Razl and the Bloodrunners, the half-breed hunters whose job it was to hide the existence of their race from humans, as well as to hunt down those who turned rogue, already had their hands full working to get order reestablished up in Shadow Peak. Still mired in the process of forming a new government, the Silvercrest continued to deal with the emotional and physical wounds left over from the traumatic events of five months ago. Events that had left the pack without leadership, and reeling from a betrayal that had affected everyone from the adults who’d lost their lives down to the children who had been tragically
orphaned.
Though once completely removed from the dealings in Shadow Peak, the Bloodrunners’ newly established position within the pack’s political structure put them in charge of Silvercrest security, with Razl working as the liaison between the pack and the Runners. After the recent treachery that had weakened their stability, courtesy of Razl’s father and his savage plans to take over the pack, the Silvercrest had been left in a vulnerable position. It was a frightening time, and the wolves were all too aware of the aggressive nature of some of their neighboring packs— especially the Whiteclaw wolves, who lived to the south of them. As a precaution, Razl and the Runners had been taking turns supervising the night watch, any suspicious or unusual activities being immediately reported by the scouts to the one in charge on any given night. Since
they’d begun rotating the shift, Razl had been involved in a variety of dangerous situations, and was for the first time getting a taste of what life as a Runner was like.
Without so much as the flicker of a lash, Razl glared right back, letting her know he wouldn’t be as easily cowed as the scouts. When she didn’t budge, he made his tone as non-threatening as possible, knowing
his size could be intimidating to a lot of women, and said, “I’m not going to hurt you, lady. I just want to talk.”
She leaned a little closer to the window and ran her gaze over his tall form, working from his scarred hiking boots up to his short hair, then shook her head and raised her chin a notch higher. Razl choked back a low groan, thinking why me? Why couldn’t his friend Jeremy have been stuck with this tonight?
“Look, I can be as stubborn as you are, so save us both the trouble and just roll down the damn window,” he ground out, unable to soften the gruff edge to his order this time. He was uncomfortably aware of his wolf steadily prowling closer to his surface, taking note of her in a way that caused a deeper sliver of alarm to slip down his spine.
This time, she didn’t shake her head in response to his…request. Instead, the crazy-assed woman narrowed her eyes and lifted one closed feminine hand. Then she very deliberately extended her middle finger.
What the…?
Razl stared…a little stunned, thinking there was something definitely not right about her.
Taking his hands from his pockets, he braced them on either side of her window and leaned forward, so close that his warm breath fogged on the glass as he spoke. “You can’t stay by yourself out here in the middle of nowhere, so either turn this thing on and get the hell out of here,” he said in a low, painfully controlled tone, “or start talking.”
If looks could kill, Razl had no doubt he’d be drawing his last breath just about then. But at least he got the desired results. She uncrossed her arms, the scooped neck of her long-sleeved T-shirt revealing a shocking jolt of cleavage that was damn hard not to stare at. He forced his dark gaze back up to her face just in time to see her mutter something he couldn’t quite hear, but could all too easily decipher on those sexy lips. Then she angrily reached for the window lever.
The second the window cracked open, he pulled in a deep breath, his razor-sharp senses searching…seeking. With her strange behavior, he’d half expected her to reek of alcohol or drugs, but he couldn’t pick up a trace of either. Instead, she smelled…like a puzzle. Fresh and clean and delicious, but almost painfully complicated.
Like something he needed if he wanted to figure out an answer, even though he didn’t have a clue what the question was.
And it sure as hell isn’t anything to do with me.
For a split second, Razl was almost disappointed by that particular truth. By the fact that his wolf didn’t recognize that warm, mouthwatering scent as something that belonged to them. Something they were meant to own and claim and possess. But that was nothing short of insane.
He lowered his arms and backed up a step from the bus, determined to put some distance between them. As well as knock some sense into his wayward libido.
That scent made him want to… No. He gave his head a hard shake, ignoring a bad idea that would only lead to an even worse situation.
She was the kind of trouble he didn’t need. Or want.
