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  "Nice job, Mike," Alex said, veering off his original course to follow the footprints.

  The noise of the ongoing battle in the building quickly fell away as they worked their way through the tall, dead grass and snow covered piles of concrete and rebar that formed a maze through the lot. Frozen grass crunched underfoot. A scream shattered the silence and Alex stopped, his blood crystalizing in his veins. The moon had risen.

  Creeping forward, Alex peered around a pile of debris. The kennel sat no more than twenty feet in front of him. It rocked back and forth as the pups inside flung themselves against the bars in an attempt to escape. The man was on his knees in the snow, doubled over and clutching his stomach as if something was trying to claw its way out of his belly. Alex shivered as the man's form rippled in front of him.

  Sharp pops and cracks reverberated between the piles of rubble and the man screamed again as his form bubbled, doubling its already massive bulk, his clothes ripping as they reached their capacity. His arms and legs lengthened, thick bundles of muscles and taught tendons becoming more defined as the skin stretched. The man's fingers gripped at the snow, twisting as long claws grew from their tips. This time the man howled, raising his elongated muzzle towards the sky.

  Alex couldn't tear his eyes away from the monstrosity before him. No longer human, yet not fully wolf, the werewolf was a distortion of all that was natural. The werewolf turned, it's yellow glowing eyes focused on his hiding place, the pups apparently long forgotten. The creature sniffed the air, its nostrils flaring with each intake of breath, and let out an earsplitting howl. Alex knew he should run, but he couldn't take his eyes off the lumbering form of the monster as it loped towards them in a half crouch.

  A streak of grey ducked past him, meeting the werewolf half way.

  "Mike, no," Alex yelled, broken from his trance. He raised the gun but it was too late, there wasn't a clear shot without the risk of hitting his partner.

  "What do we do?" Jamie asked, staring at the two wolves as they tumbled in a blur of grey and black, snarling and snapping.

  "We don't get in the middle of a dog fight. Mike can hold his own." Alex tried to believe the words as he said them. "Get the pups."

  One of the combatants yelped and Alex forced himself to turn away from the fight. Surely it hasn't been Mike. Mike knew what he was doing. He wouldn't have taken on the werewolf if he didn't have the upper hand. Except he knew that wasn't true. Mike had rushed the werewolf because he'd hesitated and if Mike hadn't taken action, he'd be on the ground with his entrails strewn about the snow.

  Alex jiggled the latch on the kennel, opening the door. The pups continued to cower at the back of the kennel, their small bodies pressed as far into the corner as possible. "Come on, little ones," he said, trying to sound soothing. "We're here to help you." The pups didn't move. Alex reached in grab them and met snarls and bared teeth. Okay, so that wasn't going to work.

  "Hey," Jamie said, crouching down next to him. "It's okay." The pup closest to the front of the cage perked its ears up at her voice.

  Alex risked a glance over his shoulder. Mike and the werewolf were circling each other, growling. There was blood on the snow around them but he couldn't tell whose it was. Alex’s heart skipped a beat. What happened if Mike got bit again, this time by a werewolf instead of a lycan? Could the curse be broken free from its binding?

  "That's a good pup," Jamie cooed.

  Alex turned his attention back to the kennel. One of the pups had ventured out and was cuddled up against Jamie's leg. She was elbow deep in the kennel and nearly had the second one extracted as well.

  "Good job," he said as she pulled out the wiggling pup. "Take them back to the truck and be careful."

  Jamie nodded, scooping the fluff balls up in her arms and heading off in the direction of the truck.

  Alex gripped the gun in his hand. He wasn't going to let Mike get killed by a werewolf. Turning around, he was surprised to see Mike standing behind him, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth in a lopsided doggy grin as he panted. Alex eyed the red drops in the snow where blood dripped from the hair along the ruff of Mike's neck.

  "Yours or his?" Alex asked, uncertain that he really wanted to know the answer.

  Mike jumped up and licked him on the cheek.

  Alex laughed, pushing Mike down and wiping the mix of blood and saliva off his face. "Yuck."

  He approached the werewolf cautiously. Snow was already starting to collect in the monster's sparse wiry coat. Blood bubbled up from puncture wounds in the werewolf's throat and its chest rose and fell with shallow, irregular breaths. Mike paced a wide circle around the creature, limping slightly on his left foreleg.

  "Red blood on white snow," Alex said, raising his gun and firing once.

