Damien’s Dilemma

by Cohen, Julie K.

  Damien pulled her into his lap as he sat on the floor among the shifters they’d rescued. “I know. We can’t trust humans.”

  “But you’re taking her.”

  “Drop it, Blade,” Callen warned, the yellow flecks in his brown eyes seemed to pulse with his own impatience. He wanted to get them out of the research facility and back into their pack’s territory.

  “Let’s move before more guards arrive,” Damien said as the engine started up. Callen shut the rear door, casting Damien and the rescued shifters into near darkness. The holes Finley from maintenance had drilled into the sides of the truck for air allowed a small amount of moonlight in.

  Seventeen pairs of eyes glowed, some brighter than others. Many focused on Damien, no doubt judging him.

  The woman in his lap cried out when the truck hit a bump, setting both the man and wolf in him on edge. The rescued shifters soon lowered their heads or averted their eyes, just in time. He’d like nothing more than to kill someone right now, and he sure as hell didn’t want it to be someone his team had rescued. These shifters, with their broken limbs and traumatized expressions, all knew he was breaking the rules by bringing a human with them. It was a good thing that he made the rules.

  Chapter Two

  DAMIEN

  “It’s been four days,” Damien said as Pryce changed the woman’s IV bag. He’d fixed her dislocated shoulder, treated all the cuts, scrapes and burns. God, she had so many burns on her back that it looked like the bastards at the WSSO used her as an ashtray. Damien’s muscles rippled beneath his skin, his wolf trying to force a shift.

  “You better not do that in here. She could wake up any minute,” Pryce warned.

  “Maybe we should get a doctor,” Damien said, tracing a finger along her soft cheek, willing her to wake.

  “If you can find a human doctor willing to come out here and not betray us afterward, I’ll gladly step aside. Until then, back off. You’re making me nervous.”

  “I’ve seen you field dress innards that have been pulled out of wolves in the middle of shell fire.”

  “Shells explode. They don’t threaten to rip my throat out.”

  Damien’s canines had descended without his realizing. His damn wolf was taking liberties, and he was losing focus. He pulled away from the bed and took up a spot by the window. Fog moved through the trees, pervasive and ominous, like a harbinger of the road ahead. Even now he was having trouble looking at her without remembering that damn cage. Before she slipped into unconsciousness, she had been so frightened, and yet hopeful at the same time. He hated standing here, doing nothing, nothing. And yet he couldn’t leave her side. It made no sense; he had no obligation to her, no real connection other than the basic need to see her safe.

  “She’s much stronger than when she arrived,” Pryce said. “Still no sign of any internal injuries. I’ve been pushing the antibiotics and fluids with some painkillers, but not too much. I don’t want to mask any symptoms of hidden injuries. I think she simply needs time to rest and heal at this point.”

  “It’s taking so long.”

  “Humans heal slower. You know this.”

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “We should drop her at a hospital,” said Hayden who had been standing in the doorway for the last few minutes watching in silence. “That’ll be the best thing for her and us.”

  Damien returned to her bedside and smoothed the hair from her forehead. The need to hold her hand, touch her, have some form of contact was too strong to ignore. “Pryce said she’s stable.”

  “All the more reason to take her to town and drop her at the hospital. She’s a danger to us here.”

  Hayden had been in Damien’s face about this since they brought her back. Hayden was usually the first to jump into a fight to protect someone, but he wasn’t backing down. Damien assessed her again, trying to see what it was about her that Hayden feared. She was too pale, and her arms and legs too thin. “She’s hardly in the condition to harm—”

  “I’m not saying she’d try to harm us herself. Her very presence here puts us all at risk.”

  Damien motioned for Hayden to leave the room, where they could talk in private. “We’ve had this discussion already.” Damien was starting to lose his patience. No one else would contradict and stand up to him like Hayden, which made his friend and Second invaluable to him. Damien trusted Hayden’s counsel more than anyone else’s, but this was one of those times he needed Hayden to butt out.

