Her Lone Wolf

by Paige Tyler

  Clayne leaped over Beth. He might not have as much momentum as the cat shifter, but he outweighed McDermott by thirty or forty pounds. Plus, he had the element of surprise.

  They hit each other so violently it should have broken bones and knocked them both unconscious, but it didn’t. Clayne hit the ground with a thud and a howl that probably sent every animal within miles running in fear. Every animal but the fucking cat shifter. He was on Clayne like lightning, raking at him with those vicious claws, aiming anywhere and everywhere he could.

  Despite being quick, however, the other shifter wasn’t a trained fighter. He depended solely on his instincts, which gave Clayne an advantage. He’d spent countless hours fighting with another feline shifter who was faster—and far more intelligent—than this one. And the one thing sparring with Ivy had taught him—don’t try and out-speed a cat shifter.

  Clayne rushed McDermott, letting the other shifter slice his chest with those sickle-like claws. The wound hurt but wouldn’t be fatal. It was a small price to pay to get close to the cat. Once he did, he grabbed McDermott’s shoulders in a crushing grip, letting his own claws sink in deep. Then he head butted him with all the force he had. The crunch, not to mention the caterwaul of pain that came with it, was damn satisfying.

  If McDermott was skilled at hand-to-hand combat, he would have immediately retaliated. But he didn’t counterattack. Instead, he responded like the pussy he was and lifted his hands to protect his face.

  Clayne ripped his claws from McDermott’s shoulders, ready to tear out his throat, but a flash of movement off to the side caught his attention. That was the only opening the cat shifter needed. He twisted aside and tore up the hill in the same direction he’d come.

  Every fiber in Clayne’s body wanted to go after the man, but he couldn’t leave Beth alone. What if McDermott doubled back around?

  Suppressing a growl of rage, Clayne ran over to where Beth still sat on the ground. She stared at him wide-eyed, fear in her eyes. Shit, she was probably as terrified of him as she was of McDermott.

  He started to shift back, but stopped when someone ran out of the trees into the clearing. He spun around, teeth bared, claws extended, but it was only Danica. She took one look at him and Beth before sweeping the uphill perimeter of the clearing with her pistol. Damn, Clayne had forgotten how fast she was at assessing situations.

  She fired off three shots at McDermott’s shadowy form as he disappeared up the hill but didn’t hit him.

  Tony emerged from the forest a few steps behind Danica. He stood there, his gaze fixed on Beth as if he couldn’t quite believe she really was safe and unharmed.

  “Beth!” Tony dropped to his knees beside his wife and pulled her into his arms. “Oh God, I thought I’d lost you. Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

  Beth was sobbing too much to answer. But Clayne could see the slashes on her arms and legs from where the cat shifter had used his claws on her. That was when Clayne realized Beth was only wearing a man’s pajama top that hung to her knees. Shit, she’d been running in this rocky landscape without shoes. He didn’t have to look at her feet to know they were a mess.

  But she was alive and that was the important thing. That didn’t do anything to assuage the fury welling up inside him. He bit back a growl and turned to head uphill. Danica was immediately at his side, her face as dark and angry as his.

  “Stay with them,” he ordered.

  Tony drew his gun. “We’re okay. Go with him, Danica.”

  * * *

  Danica was barely able to keep up with Clayne as he climbed the rocky slope. And that was only because he was moving slowly enough to let her. “Did you injure him enough to slow him down?”

  “I smashed in his face and about ripped out his shoulder muscles,” Clayne said softly.

  For a guy with claws and fangs that could rip a regular person to shreds, Clayne had a habit of using his head when he really wanted to damage someone. “Did you head butt him?”

  “I might have.”

  Usually, she got on his case when he did things like that, but it might actually help them this time. “So, I take it he can’t breathe too well, huh?”

  “Probably not,” Clayne said. “What are you thinking?”

  “That we need to stop him before he gets to the highway north of here. If his breathing is as screwed up as you say, you should be able to get ahead of him without him picking up your scent and herd him back this way.”

  Clayne frowned. “Toward you? No way. I don’t want him anywhere near you.”

  She swore. He could be so damn hardheaded sometimes. “Clayne, on the map there was a camping area up near the peak. I don’t want him anywhere near there when we take him down. Herd him back to me.”

  “If I do that, you won’t know where’s he’s coming from until the last second, you know that, right?”

  “But I’ll know where you are, so I’ll keep shifting left or right based on your position.”

  Clayne didn’t ask how she knew where he’d be. He simply took for granted that she could. She’d always liked that about him. He never doubted her.

  “I still don’t like it, but I see your point.” He stopped and caught her arm, bringing her to a halt. “Just be careful. This guy isn’t like any of the trained killers we’ve faced before. There’s no telling what he’ll do when he’s cornered.”

  “All the more reason to herd him in my direction,” she said. “Besides, I’ll be downwind of him. He won’t be able to smell me until it’s too late. If that nose of his is even still working.”

  Clayne’s fingers gently grazed her cheek, and then he was gone, moving up the hill like the graceful, powerful animal he was. Her graceful, powerful animal.

