Page 7 of Hollow Moon

The wounded man said drug dealers had shot him. No, drug manufacturers. She grimaced, wondering who they were and—more importantly—where they were.

After transferring the gun to the medical kit, she prepared to leave—then stopped. If she was going to bring him back here, she’d better open up her sleeping bag. At least it wasn’t one of those models that tapered down at the legs like a mummy case, she thought, as she spread out the quilted fabric. For a moment, she stared at the double bed she’d made. Was she really going to be lying next to this guy she didn’t know?

Well, she couldn’t see any alternative.

Before leaving, she gathered up some of the clothing she’d brought—sweatpants and an oversized tee shirt, then started back toward her patient. The pants would be too short, but they’d cover him up.

When she was halfway back with the medical supplies, she stopped abruptly. The wounded man had vanished.

CHAPTER 4

Knox rolled his head to the side as he watched the woman leave, watched her slender form swim in and out of sharpness. She was heading for a bright blue blob that stood out against the greens and browns of the woods.

It looked like a magic bubble, pulsing in the early morning light, expanding and contracting as though it were a giant heart beating.

A giant blue heart?

He dismissed that idea, then glommed onto another. What if it was an alien spaceship? And she was from another planet. Only she wasn’t a little green man. She was a very good-looking woman with pale skin, sable hair, and—he thought—blue eyes. Maybe he was wrong about the eye color.

He knew he had loved looking into them. For a moment, he let himself think about their beauty—and the breasts bobbing under her sweatshirt. If the aliens wanted to get his confidence, they’d send someone who wasn’t threatening, right? Someone sexy and appealing.

He watched her walking back to the bubble, watched her disappear inside.

Poof. Magic. Not werewolf magic. Something much more dangerous. She had claimed she wanted to help him. But he had seen the gun tucked into the back of her pants as soon as she’d turned around.

A Sig, he thought. Would an alien have a Sig? Or could they make a blaster look like an earth weapon?

How could he trust her? In his current condition, how could he trust anyone?

That thought lodged in his mind as he saw blue flames licking at the bubble, spreading across the dry leaves, crawling toward him.

He gasped, knowing he had to get away before they burned him to a blue crisp.

He had run all night. On a leg that would have collapsed under an ordinary man. But he wasn’t ordinary. He was a wolf.

The wolf had gotten him away from the bastards making the drugs. It could get him away from the alien woman. But first he had to get farther from the fire and the strange bubble that was growing in size every second.

He pushed himself up, fighting a stab of pain as he wavered on unsteady feet. He could hide in the woods and change. Then?

He couldn’t plan any further than escape.

To his horror, while he’d struggled to his feet, the otherworldly flames had sneaked up on him. They were already lapping at his skin, burning his flesh. He wanted to scream, but he kept any sound locked in his throat as he tried to get away from the fire without warning the woman that he was on to her game.

It took a tremendous effort to make his legs work. They felt like blocks of wood as he stamped into the woods. But the exertion paid off. When he turned around, he saw the blue tide was now ten feet away. And as he watched, it fell back.

He kept his gaze on it for several moments, willing it to keep receding. When he was sure the ground was safe, he pressed his back against a tree trunk and lowered himself to a sitting position, dragging in gulps of air.

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Maggie clenched her hands into fists as she stared at the spot where the wounded man had been lying. She hadn’t imagined him. The vegetation was crushed down from the weight of his body. He had been here, and he needed help.

She didn’t even know his name to call out to him. But maybe raising her voice would be a mistake.

What if the shooter had tracked him?

With a shudder, she scanned the woods. Of course, this was private property. But there weren’t exactly any boundary markers warning people to stay out.

Hurrying to the place where he’d been, she crouched and inspected the ground. Was there a faint trail moving away from the location? With no better idea, she followed it deeper into the woods—and found him, This time he was sitting with his back propped against a tree, and it sounded like he was speaking—no chanting—in a foreign language.

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