by Elle Thorne
She sucked in a lungful of air, then pushed off the tree. “I’m good to go.”
Dunn wasn’t so sure. He hadn’t factored in she couldn’t see in the dark like he could, what with his shifter abilities. No, she was a mere human, ordinary, not blessed with any of the skills a paranormal possessed. He’d have to be her eyes. He’d need to slow down to allow for her pace. He took her hand. “Come on. I shouldn’t have gone so fast.” He started off on a path that wended through the forest, heading toward a highway. “I need to get to Bear Canyon Valley. To Griz.”
She probably had no clue where or who that was, but she tugged his hand, pulling him to a stop. “You can’t risk being caught. Whatever it is you know, or that you’ve done, they seem to mean business. They went through a lot of trouble. Please, go.”
“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.” He couldn’t explain to her that he had a bear that would paralyze him rather than leave her behind. As to the bear’s reasons for doing this, Dunn would have a discussion with him later, but for now, he knew better than to counteract his bear. He could feel his bear’s watchful gaze on him, on his every action, ready to drop the hammer on Dunn if he stepped out of line. He could feel his bear’s claws raking across his mind, reminding him he was there and alert. Not so much hurting Dunn, as making him hyper-aware of the parameters his bear had set up.
“What’s that even mean?” She huffed. “You are exasperating. And you’re going to get yourself caught. I can’t let you—”
A figure stepped out of the woods, blocking their path.
Dunn heard Meri’s pulse quicken and how she held her breath in fear of the newcomer.
The man said nothing. A huge man, his eyes glowed the amber fires of a shifter. He stared at the two of them, a pistol in his hand.
Dunn studied the weapon. Not a typical firearm. Tranq? Probably. Tranqs—tranquilizers specifically created to target shifters. To render them unconscious for a long-ass time.
And still the man was silent.
“How’d you find us?”
The man tapped his nose with his empty hand. “The nose knows. It’s not like it was hard to find you. Wheeler kept me appraised.”
“So you work with Wheeler. Razorpeak.”
The man, his shaved head gleaming in the light cast by the moon, flashed a menacing grin. “Not exactly. I freelance.”
Dunn’s mind froze. He’d been ready to pull some shit and lunge for the dude, but now he paused, wondering what that meant. “So you wouldn’t take me back inside Razorpeak? Wheeler works for the Conclave.”
The man—Dunn hadn’t figured out what kind of shifter he was yet—shrugged.
“How’d you know exactly where I’d be?”
“You are not the only one who knows about the exit. I’ve seen the plans.”
There was no way. Flix would never have given up the information. He wouldn’t have betrayed him or showed anyone the plans. Unless he was dead. A special kind of rage tore through Dunn. “You killed him to get the blueprints?”
The man smirked. “You’re coming with me. I get paid regardless whether you’re dead or alive. But the bounty pays better if you’re breathing. So, what’s it gonna be?”
“She’s my hostage. Let her go. She’s got no skin in this.”
Next to him, he felt her startle at his proclamation.
Baldy glanced toward Meri, studying her. “So, what do you care, if she’s your hostage? Whether she’s breathing or not shouldn’t matter to you.”
“I gave my word.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about Dunnigan Youngblood. You think everyone follows the rules like you?”
He studied Baldy, pretty damned sure that bastard didn’t follow rules or a conscience. Time to fly by the seat of his pants. “I’ll make it worth your time. I go peacefully, you’ve got a live bounty, more cash, and she goes free.”
Baldy doubled over. Dunn wasn’t sure if he was shifting or having a seizure until he realized the braying sound coming from the big man was laughter. “You have no bargaining power here, Youngblood.”
He raised the tranq pistol and pulled the trigger.
Chapter Twelve
The bald man raised the pistol and took aim at Dunn’s chest. She’d thought he’d have agreed to Dunn’s terms, but no, he shot him.
“No.” She gasped as Dunn crumpled to the ground. She dropped next to him, holding his head. “You killed him. You bastard.” Gone was the little girl who panicked at the sight of death. Gone was the girl who had determined to study forensic pathology after watching her mother die. Gone was the woman she’d been a few moments ago. In her place rose up the fiercest of illusions of a warrior. Vengeance would be hers.
