by Christa Wick
Yep, that was my back pocket plan—sneak out and run like hell.
Okay, so a little prayer was also involved. I needed a good ten minutes for Joshua to realize I wasn’t coming out of the bathroom. Once he stood in front of the door to the ladies’ room, his nose would tell him I had gone down the hall and out the exit door. Following my scent trail would be easy.
He was taller and leaner in his human form, so I needed the head start. Neither of us would dare shifting, even in the trees. I would lose my clothes and emerge near the Walmart butt naked. Reeves had his choice of losing his clothes if he shifted to his mountain lion state or shifting to his alpha state and arriving with his jacket and jeans ripped and barely hanging on his flesh. His boots would also be seriously fucked up—the claws ripping through the toes and much of the top separating from the sole.
I figured there wasn’t a chance in hell would he switch to alpha to pursue me. More than just the clothing considerations, running through the trees surrounding Buckley as a wolf or mountain lion was dangerous enough. Locals might spot us and fire off a shot or fifty. But someone seeing him in his alpha state? All hell would break loose and spread far beyond Buckley.
Of course, Reeves still had my keys in his pocket, which was probably why he had felt confident leaving me unattended on my way to the restroom. That confidence would further inhibit any decision to shift to his alpha or cat state. And his arrogance wouldn’t entertain the question of why I had bolted without my keys. Not for one second would he consider the possibility that I had one of those magnet thingies that hold a spare key in place on the underside of a vehicle’s frame.
Score one for the she-wolf!
Reaching the tree line, I broke into a run. I didn’t matter that I was shorter and slower and could have a mountain lion breathing down my neck any second. I felt free—exhilarated.
A stupid grin plastered its way across my face. Jumping over tree roots, I unzipped my jacket to keep from overheating. My shoes were meant for running but worn for comfort. They felt light on my feet, but cushioned my landing as I bounded across a small stream.
Listening for the sound of Joshua following, I heard nothing. My grin broadened, seeming to stretch beyond my face until I imagined the corners of my mouth meeting at the back of my head.
A wild laugh escaped me. Braeden and Reeves wanted to lock me up until I was out of heat. First they would have to find me again and I wouldn’t go someplace as obvious as Walmart. Joshua had gotten lucky with that. It was absolutely the last time he was getting lucky with me.
I heard the first crash of a pursuer through the trees. My pulse kicked up a beat but my smile didn’t fade.
More feet joined the chase. My muscles clicked into overdrive.
Then a foreign, animalistic yodeling from three separate throats shattered the quiet of the woods.
That’s when the blood in my veins turned to ice.
Chapter 11
Joshua
A teenaged male stood outside the back of the restaurant trying to light a joint as the wind kicked up. His chin tilted downward. One hand cupped the thinly rolled reefer while the other flicked at a green disposable lighter.
His head jerked up as the back door banged open.
“Hey, you can’t come out this—”
Grabbing a fistful of shirt, I lifted him off his feet. Words bubbled against the back of my lips, but my fangs had sprouted the second I realized Clover had played me for a fool. No matter how much weed the kid might have in him, I couldn’t let my cat out.
I glared as I set him on his feet.
The teen threw up both hands, the joint and lighter falling. He started walking backwards, his stumbling, terrified gait taking him toward the door. “I just work here, man. If you don’t want to pay that’s the manager’s business.”
I had already stopped listening. My nose was in control. Still keeping my cat in check, I power walked the enticing scent trail of cream and honey Clover had left in her wake. Disappearing past the trees, I broke into a run, my haste twice forcing me to stop and relocate her route as the wind tricked me along a different path.
I didn’t need to catch her in the woods. I was pretty sure she hadn’t caught on to the app being on her phone. And I had the keys to her Jeep. I could wait for her to run out of steam and roll up. That would take the spit out of the she-wolf, for a few minutes at least. But if I did that, I wouldn’t experience the thrill of pursuing her—of pursuing my mate.
The chase started a low burning fire in my gut.
I was getting closer, outpacing her. Soon I would see and hear her.
The wind shifted again, my nose filling with something unfamiliar yet recognizable, something that was neither solely human nor animal. Another shifter was in the woods, its scent unlike anything I had ever smelled. The harsh, ammonia laced odor certainly wasn’t Clover’s. Her fragrant heat pulled at me. This other scent wasn’t feminine and it repulsed.
A yodeling cry pierced the woods and was instantly joined by two more voices.
Three males on the hunt—their intended prey unquestionable.
I shifted to my alpha state. The seams along the shoulders and sides of my jacket burst, my muscles bulging through the gaps. The same ripping sounded along the length of my jeans. My waist narrowed, only the increase of mass in my muscular thighs and ass keeping my pants up. Pain erupted in my boots as my claws slowly punched through the leather top. Tendons and bones fought to lengthen within the suddenly tight confines.
The yodeling howls repeated with a frenetic energy. They hadn’t reached Clover yet, but they knew she was close to them.
I ran. I had no god, but, at that moment, I prayed to all the ones I had ever heard others speak of.
The cries of the male shifters warped to a warbling, high pitched giggling.
Not a giggle, but that was as close as I could come to describing it.
