Werewolf on Somana Two: Michael

by Brenda Steele

  “I’ll see you home. End of story.”

  When she turned and stalked off, he fell into step behind her, enjoying the sway of her hips and that curvy ass of hers. How he longed to get his hands around her waist, use it to drive her into his hard-on, and relieve the ache he had in his groin area. Take her, his inner wolf whispered. She belongs to us.

  He’d had plenty of women in his time, but he’d found no reason to claim any of them. Why Chrissie? Was it because she was so fiery, so defiant? That wildness, so rare in the humans he had met, appealed to him. He knew that one day he would take a long-term lover, not a mate since that level of commitment had not appealed to him, but he had assumed it would be another werewolf because only one of his own kind could satisfy that deep hunger. Still, it would be interesting to test how much more Chrissie could stave off his rampant desires than Willie had. Watching Chrissie’s luscious body in front of him, he couldn’t imagine what he had seen in Willie. Hell, she had been willing. That was enough at the time.

  “We’re here. You can get lost now,” Chrissie announced.

  Michael looked up from her ass and glanced around. Chrissie had been telling the truth. She did live in a bad area. The buildings, erected close together, were little more than ugly stone squares with a window or two thrown in for good measure. Some had more than one story. Funny enough, the bars and clubs were fancier with blinking neon lights and artificial trees gracing the fronts. The falseness of it all made him miss Earth. He missed the mountains, the fresh air, and the forests. Sure, he hadn’t lived anywhere but on the reservation for years, but the agency had not skimped on the amount of land they had to run free over.

  “Which one is yours?” Michael stopped and narrowed his eyes. He sniffed the air, and then with lightning speed, he grabbed a hold of Chrissie and dragged her back into the shadows of an alley. She wiggled in his arms, her ass rubbing his thigh and making him hard. “Keep still, damn it. Someone’s here. Agents.”

  She stopped struggling, and Michael uncovered her mouth but didn’t loosen his hold. He figured she wouldn’t dart back into the street, but he liked holding her.

  “You can let me go now,” she muttered.

  He grinned behind her head. “I could, but why?” He nuzzled her neck, enjoying her scent over that of the agents. None were nearby, and from the sounds he picked up around them, they weren’t moving either. They were waiting for someone, and Michael guessed it was Chrissie. But how had they figured out she was involved in the thefts before he made his report to Willie?

  “Are you sure someone’s out there? I don’t see anyone, and there’s my neighbor.” She indicated a man leaning casually against a door frame. “He would have called me if I needed to lay low for a few days. We look out for each other.”

  Michael narrowed his eyes on the man. From their distance, he saw as clear as if the man were a foot away. Michael picked up on the guy’s increased heart rate, the vein bulging in his temple, and his dilated eyes that had nothing to do with the low lighting in the area. This man was anything but calm. “What’s your relationship with this guy?”

  Chrissie stiffened. “None of your business.”

  He tightened his hold and leaned down to kiss along the side of her neck while never removing his eyes from the man. After some time of torturing her, making her tremble in his arms, he moved his lips to her ear. “He’s sold you out to the agency, told them where to find you. Now he’s waiting for you to show up so he can get paid.”

  She broke free of his hold and whirled on him. “That’s a lie. I’ve known Mack for years. He hates the agency just like everyone else around here, and he wouldn’t give up one of his own for their money.”

  Michael didn’t move from where he stood when she flounced away. Let her go and find out for herself. He glanced down and felt his side. The wounds were just about closed. A good night’s sleep would have him right as rain. He’d been torn up before and would be again. He’d become used to ignoring the pain and doing whatever he had to do. He didn’t look forward to another fight, but these were mere men. The last agency leader was a magic user, and he had enabled his men to use it with limited results, but with Willie heading the law makers on Somana Two and Earth, no magic would be involved. He had only to be careful that he didn’t forget himself and kill the bastards. Willie would have his head for that. As it was, she’d have his head anyway for keeping Chrissie from them. Whatever. This break between them was a long time in coming. He couldn’t remain her lap dog forever with no real aim in life. How one small woman could get him in this much trouble so quickly, he didn’t know.

