Driving Force (5 page)

Simon nodded, his jaw set hard, then shot out of the door. Yeah, the day was really going south for everybody.

At least nothing got worse and the rest of the week stayed quiet. The Lowes were in an edgy mood. They had found no trace of Arrhan, which on the one hand was a relief and on the other was a serious concern. It was puzzling how one Shifter could hide his tracks from more than twenty others hunting him. But Arrhan might have tricks up his sleeve that they weren’t aware of. It was entirely possible new ways of concealing oneself had been developed back in the other world over the last hundred years.

It was also possible the guy had left the area and was targeting some other pride now he had failed with the Lowes. For that reason, Kurt Lowe decided to send out warnings to every Shifter pride everywhere, friend or foe. He wanted no one taken by surprise. How they chose to handle Arrhan was up to them. Kurt let it be known that he would prefer to talk to him, but would understand if some other clan were simply to take him out permanently. Arrhan’s fate was in his own hands.

The end of the week brought a full moon like a spotlight in the night sky, so bright that one could almost read by it. Ian felt his heart lift just looking at it. The week’s work was done, even Simon’s abandoned accounting cleaned up. There were no more duties to be taken care of, no obligations to bind him.

It was past one. No one would see him this late and he needed to run free in that black-and-silver night. He removed his clothes, shifted and went out of the window in a fluid glide.

He slid through the shadows, carefully staying downwind of the stables so the horses wouldn’t catch the scent of leopard. With the ranch and its outbuildings finally behind him, he settled into a ground-covering run.

His human side, with its human worries and concerns, fell away. His animal side surged up, living in the moment. All his senses woke and he was exquisitely aware of every detail of the world around him. The thousand intense, intoxicating scents carried to him on the wind. The acuity of his night vision, which lent everything he saw a piercing, silver-shot beauty. The feel of the wind on his pelt, of grass and earth under his rushing paws. The squeak and rustle of small animals going about their business in the dark.

That sadness and sense of futility that dogged his human existence vanished in a rush of sensation. They would come back in the end, of course, but right now he could thrust that aside and simply be, yesterday and tomorrow forgotten in the now.

Human intelligence never left him. He knew to avoid roads, houses and people. He went after a rabbit just for the sheer joy of the chase, following it through all its desperate twists and turns, then letting it go at last. He wasn’t hungry and had pursued it only for the pleasure of feeling his muscles respond to the challenge. Later he went after a mule deer for the same reason, drunk on motion and power.

No kills tonight, though. Just abandon. Just the pure delight of running free.

The round, white eye of the moon looked down at him. Deep in no-man’s land, far from human hearing, he looked back at it and roared, the sound vibrating outward from the depths of his chest to fill the night with wildness and frighten all the little animals into frozen stillness in their burrows or under some bush.

Only one thing would ever be better than this. But that he would never have.

At last, a sleepy chirp from an early bird warned him of the passage of time. It was an hour before dawn. He was far from home and it would take him at least that long to reach it. His leopard speed, though, would get him back before the concealing darkness melted away completely.

He turned back, running swiftly along the top of the cliffs, enjoying the cool feel and smell of stone and night. Far below him, the river wound like a python, brown and muscular, patterned with white from rapids or small cataracts. Here, one could see how treacherous it really was, unlike downstream where it spread out deceptively smooth and placid.

A flare of green light and a blast of enormous force exploded in his face.

Almost flung off his feet and blinded by ghostly afterimages, he whirled in a circle, slashing out at nothing, disoriented by shock and disbelief, struggling to make sense of what was happening. It was some kind of attack. Explosives? But there was no smell of chemical combustion.

A body slammed into him. He roared as pain raked down his side. Then he was falling.

He hit stone, then water that seemed equally hard, the way he was splayed out when he smashed into it. Went under, gasping and choking and unable to breathe. Struggled back to the surface only to be swept along like a leaf by the rapids, battered into every rock and boulder on the way.

He almost shifted to human but restrained himself in time. Being human right now would only make him more vulnerable to the blows, the cold and drowning. His cat body could withstand much more harm. Then his head struck a rock and consciousness left him.

He came back to himself clinging to a clump of splintered branches, deadfall swept into a hollow of the bank by the current. The river had flung him against it and was now trying to pull him away. But his claws had sunk deep into wood and bark, held him fast against the drag.

He fought his way up onto the tangle, then struggled over it to the bank, sliding, slipping and almost falling in again as it bobbed and twisted under his weight, pieces breaking off and swirling away in the current. Only his claws kept him from following them.

He made it to the safety of the bank and collapsed. The world swam in front of his eyes, then spun away into blackness once more.

