Twilight Hunter

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.”