"You had a choice," I said. "You offered me escape. Why?"
His response was to step closer. The leaves crackled beneath his boot.
"I had hoped you would get further away than this," he said. "But he's not stupid. He suspects me. The only way I have of proving my loyalty is to bring you back."
"You might try," I said again. I was too weary to fight, though, and we both knew it.
"You're shivering," he said.
"Of course I am," I said. "I'm naked. I've got leaf debris sticking between the cheeks of my ass, and my feet hurt." I peered up at him, and although the moon had lost much of its light, I could still see his face if I looked hard enough. My eyes were adjusted to the darkness and although some of his shuttered features were shadowed, he still looked just as handsome in the dark as he did in the day. My stomach clenched. A man. A human man and I was as attracted to him as the bastard who killed my father. Did my beast have no shame? It didn't matter, I supposed. I wasn't going back.
"You're going to have to kill me," I said.
"I won't do that." He inched that much closer, and a stray fallen twig broke under his step. It was much clearer than before: testament to how close I'd let him come. He waved the jacket toward me and I smelled the heat and licorice smothered in its depths and almost sobbed from exhaustion and desire.
He lay the jacket across my knees with such tender care and caution I could have bit down into his wrist before he pulled his hand away.
"Just let me pick you up and take you back."
I shook my head. "I can't do that either," I said. "You're going to have to kill me."
He peered across at me from his crouch two feet away but he didn't answer. My teeth were clacking together noisily. I needed to change, and I couldn't change with the silver on me. I watched his left hand worry the pocket of his suit jacket. Testing to be sure the key was there, no doubt. At least I hoped that was what it was. Could just be another weapon, but I was willing to take the chance. Get him close. Slip my hand in there. Even if it wasn't a key, he'd have to put that pistol somewhere while he lifted me. The biggest question was what would I do if it was the key and I got loose. Did I have the energy or the will to kill this man and be gone till I could regroup? My trainer, Galen would want me to be smart. A cunning assassin used every advantage. She didn't give up till she was dead.
"I won't go," I said.
"You don't have a choice." He sounded as though he meant that to encompass every choice every man had to make.
"There's always a choice. I choose to die."
"You tried that before," he said.
"I didn't mean it before."
He raised up from his haunches. Took another step, carefully, heel down first then the ball of the foot. He put the pistol into his pocket and held his hands out, supplicating, pleading how dedicated he was to saving me.
"Please don't take me back," I said, infusing all the self-pity I could muster. "I don't have the energy to fight you."
He looked at me warily. "I'm going to pick you up, Shana," he said. "And take you back. I have to. You will not give me any trouble. I'll drop you in a heartbeat if you go for the pocket. "
I gave him a hard look. "What kind of trouble can I offer you in this state?" I let a shudder wrack my body as hard as it wanted. "Look at me." I would have one go, and one go only. Gun pocket or unknown pocket number two. I ran the choices through my mind. He'd expect me to go for the gun.
I waited until he leaned in to reach for him. I fancied his gaze stayed pinned to mine because he wanted to read my intent in my eyes, but I was better than that, and it was dark. He didn't have the same sight I did. He eased forward to scoop beneath my knees. He smelled warm. I imagined all sorts of feverish things ran through his blood making it that way: magic, voodoo, lust perhaps. I even imagined those arms wrapping around me, and warming me until my fingers slipped into pocket number two and felt the key. I nearly sighed out loud in relief.
I almost felt bad about transforming.
As soon as the cuffs fell from my wrists, the shiver of change took over. Usually it took moments, and I feared I wouldn't be able to change at all so exhausted was I. But I caught the look in his eye as I felt my spine tingle. I knew the change was taking me and took joy in the fact that I wasn't too far gone that I could let it happen. Like a kundalini energy rising from the base of my back, it coiled up my vertebrae one at a time, lengthening and arching my spine until I was bent on all fours in front of him. He bolted to his feet and stepped back involuntarily.
"I'm sorry about this," I had time to gasp out.
