Let the Wild Out

by Madelyn Porter

  The reality of her situation came crashing in around her. She was an American in Europe—without ID, without money, without a passport—with an assassin looking to kill her. The few friends she had at work would not have the means to help her out. It wasn’t like the US government would listen to a busboy and waitress when it came to matters of citizenship and international travel. If she went to the embassy, they would want to know how she managed to get overseas. There was no record of her travel by commercial flights. The shifters wouldn’t be happy with her if she exposed them for a ticket home.

  Even so, the thick manor walls seemed to cave in on her and she needed to get out. Hurrying through the hall, she wasn’t sure where she was going. She needed to think. She rushed past antique paintings and gilded mirrors. Finally, feeling a slight breeze, she followed it to the source—a window at the end of a long hall. Making her way to it, she pushed it open and jumped down to the cobblestone below. A perfectly manicured garden made it easy to hide as she ducked behind long stretches of shrubbery and trees. She smelled the woods before she saw them. The dense tree line called to her and she ran, letting the power of the shift come over her limbs. Her clothes fell away as she hit the ground on all fours. Freedom.

  Chapter Eight

  William growled in frustration. The moment Magda had informed him of Rachel’s run in the private forest, he’d gone after her. Though part of his property, the forest wasn’t exactly the most protected. As shifters, they tended to feel a sense of security when it came to intruders. Though, to be fair, normally there wasn’t an assassin after them.

  He dropped his clothing outside the manor’s door and hit the ground running, well aware that the eyes of his court might be on him. He didn’t care. He needed to find Rachel. This wasn’t the American wild where she grew up, where shifters were more relaxed and tended to mind their own business. Here, there were certain expected behaviors, and it was already clear no one had bothered to school Rachel on just what those etiquettes were. One was that unattached ladies didn’t run the forest alone—unless they were looking to get caught.

  Okay, so that rule was antiquated, but when it came to his future bride, he found it fairly sound. If he had his way, she’d be put under lock and key and constant supervision.

  So that was extreme. He knew it and still he felt the desire to do it.

  The forest became a blur as he headed towards the main path. He had run through these woods thousands of times and could navigate the darkening trails with ease. The familiar smells filled him, guiding him as easily as his sight. Rachel’s scent was faint, almost buried beneath the other more powerful ones.

  His heart beat a steady rhythm in his chest, keeping time with his drumming feet. Her scent became stronger, driving him on. He turned west, heading deeper into the trees. Then, another smell wafted over him like a death omen. It was the acrid scent of blood, freshly spilt.

  The beast within him raged, becoming mindless as he surged forward, leaping over fallen trunks as he cut through the denser trees. He became aware of someone following him and assumed Magda told Douglas what had happened. No doubt the other chief smelled the blood as well and came to investigate.

  His feet slid to a stop as the scent grew stronger. The sound of it dripped in a steady rhythm on the leafy ground. He narrowed his eyes, piercing the darkened forest with his shifted gaze. Then he saw her. Rachel was bound to a tree in human form. Blood ran down her arm from a deep gash, trailing crimson on her naked flesh as it flowed to the ground. Dazed eyes found his, her lids heavy. She moaned against a gag in her mouth, the incoherent syllables more of an expression of pain than a call for help.

  His fur stood on end as he slowed his approach. Scanning the forest, he didn’t detect movement in the trees. What was this? A warning?

  Rachel moaned again and his attention focused on her. He neared her and extended a paw. The rope cord loosened when he hooked his foot into a loop and pulled.

  The sound of footsteps became louder. William turned, intent on acknowledging Douglas. Only then did he notice the forest smell was off. It wasn’t Douglas who came after him. He’d been so focused on Rachel that he didn’t stop to think things out completely. A naked woman stood, chest heaving, black hair tousled around her shoulders, dark eyes filled with victory. She held a gun pointed at his head.

  “Hello, chief,” she said, smiling. “Don’t bother standing up. You’ll do just fine like that.”

