~*~
Why didn’t he? Because it wasn’t her repulsive scent that drew him. It was her soft whine of fear that drove a nail into his heart. That’s what sent him to her. But once she was safe, why didn’t he follow through on his mission? He knew Bane was in there and if there was one thing Bull was known for, it was the single-mindedness with which he pursued his quarry.
He’d allowed himself to be distracted by the skinny assed wolver in the seat next to him who was going to be a fat assed wolver if she kept eating like that.
His wolf rolled over, kicking its feet in the air and indicating he didn’t care. Skinny assed or fat, he wanted her.
Bull had to agree, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. He liked his women softly pliant both in and out of bed. He was pretty sure the gentle vulnerability he’d seen in Tommie the night before was strictly the result of her exhaustion. There was nothing soft about her. She was angular, and sharp as a tack. While starvation was partly to blame, the woman sitting next to him, chomping on her second giant burger from the bag, and her fourth of the night, had never been round. He’d stake his last dollar on it.
“Bull? Um, Bull?”
He was also beginning to understand why they starved her. Starving, she didn’t talk. Fed, she didn’t give him a moment’s peace. In more ways than one.
“Bull! Stop!”
At her screech, Bull slammed on the brakes. Tires squealed and the bed of the truck shimmied. Seatbelts kept them both from flying through the windshield. Holy shit, had he hit something?
Tommie was still screeching as she ripped the seatbelt from its slot, tore open the door, and ran across the street, angling back behind the truck. Her hands were in the air and she looked like she was on the attack. The two women on the sidewalk looked ready to run.
God only knew what the woman was going to do. Bull charged after her. He reached her just as she reached the women. Tommie’s arms were spread wide as if she planned to clothesline the two.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared. Grabbing her about the waist, he pulled her back, lifting her off her feet in the process. He held her away from the women.
“Put me down, you big beast. Put me down!” Her arms flailed. Her feet kicked.
Bull was suddenly besieged by two more pair of flailing arms and kicking legs as the ladies he’d saved from attack began attacking him.
“Let her go!”
“Leave her alone!”
“Put me down!”
Bull recognized them before they recognized what he was.
He called on the power within him, and because the full moon was so near, it came in an instant. The air around him crackled with it. He felt his chest expand with it. The already powerful muscles of his arms and legs grew more even more so.
“Stop it,” he commanded in a voice that barely rose above a whisper, and everything did.
Tommie froze in his arms. The two women stepped back, heads slightly bowed.
“Are you going to behave?” he asked with his mouth close to Tommie’s ear.
Her head bobbed, which he took to be a ‘yes’ and he set her down on her feet.
She didn’t turn to him, but tilted her head back until it touched his chest and spoke to his chin. “But I already was behaving. You’re the one who came swooping in like some big badass wolf and scaring my friend. It was pretty impressive, though. Can I learn how to do that?”
Bull looked down into the face that was grinning up at him. “No. Only males can do it.”
“Chauvinist.”
He wondered if he could get the last word in if he kissed her. Her lips were almost healed. The bruise on her cheek had faded, and why hadn’t he noticed the dusky rose that covered her cheeks?
The older of the two women cleared her throat. Bull looked up and stepped back. He held out his hand.
“My apologies, ladies. Bull Bulworth. I didn’t know what my new friend here was up to. She can be a little...”
“Crazy,” Tommie supplied.
Bull frowned at her. “I was going to say impetuous.”
“No you weren’t.”
“New?” Cora asked and gave her companion a look that Bull couldn’t read.
Tommie took up the older woman’s hands in her own. “Oh, Cora, I’ll bet you thought I’d abandoned you, but I didn’t. I didn’t. They took me, too. They kept me in a cage until Bull came and rescued me. We’re going back in to get them out. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand...”
“Um, spitfire?”
Bull tried to interrupt, but Tommie was on a tear, her mouth and hands running wild in her attempt to explain everything that had happened in less than five minutes. Precious time was being wasted. When she ignored his second attempt to interrupt, he slid one hand back around her waist. The other he slid over her mouth.
“You’re done, spitfire,” he said firmly. “You can tell them later. It’s almost moonrise and the light won’t work to our benefit.”
He wasn’t worried about the light. He was worried about the wolvers inside. No matter how much they tormented Tommie, she couldn’t shift to wolf. Outside of the Hunter’s Moon, she would need the power of an Alpha to go over the moon. The males inside were different. Both fully adult, they could shift under their own power anytime during the three days of the full moon. They could refuse to, of course, but Bull didn’t know these men. How strong was their mental stamina, and under constant torture, how long could they hold out?
“We have a job to do and not much time to do it.”
“You said ‘we’,” Tommie said excitedly when he removed his hand. “That means I’m going with you.”
Arguing would only waste more time. Bull held her shoulders and looked into her face. “You do exactly what you’re told, spitfire, or I swear to God, I’ll put you right back in the dumpster.”
Instead of nodding solemnly at what he considered a serious threat, the little wolver laughed. She turned to Cora and her daughter, Molly, and gave them both a quick hug. “Don’t you worry. We’ll get them out. And don’t worry about the big guy, either. He thinks he’s hot stuff, but he’s really just a pussycat.”