Her back to the bald son of a bitch who’d shot Dunn, Meri reached toward Dunn’s ankle and took the pistol from the holster whilst at the same time she snagged the silencer from his pocket. She rose effortlessly while screwing the tip onto the muzzle. She sent a silent prayer up that the gun wasn’t on a safe mode or that she needed to do anything other than pull the trigger because, if she did, she was screwed. She had no knowledge of weaponry. None, whatsoever.
Holding her breath, she turned around slowly, the pistol aimed at the bald giant’s chest.
He looked at the gun, then chuckled. “You can’t kill me, sweetheart.”
The way he said sweetheart made a shudder wash over her. He kept dead eyes focused on her. Dead eyes with hints of amber flames. Why did those eyes remind her of Dunn? Who cared? He shot Dunn. He shouldn’t be allowed to live.
He took a step closer, dropping his weapon in the pine needles.
“Stop.” She held the gun tightly to keep her quivering fingers from shaking.
“You know you can’t kill me, don’t you?” His voice changed, becoming raspy and gravely.
His head—wait a second—was that hair on his head now? She took a step back. He snarled at her. Actually snarled. Like an animal snarl. What the hell? She stared at the man as his face began to transform. A snout grew with squeaking and stretching sounds. Long canines protruded from a mouth that now dripped glistening saliva. His hands had turned into paws, his forearms, creaked into heavily gray-furred appendages.
Half man and half animal—wolf?—he growled at her. “Yarr ca-t kee mee.” He was still saying that she couldn’t kill him, but god, what the hell was he?
Visions of scary movies ran through her mind. Fuck this. He was going to kill her. She aimed the pistol’s sights at his head and pulled the trigger slowly. She’d seen a TV show that mentioned you didn’t jerk a trigger, so she went slow, on a breath.
A muted shot and the bullet traveled directly to its target, striking the creature in the eye. He flew backward, crashing into a tree and dropping to a sitting position, a hole in his head where his eye had been.
Thank goodness. She stepped closer to the beast-man and prodded him with her toe, the pistol still aimed at his head. He was motionless. She wasn’t going to get close enough to that monstrosity to verify a headshot wasn’t a kill shot. Who could have survived that, anyway?
“What the hell are you?” She wanted to take a sample from him. To put it under a microscope. To examine his cytology. He was a mutant of some sort. A man that turned into a wolf. Like those werewolf movies she’d watched long ago. But that wasn’t possible. “The hell it isn’t.” It was staring her in the face. Okay, not staring, as she’d killed it. But the fact of it—the existence of it—was indeed staring her in the face. Thankfully, it was dead. Very thankfully. She gave in to a sigh of relief, stepped away from him, and threw the pistol to the ground.
Turning her attention to Dunn, she checked his pulse. He wasn’t dead. Tears sprung to her eyes. Should she try to get help at Razorpeak? They could save his life, maybe. No, wait she should check the wound. Make sure it was something she could handle. But why was he unconscious? If he wasn’t injured bad enough to kill him, how’d he lose consciousness so quickly?
She felt around on his chest for the sticky wetness of
blood or for a spot where the bullet had penetrated the fabric but found neither. Instead, she found a tiny dart imbedded in his flesh, just above the collar of his shirt. She pulled it out and studied it. She’d seen enough shows on television to recognize a dart. Like the kind vets used to tranquilize animals on wildlife shows.
Avoiding touching the tip, she turned the dart over and over. Had to be. So, why did he do that? Why’d he sedate Dunn? How long would he be out? She stabbed the dart into the dirt then sat next to Dunn, cradling his head in her lap, waiting it out. What else could she do?
She brushed a leaf out of his dark hair, wiped smudges of dirt from his face. She found herself tracing his jawline and cheekbone with gentle fingertips. “What’s your story, Dunnigan Youngblood? What gives you this special cell structure? Did it come during cell mitosis? Why have your centrioles not moved to separate poles? And why the extra centrosomes?”
