Twilight Hunter

CHAPTER SEVEN

JACE SAT ON the edge of the bed with his head buried in his hands. What the hell had he gotten himself into? She was a werewolf and a captive. How much lower could he stoop? He ran his fingers through his hair and tightened them around his skull. No matter how hard he squeezed, he couldn’t hold himself together.

A small crash resonated from the bathroom, like the sound of cracking plastic. Damn. He walked to the door and leaned his ear against the wood. No sound. He knocked and waited for a response. Nothing.

Worried, he knocked harder. “Francesca?”

Muffled by the closed door, nails scratched over the wood in an eerie response.

“All right, I’m coming in.” Jace opened the door and immediately stumbled back.

Francesca’s clothes lay scattered across the floor, her lacy panties hooked on the rear paw of a large ebony wolf. The eyes staring at him were all too familiar, like molten liquid gold. The wolf cocked its head to the side, and its ears perked up.

No, Francesca cocked her head to the side. He fought the urge to swear under his breath. She was a werewolf. The wolf was Francesca.

“Am I still supposed to call you Francesca when you’re...you know?” He rubbed his fingers over his temples and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe I’m talking to an animal.”

The wolf grumbled in response.

He let out a long sigh and pushed his fingers through his hair again. “So am I supposed to call you Francesca? Bark once for no, twice for yes.”

The wolf barked twice.

“All right, then, Francesca it is.”

She huffed and trotted over to the side of the bed. She leapt onto the mattress with grace, stretched luxuriantly and then curled into a ball. Jace glanced toward the door. If she was planning to sleep, he supposed he could go check out one of the other bedrooms.

Francesca followed his gaze. She rested her head on her paws and whimpered.

“It’s okay. I’ll use one of the other beds.”

She made a noise between a growl and a whimper.

He realized that she didn’t want him to go. “I can just take the floor in here, then,” he offered.

She whined again.

“Come on. I bet you’d be more comfortable without me anyway.” He took a pillow from the bed and dropped it onto the floor. It hit the carpet with an audible poof, and he realized it was probably softer than anything he’d ever slept on in his whole life.

He sat down next to it and leaned back against the wall. Reaching across the floor, he took the flask, then unscrewed the cap and lifted it to his lips, ready to chug down however much whiskey was left. When nothing came out, he threw it on the carpet next to him. Damn. He would need to restock if he was going to make it through bringing a rogue werewolf to justice with a Francesca there to distract him every step of the way.

He glanced up from the stark white carpeting. Golden wolf eyes stared back at him, monitoring his every move.

“Do you distrust me so much that you need to watch me, or am I just that pretty to look at?”

The wolf pawed at its muzzle and buried its head in the comforter. The thought that Francesca was in that wolf—that she was that wolf—made the gesture all the more human. He had a feeling she would have been blushing if she could have.

“So, if we’re going to stay organized and keep one step ahead of this sicko, we’ll need a plan.” He glanced at his watch. “The sun should be coming up soon, so we’ll get some shut-eye, make our plan when we wake up, and then, when evening rolls around, we’ll head out to where the double killings were.” He looked her way to make sure she was listening. She watched him with attentive eyes. “We’ll have to touch base with David first, to find out where it all went down. The bodies will be long gone, but once we examine what’s left of the crime scene, we can take it from there. Hopefully we can still catch a trace of his scent. As long as we can find the bastard, we can take him out. Locating him will be the big problem.”

He eyed her again. “Bark once for okay, twice for ‘I have a better plan.’ I’m sure you have something to say, as usual.”

The wolf snarled and barked once.

“Agreement. That’s what I like to hear. I’ll set the alarm to be sure we don’t sleep too late.”

He pushed himself off the ground, walked over to the bedside clock and punched several buttons before he figured out how to program the alarm. The sheets rustled as Francesca shifted onto her side.

“How are those wounds looking?”

He sat beside her on the bed. He hesitated before he pushed aside the fur on the wolf’s collarbone. The wound was visibly healing before his eyes.

“Looks good. You should be better by tonight.”

