“Until you.”
She paused to scan more of the forest. Being alone for so long had made talking to herself out loud an acceptable habit.
“A beast like you took down both of my parents, leaving me without backup. But don’t assume that means I’m weak.”
On the contrary, the loss of her mother and father last year had energized her need to take care of problems that arose. So here she was, fighting back, fighting hard and willing to go to extremes in order to deal some payback to the creatures that had taken so much from her.
“I will find you. That’s a promise.”
If luck was on her side, the new Were wouldn’t get wind of her before she found it. Out of necessity, she had become good at stealth, but werewolves also had keen, fine-tuned senses that were apt to be better than hers. She bore the scars to prove it and wore those scars like notches in her belt to mark the fights she had not only survived but won.
Would this guy know about her?
“Twelve,” she said. “Twelve half-crazed werewolves have ventured too close to this part of South Dakota for their own good.”
She ran a hand down the left side of her face, tracing a line of lightly raised scar tissue. “Number seven did this to me, and regretted it.”
She raised an arm, showing off ridges on her left wrist. “Number nine.”
If the people in town knew about what she did—about how far she had to go and how much she had sacrificed to protect them from the monsters—her loner status would make sense. But they could never know.
“Can you hear me, wolf?”
Maybe it could hear her. And maybe not. Though the keenness of werewolf hearing was legendary, it wasn’t miraculous. They weren’t gods. Weres were just one of nature’s peculiarities.
Then again, possibly this one’s hearing was better than most.
Straightening up with a sudden jolt of insight that demanded her full attention, Tess focused harder on the trees.
Someone was out there.
Chills arrived before the next rush of heat obliterated them. That familiar flash of warmth, originating in her chest, quickly radiated outward to kick her adrenaline levels through the roof.
The creature was here.
Watching her.
The air around her vibrated with a telling whisper that said, Male werewolf. Big. Strong. Intense.
Tess gritted her teeth in anger. By coming here, that Were had crossed a line.
“I don’t care much for trespassers and haven’t asked for company,” she announced at a reasonable decibel. “Especially yours.”
No reply came.
He was sizing her up.
Tess shifted from foot to foot as a sudden external wave of heat blew in to raise her own rapidly escalating body temp even further. The damn heat wave was like being caught in a lava flow and so hot, her stomach turned over.
Tess widened her stance to meet that heat wave head-on. But it was gone as suddenly as it had come. Just like that, and as if the trespasser had merely called it back...
Leaving Tess breathless.
* * *
Jonas Dale stopped five feet short of the chasm dividing his land from his neighbor’s. Exceptional sight allowed him to peer through the trees.
The air was cool. An acrid odor of woodsmoke left a tang on his tongue. Aside from the normal forest fragrances of pine and scrub, he could detect a human.
He had heard about Tess Owens, of course. Word traveled fast and went something like this: hunter in residence. Wolves beware.
Coming here had been a risk. But he needed to be in the remote hills of South Dakota and about as far from his home in Florida as was geographically possible.
The choice of this location hadn’t been made without careful consideration. Tess’s family’s reputation preceded them. If the thing chasing him knew about the Owens family, surely it wouldn’t imagine he’d come here, so close to one of them.
In this case, he was using Tess Owens as camouflage.
Since word had come of the Owens deaths last year, Jonas figured he might get away with this. Still, extra caution would be needed when dealing with any member of that clan. Cunning and the power of persuasion might be the ticket to keeping Tess off his back if she would listen to reason.
Would she be open to hearing anything he had to say when her family was notoriously unforgiving to his kind?
He had come here today, near her home, for a quick look and to judge for himself about Tess. Finding her had been easy. She was standing in her yard, near enough for an agile werewolf with a grudge to take her on without the benefit of any moon-induced physical changes. He wasn’t that wolf, however. Not today. Not ever, hopefully, since his energy was needed elsewhere and he had little time to spare.
Underscoring the mixture of woodsmoke and wildflowers near the Owens cabin were hints of other scents that only a Were’s imagination would acknowledge. Energy. Anticipation. Blood.
Danger had its own unique fragrance, and this Owens offspring had Were blood on her hands. Her head was lifted, her posture tense. If she was good at what she did, there was no way Tess wouldn’t already have a bead on him.
It was a standoff, from a distance, before they had even gotten to hello.
Looks were fairly deceiving though, Jonas had to admit. Tess Owens didn’t look so formidable in person. She was tall but delicate, small-boned, long-limbed and young. Her shape was sleek and accentuated by tight jeans and a skimpy shirt that showed off too much skin and failed to reflect the current coolness of the afternoon temperature.
She had long, fair hair, most of it twisted into a braid that hung halfway down her back. A few unruly strands blew in the same breeze that had carried her scent to him, and those wayward strands were the only bit of wildness in her that he perceived.
The fair hair was a surprise, though. For some reason, he hadn’t expected this werewolf slayer to be a blonde. Not that the color of her hair made a difference in the long run. It’s just that he had a soft spot for golden-haired beauties. Still, Jonas wished he could see her face to witness firsthand the malice that had to be reflected in her eyes.
There were other curious particular details about her as well. Tess’s skin was paler than any outdoorswoman’s skin should have been. That little discrepancy seemed odd since she had to maintain her shape somehow and the great outdoors was her backyard.
Her shoulders were gracefully curved. Slender arms showed good muscle definition, as if she worked hard at something other than chasing Weres. Tess was visibly lean and fit. Too bad she wasn’t a Were, Jonas mused, because he appreciated her looks and could have made the most of them in other circumstances.
Lean, wiry, fierce females were his preference. Females who could hold their own and give back what they got. Females who didn’t usually bend unless they wanted to. He would have liked to run a palm over all that bare skin. Equally as pleasurable for him would have been to touch those silky golden tendrils currently hiding her face.
Wild was, after all, every werewolf’s middle name. In his twenty-eight years of dealing with his species, he had come to recognize the extremes of Were needs and wants...and tamp them down when he had to.
No such luck here, though.
Shaking his head scattered the impossible images taking shape in his mind. The only way he was going to touch Tess Owens would be in self-defense when she came at him with