But it wasn’t the rifles that did them in—it was the forest. They came around a curve and into a large mud puddle. A wave of water went up on both sides of the tires, and then they slammed into a submerged root. The bike jolted and bucked. For a moment Emma thought they were going to be able to hold on, but then the back wheel hit the water again and slid out.
Jace instantly wrapped his arms around her and yanked her out of the seat. For a second they were flying through the air, and then they hit the ground together, Jace underneath. The force still knocked the breath out of Emma. They rolled over a couple of times before they stopped, Jace shielding her as best he could. The bike slid across the muddy ground and spun to a halt.
Emma rolled to a sitting position. “Jace? Are you okay?”
He sat up a little more slowly, coughing. “I think I might have cracked a rib.”
“Oh, ow,” Emma said. She winced. “How long does that take to heal?”
Jace shrugged gingerly. “Not long. I’ll be okay.”
She put her hand on his shoulder gently. “You just keep saving me today.”
He gave a half-grin. “You need it,” he said. “I never met anybody who could have so many near-death experiences in one day.”
She tried to smile. “I told you,” she said. “Danger Girl.”
He got to his feet and offered her a hand up. Then they went over to check the bike. Emma was horrified to see the rear wheel rim was bent.
“Shit,” Jace muttered. “There’s no way we’re getting any farther on that.”
Emma glanced over her shoulder. “What are we going to do?”
Jace bit his lip, and said, “Find a place to hole up, and then call Jesse. He can mobilize the pack to come and get us.”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t like getting more people involved in this,” she said. “These guys are dangerous.”
Jace cupped his hand around her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. “Don’t worry, darlin’,” he said. “So are we.”
She didn’t argue with him. Unless she wanted to walk to Idaho, or take her chances hitching on the side of the highway and just wait for Alexander’s men to pull up alongside, she didn’t have a lot of choices left. It wasn’t in her nature to depend on other people, but it felt surprisingly safe depending on Jace.
Jace lifted the bike and pushed it into a thicket of bushes. “No sense in leaving it for the bad guys,” he said. Emma quickly helped him gather brush to hide it, looking over her shoulder the whole time. When they were done, he pulled Emma’s bag off the back and handed it to her. She checked Alexander’s laptop. Luckily the bike hadn’t landed on it, and it didn’t seem to be damaged.
“Don’t you want your stuff?” she asked, when he didn’t move to take the saddlebags. Jace shook his head. “I’m going to have to shift,” he said. “I can’t take my saddlebags when I’m a wolf. And you can’t carry everything. You’ll be too tired.”
“Why do you have to shift?” she asked.
“Recon,” Jace said. “I can sense that these woods don’t go much farther, and I want to see what the terrain looks like after they end. And I want to see whether Grant’s guys followed us in here. I can go faster and sense danger better in my wolf form.”
Emma nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Should I—I mean, what should I do?”
He glanced at her. “Stay here, okay? Hide next to the bike. You have my gun, right?”
She nodded.
He paused, then added, “And do me a favor, pack up my clothes in your bag after I shift. I don’t really want to be running around naked if I have to change back.”
Right. That would be awkward. She nodded again. “Okay.”
She half-hoped she would get to see him change, but he ducked back behind the brush, looking self-conscious. After a few moments, the gray wolf appeared.
Holy moly, he was huge. He really was almost the size of a Shetland pony. No ordinary wolf could possibly be that big. And his teeth were enormous. He gazed at her with those golden eyes—so intelligent, so beautiful, and so deadly. It took her breath away.
She stood frozen, not knowing if he was friendly in this form, or how much of his human mind he retained when he was changed. Finally, he turned and melted silently into the woods.
Emma stood in the path for a minute, trembling, and then she leaned against a tree and let her breath out with a ‘whoosh.’ It was one thing to know Jace was a wolf. It was another to look into his eyes in his animal form. She didn’t know how to deal with that reality.
