Page 13 of Forsaken By Night

Twisting, she peered into the pool below, and her heart stopped when she saw the body floating in the bubbling waters.

She didn’t waste another second. Figuring she had nothing left to lose, she shot her pursuers the finger and jumped.

7

The sound of a female voice humming a classic Johnny Cash song was something Lobo had never awakened to. What hehadawakened to, several times, was intense, throbbing pain. Not often, but enough to know it always meant that something had gone terribly wrong during a fight.

What had he done to deserve it this time?

He peeled open his eyes as his brain tried to crank out an explanation as to why he was wet, in agony, and lying on his back in some sort of... room? Shack? What the hell?

“Lobo!” Tehya filled his field of vision as she stood up from a booth covered in cracked, ugly-ass avocado vinyl. “You’re awake.”

“What...” He cleared his raw throat and tried again. “What... happened?”

Tucking her damp hair behind her ears, she sank down next to him on what appeared to be an elevated mattress. Mildewed, frayed gingham curtains hung near his head and at his feet, and it took him a few precious seconds to realize they were inside an old camper.

“You were struck by an arrow. I thought you were dead.” Very gently, she peeled back a bloody, folded towel from the wound just beneath his left collarbone. “Do you remember being chased?”

Now that she reminded him, he did. They’d reached a cliff on the edge of the river, but he didn’t know what had happened after that.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Sort of. But how did we get here?” Wherever “here” was.

“You fell into the water.” Her voice faltered with emotion, and he knew exactly how she’d felt. It had torn him apart when he’d seen Tehya suffering from the poacher’s gunshot wound. “I went after you. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, but I held your head out of the water and floated us downriver until I was sure those people weren’t following.”

So she was beautifulandsmart. The river split into several streams, creating multiple escape routes for their pursuers to have to check out. “Where are we?”

He sucked air as she replaced the dressing on the wound. “Sorry,” she murmured, before folding her hands in her lap. “Remember that rusted-out camper we found a couple of years ago?”

It took a second for his brain to kick in, but he finally remembered. They’d been tracking an injured deer that had likely been hit by a car, and they’d found the abandoned camper deep inside state forest lands. If this was that same camper, they were a good ten miles downriver from where he’d gone into the water.

So, yep, he remembered, and he grinned. “I seem to recall that you peed on it.”

Her cheeks flamed red, the bright color spreading all the way to her ears. “I had to mark my territory,” she said, adding a haughty sniff for emphasis. “Be glad I didn’t pee on you.” The crimson in her face deepened. “I mean... you know, Iwasa wolf....”

He chuckled, but a stab of pain ripped through his chest, turning his laugh into a moan.

“Shouldn’t you be healing faster than this?” Her gorgeous eyes darkened with concern. “Vampires are supposed to have super healing powers, right?”

His gaze slid to her mouth and the pearly fangs that peeked between her slightly parted lips, and to his annoyance, his cock stirred.

“You’re a vampire too,” he pointed out as he casually adjusted his hand to cover the swell in his damp jeans. “You tell me.”

Windblown tree branches scraped the top of the camper, something that would have freaked out wolf-Tehya, but vampire-Tehya didn’t so much as bat an eye. “I wasn’t a vampire for very long before I turned into a wolf.”

He blinked in surprise. “How is that possible? You must have been born a vampire. If you were turned, you’d have silver eyes.” Plus, she clearly had native blood running through her veins, and because the vampire race had begun in native tribes, most people who were born vampires tended to have at leastsomeAmerican Indian blood.

“I don’t know why my eyes remained this color after I was turned,” she said, “but I assure you, I was born human.”

Ahumanhad been born with eyes the color of golden amber? Eyes that belonged only to wolves... or skinwalkers? Huh.

He had a lot of questions for her, but he figured they could start with the basics. “I should have asked this sooner, but what’s your name? Probably not Tehya.”

“It’s Kristen.” She looked at him almost shyly. “But I prefer Tehya. What’s it mean?”

His face grew so hot he actually looked around for a furnace. “Precious,” he said, feeling like a fool. He had few memories of his mother, but he remembered her calling him “Tehya,” so when the wolf he’d rescued had survived, he’d given her a name he associated with his very best memories.

“Precious.” She said it like she was tasting it onher tongue and was pleased with the flavor. “I like it.”

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