  “Look, Damien, I understand what you did. You were right to rescue her from that torture chamber of a lab, but you should have dropped her at a hospital for her sake as well as ours.” Hayden’s face betrayed nothing beyond his desire to protect Damien and their pack. “We’re not properly equipped to treat a human. What if she has internal injuries? Pryce is a medic and used to treating shifters, not humans. Maybe that’s the reason she hasn’t woken yet. She could die because you won’t let go of her. Let me take her to town before she wakes up and starts memorizing faces and names.”

  “And what happens when the police investigate what happened to her? I’m sure she knows the faces and names of the people at that facility. Do you think the WSSO will wait for the police to arrest them? It’s one thing killing shifters. The government hasn’t exactly outlawed that, has it? But what the WSSO did to her will get a lot of attention, the type they don’t want.”

  “Which is why we should hand her over,” Hayden argued. “Put a dent in the WSSO’s power.”

  The WSSO was a group of humans who’d made it their life’s mission to rid the earth of all shifters, starting with wolf shifters. The law turned a blind eye to them since technically speaking shifters weren’t people and thus didn’t have the rights of people.

  “I’m not going to use her to turn the government’s focus on the WSSO’s activities. It’s too risky. The monsters at the WSSO will kill her and cover up what they’ve been doing. They always do.”

  Hayden breathed out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t want to see her in danger any more than you do. But we can’t ignore the problem of her staying here. What happens when she finds out we’re shifters? She’ll run as fast as she can. And then she’ll expose us.”

  “You don’t know that,” Damien said, with less confidence. He knew what Hayden was saying was true, but Damien couldn’t let her go. Not yet.

  “Neither of us knows what she’ll do. That’s the point. If she leaves on her own or if she escapes, she’ll lead them back to us. Best to do this while she’s unconscious.”

  This was one of those times Damien hated Hayden’s logic, but Damien would be remiss as alpha to ignore him. “She stays, for now. At least until she’s healed.”

  Hayden bit back a comment. “Fair enough. But we’ll have to knock her out when it’s time to return her and drive a few hundred miles away. We can’t risk her leading the authorities back here.”

  “I’ll leave that to you when the time comes. Until then, limit contact to her. No one shifts in front of her or talks of the pack, shifter business, or our location.”

  Hayden relaxed. His insecurities when it came to the safety of the pack seemed to be at an all-time high, and that was without Drake around to aggravate him. “We can use this time to ask her what she knows. That should satisfy the pack.”

  Damien’s head jerked up. “What do you mean ‘satisfy the pack’?”

  “There’s some grumbling about her being here. How you broke your own rule.”

  Damien was about to speak when Hayden held up a hand. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t look good if you live by a different set of rules. You’re the alpha. The pack takes its cues from you.”

  “I don’t need a damn protocol lesson,” Damien snapped as he rubbed the four-day growth on his face. He needed to shave. The beard was too itchy in human form, but he’d been too preoccupied staying by the woman’s bedside to take any time for himself. No, what he really needed was a run, a way to release some of the pent-up anger that hadn
’t left him since he’d found the woman. He still couldn’t forget the pleading look on her face when she thought he was leaving her in that damn dog cage.

  Hell, that’s probably why he’d found it hard to move from her bedside these past four days. And from what Hayden was saying, Damien had ignored more than himself while he’d been cooped up in his house. The pack needed answers or at least reassurance. He couldn’t keep ignoring them.

  “Call a meeting for Friday night. I’ll explain what’s going on and address any questions the pack has.”

  * * *

  Tess

  Tess opened her eyes to soft light. She was lying down, fully stretched out and not doubled over on her side in the cage. There was bedding beneath her: gloriously soft bedding. And sheets, clean sheets! Even her skin felt clean for the first time in… How long had it been since she had been allowed to wash?