  The moment Chrissie strolled up to Mack, Michael sensed the agents moving. He willed her to get her sexy ass in the house, but she stood there talking and gesturing. From the shocked look on the man’s face, Michael guessed that she was sharing what happened back at the other site. Mack rested a hand on Chrissie’s shoulder, and Michael snarled from his position in the alley. He was gratified to see Chrissie step away from the touch with a casual movement. Good, he wouldn’t have to rip the guy’s arm out of its socket. He recalled all the men Chrissie worked with and now this guy. Did she not know any women? Did she ever wear dresses? He couldn’t imagine her in one, but knew she’d look just as tasty as she did now.

  The agents, all carrying laser weapons, swarmed on the street. Michael spat. Damn, he did not look forward to getting zapped. Too many, and he feared he’d have his brains scrambled. “Ah, well, live only once.”

  He darted into the street and engaged the agents. To her credit, his little spitfire gave them hell as well, sending more than one agent flying backward with a well-placed kick. When more agents descended, Chrissie spun to face her friend. “Let me hold your Glock, Mack.”

  In answer, he held up his hands and backed into his house. “Sorry, Chrissie. I’m sorry. They had my number. You know I need the money.” She stared in horror when the door closed in her face, and Michael had to yank her out of the way of a shot fired.

  Michael’s side was killing him. One of the agents had squeezed off a couple rounds at that exact place of all the parts of his body he could have hit. He grunted, tucking Chrissie behind him. “Stay back while I deal with them.”

  “No way. I can fight my own battles, Michael.”

  She wouldn’t be held back but gave it all she had. Frustrated because he couldn’t watch her and take on twenty men, Michael cracked heads and drove his fists into jaw after jaw.

  After twenty minutes, the numbers of their enemy were not lessening. Michael struggled up from beneath five men atop him. A whirring caught his attention. Reinforcements, if he didn’t miss his guess. They needed to move and move fast, or he would find himself shipped off to the reservation on Earth, and Chrissie would no doubt be sentenced to jail soon after. With a final drive of his elbow into the gut of one man, followed by a kick in the groin of another, Michael looked for his and Chrissie’s escape route. The road in both directions was fast filling with agents. He came to the swift conclusion that the only way out was through one of the houses. Kicking Mack’s door in would give him great satisfaction for the guy betraying Chrissie.

  Michael ran toward the house, grabbing Chrissie’s hand on the way. She yelled a protest, but then she must have heard the aircars as well and stopped resisting. They hit Mack’s door at a run, and Michael tore the hinges from the wall with one blow. Once they were inside, Chrissie led the way to the back of the house, both of them ignoring Mack’s shouted protests.

  At the back alley under cover of darkness, Michael took the lead again. “Stick close to me,” he commanded. “I know a safe place.”

  “I can’t see a thing,” Chrissie protested.

  “I can see. Trust me.”

  She held onto his arm and ran blindly at his side. Michael ran full tilt, shouting instructions to jump or move left to her all the way to avoid places where her neighbors had littered in the back alley. With the poor lighting and general condition of the area, Willie didn’t give a ri
p about these people. This area was a stark difference from the north side, and if he ever got a chance to talk to her face-to-face again, he would speak his piece about the responsibilities of a leader. Then he chuckled under his breath. Up until he met Chrissie, he didn’t give a rat’s ass either, but not just about the poor citizens of Somana Two, about everyone and everything.

  Shaking his head in disgust at himself, Michael at last led them out to light, and they stopped at the side of a crowded street to allow Chrissie to catch her breath. Michael hadn’t broken a sweat. In fact, the run and the chase had invigorated him, made him long for a forest and his wolf form.

  When Chrissie breathed easier, he took her hand, and they weaved through the crowd. He kept an eye out for agents while they headed toward Kelly’s shop. Chrissie needed a place to lie low, somewhere she would be safe, and he hoped Gabriel wouldn’t turn him away because up until now, he owned nothing, wanted nothing. Right at this moment, he would do anything to keep her safe. Thinking of his desire for her, he glanced back at her and caught her questioning look. He couldn’t explain what he felt.

