Wild Instinct

by McCarty, Sarah

  Josiah’s eyes gleamed up at her. As her night vision kicked in in response to the darkness, she could see the stress on his face, the quiver in his lips, but he didn’t cry out. She put her hand on his shoulder, smiling at him with a confidence she didn’t feel. As silly as it was to think that hiding behind boxes in the corner of a storeroom was going to fool whatever had been tracking them for the last two weeks, she had to try. She couldn’t give Josiah up without a fight.

  “It’ll be okay,” she mouthed.

  Josiah’s lips firmed and he nodded at her.

  She wanted to cry right there. He believed in her, trusted her, and she couldn’t tell him that it was over. She couldn’t look away from the door, watching the handle with a morbid fascination, waiting for the slight rattle that would tell her that his hand was upon it, that the moment was here. She hated her gift, part prophecy, part torment. Her dreams last night had revealed to her that this dead end would come. And they told her that whatever came through that door was going to be big, bigger than anything she had met to date. But they didn’t say it was good and they didn’t say it was evil. She just knew, the minute that door opened, nothing was going to be the same again.

  Josiah opened his mouth. She slipped her hand over his lips, sealing off any whisper of noise. She heard, or maybe she just sensed, the footfall outside the door. Whoever had been chasing them, he wasn’t one of the rogues. The rogues had been easy to evade. This man was something else, something more, and he scared the hell out of her. The doorknob rattled as he tested it to see if it was locked. It was. She’d done that when she walked in. She motioned to Josiah to turn his head a little bit.

  He did.

  She leaned down and put her lips against his ear. “If I tell you to run,” she whispered, “you run and you don’t look back.”

  His eyes flashed to hers in the dark, wide, terrified. A five-year-old was too young for the burden they were putting on him. But he had a Protector’s instincts, and after that flash of fear, his shoulders squared. He mouthed, “What about you?”

  She shook her head and put her lips back to his ear. “Don’t worry about me. You run,” she ordered in a voice barely above the whisper. “You find Haven. Travel by day; hide at night.”

  The door rattled again, harder this time.

  She looked around. In her normal frame of mind, she never would have chosen a dead end as a place to rest, but her dreams had led her here. Dreams that promised safety until last night, when they’d changed after it was too late to move. Then they’d turned into nightmares. That delay had been happening more and more often of late. She bit her lip as she acknowledged the reality. Her gift was out of control. When she’d moved to the humans because she couldn’t hide it from the wolves anymore, she’d been able to control it. But every year it had grown stronger, calling to her, driving her down paths she didn’t want to go, evolving into a curse. She’d thought when she’d found Sarah Anne that she’d been where she was supposed to be. But that promise had turned out to be false, too.

  Closing her eyes, Rachel felt along her inner mind, trying to find the remnant of a dream, looking for a sign that Josiah would be all right, if his wild bolt in the few seconds she’d be able to buy him would get him anywhere. But the dreams weren’t talking and the remnants were empty. The same couldn’t be said for her instincts. There was a wolf’s cry of danger. Of futility. She pushed Josiah a little farther back in the corner. No. She wouldn’t let that be the truth. When the time came, she’d come up with something. She always did.

  Hearing the slide of a foot across the floor, knowing without a doubt whatever was on the other side of the door was about to kick it open, Rachel knew the moment was at hand. She caught Josiah’s head in her hands, gave a little press in lieu of a hug, kissed his temple and whispered, “I love you.”

  This time the tears hovered in his eyes.

  She shook her head at him. “You’re Protector. Remember that.”

  He nodded. “And a Stone?” he murmured.

  It was unwise to talk—they could give away their location within the room—but how could she send him out in the world alone without hope? “Yes. Josiah Stone, Protector of Pack Haven.”

