Dark of Night Page 4

  “Too many damn bears for my liking.” His words flowed while his gaze swept the woods at my back. “The council has us setting traps for bears since they’re scaring the locals.” He gave me a bemused smile, and looked me up and down. “You home for good now?” Something twisted his expression. Holding the position of alpha meant Sandulf never stopped thinking and questioned everything, so I didn’t fall for his phlegmatic look. Beneath it lay a ruthless leader.

  “The police came and saw me today about an animal attack in the city. They’re about to send out a hunting party.”

  One of Sandulf’s eyebrows crept upward. “That explains your smell.”

  “They found a dead girl on the street this morning, mauled and eaten.” I swallowed the tension in my throat, not wanting to admit the victim was a friend, a human — Catalina, I’m so sorry. “This morning I was also attacked in the woods by a dracwulf, whose scent was all over the crime scene. I think it killed the human.” I started pacing, unable to keep still. “I thought the dracwulf were only legend. That thing tried to eat me.”

  Sandulf’s eyes darkened beneath his frown with the kind of look you reserved for your enemy, not a family member. If it wasn’t for the paleness crawling over his cheeks, I might have mistaken his lack of response for disbelief. His brows pinched together before he asked, “Are you certain?” His voice sounded weary.

  I stopped. “Of course I am. I’ve seen illustrations and read enough descriptions to know what a dracwulf is. I have a bruise on my hip the size of my head to prove the attack.” Though since my hip no longer ached, the mark had probably healed.

  “I see.” His words were almost a whisper as if they formed part of his thoughts and accidentally slipped out. The swelling scent of perspiration and wolf told me he knew something.

  “I was at the crime scene this afternoon.” I paused, thrusting back the memories of Catalina. Us jogging, laughing, and sharing stories about men. “It murdered the girl right behind my apartment. Plus, there were two other killings in the past few months. Sandulf, you must have detected something in the woods, or known a predator had moved into your territory.”

  He gave me a long stare, a warning to watch myself. “She’s trying to claim territory, that’s all.”

  I almost choked on my next breath. “What! That’s all?” Three people had lost their lives, including my friend. “Did you know about the dracwulf and the other killings? And you did nothing about it?” My voice grew brasher and louder. “What is going on?”

  His hands fisted to his chest, and he stormed past me, into the tide of dense evergreens leading into the forest. I assumed he wanted privacy from the other wulfkin, and I followed him, until we were a good distance away.

  When Sandulf turned to me, his chest thrust out and his nostrils flared with each inhale. “The dracwulf is my child. I reared her, hoping … ” His jaw set, and he rolled his sleeves up.

  My mouth fell open. He raised a dracwulf and let it attack people. He’d pretty much signed our lives away. Whatever rules an alpha breaks, the whole pack bares the punishment. And in the case of a dracwulf, the punishment is instant death carried out by the reigning wulfkin clan, the Varlac.

  “Don’t you dare judge me,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “You mated with a wolf and let the cub live.”

  “And?” He cracked his neck. “How different is that to what you and Enre do in the woods when in wulfkin form?”

  “But that’s not breaking any rules, or endangering us or humans.”

  Sandulf blew out a noisy breath. “I don’t need a lecture from you.” His voice hardened.

  “Fine. But you’ve made a mess of this, and now we need to fix it.”

  “Watch your words around me. We will do this my way.”

  As tempted as I was to blurt out that his way hadn’t gone well so far, I bit my lip. “What’s the plan then?”

  “You stop the police from sending out a hunting party.”

  “Okay, I can do that.” At least I thought I could.

  “I’ll stop the dracwulf.”

  I nodded. Something in my gut told me it wouldn’t be that simple, but what could I do? The resolve in his eyes was real.

  A spasm twitched along his jaw line. “The other wulfkin are not to know of the attacks. Right now I don’t need the rest of them panicked. Understood?”

  I didn’t know what to say. I stood there, numb, still trying to process what he’d told me. He broke the biggest pack rule and now asked me to help him cover it up.

