Kalen

by Tianna Xander

  Two of the men gave him a short jerk of the head in response, shut the doors and climbed into the front seat.

  Cameron ran out and handed them the wad of clothes through the window. “Take her clothes. Since we don’t know anything else about her, this is all she has for now. Toss them in the back in case she changes again.”

  Leave it to him to think of the woman’s comfort. Kalen would have just expected her to lay back there naked. It was a fact of life for their kind. The unfortunate detail of her humanity hadn’t even crossed his mind.

  He slapped the side of the van. “Get going. The faster you get her out of town, the better.” It was only a matter of time before someone came looking for her.

  Kalen watched as the van pulled around to the driveway, the right blinker flashing as the driver made the turn that took them back the way they came. His stomach clenched as the van moved away. Something told him he should have been in there with her.

  Shaking his head, he took a deep cleansing breath and headed back to the room. He needed to convince Bastien to get moving. God only knew how many others the crazy scientist would inject before this was all over.

  The image of terrified violet eyes flashed though his mind. Kalen swallowed around the lump of sorrow in his throat and looked down at his shaking fingers. What was getting into him? Why should he give a damn about some strange woman-turned-wolf that he’d just met?

  Chapter Two

  Ally lay in the back of the van, horrified. She’d just been kidnapped! Worse yet, she had just changed into a dog and then was kidnapped. What other bizarre turn would her life take today?

  She looked at the pile of clothes they threw in the back of the van with her, pulled them closer with a claw-tipped paw, then rested her head on them with a dejected sigh. What was she supposed to do now? Nothing came to mind as she closed her eyes to think. With luck, maybe she’d go to sleep and when she woke, this nightmare would be over and she would be human again.

  One thing was certain, she didn’t like the fact that she felt relieved that she’d splurged and worn one of her three matching bra and panty sets today. Why should she give a damn what these lunatics thought of her underwear?

  It was probably remembering the man she bit that made her go all girly and think of what underwear she wore. Ally didn’t look at him before she bit him. All she could think of at that moment was that she was in pain. For some reason she couldn’t comprehend, she struck out and sank her teeth into the first person she could reach.

  The agony was so great that it drove her to want to hurt those around her. It was some strange impulse she had never experienced before. She bit him hard, too. She tasted his blood on her tongue and part of her liked it. She gagged as she thought back on it. How could she like the taste of blood? It wasn’t until after he managed to pry her teeth from his wrist that she got a good look at him.

  He was tall. She could tell that by the way he loomed over the bed after he stood up straight. His gray gaze seemed to bore into hers with a look of…what? She tilted her head, thinking. Sorrow, perhaps. Sorrow mixed with anger and a touch of something else that, for a split second, she’d hoped was attraction.

  Ally had done little more than stare at the dark hair, before her gaze moved to his broad shoulders, wide chest and well-formed biceps that were clearly visible beneath the too-tight t-shirt he wore. Hell, she could even see his eight-pack beneath the stretched cotton. She knew it was eight because she counted every well-defined ridge with a yearning she wouldn’t admit to out loud. His wide, muscular chest tapered down to a narrow waist just above an impressive bulge she didn’t even want to think about.

  It was then that she regained her senses. The man was nuts. They all were. Shape shifters didn’t exist. There wasn’t some vile serum out there to change people into animals either. She was dreaming. That was the only explanation that made sense. If she could just manage to go to sleep, she would wake up and find her alarm going off on her bedside table and she would get up and call in sick. One thing was sure. She wasn’t going to work after this crazy dream.

  Still, the strange gray eyes of the man she’d bitten haunted her. On a normal day, she would have thought those eyes beautiful, but not today. She shook her head. Nope. Today, those gray eyes meant imprisonment, perhaps death. They certainly meant kidnapper. She frowned—or was it dognapper? She was a dog now, after all. Whatever term she laid at his door, it certainly wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous, built like a linebacker on steroids hottie either. Really it wasn’t.

  Ally sighed and watched the two in the front who remained silent. Every once in a while, the guy in the passenger seat would look back at her as though he expected her to disappear…or do tricks. Well, he could just forget it. She wasn’t rolling over for anyone. Ally supposed she could escape if she could just manage to get the door opened. How she would manage that without hands, though, was beyond her scope of understanding at the moment.

  Too many things kept swimming around in the pudding she called a brain and not many of them had to do with thoughts of escape. In fact, most of them had to do with the man the others had called Kalen.

  She thought back on his dark hair and tall, good looks wondering if she could stay attracted to a man like that in real life. She gave another sigh, deciding she could. The man was very well put together as well as handsome. It wasn’t every day you ran into a man like that who wasn’t on TV, or trying to make it there. Besides, he didn’t even seem to notice he was good looking. That trait was even harder to find in a male. They usually thought they were God’s gift to women even if they were bald with a potbelly and warts on their face.

  Ally rested her head on her paws and groaned. Leave it to her to find herself attracted to a man who didn’t exist. She knew he didn’t. This was a nightmare after all. She just needed to find a way to wake herself up.

  After what seemed like hours, the van slowed and they turned right and drew to a stop.

