By necessity and design, her current den was far removed from the hotel. Unfortunately, it was even further from the area to which she’d tracked her former family. There was no way she was going to take the bus. For one thing, she didn’t think she could sit still that long, especially not with someone else in control of the vehicle. For another, being surrounded by humans, especially in her heightened state, wasn’t a good idea. Finding transportation was her first goal.
Breaking into an easy run, Ruri scampered down the alley, keeping all her senses at peak awareness for anyone who might see her. She flitted from shadow to shadow, pausing only when she felt the presence of humans.
There! The old sedan parked behind a house a few blocks over from her den was exactly what she needed. It was old enough to be easy enough to hot wire and fairly nondescript, though the gold color was one not seen very often these days. She pulled on the handle—which didn’t move. Ruri growled softly in frustration; since when did people lock their cars in this neighborhood? Who would even want to steal this pile? She bared her teeth in a grim smile at the irony.
Ruri pulled a thin strip of metal from the waist of her pants. She flexed it a couple times so it was somewhat straight then slid it down between the door and the window. After a little finessing, the lock popped open and Ruri slid in behind the wheel. She really was getting good at this. Her mother would have been so proud to see what she’d become.
Thoughts of her biological family washed through her with faint nostalgia. She couldn’t bring their faces to her mind now, couldn’t even remember how they smelled. The last one had died in the middle of the last century. The only photograph she’d had was gone, destroyed by her pack. They’d been poor, but proud. Years spent farming hadn’t appealed to her and she’d left the family farm to head to the city. She’d never made it.
She knew the sadness was a side effect of the hormones bathing her system, though it didn’t make the feelings any easier to deal with. Irritated, she hooked her fingers around the car’s steering column and yanked at the ignition. The hard plastic dashboard parted like rotten cloth beneath her fingers and she bent over to peer at the exposed machinery. It was the work of a few moments to find the right wires and twine them around each other. The engine roared to loud and brash life. Ruri threw the car into reverse and peeled back into the alley. The car needed some serious muffler work. Lights in the house blinked on behind her and she turned onto the street with a squeal of tires.
She didn’t relax until she was a couple of miles away. It didn’t feel good to have to resort to thievery, but she needed to find out what the pack was up to. Crisp air rushed into the car through the open window. It carried the promise of new horizons and the mix of scents tugged at her. Ruri finally felt a little more like her old self. It wasn’t as good as running beneath the stars in fur-form, but driving a car was a decent second to that sense of freedom. The only thing that would have made it better was a Corvette with the top down. Or better yet, a motorcycle.
Traffic was typical for Chicago. Even after the evening rush hour was technically over, she still ran into a couple of snarls that slowed her to a crawl. It was later than she’d anticipated when she finally arrived at her destination.
She’d followed her nose to this point. It had taken her days to track the pack. More than once she thought she’d lost the trace, but she’d always found it again, despite her rising panic. The previous night, she’d almost howled in triumph when she’d found scent traces of more than one of her former packmates. It was the first time she’d smelled more than one together, and she knew she was finally closing in on the new den.
Ruri parked the car at the side of the road and walked slowly toward the convenience store that stood at the intersection of two busy streets. She could smell wolven presence at the spot. Their scents overlapped one atop the other; they’d been coming and going for a few days now.
Most of the scents led in one direction, to the west. Wherever the pack was holed up, it was close enough that the wolven could walk to the convenience store. It narrowed the scope of her search considerably. They couldn’t be more than five miles away, at the most.
With a spring to her step, Ruri trotted off after the trail.
The wind was cold, a reminder that the slow trudge to winter continued, no matter her current preoccupation. It tugged at the corners of Malice’s trench coat though it didn’t bother her too much. The thought tickled the surface of her mind, but she paid it scant attention, keeping her focus on the long, low building. It certainly looked abandoned. No lights twinkled at her from any of the windows in the plain cement facade. What few windows there were appeared to have been boarded over from the inside, though it was difficult to tell from so far away.