  William growled, but there was nothing he could do. She pulled the trigger. White-hot fire pierced his neck, and though he tried to stay on his feet, he felt his legs giving out. He fell hard on the ground, striking his head against the earth seconds before his world turned black.

  *

  “What do you mean they’re gone?” Douglas demanded. His eyes narrowed on Magda. His clan had dealt with her often over the years and, though she was highly capable at her job as the chief’s glorified secretary, she was an elitist pain in their ass. For some reason, she’d gotten it in her head that her clan was superior in all things. Such egotism wasn’t unusual with hot-blooded shifters. Daring to show it so openly to the opposing chief was.

  “My chief went after the American in the forest. She ran away from the manor without an escort.” Magda’s expression gave nothing away, but Douglas read the irritation clearly in her eyes. “That was two hours ago. I assumed they were,” she paused, “otherwise engaged in the woods. But he has yet to come back. I thought I should inform you that I have sent the guards in to investigate the situation and have increased the security on the grounds.”

  “Two hours?” Douglas repeated, barely hearing the rest. “Why was I not informed before now?”

  “I do not work for you, Duncanis.” Magda’s jaw snapped shut and she refused to look him in the eye. “It was not my duty to report on my chief to you.”

  “You should have told me. You know what this woman means. I’m going after them.”

  His heart beat hard inside his chest, each painful thump an echo of his worry.

  “We have—” she began.

  “I am going after them!” He didn’t wait for her to respond as he brushed past her towards the front door. He hurried down the steps to the cobblestone walkway leading around the side of the house. Not caring what kind of scene he made, he tore at his clothes, ripping them from his body as he made his way over the thick lawn. He leapt, shifting midair before running into the forest on all fours. He darted through the trees in a haphazard pattern as he tried to pick up Rachel’s scent. Each second caused his stomach to knot all the more. He growled, hoping someone would hear him, answer him. It wasn’t to be. Minutes later he found a trace of her in the blood-tinged ground.

  Shifting, he stood naked in the forest—his body tense, his heart pounding, his temple throbbing. He was too late. William and Rachel were gone.

  *

  Rachel blinked, her lids heavy. Her head rolled back and forth, pressing into the hard concrete wall that supported her head. When she lifted her arms, they felt as if they were filled with liquid steel and not blood. Her thoughts were suspended between awake and sleep, making it hard to concentrate. Whatever St. Joan had given her had knocked her out like a thousand milligrams of the strongest prescription sedative.

  Realization came slowly. First it was the drip, drip, drip of water on stone. Next, the hard ground littered with pebbles that seemed to find each and every nerve ending along the backs of her thighs and ass. Then, the cold—not so bitter as to be unbearable, but chilly enough to be uncomfortable. Finally, the smell. She coughed, her lungs automatically trying to expel the scent from her body. The rank odor of decay and death filled her mouth as she gasped for air, leaving it with a bad taste.

  Rachel blinked again, trying to clear the fog clouding her mind. But it wasn’t her shut lids that kept her from seeing. Her prison was as black as a grave. By the smell, she assumed the assessment wasn’t that far off. From a solitary life in America to being held prisoner in an English cemetery.
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br />   “What the hell am I doing?” She forced her brain to concentrate as she steeled her nerves. “Now is not the time to dwell. I am here and I need to find a way out.”

  By sheer willpower she managed to push off the ground, awkwardly rolling from her back to rest first on her elbows, then finally up on her hands. She tried to pierce the darkness, but could only make out the faint outline of shapes, giant blocks and curves, walls and ceilings.

  “Find a way out,” she repeated, this time like a command. Raising her hand over her head, she stood, reaching towards the ceiling. When her head didn’t hit anything, she reached to the side, sweeping her fingers back and forth as she inched first one way, then another. “Find a way out, Rachel. She put you in, you can get out.”

  *

  Three days.

  Douglas felt like he hadn’t been able to breathe for three very long days. That’s how long it had been since he’d found out Rachel and William were missing, since he’d smelled her blood on the ground. Blood. Not a lot of it, but blood nonetheless. Logic told him that she’d heal from such a wound, but what if they injured her more? There was no ransom, not even for Chief William. If they didn’t want money, then…

  The traitors had already tried to kill them.

