Her best bet was to bluff her way out. Diana suddenly wished she knew how to play poker. She couldn’t even beat one of those stupid handheld video casino games.
God, she was so screwed.
“Um, don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you guys have somewhere you’re going.”
She gave a weak wave that wouldn’t topple her precarious balance.
“Goin’ huntin’ girlie. Heard there was plenty of game here,” said Dog.
Sex and innuendo filled the biker’s words. Dark emotions of the same ilk clung to her like slime. Laughter and the rev of engines gave the situation the perfect evil punctuation.
When the racing motors died back down to an idle, Diana heard a sound from behind. Or a lack of one as an engine shut off. She didn’t want to take her eyes from the leader, but also couldn’t bear the thought of being caught from behind.
A deft kick brought down a kickstand. The hardy rider canted his bike, dismounting with fluid ease. His partner pulled in close and followed suit.
Wolf, she decided, watching their movements. Whatever monsters the other three bikers were, these two were all wolf.
“Yo, Dog,” The deep voice was friendly. “We can’t hunt this one.”
“Shut up, Chase. I’m pack leader here,” Dog snapped. “Unless you want to Challenge.”
Chase’s snort was full of derision.
“You’ve got to have a real pack for a real Challenge. Besides,” Chase’s companion added. His voice was surprisingly melodious and full of soul searching charisma. “The female is a psychic, and I for one do not intend to have my death warrant posted.”
The wolfman with the lovely voice finished his dismount and practically glided into the circle with her. He stopped behind her, close enough she could feel the feverish heat from his body.
She blinked and stepped away, more of a bobble than an actual step that didn’t take her any further from him.
The first of her would-be rescuers, Chase, was a god clad in simple leather pants that hugged his body. The shadows defined every muscle. A leather jacket emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, while his height towered over her. A long braid slithered over his shoulder as he leaned forward to sniff her hair.
Even in the dark, his eyes gleamed gold, a reflection of the light from the motorcycles’ headlamps.
He sneezed, and then shared a covert look with his companion. She felt the heat from beside and behind, but did nothing. What could she do anyway? Scream like an idiot?
She felt curiosity from them, the need to hunt, but not the dark lust that oozed from the others, especially Dog.
Her heart pounded like it was trying to escape her chest. She swallowed, trying not to break the uneasy quiet and stared at the patch on his, Chase’s, jacket of vicious snarling dog surrounded by flames. Its nose was too square to be a wolf. She wasn’t sure of the colors but it looked evil enough for a bunch of werewolf bikers.
“You think you can lead the Hell Hounds, bitten?”
Chase shrugged. The movement flowed into a grip on her elbow that she didn’t see coming. She jerked, stifling a scream, but he held her still, as if purposely steadying her.
Screw it all, Diana thought. This was the second time tonight she felt like the meaty bone in the middle of a dogfight. She was scared, but now she was getting ticked off.
“Let go. Leave me alone.”
She added a psychic push to her words, throwing a mental jab at the man. She tried to pull away. He jumped a little at the unexpected assault, but held tight.
“Well, well, well.”
Surprise and pleasure coated Dog’s voice like sewage. Uh-oh. Diana felt the group’s interest go up several notches.
“Nothing like a piece of tail with a bite. Tank bring the bitch here. Chase never could get it up when things got interesting. Even for a challenge.”
The dark hunger and lust, not only for sex, but also for other foul deeds, left her feeling dirty in places a bath would never clean. Dog scented the air, obviously enjoying the fear she radiated.
“Be quick Tank and I’ll even share. You ain’t had nothing until you’ve had a psychic.”
Tank, of the sexy voice, laughed. The deep silky sound that wrapped around her.
“That’s not a good idea either.” His tone was perfectly reasonable. Who wouldn’t want to agree with that low voice?
“The female’s been pack marked, Dog. If she goes missing, not only will the local Canis place a werewolf posting on the Internet. He’ll come after her himself. Personally, I’d rather not have Weis on my tail after what he did to Garrick Moser and every adult in that pack.”