But standing here trembling wasn’t going to help anything. She took a deep, steadying breath and heaved herself off the tree. If Alex’s men were hunting her in these woods, she was going to be glad to have a wolf on her side before it was all over.
She dug Jace’s gun out of the bottom of her bag. Then she gathered up Jace’s clothes and boots, and stuffed them inside. It was a tight fit, but she managed to get everything in. Then she ducked in under the brush screen and hid herself as well as she could.
It seemed like forever until he came back. He came silently through the brush in human form, a rifle in his hands. He was totally naked, and just as beautiful in human form as in wolf form. His eyes were still golden.
He crouched down next to her, putting the rifle on the ground. “Crap,” she said, still startled from his sudden appearance. “Give a girl a little warning. It’s not every day I have naked men laying weapons at my feet.”
He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, pulling her forward for a quick kiss. She could see the glitter of excitement in his eyes, almost smell the fight adrenalin.
“So they are after us,” she said.
He nodded. “Two on the far side of this belt of trees. Another one was headed this way.” Jace indicated the rifle. “Don’t know where the fourth one is. Maybe still at the Humvee.”
“The one who was coming this way…he’s not anymore,” Emma said. It wasn’t a question. Jace shook his head. She closed her eyes. “God, I hate all this death.”
Jace kissed her again. “No death,” he said. “Dead guys they can leave behind, and just keep coming after us. But guys that need a hospital—they have to stop chasing us and get them medical attention.”
It made sense, but Emma still wished he’d said something more along the lines of, “I don’t kill unless I absolutely have to.”
Jace gestured to the rifle and said, “I don’t suppose you know how to use this? It has a way better range than my handgun.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Emma said. At Jace’s raised eyebrow, she said, “Danger Girl, remember?”
He grinned. “You’re beautiful when you’re deadly.”
Yeah. Awesome.
Jace waited while she stowed the handgun and slung the rifle over her shoulders. “Ready?” he asked. Emma nodded. “Okay,” he said. “These woods only stretch another couple of hundred feet in that direction. Then there’s an open field, less than a quarter of a mile wide, and beyond that a rocky ridge. If we can get over the ridge before they see us, they won’t know exactly where we went, and there may be somewhere we can to go ground on the other side—at least long enough to call in the cavalry.”
Emma rose to her feet. “Let’s do this,” she said.
Jace said, “I’m going to go back to wolf. My senses are better, and I can move faster if I need to defend us.”
Jace went out first, to make sure none of Alexander’s men were nearby. At his signal, she made her way out of the hiding place.
Jace was already in wolf form, and he took the lead, cutting directly through the woods to bring them out at the point nearest the ridge. As they paused at the edge of the trees, he looked at Emma with those enigmatic golden eyes, and a shiver ran through her. She knew she should run for the ridge, but it went against all her primal instincts to run when there was a wolf behind her.
He butted her with his head—a clear signal to get moving. Emma bit her lip, and then took off across the meadow.
She thought at first that Jace would be right behind her. It wasn’t until she glanced back, halfway across, that she realized he was nowhere to be seen.
She stumbled, and just barely caught herself before she fell. The rifle banged painfully against her hip.
Where was he? Had he abandoned her? She knew she should keep running, but she stopped and looked back. As she did, she saw two men in military fatigues step out of the forest. One of them pointed a rifle at her. The other one shouted at her to stop.
Emma ran.
She tried not to go in a straight line, zigzagging back and forth to throw their aim off like she’d done on the motorcycle. Her breath was coming in huge gasps and her legs suddenly felt like lead. She couldn’t afford to make this run any longer than it needed to be.
A bullet whined overhead—a warning, hopefully—and then she reached the cover of a big boulder. She threw herself behind it, maneuvering into a position where she could see out.
Jace, in wolf form, was fighting with one of the men. The other was lying motionless on the ground, his gun next to him.
He’d stayed behind to defend her. To watch her back. And now he was in danger—and still weak from his earlier wounds.
