A thick lump formed in Marshall’s throat and he swallowed it. He could only imagine Delanie’s screams as Einar did this to her. Einar would not have stabbed her while she was unconscious. He would have wanted to hear the result of his pleasure.
“If for no other reason, this is why I am going to make you suffer, you bastard.”
His course whisper sounded like a roar in the silent night and he scrunched up his face, forcing composed calm to flow through him. He needed to keep his focus on the woman before him, not on what he was going to do to his ex-partner.
Opening his eyes, he returned his attention to the wound. Fresh blood, almost black in the faint monochromatic light, oozed from its hideous hole. He skimmed his fingertips along the flesh directly above it, drawing in a quick breath as he did so.
The metallic tang of blood filled his nose. Only the metallic tang.
Marshall let out a ragged sigh of relief. Einar’s blade had not punctured or sliced Delanie’s intestines.
So, the wound wasn’t to maim or kill, but just to make her bleed? Why? He was your partner long enough to know you could track anything, whether they were bleeding or not, so why make her bleed? In fact, it wasn’t her blood you tracked. The ocean washed away any scent of her blood, so why make her—
Cold realization rolled through him and he bit back a curse. He didn’t need Delanie’s blood scent to track her, a dire wolf’s sense of smell was phenomenal. Once he had a scent, he could track it no matter how old or weak. All he needed to track Delanie was the faintest hint of her body odor—a few molecules on the air or ground and he would find her. Jackie however, wasn’t a dire wolf and what limited intel he had on the thylacine told him a Tasmanian tiger’s sense of smell wasn’t their strongest. He didn’t need Delanie’s blood to find her, but did Jackie? If he didn’t know the answer to that question, what were the odds neither did Einar? Which meant his ex-partner would go to extreme lengths to make sure Jackie followed the scent trail Einar wanted her to.
Marshall scraped his hand down his face. Damn it, how long had Einar been following him and Jackie? What had he seen?
He knows. He knows what you are. And now he knows he will use that to his advantage. Like trapping you with your own fucking abilities.
Marshall clenched his fists. “Damn it!”
He skimmed his fingertips over the wound in Delanie’s side again, his skin prickling with rage, disgust and dismay. Einar had cut the human to lure Jackie away. He’d used her best friend to isolate her from that which would keep her safe. A protective, angry dire wolf.
“Jesus, Jackie,” he muttered, staring at Delanie’s wound. “I’m sorry.”
Throat thick, he snapped to his feet. He had to get Delanie medical care. He couldn’t hunt Einar until his life mate’s best friend was safe. Yanking open the passenger door, he pulled out the small first-aid kit he always carried with him from the glove compartment. There was not much to it—disinfectant wipes, sterile gauze bandages, a tube of Neosporin, a roll of sticking plaster and needle and thread—but hopefully it would be enough to stop the bleeding.
Returning his attention to Delanie, he studied her in the dim yellow light cast by the Audi’s cabin light and hissed in another breath. The extra light highlighted the dark blood pooling beneath her, seeping into the soft suede of his jacket. Fuck, he had to move quickly.
He tore open one roll of disinfectant wipes with his teeth and gingerly wiped at the cut. Even through the cotton, Delanie’s skin was cold to the touch, and he had to stop himself shaking his head.
Keep it cool, Rourke. Keep it composed. You can’t rush this, no matter how much you want to.
When he’d cleaned away as much blood as he could without pulling the cut open, he ran a quick inspection over the wound. There was no muscle or ligament damage, which was a good thing. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as—
Shit.
New blood began to seep from the ragged hole. Bright red and glistening in the waxing moonlight.
Shit.
He tore open another roll of wipes and sopped up the blood, making sure to clean away any traces of salt and sand he missed the first time. His field dressing techniques were a little rusty—there wasn’t that big a call for medical help from the paranormal nasties he collared, and neither he nor Einar ever sustained enough damage to their person to require it.
He chuckled a mirthless snort as he disinfected Delanie’s wound again. Who would have thought he’d regret not being injured in the line of duty?