He fumbled backwards trying to find his balance as I fell from his hold, pulling a gun from the waistband of his trousers even as he found solid footing.
"So am I," he said.
Flannel PJs
I wasn't sure how fully transformed I was when I leapt at him, but I did hear the report of the gun and feel the repulsion of air as it whizzed past my head. I landed on him with a snarl, and only then realized he had been aiming lower, perhaps in an attempt to bring me down rather than kill me. But because he hadn't been expecting me to be transformed, he couldn't know that the place the bullet had just missed would end up being my head instead of my hip. Didn't matter. I leapt on him with a snarl, and brought him to the ground in short order. It was only when I realized that the beast inside me wouldn't truly harm him, that I let myself transform back into a woman, knowing that the slipperiness of skin might be far more useful than the canines of a she-wolf who lusted after the man I grappled with.
Naked or not, he didn't seem to have much compunction in trying to wrestle me beneath him and grapple to keep me under control. But he didn't expect me to be as good a warrior as I was. I squirmed beneath him, using a technique Galen had taught me, and using up all the small measure of energy I had gained back from the transformation. It was only enough only for a few short moments of struggle, enough to pull my hand back into a fist that I threw with all the weight of my upper body. My shoulder had healed and no longer hurt. I could use my limbs with much better ease, but I was still spent and weak. The punch landed on his cheek and I heard a crack that I knew had at least split his skin if not broken his cheekbone. I manged to roll on top of him, thinking to strike him again hard enough to immobilize him so I could flee, but that expenditure of energy was all I had.
From his spot in the leaves, he shot his fingers to my throat and started to squeeze, trying all the while to topple me to the forest floor where he could pin me again. His thumbs had a fierce pressure that dug into my voicebox, cutting off my air. He was going to kill me after all. I would die here in the dirt and leaves and he'd take my body back to Caleb like a trophy. I wasn't sure which of those things pissed me off me more, or if the fear for my life was the final straw that let me find his groin with my knee. I gave one hard thrust downward and felt the connection jolt through my thigh.
His grunt of pain came as he released me, and I peeled myself from his body. I had to find the gun. While he was still groaning and rolling to his side, I had a few seconds to scrounge the forest floor. My hands were rifling through the leaves and detritus, searching frantically when he growled at me.
"That was dirty," he gasped out.
I could hear him rolling onto his side and caught from the side of my vision that he had managed to get to his knees. With a heavy grunt, he began crawling toward me.
"Most fighters are too egotistical to try something so crass," he said from behind me. I peered over my shoulder, my hands still fumbling through the leaves, and I could see he was getting closer. He had one hand clutched between his legs and the other he was using to push himself to his feet. In a single heartbeat, he was already staggering toward me, determined and focused. Just in time for my hand to meet the hard steel of the gun barrel.
I yanked at it, flipping it so the butt of it met my palm.
"Bully for you that you don't mind fighting dirty," he said.
I didn't have a chance to swing around wi
th the muzzle pointing toward him before he stepped down hard on my hand, squashing it beneath his boot and twisting so that my fingers owns of my fingers ground together. I was tired, I knew, but I also knew he was injured. I kicked out at him with my bare foot, hoping to connect something hard enough, it would put him off guard and off footing.
He was too close for me to kick his feet out from beneath him, but he was in perfect proximity for me to headbutt him. And I did, my forehead rammed into his already tender crotch and he sunk again to his knees, his foot falling off my hand. I had hurt him, I knew that.
He had given me the chance of escape once. He had enough humanity to find compassion in my captivity. I might reason with that part of his nature, spare him. I should have transformed again already. I should have just shifted, but something within held off.
"Just let me go already," I said. "If you want to live, let me go."
His hands flew out to grip me by the shoulders, and he twisted me hard around so that the crook of his elbow was tight against my voicebox. He applied pressure, choking me as he fell backwards onto the forest floor with me on top of him. He wrapped both of his arms around me then, bear hold style, squeezing with a Python like pressure. If he couldn't take me submissively, he would choke me out and carry me unconscious back to Caleb. I couldn't have that. It would be damn hard for a man to bear hug a wolf.
