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 | Jaci Burton, Jasmine Haynes, Joey W. Hill, Denise Rossetti |
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 | Janet Chapman, Sandra Hill, Trish Jensen, Veronica Wolff |
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Excerpt PROLOGUE If you're dead, why does it hurt so much? The question echoed in his mind as he lay on the hard slab. His eyes blinked open, or as open as the swelling would allow. A field of white covered his face. Clouds? A sheet? Every square inch of his body throbbed from punches and kicks. He shifted slightly, testing. Ribs and kidneys screamed in agony. That wasn't the worst. Memories flitted in and out of his brain. The beer. The knock-down, drag-out fight. He'd tried to match the bikers drink for drink. That had been a bad mistake. Not his first. A loudspeaker crackled to life. An urgent voice assaulted his ears. "Dr. Pearson to ER. Stat. Dr. Pearson to ER. Stat." He was in a hospital. But why was his face covered? Why was the bed so hard? Out in the hall, running feet. Voices. He caught snatches of conversation. "Three-car pileup." "We've got all those busted-up bikers, too." "Triage." He tried to hang on to consciousness. It slipped away. Some time later, he woke again. This time he remembered a conversation he'd heard as he lay bleeding on the barroom floor. A babble of excited voices. "Jesus! Roy's dead." "What happened?" "Looks like he hit his head on a table when he went down." More voices, punctuated by loud exclamations of dismay. "What the hell are we gonna do?" "Shit, I don't know!" "Tell the cops the Marshall kid did it. Serves him right for bringing his sorry ass in here." "Yeah." A boot kicked at his ribs, but he couldn't muster the effort to groan in pain. "He can't say otherwise." "You think he's dead?" "What does it matter. We all give the cops the same story, he's dogmeat." Satisfied laughter. And now the hard table. Inching a hand upward, he pulled the sheet off his face. He was lying in a dark room. In the distance, an ambulance siren wailed. Had he heard that before? He didn't know. His brain was too bruised. Cautiously he tried to sit up and gasped as agony caught him in an iron grip. But he was tough. Too tough, maybe. He'd dedicated the first twenty-two years of his life to screwing himself up. Somewhere in the recesses of his addled brain, through the fogging pain, he saw an opportunity to escape—for good. Teeth gritted, he managed to lower himself to the cold tile floor—and passed out. Some time later, his eyes snapped open again. It was still dark. The hospital loudspeaker crackled again. The staff was busy. Could he stand the pain of transformation? He must. He had lost one shoe. It took centuries to work the other one off, then struggle out of jeans and tee shirt caked with dried blood. Centuries to crawl naked to the door, then rise up enough to turn the knob and push the door open a crack. The effort sapped most of his strength, and he sat with his head thrown back against the wall and his breath rasping in and out of his lungs. But he couldn't stay here long. Eyes closed, he gathered his inner resources, calling on rituals passed on from father to son back to the time before written records. He had learned the words on his sixteenth birthday—the way his brothers had before him. Only two of them were still alive. The ones who were tough enough to survive. "Taranis, Epona, Cerridwen," he whispered through split, swollen lips, then repeated the same phrase and went on to another. "Ga. Feart. Cleas. Duais. Aithriocht. Go gcumhdai is dtreorai na deithe thu." Pain flashed like lightning in his brain. As bad as the first time. No—worse because his body was too battered to abide the change. He forced himself to endure the agony because he must. As they had throughout his adult life, the ancient words helped him through the torture of transformation, opened his mind, freed him from the bonds of the human shape. His brother, Ross, had told him the words were Gaelic. An appeal to Druid deities for powers no man should possess. He didn't care what they were—so long as they helped center his being. The human part of his mind screamed in protest when he felt his jaw elongate, his teeth sharpen, his body jerk as limbs and muscles transformed themselves into a different shape that was as familiar to him as his human form. Gray hair formed along his flanks, covering his body in a thick, silver-tipped pelt. The color and structure of his eyes changed. And when he forced himself to stand, he was on all fours. He had been a man. Now he was an animal. A wolf. If anybody saw him, maybe they'd think he was a big dog. Or maybe they were too busy to notice. If he was lucky. The pain was almost too much to bear, but he forced himself to hang onto consciousness. Forced himself to poke his head out the door and reconnoiter the hallway. He could see an open doorway, where the ambulances unloaded the injured and the dying. Mustering every ounce of resolve he possessed, he staggered toward the exit. Someone behind him shouted. "What the hell?" He kept going, into the night. Into the woods. He holed up in an old shed until he was strong enough to hunt. With