Grabbing at the roll of gauze, he snagged its end with his teeth and unraveled it a little. Just enough to press against the flat plane of her belly beside Einar’s stab wound. If he wrapped it firmly enough around her waist, he should be able to stop the—
Shit!
Fresh blood seeped from the hole. Fuck. What the fuck did he do?
Frustrated worry gnawed at his control. He didn’t want to tell Jackie he’d let her best friend bleed to death.
He shot the sterilized needle and tiny spool of surgical thread a quick look. He wasn’t a surgeon. Jesus, he’d never stitched on a button, let alone a human.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Blood continued to ooze from Delanie’s side. Shit, did he stitch it? He didn’t know. Shit.
“Fuck it,” Marshall snarled under his breath. He snatched the needle from the first-aid kit, sliding it from its sterile casing.
The silver-metal alloy burned like ice against his fingertips, and he ground his molars together, desperately trying to drag up any memory he had of his field-dressing training.
“Wound must be clean and free of debris. Skin must be dry.”
He stared at the needle, his pulse pounding in his throat. Damn it, how the fuck could he concentrate with that thumping through his head?
“You’re not planning…to use that on me…are you?”
The barely audible rasp shattered the silence and Marshall started. He snapped his stare to Delanie’s face, a whoosh of air bursting from him when he found her looking up at him.
He gave her a lop-sided grin, knowing it probably looked wan and relieved at once. “I was thinkin’ about it.”
She shifted slightly on her back, wincing as she twisted her body enough to look at the bleeding hole in her side. “I’m not…a fan of needles.”
Marshall let out a sharp chuckle. “Me either.”
Her gaze returned to his face, and he suppressed a worried frown. She may be talking, but she was still in pain. A lot of pain. It clouded her green eyes like fog.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she went on, her voice croaky. “You put that away and…wrap me up in bandages…” She coughed, and winced again. “And I promise…not to bleed to death.”
“Deal.”
He ripped open the last packet of gauze in his kit and pressed it lightly to her wound, lifting her hand with his right and placing it on top of the material. “Hold this here,” he ordered, keeping the words calm as he grabbed the largest roll of bandage he had. Now that stitching into her flesh was no longer an option, he felt better. More composed. “This is going to hurt.”
“Not as much as it did happening.”
Delanie’s wry response made him chuckle. He unfurled the bandage around her waist, stretching it gently with each pass over the stab wound.
She flinched each time, but didn’t make a sound. Not until he’d finished, at least. “Okay, tall, blonde and handsome, you’ve saved me,” she said, studying him with narrow eyes, and Marshall had to smile at the strength returning to her voice. And the suspicious glint in her eyes.
“Now, who the hell are you?”
Jackie sped through the bush, Delanie’s smell thick in her nose. Low tree branches and scrub tore at her sides and muzzle, snagged in her fur, but still she ran.
The deeper into the bush she went, the stronger Del’s scent grew. More potent.
Human blood cut her friend’s distinct odor, its coppery overtones sour with fear. Jackie let her tongue loll from her
mouth, taking the scent into her body. The blood was arterial—rich with life and oxygen. Jackie could taste its vitality even through the choking stench of fear coating it.
She ran faster, for the first time in her strange life willingly letting her animal control her. That her thylacine could sort out Delanie as fiercely as her human soul spoke volumes. More than words ever could. When she found Delanie, her human friend was just going to have to accept the fact there would be lots of face licking taking place. Jackie doubted she’d have any luck at all reigning in her thylacine’s relief and joy.
But first you have to find her.
She snarled at the thought, its menace making her hackles rise. She would find her. That’s what she did. She hunted, she tracked, she…mated.
A growl slipped up her throat, a blurring memory of the other animal, the massive wolf who’d marked her as his, filling her head.
After she found the human female—Del, damn you—she would return to the wolf and show him what it meant to be mated to a thylacine. He was in for a surprise. Her kind had never been known for their passive nature.
