Fishtailing across the icy highway, I managed to skid off onto the shoulder. The moment the Escalade came to a stop, I ripped the keys from the ignition and punched in the code on my phone that would send out an emergency alert to the rest of the pack.
A second later my phone exploded with Led Zeppelin. Sprinting for the line of barbed wire fencing out past the weeds, I swiped to answer.
“August, do you have her?"
“I’m tracking her half a mile southeast of your position.” My brother’s keyboard clacked in the background. “Straight shot out towards the lake.”
“Tell Brody to shut down—”
“Already done. He’s on a call west of town. Heading back your way.”
That meant he’d never get here in time.
Not bothering to end the call, I dropped my phone, letting the change rip me from my human skin.
Social media got most of the deets on werewolf transformation wrong. You could thank our massive disinformation campaign for that one. Clothes and other physical objects went with you when you shifted, but only to a point. Everything drew on moon energy. Don’t ask me to explain how it worked. August was the freaking science genius in the family. How much you could take back and forth varied from were to were, but basically, you couldn’t hug a refrigerator, wolf out, and haul all your Thanksgiving leftovers back and forth between forms. Pretty sure some idiot had probably tried and managed to turn himself into a Sloppy Joe on the shift back. Thanks, but no thanks.
River could pack in a whole freaking arsenal. Guns. Knives. Hand grenades. The works. No way did I want to know how they trained recruits to do that in Tracer boot camp. August stripped his gear off one piece at a time first. Pretty sure that had more to do with his inner geek coming out and not wanting to mess up any of his toys. Me? Let’s just say there was a leaderboard at pack meetings for epic reentry fails, and me and my fried iPhone had scored first place more than a few times. Cal, River and Ethan had more piercings than most of your local motorcycle clubs, and they’d never had any trouble. But no way in hell was I going to risk frying the phone I’d just replaced or putting my liver in upside down because werewolf magic couldn’t get all my apps reinstalled on the shift back.
I hit the ground running in wolf form, claws tearing up the frozen November ground. The world around me instantly grayed out and sharpened as my wolf vision took over. Sprawling live oaks, fallow corn fields and dry limestone gullies lost their reds and greens, the Texas winter landscape cast in a palette of harvest gold, loam brown and gunmetal gray. Scents pummeled me from every direction. I catalogued the sickly-sweet whisper of exhaust fumes, sagebrush, and the sharp, clean smell of approaching snow. Clawing up a short rise, I forced my mind blank, trying to grasp onto the hazy images Lacey was projecting into my mind.
Two of them. Maybe more. At the rate they were moving, it was impossible to tell. Through our link, I caught the slash of a knife and a dark blur that reformed too fast to track. Shit. This was bad. One mistake. That was all it would take—
The weather was worsening, cold wet sleet sticking to my ash-white fur and causing my paws to slip as I struggled up a steep embankment. It was coming down harder in the higher elevations wherever Lacey was, the image that came through this time finally clear. Male vamp. Medium height. Gauges in both ears. Dark hair that was long on top and swept off to the side the way West wore his. Dark skinny jeans and a local band tee, like supporting the Austin indie rock scene was a totally chill thing to do in between, you know, killing people. Ten bucks said he probably had one of Daisy Addiction’s stickers on his hipster electric car that he took to hang out at coffee bars on the weekends, too.
Indie Rock feinted left, then dematerialized. Daggers out, Lacey whipped around. His partner was a smaller female with intricate rose tattoos inked up both sides of her neck and enough knives for a cooking competition strapped across her chest. She flipped a slim, ten-inch blade, a smile curving her lips. A second later, Indie Rock reformed, his hand wrapped around Lacey’s throat.
Anticipating the attack, Lacey pivoted with the grace of a dancer, one of her blades arcing back. Releasing her, the vampire leaped away, but not fast enough. A dark stain blossomed on his shirt.
Branches raked at my fur as I struggled up a rocky slope, claws struggling to gain traction in the mud. I was closing on their position fast. Close. So close. I knew exactly where we were. Bluff Point. On a clear day, you could see for miles out across the rolling green hills and sheer limestone bluffs of the Hill Country to the west, and the dark waters of Lake Buchanan to the south.
Through the pack bond, I watched Indie Rock reform directly in Lacey’s path. She sidestepped, a low-arcing blade missing her by millimeters. He held up a hand, waggling his fingers Morpheus-style. Smirking, Lacey ducked to the side instead, which brought him face to face with the day’s arctic wolf special.
I slammed him to the ground, fangs sinking into his arm. Regular wolves weighed in at fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds. Werewolves came in at twice that, more in some cases, with denser muscle mass and a mouth full of teeth you didn’t want to mess with. Indie Rock and I tucked and rolled, tumbling through sagebrush and dirt. A fist slammed into my skull, causing my vision to short out, but not before I heard a bone in his wrist snap. With a shake of my head, I released him. We rose and faced off in the clearing, slowly circling.
Vampire blood tasted like the last thing they’d fed on—only holding a traceable scent for seventy-two hours. This male tasted like human, which wouldn’t ordinarily have been unusual for a vampire. They were the most readily available food source. Except nine times out of ten when the covens sent their lower castes out to fight, it was amped up on shifter blood.
I tried to throw a glance at Lacey, but Mrs. Dracula had flashed around behind her, drawing a length of chain from her black trench coat. Indie Rock used my moment of distraction to get back on his feet and charge towards me. Undeads were hell to fight because of their superior speed and strength. When you tacked on the fact that one of them could bear hug you and flash both of you out a half a mile in any direction just like #DashCamVlad had done to the human cop, outing supernaturals everywhere (because thanks, asshole), they weren’t exactly on our Christmas card list.
My mother, Sofia Montemayor-Caldwell, was one of the deadliest Tracers the Southern Territorial Council had ever known. Her philosophy? Vampires were gonna fight dirty. So you’d sure as hell better have a few dirty tricks up your sleeve.
The length of chain whistled through the air. Lacey leaped back with the grace of an acrobat, not allowing the female undead to get in close. Through the pack bond, I could hear West shouting for me. He was a mile out, closing fast. Just a little longer. I bared my teeth, snapping at the male vampire’s thigh.
And then, with a sharp crack, both vamps ghosted out at once.
Lacey whirled. “Dallas, look out—"
I felt him reform over me a hairsbreadth too late, his knife sinking deep into my shoulder. White hot pain short-circuited my brain, my front leg spasming beneath me, making it impossible to pivot, to twist away. My vision went black. Through a gray haze, I watched Lacey twist at the last second, slashing up and out in a tight arc to slam a dagger through the throat of the female vamp who had just reformed behind her.
Blood sprayed across the snow. The vampire slumped to the ground. Dizzy and shaking from the pain, I bucked beneath Indie Rock in a last-ditch effort, trying to throw him off—