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nothing was tying me down, I was gone.”
    “Was he turned that night?”
    “No. It might have worked if he’d let her do
it her way and she’d really gotten to maul his ass, but as badly as
he wanted to be a wolf, he wanted to stay alive more.”
    Figured. It would have saved them all a lot
of trouble. Brandt gazed at her. Timber looked exhausted, as if
she’d had to vividly relive every moment of her time with that
psycho to tell him the story.
    “They called him the Wolfman in the news.”
She gave a sharp laugh. “He loved it. Lapped it up like a starving
dog.”
    Brandt nodded. He hated it when the media
gave a criminal a catchy nickname. It was recognition, and it fed
their mania.
    “There’s a chance,” Brandt began, hating what
he had to say, “that his starting back up again isn’t a
coincidence.”
    Timber leaned back, inhaling a long, deep
breath. She smiled at him. “Don’t bullshit me. We both know it’s
not. Even if there had been some doubt, Becky’s hair tie on my
front stoop is his announcement that he’s here for me.”
    “But this time he might not want you as a
mate. Sometimes killers evolve. There’s a strong chance he wants to
kill you this time.”
    “Good. I want to kill him, too.” There was a
growl in her voice when she said it, a low, bass rumble. “And yeah,
you’re probably right. But I can promise you one thing.”
    “And that is?”
    “If he manages to grab me again—” She broke
eye contact then, her teeth gritted together as she stared out
across her living room. Brandt wanted to tell her this man
wouldn’t, that they could keep her safe, but he hesitated to make a
promise he couldn’t guarantee he could keep. Timber had seen enough
of STE’s failures.
    When she finally looked back at him her gaze
was like a club to the gut, “—he’ll take his time. He didn’t go to
all the trouble of tracking me down to make it quick.”

 
    Chapter Six
    Timber watched
Brandt flinch. Which was good. He needed to know Charles like she
did. He needed to know what he was up against, know what kind of
monster was hunting during his watch. Maybe, unlike the Hounds
before him, he might actually make an attempt to stop the
bastard.
    “Don’t get me wrong,” she added. “I’ll fight
him. And if he gives me a chance to kill him, then you better have
that silver bullet ready, because he’ll be a dead man walking and I
don’t care about the consequences.”
    “We could move you into a Shifter
Protection—”
    Hell no. She shook her head and held up a
hand to cut him off.
    “Didn’t think you’d go for that,” he sighed,
but at least he didn’t push. She’d gone to the Hounds once before
for help. Brandt was their second shot at getting it right.
    “I’ve given you everything I know on this,
but excuse me if I don’t trust your guys not to hand me over if he
waltzes in and promises to stop killing in exchange for me.”
    Brandt gave a growl then and stepped closer.
Everything inside her went utterly still, her muscles tensed and
ready to resist the danger that threatened in his eyes.
    “I can’t promise you a lot,” Brandt said, his
voice dark and deadly, full of a depth of rage she hadn’t expected.
“But I can promise you this; I will do everything in my power to
catch this man. And I can promise you that I won’t hand you
over to that devil again. My pack? If they want to keep their badge
as a Hound and not end up in a silver-barred cell themselves, then
they’ll damn well do the same.”
    He’d narrowed the distance between them until
she could feel his heat, smell the soft hint of shampoo from his
last shower. She could see the dark stubble just poking through
along his jawline. But it was his eyes, a dark mocha brown, that
captivated her.
    Along the edge of his irises they almost
glinted gold, but they bled black closer to the center.
    A dark brown curl hung over his forehead, and
she had to tuck her hands in her pockets to keep from reaching up
and