A menacing growl answered the laughing males as I reached a small treeless patch in the woods. Clover had her back against a thick trunk at the opposite side of the clearing. She slid left to right then left again as two of the creatures blocked her chance at escape.
They weren’t wolves. They looked nothing like any kind of canine I had ever scene. They had black spots on their light brown coats. A thin mane of black fur lifted along their spine from halfway down their back to the top of their skulls where the mane flowered outward.
Pacing in front of Clover was the leader, a misshapen figure in his alpha state. The same spots and the same black mohawk of a mane ran from his head down his backbone.
Neither the leader nor his two pack mates had sniffed me out yet or sensed my alpha’s energy. Their attention was too focused on Clover.
Hyenas, I realized. A closer relative to me than the she-wolf they slathered over.
I had no idea what their strengths might be, had never encountered their kind or heard of their existence. The fur crawled along my back at the thought that I was going in blind. I’d faced a similar situation before, going one on one with a wolverine who, as a human, was shaped like a dwarf. His alpha state hadn’t been much bigger. I had tried to take it easy on the creature, my intent to turn him away and send him home with his alpha’s pride intact.
I had almost lost my life. The wolverine did lose his.
All I cared about at that moment was Clover, her escape, her life. My own didn’t matter. It was an instrument for her safety and nothing more.
Snarling, I leapt, my long cat claws slicing through the air to rip across the alpha’s throat as he turned. The beast fell back as the two betas pounced at me.
A shot blasted my ear drums. I heard the soft thump of a bullet entering flesh then the whelp of one of the betas as its jaws released their hold on my ankle. My claws still buried in the alpha’s flesh, I rolled, tearing at the shifter’s chest.
Clover took aim at the second hyena. She had hit the first one in its hind leg, forcing it to the nearest tree for cover. The second beta, bigger than the ot
her, didn’t try to run. He launched himself straight at her.
She fired, fear throwing the shot wide.
I leapt again, sank my claws into the attacking hyena’s hindquarters and twisted sharply. The shifter smacked into the trunk of a nearby tree, the force of my throw cracking its spine with an audible snap.
The bullet wound on the first hyena had healed. The alpha was struggling onto his feet, a blood filled howl gurgling in his throat. Clover’s third shot tore through his stomach. He staggered, but didn’t fall, the caliber of her weapon too small to be lethal on an alpha unless it ripped through his head or his heart. Maybe not even then.
The hyena with the broken back righted itself, shifting to its human form to reveal a dark skinned male. Together, the betas dragged their alpha toward the tree line as I grabbed Clover by the arm and ran in the opposite direction.
If the beta’s time to recover from Clover’s first shot was any indicator, then hyenas healed faster than wolves or mountain lions. It wouldn’t be long before all three of them could resume the hunt.
“Give me that,” I snarled, snatching at the gun in her other hand.
Surprising me, Clover didn’t protest, just kept pumping her legs and glancing wildly around. I steered her away from a boulder she was about to run straight into, then jerked her upstream when we reached a small creek.
“The Jeep is—”
“Not leading them to it,” I bit out. “First we make sure they lose our scent.”
We left the creek bed and headed up a small hill, the incline insufficient to offer us a superior view of our pursuers.
I lifted my nose, sniffing. Next to me, Clover caught the scent, too. It was faint, but soothing.
Yanking on her arm, I headed in a new direction then threw Clover down on the ground, the air leaving her in a whoosh. An explosion of wild mint surrounded us, the faint scent of a few seconds before now everywhere as the leaves were crushed beneath our weight. I rolled both of our bodies around the thick patch, covering our clothes and exposed flesh with the leaves’ oils.
More gently than I had tossed her down, I pulled Clover to her feet and took off running again. When we finally left the woods, we had covered the mile and a half from the restaurant and another mile beyond that. Surrounding us were car lots.
I tucked the pistol in the waistband of my ruined jeans, my gaze on Clover. She stood with her head down and her mouth shut. A moment of shame washed over me until I remembered we would be halfway back to Night Falls if she had a single reasonable bone in her lush body.
I pulled out my phone and dialed, my eyes still locked on her in case she decided to run again. She patted around for her own phone, mild surprise ghosting her features when she found it. She searched for her wallet next and found that, too.
Relief flooded through me. Nothing had been left behind that would lead the hyenas back to Night Falls. That was almost as important as having Clover next to me unharmed.
Turning away, I spoke to the person on the other side of the call, my voice tight and commanding.
“I’m at the Ford dealership on Apache Drive. I need an immediate pickup for me…and a friend.”
I hung up, put the phone away and grabbed Clover’s hand, my grip relentless.
“That stunt you pulled?” I rumbled.
She looked away, guilt and the long, frantic run leaving her face a mottled red.
Pinching Clover’s chin, I forced her to return my gaze, a warning on my lips.
“You will answer for it.”
Chapter 12
Clover
Two bikers from the local Woodsmen chapter showed up at the dealership five minutes after Joshua ended his phone call. I had to spend those minutes in suspense over what his plan was, my brain in shock and my tongue kinked up with shame.
