by Terry Spear
She considered her options. No way was she taking a troublesome, newly turned lupus garou with her. Yet, she assumed that if she tried to leave without him, he'd tell the world. If she took him with her, she'd have to ditch him somewhere along the way, and that wouldn't be safe for any of their kind. Or for him, either.
"Hurry up, Cassie," he said, his tone ominous. "You have a second to decide, or I sound the alarm that you're running away in Leidolf's sports car." He tilted his head to the side a little. "And I could use some good points with Leidolf about now."
Hell, no way did she want to take this guy with her. He couldn't cope in the least if she were to leave him on his own alone somewhere. She doubted she could trust him to help her or keep quiet or not get himself shot by accident.
When she still didn't decide, he tried a more coaxing approach. "You're like me, newly turned. And I know you don't want to stay here. They'll force you to. You know it. So we can work together."
"Get in," she growled. Why weren't this guy's keepers making sure he stayed put?
"Thanks, I owe you. Then again..." he said, pausing as he rushed around to the other side of the car and yanked it open, "...I figure you owe me because I can watch your back."
Yeah, right. She'd be doing all the work, trying to keep both their butts out of the fire. She held her hand out for the keys.
He hesitated to give them to her. "Don't try to pull anything. I'll be watching you."
"What in the world do you think I can do? Wreck the vehicle? Not on your life. The insurance cost would eat me alive." She started the engine and backed out of the garage.
The engine purred, and she thought how much she could get used to driving in luxury like this. When she tried to drive forward on the gravel road, the car bucked and stopped dead. She stared at the controls and then, figuring she'd put it in second gear instead of first, she planned to try again, when the blond guy said, "Don't you know how to drive a stick? Here, let me have the key and I'll drive." He grabbed for the keys, but she slapped his hand away hard, showing him just who was in charge.
"I'll do it."
No way was she letting this guy have any control over her, well, any more so than he did at this point. She put the Jag into neutral, started the engine, and rolled along the road, this time in first gear and inching along at a painfully slow pace. As they passed the bunkhouse, she cringed to think every last one of the bachelor males would come after her for stealing the pack leader's sports car. She envisioned a mad chase of trucks in hot pursuit if they heard the car leaving the compound in the middle of the night. What she saw next surprised the hell out of her.
Her headlights shined a spotlight on the barracks briefly, catching a couple of teens kissing in the shadows of the building near the road she had to take, and she held her breath. Hell... Evan and Alice?
Alice's father would kill Evan, she suspected, if he learned they were out here kissing in the dark. Worse, she was about to be caught.
The teens turned to observe the Jag, their mouths parted in surprise. The tinted windows would hide her and the blond sufficiently. She just prayed they'd think their leader was taking a spin. The teens remained frozen as she slowly made her way past them, not wanting to alert the others if all of a sudden she roared down the road.
As soon as she passed them, Evan dashed for the house. Crap. Alice didn't move. Probably didn't want her father knowing she'd been alone with Evan in the dark shadows late at night.
"Shit," the blond said. "Evan will warn Leidolf, and we'll both be in a hell of a lot of trouble."
Evan--yep, the boy Alice and Sarah had a crush on. He was a teen heartthrob already. She wondered if Leidolf had been like that or a loner early on. Probably always a loner. Or not. She frowned and then glanced at the blond. She suspected this guy would be in much more trouble than she would with Leidolf, just for being alone with her and threatening her with exposure if she didn't take him with her. Or maybe not. It depended on how attached Leidolf was to his hot rod. Probably a lot.
Her skin peppered with perspiration, Cassie sped up a little, but the road was gravel and the car slipped a couple of times. Why would Leidolf have such an impractical, low-slung vehicle for out here on gravel and dirt ranch roads? Rich-guy mentality, she guessed.
"What's your name?" she asked the blond as she headed for what she hoped would soon be a paved road, figuring he was the one the girls called Sarge but wanting to make sure.
"Sarge is what everyone calls me on account of I was a clerk in the army for a couple of years."