The sun was burning down at him when he came to at last. It was past noon, he guessed, his eyes watering as he squinted painfully at it. He had been unconscious all morning.

He was badly hurt. He could feel that some of his internal organs were damaged and at least a couple of ribs had been broken by being battered against the rocks. But he couldn’t stay where he was. Any human coming across him as he lay in leopard shape would shoot him on sight. Yet turning human right now would only mean he would die of his injuries sooner. He had to stay a cat. Find a hollow or burrow where he could hole up and hope his Shifter healing would repair the worst of the damage.

He staggered to his feet. The slashes down his side where his attacker had clawed at him had clotted a little while he was unconscious, but now they tore open and started to bleed again. Not badly, just oozing, but the blood loss would weaken him even more as it went on.

He had to find somewhere to lie up. The river would have carried him down toward Castleton, but he had no idea where he was and no hope of making it home unseen. He had to find cover, but even putting one foot in front of the other was almost beyond him. He moved away from the river, struggling through underbrush that provided neither concealment nor shelter, only impeded him.

He was weaving now as he walked, his head hanging. Consciousness started to slip again and he yanked it back with an effort. He couldn’t afford to pass out here.

A scent entered his awareness. Just a thread, the scent of something that felt so right. His brain was so foggy that he couldn’t identify it, just that it seemed familiar, seemed to be where he should be going, where he wanted to be. He followed that lure, moving blindly toward it, falling over his own feet, his vision blurring in and out of focus.

The scent pulled at him. He homed in on it unthinkingly, instinctively, found in a moment of consciousness that he was moving toward a house. An ordinary little one-story bungalow set all by its lonesome in the middle of the woods. Not a Shifter house. A human one. The worst place in the world to go. An utterly wrong thing to do. But he couldn’t stop himself.

He staggered up the worn wooden steps to the porch, then reared onto his hind legs against the front door, remembering just in time to shift into his human form before he fell against it with a thump.

There was an exclamation from within, then the sound of swift footsteps.

What am I doing?
he thought.
This is insane!

The door opened. Without it to hold him up, he fell. A slender body caught him, broke his fall, went down to the ground with him under his weight. His face was in the curve of a cool shoulder, arms were around him, that familiar scent surrounded him.

He was where he wanted to be.

“Mouse,” he said. “Mouse, help.”

Chapter Three

Oh my God, she had her arms full of Ian Raeder. He was sprawled across her lap, his face against her breast and his legs stretching out of the front door. And he was naked! Like, totally
naked!

Impressively so. Sierra’s gaze shot down to exactly where she shouldn’t be looking if she wanted to keep her sanity. Whoa, Mama! No wonder every girl in the county threw herself at him. Even at rest, the man was hung like a stallion.

She dragged her gaze away from that riveting cock and realized he was seriously wounded. There were five deep gashes down his left side from his armpit to halfway down his thigh, he was battered and bruised all over and from the shallow, rasping way he was breathing, he had internal injuries as well.

“Ian! What happened to you?”

His breath shuddered against the V-neck of her halter top as he tried to speak. “Fell…”

“Oh God, we’ve got to get you to a hospital! My cell. Where’s my cell? I have to call 9-1-1.”

“No!” He grabbed weakly at her as she started to pull away. The movement might have been weak, but the strength of his grip was shocking, holding her where she was. “No hospital! Can’t go there. Doc. Call Doc Howard. Just him. He knows.”

The pupils of his eyes were of different sizes. He probably had a concussion on top of everything else.

“Ian, you need a hospital!”

“No!” He looked up at her, his eyes glazed with pain. She didn’t think he was actually seeing her. “Mouse,
please…
”

He had never said please to her before. It showed how important this was to him. She could see the desperation in those unfocused eyes. She couldn’t refuse him, and at least Doc Howard had the authority to force him into hospital if necessary.

“All right,” she said, then gasped as he suddenly went limp against her. He had been holding on to consciousness solely for that reassurance from her and now it had been given, he had allowed himself to pass out.

She looked around and saw her cell lying on the hall table. She inched her way carefully backward, her arm under his neck so he wouldn’t be jarred when his head slid down into her lap. She just managed to snag the phone with her fingertips as she strained toward the table and she let out a little breath of relief. She didn’t know Doc’s number offhand, but 4-1-1 brought it up and dialed it for her. Doc answered himself, which was a surprise.

“Doc, this is Sierra Wal—”

“Yes.” Doc Howard’s voice sounded hurried and impatient. “I’m sorry, Sierra. We’re having a crisis and this is not a good time.”