  Muscles protested as she stretched, having been underused and confined for far too long. Every part of her body ached. Stretching felt wonderful. Her shoulder, on the other hand, felt like it was on fire, though not quite as bad as before. She could move her arm now without too much pain. Someone had popped her bone back into the socket.

  Slowly, images of a naked man came to mind. He’d been outside her cage, talking to her in a deep, soothing voice. At first, she thought she was dreaming. It had been a long time since someone had talked to her as if she wasn’t a lab rat.

  Tess shivered at the memories. The beatings, the cutting, the burns. The researchers had done everything they could to scare her, to force her to defend herself. In the end, none of it had worked. She shivered again, a cold chill running through her when she thought of how her torturer had taken particular pleasure in burning her.

  “Are you cold?” a voice asked. Smooth, deep, genuine. The naked man by her cage.

  With some effort, Tess turned her head to the side. One very delectable hunk was sitting in a chair in the corner, reading a newspaper, except this time he was far from naked. Maybe she had imagined that part. His jet black hair made a striking contrast to his eyes that seemed to vacillate from blue to gray. The black shirt and jeans he wore gave him a foreboding appearance, but she wasn’t scared of him. How could she be? He’d freed her from hell.

  “A little cold,” she said, her voice coming out raspy. Her throat was raw.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” he said as he draped another blanket over her, carefully bringing it past her shoulders and tucking it under her chin. The back of his hand brushed her jaw and the most marvelous heat traveled through her. Maybe he could be her blanket.

  He placed an ice-chip in her mouth. Perfect. She sucked on the chip, letting the melting water slide down her throat. “Thanks. It hasn’t been a great few.” Weeks? Months? Years? “What’s the date?”

  “May fourteenth. You’ve been here four days.”

  “And the year?”

  No one that handsome should ever frown like that. She would take her question back if she could, but she really wanted to know the year.

  He folded the newspaper he had been reading in thirds, obscuring the paper’s name as he held it out so she could read the date.

  “That’s good.”

  “Good? Sweetness, nothing about those researchers or what they did there was good.”

  Did he just call her ‘Sweetness’? He’d called her that before, back at the lab. “I was afraid it was even longer. They took me right after the fourth of July. But I lost track of time in there with no calendar or way of scratching marks on the wall or floor. You know, like in the movies.”

  “Don’t know much about the movies. I don’t watch tv.”

  “Really? Then you’re depriving some poor girl out there. You’d be really fun to cuddle up next to during a horror flick.”

  A slight grin surfaced. “Maybe I’ll have to try one some time. Could use some practice on the cuddling though. Know anyone willing to put up with me?”

  God, she would be there in a heartbeat, except the damn throbbing in her shoulder wouldn’t leave her alone.

  He eyed her warily, then poked his head into the hallway, and called for someone. Guess she had said something wrong. Though she wasn’t going to worry about it. Not with Gray Eyes leaning over her, staring at her as if he could see her soul.

  “What’s wrong?” another male voice asked, with a slight southern twang. He checked the IV line in her arm. Oh, that explained the annoying drip pounding in her ears like a herd of elephants stampeding through the plains.

  “She’s in pain,” Gray Eyes said.

  Southern Twang leaned over her now. He smelled nice, but not as nice as Gray Eyes. Southern Twang checked her eyes and her pulse, then started unhooking the IV line.

  “You’re doing great, darlin’,” he said with a smile. “Besides your shoulder, anything hurting?” He gave a gentle pat to her forearm, and she could swear she heard a low rumble, almost like a growl, coming from Gray Eyes.

  “I’m fine. I need a day or two to heal. That’s all.”

  “More like a week or two, but your vitals are good. You were dehydrated, and I’ve been pumping fluids into you. Guess you’re hungry.”

  That, and she really needed to pee. Hopefully, the men would leave soon so she could drag herself to a bathroom without too much embarrassment.

  “Why’d they have you in a cage, darlin’?”

  “Pryce,” Gray Eyes cautioned, though she wasn’t sure what had prompted that.