  The beast whispered in his mind. “She belongs to us. Claim her.” Michael shook his head and spun away in time to spot a taxi. He flagged it down, and they jumped inside. He was about to wave his palm over the payment mechanism, but Chrissie stopped him.

  “No, they can track us if you do that. You don’t know if they’ve identified you as the person who helped me escape.” She tugged the pack she had hanging from her back around to her lap and fished around inside it. When she brought out a small black card, Michael frowned. She winked. “I have several tricks up my sleeve.”

  The scanner registered a Lexie Tanner, and he gave the driver the address to Kelly’s shop. Chrissie hadn’t ceased to amaze him since he met her. “So you always carry that kind of card? I’ve never heard of ID in card form instead of an implant. What else do you have in that bag?”

  She pursed her lips. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  He moved closer to her. “I’m more interested to know what you have under your clothes.”

  She scoffed and turned away, but he heard her pulse quicken.

  “Your mind is on one thing at all times.”

  “I’m wolf. That’s what we do,” he explained.

  She looked over and blinked at him. “Seriously? You have sex all the time?” Her cute nose wrinkled, which made him want to kiss it. “Remind a woman never to lose her heart over a werewolf because I suspect your kind isn’t faithful.”

  Her words offended him a little, but he ignored the feeling. “Are you in danger of falling in love with me, Chrissie?”

  “Reality, please.”

  “Oh, we’re talking reality, my sexy little thief. More than you like to admit.” He slipped closer, and Chrissie moved tighter against the door to get as far away from him as possible. Michael wasn’t put off in the least. He would get her, all of her, no matter how much time it took, and, he suspected, it wouldn’t take very long to accomplish. He looked down at her leather-encased leg and rested a hand on her thigh. She shivered. With his fingers curved over between her legs, he slid his hand higher toward her pussy. She stopped him.

  “Don’t.”

  “You want it as much as I do.”

  “Whether I do or don’t, Michael, doesn’t mean I have to give into what you want. I’ve got enough issues, and like I said, I don’t sleep with animals or even half-animals.”

  This time, her words did get to him, and he flared his nostrils. Common sense told him she said it to piss him off in hope that he’d drop the seduction. True, his ardor cooled, but he wasn’t letting her get away with dismissing him in such a way. He’d bring his street-smart little burglar to her knees with an orgasm or three before it was all over.

  They soon drew up at Kelly’s shop, and Michael stepped out of the vehicle behind Chrissie. He winced at the pain in his side and frowned at the wet red stain there. The laser weapons had agitated his wound. The one on his neck was in much better condition. As they walked up to the shop with a lighted sign above it, Michael noted that the place was closed and hoped Gabriel and Kelly were still there and hadn’t returned to their house. He didn’t want to have to catch another taxi and risk agents finding them on the street. As it was, coming here had been a risk, especially if the agents knew he had helped Chrissie, but he didn’t smell any of them nearby. Kelly, being a witch, kept a spell about her shop that made it all but invisible to agents. She hadn’t found a need to since Willie took over the agency as leader, but then he figured old habits died hard, and everyone knew Willie was all about her own agenda. She had no real loyalties to anyone.

  Ahead of him, Chrissie stumbled, and figuring that she had stepped wrong, he reached a hand out to catch her, but when the full brunt of her weight came down on his hand, although it was slight because of her size, he began to worry. Her head dipped.

  “Chrissie!” He tugged her close and flipped her around. She was unconscious. He searched her body but found no wounds. Tugging her up into his arms, he charged at the store and kicked the door a few times but not hard enough to destroy it like he’d done to Mack’s door. “Gabriel, open up.”

  The door swung open, and his brother snarled at him. “What did I tell you, Michael? You haven’t been gone that long. I don’t intend to fight with you tonight.”

  “Please,” was Michael’s simple reply. He raised Chrissie up into the light and caught Kelly’s gasp from behind her husband.