“Ian is hurt,” Sierra cut in hastily. “Real bad. He won’t let me call an ambulance and he won’t see anyone but you. Doc, please come.”

There was a sharp silence. Then, “Ian Raeder? What’s wrong?”

“He’s all busted up.” Sierra’s voice shook. “And he’s been clawed right down his side. It looks like a mountain lion attack. I know that sounds crazy, but—”

“Where is he?” Doc interrupted.

“My place.”

“I know where that is,” said Doc before she could give him the address. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

The connection cut off before she could thank him. But he was coming. Sierra let out a little breath of relief.

She looked down at Ian’s still face and stroked his hair involuntarily. It was surprisingly soft and silky under her hand. She didn’t want to move him, but she couldn’t leave him that way, half in and half out of the house. His torso was lying on the scatter rug at the front door. The rug would slide easily on the polished wood of the floor, so he shouldn’t be hurt if she moved him. She slid out from under him carefully, easing his head down, then caught the edge of the rug and pulled it and him delicately backward until his heels crossed the threshold and she was able to shut the front door.

She bent to check his condition and was relieved to see that she didn’t seem to have done any damage. After sliding a cushion from the couch under his head, she went to get a blanket to keep him warm—and also to cover him up. All that gorgeous male nakedness was doing unfortunate things to her libido. She shouldn’t be thinking that way, with him hurt as he was, but she couldn’t help it. He was just too beautiful.

Doc’s ancient pickup pulled to a stop in front of her house just as she began to worry that he wasn’t coming. She whipped the front door open and beckoned urgently to hurry him up.

“Take it easy, Sierra,” he said. Doc was over sixty, with a shock of white hair and an unshakably placid manner. “Haste makes waste.”

He crouched down stiffly to examine Ian. Oddly, he didn’t seem at all surprised by Ian’s injuries.

“Yup,” he said at last. “Done a good job on himself this time. It’ll take a while to mend. Got another blanket, Sierra? We’ll have to get him up onto a bed before I can patch him up. My knees are too old to keep squatting down like this.”

“Is it okay to move him?” asked Sierra, hurrying to the linen closet. “I think there are bones broken.”

“Couple of ribs, yeah. But he’s tough as whipcord,” said Doc callously. “He’ll heal. My arthritis won’t.”

He grinned at the reproachful look she gave him, then took the blanket from her and spread it out on the floor beside Ian. Sierra watched worriedly.

“Give me a hand here,” he said, and together they maneuvered Ian carefully onto the blanket.

“We’re hurting him!” she exclaimed as Ian made a little sound of pain.

“Can’t be helped. Grab the blanket at his feet and I’ll take this end.” For someone over sixty, Doc was surprisingly strong. “Man would have to weigh two hundred solid damn pounds. I suppose I should be glad he isn’t Nikolai Korda. Now there’s a giant.”

They got Ian into the bedroom that had been her Mom’s but which Sierra had now made into a guest room, and eased him up onto the bed. Doc nodded with satisfaction.

“Get my bag, will you, Sierra? And I’d really appreciate some coffee. Need the pick-me-up.”

“Uh, sure.”

Sierra brought him his bag, then went to get the coffee started. She got back just in time to see Ian’s eyelids flutter.

“You with us, boy?”

Ian’s eyes opened. He stared dazedly up at Doc.

“How’d you get so banged up?”

“Rapids,” Ian said with difficulty, his voice slurring.

“That explains most of the damage. But those gashes?”

“Tell Kurt…Arrhan…”

“Mmm. Think he already knows. There’s been ructions.”

The crease between Ian’s brows deepened. “S-serious?”

“Some. But it’s being taken care of. You just lie there and heal. Won’t be good for damn all for a while. I’ll call Simon and he’ll take care of you.”

“No!” Ian caught his wrist. Doc winced. “In Wyoming. Got enough on his plate. Don’t bring him back!”

“How about Neal?”

“Seattle.”

“Okay. I’ll find somebody else. Gonna give you a local and stitch you up right now. You just lie quiet for the next few days.”

“The ranch…”

“Taylor Weekes is a good foreman and can keep the ranch going until you’re on your feet again. Don’t be fussing about that, son. Whoops.” Doc chuckled. “He’s out again. That’s good. Gives me a chance to stitch those gashes so he won’t bloody up the bed of my pickup when we get him out to it.”

“He…he didn’t want to go to the hospital,” said Sierra hesitantly. “He freaked when I mentioned that.”

“Who’s the doctor around here? He’ll go where I take him.”

“But…” Sierra didn’t know whether to feel relieved or sorry. Ian really did need to go to the hospital, but he had been so upset at the thought. She didn’t want him to end up thinking she had betrayed him.