  “So that’s your name. What about Mr. Naked Commando?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Gray Eyes whose mouth dropped open, then quickly shut. Very cute. Fun to tease, too.

  “My name’s Damien.”

  “Hi, Damien,” she said, suddenly feeling drained and a bit dizzy.

  “Hi, Sweetness,” he replied, a slight smile making its way onto a face that until now had been one hundred percent serious. Sure, that no-nonsense bearing of his worked for him, ramping up sex appeal on a body that offered nothing but hard chiseled muscles from his arms and chest on downward. If she remembered correctly, he offered more than powerful muscles. Regardless, the smile looked right on him.

  “I have a name,” she said, hoping she could keep him from leaving.

  “Care to share?”

  She closed her eyes, finding it rather easy to do here where the lights were soft, and it was warm and quiet. So very quiet. No clanking of machinery or taunts of researchers, and certainly no one calling her Test Subject CLS24. Here they kept her warm, treated her wounds and called her ‘Sweetness’. At least one hulking man did. Yeah, she liked that name. “Sweetness is fine. Good memories.”

  * * *

  DAMIEN

  Good memories? What the hell was she referring to? The only time he’d called her ‘Sweetness’ before was when he’d crouched by her cage. It had to be the drugs Pryce had her on. Fortunately, Pryce and his lack of tact left. It was a wonder this woman was talking to them at all after what she had been through, and the medic had straight up asked her why the WSSO had her in a cage. Idiot.

  “A name would still be nice. Unless you want everyone calling you ‘Sweetness’.” He didn’t of course, but no need to let her know that. She might get the wrong idea. After all, she was his guest here, nothing more. Well, a source of information, too, truth be told. But that could wait until she was stronger.

  “Tess. But my sister calls me… On second thought, we don’t need to go there. Too embarrassing.”

  Tess. The name fit her. Full of spunk, like her. But now he really wanted to know what her sister called her. In fact, there was a lot he wanted to know about her: especially why the WSSO had caged a human.

  “Can I ask you for a favor?” she said.

  “Anything.” Hell, what was the matter with him? Maybe he should get Blade in here to watch her for a bit. No, not Blade. He was still having trouble with the whole ‘she’s human, she’ll endanger the pack’ bit. Damien couldn’t fault Blade for that, not after what the shifter had been through. Maybe on
e of the women, Jackie or Aloe.

  “Can you help me to a bathroom?”

  Damien grinned. That he could do. He pulled back the blankets, totally forgetting she was naked under there. “Sorry,” he said, quickly covering her again. “I keep forgetting you’re hum—” He hurriedly tucked the top sheet around her as he lifted her. “I mean it’s only human to be shy around a stranger.”

  Why her face fell, he couldn’t say. If anything, he’d have expected her to freak out at being seen naked. Then again, she was naked when he had found her. Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed his blunder, but damn he had to be more careful. As it was, any minute now she’d start asking why she wasn’t in a hospital.

  A human. He still couldn’t believe he’d brought a human back to his pack. Hayden was right. Damien couldn’t keep her here much longer. Sooner or later, she’d figure out they weren’t human, even if everyone was careful. It was only a matter of time before someone slipped up. Hell, he already had.

  She leaned her head against him as he carried her out of the bedroom. A heat bloomed in him, wrapping around his soul. The need to protect her, to watch over her pulsed within him like the need to breathe. It was simple, instinctive, and he’d never felt an emotion like it before, not on such a personal level.

  “Not shy, are you?” he asked.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve touched anyone.”

  That was probably meant to be innocent, but his body interpreted it a whole other way. It was good she couldn’t see his pants. “Touch anything that makes you happy, Sweetness.”

  Her cheeks turned red, and she lifted a brow. “I’m out of practice.”

  “Then practice away.” It was adorable how that blush spread down her neck. But that darn sheet kept him from seeing how far down it went.

  “I meant with talking, basic conversation. It’s been a while since I’ve had anyone to talk to,” she clarified as they reached the bathroom at the end of the hall.