  Danica followed at a steady pace, staying slightly to the west in response to that subconscious locator she didn’t understand but accepted. If they were right about the killer’s location, Clayne should be turning him in her direction soon.

  She was halfway up the hill when she felt more than heard soft, careful footsteps moving toward her from the west. She spun to face that direction, her gun at the ready. Had McDermott somehow gotten down here without her hearing him? He must have caught her scent because those had been the quiet steps of an animal on the prowl, not one running for his life.

  Years of training with Clayne kicked in. She needed to find a clearing where she could see the shifter coming at her. It was the exact opposite of what instinct told a person facing a psycho killer to do, but hiding from a shifter was never an option. They’d always sniff you out.

  Danica hurried to higher ground, her heart thudding in her chest. Whoever came at her from the west would have to cover at least fifteen feet of open space to get to her. She dropped to one knee and scanned the tree line hoping to catch sight of movement when a loud noise to her right had her turning her .40 caliber in that direction just as a man came hurtling down the slope at her.

  He slid to a stop about thirty feet away. Blood covered his face and ran down the front of his shirt, but it was his curved claws that held her attention. They were so sharp and white they almost gleamed in the darkness.

  McDermott’s wild-looking gaze went from the gun in her hand to her face, then back again as if he was trying to calculate whether he could jump her before she could get a shot off.

  She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye that desperately made her want to check behind her again, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off McDermott. Clayne crested the slope behind him and came to a stop before slowly moving to the side so he’d be out of Danica’s line of fire.

  “Doesn’t look good that way, Ray,” he said softly.

  McDermott threw a quick glance at Clayne, sizing him up.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Clayne told him. “You could give yourself up.”

  The cat shifter ignored the offer, slowly sweeping his gaze back to Danica. He darted a quick look to her left, then her right, before focusing on something to her left again. Dammit,
was there someone back there or not? But if there was, Clayne would know it.

  McDermott leaped at her so fast she barely had time to react. She squeezed the trigger, putting two rounds through his chest even as she rolled to the side. Two more loud shots rang out, echoing in the darkness. Just because Clayne hadn’t had his weapon out when he crested the hill didn’t mean he couldn’t get it out when he needed it.

  Danica glanced briefly at the shifter to make sure he was down, then swept the edge of the tree line with her gaze, looking for whatever she’d seen earlier.

  Clayne was immediately at her side, his .45 targeted at the same general patch of undergrowth that held her attention. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.” Maybe she was just so keyed up she was seeing things. “Smell anything?”

  “Just him.” Clayne jerked his head at the body on the ground. “His scent is everywhere.”

  She shrugged and holstered her weapon. Clayne did the same, then fell into step beside her as she walked over to McDermott’s body. The shifter didn’t look nearly as intimidating now without his claws and fangs, both of which had retracted in death. Without them, he almost looked pathetic. She dropped to one knee to check for a pulse.

  “It’s hard to believe this is the guy who killed six men and ran us ragged,” she said.

  “Nobody looks tough with four bullet holes in him,” Clayne told her.

  She supposed not. “You’d better call in the cleanup team. The FBI will be here soon.”

  Clayne took out his DCO-issued satellite phone and switched it out of standby mode, then dialed. “Yeah, it’s done,” he said to whoever was on the other end. “You think you can find me, or should I come and get you?” He waited for an answer, then grunted and hung up. “Effing great.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “John sent Foley and Hightower.”

  Danica tried hard not to smile. The DCO director had a strange sense of humor when it came to personnel management. If there was one person at the DCO that Clayne hated—besides Dick—it was Foley.

  “You want me to wait here for them instead?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “No. It’s better if you deal with Carhart. You might want to check on Tony and Beth, too. They’re probably both freaked right now, and you have it all over me when it comes to handling stuff like that.”

  Danica thought he’d say that. Clayne was good at saving people, but talking to them afterward wasn’t his thing.

  She reached up to examine the four ragged claw marks across his chest. They’d stopped bleeding, but were definitely going to leave scars. Then again, he had lots of those.

  She gently pressed her hand to the wounds, right over his heart. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything,” she said. “For coming out here on this case, for saving Beth, for giving me a chance to fix something I’d screwed up, for still being willing to…love me.”

  She said the last part so softly she wasn’t even sure Clayne could hear it with his exceptional ears. Or if he’d admit it if he had. Guys like him had a hard time with that itty-bitty four-letter word.

  He didn’t say anything, just pulled her into his arms for a long, hard kiss.

  “Don’t bring the feds up here too quickly,” he said when he lifted his head. “This is Foley we’re talking about. He couldn’t find his ass with both hands. I may have to go get him.”

  Danica smiled. She almost wished she could stay and watch Clayne and Foley bitch at each other. Then it would really be like old times.

  * * *

  Foley and Hightower got there surprisingly fast—thanks to GPS, Clayne was sure. He resisted the urge to say something snide to Foley and simply watched the two men work instead. The faster they got done, the faster they’d be out of here.

  The DCO didn’t like the idea of leaving shifter DNA around where anyone could stumble across it, so while Foley injected the shifter with a drug that would make McDermott’s body go really ripe really fast, consequently making an autopsy useless, Hightower transferred the man’s fingerprints to a .38 Special and left it on the ground next to the body, then applied gunshot residue to his hands.

