Pride (11 page)

Jace.

The stray’s head flew up, his focus fixed on the branches
above me. I followed his gaze—briefly—and there was Jace, hunched on a thick limb to my right, canines bared, fur gleaming in a broad beam of silver moonlight.

The stray’s tail twitched once, drawing my eye. Then he pounced.

I screamed as his huge front paws slammed into my chest. The forest pitched wildly. My back hit the ground. My head thumped against an exposed root. Massive weight drove the air from my body, cutting off my cry of terror.

The stray glared down at me, teeth inches from my neck, breath hot against my chin. Panicked, I shoved at thick, fur-covered ribs, my mouth open and gasping for air my lungs had no room to accept, thanks to the hundred-and-seventy-plus-pound cat on my chest.

Jace growled above us, wordlessly warning the stray to release me or suffer the consequences. But he couldn’t pounce on the cat without squishing me, too.

That’s when I realized I was a hostage. The stray was threatening to kill me if Jace didn’t back off. And if one of them didn’t make a decision soon, the point would be moot, because I was suffocating.

Terror clawed at my chest, scorching my throat. My arms flapped helplessly, beating ineffectively against the stray’s sides.

“What good is a dead captive? She can’t breathe!”

My vision was already going gray when Marc’s voice cut through the buzzing in my ears. It was the sound of mercy. The sound of salvation.

It was likely the last sound I’d ever hear.

But then the stray removed one paw from my chest, settling some of his weight on the ground between me and Marc, and suddenly I could breathe again. Not well, but good enough.

I swallowed air in huge mouthfuls, spitting it out as fast as I pulled it in, and only a concerted effort on my part stopped me from hyperventilating. When I could see clearly again, I
turned my head, pressing my cheek into soft, cold, fragrant dirt as I peered around the stray’s leg. Marc stood fifteen feet away. He had a gash on his forehead, blood smeared across the left side of his face, and a bloody rip in the corresponding sleeve of his coat. But he was alive and upright, and everything else would come in time.

“Let her go,” Marc ordered, in near-flawless imitation of my father’s obey-or-die voice.

The stray growled and dropped his muzzle to my neck. Stiff fur brushed my skin, and I whimpered before I could stop myself.

Marc jerked into motion, snatching a long, thick branch from the ground near his feet. He swung his club up and took two steps forward.

Four shards of pain pricked my chest, above my left breast, and I screamed, more shocked than really hurt. Startled by Marc’s sudden movement, the stray had unsheathed his claws, which pierced my leather jacket, shirt, then my flesh.

The cat resheathed his claws immediately, reinforcing my theory that he didn’t want to kill me—unless he had to. And when my eyes found Marc again, I saw something flicker in the dark behind him, in the hand he held behind his thigh. A flashlight? How was that supposed to help me? Was he planning to blind the damn stray?

Marc’s hand moved again, and the light flashed brighter this time. Only it wasn’t really a light. It was more like a glint—moonlight flashing off something…metal? Had he found my knife? No, it was too thin. More like a…

Syringe.
He had the tranquilizer.

Wonderful. Unfortunately, Marc would never get close enough to use it without startling the stray into killing me. But evidently he didn’t plan to.

Marc glanced up at Jace, and gave him a tiny nod—a signal for something.

Jace roared—an impressive display of anger and domi
nance, I must admit—and the stray hissed, his head whipping toward the sound instinctively. While the cat was distracted, Marc tossed the syringe toward me. It thumped onto the ground near my hip.

The stray turned toward the sound, hissing, and one heavy paw landed on my stomach.

“Do it!” Marc whispered urgently to me, and my hand flew to my side, fingers scrambling in a mound of moss for the syringe—almost literally looking for a needle in a haystack.

My sudden movement startled the cat—or maybe angered him—and four pinpoints of agony sank into my stomach, deeper than they’d gone into my breast. I screamed, and my hand clenched around a clump of moss. The scent of my blood saturated the air. Each breath I dragged in pulled at my torn stomach, sending new waves of pain through me. Yet some distant part of me wondered if he’d accidently ripped out my belly-button ring.

The stray growled at me and retracted his claws, and overhead Jace hissed in fury, drawing the cat’s attention.

I dropped the handful of moss and let my hand skim the ground once more, this time moving slowly, to keep from startling the tom again. My fingers brushed the cold plastic plunger. My hand curled around the syringe, and I exhaled in relief.

I swung my arm up. Claws sank into my flesh again. Hot blood poured over my stomach and down my sides. One last scream ripped free from my throat. I shoved the syringe into the cat’s neck, wincing as it met gristly resistance. I pushed harder and the needle slid in.