She glanced at the beast man. He’d changed. He was no longer a beast, only a man. “I wonder what his cell structure looks like.” She’d love to collect some of his samples, but they’d be fully degraded by the time she actually got to a microscope. Shame, that. She’d have loved to dig into his genetic makeup.
She couldn’t have said how long she sat there, in the dark, silent, holding Dunn, waiting for him to wake up. He would, wouldn’t he? She checked his pulse regularly to find him still alive. His breathing was even. She’d wait him out.
The forest’s sounds made her wish she’d held on to the pistol. She looked to where it lay in a pool of moonlight near the bald man’s feet. If she heard anything that sounded like an animal, she’d go for it, but right now, she didn’t want to disrupt Dunn. Meri couldn’t have said how long she was there, in the empty—hopefully?—forest, holding him, praying none of the search party that Razorpeak would send for Dunn would come this way. That the bald man didn’t have accomplices who’d come searching for him.
Never a patient woman, she found herself tested, sitting still like this, doing nothing. But she did. And finally, what may have been an hour or three later, Dunnigan groaned. He opened his eyes, and his gaze, not fully focused or completely cognizant, locked on her face.
“What…where?” He glanced around. “We’re still in the forest?” He tried to sit up but seemed off-balance. She helped him, supporting his back. “Shit. What the hell happened to him? Last time I saw him, he was shooting me with a tranq.”
Tranq? So, it had been a tranquilizer, just as she’d thought. “I shot him with your gun. Right in the eye.”
Dunn frowned. “He’s not dead.”
“You think he can survive that? There’s no way. Look, you should know I’m familiar with how bodies work. Do you know how many post-mortems I’ve been involved in? No one could survive that headshot. No one.”
He chewed on his lip, then finally, “He’s not a simple man. I mean…well, he’s—”
“Yeah, he’s a freak.”
Chapter Thirteen
Oh, shit. Dunn snapped his head in her direction. “What do you mean, exactly? A freak?”
“He, uh, well…forget it. Sounds crazy, anyway.”
“Try me.” Fuck. He thought of the last time he told her to try him. She’d said she didn’t know where she was and shit got real then, too. He had a feeling it was going to get real all over again. And in a dire way.
“He turned into an animal.”
Yup. Very damned dire. “Baldy turned into an animal?” He stalled for time. Clearly, the bastard started to shift into his animal. “What kind of animal?”
“I guess a wolf.” She shook her head. “Like I said, I sound crazy, but…”
“But?” Dunn kept his eyes on the bald bastard against the tree. “But what?”
“No matter how crazy it may sound, it happened. It really did.”
“But he’s not an animal now. He’s not a wolf. He’s fully human.”
“Yeah, I know. Sometime after I shot him, he turned back. I was too busy checking on you.”
“I appreciate you watching out for me.”
“But you don’t believe I saw what I saw.”
“I believe you.” Fuck that bastard for shifting while she was watching.
She stared at him, silent.
Finally, he gave in. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You ever heard of the story about Dr. Moreau and his island?”
He frowned. “I haven’t.” And he wondered why she was asking and what this island was about.
“It’s a story about a doctor who created hybrid human-animals.”
Shit. And now he knew where she was going with this.
As though recognizing his recoil, though he thought he’d contained his reaction, she said, “No, listen. You have some abnormal cells. This guy has some abnormal cells, I bet, I mean, damn, he’s a walking abnormality. What is Razorpeak doing? Are they experimenting on people? Did they experiment on you?”
He shook his head. Good luck getting out of this one. “It’s not what—”
Scuffling to the side caught his attention.
Meri screamed.
Baldy was on his feet. And worse, he was holding Wheeler’s pistol. “Shut up,” he told her. “Shut the fuck up before you draw any attention.”
She clamped her lips shut.
“You shot me, you bitch.” He put his hand to his head, felt around. “You took my fucking eye out. That’s not something I can heal from, even if I hibernate heal.”
“Hibernate heal?” she whispered, staring at Baldy like she’d seen a ghost.