The hair on Diana’s neck rose. She wondered exactly what Adam had done to be old pack leader. Then again, some of the images she’d gotten from boys were pretty bad.
The purring of the motorcycles’ engines filled the silence while Dog considered the argument. Tank had her vote, even without the psychic persuasion she felt threaded into his voice.
Dog was made of sterner stuff though. He growled. The sound ended in a vicious bark. The motorcycle canted as the biker leader slid off and started across the circle.
“Bitten bastard. I’ll teach you to use mind tricks on me.”
One moment Diana was standing in the middle of the coming confrontation. The next she was whisked off of her feet from behind and dumped near the chromed tires of the motorcycles. So much for gentlemanly manners. Then again, being dumped out of the way was better than being in Dog’s way.
She huddled beside the tire. The oil and gas engine smells drifted around her, a bit of distraction from the tiny rocks biting into her hands and knees.
Out of the blinding light, Diana could see Dog’s ugly, already disproportioned face contort. His jaws stretched demonically into a toothy muzzle designed for tearing.
His hands grew claws worthy of knives, perfect for ripping and shredding tough werewolf hide.
Chase discarded his leather jacket. Out of the glare of the headlights, she could now see that his hair was a dark gold.
His change was more graceful. The curve of his man’s ear flowed upward into points. His jaw elongated. Fur the same color as his hair ran along his skin.
Both of them bulked up, easily half again or more than their respective human size. Muscles developed that were not there before. The added body mass tore their clothes.
The dull rip of leather and denim sounded to her like what the shedding of human skin should be. What remnants of fabric still clung, they shrugged off, flinging away the last bit of humanity.
They were terrifying monsters. They were beautiful killing machines.
The werewolves moved with the same light agility, still managing to ram together with the power of a freight train. Roars and growls filled the night. Each tried to rip the other’s throat out while claws tore at their sides and backs.
Diana cringed backward, taking in the fight. Tank, she could see, also slipped the skin of humanity. His huge dark form was a shadow of muscle, fur, and claws waiting on the sidelines close to Dog’s changed companions.
She struggled with the straps of her shoes. Yanking the heels off of her feet, she forgot her ankle. Tears sprang to her eyes when she jerked on it. A three-inch weapon in each hand now, Diana scooted back from the fight.
She looked around. How long before one of the nearby houses heard the inhuman racket and called the police? Were any of them foolish enough to come check out the noise? The thought of a concerned neighbor or policeman getting hurt doing his duty sickened her.
Diana’s mist trick had obviously worked or Adam would have shown up by now.
She decided to try something a little more difficult.
She envisioned a circle ten feet beyond the motorcycles. A bubble to camouflage the sight, sound, scents of the fight. Diana channeled what energy she had left into the bubble.
The fight ranged closer to where she hid behind the bikes. Tank moved, a graceful watchdog, keeping his big body between the combatants and
her. For a brief moment he turned and looked down, his black eyes meeting hers. He was ink black. His dark, African American heritage and the black wolfman fur seemed to swallow the light.
She realized with a start that her eyes had roamed. Nude werewolf males were just as male as human males, more so. The fight, the scent of blood, would have excited the animal part of him.
That part of him was certainly excited, jutting full and proud while his muscles tensed under the fur. The sharp ebony claws opened and closed with the need to fight.
“Why?” She forced her focus up. Embarrassed heat burned her cheeks. Her voice was a breath. “Why go against your pack?”
Tank shook his head. The movement was an odd rounded gesture, like the start of one of those full-bodied shakes a dog, or wolf, will make. Diana refused to follow the shake down the muscled body.
“Shhh, little sister. Do not be afraid.” The timbre of his voice was still beautiful, if a lot deeper coming from the wolfman.
“I’m not afraid.” And she wasn’t, not of him. No more than she would be of Adam or the boys.
