by Bianca D'Arc
She knew she’d never forget it. Not as long as she lived. But she wasn’t saying that out loud. Not where Steve could hear. He seemed overconfident enough as it was. She gave him a nod of acknowledgement and a smile instead.
The air shimmered and where Steve had stood, suddenly a tawny furred mountain lion sat on his haunches. The shift was slightly different than what she’d seen when Seth had become a wolf for her. It was quicker for one thing. More of a blur. Maybe Seth had gone slow to show her the various stages. Or maybe he was just young and inexperienced. This shift from man to cougar looked seamless and almost instantaneous.
“That is so amazing,” she said without thinking.
Steve loped over to her, sniffing at her hand, and then her torso. When he tried to put that big cat nose between her legs, she scooted away, laughing.
“Be on your way, you mangy cat,” Jason said with laughter in his voice.
Steve put his nose in the air as if offended and walked away, tail swishing like a flag behind him.
Sally watched with rapt fascination as Steve Redstone walked back into the woods. He paused on the edge of the clearing to stretch, digging his claws into a tree, then he took off at a lope. Within seconds, he was gone.
“I was going to show you around up here but something is telling me to check out Yellowtail Ridge as quickly as possible. You don’t mind, do you?” Jason looked torn.
“Not at all. I, of all people, understand the necessity of keeping people safe from bad guys. Though I really feel like you got cheated here.” She stepped close enough to place her hand on his chest, moving it slowly downward. He stopped her midway, before she could get to the really interesting parts.
“Can I take a raincheck?”
“Most definitely.” She smiled at him, leaning up to place a little kiss on his strong jaw. “Now let’s go check out that ridge. I’ll feel better after we have, and I’m pretty sure you will too.”
Jason leaned down to place a smacking kiss on her lips. She wanted more, but she understood his urgency. Her cop instinct was telling her they needed to get up to that ridge before somebody got hurt.
Jason led her back past the waterfall and they mounted the bike in short order. The drive up to the ridge took about a half hour considering they had to follow winding mountain roads. Time enough to cool down a bit. Her head cleared and she wondered who the wanton of the past hour was and where she’d come from. Sally had never encountered that part of herself before. It was disturbing, but also very freeing.
Only with Jason had she ever felt so alive, so daring. He brought out the bad girl inside and invited her to play. She’d never been so brazen or climaxed so hard. Jason had given her that, without taking anything in return. Poor guy. She vowed to make it up to him as soon as possible. As soon as they took a look around and were sure everyone was safe and there was no danger to Jason’s Pack.
She’d bet it was a lot easier to get to the ridge if you could climb straight through the forest. That was probably why Jason was so worried about one of his Pack members running around up there. There was little doubt in her mind that this ridge was part of their regular territory. If not, Jason wouldn’t be so worried and his worry wouldn’t be communicating itself to her so strongly.
As they approached, even the trees felt anxious to her. Sally didn’t know why, but she’d always been sensitive to green, growing things. Her garden was her place of solace and she had some peculiar talents when it came to plants. Trees sometimes spoke to her. Not in words, of course, but they communicated nonetheless.
They were doing so now as she hopped off the bike and headed for the woods. Somehow she knew where to go.
Bang. The first shot rang through the alarmed forest.
She crouched low in reflex and drew her weapons. She had the service revolver out of its holster faster than a blink and a backup she’d kept in a special compartment in her jacket only a second or two later. Even though she was technically on vacation, she had gone through the proper procedures to make it legal to carry concealed in this state. Her badge had helped considerably and she didn’t feel quite so naked without her weapons. Over the years, they’d come to symbolize security and independence to her. Armed, she could take on just about any situation. Unarmed, she was much more of a target.
She crept through the bushes, listening intently to the forest and the incongruous sounds of men within, shooting at something. No, wait. They were shooting at someone.
