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  “No. Not gonna happen. Leave, Darcy.” I kicked the door shut with my foot and stripped off and slid into the warm soapy water. I tipped the wine bottle and drank from it, trying to numb reality—the reality that my vampire ex-boyfriend was standing on the other side of the door tormenting me, and looking as sexy as sin, while I was in here naked and harboring secret butterflies in my stomach. Oh, hell.

  Chapter Four

  I stayed in the tub until the water grew cold. When I was drunk enough and wrinkled like a prune, I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around me, and slowly opened the door. I glanced around the bedroom, but thankfully, there was no sign of Darcy.

  It was just after midday by the time I came out of the bath according to my phone. Damn. I never got drunk before lunch, but having one’s immortal ex turn up out of the blue would drive anyone to drink. The truth was I knew why he was here. He was here to talk me out of killing the creatures. That was what I did. That was my job. My boss gave me the cases and expected me to write a story about it. But I took it one step further, and then covered it up by writing some mundane story about the mysterious sightings only turning out to be someone’s pet dog or cat, or someone’s overgrown pet lizard. So far, I had killed hundreds of supernatural creatures who had made the mistake of wandering into the human realm. And Darcy had tried to prevent every single one of those deaths. He had only succeeded in stopping about half of my actual attempts. My tally would be a lot higher if it weren’t for him. Damn him. He was the bane of my existence.

  And that was all because he bit me over three hundred years ago and ignited my power.

  I hadn’t wanted to be what I was born to be. My father was a dragon shifter and my mother a witch. It was because they fell in love, two beings forbidden to love outside their species; therefore, I was cursed. I was born out of taboo. I was an abomination, and I was the one who wrote the rules for banning procreation outside of species of one’s own kind—before my ancestor came along and rewrote history. Eva destroyed everything I worked so hard to achieve. She crumbled my empire, and I was determined now more than ever to make it right again. I was going to take back my throne and reinstate the rules which I had created. And no one was going to stop me. Not even Darcy.

  I dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a snow jacket that could easily be cleaned in case I had to do any killing. The sun was still up, and I wasn’t that drunk despite finishing the wine. My supernatural blood had quickly burned off the lingering effects of the alcohol. It was good to be a supernatural being sometimes. I pulled on a pair of hiking boots I had purchased for the trip and then I fished through my bag until I found what I was looking for—my athame. I had glamorized it to look like a toothbrush so that I could take it through airport security. I waved my hand over the toothbrush, and it immediately turned back into my silver and pink diamond encrusted sword. This athame was my originally my mother’s, which she had gifted me on my eighteenth birthday. It was spelled to kill other supernatural beings who broke the law. And the best thing was Darcy didn’t know I had it. I had it on me the night my life changed, the night I met him, but after he had bitten me in the throes of passion, I had been too startled to use it on him. That or the other reason, which I hated to admit, was I still loved him. I shook the thought out of my head. Damn him. He was always haunting me, asleep or awake. I had to focus on the task at hand. I had to find these wolves.

  I headed out the front door into the thick pine forest.

  ***

  The pine forest was filled with an array of bird life and ground dwelling creatures. They probably weren’t supernatural, but I kept my ears pricked for any signs that the mysterious lupine creatures were nearby. As I walked down the steady decline through the thick undergrowth of the forest, my mind wandered to Darcy. I wonder where he had disappeared to and if he would show up anytime soon. I shook my head and cursed myself. No, I couldn’t let him distract me. But that was what he did best—distract me and make me feel flustered and, dare I say, um… horny—that I wouldn’t kill. That was just what vampires did. I couldn’t let him beat me.

  I was quite a distance from the cabin when I heard it.

  The howl.

  I called on my supernatural agility and predatory stalking ability as I quickly but quietly ran toward the howl.