  “You get the gas and I’ll run in and get us some snacks,” the passenger said to the driver. He turned back to Ally. “Stay here and I’ll get you something to eat.” He looked back at the other man. “I hope she likes hamburgers.”

  Ally sat still in the van for a few minutes before she picked up her clothes in her mouth and made her way to the front of the van.

  The passenger side window was down! Ally didn’t even think about it. She jumped, losing her jeans when a belt loop hooked on the door lock on the way out. The shout behind her spurred her on without them. At least she still had her t-shirt and underwear grasped tight in her teeth.

  Besides, this was a dream. What did it matter if she didn’t have clothes? She would wake up soon anyway, wouldn’t she?

  Everything would have been okay if it wouldn’t have been for some little annoying voice in her head that kept asking, If you really believe this is a dream, why are you running?

  * * * *

  Kalen had just climbed into the van when his phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket on the third ring. It was Merrick, one of the men sent to take the woman to their headquarters in Walker.

  She’s gone. She just jumped from the van and ran.”

  “Then follow her.” How hard was that to figure out? Kalen shook his head. Sometimes these guys could be so dense.

  “I can’t.” He paused and lowered his voice. “There are too many people hanging around. They’d notice me changing, or disappearing into the woods and not coming back. There would be no way to explain why or how I disappeared after I made it into the brush.”

  “Dammit!”

  “What is it?” Bastien asked from the back seat. His mate, Carly, sat on his lap as usual. There wasn’t a minute in the day that the newly mated pair wasn’t touching if they were together.

  “The woman has escaped.”

  Kalen turned his attention back to his phone. “How long ago did she get away?”

  “Only a few minutes.” The other man cursed. “We stopped to fuel up. Alexander was pumping gas while I
went in to get something to eat.”

  There was a loud metallic thump over the line as though the other man punched the side of the van. He probably had.

  “I forgot and left the damned window down. She jumped out and ran, leaving her jeans behind. At least she still had her t-shirt the last time we saw her.”

  “Jesus!” He turned to Bastien. “The woman is loose in wolf form with nothing more than a t-shirt to wear if she changes back.”

  When she changed back was more like it. As a new shifter, she would be like one of their kind during adolescence. The change could come upon her at any time. Hell, she could already be human again. Cold and alone, she wouldn’t know where to go, or whom to trust.

  That was just what they needed. Hot on the trail of Dr. Richard Thornton, they were too close to give up now. They had to keep going in search of the madman responsible for injecting so many with his serum. They had to stop him at all costs.

  Sighing, Kalen knew what he must do. Since he had been the one to move her and carry her to the van, he must be the one who went back for her. With luck, she would at least recognize him as the man she’d sunk her teeth into.

  “Get Alexander to drop you off in a deserted location and go after her. Her instincts will bring her back this way. I’ll leave here and head out to intercept her. Have Alexander give you a pack for your phone and clothes. You’ll need them when you find her.”

  He hung up the phone and turned to Bastien. “You can’t afford to go back now. We’re too close to that nut. Keep going and I’ll head back to find her. Between Merrick and me, we should find her fast enough. They couldn’t have gotten far.” He checked his watch and shrugged. “It’s not hard to cover fifty or so miles and like I said, her instincts will lead her back here to her home.”

  Bastien agreed with a nod. “Fine. Get yourself a pack and get going.”

  “What if she doesn’t believe him?” Carly asked with a wry grin. “It’s not like this is something she’s prepared to take in stride. Remember, to her, this is going to be nothing but some horrible nightmare.” She turned her gaze on Kalen. “I remember how frightening and overwhelming this all is. Be gentle with her.”

  Kalen glanced back at the woman who had been human and ignorant of all things paranormal until just a few short weeks ago. “I’ll try.” He got out of the van with his neck pack and frowned when he realized he meant what he said.

  Thornton had just turned the poor woman’s life upside down. The least he could do was try to break it to her gently. She wasn’t a human anymore. The sooner she learned to face it, the better.

  He watched as the convoy of vans pulled from the motel parking lot, then made his way across the street and into the woods. The woman’s scent was all over him, making his body demand things it shouldn’t. He hadn’t noticed what her delicate fragrance did to him until after he’d put her into the van and she left. It probably had something to do with his wrist. It throbbed for a good hour before his metabolism kicked in and healed the wound.

  It was only after his wrist healed that Kalen noticed how being near her tantalizing scent made him feel. It seemed to wrap around his insides and squeeze. His balls ached more every time he drew breath into his lungs. It felt as though someone had put his scrotum in a vise and tightened it down every time he scented or thought about her, which had been nearly every moment since his wrist healed.

  “I should have asked one of them to shoot me,” he complained as he started to undress in a small clearing. He folded his clothes into as small a bundle as he could and crammed them into the pack, then fastened it loosely about his neck.

  If he had had one of them injure him, just a little, perhaps he would find a way to concentrate on locating the woman for the pack instead of finding her because she gave him a raging hard-on.

  “It’s a damned shame when you contemplate having someone shoot you just so you can keep your mind off a woman.” He shook his head and prepared to change into his wolf.