Jason was at her side. He nodded when he saw her two weapons, one in each hand. She’d trained to shoot with both hands and found it came in handy every once in a blue moon. Today seemed like one of those days, unfortunately.
“Do you hear that?”
They were quite a distance from where the shot had originated but faintly, coming closer, she could make out the sounds of someone scurrying through the underbrush. Crawling, most likely. She nodded toward the faint sound. Jason took off, still crouched as low as a big man like him could go. Sally followed.
Then she smelled it. The faint copper of freshly spilled blood. That poor soul she’d sensed through the trees had been hit. Dammit!
“Alpha?” the female voice was barely a whisper, faint with pain and fear. Jason changed course to a dense cluster of bushes set amid a few larger sized tree trunks.
He dove in and Sally followed. Inside the dense cover of the bushes, a young girl lay bleeding from a bullet wound in her thigh. Jason moved quickly to staunch the flow of blood while Sally kept an eye out for the bastards who’d shot the youngster. The kid couldn’t be more than fourteen but she was already as tall as Sally.
“You’d better shift, Colleen. The bullet will come out in the shift and you can run to the Pack house while Sally and I take care of these guys.” Sally heard his low-voiced words though she knew they wouldn’t carry beyond the circle of bushes that surrounded them.
“Give me her jacket,” Sally said, thinking fast. “We’re about the same size.” Sally was already shrugging out of her own leather jacket.
“What have you got in mind?”
“You don’t want them to know they actually hit her, do you?” Sally thought not. “I’ll keep them busy and hopefully put the fear of God Almighty and the law in them while you mop up and call the sheriff on your cell phone. You do want to report this, don’t you?”
“Damn right I want to report this.” Jason’s face was grim as the teen shed her clothes and began the painful shift to her wolf form.
He handed her the girl’s jacket and Sally shrugged into it, transferring a few things from her own pockets into the girl’s jacket. Jason’s eyebrows rose when her handcuffs jingled as she moved them, but he didn’t comment. He rolled up the girl’s jeans and shirt, along with Sally’s discarded leather jacket. He also collected the bullet when it popped out of the girl’s thigh as she shifted form. Colleen stood on four legs, favoring one of her hind legs, but she wasn’t bleeding any longer and looked like she could run. Sally was relieved. The sooner the girl got out of here, the better.
Sally checked her own phone. “I don’t have any reception up here. Do you?”
“No. I’ll have to climb a little higher to get the call out. Will you be okay?”
“I can handle a couple of hunting yahoos, but don’t take too long. I’ll hold them while you clean up and make the call.”
Jason looked uncertain but clearly there was little alternative. “The Pack house is over the ridge. If you need to make a run for it, head due south until you hit a dirt road, then follow that west. The Pack house is off that road. You can’t miss it.”
“Got it. But I really doubt it’ll be necessary. Get her out of here.” She gestured toward the trembling wolf. “I’ll take care of the perps until you get back.”
“There are at least three of them,” Jason warned before leading the girl out of the bushes. “Be careful.”
Sally only nodded, her mind on the job, her senses open to what the trees were telling her. She didn’t want to cont
radict Jason, but there were four men scouring the woods for the girl. And they were drawing near. It was almost showtime.
Sally ducked out of the bushes, guns in hand and at the ready. She deliberately let herself be seen by the closest goon. Just a flash of jacket, that’s all. But it was enough. Five seconds later, a shot rang out, hitting the tree behind which she hid.
“Cease fire!” she yelled. “Cease fire! What the hell do you think you’re doing taking potshots at people?” She injected as much righteous outrage as she could into her tone. She’d learned a lot about bullies over the years. Often, if you stood up to them, they backed down. Especially when you were the one carrying the badge. “I’m a police officer,” she yelled. “Stand down or I’m going to start shooting back and somebody’s going to get hurt. And it ain’t going to be me. That I can guarantee.”
“She’s not a cop,” one of the jerks protested to the other.