The wolf laid her head on her paws and closed her eyes. Her fur was a rich, ebony black, as dark as night itself, the same gorgeous color as her long, shining hair—both beautiful and a deadly camouflage to hide her from her enemies. And man, those eyes—wild, untamed and majestic. They held an entrancing quality, one he had never encountered in a normal human being, the eyes of a free animal.

That asshole packmaster of hers was too much of a coward to send out his troops, so she was out there on her own. What type of leader sent a female as his muscle to track a rampaging rogue? Her packmaster deserved to suffer just as the killer’s innocent victims had.

Jace pulled his gaze away and flicked off the bedroom light. Like her, he could see perfectly in the dark, thanks to his inner wolf’s nocturnal vision, and the weight of her gaze as she watched him hung heavy on his shoulders. He moved back to the pillow. He took a deep breath, and the words slipped out before he could control himself. “For the record, you’re a beautiful wolf.”

Without looking back at her, he lay down on the floor and rested his head on his pillow. He thanked God she couldn’t respond.

THE SCREECHING SOUND of the alarm rang in his ears, and something wet licked at his hand. Werewolf. His eyes shot open, and he scrambled to his feet. Adrenaline propelled him until he realized the wolf was Francesca. Right, he’d slept in a room with a werewolf all night—probably not his brightest idea. If she’d wanted to, she could have ripped his throat out.

“What do you think you’re doing, waking me up like that?” Jace demanded as he stood and strode over to the alarm, hitting the off button with more force than was necessary.

Francesca’s tail bristled, and a shiver ran down her spine. Jace’s eyes widened as her fur melted back into her skin. Her muzzle shortened. Her tail folded in on itself, and her ears shrank and rounded out. A moment later he was staring at Francesca, propped on all fours and completely naked.

She threw her long hair over her shoulder and sat up. “I could’ve barked in your ear or bitten you. If I were you, I wouldn’t complain about a little tongue action.”

He frowned. “Bite me and you’ll find a silver knife against your throat.”

She rolled her eyes. “How gentlemanly of you.” She stood.

Jace drank in the beautiful curves of her nude figure. Slender, muscular legs, round, smooth hips, a toned stomach, and a set of headlights that could leave a guy blind with lust.

He ripped his gaze away from her and turned around. He felt his body grow hard, and he tried to ignore the strain against his jeans. “I never claimed to be a gentleman.”

“Good, because you didn’t have me fooled for a second.”

He heard her pad lightly toward the other side of the room, where her backpack lay against the wall.

“You can turn around,” she said after several moments.

He turned to find her wearing a white tank top and a pair of worn jeans. His gaze slid over her curved frame and his dick jerked. Damn, even when she was clothed—or barely so—he wanted to run his tongue over every inch of her skin. He forced himself to ignore the deep urge tugging at his groin.

As if she read his mind, she glanced down at her clothing. She met his stare again and frowned. “These are my work clothes. I don’t dress like this every day.”

“I didn’t say anything.” He tried not to dwell on the way her jeans squeezed her perfectly round ass or how her tank top framed the most perfect pair of breasts he’d ever laid eyes on.

She shrugged. “You implied it with your eyes.”

Jace pretended he didn’t hear her comment and took his leather coat off the dresser. “Grab your things while I call David. I don’t know if we’ll be coming back here or not.” He shrugged on the coat and used the hotel phone to dial David’s number.

After a few rings, the call went to David’s voice mail. Jace hung up and redialed, and kept redialing until David finally answered.

“Hello?”

“What’s with you not picking up your phone?”

“I’m on the lam, J. I’m trying to be cautious.”

“Yeah, and I’m hunting for a werewolf, so I’m trying not to waste time.”

“Then hurry up and spit it out,” David said.

“We need to know where the double killings were.”

“We?” David asked. “You know, I really don’t like the idea of you—”

“Mind your own business. Either help me or hang up the phone.”

“I can’t tell you where it’s at. It’s hard to find. I’ll have to show you.”

“Meet me at the place in an hour. You know where I mean. Make sure you ditch your phone just in case Shane put a tracker in it.”

Jace hung up the phone without another word—David would be there.