~*~
With Bull to boost her up, going over the wall was easy and the dogs were delighted to see him. Bull had changed into his orderly’s uniform. The pants were wrinkled and the tee shirt wasn’t regulation, but it would do. It was his size and face Tommie was worried about. Both would be hard to forget which would make him easily recognized. He didn’t seem concerned.
“Act like you belong and people will think you do.”
No matter how she acted, her red sweater screamed ‘doesn’t belong’. Bull solved the problem with a freshly laundered lab coat stolen from the rack in the laundry. He was moving toward a stack of grey patient uniforms, when a heavily built woman rounded a set of dryers.
“May I help you?” She sounded suspicious.
Bull didn’t miss a beat. He offered the woman a sheepish grin. “Yeah, as a matter of fact you can.” He took a step toward her, blocking Tommie from her view and lowered his voice. “They told me to show the new doc here around the place, but here’s the thing. I’m kind of new, too. She’s supposed to be sharing an office with somebody named Jones, but I can’t find it.”
When he took another few steps forward, Tommie turned her back to the woman and pretended to look around.
“Jones? I don’t know any doctor by that name. Harry? Harry! You know a Doctor Jones?”
“Nah. Got a Jonas, but no Jones.”
“Shit, Jonas, that’s right. Thanks. Do you know where it is? They said it was down here, but I can’t find it.”
The speaker poked his head into the aisle. “That’s because all the shrink’s offices are on the main floor. Only research offices down here.” The man gave a friendly chuckle. “New, huh? I’m surprised they didn’t send you down here looking for the pool. That’s what they usually do and just so you know, there ain’t one.�
�
“See? Easy,” Bull said as he escorted her through the door to the hall.
When he eyed her protruding belly, she laughed and opened her new lab coat enough to reveal the grey pajamas beneath it.
“Good going, spitfire.”
They’re second encounter was not so easy. They were checking the rooms along the corridor where she’d been held, each taking a side. Some of the doors were locked, but none of them heavily, and Bull’s powerful thrust of a shoulder made short work of the flimsy latches. He was just hitting another when a guard came around the corner.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Where’s your IDs?” One hand reached for the button on his shoulder radio while the other fumbled for the unaccustomed gun at his side. “Intruders,” he shouted, just as Bull’s fist hit him. The gun when clattering to the floor.
“Hanley! Where the hell are you?” crackled a voice from the radio.
Without hesitation, Bull grabbed the gun from the floor and held it to the guard’s head, his eyes daring the dazed man to move or speak. He hit the button on the radio.
“Sorry, false alarm. Cleaning lady.”
“Asshole, you scared the shit out of me,” came the disgusted voice on the other end.
“Fuck you,” Bull answered. He lifted his finger from the button and then hit the terrified guard again. The man’s eyes rolled up into his head.
“See? Easy.”
Tommie didn’t think so. The laundry room had been easy, so easy it had almost been fun. This brought home to her more realistic possibilities. What would have happened if the guard hadn’t been surprised? What would have happened if he’d been less inept with his weapon? Until that moment, their clandestine mission had felt more like a game.
Her hands were shaking as she held the door open for Bull to drag the guard’s body through. After checking the safety, Bull tucked the handgun into the back waistband of his pants and then handed the less dangerous stun gun to her. She stared at it.
“Hey, spitfire,” Bull called gently as he touched the hand holding the stun gun. “We’ve done this before, remember?”
Tommie shook her head. “You did this before. I wasn’t really there.”
Emotionally, her memory of her rescue was a series of vague impressions blurred by her confused shock and constant fear. The bizarre circumstances of her treatment and incarceration had given everything that happened that night a feeling of unreality. She remembered every physical action, but little of what she’d felt. Until now.
Her reactions had been visceral. She’d taken an animalistic satisfaction in the deaths of the two orderlies. The nurse’s humiliation was the same. She’d seen them not as human beings, but as her tormentors. Having been treated as an animal, she’d become that animal. She’d felt no sense of right or wrong, no compassion, and no reasoning that could be considered rational.
Congratulations, Dr. Gantnor. Thomas Mortimer Bane’s inner beast had finally been revealed.
“Tommie, look at me. I need your head in the game.”
Bull’s eyes swam into focus in front of her. They were a hazel mixture of brown and gold and green that changed with the light and his mood. These eyes were the color of concern. Would he understand how much this new revelation frightened her? Those eyes said he would.
“Don’t kill him. Please don’t kill him,” she said of the man on the floor. “He isn’t a threat. He was only doing his job.”
“Wasn’t planning to. I promise, nobody’s going to get killed if I can help it, but Samuel and Eli might if we don’t get a move on. You promised Cora and Molly we’d get them out. Think about that and save the rest of this for later. There’s no time for it now.”
He did understand.
Her wolf nudged at her insides. “Wolver. Pack. First.”
Tommie gave a sharp nod to both Bull and the wolf. Then, she took a deep breath. “Rescue first, fall apart later. Got it. I’ll be okay now. Let’s go.”