A hot flutter rippled through the pit of her belly. The human she was found the notion of wild mating with the man who was sometimes a wolf more appealing than she wanted to let on. It was only in the honest state of her thylacine form, a state with little understanding of the concepts of deceit and subterfuge, that she acknowledged the true depths of her attraction to the male. Yes, when she found the lost human female, she would return to the male and—
The faint sound of a twig breaking under slow pressure brought her to a skidding halt. She stood motionless, gazing into the scrub around her. She detected the rapid heartbeat of two startled echidnas to her left, a bush rat and a multitude of skinks, but nothing large enough to break wood.
Her bristles rose, the blood-tainted scent of Delanie feeding her agitation.
Above her, almost silent, an owl swooped through the coolly humid air. The bush rat let out a terrorized squeak and scurried away. For a dizzying second she wanted to leap on it. Chase it down. Tear its soft belly open and warm her throat with its innards.
And then another twig snapped—louder. A bigger twig—behind her. She spun around, ears flat, teeth bared, and broke into a sprint again. The sound came from the source of Del’s scent.
Branches snatched at her but she pushed through their insistent fingers. She was close.
Close.
The scrub grew sparse, patchy, and she leapt over one particularly stunted bush, ears flat to her head. A small clearing opened up before her, coarse yellow grass crunching against her paws. She took one step and froze.
The scent of Delaine’s blood saturated the air.
Del.
She flicked her stare around the clearing, her muzzle wrinkling at the dark shadowy shape lying amongst the grass to her left. In two silent steps she was on it, her hackles rising as she pushed her nose to it.
Material. Wire. Sweat. Skin. Blood.
A shudder rippled through Jackie, and with a million rips of fire tearing at her existence, she transformed back into her human form.
She crouched down, her knees popping, the short grass scratching at her bare butt as she reached for the blood-soaked bra lying by her feet. Her fingertips brushed the sodden satin and her throat slammed shut. “Oh, fuck, Del.”
“I am not sure which form I find more appealing.”
Jackie was on her feet, staring into the dark bushland beside her before the smooth male voice finished forming the words. “What the fuck have you done with my friend?” she snarled, searching the blackness for any sign of the speaker. “Where is she?”
“Human scientists believe the modern thylacine to be over four million years old,” the man she assumed was Marshall’s ex-partner spoke again, this time to her right. She jerked around, finding nothing but the empty bush and dark night. “The pure thylacine closely resembles the wolf, dog and cat, but is not of the same genus of any of them. It is the largest carnivorous marsupial to ever evolve.” A low chuckle rolled toward her, the sound bending until it came from behind her. “And like all marsupials, has a pouch in which young are born and protected.”
She spun about, every hair on her body prickling. Why couldn’t she detect Einar? How could the bastard move without her seeing him? Hearing him?
“I must admit, on learning of your existence, I found myself wondering how you carry young in your human form but I see you do not have a pouch.”
The droll statement snapped Jackie’s attention to the fact she was without clothes, and she dropped into a crouch again, the idea of Einar seeing her naked making her sick.
“Oh, please.” His laugh floated at her from the front and, in a sudden shimmer of silver light, he stood before her, tall, lean and holding a long, hooked knife in his right hand. His iridescent blue stare fixed on her face. “Do not be modest on my account.”
He swung his arm toward her, the knife turning to a blur as incandescent as his eyes.
Jackie threw herself backward, striking out with her left leg as she did so. The ball of her foot smashed into his wrist and a jarring shudder shot down her leg, spearing into the base of her spine. She heard a grunted oof, the sound both surprised and angry, before—heart thumping into her throat—she leapt to her feet and burst into a dead sprint.
She was unarmed and naked. She wasn’t ready for this fight.
Einar appeared before her. That same shimmering light slid away from him like liquid mercury, and he grinned down at her, blocking her path. She stumbled to a halt, her heels scraping at the ground, her stare locked on his cold, calm eyes. “You cannot out run me, Jacqueline Huddart.” He moved, a frightening fast blur of form and colour that crashed against Jackie with crushing force.