  “There’s another reason you should return home. The pack matters right now. You will become a true wulfkin in a few days, and I need you ready.”

  I folded my arms. “Ready for what?”

  A low rumble rolled off his chest. “A nearby wulfkin pack has been slowly claiming bits of our land close to the Bulgarian border. They think I don’t know, but I do. And I want us ready for when the time comes to challenge them.” He kept staring at me as if he could read my secrets. “Just remember, Daciana, if this neighboring pack takes us over, they will most likely kill all of us.”

  My head spun. Heat climbed up my legs and back. “What’s the big deal? We’ve had packs encroach on our territory before. The issue here is the dracwulf.”

  He laughed. It was bitter and fake, and echoed in the woods around us. “I don’t expect you to understand.” His facial expression didn’t waiver. For someone who barely controlled his emotions, he appeared surprisingly calm. “This isn’t a small pack I’m talking about, but the largest in Eastern Europe. Our pack is in danger.”

  This was very bad news. How could our small wulfkin pack defeat the largest pack?

  A loud commotion erupted from inside the house and distracted us. Wulfkin tumbled out the back door carrying plates of raw meat, which they placed on a wooden table near the house. The gathering had commenced.

  Sandulf unbuttoned his shirt, exposing a solid, hairy chest and leaned into me. “Be careful, Daciana. No one is to know of the other pack or the dracwulf.” He took off, disrobing while striding closer to the house.

  Was Sandulf endangering or protecting the pack? The uncertainty set my insides on fire despite the frigid wind. Maybe it was just me having the longest, crappiest day in the world.

  If I moved back into the pack house to help him, Connell would ask a trillion questions I couldn’t explain. If I ignored the pack with a loose dracwulf and encroaching danger from another pack, I’d never forgive myself. That left me with two things to do: find the elixir and help Sandulf stop the dracwulf, all in five days before I joined Connell forever. Sandulf could deal with the encroaching pack. My number one priority was Connell. Without him, I didn’t want to exist. Hell, this was going to kill me.

  Outside the house, the other pack members retreated in a semicircle around the alpha and mimicked him, discarding their clothes behind them. Sandulf insisted we ate before every run, following Enre’s escapade of munching on someone’s pony a few years ago.

  I joined them and slipped in beside Radu at the edge of the circle, eager for the run to commence, giving me full access to the house and the hidden books. Then I’d spend the rest of the night in Connell’s arms.

  The alpha ate first, as was the ages-old custom, the pack members got seconds and any leftovers were given to the moonwulf. Me.

  Sandulf huffed into the wind several times, and soon twitches swarmed his body. His skin split down his back. The wulfkin around me imitated his huffs, louder and louder. Their heat poured over me, and sweat collected at the nape of my neck. Sandulf’s limbs and bones lengthened, and a tail sprouted from the base of his spine. He collapsed on all fours, his elongated fingers and toes dug into the soil. He convulsed, and a mud-brown pelt coated his frame. Black fur covered his snout, ears and underbelly. The breeze carried his scent to the back of my throat —
timber and fresh earth.

  His howl pierced the night.

  My limbs had a mind of their own, quivering nonstop. Watching transformation in the past never affected me. But right then I yearned to join Sandulf as he tore into the raw steaks, smacking his lips while the rest of the pack salivated and waited their turn.

  Sandulf swung around. He snorted, shook his head and trotted into the woods.

  Then the other wulfkin started to morph into their wolf forms. Their bodies shuddered, skins split and an overwhelming cloud of scents hit me.

  I reeled back, needing fresh air. My legs gave out beneath me, and my knees smacked the ground. A change pushed through me, like it had earlier in the woods. Not again. I concentrated hard and struggled to keep my inner wolf at bay.

  Around me, bodies twisted into wulfkin form, grunts and snarls escalated. The fresh-turned soil, pine scents and the wolves’ wet musk drove me wild. I crawled backward, desperate for distance between them and me, but a long breath gushed past my lips, and the floodgates burst open.