  Watching a cleanup team work always gave him the sinking feeling that the DCO could make anybody they wanted look guilty for just about anything. It made him glad he worked for the good guys.

  When he was done, Hightower fitted a metal glove—for lack of a better word—to the shifter’s right hand. Only there were four sickle-shaped metal claws where the fingers should be. It looked like something a comic book freak into Wolverine would wear to one of those crazy-ass conventions.

  “What the hell is that?” Clayne asked.

  Hightower grinned at him, his teeth white against his dark skin. “Nice, huh? I made it myself—with some tips from the techs. The claws will match the wound patterns in the previous victims exactly.”

  The DCO thought of everything. The FBI would go nuts if they couldn’t figure out how McDermott had slain his victims. Hightower had given them that answer wrapped with a bow. The scary part was that Hightower looked proud of his handiwork.

  “You really need a hobby, Hightower.”

  The other agent just chuckled.

  The feds showed up a few minutes after Foley and Hightower left. Clayne hung around just long enough to tell them what happened—“McDermott came at us and we had no choice but to shoot him”—then high-tailed it down to the trailhead.

  The area was teeming with police, FBI agents, park rangers, medical personnel, and reporters. He looked for Danica in all the confusion and found her talking to Carhart. As usual, he was pissed as hell. Clearly, he wasn’t buying her story about getting a last-minute tip on McDermott and their crappy cell phone reception.

  The vein in Carhart’s temple practically pulsed with anger. “You were supposed to control the situation.”

  “I tried, sir, but—”

  “I heard you the first time, Agent Beckett. You heard a woman’s screams and had to move,” he cut in. “But I’m not buying it, and I’m not going to forget it.”

  Danica opened her mouth, but whether it was to beg Carhart to reconsider or tell him to go to hell, Clayne would never know because the asswipe stormed off before she could get the words out.

  “Want me to go smack Carhart around a little bit for you?” Clayne asked in her ear.

  “If I didn’t know you were serious, I’d take you up on that.”

  Damn, she never let him have any fun. “Carhart’s probably full of hot air anyway.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. I disobeyed orders and embarrassed him. He meant what he said. He’s not going to let it go.”

  “You helped catch a serial killer. That has to count for something.”

  “Not enough. But on the bright side, now I won’t have to request a transfer to the DC office.” She gave him a small smile. “Come on. Let’s go see how Beth is.”

  Clayne would rather not face Tony and his wife after what they’d seen, but he couldn’t avoid them forever. They were Danica’s friends. He followed her over to the ambulance where an EMT was bandaging Beth’s feet.

  “That’ll do it for now, but you’re going to need stitches when we get you to the hospital,” the paramedic said as she finished up.

  Beth made a face at that but didn’t argue.

  “Can you give us a few minutes?” Tony asked the EMT.

  The woman glanced at Clayne and Danica, then nodded and walked off.

  Clayne tried to hang back, but Danica took his hand and tugged him forward. He waited for Beth to stiffen or cringe and shout, “Monster!” But she simply hugged the blanket close around her shoulders and leaned into the comfort of her husband’s embrace.

  “You’re pretty damn tough, running barefoot on this terrain,” Clayne said.

  “Not tough enough,” she said quietly. “He would have caught me if it weren’t for you.”

  Beth looked at Tony, somethi
ng unspoken passing between them. Tony pressed a kiss to her forehead, then looked up at Clayne. “Beth and I had a lot of time to talk after you and Danica went after that…thing. We both saw some stuff that didn’t make sense, but neither of us are going to say anything about that in our statements. As far as I’m concerned, you tangled with McDermott, giving me time to get my wife to safety, then you and Danica took him down.”

  Beth pushed her curly hair back from her face. “And I’ll just play the emotionally distraught victim and say I don’t remember what I saw.” She took Clayne’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “You saved my life tonight. Because of that, I’ll have a lot less nightmares knowing there’s someone like you out there to protect us from someone like him.”

  Clayne didn’t quite know what to say. He was pretty sure he blushed a little. Luckily, Tony saved him from embarrassing himself.

  “I saw you talking to Carhart,” he said to Danica. “Everything okay?”

  She recapped the conversation, adding, “I think I might be looking at a suspension.”

  Tony swore under his breath. “I’ll talk to Carhart, and if I can’t get him to see reason, then I’ll go over his head.”

  Danica smiled. “I appreciate the offer, but as vindictive as Carhart is, he’d probably only suspend you, too. And that’s not going to happen.”

  Tony regarded her thoughtfully. “What are you going to do then? Go back to Homeland?” He glanced pointedly at Clayne. “Or whatever organization it is you used to work for.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Danica said. “But now that Clayne and I are together, I am going to be moving back to DC.”

  Tony exchanged looks with Beth, who grinned. “We kinda figured that.”

  She looked as if she would have said more, but the EMT chose that moment to come back.

  “We really should get you to the hospital, Mrs. Moretti.”

  Beth sighed. “Okay, okay.” She looked at Danica. “Stop by the house before you and Clayne leave?”