PROLOGUE
A LITTLE MORE THAN A YEAR AGO
In a seemingly standard suburban sprawl outside the city of Farthington something has gone wrong.
Sharp sidewalks and careful y clipped lawns hem in the town houses and flank the expected al otment of single homes. It’s a quiet neighborhood, where everyone appears to know everyone else. But things are not always as they seem, and people are seldom only what their neighbors expect.
In one such innocuous yard a man natural y inclined to an animal grace staggers. Tal and broad shouldered like his elder son Max, and lean as his youngest, Pietr, he’s dark as any Rusakova, with only a hint of silver in his hair.
Even so young a father, his life is nearly over. Not because of the poor choices he made as a younger man—choices that caused his wife to give their children her name rather than his—but because regardless of how normal the setting seems, Andrei is far from the norm.
He sways by the picket fence, the traditional American symbol for happiness, success—the elusive American dream. But to him, even pretty fences make a common cage. He glares toward the neighbor’s house, a powder blue Cape Cod, and his wife lopes out of their home, crossing the yard on quick and quiet feet.
Slender and lithe as their daughter Catherine but with heavy highlights of red streaking her rich brown hair like coppery lightning, Tatiana tilts her head, nostrils flaring in question. Her eyebrows draw together, and she circles him. “Come inside,” she pleads, laying a hand on his arm.
He shakes it off like a dog throwing off the rain. Face red with rage, his fiery gaze stays fixed on their neighbor’s home. “The way he watches you…”
She blushes, fearing the shame is shared although she tempts the man unwittingly. With its very existence the animal that skitters and claws beneath her human skin cal s to some men, entices and ensnares their weaker senses.
The door of the blue Cape Cod opens and the man steps out, waving boldly at her. The smile stretching his lips does nothing to mask his unwanted attentions.
The sun slips away, leaving a bloody smear across the southern mountaintops. These are the dangerous hours, when the skin feels loosest on the wolf within and the beast in the human-seeming breast grows more anxious to burst free.
“I wil rrrip out his hearrrt—”
As her husband springs across the fence with a snarl, Tatiana fears that although this is not the first time a man has acted indecently toward her, this might be the only time it matters.
It’s a race up the broad porch stairs to the neighbor, who doesn’t even have enough sense to go inside, bolt the door, and lock himself in a closet—to wait out the dawn and pray for reason to override rage.
Instead he stands there. Spreads his legs in a fighting stance. “Off my porch, Rusakova,” he growls.
The sound is nothing compared to the noise tearing out of Andrei. Coursing through his chest, the twisting growl erupts as he takes the porch’s final three steps in one smooth leap.
His hands on the man who stares openly at his wife, Andrei’s words are too thick with anger to be clear.
A growl, a slur—language matters little when actions speak louder than words. And Andrei’s actions speak wrath, revenge— hate. So fluently.
The man flops in his grasp, fighting stance forgotten as he screams and lands sloppy and panicked punches on Andrei’s face as it twists and pulses and pops. Changes …
Someone appears at the window, shoves the curtains aside, mouth drawn into an “o” of terror. The leerer’s wife—the mouse he ignores except when he publicly berates her. She thrusts her son from her side, and the curtain fal s back across the window.
Behind him, the man’s door clicks shut; the lock bolts into place with a slithering sound. There wil be no retreat.
Tatiana pushes between the men, grunting with exertion. “Stop,” she urges, eyes wide.
Lights flash, coloring the dimming neighborhood quickly fal ing into dusk with red, white, and blue as a siren wails its way down the normal y quiet suburban street.
“Not finished with you,” Andrei, half-turned, yowls. He throws the man across his shoulder and lopes around the house, into the tree-fil ed backyard and the shadows that threaten to solidify beyond.
With a glance toward the street, Tatiana sets her jaw and fol ows her husband, disappearing into the growing darkness.
A swarm of uniformed officers mount the porch stairs, as one unmarked SUV slips silently past the house, daring to scatter the darkness with its piercing headlights.
In the Rusakovas’ home Catherine presses her face to the window, Pietr by her side. Unable to be much help, the twins are more than a year outside their first ful change.
Pacing, Alexi refuses to change and go. His shaking fingers drag through his hair, but he rejects Catherine’s pleas and ignores Pietr’s threats. Begging until her voice is nothing but a reedy whine, Catherine sobs; her tears smear the glass, and the world outside seems to ripple. Pietr pul s her away, silently wrapping her in his arms.
And as vehemently as Alexi refuses to go, there is no place he’d rather be than beside the parents who adopted him and have kept his secret—that he is nothing like his siblings and is simply, horrendously, human.
The one Rusakova—the one wolf—able to help is missing. Spending one more night in the arms of anonymous girls, Max is living his short life as fast as he can.
In the woods not far from the backyard stands the tragic threesome. Tatiana, shaken by frustration into her ruddy wolfskin, circles the rivals for her attention, growling. Andrei releases the man, speaking to the worried wolf in a most guttural Russian. His words impeded by long and pointed teeth, he searches for an worried wolf in a most guttural Russian. His words impeded by long and pointed teeth, he searches for an explanation, some justification. Distraught, he wavers as his metabolism—his canine bits—burns through the drug or drink that had such a hold on him.
Their neighbor looks around, contemplates escape. His jeans soiled from something fouler than the tears streaking his frightened face, he watches the werewolves warily.
Al eyes suddenly focus on something— someone—shrouded in the shadows. The wolf Tatiana howls at the betrayal as a smile once again slides across the leerer’s lips.
A sliver of moonlight shimmers across the barrel of a gun swinging into view, giving directions. Tatiana obeys, the wolf stalking to the side. But obedience is too much for Andrei and he lunges, completing his transformation in midair …