  I screamed. My wolf spilled out. A fast and desperate half-growl, half-howl ripped free, and my paws touched earth.

  Something swept against my back with the intensity of a gale storm, and Sandulf was there, right next to me. So close his meat-breath heated my face. His nose grazed the side of my head and body, sniffing, inhaling my scent into him. He growled, and his ears flattened. He snapped at my legs.

  What was he doing? Warning me? I recoiled. My wolf wanted to stand up for herself, eager to snarl in response.

  He barked in my face, and then sprinted into the woods.

  The other wulfkin charged after him, all except Enre, who closed in on me. His silvery ears shone in the moonlight against his brindled gray pelt. He brushed his head along my ribs and moaned. Again he prodded me, and then he bolted into the evergreens until they engulfed him. I watched the tall grass thrash and sway where he passed.

  A blaze coated my chest. An urgency to join the others. My adrenaline spiked. All I could think about was catching up to the pack. I pounced into the woods and raced after them.

  Chapter Five

  The phone’s strident ringing woke me up, and I glanced over at the bedside clock blazing 5:13 A.M. Too damn early for anything.

  Tempted to dive back under the covers, I checked the caller ID: Connell. Crap. The previous night’s events came pouring back: me turning into a wulfkin outside the full moon, running with the pack all night, collecting my keys from the woods, and ditching Connell again. On top of that, I never retrieved the old books for the elixir. Double crap.

  I pushed my legs over the edge of the bed, scrunched the sheet in my fist and answered the call. “Hi.”

  “Where are you?” The panic in his voice turned my stomach.

  “At home.”

  “What happened to you last night?”

  My throat dried up as my mind whirred with excuses. “I uncovered something in my research and got stuck into it, not realizing it was past midnight when I checked the clock. I didn’t want to wake you and went straight home. I’m sorry.”

  “I suspected you wouldn’t come. Looks like I was right.”

  “Come on, Connell, give me a break. I’m working on something majorly important. When you’re on a case and spend nights in the office, I don’t give you shit about it.”

  “That’s not what pisses me off. It’s that you never tell me anything. Send me a message if you’re going to be late or not turn up, anything to let me know what’s going on. It feels like you’re only staying with me on until something better comes along.”

  “That’s not true. I only want you.”

  Silence.

  I lowered my head and stared at the dirt beneath my toenails from the previous night’s run.

  “I don’t want to talk about this now,” he said. “We found two more bodies this morning. The victims were located on the opposite sides of the city.” He paused. “Why would a wolf bolt across the city after a kill? They attack in packs, don’t they?”

  A shiver rippled down my spine. The possibility of two more dracwulf kills made me furious. There was no convincing myself the attacks weren’t related to the others; I felt the truth in my gut. Worse yet, I wondered whether the dracwulf was simply hungry or territorial, and Sandulf had to know. I flopped onto the bed and curled into a ball.

  When I gave no response, Connell continued. “I need you to review the reports from the previous attacks today and visit the new scenes to see if you believe it’s the same animal.”

  I cringed at the innocent wolves that could lose their lives over Sandulf’s stupidity. “Your team can test the evidence and see if it’s the same predator without me.”

  “We have limited testing resources in this country, so we need your expertise to move things along.”

  The way he said “your” sounded full of contempt, and it pained me to hear him talk like that.

  “The chief wants a hunting party issued this weekend, preferably with Romania’s Animal Research Institute’s approval. He’s already spoken with your boss, Vasile.”

  I climbed up and paced the room, shaking my head. Typical Vasile to agree to anything the cops asked.

  “If I could leave you out of this, I would, but I can’t. Trust me, I tried.”

  “I appreciate that. Where should we meet?”

  “Piaţa Square. Half an hour?”

  “I can do that.”

  He hung up.

  A snarl ripped past my throat at the terrible start to the day. Who could blame Connell for being upset? I’d be livid if he kept avoiding me.

