Blood Challenge Read Free Page A

the time, didn’t she? So her heart really shouldn’t be pounding this hard.
    “Uh—thanks.” She took the stick and used it to wobble to her feet. Her eyes filled again. The ankle was definitely not going to let her run, but she could walk. Carefully. Slowly. Maybe she could get away from the glowing ward before the guys with guns arrived. She started hobbling, following the line of the ward toward its weak spot.
    The wolf stayed with her, but on the far side of the ward. Could he see or sense it? His head came to her rib cage. The top of her rib cage. “Go on,” she whispered. “They won’t see me, but they’ll sure see you.”
    He shook his head.
    “I don’t want to go with you,” she explained. “I’m safe enough, but if you’re with me—”
    He bumped her. Just once, but intentionally, using the side of his body to jostle her. She wobbled, but didn’t fall.
    What did that mean? Was he … oh. He was staring back the way she’d come. Listening, maybe. Lupi had very keen hearing. Maybe he’d wanted her to shut up so he could hear better. The militia guys might be coming. What did he—
    Faster than she could blink, he went from statue-still to a full run, grace and speed merging in a blur of motion.
    He was beautiful.
    Also noisy, crashing through brush as if he couldn’t be bothered to go around. He ran straight back toward the house. Where the armed men were. He ran right at them.
    Her free hand lifted as if she could summon him back—but he was already out of sight.
    The first shot was impossibly loud. The second was just as loud, but the third seemed a little farther away. Arjenie’s eyes filled and overflowed as if they could drain the new fear, vast and formless, that swamped her.
    She swallowed hard. Her hand still stretched out, still trying to call him back. She let it fall to her side.
    Arjenie turned. Blinking at the tears that just kept coming, she began to make her slow, painful way along the hill, following the ward to its weak spot. She’d go back to her car. She was sure now she’d make it. She had to. He’d thrown himself at the guys with guns on purpose, hadn’t he? Diverting them from her.
    She couldn’t help him. Couldn’t do a thing except take herself away. She had no weapons, no skill with weapons, no way to stop whatever was happening. But she wished, fiercely and futilely, that she could remember for sure about the guards’ rifles, how long the barrels were. So she’d know if they could fire those 950 rounds per minute.
    Arjenie had crossed the ward and was near the top of the hill when that question was answered. The burst of gunfire was distant, heavy, and prolonged. Clearly, at least one of them had a rifle with fully automatic fire.

TWO
    YEP. All four tires, slashed and flat.
    Sweat trickled beneath Lily Yu’s athletic bra, ran a clammy finger down her spine, and threatened to sting her eyes. Not that it was terribly hot. The heat wave had finally broken, and San Diego was enjoying its customary late-September balminess. But the city liked to make up for a lack of rain this time of year by brewing up high humidity, especially in the mornings. The sweat her body had pumped out during her run had nowhere to go.
    She dragged her forearm across her face, smearing the wet around rather than getting rid of it, and scowled.
    Werewolfs Whore.
    That was spray painted in black across the hood of her government-issue Ford. The perp had forgotten the apostrophe, but he’d added a PS of sorts on the trunk: Fucking Bitch Traitor .
    One of her neighbors? She considered that as her heartbeat settled. They had easy access, but otherwise they weren’t a good fit.
    The rabid haters—the ones most likely to escalate from words to actions—fell in a predictable demographic. There were exceptions, such as the guy who’d killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum. He’d been nearly ninety. But chances were that the asshole who’d defaced her ride was a white, heterosexual male