PROLOGUE
Dublin—Four Months Ago
The stink of sex, sin and death seeped into Declan O’Connell’s nostrils, overripe and acrid all at once.His lips curled into a silent snarl and he stepped deeper into the dank, dim building, the hair on his nape prickling.
This is not right.
The thought sent a ripple of tension through his already tight muscles.Itwasn’tright.The whole night hadn’t been right; the anonymous tip about his sister’s killer, the insistence he be here—at this place—at this time, the derelict, abandoned condition of the building.It didn’t add up.
McCoy’s not here, Dec.Shit, he’s never been here.You can’t even smell him on the air.Face it—this was a set up.And you’ve just walked right into it.
The snarl on his lips turned into a low growl and he felt the muscles in his body begin to coil tighter.Stretch.Grow.
Change.
Teeth grinding, Declan forced back the beast, denying it control of his body.He didn’t know who had brought him here under false pretence—more than one person wanted him dead, and not all of them knew what he truly was.Better to walk out of the situation, not lope out on all fours.
A soft sound—barely louder than the snap of a dry blade of grass—shattered the silence of the derelict brothel and Declan froze.
Hewasn’talone.Someone was?—
The dark blur hit him from the left.Hard.
Something large and heavy crashed him to the ground.Teeth, long, sharp and slick with saliva, snapped at his face.He was barreled across the debris-strewn floor, chunks of concrete and shards of broken glass grinding into his knees and elbows, biting into his flesh even through the leather of his jacket.His favorite Levi’s tore but he didn’t give a rat’s ass.Not with a fucking huge, black wolf trying to tear his throat out.
The animal lashed out, razor-sharp teeth missing his neck by a hair’s width.Declan felt hot saliva splatter his cheek.He struggled on his back, pinned to the crap-covered floor by the wolf’s writhing, savage weight.The stench of urine attacked his breath, invaded his senses with the mark of an animal Declan had tasted before.
His eyes snapped wide open, locked on the burning, iridescent gold stare of the wolf attacking him.
You!
The word formed in Declan’s head.Cold.Furious.
Seconds before the beast in his own blood roared into existence and he changed.Human muscle into canine.Man into wolf.
He bucked the animal off him, snapping at its soft underbelly as it flipped and twisted to the side.Warm, coppery blood filled his mouth and throat.He leapt onto all fours, staring at the blackloup garou, smelling apprehension and pain leech from it in thick, sickly waves.
Baring his teeth, he held its gold stare, his growl low.You’ve fucked with the wrong wolf, asshole.
“Gotcha.”
The voice—low, smug and female—sounded to Declan’s left at the exact second something sharp, pointed and icy sank into his neck, right at the spot where vein became jugular.Intense cold, like the breath of Death itself, consumed him.His muscles contracted, his heart seemed to swell and, wracked in pain, he collapsed to the floor.
Incapable of movement.
Trapped.And utterly vulnerable.
CHAPTERONE
Sydney, Australia.
Regan Thomas hated the dark.The dark kept secrets.Hideous secrets.Secrets of pain and torture and human brutality.The dark allowed man to commit all sorts of horrendous acts in the name of progress.In the name of science.The dark allowed rich men to get richer on the corpses of creatures unable to defend themselves.
Men like Nathan Epoc.
Turning the narrow beam of her flashlight on the solid, steel door before her, Regan felt her hackles rise.Of all the arrogant men of power in this country, Epoc was the worst.Every day his labs in Sydney discarded close to a hundred animal corpses—all maimed, sliced, injected and tortured to death.
A snarl curled Regan’s lip.Science.To this day, she still could not decipherwhatNathan Epoc produced in the name of science, apart from dead animals.Despite only arriving in the country two years ago, he was now one of the wealthiest men in Australia.No one, however, seemed to know what the hell he actually did.Mystery shrouded what went on behind the electrified fences and impenetrable walls of his windowless buildings, out here in the southern suburbs of Sydney.
