by Paige Tyler
Three of those damn Westcott Security guards were standing outside the automatic glass doors, obviously stationed there to keep people out. Alex headed straight for them, letting out a long, deep growl and picking up speed as he closed the distance between them.
Three heads jerked up and looked in his direction, eyes widening in shock and amazement. One of the men threw himself to the side to escape Alex, while another froze, completely paralyzed by fear. The third man drew his weapon and started firing wildly in Alex’s general direction. Bullets smacked into the pavement around him. One nicked his right foreleg, but just barely. The guy was too freaked out to shoot straight.
The man was still shooting when Alex leaped forward and rammed his shoulder into the guy’s chest. The crush of the impact was loud, but not nearly as loud as the sound of shattering glass as the security guard flew backward and crashed through the automatic doors.
Alex spun around to face the other two guards before the glass had even stopped falling. One man was already running away, while the other finally reached for his weapon. Alex wasn’t going to give him a chance to fire it.
He lunged forward and swiped his paws across the man’s chest and arms, ripping through the fabric and skin underneath, sending the guard tumbling backward. The urge to rip into the fallen man was intense, but Alex ignored the animalistic instinct. This was taking too long already. He gave a low warning growl as the guard made a move to retrieve the pistol that had gone flying. The guy immediately scrambled to his feet and ran in the other direction.
Alex leaped over the fallen guard lying bloody and unconscious in a pile of broken glass, once more turning his attention to tracking Lacey’s scent. It was so close, he felt like he could reach out and touch her.
Then a new scent hit his nose, a scent that had the hackles on the back of his neck standing straight up and a vicious growl rumbling from his throat. He’d never smelled that particular scent before, but he knew exactly what it was—Lacey’s blood. It completely overrode every other scent in the building, making hers the only one that mattered.
Even though his wolf instincts screamed at him that there were other armed men in the building who would be coming for him any second, all he could think about was getting down the dimly lit main corridor of the surgical center to the heavy steel door at the end of the hall where his werewolf nose told him the scent of blood was strongest.
That single-minded focus almost cost him as two men stepped out of the stairwell doorway near the reception desk and started shooting the moment they laid eyes on him. There was another man in the stairwell too, but that one turned and headed back upstairs.
The two men who stayed seemed to be more determined than the security guards outside. Their hearts might be beating at a hundred miles an hour, but they didn’t let it show as they took aim and did their best to kill him.
Alex ran right at them, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. He felt himself get hit, once in the chest, another in the left shoulder, and a third creasing a line down his right side. The bullets stung, but just barely. He wondered if that meant the wounds weren’t serious or if his wolf form was just better at ignoring the pain.
He slammed hard into one of the men, knocking him backward into the reception desk. As the man rebounded, Alex raked his claws across his neck. Blood flowed freely, but he paid no attention to it as he spun and lunged at the second guard. That one went down just as fast.
Sidestepping the bloody mess he’d made, Alex turned and headed for the far metal door again, only to have to stop as the elevator doors about halfway down the corridor opened with a ding and a clank of metal.
Alex recognized the scent before the guy even stepped out of the elevator. It was the man who’d cut the throats of the dogs he and Lacey had found.
When the man finally stepped into view, pistol in hand, Alex wasn’t shocked to see that it was Pendergraff. In all the times Alex had encountered the man, he had never caught his scent. Now that he had, it didn’t surprise him in the least that the man was a dog-killing piece of shit.
As Alex moved toward Pendergraff, he realized the man had another scent on him besides his own—Lacey’s blood.
Snarling in rage, Alex sprinted toward Pendergraff.
The man didn’t run but instead started shooting at Alex. Bullets ripped through his body, but he was too mad to pay any attention to them. He lunged for Pendergraff’s throat, not caring how many times he was hit.
Pendergraff threw his free arm up in front of his face to protect his throat, leaving Alex no choice but to clamp on that. He bit down until bones crunched, but Pendergraff didn’t even make a sound. Instead, he moved his gun until it was pressed against Alex’s chest, then squeezed the trigger. Alex howled in pain, releasing Pendergraff’s arm.
The world started to go black, and for a moment, Alex was sure the man had just put a bullet through his heart. Werewolves could absorb a lot of damage, but a bullet through the heart would kill any of them, and it didn’t have to be a silver one.
Pendergraff smiled up at him, as if he enjoyed hearing Alex’s grunts of pain. Just thinking of what this sick, sadistic bastard might have done to Lacey—and what he would certainly do to her if Alex didn’t finish this—was all the motivation Alex needed to drive back the wave of unconsciousness threatening to overwhelm him. Growling through the pain in his chest, he lunged for Pendergraff’s throat while the man was busy gloating.
Eyes widening, Pendergraff cried out in terror, but that lasted for only a gurgling second as Alex closed his jaws over the man’s throat and bit down, shaking from side to side to make sure the asshole never hurt another woman—or dog—again. Considering Pendergraff’s crimes, the punishment seemed to fit.
Leaping over the man’s still body, Alex charged for the steel door at the end of the hall. He slammed his shoulder into it at full speed, even though the impact almost made him black out again. The door completely tore off its hinges and slammed to the floor, sliding several feet with him on top of it.