He canted his head and nodded at the truth of her words. The sound of his voice was gravelly, but like the pleasant sound of polished rocks sliding against one another.
Not the coarse sound that Dog had made. She realized that the leader’s ugliness had more to do with staying partially changed than genetics. Maybe his real human form was even uglier?
“This is no pack,” came Tank’s answer. “Only a gathering of strays that no one will have.”
A howl drew their attention back to the fight. Chase had his golden head at Dog’s throat, teeth locked in the scruff. His jaws were dark with blood as he worried the other werewolf’s neck.
Dog’s buddies decided to get in on the action. Tank growled and leapt to intercept them.
The leap could have been choreographed for a ballet in grace and form. The deadly power of the movement impressed her as much as Chase’s savage grace as he tore Dog apart. No one leapt ten feet in the air, or covered twice that distance without a pole vault, a spring board, something. Tank dropped down on top of the advancing werewolves in a blur of fur, flashing claws, and flying blood.
Dear God, Diana shuddered at the damage, please let the bubble hold.
She wanted to crawl away, but fear that without her presence the bubble would disappear, held her to her gory sideshow seat.
Please, don’t let a car come this way.
Dog fell, the road underneath his body pooled with dark liquid. He twitched, claws scraping on the pavement.
Diana stuffed the back of her hand into her mouth to hold back the scream and the bile that threatened to follow.
Chase turned to help Tank with the remaining two wolfmen.
She stared while blows that would break a normal man in bloody halves, made the werewolves grunt and stumble back.
Not that they didn’t suffer any damage. All of them wore gaping bloody furrows on their backs, shoulders, and chests where claws had torn their skin.
Diana Ridley was no Helen of Troy and she knew it. This fight must have been building for a while, because there was no way she could have incited this. She was pretty if you liked plump, knew a few nifty psychic tricks, and her empathy was more of a hindrance than a gift.
Diana felt more than saw movement. Her eyes slid to where Dog had fallen. The pavement was empty save for the wet smear of blood.
Oh God! She glanced around, flinching away from the evil hunger that suddenly bombarded her. Hunger that twisted lust and food into a single foul emotion.
A claw wrapped around her ankle. She screamed at the crushing strength that pulled, no jerked, her to Dog’s maw. Pink bloody saliva foamed around sharp deadly wolf teeth. Except no wolf was ever that big.
She kicked while he crawled up her body. She felt his hot body temperature, the bristly fur, and the slick blood from his wounds. Even worse, the hard-on that the monster was getting from her fear and the fight.
“No!”
She wrestled, bucked, and tried to slam the heels into him. One claw caught and pinned her left arm. The right shoe hit hard. She felt the heel drive into the meat of the werewolf’s shoulder with a sickening give.
He laughed. His fetid breath washed over her face and shoulders.
“Too bad I’ve got to eat and run.” He pushed his heavy, too big erection into her lower abdomen and ground hard, pressing her legs apart. “Cause the whole ride would be a lot more fun.”
Diana aimed for the temple, glancing off a blow, while his head slowly descended, even as his body slid lower on to hers. Oh, God, he was going to rape her and eat her at the same time.
He pressed against her, the member catching in her undergarments. Only the thin barriers of her pantyhose and the satin of her panties kept the huge length of him out, but not by much.
A claw reached between and caught the front of her dress pulling it and her bra away, baring her breasts. The too big head of the monster’s penis stretched out a small space in the protective fabric between her legs. She bucked and beat with the shoe.
The claw groped at a bare breast. His teeth found her shoulder and bit. The huge jaws clamped down, feeling as if he was going to take her shoulder off in one bite.
Diana screamed, slammed down the heel on his head one more time. Dog yelped, his claws going to his eye, scrabbling where the shoe still dangled from the socket.
She tried to crawl away. She scrambled on knees and one arm because where his teeth had imbedded in her shoulder the arm wouldn’t work right.