  Chapter 8

  The stairs creaked under his feet as Alex climbed up into the wooden bleachers. Today Don was astride a short grey with a cute dished head and dark dapples all over her coat. The horse occupied a gap between the two small pens that had been set up in the center of the arena, keeping the cattle in either pen where they belonged. Alex sat down, waiting. He’d made the mistake of interrupting Don before and nothing was worth going through that again. You didn’t piss off people who were used to dealing with thousand pound animals all day, every day.

  "Number four," Don said, his voice filling the arena.

  "I don't see it," a teenage girl on a leggy gruella said as she steered her horse through the cattle in one of the pens.

  "On the other side of the white-faced black cow." Don half stood in his stirrups, watching what the girl was doing. "There. Slide up between them and come around in front of its shoulder."

  The girl kicked her horse forward and the cattle scattered at the quick movement.

  "Slow down," Don said, his horse shifting under him as the cattle considered making a break for it. The horse held its ground and the cattle turned back. "We're not interested in speed today, just focus on putting your horse in the right place."

  The girl moved her horse up in front of the cow marked number four and it turned against the fence. Don moved his mount’s haunches over, making a gap big enough for the cow to slip into the second pen. "Good job," he said. "Don't rush it. Pick out your cow and make sure you position yourself correctly. Chasin' 'em round and round the pen doesn't do anyone any good and it pisses off the cattle."

  Alex waved as Don looked up into the bleachers. Don nodded once and turned to a group of riders sitting on their horses at the end of the arena. "Let's take a break," he said, pushing all the cattle to one of the small pens. Someone on the ground opened up a gate and Don loped his horse to the end of arena, switching out the horse's bridle for a halter and tying his mount up to the rail.

  "I see you didn't die," Don said as he stepped out of the arena.

  "Thanks to you, I'm sure. An anonymous call into dispatch?" Alex said.

  "You can't prove it was me. Where are Mike and your new partner?"

  "Mike's taking it easy in the truck, he hurt one of his legs taking down a werewolf. And Jamie is not my new partner."

  Don laughed, shaking his head. "She sure looked like your new partner to me. I take it you brought something with you?"

  "Up at the stalls."

  Jamie waited for them, sitting in a lawn chair in front of one of the stalls in Don's section. She waved as they turned the corner of the aisle. "They were restless so I turned them loose to play a little." The two wolf pups romped in the shavings and hay of the stall, playing tug of war with a leadrope.

  "They're cute," Don said.

  "I take it you made a second call as well?" Alex asked.

  Don nodded, sliding the door open on the stall and crouching down at the entrance. The pups bounced over to him, tails wagging. He scratched them behind their ears. "I did. Their people deserved to know what happened. They’ll come for the pups."

  "Good." Alex pulled the two dream catcher necklaces out of his pocket and handed them to Don. "I'll leave them in yo
ur care then."

  "You did a fine job, Alex," Don said, sliding the door closed again and leaving the pups in the stall. "I wasn't sure you'd save them."

  Alex sighed, taking one last look at the pups. "I wasn't sure I would either. I won't keep you from your clinic, Don, but give me a call before you head off to Scottsdale, would ya'?"

  "Definitely."

  "Holding up okay?" Alex asked Jamie as they headed out of the barn. Yesterday’s dreary clouds had evaporated and sun sparkled on the fresh snow.

  "Good enough," she said. "Everything turned out okay in the end. Would have been better if you'd listened to my suggestion about backup."

  "Point taken. I assume you're headed back to your enforcement team now."

  "I suppose so."

  Alex glanced at the truck. He'd never part with Mike, but it had sure been nice to have a two-legged partner again…one that could open their own doors. "There is a vacancy in animal control, if you're interested."

  "You mean I could stay?" Jamie asked. "What will Mike say?"

  "I wouldn’t leave your shoes laying around the office, but he'll get used to the idea. Eventually."

  "When do I start?"

  Alex shook his head. Had he ever been that eager? "How about now? Know anything about baby jackalopes?"

  ###

  To all the animal welfare officers--who face much worse things than werewolves and lycans…most of them two-legged.

  Thanks to Robbie Hill, Melanie Metz Goble, Katrina Fox, and Anne Ramsey for suffering through the initial drafts and helping me bring the story to life.

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  Works by J. R. Burnett:

  Trapped by Light and Shadow

  Wolf Moon (Furred, Feathered, and Fanged series)

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