would slow her racing heartbeat, she continued. “These vampires were savages. The Landaus say you’ve knocked on Death’s door and stepped across the threshold, only to be pulled back by the strength of your will.”

It was impossible for her to slow down. A deep breath didn’t help.

“You’re alive, but changed. I don’t know how, exactly. I’m not sure what your white pelt means. They won’t tell me everything. They never have.”

The creature her father had called a ghost remained almost motionless, though his white fur rippled with the force of his pulse.

“I’m Rosalind Kirk,” she said. “My father is Jared Kirk. You’ll need to know those things in order to find me.”

The white wulf stared at her soundlessly.

She fell silent for a minute, maybe two, noting how the room at the top of the Landaus’ house that posed as a one-bed makeshift hospital ward smelled of clean laundry and antiseptic. It was sparsely furnished, with a large bed, one soft chair and two bedside tables. The window in the wall opposite the bed was open. The curtains moved in a faint breeze.

Rosalind had no idea what kind of care they had given this Were, or what those treatments entailed, but he had pulled through. Her actions in the park hadn’t killed him.

She blinked slowly to take that in.