So I decided to let the endearments stay as they are. For those in the know, they might not agree with how I’ve used them. I just rest in the knowledge that others will.

And for those who don’t know any Mandarin and thus may not understand the words, I’ll give you my decidedly inexpert translations here:

Qīn ài de: dear/my dear

Tian xin: good and beautiful

Bao bei: treasured/precious (used in English terms of the endearment “baby”)

A big thank you to the folks who offered to help and gave their assistance.

Now I hope you go forth and enjoy Abel, his brothers Xun, Wei and Chen, his daughter/sister/mother, Jian-Li and the rest of the humans, vampires and werewolves in Wild and Free.

Prologue

Mine

Delilah

Oh my God, they were hunting me.

Hunting me!

I ran, my breath ragged, a stitch cutting agony through my side as I heard them getting closer. Closer.

Fast.

Too fast.

I was a girl and maybe not Jackie Joyner-Kersee, but I wasn’t out of shape. They’d gain but not that fast.

No way.

That didn’t mean they weren’t gaining that fast.

They were.

And I was terrified.

I turned into an alley, hoping in the darkness to lose them, and ran with everything I had left.

Straight to a dead end.

“Shit,” I breathed, panting, turning, feeling them closing in on me.

Then there they were, on me as in on me. In the blink of an eye I was on my back, one of them pinning my body down with his on mine, one holding my arms down over my head, one holding my legs at my ankles while, I stared to the side in disbelief, two humongous, terrifying dogs circled, snarling and snapping their sharp, alarming teeth in my direction.

“Rip her throat out and have done with it,” a voice coming from over my head bit out, and my attention went back to the enormous man who was lying full on top of me, pressing the breath out of me, and staring down at me in a way I did…not…like.

I tried to struggle, but the hands at my wrists and ankles held so strong, it was preternatural how strong they were. I wasn’t pinned. I was completely immobilized.

“In a minute,” he grunted, his eyes not leaving mine. “Christ, smell her. Divine. Fuck me, absolutely fucking divine.” His face changed to a look I liked even less and he finished, “First I’m going to feed.”

He was going to feed?

Oh man. What did that mean?

I didn’t know. What I knew was, it was not good.

“Are you insane?” a voice coming from my feet asked like he thought the dude holding me was, indeed, insane. In fact, very insane. At the same time, ugly-scary growls came from both of the dogs.