"I'm giving you one chance," I gasped out, and when all he did was grunt in return, I let the change take me. The primal beast within understood exactly how cornered it was, and I let the panic of self-preservation scour my reason. With all four legs in the air, and a full coat of fur, Jeb's arms lost whatever grip they had on me. As I clambered off of him and to my feet, I felt his skin beneath my claws. I dug in as I ran, trying to get purchase and finding in that grip his flesh. Whether or not it was arm or face or throat, I didn't care.
I was on a full run and it felt glorious. The smell of the damp earth met my nostrils and tasted sweet on my palate. The feel of the detritus beneath my pads now a soft cushion to previously human and tender feet. I was no longer cold. I was powerful. I was free. Nothing could stop me. Not Jeb, not Caleb, not a hundred weak wolves that might have been manipulated to his cause. I would flee to fight another day when I'd healed and marshaled my strength. I'd return then, and I would tear Caleb's new regime into ribbons.
A rabbit scurried in front of me, zigzagging as though it it believed I was after it, but I had no thought for meat. My only hunger was for freedom and liberation. I tasted it, and it was sweet. Several hundred yards more and I knew I would outdistance Jeb. Although I heard him scrambling in the leaves behind me, crashing through the thickets and breaking his boots across windfall tree limbs, he was no match for a wolf. I was home free.
I felt the impact in my hind quarter long before I heard the gunshot.
I was already falling to the forest floor when I realized I'd been shot. The stink of sulfur danced in the air around me. Damn him, and damn Caleb. The beast in me whimpered as it let go my form. I was lying on the forest floor as a woman again, naked and shivering. The beast had retreated with the pain of silver and couldn't transform again. But I wouldn't stay there. A bullet in the leg meant nothing. Not when I was this close to freedom. I dug my fingers into the ground and forced myself ahead.
I was panting hard and I was sucking air into my burning lungs, feeling with every breath as though I was inhaling fibreglass particles. Even the air smelled like chemical. So acute was the pain, I could even taste the silver of the bullet.
I pushed myself to my feet and ran, stumbling and falling repeatedly until I found the thicker part of the forest, so far in I had no idea where I was. I was disoriented and pained, and with the thickness of the trees all about me, the heavily laden gooseberries blocked my view of any man that might be picking his way through the woods. I had gone as far as I could. My leg had gone numb and I was dragging it along behind me when I did manage to keep to my feet. My lungs felt like someone had lit a furnace inside them and was cremating old wood. I needed to hide. It was my only chance.
I managed to claw my way into a picker bush loaded with brambles and thistles that had long gone to seed. They scratched my flesh and dug in to my tender feet. I strained to hear Jeb's advance but could make out nothing except the chattering of squirrels as I blundered on. The pain in my buttocks was already seizing the muscles, and whatever focus I'd been able to train myself for, it wasn't intended for long term, exhaustive efforts.
I fell into a ravine before I noticed it was there. The stumble sent me rolling down the incline and I came to rest close enough to a rock that for one moment, I was afraid I had broken a bone and was too tired to feel it. With a groan, I moved each one of my legs, waggled my fingers in front of me. Everything seemed okay. I fell back, letting my arms splay out to my sides. I was okay. Beaten, bruised, and bloody, but alive. For now. Until hypothermia set in.
I tried to get up and managed to get as far as a squat before the pain blinded me and I fell to my knees again. As if some diabolical cue had been sounded, I heard the scuffling of someone on approach. I struck out, blind and panic stricken, unable to find the calm I knew I needed to best my assailant. My palms contacted soft material and felt beneath that a shinbone. I had him. Gun or not, I'd pull him into my sanctuary and take my bite of flesh. I pulled but the leg didn't move toward me; instead, fingers fleeted across my cheek, and I twisted away. The adrenaline that had drenched my tissues so acutely bade me bite down hard on those finger. I ground into them before I could see that they were petite and not battle-weathered. I tasted the blood of the veins as they broke in my mouth. Then I saw stars as something struck me atop the head and then I knew no more.