  How in the hell would he ever live it down if his brother found out about this? How many times had he ragged on Galen about sniffing after females? And here he was going in search for one who had bitten his wrist, her teeth sinking to the bone. Hell, from what he could see, she wasn’t even nice. He paused with a smile. She might not be nice, but she sure as hell was nice looking and she didn’t smell bad either.

  Stooping low, he concentrated on the change. His bones popped and snapped as some shrank and others elongated. The short stubble on his chin turned to fur with the longer whiskers of his lupine self. Muscles grew smaller, more compact as he continued to concentrate on his other half until there was nothing left of him, but his wolf.

  Kalen stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. He scented nothing yet, but then he hadn’t expected to. Turning East, he headed back toward Michigan and the woman he couldn’t seem to forget no matter how hard he tried.

  One thing was certain. As soon as he found the woman, he was showering her smell from his body and taking the first mode of transportation away from her. She was dangerous to his bachelorhood. He could feel it.

  Chapter Three

  Ally ran through the woods as fast as she could. She stumbled over her feet at first, but as strange as it was, it didn’t take long to get used to running on four legs instead of two. She fought the urge to keep looking back. That was always the first mistake of women in trouble in the movies. They constantly looked back and usually ended up tripping over something in their hurry to escape whatever monster, or villain that chased them.

  There was no way she would make that mistake. If someone followed her, it was best to keep looking forward while running as fast as she could away from them.

  Low tree branches and brush slapped her face and eyes as she ran past. Her lungs ached with exertion and her legs felt like jelly. Still, she knew she must keep moving. There was no doubt in her mind that the others would follow her.

  Where she headed was anyone’s guess. Ally hoped it was home. Now that she was an animal, wouldn’t she have an instinct for that sort of thing? Stopping near a stream to catch her breath, she eyed the water wistfully. She may be a dog, but she wasn’t thirsty enough to drink untested water.

  Dream or not, reality or not, she had to have her standards. She trotted across the stream and scared a rabbit from its hiding place. The animal couldn’t know she wouldn’t eat it, no matter how hungry she was, or how tempted.

  Ally dropped her clothes on top of pine needles and leaves, then plopped down to rest. She knew she couldn’t stay long, but the niggling pain she felt while she ran grew stronger. Her stomach cramped and her paws ached. No matter how badly she needed to run, Ally didn’t think she was going anywhere anytime soon.

  If what she suspected was true, she was about to change back into a human and the only thing she had to wear were her practically non-existent panties and her waist length t-shirt. What a day to decide to stop wearing the big, baggy oversized shirts she loved. This was the last time she listened to advice from anyone concerning her wardrobe—that was for sure.

  The cramps worsened. Ally curled up into a tight ball and whimpered. The pain of the last change was almost too much for her to bear. What if she fainted this time and lay here on the ground naked? She groaned again as the pain grew more intense. Even her hair follicles hurt.

  It didn’t take much longer for Ally to begin to shift shape again. Like before, her jaws popped and cracked as they changed size. Fur that covered her body seemed to disappear back into her skin. Paws became hands as claws changed to fingernails once again.

  The animal side of her whined and cried with the agony. When Ally finally regained her human vocal chords, she was unable to keep the scream of pain from bubbling from her lips.

  Afraid to move for fear of causing herself more distress, Ally lay on the ground cold and panting for what seemed like hours. As soon as it was possible to breathe without pain, she donned her underwear and the t-shirt that barely covered her midriff and sat down on a n
earby log. She tried not to think of how many bugs lived in the rotted wood. She only knew she needed to rest after her ordeal.

  Taking a quick look around, Ally realized she had no idea where she was, or where to go. There was no way she could ever walk the several miles back home, even if she knew which direction to go. Dogs had thick pads on their paws. She had nothing more than her bare feet.

  Ally looked over her shoulder in the direction the animal that somehow seemed a part of her now had headed. Perhaps that was the way home. Still, she wasn’t certain. What if she got even more lost once she abandoned this stream? Should she follow the water?

  She bit her lip as she sat thinking. Ally had a feeling that home was just over her right shoulder, but what if she was wrong? Walking through the woods as a dog and striding through them half-naked as a human were two very different things.

  “What now?” she asked herself as she rubbed her upper arms. The sun had begun to set and she had no way to keep warm. Ally shivered as the real possibility of freezing to death crossed her mind. If only she would have remained a dog for the night. At least then she had had a fur coat.

  “Dang it all, Ally.” How many times had her neighbor, Milly told her to look before she leaped? If she’d thought of that, she might have just stayed where she was in the van, instead of running like a scared rabbit.

  “You look like a girl who could use some help.”

  The sound of the deep voice startled her and Ally turned with her hand to her throat. Two men stood side by side, fishing poles draped over their shoulders. Blond and bucktoothed, they both wore jeans and thick plaid jackets over their t-shirts. They looked like twins, but one was taller and thin. The shorter one was a bit on the stocky side. Along with his fishing pole, the tall man carried what looked like a bait bucket and a cooler. The short one held a string of fish that looked almost good enough to eat raw. Ally shuddered at the thought.