From her vantage point on top of a nearby factory outbuilding, she had a commanding view. Since there was nothing going on by the main building, she swept her binoculars over to investigate the perimeter of the adjacent property. That also came up empty. Malice breathed out a small huff of irritation. Mist wreathed her face momentarily before dissipating into the wind.
If she didn’t see something soon, she would have to approach the building. The prospect of trying to sneak up on a building where a werewolf pack might have taken up residence didn’t fill her with glee, but she needed to report something back to Ralph and soon.
This had better not be a red herring. If Carla had taken her for a ride, the vampire would find out why she’d earned her codename. Malice snatched the hand away from her chest when she realized she was caressing the top of her breast through her sweater’s thick fabric. For a moment, she thought she could still feel Carla’s mouth on her. The remembered pain awoke very real desire and once again wetness spread between her thighs.
A flash of furtive movement by the road caught her attention, and she swung the binoculars over to check on it. Just beyond the range of one of the few streetlights, a woman was doing her best not to skulk along the fence line that separated the property from the road. Shaggy blond hair hung to the woman’s jaw and obscured her face. She was trying a little too hard to look like she was just out for a stroll, but no one would go for a walk in this place at this time of night. The nearest residential neighborhood was a few miles away; there was nothing out here except industrial wasteland.
The woman continued to slouch past the old trucking hub, never glancing toward the buildings. She might as well have been staring.
What’s her part in all this? Movement further along the fence dragged Malice away from her contemplation of the strange woman. Three men chatted as they ambled through the large field that surrounded the hub. They moved with the easy grace and confidence of lycans, their limbs loose and their heads held high. When you were top of the food chain, you didn’t worry about much. Malice smiled grimly. If they’d known she was there, they would have worried.
One man stopped in his tracks and lifted his nose to the sky. The other two, one short and weedy, the other broad across the shoulders with a shock of dirty blond hair, quickly followed suit. As one, they broke into a ground-devouring lope, heading right toward the woman.
She saw them approaching and shot into a sprint, arms and legs pumping madly, hair blowing back from her face. Malice had only the barest moment to see her face clearly, but there was no mistaking the terror on it.
Without thinking about it, Malice rose smoothly from her crouch and vaulted over the side of the building, fifteen feet to the ground. She hit the ground with a shock to her feet and rolled, coming up in one motion. Four figures streaked down the road, the men gaining on the woman. At the rate they were coming up on her, she wasn’t likely to escape.
Malice took off running at an angle, calculating where the lycans would overtake their quarry. They panted almost upon the woman’s heels. One went to all fours, then leaped on her, taking her to the ground in a tangle of limbs. The other two caught up a second later. She thrashed in the hold of the one who’d taken her down. He lay on top of her, trusting for his
greater bulk to keep her pinned.
“Get the fuck off me!” Malice could barely make out the woman’s voice. The wind whipped it away from her, but all she heard was fury and none of the fear she’d seen earlier.
“Holy shit, Jimmy.” The smallest lycan bounced on the balls of his feet with excitement. “Mac is gonna be real happy.”
“Yep.” Jimmy grunted with the effort of holding the woman down. “She’s in heat. I bet he won’t mind if we take care of that. Here, help me hold her down.”
The small lycan grabbed one of the woman’s legs and leaned on it. The blond-haired one snagged the other and yanked it viciously to keeping her from kicking them while Jimmy held her down by the shoulders. The woman seemed to be doing her best to bite him, but he evaded her easily.
“Go ahead, kid,” Jimmy said. “Take the first go.”
The small lycan let go of the leg he’d been holding and Blondie grabbed it. Small knelt on the woman’s thighs to keep them from moving. Reaching up, he hooked both hands around her waistband and worked on dragging her pants down her legs.
Malice was close enough to smell the woman’s terror and to see that the small lycan had gotten the woman’s pants halfway down her thigh. Without stopping to formulate a conscious thought, she whipped the katana out of its scabbard on her back and brought the blade around in one smooth motion.
