Ellie's Wolf (24 page)

Patia startled in his hands, her plump little legs flailing under the blanket Lisa Madison had made for her. Carla woke with a start. “Taye? What is it?”

He set the babe on his mate’s chest. “I don’t know, but if it’s not important, I’m going to kill somebody.”

Patia let out a thin squawk. Carla gathered her up as he went to the door. “Wait, we’ll come with you.”

He paused at the door to shake his head. “No, you need to sleep. Stay here, sweetheart. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

He strode down the hall to the rec room. Something cold passed over him when recognized Sand. He had sent Sand with Quill to fetch his cousin Ellie. The wolf’s face was gray with exhaustion, and the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet were bloody.

“Chief! Quill was attacked and Miss Ellie stolen. Send help!”

Taye clenched a fist over the edge of the doorframe. “What happened?”

“Quill won Miss Ellie in the Bride Fight.” Sand spoke in rapid-fire words, barely pausing to breathe. “She accepted him. While they were off alone last night, someone shot Quill with poison and took Ellie.”

Horror rolled over Taye, followed by dread for his little cousin. “Is Quill dead?”

“No. It’s partially paralyzed him, but when I left at daybreak, he was already getting stronger. Quill left Snow and Standing Bear with the boys, sent me to get reinforcements, and went after the thieves.”

“He’s paralyzed? How can he go after them?”

“He made Paint and Lance tie him on a horse and promise to leave him behind if he slowed them down.” Sand’s face distorted for a brief moment. “Chief, you gotta come. Miss Ellie needs you.”

Taye scented his mate and daughter before he saw the glow of the lantern she carried. He turned to see Patia’s soft round face slack in sleep against Carla’s breast and his mate’s worried face turned to him. “You have to go, Taye,” she said. “Rose is here to help me with Patia, and you can leave enough men behind to be sure we’re safe. But you have to go. Fast.” Her hand clenched on his arm as her voice rose. “What will they do to Ellie?”

It was a cry that struck him hard. Rape was a certainty. Could Ellie bear that? She was nothing but a sweet, naive innocent. Those who would poison a man and steal his wife wouldn’t treat her with kindness. A growl pushed up his throat. His little cousin, in the hands of woman stealers! Years ago he’d sworn to protect her, just as he would protect Patia. How the woman stealers had snuck up on sharp-eared wolves with excellent senses of smell he couldn’t imagine. Berating his Pack for allowing his cousin to come to harm wouldn’t find her any faster. He would find her, and the ones who had taken her would die. Some might die fast and some would die slow, but they would all die.

“Jay, choose twenty men to defend the den. Everyone else, with me. Sand, tell me where we need to go.”

“I’ll show you.”

“You’re exhausted, and you ran until your paws were bloodied.” His voice was hard, but not unsympathetic. “You stay here in the den to help protect my mate and daughter. We have to move fast.”

Men and wolves sprang into action. In twenty minutes, they were ready. Taye looked in on his peacefully dreaming son, kissed his daughter’s fuzzy head, and held his mate in his arms for a long moment.

“Be quick,” she urged him, fear in her eyes. “Find Ellie and bring her home.”

“I will,” he promised and kissed her.

And he would make those filthy woman thieves wish they’d never been born. First for taking Ellie, second for hurting Quill, and last, but not least, for putting fear in his mate’s eyes.

* * * *

Ellie woke this time lying on her side in grass. The sun was either setting or rising, and from the warmth of the grass her cheek was pressed to, she guessed it was setting. Weariness rolled over her, dragging her heart down. What day was it now? Her body ached in every part, as if she’d been put through a grain thresher, and she felt weak and shaky. She waited for nausea to overwhelm her. When it didn’t, she breathed a sigh of relief. A tug told her that her hands were bound again. She didn’t feel nearly as woozy this time, but the aches in her body made her fight to stifle a groan.

Where was she? Outdoors. She could hear low male voices murmuring, tree branches shivering in the breeze. Farther way, horses stamped and snuffled.

“Wakey-wakey, girlie.”

Her eyes shot open to see Lenny crouched by her head. His hand reached to pinch her cheek and throat and slide down to grope her breast. She thrashed to knock his hand away, but it was awkward with both her hands and her feet tied.

“Don’t touch me, you rotten man.”

“That’s no way to talk to good old Lenny,” he chided her with an ugly smirk. “You should be thanking me. Who was it that changed your diaper these last two days? Who made you drink water while you were sleeping the hot days away? I deserve a little thank-you.”

