Huntress Bound

by Aimee Easterling

  “Malachi....” I began, only to be interrupted when my companion’s hand rose from the steering wheel to land atop my parted lips.

  “Wait,” my cousin mouthed, no hint of a sound escaping from his mouth at all. He tapped a few sequences into the GPS, producing a digital model of our vehicle. And as my eyes narrowed in consideration, a pulsing pointer appeared on the simulacrum just above the driver’s side rear tire.

  A few more taps from Malachi and the screen began replaying our recent standoff, the recordings presumably made by cameras arrayed around the perimeter of the SUV. Most of the scenes mimicked what I’d noticed with my own two eyes—soldiers bearing rifles while waiting for either me or Malachi to make our first wrong move. But the left rear camera had caught a man creeping forward, shielded from view by the leader’s broad back. The agent ducked, slipped his hand beneath the underside of the wheel well, then faded back into the trees as quickly as he’d initially come.

  The conclusion was unfortunately far too obvious—our vehicle had been bugged. The device was likely intended to track our location and make sure we did, indeed, spend what was left of the day house hunting. But for all we knew, the bug might boast other features as well. It could relay sound as well as location data, might be broadcasting the loaded silence within the cab at this very moment to SHRITA agents’ waiting ears.

  Either way, we couldn’t do as I wished and turn wolf, scouting the countryside in search of the headquarters that hid my mate. Or rather...Malachi couldn’t.

  As if sensing my increasing ambivalence with regard to our forward momentum, my cousin’s knuckles brushed butterfly-soft against my cheek before tapping at the screen on the dash just as they’d done a few hours earlier. This time, though, I recognized Troy’s number and was ready for the deep growl that emanated from the speaker. “Yeah?” the other enforcer demanded just as curtly as before.

  “Hey, dude,” Malachi answered. And even though his voice was cordial, the scent of fur filling the car proved my cousin wasn’t nearly as complacent as he wanted to appear about once again involving Troy in our personal business. “We’re looking at properties out in your neighborhood and got lost,” Malachi continued, playing human for the sake of the SHRITA sensor. “Do you and your girl want to meet up for a beer before we get back to the hunt?”

  The voice on the other end of the line was too quiet for the planted sensor to catch—or at least so I hoped. Because Troy didn’t mind his language the way my cousin had done when he answered. “Got yourself in a bind already, huh?” Troy jabbed. “Ready to let us take the problem off your hands?”

  “Naw,” Malachi answered easily, the electricity in the car growing to the point where it threatened to short out the instrument panel. If my cousin didn’t get a handle on his annoyance, he’d shift right there in the driver’s seat. “She hasn’t ditched me yet,” he growled, hands clenching into fists around the steering wheel. “She’s mine.”

  And even though my cousin’s protective streak was inspiring, I’d abruptly had enough of his male secretiveness. I trusted Malachi to guard my back...but would he do the same for Sebastien when push came to shove? It was hard to answer that question when I had no idea what sort of deal my cousin had made with the region’s enforcers nor what sort of plan they’d cooked up between them while I’d been relegated to the girl’s zone with the only female member of Troy’s cavalcade.

  Barring that information, I couldn’t in good conscience remain in this vehicle as it rolled away from my mate mile by gut-wrenching mile.

  “I need a little air,” I murmured vaguely as I rolled down my window with the push of a button. The wind breezing inside cleared my head...and at the same time offered a route to escape.

  Because even though we’d driven quite a distance from the SHRITA roadblock already, my wolf could easily carry me back toward Sebastien on four lupine feet. We could find our mate before the moon set, could bring him safely out of danger before Troy and Malachi even had time to hash out their differences and come up with a functional plan.

  Yes, my wolf whispered. Let’s go. She was poised and ready inside my stomach. Sick of waiting and itching to run.

