Excerpt from THE HALF-BREED
VAMPIRE
Total bliss only lasted four
hours.
Hey, Donovan. You got a visitor.
The sound of his commander, Achilles Stefano's voice echoed in his head, waking
him from a dead sleep and leaving his ears ringing.
Slade grimaced, turned over in
his tangled sheets. Talk about lousy timing. Can it wait?
No. Get your ass in here.
What vampire on earth would want
to speak to him at this ungodly hour? Either something was wrong, or was going
to be. Slade grumbled. He grappled the sides of his sleeping spot, a
double-wide grave-sized hole carved out of the gray bedrock, the black satin
sheets pooling around his hips as he sat up.
He phased himself a
fresh-showered look and clean fatigues so he'd at least look presentable, then
focused pulling his energy together at his core, visualizing the security room
inside the clan headquarters, so he could transport.
An image of pale green smooth
walls and military issue furniture circa 1950 filled his mind, accented by the
musty smell that pervaded the room despite the heat thrown off by the banks of
flat-screen computers. A pull, centered at his navel yanked him by the balls
inside out as he transported from his position in the Cascade Mountains to the
complex system of passages and rooms fifty feet below the asphalt streets and
buildings of Seattle.
The minute his particles knit
back together he could see exactly why the hour was so damn late, or rather so
damn early. His visitor wasn't a vampire. It was the woman from the woods, only
now she was in full uniform for a state police officer - a pair of olive green
pants, a short-sleeved khaki shirt with matching olive green breast pocket
flaps and epaulets, a standard issue gun belt, ugly black shoes, and her
glorious ebony hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun at her nape. Damn. Double
Damn. The cop.
Before being brought into the
clan, he'd had his share of run-ins with the law and still felt uncomfortable
around cops. Even pretty, strawberry-scented ones. He glanced at Achilles. His
commander was one-hundred-percent pure golden Spartan warrior, but his modern
military-short hair cut was starting to grow out. His hard jaw didn't flex in a
smile, but the wicked twinkle in his unnaturally green eyes said he knew
something about this woman Slade didn't.
Slade shifted, crossing his arms
over his chest, forcing himself not to wince at the sharp sting in his ribs
that were still a little tender. "Can I help you?"
She extended a slender hand. Her
nails were short and mostly clean, only a few had fine traces of dirt
underneath.
"I'm Raina Ravenwing, Mr.
Blackwolf." She said smoothly, extending her hand. There was no sign of
recognition in her dark brown eyes. "Fish and Wildlife Officer with the
state wildlife department." She clarified, just in case the emblem on her
sleeve didn't do the job.
He stared at her hand but didn't
take it, and she let it drop. "Sorry, wrong guy. Last name's Donovan. If
that's it, I'm out of here." He turned on his heel, giving her his back as
he headed for the door.
"So you go by your mother's
maiden name?"
That stopped him cold. His
mother's maiden name? He didn't know whose name it was, let alone why he'd used
it for as long as he could remember. The only glimpse of his mother - at least
he thought it was her - were distorted slow-motion images he saw in his
daymares.
Dark hair, wide brown-sugar eyes.
A wide-generous mouth, which smiled one moment and screamed the next. A wash of
red blood and the howl of wolves.
To think Officer Raina Ravenwing
knew something about him that he didn't even know about himself rankled. He
turned slowly, facing her once more. "Couldn't tell you. Don't know."
The petite woman widened her
stance, pulled her shoulders back and stiffened her spine. "Well, Mr.
Donovan, I've been told you're a wolf expert of sorts." Her gaze flicked
to Achilles briefly, disbelief evident in the firm set of her generous mouth.
The dark hairs prickled all along
Slade's arm. Somehow, gut deep, he knew she wasn't here to talk about just
wolves. "I guess."
"Don't let him fool you
Officer Ravenwing. There's not another vampire who can track better than
Donovan." It was true. Slade's senses were more finely tuned than most of
the other vamps in the clan. That's why he'd been tapped to be in the security
detail by the commander himself. While his technical specialty was explosives,
tracking came in a close second. Very close.
She stuck her chin out a bit,
almost daring him. "What do you know about unusually large wolves in our
area?"
Slade brushed at the slowly
healing cut at his scalp line. Good. She didn't remember a thing. Weres weren't
something you talked about in polite vampire society, let alone with mortals.
They were less than mortal. A cruel joke of the gods. A cross between an
unpredictable animal and an unsympathetic mortal.
"Why?"
"There've been reports of
some rather unusual wolves causing trouble in the edges of the Alpine Lakes
Wilderness Area. The people are getting lathered up about it and ready to go on
a wolf hunt."
"So let them."
Her eyes narrowed. She crossed
her arms over her chest, making her B-cup breasts jut out enticingly. At least
he thought they were B-cups. They might be just a shade larger, but he wouldn't
be able to tell unless he got his hands on them.
Whoa. Where had that come from?
Slade flexed his fingers, reigning in his wayward thoughts. She wasn't even his
type. Of course, who the hell did he think he was kidding? Female was his type.
It was police officer that wasn't.
"My job as a Game Warden,
Mr. Donovan, is to protect these animals and enforce the laws in this state.
The fact that they've returned at all and may be migrants from the
reestablished packs in Idaho or Montana is significant enough. They're an
important part of our ecosystem and until I find out who or what is really
behind these attacks, I'm doing my best not to let anyone near those
wolves."
The scrape on his scalp was
beginning to itch like holy hell and he wasn't really interested in her
long-winded eco lecture. "Lady, the wolves aren't in any danger. If you
want my advice, you'd do better to worry about keeping people away from
them."
"It's Officer Ravenwing, Mr.
Donovan, and that's about what I expected from a vampire." She said the
last word with such distain that Slade could smell the sulfur of it like rotten
eggs tainting the air.
