Eight Weeks Ago

Shay couldn’t identify the startling sound that woke her from a deep, dreamless sleep—the kind of perfect sleep she had lacked for many weeks. She stared at the shadow-striped ceiling of her bedroom, listening for that strange noise as her newly awakened mind filled with old worries. As the daughter of the run’s Alpha, Shay had no shortage of suitors. Her father, however, had picked through them and given her two choices—both strong Black Wolves who would step up and make an excellent Alpha one day. She needed a strong mate, because of her own inborn weaknesses.

An abbreviated scream sent her upright in bed, clutching the sheet to her breasts. Heart pounding, pulse racing, she listened. The scream had been close by, perhaps in the house next door. The Dennison’s lived next door. She’d invited their family over for supper last week because their eldest son, Edward, was one of her mate choices.

Shay climbed out of bed, her t-shirt and sleep shorts twisted and uncomfortable. She tried to right the clothing as she scrambled for the window. Her bedroom faced north, out over the main street of their small Connecticut town. Everything seemed quiet, in order, and yet a deep sense of foreboding pressed heavily into her chest, crushing her heart beneath its weight.

Something was wrong.

Her beast stirred, snarling its agreement—an instinctive response from her animal nature when her human half was threatened. The loup garou’s beast was fed by instinct, ruled by emotion. Shay soothed her beast as best she could, determined to remain in control and not shift until she knew what was going on.

She left her bedroom for the eerie silence of the upstairs hallway. Her father’s bedroom door was open, which meant he wasn’t there. He always slept with the door closed. “The Alpha is part of all his people, shared by many,” he’d told her once. “That room is my sanctuary, sweet one, my only chance to truly be alone.”

Downstairs, something thumped.

Shay opened her senses, listening, scenting the air. Her skin prickled with awareness—others were moving around in the house. Her father’s cedar and pine scent filled her nostrils, a stronger waft that told her he was home somewhere. Had he dropped something? Bumped into something? Unlikely, as loup garou had excellent night vision, even in their human forms.

A new scent, one of rot and decay filled her with dread. Her stomach curled up tight. Adrenaline surged through her blood, riling her beast. She had never smelled a vampire before, but Father described it to her once. Her nose told her that one of her people’s deadliest enemies was in her home, but that was improbable. Those creatures had been hunted to near extinction long before her father was born.

Another thump preceded a pained grunt. Fear froze her voice, preventing her from calling out to her father.

Outside, a man screamed loudly, painfully.

Shay’s beast snarled, urging her to set it free. Shifting would take too much time, at least a full minute if she pushed herself, and she may yet need her voice. Loup garou protected their own. They didn’t fight within the run. Internal attacks were dealt with swiftly and fiercely by the Alpha. Life was about solidarity and supporting your neighbor . . . so where were all of her neighbors? She couldn’t possibly be the only one to sense trouble. She didn’t dare wonder if she was the only one left alive.

She knew only one thing for certain: something was very, very wrong in Stonehill tonight.

The lingering stink of vampire grew stronger as she went downstairs, taking each step carefully, as swiftly as caution allowed. At the bottom of the stairs, Shay turned the corner to run for the front door. In the near darkness, she tripped over something warm and large. She hit the hardwood floors on her hands and knees, jarring her teeth and neck. The odor of fresh blood choked her, a living thing invading her nose and lungs. She twisted around.

Her father gaped at her through sightless eyes, cheek-down in a pool of his own blood. The flesh of his throat was torn out, ripped to pieces, exposing meat and tendons. Shay shrieked, horror and anger filling her in equal measure. Grief battered at her, wanting a hold, but she beat it back. Grief meant accepting her father was dead, and she couldn’t do that. Andrew Butler was indestructible.

Behind her, a woman laughed, and rage surged through Shay like an electrical current. Her beast roared, demanding vengeance, and Shay gave in to the instincts of her hidden predator. She had no time to shift now, but she could damned well fight.

Shay rolled onto her knees and launched herself at the source of the laughter. In the dim light cast by the half-moon outside, Shay saw a black-clothed shape seconds before she slammed into a small, feminine body. Her hit cut off the girl’s horrid laughing. Shay reached for the girl’s head, intending to slam it into the wood floor as hard as her loup garou strength would allow.

The girl blocked her arms. A forehead connected solidly with Shay’s chin. Shards of pain raced through her face and blurred her vision, her disorientation fed by the warring odors of loup and vampire that surrounded her. She couldn’t locate the vampire in the room, couldn’t get a good scent on her unknown attacker, who smelled strongly of loup. But the scent was muddled, the downstairs hall rife with warring odors, and Shay was too busy fighting for her life to puzzle it out.

All she knew was that the tiny woman below her had murdered her father, and Shay would kill her for that.

The girl gave her no quarter in the fight. She lunged upward, knocking Shay to the side. Shay screamed when the middle of her back slammed into a doorjamb, and white fire surged up her spine. Bladelike fingernails scored her chest and arm, each wound blazing with agony. Blood flowed, slicking her skin and the floor.

“You’re adorable when you fight back,” the girl said in a singsong tone, as though she was commenting on a nursery rhyme. “Fight more.”

“Bitch,” Shay said. “You killed my father.”

“Yes, I did. I’m going to kill you, too.”

The girl swiped out again. Shay rolled, catching a few deep cuts on her shoulder. She crashed into the girl’s legs, sending her tumbling to the floor with a surprised shout.

“This grows tiresome,” the girl snarled.

The girl moved faster than Shay imagined possible in a living creature, suddenly on top of her, and then all Shay knew was pain. Pain and blood and tearing flesh. Her beast roared in agony and anger, unable to take over and protect her, to fight this hellion taking her apart a piece at a time. She closed her eyes, strength draining out of her with each ounce of blood that oozed from a dozen wounds.

The attack stopped. Shay dragged in a ragged breath, positive it would be her last. She waited for the killing blow, the hand that would rip her throat out as it had her father’s. The stink of dead things turned her stomach.

Warm breath puffed over her face. The girl inhaled deeply, then exhaled hard. Her weight shifted.

The girl snarled, a guttural sound that terrified Shay right into her bones. And then Shay relaxed, no longer possessing the energy to fight death. She welcomed an end to her pain. The battle was over, and she accepted her defeat.

“Why?” Shay said, the single word barely audible to her own ears, even though she was screaming it in her head. “Why?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” her attacker said. “You may not like the answers you receive.”

Shay thought it a strange thing to say to someone you were about to murder—an even stranger thing to ponder seconds before you were about to die. She thought of her father instead. His strength and wisdom and iron rule of the people he protected. Who would protect the run now with the Alpha family dead?

Who would avenge their deaths?