After Jace thoroughly chewed out the valet for slamming on the brakes too hard when he pulled the H3 up to the hotel doorway, they drove toward the edge of the city. He ordered Francesca to check the rearview mirror every couple of minutes to ensure they weren’t being followed. He’d checked his ride religiously for tracking devices, and while nothing electronic had been attached, there was no arguing with the fact that an H3 stood out.

“I don’t see anything,” Francesca said. He could tell from her quiet demeanor that her nerves were just as on-edge as his. The last thing they needed was to be tracked down by his fellow hunters again.

When they reached Honeoye Falls, Jace took the back way to the Lucky Bastard. The bar was usually dead early on a Tuesday night, and tonight was no different. With the tiny lot nearly empty, he parked the car and surveyed their surroundings. David’s black 2011 Harley Super Glide, one of his many motorcycles, was parked at the side of the lot. Two nondescript cars, which Jace recognized as the bartenders’, were parked across the blacktop.

Francesca stared at the sticker on the bar’s front door.

Welcome to Honeoye Falls. And scribbled beneath it in thick marker: Three bars, one graveyard and four hookers. She let out a small laugh and walked inside.

Four hookers who tried to hit him up for free on a regular basis, the three bars where his dad had drunk himself into fits of uncontrollable rage, and the one graveyard where his mother was buried. Yeah, welcome to Honeoye Falls all right.

With one last look over his shoulder, Jace strolled inside.

The dark cherry wood of the bar shimmered in the dim lighting. Francesca stood next to an old jukebox that only played well-known Garth Brooks and Johnny Cash songs, flipping through the selections with a blank look on her face. David sat at the bar sipping a craft beer as he watched Francesca with a wary eye.

Jace sat down at the bar next to David and watched as the bartender cleaned a tall beer mug a few feet away.

“Hey, John. You want the usual?”

It took Jace a moment to respond to the bartender’s question. He spent a lot of time here, even now that he’d moved deeper into the city, but only the owner, Jimmy, knew his real name.

“Yeah, slip me a couple bottles of Bushmills, will you? I need to restock.”

“Coming right up.”

He watched the bartender walk away before he turned to David again. “So where were these bodies at? I need to map where the attacks took place and check out the scene. There has to be some sort of pattern to what this psycho is doing, and if there isn’t, there’s a reason it’s random.”

“I can’t concern myself with this for too long, J.” David sipped his beer, then set his glass on the bar top, staring blankly at the liquor shelf. “I’ve got a Chinese baby downtown who’s been possessed by that demon that’s been giving me shit, and she doesn’t have much more time. If I don’t rip that thing out of her soon, she’ll be dead and the demon will move on to its next host.” David turned toward him. “Have you ever seen a possessed baby? It’s horrifying. I can’t have baby blood on my hands.”

“I promise I won’t keep you too long, David. Just show us the spot and then you can go save some Chinese babies.”

“They’re not all Chinese. Just the one is Chinese. And the nationality doesn’t mean jack.”

“No argument there.”

Francesca walked up to the bar. “As much as I’d love to stay here and listen to Johnny Cash all day, if you guys are done making drunken small talk, I think we have more important business to attend to.”

David set down his glass. “It’s not that simple.”

“What do you mean, ‘It’s not that simple’?” Francesca crossed her arms over her chest.

“The bodies were found in Manhattan Square Park, on top of that big metal piece of shit. You know, that little structure thing.”

“Okay, yeah, I know what you’re talking about, but I thought you said it was somewhere hard to find,” Jace said.

“I didn’t want to say much over the phone. You know how good Shane is with anything electronic. They could’ve hacked into both our phones. I’ve got a disposable cell now. I can’t give you the number, but I can call you and then throw out the phone, if needed.” He stared at his drink for a moment. “The site is easy to find, but there is something I want you to see there, and I’ll need to show it to you.”

The bartender returned and pushed three bottles of Bushmills toward Jace, who slapped some large bills on the counter in return. He turned back to David. “Fine, I needed to restock my liquor, anyway. Finish your drink and then meet us there.”