  I broke through a bush and into a sunny meadow when I saw it. On a rocky outcrop, a large silver wolf was perched. It raised its head to howl once more, probably to warn its fellow pack members nearby a threat was close. It must have heard me, though, because it turned its gaze toward me and pinned me with its shining golden eyes. I crouched behind a Kouri tree, its wide trunk partially concealing me, and reached for my athame. But by the time I pulled it from my back pocket, the silver wolf was gone.

  I wanted to scream, but the feeling of eerie coldness settled on me again. I knew what it was. Or rather, who it was. I gritted my teeth.

  “Damn you, Darcy. I had him,” I hissed. I turned on him and pinned him with my icy glare. He stood behind me, looking as sexy as always, with his movie star looks and his tousled post-sex hair.

  “It’s not too late to come to that agreement.”

  “I told you there is no agreement. You do your job, and I do mine. And we stay separate. On opposite sides of the world.” I glanced around the glade, but the wolf was nowhere to be seen. Darcy had scared it off.

  “Ah, but that is hard when my job involves stopping you from doing yours.” He paced a small circle, taunting me and teasing me. I drew in a breath and turned to stomp back toward the cabin. But he was in front of me in a flash, blocking my path.

  “Why do you resist, Emma?” he whispered before leaning in and kissing my neck softly and disappearing out of sight. I turned around in a circle, but he was gone.

  Once more, I cursed him. I stalked back to the cabin in a worse mood than before.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, I woke early and decided to head back to the clearing in hopes of seeing the wolf again. I knew I should have gone out during the night, but by the time I got back to the cabin last night, I was mentally and physically exhausted. And that was mainly because of one thing, one person. Darcy. Bloody Darcy. He was always in my head.

  I packed some supplies for the walk and headed out just as the sun was rising above the trees. The golden light filtered through the canopy and mist turning everything to molten gold and making shadows that lingered in the undergrowth disappear. As I walked down the steady decline toward the clearing, Darcy popped into my head once more. I wanted to shake him off me and out of my life for good, but a part of me wanted him there. A teeny, tiny part of me. I groaned and stomped down the path, only getting a little further down the hill when I realized I shouldn’t be stomping so loudly as I was supposed to be hunting supernatural wolves. Then again, I probably need not bother quieting my steps because they had probably sensed me near the moment I arrived at the cabin. This hunt was going to be more difficult than I originally thought. Wolves, especially wolf shifters and werewolves, had heightened senses. Much more defined than that of non-supernatural wolves or dogs. But I had killed a few wolf shifters before and a few werewolves. And the trick was to find them at their most vulnerable. I had to find their den.

  I took a few more steps down the hill, leaping over a few trickling streams and boulders. I had just landed after jumping over a large rock when I heard a wolf howl. They were nearby and could probably sense I was coming.

  I picked up my pace and pulled my athame from its sheath at my ankle. When I reached the edge of the clearing I had found the day before, I saw it. This time, the silver wolf I had seen yesterday wasn’t alone. A larger pure black wolf, probably a male, joined her. He nudged his mate and stepped higher onto the rocky outcrop they were standing on. Then he lifted his head and let out a howl that pulsed through my body. It was an emotional howl. I wondered what the male wolf was thinking. Then the female wolf beside him joined in the chorus before they both leaped over the side of the rock platform and disappeared into the forest.

  Damn it! I had lost them again. I broke off down the hill, calling on my supernatural speed so I could catch up to the wolf couple. But when I reached the tree line on the other side of the clearing, the wolves were nowhere to be seen. I was about to give up once more and head back to the cabin when a twig snapped to my right. I froze and held my athame out before me, readying myself for a possible attack.

  A wolf didn’t step out from the trees. Instead, a young woman did. She was around my age with black hair and silver irises.

  “What are you doing in our forest, witch?” she asked, leaning against a tree and crossing her arms over her breasts. She was dressed in a black crop top, black boots and black jeans with holes in them. She was beautiful and fierce. I slid my sword back into my boot and stood up slowly holding up my hands in front of me. I couldn’t kill her just yet. I had to earn her trust.