They’d taken cover when she threatened retaliation, but she knew exactly where each of the bastards was hiding. Three were ranged directly in front of her. One was up a tree but he didn’t have a good vantage point to see where she was holed up.
The guy in the tree had been setting up a tree stand. It was a hidden nest that hunters sometimes used to wait for prey without being seen. There was a rope dangling down from the tree with a pack on the end. An idea began to form in Sally’s mind about how she might use that to her advantage.
“I am a San Francisco police detective here on vacation. My boyfriend is calling the local sheriff to report this. I doubt he’ll take kindly to a bunch of yahoos out in the woods shooting at anything that moves.”
“Look, lady,” one of them yelled, “we don’t want any trouble with the law.”
“You should have thought of that before you started shooting at people. Place your firearms on the ground and come out with your hands where I can see them. I won’t ask you again. I can’t believe you shot at me—twice! What the hell were you thinking?” Outrage, and as much authority as she could manage, rang in her words.
“Thought you were a wolf,” the one on the right mumbled as he gave in and followed her instructions.
A rather dull-looking, middle-aged man stepped out from behind the tree and dropped his rifle, raising his hands in surrender. The other two on the ground followed suit. They were quite a bit younger than the guy on the right, but looked like they might be related to him. Perhaps they were his sons or nephews. There was a strong family resemblance.
“Now you in the tree,” she called out, allowing her right hand, holding a shiny silver pistol, to be seen around the tree. “Come down and let’s talk about this like civilized people.”
“Or what? You gonna shoot me, girlie?” The man in the tree yelled down at her. Figured he’d be the holdout. “You’re outnumbered. There’s four of us and only one of you.”
“Maybe so,” she admitted. “My boyfriend had to go in search of a signal to make the call way up here on the ridge, but he knows something you don’t.”
“Yeah, what’s that?” tree man taunted.
She took the shot she’d been thinking about since she saw that rope. The bullet left the chamber and sliced the rope in two, dropping the contents of the pack on the ground with a loud clang.
“I don’t miss.” She’d made her point. “Now get down out of that tree or I’ll plug your ass. I’ve had more than enough provocation, don’t you think?”
The man scurried down the tree so fast it was almost comical. Sally stepped from behind her tree only when she was sure all four men had their hands up and weapons on the ground far enough away for comfort. She felt some satisfaction when they saw her jacket—the one the girl had been wearing—and their eyes widened. They’d gotten more than they bargained for on this hunt. Their prey had escaped and filling in was a much more dangerous predator. One with a badge and the skill, and will, to back it up.
She covered them with both handguns, one in each hand, until Jason showed up. He took a hard look at each of the men and she felt a little thrill of elation as they backed down, inch by inch. The tree guy was the most hardheaded of the lot, but he was no match for the Alpha wolf. Even he couldn’t hold Jason’s gaze for long.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Jason was playing his part to perfection. And wonder of wonders, a .357 Magnum had appeared in his hand. A big ass gun for a big son of a gun. It fit him to a T. He added his firepower to hers and she dared the four yahoos to put a toe wrong now.
“I’m good, now that these idiots have stopped shooting at us.”
Jason and she knew well and good that the girl had been their true target. They were bewildered now, seeing Sally in the kid’s jacket. Colleen and Sally looked enough alike to confuse the issue. They both had medium-length brown hair and a tall build. Hopefully that would be enough to convince these guys they really had shot at Sally and not her lookalike.
They both heard the sound of an engine in the distance. The sheriff must’ve had someone nearby to get here this fast. Sally heard two sets of footsteps make their way through the underbrush. Jason called out when it was clear to all that somebody was in the woods with them. Luckily, they weren’t too far from the road.
The two policemen took over with calm competence. They took the hunters into custody when Sally said she wanted to press charges. One of the deputies asked about her permit to carry concealed in their state and she was able to produce the appropriate paperwork from her wallet. Likewise, they asked about Jason’s permit and he did the same. They seemed to know Jason, but the investigation into the incident was carried out with all the professionalism she could ever hope to find.
