Mark of the Wolf; Hell's Breed (27 page)

It was too small a craft to have many
places to hide, though.

Shrugging, he took a few moments to
check out what they had and discovered the craft boasted a fairly
luxurious captain’s cabin at the bow, two smaller guest cabins
barely big enough for the beds in them, and two ‘heads’. The head,
or bathroom, for the guests was barely big enough to turn around in
and the one for the main cabin not much bigger. He had the
impression, though, that the boat had never been intended for any
sort of prolonged voyage and had probably never been used for
one.

It hadn’t completely lost the ‘new’
smell.

The question was, what was the woman
doing on the boat alone?

He found a couple of canvas bags when
he did a more thorough search of the cabins, but those only seemed
to present him with more questions. There was clothing for two or
three different people in each bag—a curious packing
arrangement.

Shrugging, he emptied the bags and
tossed them to Hawk. “These will work for supplies. Check out the
mess and see what kind of stores they brought with
them.”

“
Any sign of the
woman?”

“
Not yet, but she didn’t
go far,” Mac said dryly.

Wolfen

By

Madelaine
Montague

Chapter One

Danika Whitney’s frustration had
mellowed somewhat by the time she reached the edge of town. Pushing
the worrisome puzzle of her latest defeat in tagging one of the
wolves terrorizing the area to the back of her mind, she searched
her pockets with one hand for the list she’d made for herself
before she left the cabin.

“
Shit!” she muttered when
she discovered it wasn’t in her shirt pocket. When a similar search
of her jeans pockets came up empty, she glanced at her carryall
frowningly and finally let out a huff of irritation that ruffled
the brownish blond tendrils straying from her ponytail over her
brow and along her cheeks.

So much for thinking she’d let one
trip into town suffice to hold her for another week! “I made a
list,” she muttered to herself. “I know I did. I must’ve put it in
the bag.”

She didn’t feel very reassured, but
after contemplating turning around and heading back to the cabin
she’d rented for her investigation, she dismissed it. She was
hungry, damn it! That was probably why she’d forgotten the damned
list. She’d had her mind on a nice hot ‘I didn’t cook it’ meal at
the diner, and her latest failure, and she’d probably lain the note
she’d made for herself down somewhere, or maybe just left it on the
table where she’d sat down to write?

The roar of an engine behind her
jerked her out of her preoccupation about her missing list. Danika
flicked a glance in the rearview mirror of her truck and
froze.

There was a pack of motorcycles
roaring up behind her.

She stared at the leather clad men on
motorcycles for several moments, feeling a jolt of adrenaline rush
through her when it occurred to her that it didn’t look as if they
had any intention of slowing down or stopping behind her.
Transferring her gaze to the light at the intersection where she’d
stopped on ‘autopilot’, she realized it wasn’t actually a traffic
light at all but rather a blinking caution light.

Discomfited when it dawned
at her that she’d been sitting at the intersection searching for
her list while she waited for the light to change—which was never
going to change—she took her foot off the brake. Before she could
move forward, the men on the cycles, who
did
actually slow, whipped around
her like the tide rolling around a bridge piling, three on one
side, two on the other.

To a man, all five turned to stare at
her as they moved around her.

Unnerved, Danika stared back them,
glancing from one side to the other before it dawned on her she
probably shouldn’t be looking at them at all. They looked rough,
and dangerous, and it was never a good idea to encourage the notice
of obvious gang members—probably felons and drug
addicts.

They might think she was interested—as
in flirting!

They might think she was angry because
they’d broken the law by passing her at an intersection—on both
sides—and consider it a challenge!

Averting her gaze as one unnerving
thought after another flitted through her mind, she watched them
surreptitiously as they turned the corner.

“
Well shit!” They’d turned
and headed down main street, which was where the ‘business’
district lay—her objective. “Now what?”

She didn’t want to appear to be
following them, especially not when ‘the incident’ at the light
might be something they could take exception to. One never knew
with gangs, she was sure.

Not that she’d had any
experience with gangs, or even studied gang mentality and behavior,
but she did watch the news. People might
think
she was too out of step with
the real world to notice things, but she did!

She decided to go straight instead of
turning, hopeful that they meant to continue right on out of town.
She was almost positive they weren’t local. Both the leather they
were wearing and their bikes had looked dusty as if they’d been
riding a while. Besides, she was pretty sure she would’ve noticed
if there’d been a local biker gang even though she hadn’t been in
the area long. It was something she felt certain would have stuck
out in a community this tiny, particularly when it was mostly made
up of farmers.

They’d looked a good bit younger than
the bikers she’d seen riding up the interstate back home from time
to time.

Not that she’d checked them out, but
she’d been stunned enough to look and she’d seen a lot of shaggy
hair that didn’t seem to be threaded with any gray at all and she’d
caught a glimpse of smooth shaven faces that didn’t look
weathered.

The hard muscles certainly didn’t look
like anything that would belong to a more mature male. She hadn’t
noticed any middle-aged, or beer, paunches.

Disturbed that she’d noticed so much
when she’d been certain she hadn’t stared, she pulled in to the
first parking spot she came to, grabbed her carryall and dumped the
contents into the passenger seat, raking through it hopefully in
search of her list. Irritation flickered through her again when she
saw it wasn’t in the bag either.