Achilles stepped closer placing a
huge hand on her delicate shoulder. "Officer Ravenwing, Donovan will be happy
to help you with whatever you need to bring your investigation to a
close."
Slade glared at his commander.
What the hell? I don't want to be anywhere near her.
Achilles glanced back at him, his
words echoing loud and clear in Slade's head. She's part of the mortals' law
enforcers, so we will cooperate fully. We don't need them digging up problems
with the Wenatchee Were Pack to put at our door. You'll help her or you'll be
pulling day shift for the next decade. Do I make myself clear?
Yes.
Yes, what?
Yes, sir.
Achilles gave the game warden a
nod, and she relaxed. "If you'll excuse me, Officer Ravenwing, I have
another pressing matter." He grasped her free hand and lightly brushed the
back of it with a brief kiss. "I'll leave you to fill Donovan in on how
you want this handled."
She gave Achilles a generous
smile that pissed off Slade even more.
She blushed slightly.
"Thanks for your help."
Achilles vanished in a swirl of
dark particles as he transported from the room leaving Slade alone with the
cop.
He glared at Officer nature girl.
Just because he had to help her didn't mean he had to like it. "What do
you need?"
"I need your help tracking
one of them down so I can find out if they've established a new pack from the
groups further east, or if they are a new breed or rare mutation. And find out
what's really going on with this rash of incidents."
Damn. Double Damn. Sure, waltz in
on the Were territory and give them a 'hey, whatz up?' Why didn't she just ask
him to go stake his balls to the ground and sunbathe nude? That would be less
painful. Well, maybe. "So you want me to go on a nature hike with
you?"
Raina restrained herself from
making a smart-ass comeback. If nothing else she was a professional. She would
have preferred to have Achilles go with her. At least he could be trusted and
had some respect for her badge. With Donovan it was a whole other matter.
Everything about him shouted
'danger', from the rumble of his deep voice and dark good looks to his
tiger-like topaz eyes. But it was his broad shoulders encased in black tight
black t-shirt and military cut camo fatigues and wide jaw bisected by a
devil-may-care dent in his chin that made him appear intriguing, which were an
even greater danger to any female in sight. That was, if he'd been her type.
Which he wasn't.
Something at the edge of her mind
nagged her. She'd seen him before. He'd done something horrible. But no matter
how hard she concentrated it floated in her memory just out of reach.
"It's a bit more complicated
than that. There's an investigation currently underway. I need to track one
down and put a locator on it."
He glanced away, sending not so
subtle uninterested signals her way. "I'm sorry am I boring you, Mr.
Donovan?"
He shook his head. "Locator.
Please continue."
Raina was slightly surprised he
had actually been listening. "I need to know if there's only one, or if
there are more and if so, what the pack's territory is so I can advise the
state game department of potential impact on the local farmers and the game in
the area."
She didn't like the way he
narrowed his eyes. The air around him swirled with a potent mixture of
testosterone and wild side that were too intense to be comfortable. While his
commander was at least polite, Slade Blackwolf, or Donovan, or whatever he
wanted to call himself, was barely civilized.
He reeked of bad boy, something
she'd tried scrupulously to avoid since graduating the police academy. If she
got close enough she could probably smell motorcycle fumes and leather on him
if she tried. But she had no intention of getting that close, now or ever.
Getting mixed up with a bad boy was career suicide for a cop, especially a
young female cop, no matter what department she worked in.
This was business, plain and
simple. Being a game warden offered her an opportunity to help out her tribe in
a practical way instead of all the hocus-pocus they kept insisting she was
somehow tied to as part of their hopelessly outdated beliefs.
From what she'd been able to
discover he was her best chance at finding the elusive wolves. So far
everything else she'd tried had gotten her squat. And if things went on much
longer it wouldn't be just the state she'd have to deal with, the Feds would
get involved since her investigation was criss-crossing areas of the Wenatchee
National Forest. She needed to find those wolves. Now.
"Sounds like a lost cause.
Can't prove something's perfectly harmless when it's not."
Raina didn't like his belligerent
attitude any more than his bad-boy demeanor. "Look, if you aren't capable
of helping me-"
Between one breath and the next
she found herself wedged up against the wall. A hard male body too dangerously
close to her own in front and the rough edges of a cold brick wall digging into
her back. Power, like smoke billowing from a forest fire, rolled off of him in
waves. He pinned her, his arms on either side, a lethal look in his golden eyes
that was mesmerizing like a wild animal's. She'd never been this close to an
actual vampire before and it scared the hell out of her.
With an audible flick his sharp
fangs appeared out of the gums just above his very normal looking teeth. His
voice came out low, almost a growl. "I'm perfectly capable of doing
anything you could possibly need done, Officer Ravenwing. But let's get one thing
straight. You came to me. You need me. So if I tell you to jump when we're out
there bushwhacking, you don't ask why, you just jump. I don't want have to
explain to my commander why I came back with a dead game warden. Are we
clear?"
Rania managed to gather enough
moisture in her dry mouth to swallow, but words were beyond her. All she could
manage was a nod, her heart pounding so hard her pulse throbbed in her fingers
and toes.
All the resolve she'd made to
keep good and gone from bad boys of any kind began to dissolve, running like
heated honey through her veins. He was too close and it was too confining. She
tried to push against him, her hands on his broad chest, and found herself
falling forward and stumbling.
He'd dissolved beneath her touch
into nothing but smoke, then reappeared on the other side of the room, in less
time than it had taken her to blink. His large hand was where hers had been a
moment before, his eyes darker than before.
His voice came out almost a
growl. "Next time you touch me, it had better be because you want
to."
Copyright © 2012 by Theresa
Meyers
Permission to reproduce text
granted by Harlequin Books S.A.