  “I’m here to talk. I heard about a pack of supernatural wolves in New Zealand and came to investigate. I’m a reporter in the human world.”

  “How did you know we are supernatural?” the woman asked. Another twig behind me snapped, and I turned to see a shirtless man step out from behind a tree trunk. He had dark hair and even darker eyes, those of which were trained directly on me. He was the black wolf. I turned back to the she-wolf.

  “The same way you know I’m a witch. Call it a sixth sense, if you will.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” the man asked, stepping closer. My heart rate kicked up a notch, but I kept my poker face. “You’re on our land. We can only let you stay here if you don’t have an ulterior motive.”

  “Daniel…” the woman warned.

  “No, Shalia. We can’t just let another creature come onto our land without permissio
n. Especially if they mean harm.”

  Shalia let out a breath and walked toward me. “Okay, if you mean us no harm. You can stay. But tell that vampire mate of yours the deal is off if you make any moves against us.”

  Deal? What kind of deal had Darcy made with the wolves?

  “Okay, but he is not my mate.”

  “Whatever,” said Daniel. I flinched when I felt his warm breath against the back of my neck. He was standing close to me. He circled me and came to stand beside his mate. He looked down at her with affection, and she linked her fingers with his. “We’ll be watching you.”

  The wolf couple turned to head back into the forest when a question popped into my mind.

  “Wait,” I said. They looked back at me. “What kind of wolves are you?”

  Daniel’s eyes grew dark as he replied, “We’re werewolves.”

  Chapter Six

  Werewolves.

  There were werewolves living in New Zealand. But I couldn’t let anyone catch wind of this. I had to somehow lie to my boss who was going to demand a story by the end of the weekend. I couldn’t very well tell him there were werewolves here. My boss was human. And Darcy and I had to keep the existence of supernatural creatures a secret to the human world. I had to kill these wolves somehow and then tell my boss it was just a large pet dog that had escaped into the forest. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

  I stepped back inside my cabin and plugged in my phone, which had died some time ago down the hill. When the phone had enough power to come back on, I had numerous missed calls and unread emails. I sighed and slumped on the bed as I clicked onto the first email just as my phone vibrated in my hand with an incoming call. I blinked, not sure if I was seeing the caller ID correctly. It was Darcy calling. Well, I wasn’t exactly surprised. And I was expecting him to call since he’d fled. I sighed again and clicked answer.

  “Where’d you go?” I said casually, reclining back onto the pillow.

  But Darcy’s voice was gruff and abrupt. He sounded pissed. “Are the wolves still alive?”

  I sat up. “Yeah… I didn’t kill them if that’s what you’re implying.” I heard an exhale of breath.

  “Good. They’re not doing any harm.”

  “They are if humans keep seeing them. I can’t keep this up forever.”

  Darcy chuckled. I shuddered, and blood rushed to my face, and suddenly the room was too hot. Damn him. I hated the way he made me feel.

  “I knew you’d grow tired at some point, Emmaline,” he growled. I clutched the pillow behind me and squeezed tight. I squeezed the pillow so tight my fingers punched a hole through the pillow slip and into the fluffy down inside. I reached in and pinched out a tiny gray feather. I held it up between my thumb and forefinger and studied it.

  “Don’t call me that. And I am not tired.” I let go of the feather and hovered it in the air in front of my face. Then I incinerated it with the power of my mind. Embers and ash fell to the bed in sooty clumps. I quickly brushed it off the white quilt.

  He annoyed me so.

  “Don’t lie to yourself, Emma. It’ll be best for both of us if you just give up and give in.”

  I gritted my teeth and called my athame to me, which was still in the side of my boot.

  “Don’t tempt me, Darcy. You’re making me destroy all this fancy bed linen. Carl, my boss, won’t be happy when he gets the bill for the damages.”

