“What are you planning?” I demanded even as the last swathe of fabric slipped away from my quivering skin. My wolf itched to move, to strike, to protect our mate from the dangers of the outside world. And, at the same time, my human brain couldn’t help assessing the slippery-elm aroma emanating from Sebastien. Was he building a game plan that would help achieve my own ends...or that would work against them?
“Creating a diversion,” Dakota answered at last, ignoring the way Sebastien’s eyes were trained carefully clear of our nakedness. I breathed out a sigh of relief, though, as I realized she’d finished pulling out tools of the trade and was instead fiddling with her Faraday cage once again. Maybe now we could remove the professor’s leg shackle and complete this mission together, as a pack. Perhaps Dakota wasn’t Scary Guy’s ominous “dog” after all.
The other female met my gaze for one split second, and it seemed almost as if she’d read my mind. Then she was reaching out werewolf-fast, snapping her newly opened anklet shut around my naked leg before yanking violently at a single wire dangling off to one side.
I shook my foot instinctively, hoping the shackle would spring back loose. Because the lights along its circumference were blinking twice as rapidly as they’d done earlier in the evening, which I suspected meant guards were currently being alerted to the lapse. “Turn it off!” I demanded, pushing the strongest compulsion I could muster into my desperate words.
But Dakota merely laughed in my face as she slipped into the uniform I’d recently discarded. “I recommend getting dressed,” she told me, filling cargo pockets with the rather tremendous amount of gear she’d brought into the base. The flashlight lay against her hip, the Faraday cage snapped back shut around her arm, and the bomb paraphernalia landed in her chest pocket—within easiest reach. “The humans should be here at any moment,” she continued. “They won’t survive tonight, but your chances are a little better. If I’m in a good mood, I might come back for you.”
Then the other female was pushing open the door and running stoop-shouldered into the shadows cast by overhead lights striking corners just the wrong way. And I’d barely had time to thrust my unencumbered leg into her skin-tight pants before the door flung itself the rest of the way open, half a dozen rifle barrels leveling themselves upon me and my mate.
“Freeze!” a soldier barked. “Hands in the air!”
Allowing the trousers to slide back to the ground, I hastened to obey.
GUNS. As sweat trickled down my spine and my skin itched in anticipation of a barrage of bullets, I had to admit that I was not a fan of firearms. All it would take was one round to each of our heads and Sebastien and I would lack the opportunity to fully realize our mate bond. I’d never figure out why my brother had disappeared nor what SHRITA’s intentions were toward the paranormal portion of the population. Now, more than ever, I wished I’d brought along a bin of cupcakes to defuse this situation before it grew any worse.
Only, apparently pastries weren’t necessary. Because Sebastien stepped between me and the soldiers, his scent sliding into caramel smoothness as he spoke. “I have important information to relay to your superiors,” he told the soldiers, ignoring the way one male smirked as he took in my nakedness while another made a lewd gesture with his hands nearly—but not quite—hidden from view.
Okay, so maybe my mate wasn’t entirely oblivious to the implications of having a naked woman in his quarters. Because rather than pressing his point, Sebastien knelt to pick up Dakota’s clothing before depositing the mass back into my waiting hands. Unlike me, though, he appeared less interested in the bevy of guns pointed at his unprotected head and more interested in scanning each face as if searching for a long-lost acquaintance.
He’s making sure these soldiers aren’t the same ones who saw Dakota, I realized as the silence stretched. So that problem, at least, was averted. None of these men would realize that the shackled woman in Sebastien’s chamber was a different female than the one Mr. Shepard had recently left behind. Inexplicable inconsistency averted.
“Professor,” the lead soldier began at last, his scent a complicated mixture of wariness and amusement. “Perhaps this could wait until morning. It looks like you’ve got enough to keep yourself occupied until then....” And even though the male didn’t leer, his meaning was nonetheless quite evident. The soldier thought my ankle bracelet had been knocked askew by a round of heavy petting...something in which my wolf would have very much liked to indulge.
For my part, I slid my arms into Dakota’s jacket while counting the seconds that had already elapsed since the female enforcer snapped that dratted anklet around my leg in the first place. In the other female’s shoes, I would have destroyed SHRITA’s data before taking further action. But who knew what Dakota would get up to when left to her own devices. Would she really set a bomb inside a facility that housed dozens of humans? And could I risk my mate’s skin on the slim chance she might not?
While I was trying to decide whether fighting our way past armed guards had any hope of success, the professor had apparently been considering a different tact. Clearing his throat to draw attention away from my half-dressed body, the professor paused for a long moment...then offered up the trump card Mr. Shepard had dealt him minutes before. “Please alert your commander that I’m ready to sign on,” the professor said softly. “I’m confident he’ll want to hear what I have to say as soon as possible.”
And for one split second, I forgot all about Dakota, escape, and the bomb. Surely Sebastien was merely angling for a way out of our predicament. He couldn’t really be throwing in his lot with government agents intent upon seeing werewolves caged...could he?
Unfortunately, the human’s poker face made it impossible to guess which of the two possibilities was the truth. And for a moment it looked like it wouldn’t make a difference anyway because the lead soldier wasn’t so easily swayed.