deer meat in his belly, he transformed back to his human persona. His plans were vague. But he stole a car and drove west, changing his name, courtesy of a convenient gravestone in a cemetery in Canton, Ohio. At the edge of a pine forest, he stopped to stretch his legs. Or perhaps, fate had tapped him on the shoulder. As he stood in the sun-dappled forest, he realized something was badly wrong. No birds chirped in the trees. The small animals he expected to hear in the underbrush were strangely quiet. Even the insects seemed to have abandoned the area. The loudest sound he could hear was water gurgling over rocks. A hundred yards from the road, goose bumps rose on his arms when he found a dead mother wolf and her dead pups, sheltered by a small cave of rock. The pups nestled against her belly fur as she lay on her side, with her eyes closed. The little family looked as if they were sleeping. Still, he knew the smell of death, knew they would never get up and run free, breathing in the scent of pine and earth and game. His vision blurred as a profound sense of loss washed over him. Was it for the lifeless wolves—or for himself? As he dragged in a draft of the forest air, he knew the wolf and her pups were not the only dead creatures here. There were others—too many to count. Some disaster had befallen this land—as if an evil magician had put the forest under a spell. Which was none of his business. He looked back toward the old Chevy he had liberated from Jack's back lot of half-dead wrecks. He should drive away. Instead he walked farther into the shade of the tall pines, feeling their needles crunch under his feet. Sheltered by the forest, he probed for danger, but he knew he was alone in this place. And he knew he wasn't going to leave until he found out what had happened. Swiftly, he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the ground. Then he hunkered down to pull off his shoes and socks before tugging at the rest of his clothing. In the light shifting through the tree branches, he ran his hand down his ribs. His body was healing. He could see taut skin and firm muscles, although various parts of his anatomy were still marred by yellowing bruises. He was lucky to have all his teeth, but he knew the split lip had healed pretty well. He'd stopped peeing blood, and the cut on his forehead was covered by a lock of dark hair. This was the first time he had changed since leaving Baltimore. Today his voice was strong and sure as he rode above the pain of transformation. A wolf once more, he stood and sniffed the air. Usually in the woods, he felt a raw, primal joy at his change from man to wolf. Today that pleasure was tainted by the air around him. Something raw and ugly wafted from the surface of the water where it splashed over the rocks. Poison, his wolf's sharp sense of smell told him. His human intellect wondered why she had drunk the water. Maybe the smell had changed gradually, so she hadn't known what was happening. Maybe a sudden discharge of chemicals that had taken her by surprise. Or perhaps she simply hadn't recognized the danger. The wolf wanted to flee from the evil that hung like tainted fog over the landscape. The man inside forced him to stay, forced him to follow the creek upstream. He was hardly aware of time and distance passing as he traveled through a nightmare landscape. But he saw the evidence of man's obscenity, illuminated by the rays of the setting sun. Death and destruction followed the creek. A doe tried to run from him and floundered on legs that wouldn't hold her weight. A raccoon stared at him with glazed eyes. He found fish floating in the water. A family of dead foxes near the river. As he picked his way along the bank, the water changed. It had looked clear. Farther up the course, it took on a brown tinge. Scum clung to the rocks, and the poison smell clogged his nostrils. Then, in the distance, he saw a scar on the face of the land. Smoke belched from a tall chimney, where a mining or logging operation defiled the land. A sign warned: PRIVATE PROPERTY, KEEP OUT He ignored the admonition, but he never got close enough to find out what man-made nightmare was changing the pristine forest into a charnel house. He sniffed the scent of a man on the wind at the same instant a sound like a firecracker split the air, and something plowed into the trunk of a nearby tree. A bullet. The wolf was no fool. He turned and ran for his life. But he knew he would come back. If not in person, then in spirit. CHAPTER ONE A uniformed rent-a-cop directed Sam Morgan to a grassy parking spot beside the curving driveway. He pulled his sleek Jaguar next to a boxy Volvo, then got out and clicked the remote control lock. It was precaution he always took, although probably he was the only thief attending the Wilson Woodlock party tonight. He'd garnered an invitation to the Montecito, California, mansion through one of the tony organizations he belonged to for the purpose of mingling with the well-to-do, especially the ones who raped the earth for their own gains. The ones who killed animals and savaged forests. The ones who poisoned water and air and earth. Liberating some of their ill-gotten wealth was his chosen profession, as