BLOOD MOON MATE: Claimed by the Enemy Alpha

"Say that again."

Wren didn't move toward the voice. She didn't move away from it either.

"Marion," the voice said again, unhurried, like it had all night. "Sends her love."

A shape stepped out from behind the headlights. Then a second one, from the passenger side. Then a third, further back, still mostly shadow.

Three of them. None of them in a hurry.

"Where is she." Wren's voice came out steadier than she felt. "Where is she right now."

"Depends who's asking."

"I'm asking."

The nearest one laughed, short and low, like she'd said something almost cute. "No. You're not. Not really."

He took a step closer and the streetlight caught his face - mid-thirties maybe, unshaven, a scar cutting through one eyebrow. Ordinary. That was the worst part. He looked completely ordinary.

"You've got something that belongs to us," he said. "Or you are something that belongs to us. Haven't decided which yet."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't."

He glanced sideways at the other two, some silent agreement passing between them that Wren couldn't read and didn't like.

"You want to know something funny?" the scarred one said. "Your aunt fought harder than you're about to. And she's twice your age."

Wren's stomach lurched. "If you hurt her-"

"She's alive. For now. Whether that stays true kind of depends on you."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one you're getting standing in a parking lot."

He tilted his head toward the car, patient, like he genuinely expected her to just climb in.

"Make it easy," he said. "Get in the car. We drive somewhere quiet, you get some answers, everybody's happy."

"No."

"Wasn't really a question."

He moved fast. Too fast - faster than a man his size should've been able to move on gravel, closing four feet of distance like it was nothing.

Wren didn't think. She ran.

Not toward her car - he was between her and it now - but sideways, toward the gap between the diner and the shuttered laundromat next door, into the dark.

Behind her, someone laughed. Not worried. Amused.

That was worse than if they'd sounded angry.

Her sneakers hit uneven pavement, ankle twisting once before she caught herself. The gap between buildings narrowed fast, dumpsters crowding one wall, chain-link fencing the other.

A dead end. She realized it two seconds too late, when the fence in front of her turned out to be bolted into brick on both sides, eight feet high, nothing to climb.

She spun around anyway, back hitting the fence hard enough to rattle it.

Footsteps. Three sets, unhurried, echoing off brick from both directions of the alley mouth.

"Come on now," the scarred one said, stepping into the gap first. "Don't make this ugly."

"Stay back."

"Or what?"

She had nothing. No weapon, no plan, just her back against a fence and her pulse slamming so hard it hurt behind her eyes.

The second man stepped in behind the first. Then the third, closing off any last gap of space.

"Just a conversation," the scarred one said, voice gentler now, which somehow made it scarier. "That's all this is."

"Then have it from over there."

"Can't. Orders." He tilted his head, almost apologetic. "Nothing personal."

Wren's eyes flicked past him, looking for anything - a fire escape, a gap in the fence, a single loose panel. There was nothing. Just brick, chain-link, and three men who weren't in any hurry because they didn't need to be.

"You're not calling anyone," the one on the left said, almost bored, like he'd read her mind. "No signal back here. Checked already."

Her phone was still in her pocket, useless.

His eyes changed.

Not blinked - changed, brown going gold in the space of a single streetlight flicker, pupils narrowing into something that had no business being in a human face.

Wren's back scraped hard against the chain-link, trying to put distance between herself and something her brain refused to name.

"What-" Her voice cracked in half. "What are you-"

The other two stepped closer, and their eyes did the same thing, gold catching the weak light like something lit from behind.

Three sets of eyes, all wrong, all fixed on her.

"Don't trust the eyes," she whispered, and understood the note for the first time, and understood it about four seconds too late to matter.

The scarred one reached for her wrist.

Something dropped between them.

Not stepped. Dropped - from somewhere above the alley, from the rooftop line she hadn't even thought to check, hitting the pavement in a crouch with enough force to crack the concrete under one boot.

The scarred man's hand never made it to her wrist.

He went sideways instead, hard, like something had shoved him with the force of a car door.

Wren's back stayed pressed to the fence, chest heaving, staring at the shape now standing between her and all three of them.

Broad shoulders. Dark hair. Not moving like someone who'd just dropped fifteen feet onto concrete - moving like it hadn't cost him anything at all.

He didn't look at the men first.

He looked at her.

And whatever was on his face when their eyes met wasn't calm, wasn't controlled, wasn't anything like the stillness in his shoulders a half-second before.

It looked like recognition. Like something in his chest had just been hit.

Then he turned toward the three men, and his voice came out low enough to feel in the pavement.

"Leave. Now."

Nobody moved for exactly one second.

Then all three of them ran - not walked, not retreated, ran, like something in that one word had cost them the ability to disobey it.

Wren's knees picked that exact moment to stop holding her up.

The stranger caught her before she hit the ground, one hand closing around her arm.

The second his skin touched hers, something detonated up her entire spine - not pain, not quite pleasure, something with no name she'd ever learned, hot and electric and terrifying in how much her body seemed to already understand it.

His breath caught audibly.

"No," he said, almost to himself, staring down at her like she'd just ruined his entire night by existing. "Not her-"

He didn't finish it.

His head snapped toward the mouth of the alley, whatever he'd been about to say gone, replaced by something colder settling into his jaw.

"They weren't alone," he said.

Wren followed his gaze. The three men were gone - but past the alley mouth, out past the diner lot, more headlights were sweeping in off the main road. Not one car. Three. Maybe four.

A low sound rolled down the alley behind them, from the direction the men had fled. Not a shout.

A howl.

The stranger's hand tightened around her arm, no longer steadying her - pulling her upright, fast, already moving.

"Can you run," he said. It wasn't really a question either.