  But my human half wasn’t so sure. I glanced sideways at the male who’d already risked too much helping me along my path. Would my desertion further damage Malachi’s future? Could his role of enforcer be lost, the bridges he’d built with Troy and his pack burned...all because I’d been too impatient to wait on my cousin’s go-ahead?

  Malachi will manage, my wolf countered. Sebastien can’t wait.

  And without further introspection, I was she, my skin becoming her skin as we leapt through the window midshift. Our shoulders shrunk just in time to clear the frame and our emerging tail slapped our cousin’s face as we made good on our escape.

  He swore, swerved...then stared back at us in the rear-view mirror as the SUV continued on down the road. With the SHRITA bug in place, Malachi couldn’t afford to stop and hunt us down. Couldn’t afford to do anything other than keep driving back toward the highway to meet up with his cagey friends.

  And although my human half wanted to mend matters with our cousin, to my wolf the issue was far simpler. The only tether she was interested in led due north into the forest. So north we would go.

  Before Malachi’s tail lights had even disappeared around the first bend, in fact, my wolf and I were leaning into the bond that coiled and twined within our shared gut. Then, reveling in the breeze created by our passing, we lifted our paws higher and we ran.

  Chapter 18

  My wolf’s need for speed won out over my own suggestion of stealth and cunning. So we sprinted directly toward our goal without wasting time to cover our trail as evening darkened into night and weedy saplings once again turned into massive trees all around us.

  Which turned out to be a good choice, because within the first hour I heard the howls of hunting werewolves on our trail. Troy and Malachi must have found a way to get SHRITA off their tail so they could latch onto mine. Luckily, an hour’s lead time was nothing to sneeze at, and I merely shrugged off their pursuit as my wolf guided us all deeper into the pitch-black forest.

  We ran until the fingernail moon had disappeared behind the horizon and the Milky Way streamed like a river of fire above my furry head. And even though I was pretty sure pursuers were still hot on my trail, Malachi and company had turned silent by the time I scented the first unusual aroma lying heavy between pockets of damp moss and crisply scented pine.

  Humans. This particular pair was wide awake and on the move despite the late hour. And—if the scent of gun oil was any indication—they were also just as thoroughly armed as the agents who had stopped me and Malachi earlier in the day.

  I’d expected to reach the first line of defense soon, so I wasn’t surprised at these humans’ presence. Instead, I was curious about exactly what sort of enemy we were up against. So, ignoring my animal half’s instinct for caution, I turned paws toward the potential danger, padding closer until lupine eyes could catch the shape of two-legged forms ambling between the dark uprights of mature oak trees.

  As I’d guessed based on scent, there were two guards present, both male and both just as hardened as the ones who had surrounded my cousin’s SUV a couple of hours before. And despite the fact that they must have patrolled these woods night after night with no incursions to break their repetitive solitude, neither relaxed into the moment. Instead, heads swiveled from right to left as they picked their way through the forest. And—I realized just a little too late—night-vision goggles also adorned both of their faces.

  “What’s that?” one asked, his voice so quiet that I could barely pick out the words. But his posture was menacing, body and gun swinging in tandem to face in my direction.

  In response, I froze, not quite believing that I’d been sighted as soon as I entered SHRITA’s perimeter. I wasn’t used to having guns pointed at me, but I knew that my lupine body was just as easy to down with bullets as any human’s.
If these men understood I was a werewolf and responded with predictable human fear....

  Thankfully, my lupine mind was less concerned about future death and dismemberment. Instead, she accepted the moment for what it was and bluffed with the best of them. Raising our long, white-tipped tail, she wagged it slowly in that universal canine gesture of friendly greeting. Then she yipped out a quiet bark to add to the disguise.

  Sure enough, her feint was well received. “Just a dog,” the second male answered, whistling softly into the darkness. I panted out my thanks then retreated slowly enough not to look like a threat. And all the while, I imagined the red glow of a laser sight between my shoulder blades, the sensation preventing me from breathing easily until I’d slipped back out of sight and into the encircling trees.