well as one of his chief pleasures. Wilson Woodlock, whose company was currently denuding a stand of timber in Washington State with the enthusiasm of a termite nest on steroids was his next target. Woodlock. It should be Woodkiller. Tonight, Sam was here to case the joint, as James Cagney might have put it in a thirties gangster movie. "Enjoy your evening, sir," the rent-a-cop said as Sam strolled up the driveway. "I certainly will," he answered, with the right touch of enthusiasm. A middle-aged couple in evening dress joined him on the curved drive, and the perfume wafting off the woman almost knocked him to the blacktop. Holding his breath, he dropped several paces behind them, pretending to admire the scenery. The house sat in the middle of a walled park, big enough to swallow a good-sized townhouse development. Instead of cookie-cutter dwellings for the masses, wide lawns with artfully naturalized plantings stretched into the darkness. A blaze of lights and a babble of voices at the end of the driveway announced the mansion. The structure was typical of the upscale southern California neighborhood—Spanish grandee with wrought iron balustrades and a red tile roof. As Sam stepped into the entrance hall, a waiter immediately approached with graceful flutes on a silver tray. "Champagne." "No thanks," he answered politely. He hadn't touched a drop of alcohol since the long ago disaster in the Baltimore bikers' bar. Back then he'd been rough and tumble Johnny Marshall wearing a black tee shirt and an attitude. Now he was Sam Morgan who felt as at home in a tuxedo as he did in his wolf's skin. From saloon to salon in eight years. It was amazing how easily he'd taken on the veneer of civilization—once he'd put his mind to it. Johnny would have been intimidated by the size of the house and covered his discomfort with a derisive sneer. But Sam fit easily into the posh surroundings. He didn't have to prove anything—to himself or anyone else. And he silently complimented his host on the small, engraved sign at the front of the hallway. "Thank you for not smoking." At least Woodlock shared one of his values. Like alcohol, cigarettes were on his "don't even think about it" list. Smoke made him sick. Even secondhand smoke. At the bar in the conservatory, he requested his usual,"Soda water with lime." Then, drink in hand, he wove his way through the partygoers. He recognized many of the faces—some from Newsweek or the California papers. Others were from households he'd robbed. But why not? A man with Woodlock's environmental record would have friends of the same persuasion. He greeted a few acquaintances but kept moving. When he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle, he went still. Casually he stopped to look at a Picasso print hanging over a Bombay chest. Then, just as casually, he turned. When he saw no one staring at him, he continued on his way. He encountered his host in the dining room. The lumber baron, a balding sixty-five-year-old man with a shallow chest and stooped shoulders, was propped against a sideboard, talking to several cronies. He seemed almost inert, except for his eyes. They were bright. It looked like the guy had fortified himself with something potent in order to withstand his own party. When Woodlock looked in his direction, Sam pasted a smile on his face and came forward. "I'm glad I have this chance to meet you," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm Sam Morgan." "Oh yes. From the Glendora Fund list. So glad you could come." They shook. The other man's palm was damp and pudgy, and Sam had to work to keep a look of disgust off his face. They chatted for a few minutes, then Sam said he'd like to see his host's famous Pre-Columbian art collection, the one that had been written up recently in Smithsonian Magazine. The man flushed with pride and directed him to a small gallery near the back of the house where miniature carved and sculpted figures, produced by skilled artisans working before the arrival of Columbus in the new world, were displayed in glass cases. Sam bent to look at a woman with large breasts and exaggerated sex organs while he studied the alarm system on the case, then moved on to other figures—a man riding a llama and a mountain cat, ready to spring. There, sixteen little gems were all exquisitely rendered. And all were too distinctive to sell on the open market. But Sam wasn't interested in their cash value. Simply depriving Woodlock of his fabulously expensive tchotchkes would be enough of a reward. He switched his attention from the art objects to the room, looking for a control panel for the alarm system. Although he saw nothing, he'd studied the house plans and had made an educated guess. As he'd hoped, the control panel was in a closet that backed up to the gallery. Once inside, he used the small flashlight he carried with him to illuminate the keypad. Taking a piece of special paper from a case in his pocket, he carefully laid it over the pad, then slipped the case into his pocket again. His task completed, he strode to the buffet table and enjoyed a slice of rare roast beef on a cocktail bun. But the crush of people was starting to oppress him. There were too many