And once she drove out of his life, he’d forget her as easily as he forgot every other woman who’d ever stirred his interest. It was a given. A fact. He just had to convince her crazy little ass to get off the pack’s private property, and that would be that.
Tourmaline Smart refused to take her glare off the man standing beside her bus. What exactly had she managed to land herself in? Something wasn’t right, and while common sense demanded she get the hell out of there, her heart refused to budge, knowing this spooky mountain might prove to be her best chance at finding Sapphire. Not that her younger sister was a child in need of supervision.
“Well?” she snapped, relieved by the waspish sound of her voice, having been half afraid she might actually purr at him when she finally located her ability to speak.
“Well what?” His voice was hard, deliciously deep and roughened around the edges.
Tourmaline fought the temptation to roll her eyes, thinking they certainly grew them breathtakingly big around here, not to mention gorgeous, but obviously not too bright.“What. Do. You. Want?” she asked slowly, enunciating each word with patronizing precision. She hoped that he would understand that she was not at all liking this situation. After all, this condition could not be to anyone’s liking at all.
Though there wasn’t anything particularly funny about having a gun pointed straight at your heart, Razl had to fight the surprising urge to laugh at the human’s audacity. A bullet wouldn’t kill him, but it would still hurt like a bitch. He should have been furious that she was threatening him, but that wasn’t the source of his anger. Instead, he was uncomfortably aware that the more she stood up to him, the harder it was for him not to pull her out of that goofy-looking bus and show her just how much danger she was courting here.Running his
She her cut her gaze away again, but not before he caught the luminous wash of tears glistening in her eyes.Aw, hell. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to take it if she broke down—that he’d rather have her angry than sad— Razl curled his lips and said something guaranteed to piss her off and get her back up. “Some big burly man, huh? I get it now. You’re one of those women who has guy issues, aren’t you?”
The second the words left Tourmaline’s mouth, a low, rich vein of laughter jerked from his chest, seeming to catch them both by surprise. Her toes curled inside her socks at the delicious sound, while her face burned with color as she realized what she’d just said.Wow. I’m so smooth. Why don’t I just shout it to his face that I think he’s hot?
It wasn’t like her to be whiney, but she’d lost her sense of optimism so long ago, Tourmaline no longer even knew what it felt like. Now all she had was this grinding, sickening feeling in her gut, and a bad case of nerves. Not to mention the sudden addition of ill-founded lust for the gorgeous jerk trying to get rid of her. She could not seem to catch a break with anyone at all. It seemed like fate had given her a kick in her ass just like always, even this time…Talk about crappy timing. And that would probably be the understatement of the year
By the time Razl pulled onto the gloomy, rain-sodden streets of downtown Wesley, he’d managed to learn a bit more about the human than just her name and the fact that she had a prickly attitude. She was twenty-six years old, had just bought her first condo and taught Women’s Studies at a private university in Smythe, Virginia. He’d also learned that she had spent the past few weeks searching for her younger sister, a nineteen-year-old named Sapphire, who also lived in Smythe…and whose party-girl lifestyle and recreational drug use had a habit of landing her in a variety of unsavory situations.
All of which meant that Sapphire Smart had landed herself in some deep shit—and if Tourmaline kept searching for her, she was going to end up in the same situation.As he took the next right, she shifted in the passenger’s seat of his truck, drawing his gaze, and he damn near couldn’t take his eyes off her. The watery spill of light from the garish neon signs in that part of town played softly over her feminine profile and that long, wavy spill of hair. Though her attitude grated on his nerves, Razl had the strongest urge to fist his hands in that
“It is now,” he said with a harsh sigh, taking one hand from the wheel to rub at the knots of tension in the back of his neck, “whether you want it to be or not. So you can take the gun you stashed in your bag and hold it on me if you want to. Go ahead, if it’ll make you feel better. But I’m not going to back down about this.”“You arrogant bastard,” she seethed in a choked voice, the angry, electric pulses of her rage slamming against him, filling the interior of the truck. It made her scent thicker…richer, ti