COLD, DREARY AND downright sketchy, Manhattan Square Park was the last place Frankie wanted to spend her night—not that she currently had many other options. She walked next to Jace along the park’s dim pathways. Even though her natural high body heat warmed her, she wrapped her arms around her chest and pulled her jacket closer. How many times had her parents told her to stay away from here at night when she was a teen? The thought of being mugged gave her the heebie-jeebies, even though she could easily hold her own in a fight.

She scanned the surrounding darkness, thankful for her heightened night vision. Nothing, as far as she could see. They continued on for several more minutes. Just as her shoulders started to relax, Jace reached for his gun. She heard it, too. Footsteps. He pulled his weapon just as David stepped into the dim glow of the moonlight.

“I don’t think it’d be a good idea to blow my head off.” David grinned. “You wouldn’t get your clues, and the city of Rochester might start to have a demon infestation problem. Follow me.”

Without a word, Frankie and Jace trailed behind him until they reached the metal structure. David climbed the aluminum steps two at a time, and they stayed on his heels. When they reached the top, he crouched down and pointed at the ground.

“This is where they were found. Right out here in the open. But as a precaution, I scanned the place. Watch this.”

David reached inside his leather and removed a copy of the Old Testament. He flipped to a page written entirely in Hebrew. He dug inside his pocket, then scattered rock salt across the platform as he continued to read. As his voice rose, obviously leading to the climax of his chant, he pulled a lighter from inside his coat. He stood and raised it high above his head before he knelt down again, pressing the flame to the cold metal. A trail of fire ignited, and a large symbol appeared—a perfect circle with two wavy lines perpendicular to each other running through the middle.

“What the hell is that?” Frankie asked. For a brief second an image flashed through her mind: a blonde woman with a long sword battling an enormous man wearing wolf skins. What the hell? She pushed the thought aside, but the image was so vivid and clear. Where was her imagination going?

David stared at the burning flames. “I’m not sure. A circle is one of the universal conduits, like water. It can give you full access to the beyond—usually a one-way ticket to hell.” He looked at Jace with a grim anger behind his eyes. “I don’t think you’re dealing with a regular werewolf. I think you’ve got a shape-shifting demon on your hands, and one I’ve never encountered.”

“I have to say, I’ve been called a lot of things, but shape-shifting demon is a first,” a deep voice said from behind them.

A chill shot down Frankie’s spine. The silhouette of a man hidden within the shadows loomed over them. She dropped into a defensive stance, bared her canines and growled. The small hairs on the backs of her neck and arms stood on end.

“I don’t give a shit who or what you are, I hope you’re ready to die,” Jace growled.

“I had a feeling you’d say something like that.”

The man stepped into the light, and Frankie stared at him.

Tall, with broad shoulders, flowing auburn hair, sea-blue eyes and loads of muscle. The heavy scent of his skin hit her full force. Her eyes widened as she sucked in a harsh breath.

A smirk crept across the man’s face. “Seems like your bitch has a keen sense of smell.” He stepped forward. “My name’s Robert, though your papers have been calling me the new-age Jack the Ripper—surprisingly accurate. Tell me, what do you think of my work?”

“I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re one sick fuck.” Jace raised his gun and pointed it at Robert’s head. “One sick fuck who needs to be buried six feet under.” Jace fired.

The sicko dodged more quickly than Frankie would have believed possible, and instead of his chest, the bullet pierced his shoulder. He yelped and stumbled back, knocking into the metal railing. Blood poured down his shirt. He clutched his hand to the wound.

David jumped to his feet. He drew his own gun with one hand and his cell phone with the other. As the killer stumbled toward them, David snapped a picture of the symbol with his phone while he kept his weapon trained on the killer.

A satisfied grin crossed Jace’s face as Robert fell to his knees, still clutching the bleeding wound. Jace raised his gun and pressed the barrel against Robert’s forehead. “You better say a prayer and hope that Satan doesn’t make you his bitch every day for the rest of eternity.”

“I think you’re in for a surprise.” Robert pulled a hunting knife from his belt and stabbed Jace in the thigh.

Blood spurted from Jace’s leg as he doubled over in pain. The crimson liquid splashed over Robert, turning his twisted features even more demented.