And knowing what it was—that hot flush of embarrassment and remorse—pissed me off. I had every right to walk in public places without being pursued and attacked. But in the end, everyone would look at this as my fault. Braeden, the pack, Joshua…
Cutting off any thoughts about the cat shifter who had rescued me, I started to climb on the back of the nearest bike. Reeves stopped me. With a jerk of his head, he motioned the rider to dismount and ride with the other biker.
The guy looked at the torn clothes and seething blue eyes of the Woodsmen MC’s vice president and slithered over to his buddy’s ride.
Joshua tossed a long leg over the rundown Harley’s seat.
I kept a despairing groan locked in my chest. I was going to have to ride behind the big cat, my arms around his waist while his body still burned with fury over my attempted escape.
None of this had gone according to plan. There weren’t supposed to be any shifters in Buckley—not in the shops and not in some random location in the woods. If it wasn’t for the hyenas, I would have safely made it back to the Jeep or been stopped by Joshua, but without all the drama.
The fault belonged to the hyenas—not me.
Joshua glared at me across his shoulder until I climbed on the back of the bike. I searched for a solid place to grip that wasn’t part of his body. He didn’t give me the time to find one. He grabbed both of my wrists and pulled them forward, folding my arms around his lean frame. His hands smoothed along my outer thighs and hips to make sure I was properly seated and then he started the bike.
The baby Woodsmen followed after us, Joshua’s destination the new clubhouse that the Night Falls chapter had financed. It took about a dozen minutes and four stop lights to reach the place. When we got there, Joshua dismounted and pulled out the keys to my vehicle and his motorcycle from his jacket pocket.
“You’re looking for a blue Jeep on the south side of Walmart facing the building,” he said. “Bike is close by. Bring them both here, out of sight, and make sure you aren’t followed.”
The other rider reached for the keys, but Joshua pulled back.
“You packing?”
The man nodded and lifted the hem of his riding vest to display a huge ass semi-automatic pistol, its size and the fact that it was magazine fed leading me to conclude it was a .357 IMI Desert Eagle—the same kind that Mojo, the pack’s elk shifter, carried. The other biker repeated the gesture to reveal a snub-nosed revolver. Satisfied, Joshua tossed the keys then motioned me into the clubhouse.
Walking through the front door, I felt four pairs of eyes crawling over my body. The way the men looked at me, I had no doubt my arrival wouldn’t have been greeted with silence if Joshua wasn’t standing right behind me, his big head looming over my shoulder.
“This,” Reeves announced, “is your president’s little sister. He calls her Clover—you will call her Miss Hughes. Any questions?”
The men shook their heads, then one of them slapped his thigh and laughed.
“Yeah, boss. I got one.”
Joshua arched a brow. He looked like he was back to being the bored, indifferent cat he always presented as, but I knew better. I could feel the halo of energy emanating from his body, his alpha state simmering just below the surface of his skin.
The man who had slapped his leg leaned forward and pointed a beer bottle at each of us in turn.
“I wanna know why the hell you both smell like a pack of menthols!”
Chapter 13
Clover
Intent on humiliating me, Joshua grabbed one of the wooden chairs from the nearest table in the bar room and handed it to me. I looked at him, confused. He cleared things up by pointing at a corner.
Yeah—the asshole cat was making me carry my own damn chair over to the corner to sit in like a misbehaving toddler.
Human or shifter, the blame always landed on the woman.
I sat the chair down with a slam that earned a few chuckles. Maybe it was the slam that was so funny, maybe it was the fact that I didn’t face the seat inward. I was not—EN OH TEE, not—putting my nose in the corner.
Joshua, who had spearheaded the new chapter, was intimately familiar with each of the men. He o
rdered one of the baby Woodsmen to quickly clean up “the back room,” then he sat at one of the tables and talked to some graybeard until the baby Woodsman returned. I remained in my chair, glaring into space as Joshua stood and walked to the start of the hall that lead to the back of the clubhouse.
He gave an irritated push with his alpha energy. I bounced it back but stood up and walked over to him. Pissed as I was, this was my brother’s chapter. Even if I might never go back to Night Falls, I wouldn’t give these men an opening to challenge Braeden’s authority. They would lose, of course, but the potential consequences of their challenge were too much to contemplate.
Reeves opened the door on a small bedroom with its own bathroom. In addition to the bedroom set, a full length couch stretched along one wall from the corner to the doorframe. I looked at the room’s gray, windowless, walls, its furniture and bathroom. The biker who had been sent to clean it didn’t have my standards, but I figured I wouldn’t get bed bugs or a staph infection from a night or two.
“You do not leave this room without my permission,” Reeves snarled.
Taking a seat on the couch, I kicked my running shoes off and tucked my legs close to my chest.
“What if it’s on fire?”
The tanned cheeks paled as he shook his head. “Depends on whether you’re the one who started it.”
Taking a seat at the other end of the couch, he pulled out his cell phone and started texting.
I figured Braeden was the recipient and waited for the inevitable call or text from my brother bitching me out. When a quarter hour passed with two incoming texts to Joshua and none to me, I caved and snuck a peek at my phone’s signal strength. Seeing four bars, I placed the phone on the nightstand and returned to hugging my knees.