TO CATCH A WOLF By Susan Krinard

A vise made of five steel fingers caught him about the throat. He clawed at an arm roped with muscle, implacable in its grip. Vision narrowed to a pair of slitted amber eyes and a mouth full of bared white teeth.

Then the grip relaxed, and he caught himself as he fell, scrambling out of reach while he labored to fill his lungs with precious air. His back hit the wall, and he let it hold him up until he could see clearly again.

They stood together, not touching but close, the bastard and Niall’s shameless, half-human sister. Athena’s hair was half loose about her shoulders like that of a cheap Cherry Creek slut, her lips bruised with kissing. Morgan…

Morgan stood in front of her, head lowered, shoulders hunched like a bear ready to charge. Coarse black hair fell in his eyes, giving him the look of a madman. His lip and nose bled where Niall had struck true, but he hardly seemed aware of the injuries. An almost inaudible growl rumbled from his throat.

He was an animal. Worse than an animal. Niall thought of the rifle downstairs—his father’s, hung on the wall when Walter Munroe first took up with Gwenyth Desbois, and never used again. Father had abandoned hunting for pleasure because of that woman. But the rifle was still there.

The door was close. All he had to do was avoid provoking an attack. He took a step backward.

“Niall,” Athena said. She moved one of her feet, sliding it across the floor. “It isn’t what you think. Please, listen to me!”

He looked at her in such a way that she faltered, folding her arms across her chest as if she could ward off the contempt in his gaze.

“I am no more blind than you are lame,” he said. “You are a whore, just like your mother.”

He wasn’t quite sure what happened then, or how it started. Morgan’s teeth were the first to change. They began to lengthen, became more pointed, the incisors graced with a cutting edge like miniature daggers. Then the face… subtly, slowly, so gradually that Niall could not have said exactly how the transformation progressed. His stomach roiled with horror at the sight of something that God and Nature had never intended.

Skin stubbled with a day’s growth of beard darkened further, taking on the rough texture of short fur. Nose blended into upper lip. Ears shifted, lengthened. The body took on proportions that mocked the human shape, pushing and pulling at the seams of Morgan’s clothing.

And through it all, the eyes barely changed. They focused on Niall with all the single-minded purpose of a starving predator in sight of an easy meal.

The face of Morgan Holt was no longer that of a man. Nor was it a beast, though it most closely resembled a wolf. A wolf… the Wolf-Man. A legend made to frighten children and entertain jaded audiences. A creature like Athena’s mother. Like Athena.

Morgan Holt’s circus act was no act at all. And Niall understood everything.

In such moments—as if he were in the middle of a crucial business negotiation—Niall’s mind became as sharp as the Wolf-Man’s fangs. He knew that Morgan had the strength to tear him apart with little effort, and that for some reason he had not done so. He saw that Athena was moving, hobbling, setting herself between the two men as if her slight body could hold them apart.

“I will not let you hurt each other,” she cried. Her voice trembled, but it did not fail. “Now you know what Morgan is. I broke my word by coming here, but I did not lie to you. I couldn’t risk telling you the full truth.”

“Because I would stop you from seeing him again? From going to your… what is he? Your mate?” Niall laughed. “Have you been waiting for another like you to come along and take you away? Will you be the bitch to his dog, Athena?”

Morgan lunged. Athena interposed herself, almost falling, and Morgan stopped to catch her. Niall noted with icy curiosity that each of Morgan’s fingers was tipped by a curved black nail, and wondered if he could speak in a human tongue.

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