bodies. Too much heat and noise. Too many smells. If somebody on the other side of the room farted, he knew it. When he found a closed door, he opened it and stepped into the family room, where he could be alone for a few minutes of decompression. The shelves behind the boxy chenille sofa were filled with an interesting assortment of books and knickknacks. Mentally he noted a couple of figurines he was pretty sure were Limoges. They were nice, but probably not worth his time and trouble. French doors at the side of the room led to the terrace. He thought he might step outside and give the back of the house a quick inspection. Before he could open the door, the swish of a silk skirt stopped him in his tracks. "So what do you think of Romberg's chances in the primary?" a woman asked. He was about to say that he thought the man would be the Republican candidate for governor, but the words froze in his throat as he turned to gaze into the most extraordinary pair of green eyes he had ever seen. Automatically his mind catalogued details. She was about five foot six, slender, with delicate features and long dark hair swept back from her face and held by antique platinum clips studded with tiny diamonds. A matching pendant hung from a slender chain around her throat, dipping toward the cleavage just visible at the top of the softly draped bodice of her ice blue cocktail dress. "Very nice," he murmured. When she gave him a quizzical look, he realized his response hadn't exactly meshed with her question. He cleared his throat and tried not to sound like a tongue-tied teenager. "Romberg is going to get the votes of people who are worried about raising taxes." She played with a strand of her dark hair. "He can't run on one issue." Sam wanted to say something intelligent. But the woman's enticing scent wafted toward him. It wasn't from perfume, it was her own delicious essence, wrapping him in a seductive embrace. He felt her green eyes stripping away his carefully cultivated veneer, and he couldn't help wondering if she saw all the way down to the wolf lurking deep inside. Then he told himself that was impossible. Nobody could detect the wolf—unless he wanted them to. He knew who she was. He'd been intrigued enough to dig up every scrap of information on her that he could find. Some people photographed well. She was just the opposite. As they stood face to face, he knew that the camera had failed to capture her subtle beauty. Before he could speak, she filled the silence. "I don't think we've met. I'm Olivia Woodlock." "Sam Morgan," he answered, then heard himself asking,"Were you following me around?" Did a little flash of guilt cross her features? Before he could analyze her expression, she dipped her head and looked up at him through a screen of lashes. Her voice turned flirtatious. "You caught my attention." "I try to blend into the woodwork," he answered. "You couldn't." Her tone sent a little jolt along his nerve endings, which he tried to ignore. He had come here with robbery in mind. Starting anything with Woodlock's daughter would be insane. His best option was to put some distance between them, but she took a step closer, moving so that she was facing him. "I'm glad you stopped by," she murmured. "Why?" "I get tired of the same old faces—the same conversations. Do you live nearby?" "I drove down for the evening," he answered easily. "From where?" He almost told her where he lived, then managed to say,"North." It was difficult to keep his focus on her face. He wanted to look at the place where that diamond pendant decorated her cleavage. He should excuse himself and blend back in to the crowd. He and Olivia Woodlock were standing too close, getting too involved. He didn't want to be attracted to Wilson Woodlock's daughter. And he didn't want her to remember him later. Too late for that. They were reacting on too basic a level—a very sexual level. Below the surface of the conversation, he was feeling his own guilt, since his purpose here wasn't exactly honorable. Then he reminded himself sternly that she had been brought up in solitary splendor in a house that hundreds of people would be happy to share. Her bedroom alone probably could house three families. Her bedroom. If he asked her to go up there with him, would she accept the invitation? The outrageous thought shocked him. Since the bad old days in Baltimore, he'd learned caution. He'd learned to focus on what was important at each moment of his existence. Olivia Woodlock was muddying his brain, tempting him to break the ironclad rules he'd made for himself. He knew by the tension crackling between them that he wasn't the only one sexually interested. "Do you often play with fire?" he asked, hearing the thickness in his own voice. "Never." "Then what are we doing now?" he asked. She licked her lips, and his gaze followed the movement of her tongue. "We're getting to know each other." "Why?" He waited for a snappy rejoinder. Before she had a chance to continue the conversation, a loud thumping noise and a shout from somewhere outside the room made her eyes go wide. The blood drained from her face. Pushing past him, she rushed out the door. |
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