“Professor,” the male began again, his voice cordial yet guarded. “The commander has given strict orders that he’s not to be interrupted until morning. We can wake the lieutenant commander if it’s an emergency....” Clearly, the male wasn’t keen on going even that far up the chain of command in the middle of the night.
But Sebastien stood firm. “That will suffice,” he answered, stepping forward as if to follow the soldiers out of his abode. And despite the fact I hadn’t managed to pull on more than a single item of clothing and wasn’t 100% certain my mate wasn’t about to sell all werewolves down the river, I hastened to catch up.
Only leaving the building was, apparently, going one step too far. The lead soldier thrust out his rifle, creating a barrier that blocked the doorway as effectively as any lock. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to remain where you are until we’re able to alert the lieutenant commander. I apologize for the delay, but....”
“Yes, yes.” And my mate morphed into an absent-minded professor again, his shoulders slumping and his eyes blinking in innocent confusion. “You will hurry, though, won’t you? I’m afraid this information really can’t wait....”
And, to my surprise, this time the lead soldier obeyed. The male wasted a moment rearming the security bracelet around my ankle, but then he led his troop back out into the night. Sebastien and I had been left alone at last.
Chapter 25
My mate reached around me to close the door, but I stilled him with a cautionary hand to his arm. “Wait.”
Because, now that the soldiers were gone, I realized my wolf had been trying to attract my attention for several long seconds. Relaxing my hold over our shared body, I allowed her to rear up inside my human skin and pluck at our senses with an animal’s keen instincts.
There was danger on the air. Not the smoky scent of a fuse that I’d been half expecting, and not the gunpowdery tang of human firearms either. Instead, our flaring nostrils took in fur and fangs and fury—the wild aroma of werewolves on the hunt.
In response, I took an instinctive step forward, straining my eyes against the night
. And as I did so, the LED lights on my anklet began pulsing wildly once again.
“Ember,” my mate warned. “The guards....”
Accepting his rebuke as merited, I returned to the safety of the cinder-block hovel. Sure enough, the wild flashing died down quickly. But my eyes remained peeled, hunting for the source of the unease running up and down my spine.
I could understand now why the brilliant lights above our head had been extinguished at the first sign of potential encroachment. Because even though the well-illuminated street in front of Sebastien’s temporary abode provided no hiding places for potential danger, the wild lands outside the fence faded quickly into darkness. Any predators waiting beyond the boundaries could creep in easily with no one the wiser, prey remaining unsuspecting until the moment the monster in question chose to pounce.
But the danger wasn’t entirely invisible. When I glanced sideways to take advantage of the superior night vision at the edges of my retinas, I was able to catch the faintest trace of movement just beyond the fence line. There were eyes in the darkness, I saw now. Orange orbs gleaming wildly against the night. One pair, two pairs, then enough wolf faces to make up the entirety of Dakota’s motorcycle-riding pack.
The shifters in question were waiting for their alpha to return. Or were perhaps anticipating orders that would soon be relayed down a well-lubricated pack bond? Either way, I couldn’t help thinking their presence wasn’t a good sign for either myself or for my mate.
“Nothing I can do about them now,” I murmured, ignoring the way Sebastien’s head cocked to one side as I turned my back on potential danger. Could he feel my tension via our shared tether? Was that why the professor remained in place a moment longer, staring out into the darkness even as my inner beast rebelled at the thought of leaving our flank exposed to hundreds of knife-edged teeth?
Whatever the reason, Sebastien’s delay bore fruit. As I hovered and waited for my mate to join me inside the human walls, a question from my cousin soared through the night and into my ears. Malachi didn’t speak in human words, of course. Instead, the trill of a tree frog was a common enough sound that could have been easily overlooked out in the wilderness...if my cousin hadn’t added the faintest lilt of a Fowler’s toad onto the end, that is.
Like his earlier owl screech, this signal originated in our shared childhood. As such, I didn’t have to dig far into my memory banks to dredge up its meaning. “Do you need any help?” my cousin was asking.
And for an instant, I could feel the thin bond we’d recently created springing back to life. Despite our lack of a solid pack connection, despite his chameleon fondness for vanilla, Malachi was standing up to Dakota’s clan in order to protect me. Just as during our shared childhood, my cousin still had my back.
Which meant I needed to have his. If our past escapades were anything to go on, my cousin was moments away from rushing into this base and rescuing me from past mistakes without regard for the safety of his own skin.
So I waved my hands through the air in a semaphore of warning. “Stop, wait, give me more time,” I motioned. Then, dropping onto my bare bum, I began wrestling with the anklet that kept me locked in place.
“EMBER?” SEBASTIEN ASKED, the scent of bookish curiosity filling the air as he watched me attempt the impossible—sliding the restraint down over my ankle bone and heel so it could slip entirely off my leg. Given the design of both human anatomy and metal loop, the effort appeared to have no chance for success.
“Give me a minute,” I ground out rather than accepting failure. Because my wolf had risen up to join me behind our shared eyes, something instinctive telling us that we were running out of time in which to follow Dakota’s trail. Perhaps it was the heaviness in the damp night air promising an imminent bomb blast sooner rather than later. Whatever the clue we’d picked up on, the circlet needed to come off and it needed to come off now.