  In reality, she didn’t know if the pack would accept him. A Protector—half wolf, half human? There would be prejudice. But, if anyone with any gift touched his energy, they would know the truth. In Josiah’s case, the mixing of blood had enhanced his Protector abilities, rather than diluting them. He was going to grow up big, he was going to grow up strong and he was going to grow up scary. If Haven’s Alpha had any sense, he’d want that truth on his side.

  She didn’t want him to turn rogue, so she gave him the only thing she could—a pack of his own. “Josiah Stone of Pack Haven,” she repeated. “You remember who you protect.”

  He nodded.

  The door crashed open.

  She absorbed his start into her palms, holding him still through pressure from her hands and the force of her will.

  Don’t move. Don’t move.

  He didn’t. Had he heard her or was he just too terrified to twitch? Glancing through the slit between two of the boxes, she could just make out the door and what was coming through it. Her imagination had built him up to be a monster, but it was a man who stepped through the entry. She could tell from his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped build. And judging from the force of the heavy metal door’s slam against the wall, he was werewolf. Hopefully Protector and not rogue.

  Dear God. Help me buy Josiah time.

  Desperation elevated the thought to prayer. The backlighting from the hall caused her night vision to flick on and off, creating the strobe effect as the man took one step, two steps, into the room. The farther into the room he came, the less distraction there was from the hall light, allowing her to see more than his silhouette, letting her see the muscles that filled out his frame beneath his clothes. Protector or rogue, she couldn’t defeat either. She had no magic. No strength. She was a werewolf with a witch’s gift. What use was it?

  “Come on out now.” The man’s voice was deep, more rumble than drawl.

  His voice stroked along her nerve endings. Where she should be feeling terror, she felt pleasure. She blinked. Josiah shook his head and tugged at her hand.

  On another blink, she realized she was standing. What the hell?

  “You ran me a merry chase, but there’s nowhere else to run.”

  She knew that. It didn’t mean she had to give up without a fight. And if the only fight she could muster was to make him look for her, well, that was what she would do.

  He took two more steps into the room, leaving her line of sight. His scent came to her from the other side of the boxes. Masculine. Earthy, with a hint of musk.

  Again, her mind said run, but her instincts said stay, take another breath, inhale a bit more, savor it. Oh, my God. She rubbed her hand across her forehead. She was losing her mind. Too many days running too hard with too little sleep. It had all caught up with her. She braced her hands against the boxes.

  Josiah followed suit. She nodded. Once, twice, with any luck the stranger would be just on the other side and the tumbling boxes would distract him long enough, or maybe even injure him enough so Josiah could get away. She gave the third nod of her head.

  She pushed. He pushed.

  The stacks were heavier than she expected, teetering forward, giving the stranger a warning. Dammit. Before she could get the curse out, they rocked backward, teetering threateningly before they rocked toward the wall. The top hit, and held. The middle bulged inward. There was a thump, and then the whole stack came tumbling down.

  Rachel screamed and grabbed Josiah, pulling him under her, trying to prevent him from being crushed. There was a curse, a crash, and then a hand locked around her upper arm like a vise, hauling her out from beneath the danger, tossing her back.

  She stumbled backward, reaching for Josiah, but he was gone. The hand jerked her around. She stopped but for a split second the room k
ept moving. She blinked. When everything righted, she was standing in the middle of the floor, half dangling from the stranger’s grip on her arm while Josiah dangled two feet off the ground by his shirt from the stranger’s other grip. The little boy’s lips were pulled back in a snarl, his small canines flashing, white in her night vision. His claws reached out and raked down the man’s arm.

  The stranger swore, and then, unbelievably, laughed. “Got a bit of fight in you, I see.”

  “Let my aunt go.”

  “In a minute.”

  “Now!”

  Josiah lashed out again. The fresh scent of blood swirled over the smell of sweat and fear. The stranger shook him harder. “Settle down.”

  Josiah did no such thing. The stranger growled. Oh, damn. Rachel realized he could kill the child with just a flex of his muscles.

