Perfect Mate (23 page)

“Go!” he yelled, already across the room and shoving her toward the bedroom ahead of him.
 

She didn’t argue. She just ran. Darce was hot on her heels as they crashed through the door of the bedroom. He slammed the door shut and wheeled around. Lillian’s jaw hit the deck as he lifted the heavy wooden dresser and dragged it into place over the door as though it weighed nothing.
 

He turned to find her watching him. Something heavy slammed into the door behind him.

“Window.”
 

He grabbed her hand, dragging her after him like a trailer on tow as he ran over the soft surface of the bed. The window didn’t stand a chance against however many pounds of determined werewolf, the glass shattering in a discordant aria. Her heart slammed in her chest, a painful tattoo as she clambered through the ruined opening. Not quickly enough for Darce, though.

“Sorry, chick. We gotta haul ass.”
 

His apology was short as he grabbed her bodily. She gasped as her feet left the ground. The next instant her world narrowed down to a close-up view of naked werewolf back and a tight ass pumping away just below her. Holding her tight over his shoulder, Darce ran.
 

Shouts and gunshots rang around them. Howls of warning and rage filled the night air. Fear locked her muscles as she clung to her rescuer to avoid being thrown off. She locked down the little voice in her head that was screaming about being the pathetic female in need of rescuing.
 

Darce was a werewolf. He was stronger and faster than her. If he felt the need to get her out of a danger, then she wasn’t exactly going to refuse. What were her choices, anyway? She could either let him manhandle her or complain and waste time. Or get killed. None of those options, particularly the last, appealed.

The world became a frightening place. Darce ran through the blackened forest with her across his shoulder like some kind of freakish lump. With each shot that whistled by them, she winced. Each time he leaped over something in their path, she flinched. As a teenager, she’d always loved roller coasters, rides that got the heart pumping and the adrenalin running. Now she was on the ultimate thrill ride as they ran for their lives, and all she wanted was for it to stop.
 

The gunfire slowed, petered out behind them as the humans chasing them couldn’t keep up. Darce crashed through another clump of trees and came to a stop. As soon as her whirling senses told her they were stationary, she wriggled.
 

“Put me down. I can run,” she promised, but he was already sliding her down from his body to the floor. Unlike with Jack, the movement wasn’t sensual. His body was hard and comforting in its strength. Even though he was built as nicely as his boss, there was no answering spark within her. It was as though that switch had been flipped and the only guy she’d ever respond to again was Jack.

Darce stood motionless, his head cocked to the side as though he was listened to something. She tried to do her best not to breath so he could hear better. The forest was silent, mocking her own attempts at listening. She couldn’t hear shooting or howling anymore.
 

Her gut twisted. Had they killed all the wolves…?
Oh my God, please let Jack be okay.

“They’re still out there. Following us.” His voice was a low murmur. “We’re on silent running now. No vocal warnings until we RV.”

“RV?”
 

“Rendezvous. Standard protocol. If the shit hits the fan, we cut loose and make our way to a pre-defined location,” he explained, looking up. He nodded toward the mountains to their left. “If we get split up, head parallel to those until you hit a road. Follow it into the pass to the next town. Someone will find you.”

Chapter Eighteen

The Lycan was with the woman, and
fuck
was he fast. Antonia swore under her breath as she followed their frantic flight through the night-darkened forest. Even carrying the woman didn’t seem to be slowing him much, and Antonia struggled to keep up, despite the fact she wasn’t carrying anything heavier than a pistol in a shoulder holster.
 

She’d ditched her rifle. It would only snarl her up as she travelled through the treetops far above the ground. Besides, she had natural weaponry, and they were far more effective than any bullet.
 

He pounded along the ground, moving low and fast. The woman’s weight didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, from his breathing and heart rate, Antonia suspected he hardly noticed the weight across his shoulders at all. He didn’t slow his pace, not even to leap over fallen logs or to clamber up the rock formations that littered the forest floor like some giant child’s discarded playthings.
 

She switched direction when he did, following the lee of the mountain range above. The trees were denser here, which slowed her down. Not much, but enough she had to expend more energy than she liked to boost her speed. More energy expenditure meant she burned through her resources quicker. She would have to feed before the night was out and, being this far from the base, that meant a live donor.
 

The obvious choices were the men under her command. Her lip curled. They were pumped full of shit to keep them from being infected, which meant their blood would taste…well, like shit. But unless she got lucky and came across a civilian camping out in the woods who’d somehow missed the firefight when they attacked the cabin or the numerous werewolves stampeding through the trees, then she had no option.
 