The room was dark, but Alex had no problem seeing that it was some kind of a medical supply room with metal racks full of boxes and bottles. Lacey stood in the middle of the room, her eyes wide, a long metal rod from an IV stand held firmly in her hands.
Alex’s heart almost seized up at the sight of her. Not just because she was alive and well, or even because she was so beautiful, it took his breath away, but because she was standing there holding a makeshift weapon, ready to beat the first person who walked in the door. She was amazing.
Then the heavy scent of her blood hit him, and he realized that there was a lot of it matting the hair on the right side of her head. So much that some had flowed down and soaked the shoulder of her shirt.
He took a step toward her, only to stop when her eyes widened to the size of teacups. That was when he remembered he was still a frigging wolf. He was freaking her out.
All he wanted to do right then was run over and hold her and never let go, but he couldn’t.
“Alex?” she asked slowly, taking a tentative step forward.
He tried to make the most nonthreatening sound he could, but it came out as a guttural chuff.
She moved another step closer and reached out her hand. He found himself moving to meet her without thinking if he should.
Lacey threw her makeshift weapon to the floor with a clatter, running the last few feet between them to drop to her knees in front of him and wrap her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into his neck. Then she started to cry, great wracking sobs that tore through him like another bullet to the chest.
Emotions surged through Alex, deeper and more powerful than anything he’d ever felt in his life. The realization of just how frigging much he loved her couldn’t have been any more obvious to him if it had been spelled out in neon. He knew that Lacey probably wouldn’t ever get to a place where she felt the same, but right then,
all he wanted to do was wrap his arms around her and squeeze her tightly.
That was a little tough to do in his current form, but as he stood there leaning into her hug, imagining what it would feel like to wrap his arms around her again, he felt the shift come over him.
Lacey stumbled back and fell on her butt when the first spasm hit his muscles. Then she sat there wide-eyed as his bones cracked and twisted back into a human shape.
Maybe it was just his imagination, but it didn’t seem like the shift was quite as traumatic going in this direction. It definitely didn’t hurt as much.
The moment the shift was done and Alex was kneeling there on the floor, naked on his hands and knees, Lacey grabbed him again and threw her arms around his shoulders. She squeezed him tightly, and it felt even better now than it had before. He knew it was all about her being grateful he’d come to save her and her sister, but it still felt good anyway.
Almost immediately, she pulled back and started to say something. Then she stared at his chest in wide-eyed shock. “Oh God! You’re bleeding!”
He looked down and realized Lacey was right. He had four holes in his chest—one damn near his heart, two in the left shoulder, and one along the right side of his rib cage. He was a bloody mess.
Fortunately, all but one of those shots had punched right through him. While none of them felt very good, a werewolf’s body could heal almost any wound as long as the bullet wasn’t still in there. The bullet stuck in his shoulder hurt the worst. He’d need to get in there and dig the thing out before it could clot up and stop bleeding. But for right now, he was content to just hold Lacey.
“I’ll be fine,” he whispered softly as he looked around for Kelsey. The sooner they got out of here, the better their chances were of not being caught by the police when they responded to all these shots being fired. He would have one hell of a time explaining what he was doing here all bloody—and naked—with a clinic full of ripped-up thugs and security guards.
But it was as he was looking around the shadows of the small storage room that he realized he couldn’t pick up Kelsey’s scent anywhere. He might not be in his wolf form now, but he should still be able to smell her.
“Where’s Kelsey?” he asked urgently.
Panic filled Lacey’s eyes. “Didn’t you save her first? I thought the other members of your pack were with her.”
Alex’s heart started pounding, and he could feel his fangs sliding out again. “No. I’m here by myself. Did you see where they took her?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. They were wheeling her away on a gurney when Pendergraff shoved me in here. They’ve taken her off to surgery. Alex, we have to find her!”
Alex shook his head. Though every instinct in his body screamed for him to stay here and protect Lacey—or at least get her out of the building first—he knew he couldn’t do that. He had to find Kelsey before he did anything else. Before it was too late.
“Correction,” he said. “I’m going to find her. You’re going to stay here.”
“But—”
“Lacey, I can’t focus on finding your sister if I have to watch out for you,” he told her firmly. “Stay here. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
“Hurry,” she begged. “Please.”
Alex ran out of the storeroom, scooping up Pendergraff’s pistol before slamming open the door to the stairwell and racing up the steps. He didn’t know which floor Kelsey was on, but his gut told him that if he followed the scent of the last man who’d gone up these steps, he’d find her.
* * *
Lacey tried her best to stay calm but failed. How could she be calm after everything that had happened in the last few minutes? She’d thought she couldn’t get any more freaked out than when Pendergraff had tossed her in this storage room and wheeled her sister toward the elevator. She’d been trying to use a piece of metal she’d gotten from an IV stand to wedge open the heavy steel door when she heard shooting and growling coming from the hallway. She’d known instinctively it was Alex, though she didn’t have a clue how he’d found her so fast.