  Her own claws extending, she gathered her strength, aiming for the man’s throat. He caught her eye. The small shake of his head froze her midpreparation.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  She hesitated. The flash of his teeth in the shadow indicated he was smiling again, but Rachel couldn’t see his face; the lighting was too uncertain, hovering between dark and bright, faking out her night vision, frustrating her day vision.

  “Good choice.” He hefted Josiah, giving him a little shake and swearing as the boy snarled and clawed him again. “If you’d clawed me, I’d be forced to drop him.”

  She licked her lips. Drop or kill? She couldn’t take a chance it would be the latter.

  She retracted her claws. The man nodded approvingly.

  “Good to know you have some common sense.” He jerked his chin in Josiah’s direction, never taking his eyes off her. “Now, tell him to settle down.”

  She licked her lips. “Josiah, stop.” There was a time to fight and a time to surrender and they definitely needed to surrender for the moment.

  He did.

  The man set Josiah on his feet. “Now, don’t go turning tail on me.”

  The boy’s shoulders squared. “I am Protector,” he said with all the dignity a five-year-old could muster.

  “Good. Then you know better than to run and leave a woman alone and unprotected.”

  In the middle of capturing them, the man was giving protocol lessons? Rachel blinked and tried to steady her heartbeat. “Who are you?”

  The stranger smiled and took a step forward into the darkness of the room. Her night vision kicked in, throwing the handsome planes of his face into perfect symmetry. Her breath caught in her throat.

  “Cur Beck, the man set on taking you home.”

  She sagged in his arms, her breath freezing in her lungs. She recognized him.

  Two

  RACHEL stared at that face, her mind reeling, her senses in chaos. Every dream she’d ever had, good or bad, she’d seen that face swirling out of the darkness, laughing, frowning, bloody, clean, always there, never good, never evil, just there. She reached up. Was she hallucinating? Was this just one more time when she was caught in a dream so vivid she couldn’t tell real from fake? She reached up, hesitating before her fingers touched his cheek, afraid to know the truth.

  Cur stared down at her, the same dumbstruck look on his face that was on hers.

  She shook her head and whispered, “You’re in my dreams.”

  It was a stupid thing to say.

  He blinked. “Was I any good?”

  She tried to remember but there wasn’t any more. Just those brief flashes of recognition. “You weren’t . . . anything.”

  He snorted. “Figures.”

  “Aunt Rachel?”

  Ignoring Josiah’s question, needing to know if he was real, she forced her fingers that last quarter inch and felt bristle. Not a dream, then. She snatched her hand back as an electric shock shot up her fingertips. She snapped her hand closed. “Who are you?”

  “The man sent to bring you back to Haven.”

  He was lying. She could sense the lie under his skin. She jerked at her arm. “Why didn’t you identify yourself?”

  His grip loosened on her arm. She took a step back. A tug on her shirt had her spinning around. He held up his hands. In the left was her gun.

  She snarled at him before shifting her position so she inched that much more between him and Josiah. He watched but didn’t comment.

  “You never let me close enough, and quite frankly, we weren’t sure what your intentions were.”

  “We?”

  “Haven’s Alpha and myself.”

  “You questioned my intentions?”

  “Lady, you take off after a rogue attack, you don’t show up at the meeting place as scheduled, but instead you take off over hither and dale with a kid that’s not your own. Any way you look at it, that’s kidnapping.”

  “I was supposed to meet Sarah Anne. You took her.”

  “Haven took her. She’s back at the pack now.”

  Rachel hadn’t been born yesterday. “How do I know that?”

  He started tossing boxes out of the way. He glanced at her out of the corners of his eyes as he snagged her pack from under the pile. “Well, as soon as I get you out of here and in a safe place, I’ll let you chat with her on the phone.”

  “How do I know that she won’t be forced to respond? To say what you want her to say? How do I know she’s not a captive?”

  His head tilted to the side as if he were listening to things she couldn’t hear. His nostrils flared as if scenting things she couldn’t smell. “Lady, knowing right now whether she’s worrying about a phone call that’s a good five hours away is the least of your worries.”

