Embraced By Darkness (Riley Jenson Guardian 5)

Though up here in Queensland, that attitude was a whole lot less noticeable than down in Victoria. Of course, the weather in my home state often precluded the desire to strip down, simply because the weather was about as predictable as a tiger snake during mating season.

I pulled on a low-cut T-shirt and a baggy pair of shorts, then returned to the patio.

"Riley, come."

The voice swirled around me, rich and arrogant. A man who used - and probably abused - power. And my wolf soul reacted to the command in that voice, but not in the way I expected. Not fiercely, with anger, but meekly. As if she wanted to do nothing more than tuck her tail between her legs and cower.

And there could be only one reason for that.

The voice belonged to a pack member. And not just any pack member, but the alpha. The wolf who ruled the pack as a whole.

Only the voice didn't belong to my alpha, the man who had ruled the pack for as long as anyone could remember. I would have recognized the voice of my own grandfather.

So what the hell was going on?

Frowning, I walked down the steps then strode through the trees and out onto the moonlit sand. The wind was sharper out from under the cover of the eucalyptus, and filled with the scent of the sea.

And nothing else. No musky male scent, no hint of wolf. Nothing to suggest there was another soul awake and aware out here on the beach.

A shiver ran down my spine. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe this was nothing more than a dream, and any minute now I'd wake up and laugh at my own stupidity.

After all, our pack had threatened to kill us both if we ever contacted - let alone went near - any pack members. And not even our mother had dared to contradict that particular order.

Not that I thought she'd tried. Though I had no doubt she loved us, she'd always seemed as relieved as the rest of the pack to see the back of us.

"Riley, come."

Again the order ran across the night, stronger than before. I closed my eyes, concentrating on the sound, and tried to define just where the voice was coming from.

After a moment, I turned around and padded up the beach. The villas gave way to thicker strands of eucalyptus and acacia trees, the strong scents filling the night.

It didn't matter. I wasn't relying on my olfactory senses to track this particular trail, but rather my "other" senses. The senses that were new and somewhat unreliable.

The part of me that could see souls rise.

Of course, seeing - and hearing - the souls of dead people wasn't a gift I particularly wanted. Hell, I had enough trouble dealing with the living dead without having to worry about the actual dead popping along anytime they pleased.

But as was often the case in my life of late, it seemed I had little choice in the matter. The experimental fertility drug I'd been forcibly given by Talon had not only kicked started some latent psychic abilities, but had given them a little twist, just for the fun of it. Clairvoyance had been one of those latent skills - until recently, anyway. Seeing dead people walk through the shadows was the not-so-tempting twist.

And I was hoping like hell it was the only twist the drug caused. I didn't want to be like the other half-breeds who'd taken the drug. I didn't want to gain the ability to shift into any animal or bird form I chose, simply because while such an ability might be a buzz, it came at a price. Every one of the others had lost their ability to retake human form. I might love being a wolf, but I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in that shape. Or any other shape, for that matter.

Seeing dead people wasn't that bad by comparison. And until tonight, the dead hadn't contacted me long range. I'd only seen them close to their bodies. Well, mostly, I thought, shivering as I remembered the lingering, insubstantial wisps in Starr's bloody arena.

Not that I was entirely sure I was hearing the dead now, but it just seemed odd I couldn't see or smell anyone else. My senses were wolf-sharp. If someone had been close, I would have known.

I padded along the white sand until I reached the peninsula rocks. The wind here was sharper, the sea rougher, slapping across those rocks and sending white foam flicking skyward. The tide was up, so I'd be getting wet if the voice wanted me to clamber around to the next cove.

I stopped and scanned the horizon. This section of the main island was closest to Lighthouse Island, the largest of the two small islands that sat within swimming distance of Monitor. It housed the Monitor Island Research Center, a joint government and private concern that was investigating the sea life and the reefs. I'd done the tour last week, and had been bored to tears. Sure, reefs were pretty. So were the myriad offish that lived among them. And we surely had to know why they were all disappearing. But hey, I just couldn't get all worked up about the science. Wolves are hunters by nature, not conservationists. We usually haven't the patience for occupations that involve long hours of inactivity.

Awareness tingled across my skin, as sharp as needle stings. Whoever the voice belonged to, he was close.

"Riley, turn around."

For the first time, memories stirred. I'd known that voice in the past. I turned and studied the trees.

A man stood amongst them. Though at first glance he appeared solid, a more careful study revealed an almost gossamer look to his hands and feet. As if, by the time he got to his extremities, he didn't have the strength to maintain the illusion of substance.

He was a tall man, rangy in build, with strong arms and blunt features. Not attractive, not ugly, but somewhere in between. But even if he'd been the ugliest spud on the planet, it wouldn't have mattered, because the sense of authority and power that shone from his gray eyes were all that would ever matter to a wolf.