Small’s body slumped over and hit the ground, followed a moment later by his head.
Jimmy vaulted to his feet, using the woman to push off. Her torso thudded hollowly against the ground. Canines extruded violently from his jaw in a spray of blood, and he threw himself toward Malice. She backed away slowly, giving ground not because he worried her, but to give the woman room to get up if she wasn’t unconscious. Blondie tried to flank her, but she kept him in front of her also.
The belligerent lycan stalked forward, eating up ground as she gave it. With muted pops, sharp claws tore through the tips of his fingers. Liquid dripped from his fingertips to splash softly on the concrete. His eyes shone phosphorescent green, glowing at her from the darkness.
He snarled at her and lunged, swiping fingers tipped by impossibly sharp claws toward her belly. With a smooth spin to his inside, Malice dodged out of his way, feeling the air whip by as he lunged past her. He came away with nothing except a square of fabric torn from the edge of her coat. That was closer than she’d wanted him to get, and she slid back a step to give herself a bit more room. Jimmy whirled around and stared at her, eyes widening in disbelief before he shook the cloth free from his claws and rushed her again.
This is just too easy. She was dimly aware of Blondie giving them space and never moving within reach of her katana. Malice stood her ground, waiting until the last possible minute before bringing the sword down on Jimmy’s shoulder. The blade cut deep, nearly severing his arm and flinging out a geyser of blood that was startling crimson in the anemic light of the nearest streetlamp.
Jimmy stared at her, then slumped over, his eyes rolling back in their sockets. Blondie was halfway across the grassy expanse toward the shipping hub. He’d partially shifted and was pulling himself along on all fours to get even more speed. A soft scrape pulled her attention away from the fleeing lycan and she turned. The woman was no longer on the ground. She was already halfway down the street, sliding between two chain-link fences that were locked for the night.
As if she could feel Malice watching, the woman turned, meeting her gaze for a fleeting moment. The female’s eyes glowed golden as she vanished into the darkness.
Chapter Eight
The basement was too confining. Ruri hadn’t left it for too long, but leaving still felt risky. Since she’d been able to track the pack to their new den, the chances were good they could do the same in reverse, and they had many more resources at their disposal than she did. She needed to move, and soon, but first she had to recover her confidence. It had been badly shaken by the attack at the hands of three former packmates.
Fur rippled along the underside of her skin. It was getting harder and harder to deny her wolf. Her heat was upon her and the wolf wanted to mate. Needed to mate. Arousal wrung her center so hard it hurt and she gasped at the conflicting sensations. While she’d been lying face-first on the hard ground, there had been a moment where her wolf would have welcomed the assault. Ruri shuddered. She hadn’t been touched that way by a man in decades, almost a century. The fear and revulsion of her human side had been enough to drive off the wolf, but she was paying for it now.
Dammit, Britt. This was all her fault. If she hadn’t gone over to MacTavish, her heat would have been an event to be enjoyed, not this excruciating marathon of need and denial.
Her legs churned restlessly on the narrow cot and she slid her hand down the front of her pants. Her pussy was so very sensitive, she almost came simply from touching the outer lips. When her fingertips skated through copious wetness and plunged between swollen folds, she did come. Just the barest graze of her clitoris was enough to make her cry out, clamping her thighs around her hand and jerking helplessly as a wave of mindless pleasure crashed through her. She curled her fingers, making more deliberate contact with her clit and rocked her hips, pushing herself higher. Ruri came, again and again, until she lay wrung out on the bed.
She stared at the ceiling’s dusty rafters. Cobwebs came slowly into focus as she emerged too quickly from her post-orgasmic haze. The edge to her craving was dulled, and for that she breathed a small sigh of relief. The respite was short-lived, however, and she gripped the bed in pointless denial. The edge of the metal bed frame groaned and bent under her hand. When the wave of need ebbed a bit, Ruri pushed herself up. She had to get laid. It had been a long time since she’d mated with a human, but it would have to do. She needed to come by someone else’s hand. Her own wasn’t going to do it, not now.
