Half Wolf by Linda Thomas-Sundstrom Page A

silent.
    Kaitlin broke it. “Thank you,” she said to him with a calmness belying the true state of her emotions. She was ready to jump out of her skin if someone said boo.
    “It’s what we do,” Michael said. “Because somebody has to.”
    She kept her gaze level. “They might have made more vampires tonight.”
    “We take one day at a time to eliminate a few of those possibilities.”
    “They can’t change werewolves? Turn wolves into something else?”
    He shook his head. “Our blood is poison to them. They can sense this.”
    Kaitlin turned to Rena in an obvious attempt to elude the picture he presented without his clothes. He read her thoughts on this easily enough. Kaitlin liked his body. She wanted to go to him, touch him, be held by him. She wanted to...
    Hell, he almost blushed, and stopped the mind connection with her in case his body responded to those thoughts of hers and everyone else took note of what his nakedness would not be able to hide.
    She spoke to Rena. “Can you teach me how to do that?”
    Rena lowered her weapon. “Do what?”
    “Fight.”
    As Rena gave him a sideways look, Michael waited to see how she would reply.
    “I guess I could do that,” Rena said with a shrug. “In my spare time, and if spare time comes up.”
    Michael would have smiled if the situation were different. Rena’s acquiescence was proof that Kaitlin was going to win Rena over bit by bit. The fact that Kaitlin hadn’t run away just now went a long way toward earning Rena’s respect. These two females were on the right track, though there was still a long way to go.
    Michael nodded his head, thinking the night had ended well, as ash continued to fall like rain.
    * * *
    Kaitlin figured it was a miracle she was still standing after again looking into the face of evil.
    Michael’s pack formed a circle around her. She wondered if they were waiting for her to faint. She refused to oblige.
    She was getting used to being the center of attention, and actually felt like the baby they all probably thought she was. Young. Naive. New to this hidden, underground world, and not yet indoctrinated in the language of claws and sharp wooden stakes.
    She hadn’t helped them fight, yet she had been willing. And she’d be damned if she’d let these Weres get a whiff of the terror that gripped her.
    She squeezed words through a constricted throat. “If this is over, I guess I’d better get going. I need to get some work done on my thesis or I’ll never...”
    She didn’t attempt to finish that statement. After what had happened here, the idea of working on a thesis seemed ludicrous. Staring at a computer would be a letdown, as would escaping to her apartment and leaving this pack to roam the park without her.
    More important things than notes and classrooms were happening in the world. People were fighting for their lives and the survival of their species...because there were more types of beings on this planet than anyone would have ever guessed.
    White-hot adrenaline was streaking though her. Her heart rate had not slowed. She wanted to make sense of this, when leaving Michael seemed an impossible task.
    Moonlight dripped over his body, creating valleys of shadows and light. Michael’s eyes were incandescent. His hair, the same color as the darkness around them, gleamed with moon-induced highlights.
    All that beauty, and Michael had claws.
    In her defense, who wouldn’t think themselves idiotic for finding a nonhuman so fascinating? How about for remaining on this spot when vampires were on the loose?
    What about believing in the existence of vampires and werewolves in the first place, even after witnessing them firsthand?
    Determined to wobble less while in the spotlight, Kaitlin stood straighter. She didn’t feel strong. She didn’t like fighting. Those things alone made it hard for her to imagine being like one of the people before her.
    “I’ll walk you home,” Michael said, as if nothing extraordinary had