When the door finally burst open, it was all she could do not to scream when she’d seen a wolf the size of a small horse standing there. She wasn’t sure how she’d known it was Alex, but she did. There was just something about the way he looked at her that convinced her the huge gray wolf was the man she loved.
She’d gotten a little emotional then, overwhelmed by the realization that she had yet to fully grasp that there was nothing Alex wouldn’t do for her, whether it was staying with her even when she stupidly tried to push him away or shifting into a wolf so he could smash through a steel door to save her.
Earlier today, she’d tried to find the right time and the right words to tell Alex how she felt about him, but then Pendergraff had grabbed her, and she realized she might never get a chance to say anything to him ever again. So, she’d dropped to her knees in front of him and wrapped her arms around that big, muscular, furry neck, intending to tell him everything. But then reality had intruded, first when Alex had changed back into his human form and she saw that he’d been shot multiple times, then when he’d asked where Kelsey was.
With those simple words, he proved that none of this was over yet.
Now Alex had run off to save her sister while she stood there terrified that she was about to lose the two most important people in the world to her.
Lacey jumped as gunfire suddenly echoed somewhere upstairs. Crap. She knew she’d promised Alex that she’d wait here, but that was before whoever was up there with him and Kelsey started shooting. She’d never forgive herself if anything happened to them.
Heart pounding, she ran out of the storage room, desperate to find the stairs. She could have taken the elevator, but that would mean stepping out of it into the middle of a gunfight—if she were lucky enough to guess which floor to get off on.
She hesitated when she came to Pendergraff’s bloody body lying in the middle of the hallway. While she knew Alex had torn out the man’s throat, she simply couldn’t find it in her to care. Pendergraff had been a vicious killer, and Lacey couldn’t help thinking he’d gotten exactly what he deserved.
Edging around Pendergraff, she continued down the hallway, finding two more bodies before seeing the door to the stairs. There were two pistols lying on the floor beside the dead men, and for a moment, she seriously considered picking up one of them. She immediately dismissed the notion. She had no idea how to use a pistol and wouldn’t be able to hit anything she aimed at, even if she could get the thing to work.
No, the best thing she could do was sneak upstairs, find Kelsey, and get her out of the building. Then there wouldn’t be any need for Alex to fight every single killer in the place.
Lacey had barely entered the stairwell when her plan went to hell as Peter DeYoung came running down the stairs toward her. Anger surged through her. After helping Pettine kidnap Kelsey and the other girls, making and selling drugs, disposing of animals killed in the dogfighting ring, this jerk thought he could simply walk out of here? Not if she had anything to say about it.
She was ready to kick him in the balls if she had to in order to stop him. But then she saw the fire extinguisher mounted on the wall just beside the door and decided that would work even better.
“Get out of here, lady!” he shouted at her. “There’s some kind of monster up there.”
Lacey yanked the fire extinguisher from its wall mount and jerked out the pin. At least this was one weapon she knew how to use.
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “And you’re it.”
DeYoung’s eyes widened as she pointed the nozzle straight at him, then squeezed the handle. The white powder spray hit him full in the face. He immediately threw up his hands to shield himself, but all he did was lose his balance and end up falling down the last few stairs in a tumble.
He cursed and jumped to his
feet, then came at her. Getting a firm grip on the handle of the fire extinguisher, she swung it hard at DeYoung’s head. The impact echoed in the chamber of the stairwell long after he fell on his worthless ass.
Lacey stood over DeYoung, ready to hit him again if he got up, but the doctor was slumped against the stairs, out cold. She started to drop the empty fire extinguisher, but then thought better of it. She wasn’t going to be caught without a weapon again.
Stepping over DeYoung’s unconscious body, she ran up the steps, ready to kill the next person who tried to hurt the people she loved.
* * *
Alex heard the councilman shouting long before he reached the fourth-floor stairwell.
“I’m telling you, there’s no fucking wolf in this building, you moron,” McDonald insisted. “It’s probably one of those damn SWAT cops with a dog from the K-9 unit. Get down there, finish off both of them, then get this place cleaned up before the rest of the DPD shows up from all this damn shooting. The surgery needs to go off without a hitch, or I’m out five million dollars.”
Alex’s blood went cold at the word surgery, his fangs and claws slipping out even further. Please God, don’t let me be too late.
His bones and muscles started to twist and crack again as his body responded to the anxiety by trying to shift again, but he clamped down on the urge. He didn’t know what he would have to do to save Kelsey. His capacity for violence as a wolf was useful but not nearly as useful as having opposable thumbs.
His nose—which seemed to be working a whole hell of a lot better since he’d gone through a full shift—told him there were at least four men in the hallway before he even yanked open the door and charged into the hallway.
McDonald and the other men were standing in front of a set of swinging doors with a sign over them that read Operating Rooms 1 and 2. Kelsey was in one of them. Getting to her was the only thing that mattered now.
All three men stared at him like they’d seen a monster. Alex supposed he couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t every day they came face-to-face with a six-foot-four, armed and naked man, sporting fangs and claws, not to mention covered in blood. He probably looked like something out of a nightmare.