Ruri wrinkled her nose at the sour stench that rolled off her when she sat up. Something needed to be done about that. No woman, human or otherwise, would come near her when she smelled so rank. Slowly, carefully, trying not to touch anything that would bring the need back to the fore of her wolf’s mind, she sponged herself down over the basement’s drain. Her supply of water was getting low, something else that needed attending to.
At least her other change of clothes was somewhat clean. She’d scrubbed them down right after her disastrous trip to the new den. Jeans and a T-shirt weren’t going to mark her out as prime material, but there was a certain type of woman who would be attracted to the look. It paid to know your quarry.
The boots were scuffed but would do. With a quick look in the age-spotted mirror over the sink in the small basement bathroom, Ruri shrugged. She didn’t look particularly well. She was too skinny and her skin was dull, lacking luster. She looked like she’d contracted a fatal disease. If only she could trust herself to shift, the move from skin to pelt and back again would put some color back in her face. A steak would really help. Ruri promised herself she would stop for a couple of drive-through burgers on the way to the bar.
Her stomach growled and she cringed. It was a sign of exactly how badly she’d neglected her wolf when the thought of two much-overcooked, barely meat hamburger patties would elicit such a response.
Cassidy hung up the phone and looked critically around her small apartment. Mary Alice probably wouldn’t be too heartbroken that she’d bailed on their weekly dinner. She was too busy to even answer her phone when her sister called, apparently.
The main living area wasn’t too much of a pit, but she could stand to clean up a bit. The classmates coming over didn’t need to see the week-old pizza box on the coffee table. She picked it up and knocked over a couple of soda cans. They didn’t need to see those either. Puttering around the small living room picking up odds and ends didn’t take long. It never took long to clean this place, unless she was doing a deep clean. Every now and then she realized how grungy the apartment had gotten and did her best to make it pristine. The carpet had seen probably half a dozen different st
udent tenants and would never look great, but she could keep it from looking completely ratty.
I wish I had some decorations up. Those would have gone far to disguising the general shabbiness of the place. But decorations were mostly dust-catchers, and whatever she put up she’d also have to take down. There was no time for such things, not if she was going to do well in school and have a social life.
She stacked a couple of textbooks on the floor to clear the small table shoved against one wall in what passed for the dining area. Three chairs were pushed against the table, none of which matched. She needed one more, but that was going to make the area really cramped.
For a moment, Cassidy thought wistfully of her sister’s place. The loft was huge, way more than she needed on her own, but Mary Alice had flat turned her down when she’d suggested moving in. Sure, she’d tried covering it by saying the place was too far from campus and nowhere near any convenient public transportation. Both those things were true, but it didn’t change the fact that Cassidy could’ve had her entire Securities Analysis class over to study and still had room left over.
It was totally like Mary Alice, Cassidy decided. She was content to play the big sister role when it was convenient, but that was it. When Cassidy needed her, Mary Alice was nowhere to be found.
Should I bake cookies? Cassidy wondered. Normally she wouldn’t bother, but they had a new addition to the study group, one she was pretty sure she’d be able to make some headway with. There was some cookie dough in a roll in the fridge. Usually she just ate it right from the pack with a spoon on nights she was up late studying, but it wouldn’t take too long to bake.
Or is that sending the wrong message? If they did end up hooking up, there was no way Cassidy wanted Cal to think she was going to fall over herself trying to be some kind of domestic goddess. Her skills were decidedly lacking in that arena. Some chilled sodas would have to suffice. Still, Cal was very good-looking. He had that bright red hair which always seemed to be standing on end. Whoever had given him the undercut hadn’t done him any favors. The first time she saw him yesterday, her fingers had practically itched to smooth down the hair that stood up almost in a crest.
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