Robert stood, smiled in self-satisfaction and plucked the bullet from his shoulder. The blood trickled to a stop. He held the bullet out in his hand. “You think you can kill me that easily? And you’re a hunter?” He dropped the bullet in front of Jace. It hit the metal with a loud clang.

David cocked his old-time revolver and aimed. The sound of the shot rang in Frankie’s ears, muffling David’s voice when he spoke. “We might not be able to kill you—yet—but we sure as hell can cause you a lot of unnecessary pain.”

Frankie ripped her gaze away from the action. David could handle it. Jace was kneeling, spewing curses she had never even heard before. His blood formed a small pool of crimson around him, the heat from the liquid billowing with steam in the freezing cold. She pressed her hands against the wound and applied as much pressure as she could, but his blood continued to flow with frightening speed.

“Shit.” She stripped off her coat and rolled it into a long strip. Using all her strength, she forced Jace to straighten his leg. She looped the material underneath his thigh and tied it off above the wound. She hoped that bastard hadn’t hit an artery.

She grabbed Jace’s face and forced him to look her in the eye. “Don’t take the tourniquet off.” She turned to leave, to help David in the fight, but Jace grabbed hold of her wrist.

“Don’t you dare get hurt. Give him hell.” He released her.

David was fighting hand-to-hand with the bastard—or hand-to-gun. He had jammed the butt of the revolver into Robert’s jaw. Blood spewed from Robert’s mouth and stained his teeth red.

Frankie ran straight for him and thanked God she had enough focus to transition. She dove for Robert and shifted mid-jump. Her canines collided with his stomach, piercing deep into his flesh. He toppled over from the force of her attack.

Within seconds he had hold of her by the scruff. Lifting her as if she weighed no more than a newborn pup, he threw her away from him. She hit the platform hard and skidded across the smooth metal. Her back legs slid over the edge of the structure. Her stomach dropped and her fur bristled as she clawed at the platform and tried to hold herself in place. She yelped. Just as she was sure she was about to fall to her death, a pair of large hands clutched her paws. Jace hauled her back onto the platform.

“What did I say about not getting hurt?”

She whimpered to say “I’m sorry” and panted to catch her breath.

A loud groan echoed through the night. The sound of David’s strained voice mumbling in Hebrew registered in Frankie’s overly sensitive ears. A low growl escaped her at the sight of Robert lifting David into the air by his throat. David grasped Robert’s hand and clawed at his fingers to no avail. His mumbling grew fainter as his air supply was cut off.

Without thinking, Frankie darted in Robert’s direction, teeth bared and ready to strike. The sharp points of her canines latched onto his throat. David fell from his clutches as the three of them toppled over the railing. Frankie closed her eyes. She heard a loud shrieking yelp and faintly wondered if she’d hit the ground yet. She couldn’t feel her body. Someone shook her shoulder, and a wave of pain shot through her as her consciousness faded into blackness.

JACE DIDN’T GIVE a shit that his leg was injured or that he was bleeding like a stuck pig. He skyrocketed down the platform steps and sprinted to Francesca’s side. At the force of the impact, she’d shifted into human form, and her naked body lay on top of the frozen grass and half-melted snow.

“Francesca? Hey, Princess? Don’t you pass out on me. Don’t you do it, damn it!” He probed her neck for a pulse and massaged the bones. Pulse steady, and her neck was perfectly intact. But her right arm and shoulder were a whole different story.

Shit. He couldn’t move her and risk injuring her further, and he couldn’t call the cops. An unconscious naked woman and two men covered in blood, with bullet casings scattered everywhere, wouldn’t make for an easy explanation.

He glanced at David, who lay on the ground several feet away. His leg was bent unnaturally, but he had managed not to pass out. Instead he stared up into the night sky with wide, shocked eyes.

“David, are you okay?’ The world spun, and Jace steadied himself with his free hand. In one quick rush, the blood drained from his face and a frosty cold nipped beneath his skin.

David glanced in his direction. “Jace? Jace? Oh, fuck.”