The fifth door yielded exactly what they were looking for. Two men huddled in a cage similar to the one she’d been held in, but this one was divided by a row of iron bars giving each man only half the room. Tommie froze at the sight of them, horrified by what she saw. This was what she looked like when Bull found her.
They were naked, as she had been, but their bodies showed signs of mistreatment far worse than anything she’d suffered. The older of the two rose to all fours and pressed his face against the bars, eyes shining, mouth opened in a grin that showed two bloody gaps where teeth had recently stood.
Bull greeted them as if there was nothing unusual about their circumstances.
“It’s a good moon for a run,” he said.
“That it is,” the older man returned in a raspy but clear voice. “Eli, I think the cavalry just arrived.”
The younger Eli didn’t answer. He, too, was on hands and knees, but his face showed no relief or pleasure in their presence. Torn and bloody lips were drawn back from his teeth and the snarl emitted between them had no semblance of humanity. His eyes glowed fiercely, first at her and then at Bull and then back to her.
Tommie felt as if the wolver was sizing them up and she had been found the weaker opponent. It didn’t make her feel any better when Bull took a step closer to her as if he felt it, too. Bull stared down at the wolver and the wolver stared back in a test of wills. As had happened out on the street, the room swelled with power and energy. Tommie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise with it. The man in the cage turned his head to the side, but he didn’t back down and when Bull touched the top of the cage, he lunged.
“Don’t be a damn fool now, son. We’re almost there.” Samuel reached through the bars to touch the younger man’s shoulder.
The response was immediate and vicious. Eli’s head snapped to the side and he sank his teeth into Samuel’s hand.
“Dang and blast, Eli.” Sitting back on his heels, Samuel brought the hand to his mouth and sucked on the wound. He held out the raggedly scarred stump where his left hand should have been and shook it. “I already lost one. You tryin’ to take the other?”
“How long has he been that way?” Bull asked as he opened and closed the doors of a short row of cabinets. He found the key hanging inside one of them.
“This thing with Eli’s been hovering over him for years. Without our Molly to keep him grounded, he’s gone quick. He ain’t shifted yet, but he’s been like this since the last full moon. He goes over now, he’s not coming back. I hate to say it, he’s like one of my own, but you see how he is. There’s going to be hell to pay. He’s always been wild, but now the madness is on him,” he said and then he added, “We got no Alpha to do the job and the others...” Samuel hunched his shoulders and let them drop. “They ain’t got it in ‘em.”
Bull handed Tommie two manila folders that were lying on the counter. “See if there’s anything in there that shouldn’t be.” He held the key in his hand, but didn’t approach the cage. “What about you? How are you going to take it if I eliminate the problem?”
“Me?” Samuel sounded insulted and held up the stump. “Hell, boy, I chewed my own paw off when I was just a cub. I can do what needs doing. I don’t have the strength to do it, but that don’t mean I won’t back the man who does.”
“Good to know, because I don’t want to fight the two of you.”
Tommie heard the words, but refused to believe what she was hearing. “You aren’t... You can’t... I promised Molly,” she said lamely. “And you promised me.”
“I said if I could help it, Tommie.”
“You haven’t even tried to help it.” Horrified, she backed toward the door, reaching behind her for the knob.
“Tommie, wait outside in the hall. Remember, if you look like you belong, people will think you do. Don’t go running off and creating another problem.”
“Why not? Then you can just eliminate me, too,” she said as she stepped through the door.
Chapter 13
“Damn it.” Bull st
epped toward the closing door, but stopped himself before he made another mistake. Tommie wasn’t the priority here, though everything in him screamed that she was. He turned back to the cage and dropped to one knee.
“You need me to, I can hold the fort here while you go get your woman. Just get me out of this damn cage.”
“She’s not my woman and she’ll do as she’s told.”
“If you say so. How you want to do this?”
While the cage was divided, there was only one door. It latched on Eli’s side which meant it had to be fully opened for Samuel to emerge. Eli watched, eyes blazing with madness, his body poised to launch as soon as the door opened. Bull had seen this behavior before. The wolver saw nothing, heard nothing and felt only the call of the moon. That always made it more difficult to take them down, since they didn’t feel much pain either.
“Let him out first. I’ll take him down. All you have to do is get dressed.”
“Look, son, I know you’re big and you’ve got some power behind you, but ol’ Eli’s pretty big, too, and like I said, he’s always been a wild one. He don’t fight like most. Even our Alphas were a little afraid of the boy.”
“I get paid to take care of wolvers like him,” Bull said loud enough to be heard if Eli was still capable of listening, “and I haven’t lost a paycheck yet.”
Samuel sat back. “Never heard of such a thing, but if you say so, I got no reason to say you ain’t, especially since you’re holding the key to my freedom. Is that why your woman’s so upset? She doesn’t like how you earn your keep?”
“Tommie doesn’t know how I earn my living and she’s not my woman. Now back up, and get out of my way, old man. We’ve got about four minutes before moonrise.”
Bull watched a little shiver run through Samuel’s body. He felt it, too. The old wolver had some mileage on him, but he was in good shape considering his circumstances and his body looked strong.
Wolver's Rescue Page 11