  She felt it then, the presence of others. Rogues. She grabbed Josiah’s hand and pulled him to her. “Do something.”

  Cur smiled and said, “I am.”

  He wasn’t doing anything except standing there, looking impossibly arrogant, a lock of his hair falling across his forehead, giving him a devil-may-care aura when she knew darn well the man was a born predator.

  “You’re Protector. You have to protect us.”

  To her surprise, he handed her her pack, before repeating, “I am.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “For what?”

  There was a huge explosion. The building shook; boxes tumbled. He grabbed her and Josiah and threw them against the wall before covering them both with his body. His shoulders were broad enough that he sheltered both of them. This close she couldn’t mistake his scent. She breathed deeply, over and over, as bits of cement and debris rained down around them.

  Oh, my God, this is crazy. The building was collapsing and all she could worry about was how good he smelled. For the last time, she asked again, a sinking feeling welling in her chest, “Who are you?”

  Curran’s head descended and the softness of his lips pressed against her ear. A growl rumbled against her hands.

  “Your mate.”

  Three

  HER mate. For a minute Rachel just stood there, stunned by the knowledge. Josiah tugged on her hand.

  “He said we needed to duck down.”

  She looked around. Cur was gone and Josiah was coming out of his skin. She followed him back behind the boxes.

  Rachel shook her head. She had to make a decision. Trust a stranger who claimed to be her mate, or take her chances running. The noise from the hall was fierce. There were growls and cries of agony. The hall was the only exit. To get away she would have to get Josiah passed the rogues and Cur.

  Josiah tugged her hand again. She knelt beside him, behind the boxes, pulling him close. She could feel his heart beating against his chest as he leaned his head on her shoulder. He was tired. She was tired. They’d never make it. Their only chance was to hope that Cur meant what he said. That his plan was to bring them to Haven. From the hall there came a roar and then silence.

  “Is it over?” Josiah whispered.

  “I think so.”

  “Did our guy win?”

  She hoped to hell C
ur had. She reached behind her back for her gun, forgetting he’d taken it from her. Dammit. Even though she’d run out of bullets days ago, it was still handy as a club. Her canines ached. Her muscles tightened to knots of readiness. Her claws extended. She shifted silently to the left away from Josiah. Any attack she made would still be hampered by the boxes, but this was the best compromise.

  Barely audible footsteps came down the hall. Beside her, Josiah growled. She held her finger to her lips. Lips still pulled back in a snarl, he nodded. She took a breath and held it. Fear and anger writhed for dominance inside her. She wanted to run. She wanted to kill. More than anything, she wanted this over.

  “The coast is clear. You can come out.”

  There was no mistaking that deep rumble. Rachel sat back against the wall. It was over. Cur had won. Her breath escaped in a shaky gasp. She brought her hand up to her forehead, pushing her hair back, as shaky as her breath. Josiah didn’t seem to have the same reaction. With a whoop he leapt over her. His foot knocked her hand.

  “You got them?”

  The Protector didn’t seem at all put off by Josiah’s bloodthirsty question. He came into her field of vision just as Josiah reached him. He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Rogues don’t stand a chance against a Protector.”

  Josiah straightened and stuck his thumb to his chest. “I’m Protector.”

  Could the stranger see the insecurity beneath the bravado? She got to her feet. She needn’t have worried.

  Cur nodded as if he’d known all along, which he had, since this was the second time Josiah had mentioned it. “So you said.”

  This was the first time outside of family Josiah had had a chance to make his claim and with a five-year-old’s need to be accepted, he pushed for more. “You believe me?”

  The man nodded. “I’ve been following you and your aunt for a while now. I noticed how you protected her.”

  Josiah frowned. “You hurt my aunt and I’ll kill you.”

  Despite the fierceness of the words, which Rachel had no doubt the little boy meant, his heart wasn’t in it. Cur seemed to understand. Dammit. She didn’t want to like him.