WHEN JACE FINALLY came to, he was sprawled across an old beat-up sofa, the cushions beneath him crying from his overwhelming weight. He cracked one eye open to find a pair of shiny thin glasses reflecting the light straight into his retina.

“What the hell? Get that light out of my eye.”

The glare dimmed, and Jace peered up at a pair of large hazel eyes and a mop of wavy brown hair. Who the...?

“Shane?”

“Oh, good, you recognized me. Hopefully that means we won’t have to test for any brain damage due to overwhelming blood loss.”

“What?”

“Shane, I think I can take it from here.” A large hand brushed the kid aside, and David slid into focus. “Hey, man. You okay? You looked whiter than a ghost the last time your eyes were open.”

Jace groaned in response. His whole body felt drained and devoid of any energy.

“You lost a ton of blood, J.” David paused. “By the way, you may need to clean out the H3. Just sayin’.”

The image of the sadistic killer’s face flashed in Jace’s mind, and he suddenly recalled why he felt like complete and utter shit.

“Where’s Francesca?” Jace pushed himself up on his elbows.

“I’m right here.” Her gorgeous voice sounded in his ears like a sweet melody. “My arm was broken, and I was a little bruised up, but I’m fine now. I heal fast, you know.”

“That is not fine. I’m going to torture that son of a bitch when I get hold of him.”

David pushed lightly against his shoulder, trying to ease him back down. “It’s cool, J. Take a breather. We’re lucky we got out of there with so little damage—other than my leg, that is.”

Jace’s eyes widened as he remembered. “How bad is it?”

Shane cleared his throat. “He broke it pretty badly. Then he was forced to walk on it to get you and Francesca into the H3 before I got there. Even with extensive physical therapy, he might still have a permanent limp, and he’ll definitely be out of commission for a while.”

Jace met David’s gaze. David’s eyes burned with rage, and Jace knew that if David had the ability, he would kill Robert with his bare hands. If there was one thing David couldn’t handle, it was people screwing with his job, and being physically impaired was practically number one on the list of things that would completely mess up David’s hunting skills.

“David, man, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

David shook his head and cut off Jace. “Don’t even go there, J. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself, and I chose to get involved in this, so just leave it be.”

Jace nodded and grumbled as he shoved himself into an upright position. Francesca was sitting in a brown suede La-Z-Boy with a blanket wrapped tight around her body. A sharp pang hit Jace hard in the chest; he’d never been so envious of a blanket. His body stiffened, and a slow ache throbbed in his groin as he pictured Francesca wrapped up in his arms, his hands stroking her smooth skin. He shifted, and a pain in his thigh snapped him back to reality. He was ass-deep in a hunt for a sadistic killer, and the last thing he needed was to be hung up on a beautiful woman, much less one who was a werewolf.

He examined his leg and assessed the wound. It was nicely bandaged up, and he felt the pull of stitches underneath—professional-level work. Shane must have been the one to dress the gash, and Jace shook his head and wondered if a medical degree was another item he could add to the long list of the kid’s assets.

“Thanks for fixing me up, Shane.”

“You’re welcome. All I needed to do was—”

Jace cut the kid off before he launched into another long lecture. “David, you shouldn’t have brought him into this.” He nodded toward Shane. “What the hell do you think Damon’s going to do to him when he finds out that we were at his place?” He glanced at Shane. “This is your place, right?”

“Actually, this is my grandmother’s apartment. She’s out playing bingo tonight. We already took all the necessary precautions to keep Damon and any other members of the Execution Underground from finding us,” he said, speaking a mile a minute. “Oh, and I gave you a new phone for contact purposes. No trackers on it, obviously. It’s in the console of your H3.”

Jace gave him a thumbs-up. “Gotcha. Thanks.”

David cleared his throat as he managed to stand with the help of a large wooden crutch. “Jace, we can’t beat around the bush here. There is something seriously scary about that fucker.”

“Were you able to figure out what type of demon he is?”

David shook his head. “That’s just it. When he was strangling me, I recited Psalm 91 three times. Add in a shofar and that’s the big fat Jewish mother of all exorcism rituals. He didn’t even flinch. He’s not a demon, J. And whatever the hell he is, I don’t like it.”