She lifted her voice and spoke as clearly as she could. “You disgust me.”

He sprang to his feet and kicked her in the belly. The nausea she hadn’t felt earlier rose sharply, and she was viciously, helplessly sick. When she was done heaving, she drew in a long, careful breath, wishing she could brush away the tears mixing with mucus and vomit on her face. She recovered her breath, grateful Lenny had backed a few feet away but wondering bitterly why he’d moved away. If he liked beating defenseless women, he had a perfect target in her.

She caught voices coming toward her. Maybe that was why Lenny had backed off. Footsteps crunched the grass, and the voices became clearer. Well, actually, only one voice was talking, and she identified it as Half-Nose’s.

“You’ll be able to sell her for a good profit. She’s young and pretty,” he was saying in a tone that struck her as oily, like a man trying to sell a horse for a price far in excess of its worth. “Fertile too. She’s already dropped one brat.”

Another man grunted, the noise coming from only a few yards away.

“I’m willing to give you a good deal,” Half-Nose said, “since we’re moving unexpectedly. Didn’t plan on moving right now, but, well, something came up, and we gotta skedaddle.”

A low chuckle sounded. “Looks like you better skedaddle fast.”

That chuckle touched a chord in her memory. Ellie jerked her head to try to flip her stiff hair away from her face. Two pairs of boots were a few yards away. Half-Nose’s boots were familiar, but the other pair wasn’t. She ran her gaze from the boots to long legs in worn jeans, to a flannel shirt, and up to a sun-reddened face whose arched brows were shooting up under shaggy brown curls.

Rye Thomas nodded at her as if they’d just met outside church. “Evening, Mrs. Overdahl,” he said.

“Mr. Thomas,” she returned, striving to match his calm tone.

Half-Nose looked between them. “You know each other?”

Rye chuckled. “We’ve met, under very slightly more agreeable circumstances. Mrs. Overdahl—or, no, it’s Mrs. Wolfe now, isn’t it?—I have to say, you’re not looking your best. Going by present circumstances, I guess if it weren’t for bad luck, you’d have no luck at all.”

“They murdered Quill!” Tears squeezed out. “They stole me.”

Lenny slammed a solid boot into her ribs. She recoiled with a choked scream from the pain that jabbed fiery knives into her side. She may have blacked out for a split second. When she opened her eyes, she saw Rye had his hand around Lenny’s throat, and Lenny’s boots didn’t quite touch the ground.

“Now, is that any way to treat a lady?” Rye asked in a poisonously pleasant tone. “I don’t really think so. When I buy merchandise, I expect the goods to be in good condition.”

“It’s nothing,” Half-Nose said quickly. “She’s fine.”

Rye tossed Lenny aside. “She doesn’t look fine to me.” The habitual smile was gone from Rye’s face, leaving it cold and hard. “In fact, she looks damned mistreated. I should kill you for that.”

Another voice came from the right. “Bad idea, boss,” said Tim. Ellie looked and found him several yards away, rifle pointed at Half-Nose. “You know those wolves will want to do that for themselves.”

“True.” Rye’s little chuckle rippled out. “They already owe me one favor, so now they can owe me two.”

“Look.” Half-Nose talked fast. “One hundred gold and she’s all yours.”

“One hundred gold?” Rye jerked his chin to the left. “That sound like a fair price to you, Jer?”

“I don’t think so.”

Ellie wanted to smile when she saw Jeremy on the right with his rifle pointed at Lenny, and Dex and Jeff covering the rest of Half-Nose’s men.

“Okay, fine.” Half Nose was wary but seemed desperate. “Seventy-five gold.”

“You must be crazy.” Rye yawned. “He look crazy to you, Paul?”

Ellie couldn’t see the pony-tailed man, but she heard him spit. “He looks like a murdering, woman stealing loco to me.”

Rye smirked. “He does, doesn’t he?”

“Listen.” Half-Nose’s tone was low and angry. “I came to you with an honest business deal. You got no call to insult us. I’ll take fifty for the woman. That’s a hell of a deal for you.”

“Yeah, hell of a deal. You should just thank God if I let you walk away still breathing.”

Half-Nose put a hand on his pistol. “If you try to steal her from me, we’ll fight. Probably none of us will win. Is she worth getting some of your men killed?”

Rye’s smirk melted into flat disgust. “Fine, fifty it is.” He opened the flap of the leather wallet attached to his belt and counted out gold and silver.

