Kate (Safe Haven Wolves Book 3)

by Sherry Foster

  Allison turned tear filled eyes toward the door when it slammed against the wall, Julie on the bed, arms around Kate, had started crying again. Dawn, washcloth covered in blood, turned anguished eyes toward the male standing in the doorway. But it was Allison's quick thinking that gave them a reprieve.

  "Please, get the doctor, I think she's dying. She is bleeding and bruised and maybe some of her bones got broken. Please, please help us."

  The one standing in the doorway was shoved aside by another who took a deep breath, with narrowed eyes he called down the hall for someone to get the doctor. Allison heard the male just outside the door tell the other he did not smell the scent of sex anywhere, just fear. The room was full of the scent of fear from all four of the females in the room. Allison took a deep breath and wanted to smile, if the situation had not been so dire she would have. The male was right, the scent of fear overpowered the faint whiffs of mature female that had drifted out from Kate off and on. If their luck held it would continue to overpower the scent. But on the heels of that thought came the realization that the doctor was coming. He would be close enough to Kate to smell her maturity coming through. And Frank knew better than all the other males what Kate should smell like, he had been courting her for almost a year now.

  Allison knew she had a limited time to come up with something else, something to explain the dead male, because as soon as the males recovered from the sight of Kate, bruised and bleeding on the bed, someone was going to want answers. As she turned toward Dawn she saw her wink. She really hoped that meant Dawn had a plan, because Allison was all planned out now.

  It was only a moment before the girls heard shouts and running feet. In that time the two males left at the door had looked from the females, back down the hall toward Julie's room, and back to Julie and Kate laying on the bed. It was clear to Allison that the males had known what was going to happen, they had expected to find the scent of sex in the air, and they were not expecting what they found instead. From the look on Dawn's face she had figured out that the men had set Julie up, and she was furious. Allison was hoping Dawn would be able to mellow that look of fury from her face before she turned it toward the males.

  The doctor raced into the room and shoved Allison out of the way, "What happened to her? Who did this?" As he began checking her Dawn heard him take a deep breath and lean in closer. Fury dripped from his voice as he whirled around toward the men. "I smell Jonus on her, his blood, did Jonus attack my mate? She has the faintest smell of maturity on her also, just coming into her age maybe? Where is Jonus, I will kill him!"

  Dawn did not get a chance to say anything, huddled against the wall with Allison, the two just watching what was going on, she started to speak, but was interrupted.

  The men had apparently taken in what they could see with their eyes, and what Frank had just announced, and jumped to conclusions. The conclusions suited Allison and Dawn just fine.

  "I don't think you have to worry bout killing Jonus, apparently your future mate already took care of that. I could smell all four girl's fear in Julie's room so maybe the girls heard her scream and went to see what was going on. You know how nosy your mate is, probably led them all down there. If she is scenting as a mature female Jonus must have gone crazy, mate-less rogue crazy. He must have attacked her, I guess she fought back, and by the looks of it, she won." Ben, who had taken the time to go in Julie's room and look around, had pieced together what must have happened.

  He was a little confused about the pillow on top of Jonus' face, but Jonus was not a small guy and if he was attacking the girls, well everyone knew girls did not know how to fight. Maybe they thought they could smother him, who knew how girls really thought. A lamp had been shattered and bloody glass shards lay all over the floor and it looked like his throat had been cut by a shard of glass. Ben did not know if that had been deliberate or just a lucky occurrence. It was possible the pillow had a glass shard in it already and when the girls tried to smother him they shoved the glass into his throat. But Ben was not a crime sight specialist and he could only make educated guesses. Smelling the amount of fear in the air in both rooms and in the hallway between the rooms told a story of terror. Faint traces of blood from one of the females dotted the hallway. Looking at Kate, he imagined the blood that did not belong to Jonus, must belong to her as she seemed to be the only one physically hurt.

  Before anyone could say anything else a scream rang out down the hall, followed by multiple screams from multiple females. The males, who had been crowding into the room, had left Julie's room unattended and the noises in the wing had attracted the attention of the rest of the females. Females who were now staring at the blood covered body of one of their protectors. The lies about protecting the females suddenly started sounding a little less true to some of them. Especially considering they could smell the fear in the air, they saw the destroyed room, and they did not see Julie.

  For some of them, the information Kate had explained to them had made sense, until they caught sight of a dead guard in a female room. It was just like before, when someone killed their families to get to them. It was happening all over again. In that moment, some began to doubt Kate's words. For some females, who had never heard Kate's words, their terror was stronger than the rest.

  The terror of their past came crashing down upon them and it would be a while before anyone in the prison could calm them down. In one respect the terror would work to the captors benefit later, but at the moment it would take some of the best experts they had at the prison using all of their skills to calm the girls down. Death had come into their lives again, and they wanted to flee. It would be hours before the males in the prison would join the females in their desire to abandon the area, but for the males, the reason would be completely different.