The restraint wasn’t budging, though. And as we worked, I realized that Dakota had planned as much, must have thought through the entire chain of events before entering SHRITA headquarters in the first place.
The female had chosen to be captured so she’d end up with a shackle to bind me to this spot beside my unwitting mate. She’d wanted to leave me with an impossible decision. Remain imprisoned and die with Sebastien in the upcoming explosion. Or remove the anklet the only way possible—by shifting—and provide Dakota’s wolves with an ironclad excuse to tear out both of our throats.
“Soap might help.” I hadn’t even realized Sebastien wasn’t beside me until he returned and began squirting liquid detergent down into the gap between skin and metal. It was a smart move, but the lubricant wasn’t going to make a difference. Not when the ankle bracelet had been designed to be unremovable by anyone who didn’t possess the key.
I told you. It’s easy, my wolf murmured quietly as I tried once again to get a good grip on the anklet...and failed. The beast was present just beneath my skin, I realized, her anticipation of the shift already forcing my arms to itch as hair began growing just a little faster than was humanly possible.
The wolf had proceeded beyond rational thought by that point, was descending into the realm of pure instinct...and I wasn’t far behind. Images flashed through our shared mind nearly faster than I could follow. We could shed human skin and ankle restraint all in one go then rush after the other female. We’d wrestle the bomb paraphernalia out of her grasp, save the day, save our mate.
But that was exactly what Dakota wanted us to do. We couldn’t afford to play right into her manipulative little hands. Couldn’t risk damage to our mate’s delicate human skin.
Wait, I countered the lupine urges. Not yet.
But then Sebastien made the mistake of reaching down to help me. His warm fingers skimmed across my abraded flesh...and the shock of contact gave my wolf the opening she needed to steal control of our shared body. “I’ll be back for you,” she promised gutturally. “Until then...just trust me.”
Inside our human body, I winced. “Trust me”? Were those two short words really going to make a difference as I writhed naked upon the ground and did everything short of gnawing off my own leg in an effort to escape from the restraint?
Only, making a fool of myself wasn’t all I was doing. Instead, my hands went lax as I lost the battle of wills entirely this time around. And, abruptly...I began to morph into a monster.
Hair sprang out along my belly, my back, between my thighs. An elegant extension forced its away out of the stub of my tail bone, the plume wagging gracefully as it emerged.
Meanwhile, a strangled howl burst free from furless lips, my face remaining human for far longer than it usually did during a run-of-the-mill shift. So I was able to watch in full, vibrant color as Sebastien’s face paled. I caught every tremor as the arm that had been attempting to assist me fell vainly down against his side.
“You lied to me,” he murmured, the four words soft yet violent, like the muffled explosion from a silenced gun.
Truth, I recalled a moment too late, was the one thing my mate had asked for when he took me into his home twenty-four hours earlier. He’d been willing to overlook my silences, had been willing to wait for me to take him into my confidence in my own sweet time.
And yet, when asked flat out about my “superpowers,” I’d provided a firm negative. The only unforgivable offense and I’d skipped over every opportunity to prevent the ultimate blunder.
Now, our mate caught himself against the door jamb as if the wood was the only thing preventing a nasty fall. His scent, previously heady with the rich chocolate of his desire, turned dark and bitter as the greens and reds in my field of view faded to gray. Despite my transition from human to lupine form, the information of my senses didn’t fail me. I was a wolf...and my mate was thoroughly repelled by the very sight.
Beyond the electrified fence line, Dakota’s pack howled their awareness of my lapse. I’d painted a target onto both Sebastien’s and my backs with my actions. Had as good as offered my thr
oat up on a silver platter to be ripped out as soon as we were no longer united in pursuit of a common goal.
Meanwhile, Malachi—my big, kind cousin who had risked his entire career to help me out of a tight spot—lost track of clever, childhood codes and instead yelled overt human words across the sleeping government base. “Ember, what are you doing?” he demanded, words plenty loud enough to be picked up by soldiers as well as by my well-endowed lupine ears.
But my animal half ignored him, ignored them, even ignored my horrified mate. Instead, she put her nose down close to the pavement, and she followed Dakota’s trail into the night.
Chapter 26
Despite Malachi’s verbal explosion, the military base remained silent as the grave. And while the building Sebastien had indicated wasn’t all that far away, recent changes to my mate tether made the journey more complicated than the short distance would have suggested.
Because the bond had been impacted by my recent revelation...and not for the better either. The linkage trailed behind me like an immaterial umbilical cord, tripping me up so many times that my wolf eventually snapped. Grabbing the reins of control even more firmly out of my human hands, she spun in a wild circle, chasing her tail until the bond wound itself tightly around our shared body and rose out of the way of our lagging feet at long last.
Only then did the beast allow me back into the driver’s seat. And there I was left to clean up her messes, panting heavily as I slunk deeper into a doorway and out of sight. Had our bout of moon madness been observed? I sniffed the air carefully, finding no sign of living beings...but becoming unfortunately aware of the proximity of the dead.
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