She fell, her own feet tripping her, and before she could do anything but gasp, Einar straddled her chest, his knees pinning her elbows to the ground, his arse squashing her breasts. He shook his head, lips twisted into a down-turned pout, his stare drilling into hers. “I’m disappointed. This was easier than expected.” He touched the tip of his knife into the dip at the base of Jackie’s neck and she bit back a sharp hiss of pain. “Still, the thylacine was not known for its fighting prowess.”
Jackie fixed him with a flat glare. “True, but you’re not sitting on a thylacine at the moment, are you?”
She whiplashed her legs upward, wrapped her calves around Einar’s neck, locked her ankles together and slammed her legs back down to the ground.
Taking Einar with them.
His head hit the dirt, followed by his legs and chest as he crumpled over himself, a grunt vibrating through his body. Jackie didn’t take the time to appreciate his discomfort. She smashed her heel into his jaw, driving his head backward.
“Didn’t expect that, did you.” Grit and stones and grass bit into her bare hip and butt. Her sweat stung her eyes. She didn’t care. The bastard at her feet had hurt Del. He was going to—
Silver light tore at the darkness, and suddenly she was alone on the ground.
She leapt to her feet, lips bared in a silent snarl, her thylacine surging for release.
Hunt, track, kill.
“You are correct, Jacqueline.” Einar’s voice wafted on the air like diffused fog. “I was not expecting that.”
Jackie narrowed her eyes, searching the bush around her for Rourke’s ex-partner. The small gash at the base of her throat stung, as if boiling acid seeped into the wound. She clenched her fists, shutting out the pain. “Where is my friend? What have you done to her?”
“Delanie McKenzie is alive,” Einar responded from wherever he stood hidden in the darkness. She couldn’t pinpoint his location. His voice came at her with no discernible point of origin. “Possibly. It depends on how quickly your lover gets to her, I have to say.”
His off-handed comment churned Jackie’s stomach and her throat squeezed tight. Possibly? Her lover? A ragged breath slipped past her lips and she bit back a disgusted groan. Oh, God, not
only had the man hurt her best friend, he’d seen her and Rourke together in the shed. He’d watched them copulating like…like…
Animals.
She shut the thought out of her head, focusing instead on the unseen Einar. Why couldn’t she see him? She opened her mind to her thylacine’s spirit, letting the creature’s ancient magick flow through her. All around her, the land, the trees, the earth whispered, disturbed by a force she still could not detect. Daeved Einar. Her flesh crawled with the sensation of his gaze roaming over her naked body, but she stood motionless, determined not to show him any weakness. Be damned if she’d cower because of him. “This was a trap.”
“And you both took the bait.” A low chuckle followed his smug answer and the wound in her neck seemed to throb with molten heat at the sound. “As I knew you would.”
She turned her head slightly to the left. Her ears heard nothing to tell her Einar was there, but the connection her thylacine shared with the ancient land on which she stood, a connection sometimes whispered about in reverence by the country’s original people, told her reality was blemished there. As if something not belonging to this world, this place, defiled it. She narrowed her eyes again. “What are you? Because I know you’re not human?”
Silence answered her and Jackie suppressed the urge to smile. Her proclamation startled him.
“Very astute, detective.” The smug arrogance in his voice was gone, replaced by a cutting irritation, his unusual accent thicker with each word. “How can you tell?”
Jackie bared her teeth in a cold grin. “Haven’t I already illustrated you don’t know everything about Tasmanian tigers?”
A hissed breath cut the night and icy air struck her from behind, like a wall of angry winter. With preternatural speed, she dropped into a crouch and spun around, striking out as Einar materialized before her. She smashed her right fist into his knee, her left fist into his groin. He let out a wail and staggered backward, his gaping mouth revealing pointed teeth glistening with saliva, the hideous hooked blade slipping from his fingers.
Without hesitation, she lunged for it.
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