  #

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  A New Fear

  A New Fear

  The men, gathered in Kate's room, darted glances around at each other when the other girls started screaming down the hall. Ben, leading the way, raced down the hall to try to do damage control. Several of the men followed him while a couple stayed behind to see how they might help Frank.

  Once Ben had the females rounded up and had called the therapist they had on staff, he had explained to the females why the humans could not know about the dead male. The girls had calmed down some after he explained that Julie was safe, no females had been hurt, but finally he had to admit to killing Jonus to protect them. Now he just had to get the other four girls to let him take the blame for killing Jonus. He could not let the other females think they were not safe from the males. He had to make them believe he would protect them from the others when they needed to be protected. This situation would help the females understand they would keep them safe, even if it meant killing another shifter. They had proven it in the past when they saved the girls, but it never hurt to have even more proof. It was a shame that the death had to happen in the school where the girls lived. This was suppose to be their safe haven from attackers. After everything that was happening Ben was beginning to believe Frank was right, they had a job to do, keep the females safe, that meant all the females, even Julie. Making the decision to allow everyone to use Julie had brought this entire situation about and Ben was struggling to contain the fall-out. He was training to pursue a life in politics, not murder cover-up. Although, from some of the things he had encountered in his training, murder cover-up was probably just another political game he needed to learn to play.

  He probably had screwed up by taking the blame in front of the females. Desperate times call for desperate measures, if he had been thinking he would have taken an expendable worker and killed them then concocted some story to help cement the facts in place. Politics was about using the events to your advantage and Ben had not done that, and he cursed himself for not thinking of it at the time.

  He was going to have to tell the rest of the males, and the boss what he had done. The boss would have no problems with the way he was playi
ng the situation. Jonus' dad might have a problem with the situation, Senators were difficult to get along with at the best of times. They were going to have to come up with a likely story for the media to explain the death of Senator Avery's oldest son.

  ***

  After speaking with the boss, Ben had gone back to the remaining females and told them that the best thing to do, in order to keep the fear down with the humans, as it would be no good letting them think a murderer was on the loose, was to tell a tale of rejection and suicide. He had gone into detail about how Jonus had fallen for Julie, and Julie had rejected him, unable to live with that, he had taken his life in Julie's room. One of the girls had suggested Julie would not be the best person to use, since everyone knew she was mentally challenged. Although none of the females were willing to offer themselves up as the rejector, they all agreed it could not be Julie. After some discussion Ben decided Kate would be ideal to use, she would not know, and if the therapist asked, well, Kate was in the medical wing. The girls still needed to talk to the therapist, they were terrified. If they got the story confused now, well, the therapist knew they all came from situations of death and terror anyway.

  When Ben got the girls settled in therapy he headed back to check on the others. The males were dispersed back to various parts of the prison. Some of them dealing with the body, some watching the security feed, some getting the showers the situation had interrupted, while Frank tried to deal with Kate.

  The three girls huddled around Kate made it difficult for Frank to check her for injuries. He had already shoved Allison out of the way once. He needed to get her to the hospital wing and run some tests. He needed to get some x-rays and try to find where the blood was coming from. Julie refused to let go of Kate's hand and the other two refused to let her out of their sight. Frank finally gave up, and when one of the males made it to the room with a gurney he told the male he would be letting the females help him with Kate.

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  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Frank and Kate

  Frank and Kate

  "No Ben, I don't know what is wrong with her. I have checked her from head to toe. She has bruises everywhere but no broken bones. I don't see any internal injuries on the scans. But when we move her, she bleeds more from her mouth and nose. Maybe her wolf is, I don't know. I have never seen anything like this before. Each time we handle her she seems to get worse. Maybe if we call her wolf forth, maybe she has some internal battle going on, but how that would work is something I have never encountered. I don't even know what to tell the boss. I can't stop the slow trickle of blood from her nose and mouth because there is no place to stop it from, no injury I can fix. I can't get her awake, her friends can't get her awake. Julie refuses to let go of her hand at all. She starts the most god-awful screaming when we try to get her to let go of Kate. When she starts screaming the other girls start crying. I am telling you this has turned into a real mess. I never agreed with turning that girl into a toy for everyone else and you see what comes of trying to do the wrong thing. We are suppose to be saving these girls, not causing them harm. What Jonus did, what you all did, was wrong, and now we are paying the price. Or more correctly my chosen mate is paying the price. If Jonus was still alive I would probably kill him myself. He obviously went full rogue and attacked Kate when she tried to save her friend. If you want my professional opinion, I think this shows that when a male borders on being rogue they don't need to be around females who are on the brink of changing and maturing. Something in the chemical make-up of the female must trigger the wolf to go crazy. This could be a break-through when it comes to understanding what makes some wolves go insane. But you know what, without sacrificing some of our men I can't test this theory. You are going to have to get me some of the expendables who may be on the brink of going full rogue. If I can get Kate to wake up maybe she can tell me more of what happened."