The cat roared in pain and surprise. I shoved the plunger home. Something heavy thumped to the ground on my left, then soared toward us. My scream ended in a terrified yelp as the stray flew off me. His claws ripped loose from my flesh and I screamed again. My hands clutched at my stomach, slipping in my own blood.

Marc was at my side in an instant, pressing something to my stomach. It was his shirt. His jacket lay forgotten on the ground, his chest bare in spite of the cold. “Don’t move.” He stroked my hair with his free hand. “You’re bleeding.”

I laughed, but that hurt my stomach, so I stopped. “Ya think?”

He smiled, and pressed harder on my abdomen. “Shh,” he said, and I nodded, compliant now that I hurt too badly to argue.

Marc pulled out his cell phone and autodialed my father with one hand. Distantly I heard him read coordinates from the GPS unit, and tell our Alpha that we’d caught a stray. And that I was hurt. After that, I heard panic on the other end of the line and quit listening.

I turned my head to find Jace standing over the strange cat, who lay unmoving on the ground, the syringe still protruding from its neck. Jace had knocked the stray off me, accidentally ripping its claws from my stomach, but probably saving my life. “Thank you,” I whispered.

At the sound of my voice, Jace padded to me silently and rubbed his cheek on my shoulder. He lay down at my side, purring, and I put one bloody hand on his paw then closed my eyes.

Marc’s phone clicked shut, and he took my free hand in his, still putting pressure on my abdomen. “You’re gonna be fine,” he said. “Your dad’s sending help.” Then, so low I could barely hear him, “I should never have let you go.”

I
’m not sure how long it took for help to arrive, but it felt like forever.

While we waited, Jace kept his body between me and the unconscious stray, just in case, and Marc applied pressure to my wounds. He didn’t actually look at them, and even in my pain-filled fog, I understood that he was too scared to. He could apply common-sense first aid to slow the bleeding, but looking at the damage might tell him more than he wanted to know. More than I wanted to know, too.

We heard our backup long before we saw them, and knew from the racket that most of those sent were in human form. Since speed was the issue, they wasted no time on stealth, instead crashing though the woods like a bear on fire, pounding feet, breaking branches, and crunching leaves. Jace roared to help them find us; there was little else he could do to help me in cat form.

To my complete surprise, and more than a little relief, my father was the first man to burst through the brush. He still wore the suit he’d donned that morning, including shiny dress shoes that should never have seen action in the woods. They were now ruined by mud and scratches from exposed roots.

He stopped as soon as he spotted me, one thick hand holding back a branch he’d shoved aside. Alarm flickered across his face, then was gone, but I was surprised to have seen it at all. My brothers had been wounded dozens of times, and my father had always taken charge with calm professionalism. Yet for me, he’d shown fear.

Did my stomach look that bad?

No!
It was only a few puncture wounds, and surely he couldn’t see the details without more light. My father was just upset because I was his baby—his only daughter—whom he’d never seen sliced open. Would this scare him into removing me from the field? Putting me on permanent desk duty?

Hell, no
. I wouldn’t let that happen.

I grinned through the pain at my father, assuring him I was okay, and he smiled back in relief and knelt next to Marc in the crowded clearing, taking my right hand in his. He stroked my hair back from my damp cheeks, much as Marc had done, but didn’t say a word. I didn’t know what to say, either. When he found out it was my idea to play bait, his concern would likely be eclipsed by anger, and even in the grip of abdominal agony, I knew the ensuing argument would not be pleasant.

Behind my father, two dark, furred forms stepped into the clearing—extra security, in case we ran into more trouble on the way back. The first I recognized as Paul Blackwell’s grandson, and the second was…

Uncle Rick!
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him in cat form, but he’d come along as a public show of support for me, as much for Malone’s sake as for mine. But that didn’t matter. An Alpha doesn’t play security guard for just anyone. I was honored, in spite of the fire enveloping my stomach.

My cousin Lucas followed his father out of the brush, towering over everyone, including Dr. Carver, who carried his first-aid bag in both hands. His eyes widened as he took in first the unconscious stray, then me.

All business now, he dropped to the ground at my side, pushing my father over without so much as an “Excuse me.” Daddy moved without argument, and I was pleased to see that an M.D. trumped Alpha status in an emergency.
Good to know.

Dr. Carver set his bag down, then carefully peeled Marc’s ruined shirt away from my stomach and dropped it into a plastic bag Lucas held ready. Then he took the bottom of my T-shirt in both hands and lifted it gently. I sucked in air through clenched teeth as the material tugged at my open wounds. When the injury was exposed, the doc ripped my shirt open from hem to collar. It tore easily, if not neatly—even in human form werecats are very strong—and suddenly my entire torso was exposed, bloody wounds, scarlet-stained bra, and all.