"Didn't like the army?"
The view of a valley, grass just beginning to green with the spring rains, appeared below the main house. She spotted several elk in the distance and, closer in, cows, yearlings, and horses on higher ground. Some of the lower-lying pasture lands under water, most likely due to recent heavy rains.
Sarge stared out the window and then glanced at her. "Got into trouble."
Figured. She had a feeling the guy was trouble in a lot more ways than just this incident, which accounted for his having had a guard detail at dinner. What had happened to the men who were supposed to be watching him? They'd surely catch hell when Leidolf discovered Sarge was missing.
"What kind of trouble?" she asked, wanting to hear the truth in his own words.
He stared at her, as if putting a hex on her, and her skin crawled. Not that she couldn't handle him, if she needed to, but she didn't like getting mixed up with a troublesome lupus garou on top of everything else.
Cassie pressed the gas pedal a little harder and crawled a little faster along the ranch road beside the river. Then she looked up at the main house and two others that overlooked the view. No one was following her, yet. As soon as the teen told Leidolf his car was going out for a drive--without him, they'd be after her. And someone was sure to alert Leidolf that his newly turned lupus garou was missing also. She figured that he really wouldn't like Sarge having come along with her. Not that she'd helped Sarge escape, but that he'd be worried about her with the unpredictable guy.
Sarge shrugged and looked back out the window. "I was kicked out of the service because of drug use. Lots of guys were doing it. No big deal. It's just that I got caught."
Which didn't explain how he came to be here. "Right. So, how did you end up in Leidolf's pack?"
"I was a werewolf hunter."
Catching her breath in her throat, Cassie didn't say anything. She felt that Sarge was watching her, waiting for her response. Everything the girls had said was true. No wonder he was being treated like an omega, someone no one wanted to be friends with. A werewolf killer? Great, just great. She glanced at his arm, but she couldn't see the scar from where the tattoo had been removed. Probably on the other arm.
"You don't kill us anymore, right?"
"I didn't kill the others."
Relieved, she let out her breath. She wasn't afraid of him. She could take care of herself. But taking someone like him away from Leidolf's pack was a real mistake when he needed heavy supervision. "Those two men who were with you, were they serving as your guards?"
"Pierce and Quincy? Hell, they've been in nearly as much trouble as me. They joined a week before I did, although they were born lupus garous. Fergus... he's like Elgin, a sub-leader... he's supposed to be watching all three of us. And then Pierce and Quincy are supposed to be keeping an eye on me. They were busy watching a game, so that was the end of guarding me.
"And Fergus was looking for his son. Evan? The kid who was kissing the girl out by the building back there? My kind of kid." Sarge gave an evil smile. "So where are we running off to?"
If they caught her before she reached her destination, she'd never manage to sneak away again, she was certain. And alpha leaders ruled their territories, so if she wanted to stay here, she had to obey Leidolf's pack rules. Or at least those were the unwritten laws of any lupus garou pack. Taking this knucklehead with her complicated everything.
"I have business to take care of in Mount H
ood National Forest. So when we reach the place I need to go, you can stay in the car and wait for me."
"And give me the slip? And Leidolf, too? Not on your life, lady. How dumb do I look? If I stayed in this bucket, it'd be like having a neon sign plastered to it saying, 'Here they are. Right here.' Why didn't you take the Humvee? Less noticeable." He shook his head like she was some kind of idiot.
No other keys had been on the dresser top. Probably Leidolf didn't use the Jag as much.
She imagined Leidolf would drive it to the book-signing at Powell's on Saturday, though, to take little Miss Julia Wildthorn for a spin. Show off his hot rod and even hotter aspects that were all his.
"So, no thank you," Sarge said, jerking her from her thoughts about Leidolf and his planned romantic liaison with the romance author. "I'm sticking with you. I know I need guidance to get through this nightmare. I'd rather have yours than Leidolf's. A gentler woman's touch. Maybe we could even... you know, get to like one another." He grinned.