  There was a pause, and then his voice was suddenly incredibly close like he was standing beside me. I glanced around and found him leaning against the door to my room smirking at me. I threw the phone on the bed, and because it was still plugged into the power cord, it slid off the bed and clattered to the floor. I growled and sent my athame hurtling toward him. And because he’d drawn some of my power long ago when he drank from me, he was able to stop the athame before it pierced his heart. I watched Darcy’s eyes go to the black smear on the quilt and what was left of the feather I had incinerated.

  “Why are you destroying everything? You’re not mad at me, are you?” With the flick of a finger, he turned the athame around mid-air and sent it floating gently back toward me as if it were caught in a stream. I snatched it out of the air and set it on the nightstand.

  “No. You make me mad. You drive me mad. You bring out the worst in me.”

  He sauntered to the bed and sat inches from me.

  “No. I bring out the best in you.”

  I was momentarily entranced by his gaze. He was the spider, and I was the fly caught in his web. Then I realized what he was doing.

  I screamed and used all my power to throw him across the room into the wall.

  “Don’t use your vampire tricks on me, Darcy. I won’t fall for it.”

  Darcy’s body crashed into the wall, splintering the wood. He was able to stop the momentum before going all the way through the wall. He pushed himself back to his feet and brushed off his leather jacket.

  “I’m not trying to seduce you, Emma.”

  He was starting to get on my nerves. I felt like shaking him and screaming and glaring at him like he was stupid. Instead, I let loose a noisy, frustrated breath.

  “Then why are you here?”

  “If you must know, Emma, I am here to make sure you don’t do anything stupid, like killing the werewolves. You have a choice to make.”

  “Ugh. Why are you giving me an ultimatum? You’re not my boss. You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “It’s the truth, Emma. You’re in denial. Make up a story for your boss, lie. Do whatever else you need to do. But don’t make any rash decisions.”

  He walked out of the room but left me with his last words before he disappeared into the night. They were words that would haunt me for the rest of the weekend.

  “Don’t kill the wolves. I’ll be watching.”

  Then the door shut, and he was gone.

  Chapter Seven

  Darcy made me so mad! I threw a pillow across the room. It hit the wall, exploding into a puff of feathers. Oops. I’d forgotten I’d stabbed a hole through the pillow with my fingers. I ignored the mess. I’ll clean it up later before I leave.

  I pulled out my laptop and decided I had to make a start on the artificial story for my boss. I opened a blank word document and then the email file that contained the images for the story alongside it. The photos were taken by witnesses and the local police. Some were grainy and only depicted dark silhouettes of a dog-like creature in the distance. They weren’t even good photos, but they’d have to do. I couldn’t very well go and take my photos of the werewolves when my aim was to cover up their existence to the humans.

  After staring at the blank document for a while, trying to drum up inspiration, I started typing a cynical story discrediting every witness statement and all the evidence placed in front of me. I then put a rough layout together for the article and emailed it off to the editor. As the email whooshed off into cyberspace, I picked up my wine glass where I had left it on the tallboy and went to take a sip before realizing too late it was empty. I searched the tallboy and surrounding surfaces for the bottle but found it empty on the dresser. I took that as a sign that my job here was done, and tomorrow I would be returning home to Sydney to my comfortable apartment near the harbor and to the job I didn’t deserve. I didn’t know why I still had a job after all the lies I’d told trying to cover up the mysterious sightings of supernatural creatures. I shook my head.

  “You’re such an idiot, Emma,” I said out loud.

  And I was being way too hard on myself because I did still have a mission here. I had to kill these werewolves before I left tomorrow. If Darcy found out, I would deal with his judgment later.

  These wolves couldn’t be allowed to reside so close to humans. They were endangering the entire paranormal world. I shut down my laptop and got ready for bed, deciding it was the best course of action for now. I was way too drunk to do any killing tonight. Besides, I still didn’t know how these wolves lived, what their daily routine was like. I needed more time than I had to watch them. I had to learn their every move so I could decide the ideal time to strike. Thankfully, I was given my answer less than a minute later when Carl sent me an email.