Marc winced, and Jace whined over the state of my stomach. But no one even blinked at the partial nudity. We saw each other naked all the time, because Shifting with clothes on would have been ridiculous, not to mention expensive after a while.

Marc’s face reflected my own fear and horror, and I didn’t need any more of that, so I tilted my head to look at my father instead. His jaw was clenched tight, like mine, and I couldn’t help wondering what his was holding back. He smiled when he noticed me watching him. “You’re going to be fine.” He nodded, as if to convince himself. “It doesn’t look that bad.”

I flinched as Dr. Carver began mopping up the blood gently, and breathed a sigh of relief when he held my still-there navel ring to clean around it. But I never took my eyes off my father. “Where’d you get
your
medical degree?”

Daddy laughed hoarsely as Dr. Carver sat back on his haunches, drawing my attention. “Actually, he’s right. You’ve got four puncture wounds in the chest—I’m guessing claws?”
I nodded, and he continued. “I’m sure they hurt, but they’re shallow and don’t appear to have done any real damage.”

So far, so good
.

“The wounds in your abdomen are a bit more serious, but at a glance they don’t seem to have ruptured any organs. Of course, I’ll want to keep an eye on you to make sure. And the tears coming from the puncture wounds sliced through the skin pretty good, but I don’t think they’ve gone past the muscle. I’d say you’re damn lucky. I don’t think there will be any permanent damage.”

The forest itself seemed to sigh, and it took me a moment to realize I was actually hearing the men around me exhale in unison.

“Don’t get me wrong.” Dr. Carver frowned down at me. “It’s going to hurt for a while. You’ll need to be still for at least twenty-four hours, then Shift as soon as possible after that to speed up the healing. It won’t be fun, but that’s better than lying around here for the next month, wincing every time you laugh.”

“I can handle it, Doc.”

His frown eased. “I’m sure you can.” His gaze rose to meet my father’s. “Let’s get her out of here so I can sew her up.”

Lucas offered to carry me, and Jace wanted to Shift back and help, but Marc wouldn’t let either of them near me. He carried me cradled in his arms all the way back through the forest to the lodge, then another quarter mile to our cabin. I winced with every step, finally burying my head in his neck for the comfort of his smell. Marc nuzzled the top of my head with his chin, which did more to ease my pain than anything Dr. Carver could give me.

Lucas walked behind us, the unconscious stray tossed over his shoulder like a sack of feed. Dr. Carver said he’d be out for hours, based on the dose I’d given him of…whatever Malone had loaded in those syringes, which was evidently much stronger than what I’d been shot up with in the past. And the very thought of how long I would have been unconscious on
such a dose, considering how much smaller I was than the stray, was enough to make me sick to my poor, abused stomach.

When we got to our cabin, Marc placed me gently on the shiny green-blanketed bed in the room I’d claimed. He found a pair of scissors in the kitchen and cut the rest of my shirt off, then propped my head up with an extra pillow from his own room—I could tell because it smelled like him. He was doing his best to make me comfortable, and even though fire lanced my stomach with each breath, I was much too happy to have him touching me to ruin it by complaining, even about the pain.

My father sat in a chair in one corner of the room, refusing to let anything impede his view of me while he called the tribunal at the main lodge to give them an update. Dr. Carver rushed to and from my room, getting everything set to sew me up. He removed the shade from the lamp to give him as much light as possible. Then he arranged an assortment of medical supplies—scissors, flosslike thread, and a couple of other scary-looking instruments—on a clean white towel on the nightstand.

I flinched as he set an empty syringe on the towel, followed by a small, rubber-topped glass bottle. “What’s that for?”

Dr. Carver smiled gently when he saw the fear in my face. I’m not big on needles. They always seem to precede me being taken somewhere I don’t want to go. “That’s for our new guest. I’m going to force his Shift with a mix of adrenaline, and some other drugs.”

“Oh.” That made sense. We couldn’t let the stray wake up in cat form, because he’d be dangerous, hard to control, and impossible to handcuff. And because we had no cage in which to confine him. On two legs, he could be properly bound, thus unable to slice and dice anyone else.

“The rest of those are for me, though. Right?”

“Um…yes.” Dr. Carver zipped his nylon bag and sat on the
empty bed facing me. “Is this your most serious injury in the line of duty?”

I tried to shrug, but even that slight movement hurt my stomach. “It’s the first to nearly disembowel me.”

Carver laughed. “Well, if that’s what he was going for, he did a very poor job of it. Your guts would never fit through these tiny holes. You’re gonna be fine. Sore for a while, and possibly scarred, but completely fine.”