  Douglas growled, grabbing his head. He ran his fingers into his hair, pulling hard. His body yearned for sleep, but his mind wouldn’t shut off. How could it? She was out there. Every part of him wanted her, yearned to hold her close. He never thought he’d feel so much for a woman. Other shifters had the luxury of a single mate, but his lot was different. He always thought there would be a part of him that would be held back from women, a part that wouldn’t connect, a part that would be able to let go.

  Unlike humans, his kind didn’t need months or years to know they were in love. They trusted themselves more, trusted their instincts, and every instinct inside him was telling him to grab his woman and lock her away from the big, bad world. Only he couldn’t find his woman.

  “Chief Douglas.” The purring sound of Lisbetha’s voice came from behind. The woman had a grace to her actions and a softness to her words. Douglas frowned. It was an irritating grace and softness, so persistently nice and calm, always lurking a few steps behind him. “Magda sent me to find you. She’s worried that you haven’t eaten since you’ve come back to the manor this afternoon.”

  “I doubt she’s worried,” Douglas said under his breath.

  “Very well. Then I’m worried.” Lisbetha touched his arm. “People are beginning to wonder at your mood.”

  Douglas frowned. His moods were no concern of hers, and it was presumptuous of her to even mention it. He glanced at where she touched him, intent on telling her as much, but her wide eyes found his and he hesitated. The clear depths looked so sweet, so earnest, he couldn’t yell at her. Instead, he shrugged off her touch under the pretense of turning. “I am going to search the forest again with my men.”

  “But,” Lisbetha said softly behind him. He ignored her. She yelled, “But you’ve been out there every day for the last four days! Stay inside. Let me tend to you. Nothing can be done right now.”

  Douglas stopped. Four days? He looked at his hand, ticking off the days on his fingers. She was right. Four days, not three.

  Lisbetha’s footsteps crept up behind him. He walked faster, leaving her to stare after him.

  Four days.

  Chapter Nine

  “Almost time, chief,” St. Joan whispered, smiling at the man tied before her.

  William growled, half drugged by powerful sedatives. Tiny trails of blood lined his naked body, but the wounds beneath them had healed. They were meant to torture, to keep his body weak. The drugs kept him lucid enough to understand, but dazed enough not to fight back too hard. His shoulder hurt from where he hung off the ground. His arms had been stretched to the sides, suspending him off the earth. The ropes that held him were wrapped around two thick trees. He had tried to free himself, but the swinging motion threatened to pull his arms out of his shoulder sockets.

  St. Joan’s dark eyes reminded him of a feral cat. There was a wildness in them not seen in tamer animals. Though graceful, her body jerked and stiffened at any sudden noise in the distance. She tried to hide the reaction, but some things were so innate they couldn’t be helped. The woman had not been raised in society. He pictured her roaming the American wilderness, living in the backwoods somewhere as a dirt-covered child. He’d seen her type before—reclusive, inelegant, socially awkward, yet dangerous and lethal. The instincts of the animal had been fed within her, but the human part of her had been neglected to the point it was now only a shadow of the mountain lion inside. It was what made her a perfect claw for hire. She would not be loyal to her clan, but to herself and to a very limited point, her employer.

  “Twice you got in my way,” she continued, pacing like a caged animal. Her dark hair flew unhampered about her shoulders, uncombed. She didn’t even register her own nakedness as she moved. “Three, if you count Bert, but I don’t. The leopard was a good fighter. Stupid but loyal. It will be hard to replace him. Very inconvenient.”

  “Twice?” William mumbled. He tried to concentrate, tried to remember that he needed to know who hired her. It was difficult, but he managed by staring at her mouth for the words.

  “I was sent to burn the bitch,” St. Joan said. “You stopped me. I don’t get paid if I get stopped.”

  “Who?” he managed.

  St. Joan laughed. “No, no, no, Chief, not that.”