  GOOD NEWS, I told myself as I shook off the jitters of having nearly been caught. It was a positive to have been mistaken for a domesticated canine by these hardened and alert human guards. Because if the organization I planned to invade was as knowledgeable about werewolves as I’d initially assumed, then surely their foot soldiers would have considered a four-legger like me far more of a threat.

  So maybe SHRITA agents hadn’t captured Derek after all? Or maybe my brother was simply more adept at hiding his true nature than I would have initially assumed?

  Our mate needs us, my wolf interrupted, loping across the soft leaf litter while brushing all thoughts of Derek out of our shared mind. It wasn’t that she didn’t love our brother. She merely understood that we couldn’t carry out two parallel missions at the same time. And Sebastien’s kidnapping was both more recent and more urgent, so we’d focus first on recovering our half-bonded mate.

  To that end, we tugged on the mate tether, reveling in the way proximity turned the bond lax as we drew closer and closer to Sebastien’s current den. And even though my human brain was concerned about our lack of a game plan and about the repercussions for Malachi should we fail in the upcoming endeavor, our inner beast rebutted with a simple truism of war.

  No battle plan survives contact with the enemy, she murmured. In other words, she planned to dive right in and do what she wished, consequences be damned.

  The in-the-moment logic didn’t sit right with my rational half. But I was so subsumed beneath the wolf’s will by that point that I couldn’t argue. Instead, I let her lead me forward until a glow reminiscent of that above an active stadium began filtering toward us through the trees. And we picked up our pace yet further as the illumination made it easier to see each spot where we intended to place our weary feet.

  Meanwhile, an electric hum gradually filled the forest as we drew closer and closer to SHRITA headquarters. Somewhere not too far distant, a large metal object was being imbued with the cyclical pulse of electromagnetic energy. The result sounded like the electric fences back home...except three times louder and at the same time so intense I could smell each burst of newly created ozone on the damp evening air.

  Then my wolf and I were stepping out of the bushes and staring at a compound so tremendous it would have been easily visible from space. A ten-foot-tall fence ran from ground to razor-wire peak, the pulse of electricity promising that no one could easily clamber over its height and survive. Meanwhile, massive lights illuminated the lawn on the other side, making it easy to pick out dozens of red-brick buildings that sat squat and malevolent within the fence’s carefully enclosed interior.

  No wonder SHRITA agents were stopping people on the road. If anyone set eyes on the organization’s headquarters, they’d know in an instant that this was more than a simple factory or office. The question was—what had the agents hidden inside?

  And, of course, there was a corollary to that question as well. How did I intend to get in and find out?

  Chapter 19

  The electrified chain-link fence was people-proof, but the barrier hadn’t stopped the surrounding wildlife from coming to call. I wasted half an hour padding around the perimeter, jumping at every snapped stick as I imagined Malachi arriving to pull me off the hunt. But before my followers had time to catch up, I got lucky. A deer trail led right up to the fence...then slid underneath along a foot-deep gully eroded away at the base of the barrier. If an extra-large ungulate could make it through the gap without being electrocuted, then so could the carefully compressed form of my much smaller wolf.

  Here’s hoping it’s just as easy to find my way back out, I thought, wriggling on my belly through the dry dirt at the bottom of the depression. Above my head, the fence transitioned from harmless hunk of metal to death trap in an instant as the most recent pulse of electricity passed through. But I was small enough not to brush up against its rungs, and soon I was shaking my fur clean on the opposite side.

  I was in.

  Of course, I wasn’t scot-free—not by a long shot. There were bound to be human patrollers inside this barrier just as there had been watchers in the woods, and it would be significantly harder to make them believe I was a dog on this side of the fence. Still, SHRITA must have trusted their extensive perimeter hardware to do its duty. Because the soldiers I sniffed out soon thereafter were less equipped than the ones on the other side of the barrier. Lacking night-vision goggles, neither noticed my body heat as I slipped through the shadows and around the side of the nearest building.

