Leader of the Pack by Leighann Phoenix Page A

wearing clothes at that moment.
    Suddenly out of the darkness she heard quiet whispering, unintelligible and frightening. She knew that she was in incredible danger. Something was coming for her.
    Aislinn turned and started running down the street. She didn’t know where she was running to, but she felt drawn through the darkness away from the whispering. Every time she stopped she could hear the whispering getting louder. She turned down one street and then another until the whispering was so close she couldn’t stop to look around any longer. She needed to move faster. She could feel sweat running down her face and chest and back. The night air was cold on her bare skin. Her feet burned, slapping on the pavement. She needed to move faster. Slowly she felt herself changing. When she looked down she had fur and was on four feet. She was some kind of animal. She was moving much more quickly now.
    As she kept running she could hear the whispering retreating a little into the darkness, so she stopped again and looked around. Everything seemed brighter now somehow and she reasoned out that it was because she was looking through new eyes. She found that she was outside of the Taigh-O  sda. She walked into the lobby and as the doors shut behind her the whispering became angry and frustrated. She walked through the empty lobby and found herself looking at a reflection of herself in one of the large windows.
    It was a fuzzy image. The darkness outside caused the soft light inside to turn the window into an imperfect mirror. She didn’t recognize what she was looking at. She was on all fours and shadowy. She was staring intently into her reflection when a figure came up to the window. Terror froze her solid as Rafe stared at her a lurid smile on his face. She started to backup to get away from him, but he was calling to her. Suddenly the voices came into sharp focus and she understood what the whispering was. They had found her again.
    Aislinn sat bolt upright in bed. She was covered in sweat and the darkness in her small apartment was overwhelming. She jumped up and turned on the lights. She stared around the room into shadows that couldn’t possibly hide anyone looking for Rafe. I had another premonition , she thought. Sometimes she wondered if it would be better to never dream. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes and concentrated on the last thing she remembered of the dream. She needed to get an impression of how close they were. How much time she had. She wanted to know what the other parts had meant as well. Why she had turned into an animal and why she had felt safe at the Taigh-O  sda.
    * * * *
    Cullen parked his SUV in the private garage attached to the Madadh-Allaidh Saobhaidh. He slammed the door shut and headed for the elevator. Once inside he inserted his key card into the elevator panel and pressed the button for the 13 th floor. The floor directly below that was mostly storage and empty. From the 11 th floor down to the lobby was the public hotel and the main face of the casino. The basement, which also needed key access, held the private training and workout facilities and swimming pool, and holding cells for the rare times that they were needed, as well as the security suites that monitored the entire building.
    The 13 th floor was the great room and the floor that contained guest quarters when people came to visit his pack. There were always people in the great room watching TV. I never mattered the time of day. It was the main gathering place for people with nothing better to do. There was the movie room which was virtually a theatre, the game room, and a small kitchen/dining area. Cullen’s rooms were on the penthouse floor and had access to the roof. His key and a couple select others were the only keys that allowed access there.
    He needed to take his frustration out somewhere. He had briefly considered hitting a punching bag downstairs, but that wouldn’t assuage the problem in his pants that