As she watched, Jace gave a vicious twist of his upper body, and the man he was fighting went limp. But the other man was climbing to his knees, aiming his gun straight at Jace.
Chapter 18
Jace twisted and crouched, teeth bared—and found himself gazing straight down the barrel of a gun.
This was it. He was done. He knew his shifter healing couldn’t stand up to a bullet in his brain, and his last thought, as he sprang forward, was an aching inner howl for Emma.
The crack of a gunshot rang through the air, and then Jace saw his opponent spin and fall, blood blossoming from a wound in his upper chest.
Jace swung around, his paws scrabbling on the ground. Emma was standing behind a boulder at the bottom of the ridge, rifle at her shoulder, still trained on his enemy.
His mate. His beautiful, glorious mate.
Neither of the men were dead, but they were both passed out. They wouldn’t be fighting back any time soon. Jace headed across the meadow at a dead run, his wolf legs eating up the ground like it was nothing. When he reached Emma he barely stopped, just started bounding up the ridge.
What he really wanted was to throw his arms around her and hold her close, but that would have to wait until they were safe and he could shift.
The two of them scrambled up the rocky slope, trying to keep behind as much cover as they could while they climbed. Finally, they slithered over the top of the ridge, and Jace could finally breathe again. Now they just had to find some place to go to ground, and pray his phone had enough bars to call the pack.
It was Emma who found the cave, pointing out the deep shadow in a nearly vertical rock face.
Jace went in first, to make sure that nothing dangerous—animal or human—was lurking in there. But it was dry and empty, a small stack of firewood, some ashes and a raggedy old blanket the only evidence that the cave had ever been used. But the scent on the blanket was old—no one had been near here in weeks, if not longer.
Jace shifted back to human form and called out softly to Emma. “It’s clear. Come on in.”
She walked in, blinking for moment as her sight adjusted. She let the bag and the rifle slide from her shoulders with a sigh of relief.
Jace said, “I’ll be right back. I just want to make sure they’re not following.”
She nodded wearily, and he ducked back outside, shifting to wolf form. He loped back up the ridge, crouching so that he could see over the top without being silhouetted against the sky. The two men he’d fought were still on the ground, but at least one of them was moving.
As he watched, another man moved out of the cover of the forest, staying low. He scuttled across to the first two men and examined the one Emma had shot. Then he pulled out a cell phone and made a call. Good. Hopefully he’d spend the rest of his day getting the fallen men to the hospital instead of chasing Emma.
Jace made his way back to the cave and changed once more before going inside. “It’s me,” he called softly, and then walked in.
Emma had spread the ragged blanket on the dirt floor and was sitting on it, back against the wall, rifle within arm’s reach. She looked dirty, exhausted, and absolutely beautiful. Jace stopped in his tracks.
Emma scrambled to her feet. “Hey, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Without thinking, he swept her up in his arms. “You have got to stop nearly getting killed,” he murmured into her ear.
He felt her breath hitch, and she wrapped her arms behind his neck. “Look who’s talking,” she said, her voice muffled. “You’re the one who got sliced up with a knife, and then nearly shot.”
She pushed back slightly, looking him in the face. “You’re okay, right?”
She brushed dirt away from the knife wounds on his shoulder. They had both closed up by this time, although the wounds were still red and angry, and he could tell the muscles hadn’t finished healing. “That’s amazing,” she said, running her fingers over the wounds.
Jace just stood still and breathed in the scent of her. Even dirty and sweaty, she still drove him crazy. The feel of her fingers smoothing the muscles of his arm, her soft breasts crushed against his chest, her black-fringed blue eyes dark with concern—for him.
Standing here naked, with her completely clothed, was incredibly erotic. He wanted to take her clothes off piece by piece, and hold her skin to skin, so close she would never want to leave. He wanted to touch her and taste her and make her his, bury himself in the burning core of her and make her cry out with pleasure and need.
He wanted so desperately to bond her that the rush of desire took his breath away.