“How’s that coffee coming along?” asked Doc.

She went to check and was just pouring a cup when she heard a reverberating snarl from the bedroom. It sounded like…

She ran down the hall, then stopped dead in the doorway to the guest room. There was a leopard on the bed.

“Damn!” said Doc. “I was hoping to get him to my place before he did that!”

Sierra’s breath left her in one great whoosh. She fell against the doorjamb and leaned there, staring.

The leopard snarled, then flexed violently. Fur receded, muscles shifted, bones cracked and rearranged themselves. Then it was Ian lying on the bed, naked once more because the blankets had fallen away. A moment later, he spasmed again and the leopard was back. The entire transformation took only a few seconds either way.

Sierra’s legs gave way. She slid down the doorjamb until she was sitting on the floor.

“Put your head between your knees and just breathe,” said Doc.

Numbly, Sierra obeyed. When the world stopped spinning and she raised her head again, the leopard was gone and Ian was back.

“What…what is he?” she whispered.

“They call themselves Shifters.”

“They? It’s not just him?”

“Nope.”

“His brothers.”

“Yeah. And a few others.”

“How many…?”

“I don’t know and I wouldn’t tell you if I did. Let him tell you if he wants to. Not my business.”

Sierra jerked around suddenly to stare at him. She had known Doc nearly half her life, but after this revelation anything seemed possible.

“Are you…?”

“I’m human, just like you.” Doc smiled at her reassuringly. “I found out about it forty years ago, exactly the way you’ve done today, when a wounded cat I stumbled across and was trying to help went into the healing fever in front of me and suddenly started shifting. They can’t control it when they’re hurt. That’s why he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”

Right. She could just imagine the hysteria. If they didn’t kill him outright, he would be chained up and subjected to every test and cruel research that the government and the scientific communities could devise. And the media! Panic in the streets if word of this got out, people terrified and suspecting everyone else of being a werewolf. Well, werecat. Whatever.

“Never thought werewolves exist,” she mumbled.

“They don’t. Werewolves are supposed to be humans who partially change into animals on the three or four nights that the full moon forces it on them. That’s the way the books and the movies have it, right? Brainless monsters attacking everything in sight, the condition caused by being bitten by another werewolf.”

Sierra ran a hand over her face. “I guess…”

“Well, these are Shifters. Shape-shifters. They change body shape whenever they want and retain their full intelligence while in that form. And you have to be born a Shifter. Won’t turn into one if you’re bitten.”

“Doc, if you could just hear what you’re saying! It’s insane!”

Doc pointed at the bed. The leopard was back, writhing in pain where it lay.

“Think that’s a hallucination?”

Sierra wished it were. She watched bemusedly as the cat turned back into Ian.

“I think my brain’s shorted out.”

“They don’t hurt anyone,” Doc said. “Never have. Just want to live their lives. From what I understand, they were driven into this world from another. Not all in a bunch. In ones and twos over thousands of years. Stayed under the radar with their heads down, multiplied a bit, but not all that much, keeping their numbers low on purpose. They may not be fully human, but they’re not a danger, Sierra. Never have been. You gonna tell?”

She looked at the man lying on the bed. That was Ian. Ian whom she’d known for the last ten years. Ian whom she both hated with a passion and desired. Ian who had teased her and annoyed her and been the bane of her life. But Ian the individual who had never harmed her or anybody else that she knew of. Not some unknown monster. A person.

“I won’t tell,” she said.

“That’s my girl,” said Doc with profound relief. “Knew I could count on you. You’ve always been level-headed, Sierra.”

“It’ll…take some getting used to.”

Doc laughed a little. “Oh, yeah. Move back out of the doorway for a moment. I have to get something out of the pickup and I don’t want to leave you here alone with him.”

Sierra realized she was still sitting on the floor. She flushed and scrambled hastily to her feet. Doc came out of the guest room and shut the door behind him.

“Don’t go in there without me. I’ll only be a minute.”

Sierra leaned against the wall and tried to get her whirling thoughts together. Doc came back at last carrying two pairs of metal manacles, each connected by a short length of heavy chain. She stared at them in horror.

“Do you have to put those on him?”

“Yes. I have to stitch him up and I don’t think the cat will take to that. I was hoping the fever wouldn’t have got to him yet. Not until I could get him home to my place and into restraints. But from the looks of things he’s been hurt more than a few hours and the fever’s taking over already. He’s going to shift back and forth a lot.”

He was snapping the shackles onto Ian’s wrists and ankles as he talked. Sierra looked at them in distaste. It seemed so wrong to be putting those ugly things on Ian.