Half-Nose counted each coin carefully before stepping back and waving a grimy hand at Ellie. “She’s all yours.” His ugly face twisted into disgust. “Nice doing business with you,” he sneered before jerking a hand for his men to follow, and they all went to their horses.

Rye said quietly, “Tim, why don’t you and Paul follow them out a ways. Make sure they don’t double back to ambush us.” He came to kneel by Ellie’s side. “Damn, they didn’t treat you right, did they, Mrs. Wolfe? How bad are you hurt?”

Tears of relief overflowed Ellie’s eyes and clogged her throat. “Nothing’s broken, I don’t think,” she managed.

“Let’s get you on your feet.” Rye whipped out his knife and cut the ties around her wrists and ankles. He was rough when rubbing feeling back into her extremities, but lifted her with careful hands and helped her stand. “We’re about two miles out of Littleton. Can you ride that far?”

Her legs were strangely weak and didn’t want to hold her up. She clutched at Rye’s arm. “Yes.” When his nose wrinkled, she tried to smile. “Sorry about the stink.”

“You sure could use a bath,” he said with frank sincerity. “We’ll get you one right away.”

She lurched when he let her go and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. She saw pity on all their faces. “I thought you said you weren’t going to trade any more women,” she remarked to divert their attention.

Rye gave up on her halting attempts to walk and picked her up to carry her to his horse. “That was the plan.” He put her in the saddle and mounted behind her. “But fifty gold for a young, attractive, and fertile woman was too good a deal to pass up.”

Ellie gripped the saddle horn hard. “Are you going to sell me?”

That chuckle made her stiffen. “Yeah, to your cousin. I’m a businessman, and I figure he owes me.”

“He’ll pay you back,” she promised.

His horse had a rough gait that made every one of her bruises throb. Rye’s hands were gently impersonal when he arranged her to sit against him. The gait smoothed slightly when they stepped onto a road.

She brushed impatiently at the tears she couldn’t control. Why was she crying now? She should be happy. Rye and his traders would treat her well and bring her to her family. Half-Nose and Lenny were gone and wouldn’t ever hurt her again. She would see Connor and Tommy. Quill had died quickly and painlessly. Someday she might even find a third husband that she could love. She folded her hands to lift a silent prayer of thanksgiving. As she silently recited psalms she had memorized in childhood, the tears just kept pouring down her dirty face. She didn’t sob or gasp or wail. Maybe she was too tired for that. Her whole body felt weak from lack of food and water, trembling with weariness and relief. She had said the Twenty-Third Psalm and One Hundredth Psalm and was nearly finished with the Thirty-Seventh Psalm when she realized the horse had stopped moving.

Wolves, gray and menacing, surrounded them, teeth bared in snarls. These couldn’t possibly be regular wild wolves. “Taye!” she called joyfully. One of them had to be Taye. “Taye! I’m all right!”

Rye was stiff behind her, hands held carefully away from his gun and knife. “For God’s sake, tell him we’re friends,” he muttered.

“This is Mr. Thomas and his traders,” she said dutifully. “They rescued me from the ones who…” Her voice faltered. She took a breath and forced herself to go on. “They rescued me from the men who stole me.”

One of the wolves stalked closer and flowed gracefully into Taye. Ellie had seen the transformation so many times in the last week that she didn’t pay attention, but Rye breathed a disbelieving, “Damn!” behind her.

“Taye!” She squirmed out of Rye’s saddle and literally fell into her cousin’s arms. He held her close, so closely her bruised ribs protested. “I knew you would come,” she said fiercely into his bare chest. “I knew you would, so I didn’t give up.”

He held her away to give her a thorough visual examination. The barely subdued rage on his face made her look down at herself. She cringed. Her feet were bare, toes coated with grime. Her jeans and blouse stiff with salty dried sweat from the horse and vomit from multiple episodes of drug-induced nausea. Her hair was sticky with things she didn’t want to think of. Every inch of her exposed arms was scratched or bruised. Taye threw his head back and raised a howl that chilled her. The other wolves echoed him.

“Taye, I’m not hurt badly,” she hurried to assure him.

He looked over her at Rye, who had dismounted to stand beside his horse. “Where’s the nearest doctor?”

“I don’t know. We’re heading for Littleton, about a mile that way. My wagons are just outside it. That’s where we were heading when you found us.” Ellie almost smiled at the repetition that signaled his nerves. “Littleton isn’t a big town, but they might have a doctor or someone who can help.”