“Bitch!”
Dog lunged, his claws raking down her leg, catching and pulling her backward.
Her fingernails broke on the pavement.
“No!”
A clawed hand shoved her face down, grinding her cheek into the pavement.
Diana whimpered. She tried to wiggle away. The monster held her easily, while he aligned himself behind her.
Vaguely, she heard the sounds of the other werewolves fighting in the circle of motorcycles. If she turned her head she would be able to see for sure if both of her werewolves still fought.
“Uppity bitch.”
While she struggled, the thin fabric of her pantyhose and underwear ripped away with the scratch of claw on the delicate skin of her hip. The hand and attached claws slapped her bare cheeks. Hot lines of pain burned her buttocks.
“I’m going to enjoy this. You’re too much trouble for a fuck and food.”
The claws lifted her hips, but before the thing could ram inside her, Dog was shoved away. The force of the attacking werewolves threw Dog outside of the bubble.
Diana felt the pop as the breached bubble disappeared.
Automatically, she reset the bubble a second time, this time adding a compulsion to avoid the area. She tried to figure a way to set the bubble so that it wouldn’t pop if breached, or she passed out.
That was a very real possibility as her energy level drained. Her vision blurred.
She watched the pale werewolf, dark streaks marred his coat, and the pitch black werewolf tear Dog’s more traditional gray body apart. Literally.
The two were not about making the kill pretty. Not all of the meat fell to the ground either. Some of those huge bites would be missing, never to be found, the only evidence the blood on the victors’ muzzles.
She emptied her stomach, and then watched the werewolves finish their kill.
Diana found that she wasn’t upset at all. The bad guys were all dead, and that was what mattered.
She was bleary and fuzzy feeling when her protectors came to stand before her.
Their hair was slick with blood, more blood and adrenaline racing through their systems, making the very male werewolves, very male indeed.
But they wouldn’t hurt her, Diana knew. She was tired, and her stomach heaved again at the carnage around her. She looked up at the dark and the pale beasts standing over her and knew she was safe. Safe enough to let the darkness take her away from her body�
��s pain and exhaustion.
Chapter Thirteen
Adam was frantic. There was no trace of Diana anywhere.
He followed her scent to the trees behind the saloon bar where it vanished as if she’d blinked out of existence.
He tried reaching her through the pack connection. A metaphysical wall shut him out the same as he’d done during the confrontation with her date.
Stubborn woman. His Diana was a quick study. The constant blank space where her presence should be shook him to his core.
For the first time in his life Adam J. Weis knew fear. She was probably just pissed at him.
A year and a half ago, Amanda had left, mad at his excuses for waiting to matebond.
The next time he’d seen her, she’d been a trophy, her pelt nailed to the wall beside Garrick Moser’s other victims.
Adam’s fear for Diana was a live thing. The feeling gnawed at his insides while he trotted up and down the streets looking for signs of his intended mate.
Something was wrong. The danger burned in his gut.
Not again.
Most wolven believed nature as Divine. Adam’s parents were God fearing humans. While Adam respected the beliefs of his biological father, he fell back on his raising.
Please God. He prayed as hard as he ever had. Don’t let me be too late again. Not like Amanda.
Adam didn’t want a fling, anymore. He wanted Diana Ridley for himself, not only because nature said it was time to take a mate.
He didn’t know how things would be worked out with her human children, but with every part of him, wolf and man, he intended to have Diana Ridley. For his mate, as Matra Canis for his pack, however she would have him.
At one point Adam thought he caught a whiff of her perfume. He hunted the area and found no sign of her. He turned and left, fighting the wolf that once having scented his chosen mate, did not want to leave.
Adam moved to a different street, searching backyards.
Hell, he even went back and searched the supermarket parking lot. The faint scent of blood made him go back and look behind the store. He decided that the blood scent was from road kill, a dead dog or some other unfortunate animal. Adam left to meet back up with Bob.
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