Emma felt it too. He could tell the moment her awareness of his nakedness sank in, the way her body subtly adjusted itself against his, yielding and softening. The way her hand stroked the muscles of his chest, and the way her hips shifted against his growing erection.
Her lips parted, and she tilted her face up to his.
Their mouths crashed together in a frenzy of need and desire. Jace felt like he was drinking her in, cradling the back of her head in one hand while letting the other slide down the delicious curve of her back. She met him completely, her tongue twining with his, every soft touch sending shivers down his spine.
He wanted her so badly. He wanted her to gentle him, comfort him, love him with her feminine softness, and at the same time he wanted her to be his crazy hellcat and take her hard, the two of them falling off the cliff of desire together.
He moved his mouth down the side of her throat, kissing and nipping the exquisitely soft skin of her throat. She made a soft sound, almost like a whimper, and his erection tightened another notch.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. He pulled back and moved his hands to the hem of her t-shirt, looking into her eyes for permission. She gave a small nod, and he lifted the shirt over her head. She stretched her arms up so he could pull it off and toss it aside.
Her tits were amazing. Round and generous and perfect. Her bra was gone in a moment, and he cupped them in both hands, bending his head to worship them with licks and kisses. Emma tilted her head back and moaned, and he felt her nipples go hard. He sucked gently on first one, and then the other, and she rolled her hips and slid her hands down his stomach. He felt her hand close around his cock and stroke slowly, her thumb sliding over the small droplet on its tip. It was his turn to moan.
He leaned back slightly as she continued to stroke his shaft, cupping his balls with her other hand. She feathered kisses over his chest, taking her turn teasing his nipples with her tongue.
He loved the feel of her hand stroking him, but he wasn’t going to be able to take much of that. Not when he was on fire for her. He claimed Emma’s mouth again, and then slowly sank to his knees, kissing his way down her stomach. He undid her jeans and slid them do
wn, helping her step out of them. Then he reached up to her pussy and slid his fingers into her folds, feeling how slick and wet she was.
He stroked slowly, savoring the feel and scent of her, until she was writhing against the wall, her fingers entangled in his hair. Then he leaned forward and kissed her mound, sliding his tongue slowly over her clit.
“Oh my god,” she moaned. “Jace, please, I want you in me.”
All he wanted was to make her happy, to make her feel loved and desired and satisfied. She spread her legs further apart, and he slid two fingers inside her, stroking her pussy and kissing her clit, moving his tongue rhythmically.
Emma pressed into him. “Yes,” she moaned.
He could feel her muscles tensing as her climax built. Just as he felt her getting close to the edge, he rose to his feet and slid his hands under her ass, lifting her off the ground and settling her above his cock. She wrapped her legs around him as he thrust slowly into her, filling her.
He braced them against the wall, one hand under her gorgeous ass, and the other around her back, protecting it from the rough wall of the cave. He thrust slowly and rhythmically, drawing out the pleasure for both of them, and then she gasped and he felt her climax shudder around him, caressing him. He slowed and held her gently, kissing her cheeks, her neck, her closed eyelids, savoring her aftershocks, the way she clenched around him.
Then he began moving again, slowly at first, but faster and faster as is own desire flared. He wanted to touch every part of her, to move so deeply inside her that he touched her soul.
That place in his chest that had been burning ever since he met her began to feel like the sun had come up. He stroked her harder, losing himself in the rhythm and the sensation, wanting it to go on and on forever. He felt his own climax building, and hers along with it, deeper and more powerful until one final thrust sent them both over the edge, and he pulsed with one word reverberating inside him like a bell ringing in his soul.
Mate.
Gradually, Jace became aware of his surroundings. He moved from the wall and sank to his knees once more, laying Emma on the blanket. Disengaging from her was almost like a physical pain, and he fitted himself next to her, arms wrapped around her, trying not to lose that closeness.
Fugitive Mate (Silverlake Shifters Book 1) Page 9