She refrained from rolling her eyes. If she had to confront him in her wolf form, bearing her very wicked canines, she'd have no difficulty. And he'd soon learn that she could be just as rough on him as any male.
"So... who turned you?"
"Leidolf. It was either that or kill me, he said, since I learned what he was."
She wondered if Leidolf would be rethinking having turned him instead of choosing the other option after Sarge pulled this stunt. Probably.
Then she spied what looked like the main road, and as soon as she reached it, she turned south and sped up. At least she thought that was the right direction. Hell, was it the right direction? She'd been asleep when they had taken her to the ranch house.
"Do you know which way they took me to reach the ranch house after Leidolf picked me up?"
Sarge shook his head. "They left me at home, well guarded. Pierce and Quincy got into trouble that time, looking for you in their wolf coats."
Great. This clown couldn't even help with navigation.
She continued to head south, figuring if she was going the wrong way and Leidolf thought she'd go the right way, he wouldn't find her. She could always stop somewhere and get directions. If she was going the right way, so much the better.
She didn't have a clue what she'd do with Sarge when she reached her vehicle, though. She just couldn't take him with her.
He drummed his fingers on the armrest, and she was about to tell him to quit it when he asked, "Do you know the guys named Irving and Tynan?"
Cassie shook her head. "I've never met any of the pack members in this area before now."
"They're worried about you."
She glanced at Sarge. He shrugged. "I overheard them talking. Said that you could be trouble."
"How so?"
"I don't know, and I wasn't about to let them know I overheard them. They were turned against their will a long time ago, Fergus told me. They still hold a grudge. Plan to kill whoever bit them. That's all that I know. You're newly turned. You didn't bite them, did you?"
"No. I've never bitten anyone to change them."
"I've thought of it."
Cassie frowned at him. "Better not."
He shook his head. "I wouldn't. I just said I've thought of it. Jeez. Give me a break. Haven't you ever considered it? Some guy gets fresh with you? You shift and bite?"
"I have a little more control than that."
"Yeah, well, live a long time like this, and some day you might just feel like it."
She shook her head. Sarge was the one who was a real problem.
Only a few miles down the road, a vehicle's headlights closed in on her from behind. Maybe her fate was already decided for her. Cassie's skin chilled in anticipation.
Chapter 16
Before Leidolf could fully awake from his deep sleep, a better sleep than he'd enjoyed in months, Fergus barged into the bedroom, his face red, his heart pounding, his breath short, and Leidolf knew something had happened to someone in the pack.
Before Fergus could tell him what was wrong, his son hollered from the great room, "Dad? Where are you?"
Fergus shouted from Leidolf's bedroom, "I'll be with you in a minute, son."
"But... did Leidolf take off in the Jag?" Evan asked, moving down the hall toward the bedroom.
Leidolf glanced at the empty mattress. That's when the realization that Cassie hadn't been a dream finally struck him. "Hell." He jerked the covers aside and climbed out of bed.
With every minute counting, Leidolf noticed the dresser drawers pulled out, a missing sweater and pair of socks, and discarded jeans dumped on the closet floor. He glanced at the glass where he kept his Jaguar's spare key and swore under his breath. He'd give her points for tenacity.
Turning, he nearly collided with Fergus, Evan not far behind. "She's got my Jag. She's probably headed for the location where we found her initially. Gather ten of our ranch hands to look for her, Fergus. Call Elgin and tell him to have Laney let us know if, by some miracle, she only went out for a spin and returns here before we locate her." As if the woman just took his Jag out for a joy ride.
Leidolf began jerking on his discarded clothes. What the hell was so important in the damned woods that the woman would risk returning there in the dark to where she'd already been shot once? The female red wolf?
"Can I go?" Evan asked, racing alongside Leidolf as he stalked out of his bedroom and down the hall toward the great room, giving his father a backward glance for approval while Fergus spoke on the phone to Elgin.