  I threw on a pair of Levi’s, boots, and a gray hooded top. The bathroom mirror reflected gray wolf eyes from my recent transformation, and already the silvery color was fading into a darker shade. I pulled every strand of my nest-style hair into a ponytail and rushed outside into the morning twilight.

  In the heart of Braşov lay the Town Hall, which framed Piaţa Sfatului and overlooked the courtyard like an angry gargoyle. In the southeast corner, a blackened Gothic cathedral peered from between two modern buildings with its medieval heritage and weather-beaten stonework.

  I parked myself on the circular step enclosing the spring fountain and watched the carrot-colored sun start its climb. Stray dogs chased pigeons through the area, and the wind howled as it carried the mountain’s chill into the city. The cold stone numbed my backside, and I pulled the hood over my head, thinking about how everything around me was starting to unravel. I could only blame the upcoming Lunar Eutine for my sudden transformation the previous night, and on some level that bugged me. If the impending change started showing signs already, I had to find the elixir without delay to ensure I remained a human and stayed that way forever. Then there was Sandulf creating a dracwulf. What was he thinking? I blew a long, exasperated breath and stared at the mist forming in front of my face.

  Footsteps clapped the pavement ahead of me. Connell strode closer. His shoulders hunched forward and his hands dug into the pockets of his trench coat. Dark lines shadowed his eyes.

  I climbed to my feet and tightened my arms across my chest. Even before he spoke, I sniffed alcohol on him; sweet rum mingled with perspiration. “You look as tired as I feel.”

  He combed a hand through his blond hair. “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  I bit my lip and reached over to touch him. He walked past me, knocking my arm away.

  “Did the rum help?”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “No.”

  “Is there anything I can do to make you forgive me?”

  “I’m not in the mood.” He tucked blond strands behind his ears and his fingers scraped the growing stubble coating his jaw. “You ready?”

  I blew hot air into my cupped hands, ready to scream at him, and force him to forgive me.
Anything to stop the guilt crawling through my chest. I couldn’t stand him being upset with me. “Okay.”

  We hurried to his Audi parked near Piaţa Sfatului. Once inside the car, I strapped my seat buckle and coughed from the vanilla air freshener fumes tickling my throat. “Who are the victims?”

  “The first was a young man who must have been outside when it happened.” Connell started the engine and made a U-turn. “The second, an elderly man attacked in his own bed.”

  “Really?” I scratched my hip. “Wolves don’t break into people’s homes, unless they’re in a fairy tale.” I laughed at my own joke and didn’t manage to break through Connell’s hard exterior.

  He shook his head. “That’s the problem. If it wasn’t a wolf, what animal was it? The initial tests on the dried urine from the last scene proved inconclusive — again. It was contaminated with human components this time. We’re waiting on the blood samples, which will take longer, but I suspect they will match the initial ones and lead us nowhere.”

  Wolves spent their time searching for vulnerable prey, not breaking inside people’s homes, and a dracwulf should be no different. Yes, the animal would try to claim territory, but why such elaborate attacks?

  We veered right. The streetlights revealed identical red-roofed merchant houses and pasty-white walls threading the path. No one strolled outside at such an ungodly hour. If it were my choice, I’d be snuggled up in bed too.

  At the end of the road, an ambulance and several cop cars clustered on the curb. Connell parked behind a silver hatchback. Two uniformed officers caught my attention as they emerged from a nearby house. One clutched a black notebook, while the other kept his hand on his gun’s butt. They exchanged frowning glances and hurried toward the next house.

  I would hate to be those guys.

  “If the scene is too much for you, you can leave anytime.” Connell climbed out.

  I took slow long breaths, reminding myself to inhale and exhale slowly, and followed him. A faint metallic smell danced on the wind. Hunger pains swirled in my gut, and there she was again, my wolf, squirming inside me. The last thing I needed was a repeat of the previous night. I tagged alongside Connell, going onto a narrow trail between two houses, skirted by fences.