  “Bring her in,” she commanded. “I’ll look at her. Stop being a bully, Gabriel, and help him. He’s hurt, too.”

  Gabriel’s gaze dropped to Michael’s side. The disbelief and lack of concern was a blazing message in his expression and bearing, but he did step to the side and hold out his arms for Chrissie. Michael pulled her closer to his chest. “I have her. Just tell me where to lay her.”

  Gabriel narrowed his gaze on Chrissie and sniffed. “Human, and you haven’t claimed her. What’s she to you? Another bed partner?”

  “Go to hell,” Michael grumbled.

  “Boys, stow it!” Kelly led the way into a back room she used as a clinic. She instructed Michael to lay Chrissie on a narrow bed she kept there and sat down beside Chrissie when he did. “What’s happened to her? Any wounds I need to attend to?”

  Michael shrugged, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. She collapsed just outside. We were in a sort of . . . uh . . . fight, but she didn’t get hit.”

  Kelly glared up at him. “Hit? What do you mean hit?”

  He hesitated to explain, unsure if they would help if they knew what Chrissie did for a living. It wasn’t that Kelly was on the up-and-up all the time. The previous leader of the agency had passed a law stating her shop activities were illegal, and for all he knew, that hadn’t been changed. But for what it was, Kelly made an honest living, and Gabriel had aspirations to politics on a local scale, a sort of liaison between the citizens and the agency. Michael couldn’t guess their reaction to how Chrissie made her money.

  Instead of answering Kelly’s question, Michael turned to Gabriel. “I have information on the missing werewolves.”

  As he had hoped, the statement distracted his brother. He pressed a heavy hand down on Michael’s shoulder and guided him back to the front of the shop, leaving Kelly to care for Chrissie. Michael cast a glance at his soon-to-be lover, but Gabriel closed the door to the clinic.

  “After I find out what you know about the werewolves, you can explain to me who she is and why you’re acting like you don’t want to be away from her. I won’t believe you’ve actually found your mate a few days after coming on to my wife.”

  “Fuck you,” Michael grumbled.

  Gabriel dropped into a chair behind the counter and swiveled it to face Michael. He crossed his arms over his chest, his low brows, narrowed eyes, and compressed lips giving off a forbidden attitude, one that said he would brook no BS from Michael. Michael didn’t give a crap how his brother viewed him
at this point. He’d share what he knew of the wolves and get back to Chrissie. He didn’t owe Gabriel any more than that. Gabriel might be alpha, but Michael didn’t acknowledge him as his alpha. As far as Michael was concerned, he was a lone wolf—and would stay that way. So what if Gabriel had brought him back from the brink of insanity, something only an alpha could do? He wouldn’t owe his allegiance to him the rest of his life, older brother or not.

  Michael strolled over to the front window and peered out into the night. “She keep a spell hiding this place?”

  “What of it?”

  Michael spared him a glance. “Does she or doesn’t she?”

  “She does.”

  He sighed and turned back to the darkness. “There’s a new facility about forty clicks southeast of Somana Two, an expansion project. The three werewolves that came in on a ship from Earth must have crashed nearby. They’re holing up in that facility. Just a matter of time before they make it here . . . and start a killing spree.”

  Chapter Six

  Chrissie opened her eyes to a darkened room. Although she couldn’t see a thing, she sensed she wasn’t alone. Defenseless, she didn’t make any sudden moves, and yet, she wasn’t afraid either. Something told her Michael was the person lurking in the darkness.

  “Where am I?” she whispered.

  He answered right away. “In my sister-in-law’s clinic.”

  “She’s a doctor?”

  “Of sorts.”

  She grunted. “Would you try not to tick me off, Michael, and tell me exactly where we are?”

  He sat down on the bed, and she realized the room wasn’t quite so dark. She made out his face in a dim pool of light. He ran a finger down her cheek, giving her chills of delight. She wanted more, so much more. Closing her eyes and turning her face into his palm, she tried to remember what happened and recalled the taxi ride to the shop and how she had lost all strength before blacking out. After that, she could recall nothing, but somehow she derived comfort knowing he was the one she woke up to.