In short order it was determined that only two of the rifles had been fired. Those belonging to the older guy who’d been on the ground and the tree guy. Both were taken into custody and put in the back of the patrol car so they could be taken down to the station for processing.
As they were being loaded into the car, Sally thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye. It looked like a tattoo on the tree guy’s wrist. A tattoo she’d seen before. Once before. And it had gotten her in a heap of trouble and embarrassment at the time. She wasn’t about to call attention to it now, and there was no way to discreetly alert Jason so he could take a look. Regardless, it was gone in a flash when the man’s long sleeve settled back into place as he sank into his seat.
Sally would to try to get a peek at the police report the next day. That would list any identifying marks on the perps—birthmarks, scars, tats, piercings and the like. That would confirm what she thought she’d seen.
She hoped the local cops threw the book at these two. Assault with a deadly weapon was a likely charge, as was negligence and a few other things the locals might tack on. It wouldn’t keep them long, but it was likely the two men would be overnight guests of the county, for which Sally was thankful.
She gave her preliminary statement to one of the deputies and was asked to go to the station the next day to be interviewed in more depth. Fine with her. She wanted this incident on these guys’ rap sheets. You couldn’t go hunting people, for goodness’ sake. Even if they were people who could transform into animals.
The two younger men were strongly cautioned to pack up their gear and leave. They hadn’t done any shooting so they couldn’t be charged, but the deputies made it clear they weren’t welcome to camp up on the ridge and would be watched by extra vigilant patrols if they chose to stay. Sally hoped they took the hint and moved on.
Sally and Jason left when the patrol car did, following them down the ridge road until it came to a crossroad. Jason steered his motorcycle onto another country road while the patrol car continued toward town. Sally felt a weight lift off her shoulders as the two jerks in the back of the patrol car drove out of sight. For tonight at least, the woods would be safe for man and beast alike.
Though traumatic, the whole incident took less than two hours. It was nearing dinnertime when Jason pulled the bike to a stop in front of a huge, mo
dern home set back in the woods.
“Welcome to our Pack house,” he said as he climbed off the bike after her and unfastened his helmet.
Again, he took hers and stowed them on the side of the bike while she fluffed her hair. It was a mess after all she’d been through today, not to mention the flattening it took from repeated helmet use. She must have looked a fright, but Jason didn’t seem to mind. He had a sort of smug pride as he walked with her up the steps to the beautiful home.
A few children played on the wide porch. They all greeted him respectfully as they passed and stared at Sally with wide eyes. She wondered idly if they’d never had a human guest here before.
When he ushered her into the doorway, a trio of shocked faces met her appearance. One was an older woman with gray hair and wrinkles. The other two were younger females, one with a baby on her hip, the other shooting daggers at Sally with her eyes after she saw the possessive hand Jason had around her waist. A rival, then. Sally didn’t much care for the woman’s obvious attitude but she really shouldn’t have worried. Sally was only there for two weeks. After that, the wolf bimbo could have Jason all to herself if she wanted.
Why that thought hurt so much, Sally didn’t care to examine at the moment. The old woman overcame her shock first as Jason introduced her.
“Sally, this is Mother Josepha. She’s one of our elders and the backbone of the Pack.” It was clear he complimented the woman from the way she beamed. “Mother, this is Detective Sally Decker, the Mistress’s friend from San Francisco.”
The old woman shook Sally’s hand with a sort of cautious welcome, but it was still a welcome, which was more than could be said of the bimbo. The woman with the baby had tempered her response and now watched with nothing but eager curiosity. Jason cut short the introductions by the simple expedience of asking about Colleen.
“She’s all right,” Josepha assured them. “She came limping in a little while ago and is being coddled by her mother and aunts. She won’t have any permanent injury and you can be sure her father will be talking to her later about prowling around alone at her age.”