  “Why?”

  She laughed harder. “Who cares? I was offered a lot of money to go to Colorado, track and kill the shifter bitch, and to take out anyone who got in my way. It was a beautiful fire, was it not? I was so excited to see my target owned the sanctuary. So much wood and leaves and kindling. I had hoped it would spread across the countryside like my last forest fire, but the explosion when the generator went was glorious.”

  “Rachel was your target?” Fear consumed him. Why did someone want Rachel dead? Was it because of his interest in her, or was it something unrelated?

  “Yes, but guess what, Chief? You got in my way. I don’t think my employer expected you to be there, but it’s not my concern what she expected.”

  “She?” William clung to the word.

  St. Joan laughed. “Ah, now, did I say too much?”

  “Who?”

  “Do you want to hear or not, Chief? This is my story, not yours, but the point of this dialog is coming, I promise.” St. Joan arched a brow. A bird squawked and her eyes darted in the direction of the noise. Her body stayed tense for several moments before she began to move again. “She was a hard one to track in the city. Then I caught the scent in the forest. It’s so much easier in the forest. She couldn’t hide from me. But you interfered. You saved her from the house. I watched her go in and she did not come back out. She should have burned, so crispy, so pretty and charred.” St. Joan rubbed her shoulder. “I don’t appreciate being injured.”

  “My apologies,” he mumbled weakly, hoping the sarcasm translated in his slurred voice.

  It must have because she opened her mouth and screeched. Birds took off in startled flight. She smiled to herself as she watched them, seeming very pleased with the effect.

  She rubbed her shoulder again. “Twice.”

  He made a confused noise. “Uh…?”

  “Twice you bastards injured me,” she yelled at him. “You just won’t die, at least not by claw, not by fire, not by wreck.”

  “So you used a tranq gun?”

  “Not elegant, I admit, but effective. You see, I decided I don’t have to kill you. There are much better ways to inflict damage and make you pay for my injuries.” The mountain lion shift swirled in the woman’s eyes, fighting to be released. The animal was powerful, perhaps too powerful for the human St. Joan to fight.

  “How?” William prompted, trying to keep her from turning. She kept glancing at the sky, as if she might find a meal with the birds she’d stirred u
p.

  “Soon you will need to eat.”

  “I will be fine,” he said.

  “You might, but the wolf won’t. He’ll want to eat, and you’ll need to shift to heal. The drugs will keep the human in you from taking control, and in this forest there will only be one thing for you to consume.” Her laugh was demented, more so than before. “She will be tasty, Chief, so tasty, and so easy to catch. She’s not as strong as you. I smelled her. She neglects her wolf and it is weakened from it. Her hunger will drive her to find you. Yours to find her. When you smell her meat you will not be able to resist it. And when her blood is in your mouth and on your hands, you will never forgive yourself, and the Duncanis will never forgive you. The clans will war, and your peace will be gone into a lifetime of battle and death. Fitting revenge, I think. Such beautiful chaos. My skills come in handy in chaos. So much money to be made.”

  “You should not have told me this,” he said. “I will remember.”

  “I count on it,” she yelled. “Know my name. Know I bested the great Cononious chief. There are many who would thank me for it, many who would offer their protection. Why do you think I took you and not the Duncanis? He is born into his throne. But you? You are just a beggar wolf pretending to be something he’s not. All mighty and high. Needs to be knocked down a couple branches off the fake family tree, that is what everyone thinks of you.”

  Her words stung because there was truth in them. He wasn’t born into his station. The old chief chose him. Tobias had been a hard man to know, and a harder adoptive father to love. William was never sure why the chief chose him to be his successor, why he was lifted up so high.

  “The bitch will be dead and I will be paid well for it.” St. Joan smiled as she made her way to a medicine vial and syringe she’d tossed by the base of a tree. Picking it up, she shoved the dirty needle into the top of the vial and drew out a big dose. “Why don’t you nap a bit, Chief, before your big hunt? I need to make arrangement to free your prey.”