I dreamed I was chowing down on a delectable meal of raw meat, chewing it thoroughly and with zeal. When I woke, it was to discover I was grinding my teeth so much, my jaws ached. I realized as I came to, that I didn't remember lying down on a soft bed, or dressing myself in a long flannel nightgown. In fact, long and flannel didn't match my personality at all. I didn't own a single night gown. But I did smell the delectable scent of meat. Beef, if I wasn't mistaken. Cut with the tangy aroma of fresh herbs like rosemary and garlic. That was when I knew I couldn't be back in the mansion or in the panic room. The scent of food gave it away.
I peered sideways, my head finding cushion in the soft pillow beneath my head and my eyes seeking clarity through the blur of my vision. Night stand. A white bowl steaming from heat, next to it a tall glass of crystal clear water. I eased my hand toward it and discovered exactly how sore I was. Stiff. As though I had been out for days. Before my fingers could touch the glass, a feminine voice lifted to the air from my other side like a flock of doves.
"You have a good nose," it said.
I tried to sit up and discovered I was caught, snared in something beneath the heavy quilts. I kicked at them in a panic.
"It's alright," the voice said. "You're just tangled in the sheets."
I had to take a long breath. The last I knew, I had been being pursued by Jeb, his bullet embedded in my butt cheek. I gazed out at the white-haired woman standing at the foot of my bed with more than a measure of wariness.
"Who are you?" I said. If she thought I would just lie there without struggling to my feet, she could think again. "Where is that bastard?"
She gave me a quizzical look, but she didn't answer. "You're safe," she said instead. "Let your body rest." She ambled toward the end table and lifted the bowl with one hand and with the other, plucked a spoon from its depths. "It's time you ate something."
I shook my head, pursing my lips closed. God knows it could be poison or at the very least drugged by Caleb.
"Where is he?" I demanded. "Where's Caleb?"
She sighed and put the bowl back down. "I don't know who it is you're afraid of--"
"I'm not afraid."
"I don't know who it is that shot you and sent you running into my woods, but you're not imprisoned here," she said. "You're free
to go if you like."
I kicked at the covers, finding that my injured leg was sore and stiff but bearable. No pain of silver biting into my skin. I looked up at her.
"The bullet is gone," she said. "You haven't exactly healed yet," she said. "Because you haven't transformed. But you may do so now if you wish."
"You know what I am?"
She nodded. "Of course I do," she said. "You're the same as me."
I got a good look at her then, and noticed that her eyes were different colours. One brown the other blue.
"You're safe," she said. "Although I can't say that you were safe. One of my daughters found you out there hiding in the bushes. Naked as the day you were born."
"Someone was chasing me."
She nodded. "No doubt the person who put that bullet in your ass."
"Safe assumption," I said, not willing to give her too much information.
"You don't have to give any details," she said. "You're safe to stay here and welcome to stay here as long as you like. No questions asked."
"And what if I have questions of you?"
She shrugged her spare shoulders. "I'll decide when you ask. We do have some secrets we like to keep."
"We?" I said, catching the pronoun and she nodded without adding any more information.
I scooted back so that I was in an half upright position. My stomach growled and I eyed the bowl hungrily.
"What's in it?"
She smiled, showing teeth I expected from her age to be yellowed or broken. Each one was a glistening model of hygiene.
"No meat, I'm afraid " she said. "Just beef broth and some herbs. We weren't sure how long you were going to stay unconscious, so I didn't want to overwhelm your stomach."
I reached for the bowl and plucked the spoon from its depths. The broth was wonderful. It was heady and hot and it warmed my insides in a way they hadn't felt in a long time. She waited patiently for me to shovel in spoonful after spoonful and only after I had finished all of the way to the bottom, did I look up at her again.
Rogue Huntress: a new adult urban fantasy novel (Rogue Huntress Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