Giving teens more responsibility was always a pack leader's goal, and Leidolf suspected that had been Pierce and Quincy's problem. They hadn't been allowed to make mistakes when they were younger. He gave Evan a curt nod. Although at a time like this, in the event hunters were targeting anything that moved, he preferred Evan staying behind. "When Elgin gets here, you can go with him."
Evan gave a long face, and Leidolf knew the teen wanted to go with him. He looked back at Pierce and Quincy as they hurried out of one of the guest rooms where he hoped to keep better track of them, both buttoning up their shirts. "No wolf coats this time."
They wore stern frowns as they nodded, but they looked as though something else was troubling them.
Leidolf didn't have time for this, but Quincy took a deep breath and said, "We lost him. We don't want to leave the pack, but we... well, we were watching a game and didn't realize the little weasel took off without us knowing."
"Sarge," Leidolf growled under his breath. And then he narrowed his eyes at them. "Hell, he had better not have gone with Cassie. She wouldn't have taken him willingly. If he threatened her in any way, he's a dead man."
Pierce and Quincy headed outside to their pickup, but both looked like their necks were on the chopping block. Leidolf knew the only way he was going to get them on the right track was by giving them another chance... which in their case would most likely be many more chances, the way they were going.
He turned to Fergus. "Have every man who's available and staying behind look for Sarge, in case he's not with Cassie. If anyone locates him, let me know. And put a guard on him! If he's found, I want someone to watch him at all times."
Fergus was on the phone already, calling their people and issuing orders. He paused on the phone and said to Leidolf, "Will do."
For his pack members' sake, Leidolf managed to keep his cool despite being angered that the woman would get herself into a hell of a lot more trouble the way she was going. Ditto for Sarge.
As soon as he stalked outside, he met several of his men waiting for his word, keys in hand. "You three head north, just in case she went in the opposite direction from the one I suspect to try and lose us. The others follow me."
With five pickups on the road, Leidolf drove his Humvee and headed in the most obvious direction, back to where Cassie had been found, and hoped she wouldn't run into any further difficulty before he caught up with her. He couldn't help worrying that Sarge might be with Cassie. Not that he figur
ed she couldn't handle herself with him. He just didn't like the idea that she might be forced to.
As he drove toward the woods ten miles away, ones his people normally didn't hunt in--too close to home, but good when a pack member had to have a quick run to get it out of his or her system, he kept thinking he'd catch up to her. When he saw no sign of the Jag, he began to lose hope she'd come this way. Which made him realize how truly devious the woman was.
Despite being both angered and worried, he gave a small smile.
* * *
The vehicle followed Cassie mile after mile, although she slowed down enough for the driver to pass. He wouldn't take the bait. So she sped up and he sped up, reminding her of the problem she'd had with a creepy, stalker boyfriend. Which was another reason for not getting hooked up with another one anytime soon. If the gray lupus garou hadn't finally found a mate, she was sure he'd still be stalking her. No stalking laws for lupus garous, unfortunately.
She glanced in the rearview mirror and narrowed her eyes at the bright headlights. At first, she worried that the driver might be a police officer, but she didn't see a rack of lights on the roof of the sports utility vehicle.
"Who is it?" Sarge asked, his voice agitated as he looked over the passenger's seat.
"Can't tell. He won't pass. Maybe just someone who's tired and mesmerized with our taillights as he follows us."
Although it could be an unmarked vehicle, and the fact she was driving a Jag didn't help. If it had been any other make of car, she probably could have slipped away without anyone knowing anything different. Unless Leidolf's pack had a police officer, she suspected he wouldn't report that she'd stolen his vehicle. At least she hoped he wouldn't.
"I don't see a rack of lights on the top of the vehicle. Why the hell couldn't you have stolen a less conspicuous car?"
"Leidolf didn't leave all his keys out for me to steal," she grumbled. Although as soon as she said it, she was mad at herself for explaining herself. She didn't owe Sarge any kind of explanation for anything.
She looked back at the road. A twisted tree caught her eye, and she recalled driving past it before. Heart lifting, she realized her car was only a couple of miles south of here.