  "Well if you think you can get anything out of her, all I can say is good luck. That one hasn't been anything but bad luck for us since we saved her. Nothing we have said or done has gotten her to open up, if anything she seems to be turning the girls against us. I have told you that before, but you refuse to listen. We haven't even gotten her to tell us when her twenty-first birthday was, we had to find out like this. Happy fucking birthday to your mate, now what are we going to do next? You have run test after test, the other girls are freaking out, her roommate and Jonus' mate refuse to get too far from her side, and the nut-case refuses to let go of her at all." Ben was sick of Kate and didn't hesitate to let Frank know what he thought.

  Ben had grilled the other two females, Allison and Dawn, about what happened. He had tried to separate them to question them, but they refused to be separated. They had gotten it in their heads that if they were being separated it was because the men intended to hurt them. They also kept asking for Jonus to be sent far away, either they were excellent liars, and Ben couldn't smell that they were lying, or they thought Jonus was still alive. Even after being assured he was dead Dawn had refused to believe them. Little idiots refused to listen to reason. Their stories about what happened sounded believable. Dawn had even stopped Allison at one point because they disagreed about what had happened. Well, that was normal, you could take ten people and show them an accident and get ten different stories about what happened. The girls had insisted on one thing, Jonus had attacked Kate. Dawn claimed she had jumped on his back but Allison did not remember that part. Allison said Kate tried to smother him with a pillow but left him laying on the floor because Julie was so upset about the attack, and Kate did not look well at all. They both agreed Kate was fine until they made it back to the room, then she just crumpled to the floor. The girls said she was not bleeding from her nose and mouth till then, or if she was they had not noticed.

  The girls refused to be around anyone but Ben and Frank, they were scared of their own shadows now. The suicide due to rejection had been rejected by Allison and Dawn, sometimes Ben wanted to become a hermit and go live in the woods somewhere and just let his wolf run free. He was not at all sure females were worth the trouble, which was why he did not have a mate picked out of the females they had in the facility. He hoped the boss did not get any ideas about mating him with Allison now that Jonus was gone. There was something about her Ben just could not like, she was pretty, intelligent, she had the training for the wife of a man in politics, but something about her rubbed Ben the wrong way.

  In the hours following the incident, as the men were calling the murder of Jonus, the wolf at the edge of the property had been all but forgotten. With the only thing showing on the cameras being a foot, it was easy to forget about him. The smell of the lone wolf's blood had long since been overpowered by Jonus' blood and the sickly scent of fear from the females in their care, so it was a surprise when the alert went out that the cameras had picked up a trespasser.

  Frank, still desperate to find out what was wrong with Kate, was the only one of the eleven remaining males who did not head for the security room to search the cameras for the trespasser.

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  CHAPTER NINE

  The Golden One

  The Golden One

  Two hours and fifteen minutes after Marcus made the first urgent call through the pack bond the helicopter touched down in the meadow. Leaving room for Casey's small fourteen seater plane to land, everyone disembarked from the helicopter and the Seekers quickly shed their clothing and called forth their wolves while the rest of the men spread out to check the cabins and other areas of the valley.

  Since the mission was a search and recover mission, Daniel had stayed back and given his co-pilot seat to Jamie. With Craig gone they would need another pilot to fly the first helicopter back and Daniel had not yet finished training. The helicopter had left the pack community with Roberts and Jamie piloting, Gammon and Doc, five Enforcers and six Seekers. On a normal mission Gammon and Doc would not be with the team, but this was not a normal mission. When the teams went out on missions they knew the possibility
existed they might find a female, and possibly her family, it had happened, so usually the four crew seats remained empty on every mission, just in case.

  Even though Craig had mentioned to Jamie that he might head south, they had to check everywhere. The cabin he had been staying in was the first place checked with the men spreading out from there. The men who had shed clothing and called forth their wolf to enable them to better trace any scent were called Seekers for a reason, and they were about to put their ability to seek out a scent to the ultimate test; find their pack-mate while he still lived, and save his life. The entire area carried Craig's scent, he had been here for weeks and his trail crossed over and over and weaved all around the meadow and the small lake.

  By the time the men finally hit on what seemed to be the freshest trail heading toward the south Marcus could hear the small plane carrying the others. Most of the men were in wolf form, but not all of them. The men could not keep up with the wolves, but they did not need to, the wolves would follow the scent as it lay on the ground, while the men would follow the direction the wolves headed. In the end it would probably all equal out since no urgency or fear was scented on the trail. Without those types of scents the men knew Craig, where ever he might be now, had just been rambling around when he made the trail they were following.