Dunn could understand. How was she to know Baldy was a shifter and a simple shot to his eye, if it missed the important parts of his brain, would not kill him. And now here he was, talking about hibernate-healing, an act only shifters and those close to them were familiar with. An act which would heal a shifter who was perilously close to dying or needed an extra boost to heal. Yes, none of these would be something Meri was familiar with. And right now, she was dealing fairly well with the idea that a man who should be dead was standing up, talking, and pointing a pistol their way.
“Things would have been just fine if she hadn’t interfered,” Baldy babbled. “If she’d minded her own business, you’d be on your way to New Orleans. I’d be on the way to Barbados. Nicodème would be happy. Saizon would get off my ass.” He glared at Meri. “All. Because. Of. You.” He punctuated each word with a jab of the pistol. And every single time the end of the barrel was aimed toward her.
Dunn’s bear roared in his mind, in full-on protective mode. Dunn had to do something. “Hey, listen,” he told Baldy. “I don’t even know your name. But can’t we work this out? I’ll go with you. Right now. Leave her be. I’ll go with you.”
“Oh, you’ll go with me. But she’s not.”
Just like that, he pulled the trigger.
Meri jerked backward. Her hands flew to her midsection, her lips parted in a soundless scream, eyes wide open.
An ever-expanding red ring blossomed on her abdomen.
She collapsed.
Dunn caught her in his arms then froze. He stared at her in disbelief as the color drained from her cheeks and her eyes grew unfocused and fluttered. Her lips paled.
Shock took over his faculties. The only one that had any wherewithal to do anything was his bear. In his mind, the bear roared, bellowed his rage, and rose up on his hindquarters, grieving and issuing a warning, all at the same time.
Dunn’s mind started to churn, pumping out ideas faster than he could fully comprehend them. He could save her. Yes, he could. But to do that, he’d have to take on death itself. And succumbing to death meant leaving that bald bastard to do whatever he wanted to him or Meri. If Dunn took her death, then she’d rise, and Baldy would kill her again. And this time, it would be out of his control. Completely.
His bear roared, interrupting his thoughts, demanding Dunn do something. Anything. Like what? He couldn’t take on her death until Baldy was eliminated as a threat. That meant he�
�d have to do something to Baldy. Do it swiftly and hope Meri didn’t die while he did this. The bear roared again, urging him to act.
He laid her down on the soft pine needles.
“Don’t leave me,” she uttered, her voice so low it took his supernatural shifter hearing to pick it up.
“I won’t be more than a second.” Or three.
“I don’t want to die alone.” Her words ripped him in half.
“I won’t let you.” He ran a finger down her cheek, to her neck, against her artery. So fucking slow. Too slow. How’d she come to mean so much to him in such a short time? His bear bellowed for him to get moving.
“You keep an ear out for her pulse. If it looks like— If we’re going to lose her, I’ve got to do my thing,” he told his bear, though he had no doubt the bear would be completely tuned into her.
It seemed the bear had made a decision. Not one that surprised him, not really, but still. The bear had come to the conclusion she was his fated mate. Dunn didn’t know how shifter animals determined these things, but they were irreversible. No matter what stage his feelings for Meri were at, the bear had gone from zero to full-on. Already.
All those thoughts from the second she’d been shot had gone through his head in what might have been a few short seconds, but it felt like an eternity.
He lunged to his feet toward Baldy’s direction, ready to take him down, only to find himself face-to-barrel with the tranq pistol, and it was loaded.
No. The bastard couldn’t shoot him with that dart. This couldn’t happen. She’d die while he was unconscious.
Later, when it came time to, Dunn couldn’t have described what had transpired next, not exactly, not with any accuracy of memory. It was a flash as his bear did something that could yield dire consequences.
A ripping came from deep within as his bear tore himself from Dunn’s soul. It felt like a searing, burning sword was slicing him in half from deep within. He’d been told of this phenomenon. A shifter’s animal splitting from his soul. He’d heard they couldn’t survive unless they had a place to go. Another body.