When she’d shoved everything back into
the bag, she decided she’d delayed long enough the gang would’ve
cleared town. She started the vehicle again. She would go eat
first, she decided. It was never a good idea to go to the grocery
store hungry and she could try to compile her list again while she
was eating. It hadn’t been a long list. She didn’t need much, but
she didn’t want to get all the way back out to the fishing camp
where she was staying and discover she’d forgotten something it was
going to be hard, or impossible, to do without, necessitating
another trip into town.

Beyond the fact that she didn’t like
to waste her time doing the same task two or three times because of
something she’d forgotten, she had work to do and not much time to
get results.

Truthfully, although she couldn’t
quite put her finger on it, the locals made her uncomfortable. They
seemed almost … hostile.

It didn’t make any sense. She’d been
sent because of the wolf problem that had been reported. She was
sure, given the fact that there’d been several cases reported of
attacks on livestock, and even one on a resident, that they thought
sending her was a waste of time, but she couldn’t see that that
would account for the brooding sense of hostility she’d noticed
when she’d arrived the week before. Mostly people just ignored her
or considered her with amused contempt. She wouldn’t have been
surprised at either reaction.

The antagonism she’d felt seemed out
of place, but then it seemed to be a tight knit community pretty
much isolated from the rest of the world. Maybe they just didn’t
like strangers at all? Or maybe it was directly related to her
purpose for coming. Maybe they thought sending her to do studies
before they took action was just a way of paying lip service to
their problem without actually doing anything?

She supposed she could understand how
it could look that way to the casual observer, or that they might
think they were being called liars for reporting the attacks at
all. The behavior of the wolves was unprecedented,
though.

Their existence in the area was
startling enough when they were hundreds of miles from where there
should’ve been any wolves, let alone a pack so large. She supposed
that might explain the attacks—them being out of their element—but
there seemed to be a plentiful food source in the forests. Why the
wolves were going after livestock when they should’ve been content
with the abundant wildlife, and should want to avoid men, was
another mystery.

And then there was the man that had
been attacked.

Of course, she hadn’t been able to
verify that attack. Everyone had clammed up. She hadn’t even been
able to learn the source of the original report let alone the
victim.

Parking her vehicle near the diner,
Danika got out and locked her doors by force of habit. Shoving her
keys into her pocket instead of the bag, since it took too much
time to search the thing for them, she headed into the diner, still
mulling over the mystery she’d been sent to solve.

The bell over the door tinkled as she
shoved the door open. The sound triggered earlier thoughts that had
dogged her all the way into town, her latest failed attempt to tag
one of the wolves. She’d been pissed off when she’d found the first
tag but took it philosophically enough since she’d clipped it his
ear and figured it must have been loose enough for him to scratch
it off. However, she’d brought the wolf down with a tranq the
second time and embedded the tracker in his hip. He shouldn’t have
been able to find it, let alone remove it, and yet she’d found that
one discarded in the woods just like she had the first—discarded
and mangled beyond use.

Wolves were intelligent, she knew, and
she still found it almost eerie that she hadn’t managed to locate
the pack—only the one lone wolf that she’d tagged, twice, because
he’d been brazen enough to come almost right up to her cabin.
Otherwise, they were almost like … ghosts—ghosts that left a lot of
footprints and nothing else.

She came face to face with a local as
she crossed the threshold. He narrowed his eyes at her, his lips
tightening with anger. Surprised since she recognized him and he’d
flirted with her when she’d first arrived, she moved aside for him
to leave, turning to watch him curiously as he limped to his
car.

Shaking her head to dismiss his
strange behavior, she continued inside, allowing the door to swing
closed behind her. The crowded diner quieted noticeably—enough that
Danika become aware of it when she would ordinarily have been deep
enough in thought to be oblivious. Feeling awkward at attracting so
much attention, she struggled to pretend she hadn’t noticed as she
moved further inside, since retreating didn’t seem to be a good
idea. The restaurant appeared to be full, but, after glancing
around, she decided to walk to the back to be sure before she beat
a retreat.

One booth was vacant at the back and,
as luck would have it, it was one of those huge u-shaped booths
designed to accommodate a large group. She stared at it
uncomfortably for a moment, undecided, torn between her growling
stomach and her discomfort. Finally, she moved toward it, deciding
she’d leave if they told her she had to.

Everyone seemed to return to their own
interests as she slid into the seat and settled. Relaxing
fractionally, she grabbed a menu and opened it. She’d been unnerved
far more than she’d realized. It took her several moments to
actually focus on the menu.

Her skin still prickled from all the
staring eyes that had watched her progress through the diner.
Trying to dismiss the feeling that everyone in the diner was still
observing her, though more discretely now, Danika pretended an
interest in the menu she didn’t particularly feel
anymore.

She’d just managed to dismiss her
uneasiness enough to actually begin reading when the bell over the
door tinkled again. Focused now on trying to decide what she wanted
off the menu she might’ve been oblivious except for the fact that
the first tinkle was followed by another and then a third in quick
succession. Suddenly aware that there seemed to be a lot of traffic
at the door and that she’d settled her ass in the only available
booth—built for a large party—she glanced up from the menu and
froze when she saw that she hadn’t, as she’d hoped, heard people
leaving.

The biker gang had just entered the
diner.

The lowering volume she’d noticed when
she’d come in was nothing compared to their reception. The diner
went dead quiet.

They seemed unaware they had the
attention of everyone in the place.

Her gaze collided with one of the men
and a jolt went through her. For a handful of seconds, she couldn’t
seem to drag her gaze away. Finally, the realization hit her that
by allowing him to catch her gaze she’d drawn attention she didn’t
want and she quickly averted her gaze to the menu again.