  And there I stopped stock still as Sebastien’s scent filled my nostrils. He was here. Alive and uninjured. Or at least so I hoped. Now I just had to figure out how to get my mate out.

  Wait, I told my wolf when she began nosing around in search of an open window through which to leap. This wasn’t how I intended to greet Sebastien after our day-long separation. Not in fur form with the scent of forest stuck between our lupine toes. We needed to be smart and sly, to think like foxes rather than like alpha werewolves rushing in where demons feared to tread. We needed a disguise and a plan.

  Grudgingly, my inner beast ceded to human wisdom. Allowing me to guide her footsteps at long last, she eased past Sebastien’s building and put her senses on high alert as we together scoped out the lay of the land.

  Based on aroma alone, two of the buildings clustered inside the fence were offices while another was a cafeteria. Several small pods like my mate’s were scattered across the grounds as well, some empty and others filled either with prisoners or with long-term residents who chose to live on base.

  None of that was helpful at the present moment, though. Instead, I continued hunting until I reached the far corner where lights were dim and traffic was low. Fabric softener, bleach, detergent, reported my nose. I’d finally found what I was looking for—the laundromat.

  THE DOORS AND WINDOWS were closed, of course, and my wolf couldn’t walk right in. So we took one long look over our shared shoulder before rising onto human feet, the chill night air raising goosebumps all across my exposed arms and shoulders.

  It was terrifying to stand naked in the moonlight where an armed patroller could pass by at any moment. But my wolf nudged me away from human jitters, reminding me of our mission instead.

  Accepting her warning graciously, I turned and gripped the doorknob with one furless hand, not expecting it to turn. But the door opened easily beneath my fingers, the barrier swinging open with a creak that I was certain carried all the way across the compound to soldiers’ waiting ears.

  There was no shout of alarm, though. No pounding boot steps. So after one more glance backwards, I slipped inside on feet nearly as silent as those of my wolf, pulling the door shut behind me before waiting for human eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  The building was a single room boasting a tier of washers and dryers along one wall then a sink on the far end providing space for hand washing. On the opposite side stood a rolling bin overflowing with dirty clothing, then a counter stacked high with clean and folded garments.

  I padded closer to the latter then ran my fingers over the rough fabric of shirts and pants. This morning, I’d been uncertain whether SHRITA really was a government organization or whet
her Mr. Shepard had simply found a sneaky way to affix “.gov” to his emails. But the clothes here in this small metal building were far too uniform to be anything other than, well, uniforms.

  Which was good news for me at the present moment...although perhaps not for the long-term secrecy of werewolves everywhere. Uniforms did an admirable job of hiding physical differences, especially when the outside world wasn’t supposed to know such a settlement existed and was thus unlikely to come to call. As long as the population of this base was large enough that every face wasn’t immediately recognizable, I really might be able to walk through the streets openly just by dint of blending in my external skin.

  Assuming, of course, that any of these uniforms suited my frame. But I was in luck. There must have been at least a few women employed by SHRITA because one top and a single set of pants matched my height and build, the fabric scratchy against my underwear-free skin but the fit otherwise close to perfect. I pulled on the clothing and started running fingers through tangled hair to smooth it down...then leapt halfway out of my skin as an ear-piercing alarm bell began to ring.

  Chapter 20

  I descended from the laundry into a sea of activity. The stadium-style lamps overhead had all gone out, either accidentally or by design. Meanwhile, dozens—perhaps as many as a hundred—humans were milling through the small space, all wearing night-vision goggles just like their compatriots on the outside.

  The soldiers were also well armed, rifles leaning against each shoulder, pistols strapped to belts, and even a knife or two glinting in steady hands. I wasn’t used to such an array of weaponry, and I have to admit I froze for a moment, trying to get my bearings in the midst of so much overt physical danger.