“Thanks,” I said, and the doctor nodded brightly, then picked up the needle and the small glass bottle on his way into the living room to deal with the stray. And oddly enough, that comforted me more than his verbal assurances. My injuries couldn’t be too bad if he was willing to deal with the other guy first.

But then again, I wasn’t a threat to anyone. The stray was.

On his way out the door, Dr. Carver passed Marc, who carried a kitchen chair to my bedside then dropped into it and cradled my hand in both of his. With Marc there to keep me company, my father left to call my mother with an update from the semiprivacy of his own room.

“The doc’s right, you know.” Marc squeezed my fingers.

“How do you know?”

He leaned back to give me an unimpeded view of his gorgeous, sculpted chest, marred only by the four long claw-mark scars that had brought him into our world, and into my life. Those old scars had an oddly fresh look now, smeared as they were by my blood. “If I survived this, you’ll survive that.”

I blushed and glanced away, ashamed of whining over a relatively minor injury. Hell, Jace had been
shot
three months earlier and had recovered just fine.

“You’re right. I’m a wimp.”

“Nah. You looked pretty bad before the doc got you cleaned up. I saw all that blood, and at first I thought the bastard nearly ripped you in half.”

“I don’t think he meant to hurt me.”

Marc’s gaze flicked to my stomach, then back to my face. “What he
meant
to do doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t you think it should?” But I wasn’t thinking about the stray. I was thinking about myself, and the fact that I hadn’t meant to infect Andrew. And the possibility that Marc was right—whether or not I meant to wouldn’t matter in the end.

But instead of answering, he dropped his gaze to my bare stomach, and a grin tugged at one side of his mouth as I heard his pulse jump. “You know, you’re lucky he didn’t rip that thing right out.” He nodded at my navel ring, and I flushed to realize he was really looking at it for the first time.

Ethan had taken me to get it done less than a month earlier, and had spent the entire time flirting with the multipierced girl behind the glass counter, in spite of the fact that he had a long-term girlfriend, for the first time ever. Well, if three months could be considered long-term…

My brother had pronounced my new—and
only
—piercing “awesome.” But I hadn’t done it for him. I’d done it on a whim, when the display in the shop window reminded me that Marc had once said he found belly-button rings sexy.

I’d worn skimpy tops for a week, trying to get a response out of him, but he’d never even looked at my pierced navel. At least not that I’d seen. Evidently putting a single hole through my stomach wasn’t enough to get his attention.

Though
four
of them did the job nicely…

“Do you like it?” I asked, fully aware that my bloody gashes marred the view.

“Um, yeah. I do.” His voice went hoarse with yearning, and I smiled.

My eyes roamed Marc’s chest, taking liberties because I hadn’t been invited to look in quite a while. He was beautiful; I’d always thought so. Even when we were both children. Even now that he was covered in my blood.

No, wait, that’s not all mine.
Marc had already been bloody when he and Jace found me in the woods, and now that his shirt was off, I saw why. His left biceps was scored by four brand-new claw marks, and I could tell by the scent of the wound that they hadn’t come from Jace. They’d run into another stray. No wonder it took them a while to find me.

But before I could ask him what happened, several thumps and a soft grunt drew my attention to the living room, where Lucas and Jace—who had Shifted back and re-dressed—were carrying a limp, naked male form.
The stray.

Dr. Carver’s magic needle had worked—further evidence that if given enough time, science could overcome nature entirely. Maybe someday it would be able to reverse werecat infection, giving strays back their human existence. But so far, the only hope available to strays was learning how best to play cards with the hands they’d been dealt. Marc coped very well. Andrew had not.

The last thing I saw from the living room before Dr. Carver stepped into my room and pulled the door shut was Lucas duct taping the stray’s wrists together while Jace worked on his ankles. Then Dr. Carver sat in the chair Marc vacated, and I exhaled slowly, mentally preparing myself for the stitches to come.

Marc held my hand while Dr. Carver gave me a local anesthetic to numb the site of the sutures. When I realized the local anesthetic involved a needle, I nearly crushed his fingers. After that, when the actual stitches began, he switched to stroking my hair, and sent Jace for the stress ball Michael had given me. By the time the doctor had me patched back together, that stupid squishy ball lay in tiny clumps of foam all over my comforter.

But that wasn’t what got me through the stitches, every one of which I felt as little painless-but-weird tugs in my flesh. Neither was it my father, who returned to pace at the end of my bed. What got me through was Marc, holding my atten
tion with one old enforcer tale after another. Some were funny. Some were dumb. But all of them were better than listening to my father’s anxious pacing, or Dr. Carver mumbling to himself as he counted my stitches.