Francesca snuggled deeper into the blanket, as if to shield herself from the gruesome details. “If he’s not a demon, then where did that symbol come from?”

David shrugged. “I honestly have no clue. Maybe he’s got one those hell-crawlers working for him. They’d do anything for a little bloodshed.”

“I don’t think it’s a demon. I’ve seen that symbol before, and I’ve never crossed paths with a demon in my life. As far as I know anyway,” Francesca said.

David’s eyes widened. “You know that symbol? He’s a werewolf?”

Jace snorted. “I thought so, but now... A werewolf hopped up on steroids, maybe.”

“No, he’s not a werewolf. And no, it’s not one of our symbols.” She eyed Jace, forcibly including him with her people. “I can’t remember where I’ve seen it. I just know I have.”

“Well, that doesn’t give us much to work with.”

“Look, I’m sorry I can’t remember, but I’ll keep thinking on it. But don’t act like that’s our only hope. We’ve got information to work with. First off, we know that he is able to shift, most likely into wolf form, since that’s what his scent smells like, but we can’t rule out any other possibilities.

“Secondly, we know he has abilities that a regular werewolf doesn’t. Did you see how easily he lifted David and me together? He’s got extra strength. Not to mention the healing thing. That guy pulled a bullet out of his own chest, for God’s sake. I’m guessing a demon could have similar strength, but since he’s immune to David’s exorcism, that rules out the possibility that he’s a demon. Third, there’s the symbol. We just have to figure out what it means.”

All three men stared at her in silence.

She sighed. “So, we need to take a different approach. There is no way we can fight this guy with just two men and one female wolf. We’re going to need an advantage, something he isn’t expecting.”

Jace leaned back into the couch again. “And what exactly would that be?”

“You’ll need to shift, Jace.”

He blinked several times, unsure if he’d fully processed what she said.

“But Jace can’t shift, can he? He’s only half werewolf,” David said.

Jace cringed. Hearing the words said out loud, in a room with two other hunters, stung like a bitch. Anything was better than being one of the monsters. Hell, the black plague would have been preferable.

Frankie sat forward. “It’s not that he can’t shift, he just hasn’t shifted.”

Jace gritted his teeth and swallowed his rage at the whole discussion. “What are you talking about?”

“With some training, you could learn how to shift.”

Jace shoved himself off the couch and hobbled from the room, courtesy of his damaged leg. “No, I won’t do it,” he called back over his shoulder. Anger ripped at his insides.

David caught him by the arm. “J, at least listen to what she has to say.”

“David, don’t you start this with me. You know—”

“J, we’re talking about people’s lives here! Would you stop thinking about yourself for one damn minute and listen to the woman?” David yelled.

Jace pulled his arm away but stepped back into the living room. In all the years he’d known David, the man had never so much as raised his voice to anything other than some sick demon wearing a human’s body like a swanky new suit coat.

“Thank you.” David turned to Francesca. “Continue.”

Francesca nodded. “As I was saying, all you would need is some training.”

“And you could train him?” David asked.

She let out a long sigh. “No, I couldn’t. He’d need to become a part of a pack in order to shift, at least temporarily. Shifting for the first time isn’t easy, and the presence of other wolves lessens the difficulty. Supernatural strength in numbers. There are a lot of things he’d need to learn after being approved by the packmaster and the pack.”

Jace scoffed. “There is no way in hell your asshole packmaster would allow a hunter into his pack.”

She shoved the blanket away. “It’s not the packmaster’s approval you’d need to worry about—it’s the pack’s. If you’re willing, I can guarantee that I can get you in far enough to let the pack vote on it.”

“How do you know you could get me past the packmaster? All he sent to look for that son of a bitch was you. No offense, Princess, but you’re only one person. If he cared so much about catching this killer, why didn’t he send more people?”

Her jaw set into a hard line. “Look, even though more people weren’t sent, it doesn’t mean anything. Just trust me.”

“How do you know so much about what he thinks?”

Her hands clenched into fists, and she stood. “Because I am the packmaster.”