The temperature was somewhere between hot and hell.
Leaning against the sun-soaked brick of an old apartment building, Nikki Reese rolled her shoulders to move the trickle of perspiration from between her shoulder blades, silently cursing the fine folks who proclaimed leather the best choice for protective gear.
Her skin was on fire beneath the tight leather pants and vest. True enough, though, the airy blue hospital scrubs worn for her day job wouldnât turn away a pair of razor-sharp canines coming her way with intent to do damage. Which made leather her friend, her armor, her ally in the war between humans and Others in Miami, where a full moon brought out the worst in its citizens.
So, what mattered most? Comfort, or life?
âLife, hands down,â she affirmed, flicking her gaze from the dark spaces separating the buildings to the moonlight overhead.
Tonight, the moon was huge, round-faced and bright enough to cause retinal damage since no one had yet invented infrared Ray-Bans. And although the mottled silver disc in the sky provided enough light to see by, there were plenty of dark places left for moon-ruled monsters to drag unsuspecting souls into.
Like the alley across from her.
âDamned if Iâll let that happen.â
She kept her attention narrowed on that alley. Five more minutes, by her honed internal clock, and the moon would be full-bloat and straight up. Falling silver moonbeams would activate the creatures of Miamiâs underbelly and draw them into the open. Not just the criminals, thugs, drug lords and other various human bloodsuckers occupying the seedier side of metropolitan neighborhoods, but the moon junkies, howlers, and her special targets, the reason she was here when she could have been sleeping: the human-wolf hybrids. Werewolves.
The word caused a flutter in Nikkiâs stomach that was half fear, half thrill, and one hundred percent adrenaline rush.
âWhoâs the adventure junkie now?â she muttered, attuned to the same spot where she had last seen one of her Others of choice. Last month. Twenty-eight days ago, when sheâd hit a big male Were with a tranquilizer dart and it hadnât even slowed him down.
Lessons learned? One: Itâs always wise to overestimate the pharmaceuticals. Two: Never underestimate the long arm of the Miami P.D., whose street trawling had kept her from tagging her target, virtually ruining three months of planning, watching and waiting. Distracted midshot by flashing red lights, what should have been, given her ability with a gun, a bullâs-eye, had ended up a graze. Sheâd lost her target. Those pesky cops doing their job of keeping the peace could have gotten her killed.
Plus, if those fine officers had seen her in this sweltering leather getup, they might have found out who else patrolled their streets in the nighttime hours, and maybe even why. A secret agenda kept strictly on a need-to-know basis, as it had been for hundreds of years. Cops not on the invitation list.
âNo one said it was going to be easy.â
Erasing the extraneous thoughts from her mind, Nikki felt something brush her consciousness. Wary, she brought her head up, seeing nothing but sensing a subtle shift in the air that her radar suggested was more than just heat rising off the hot pavement.
She knew this feeling seeping into her bones, way down deep, despite the second-skin armor. She had been craving, and at the same time, dreading, this particular oncoming Otherness.
There was no mistaking the signs. The alreadyscorching summer heat built to impossible levels for a short span of time, dispersing scent through the humid air that wasnât human related. Not sweat, cologne, aftershave or hair gel. Not damp fur or dirty paws. Instead, a diluted mixture of those scents floated toward her like another layer of atmosphere that had been cooked in a furnace and then sent oozing toward the moonlight tipping the toes of her boots.
A tingle of apprehension manifested in the valley between her breasts, then shot downward toward her thighs in an almost sexual manner, high-alerting Nikki to the fact that the sucker somewhere in her immediate vicinity was male. For a hunter, confronting a werewolf of the opposite sex was akin to meeting a lover. The flush of anticipation. Intoxication of being near to something foreign in origin. Fear of the susceptibility of getting caught up in the moment and possibly winding up dead.