Unless… An image of being wrapped around the cute as all hell Lycan she was chasing popped into her head. His arms ’round her waist, hers across his shoulders as she bent his head to the side to bare his throat. The big vein pulsed under his tanned skin, calling to her. His amber eyes shone with lust and need as she bent her head, her fangs full and aching in her mouth—

No! That is so not fucking happening. Not in a month of Sundays. Ever
. She shuddered and carried on moving, ignoring the heat that washed through her body. Lycans were filthy creatures, the lowest of the low. No way would she lower herself to drink from one. Even one as sexy as the Lycan she was chasing. Besides, she had enough crap going on with the virus already in her veins. She didn’t need to add another to the mix, even for kicks and giggles.
 

Reaching a clearing, the pair below her stopped. Clinging to a branch, she stopped herself in the same instant. Her nails, elongated and razor sharp, bit deep into the bark. A silent shadow she watched what was going on underneath her branch. She wasn’t worried they would look up and see her. If Lycan eyes couldn’t distinguish her from the darkness, then a human had no chance. And the wind was the wrong way for him to catch her scent. She crept forward on her branch until it dipped under her weight.
 

“…someone will find you.”

Find her? What was he going on about? She wished she’d caught the first part of the sentence. Was the wolf cutting the human woman loose or something? Out here in the darkness, miles from anywhere?

Wriggling, she gained another couple of inches. The wood beneath her creaked. Below her, the Lycan’s head snapped up as, beside him, the woman drew closer. His eyes glowed amber-green as the light from the moon struck them. She froze.
 

He could see her. Instead of that preternatural gaze sweeping the shadows among the branches seeing just the darkness, he focused directly on her. Surprise was stark on his face.
 

“Go.”
 

He pushed the human female away, detaching her hand from his arm and shoving her toward the small, barely visible track they’d been following. Antonia’s lip curled back in a snarl, hatred and anger welling up inside her. What was the female doing near him, why was he touching her? Her talons retracted, freeing her from her perch. She dropped to the forest floor and landed in a crouch.
 

“Run. Now!” her Lycan bellowed at the human, his eyes not leaving Antonia’s as he dropped into a fighting crouch. She scuttled to the side, trying to find a way around him. Instinct and rage rode her. Her gaze locked onto her target, the delicate woman behind the Lycan. She was pathetic, human and weak. Nothing like Antonia.
 

She wouldn’t be able to defend herself, not against the claws and ferocity of a Blood’s anger. Just one swipe of her extended claws and the woman’s throat would be ruined, her lifeblood pouring from her veins. A low rumble left her throat. The human was a dead woman—she just didn’t know it yet.
 

Their eyes locked, blood darkness against human warmth. The human gasped as she read her own death in Antonia’s eyes. Her hand flew up to her throat as she stumbled backward. She almost fell, her feet slipping on the wet leaves underfoot.
 

“Run!”
 

The human did as she was told, triggering every predatory instinct within Antonia. All she wanted to do was run, chase her rival down and put her out of commission. The Lycan sidestepped, putting himself between Antonia and her prey. She snarled at him in fury, flashing her fangs.

“Now, now,” he chided, shaking a finger at her. “Put them away unless you intend to use them, there’s a good girl.”

She wanted to rip that finger off and shove it where the sun didn’t shine…she wanted to close in and lick it before sucking it between her lips, then watch the heat flare in his eyes. The urge to rip into him with claws and teeth warred with the need to throw him to the forest floor, tear his clothes from his body and ride him until they both screamed in pleasure.
 

She staggered, the internal battle tearing her in two. What the
fuck
was wrong with her? He was a Lycan, a freaking dog. A mutt she’d been ordered to put down. Or catch and muzzle.
 

“Get out of my way.” Her words were low and guttural, the presence of full extended fangs in her mouth made speech difficult. “Or I’ll rip your head off and dance in your entrails.”

“Sure you will, sweetheart.” He blew her a kiss, his words light and joking. “And I’ll put you over my knee and spank that luscious backside of yours.”

She snarled a wordless sound of anger and frustration. He beckoned her on, his eyes as hard as the amber stone they mimicked.

“Come on, gorgeous. Let’s dance.”
 

“Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod.”
 

The litany fell from Lillian’s lips as she crashed blindly through the trees. Her sensible flats, more suited to walking the wards of St. Mary’s than a mad dash through the woods, slipped on the wet leaves underfoot. Branches reached out grasping fingers to tug at her clothes.
 

Her heart pounded so hard it filled her hearing and competed with the harsh rasp of her breathing. Follow the mountains. She had to follow the mountains. The moon overhead disappeared behind a cloud. Panic clawed its way up her back as she was dropped into darkness. How could she follow the mountains when she couldn’t
see
the freaking things?

She couldn’t see, but she could hear. All around her, the once-silent forest erupted into a cacophony of noise, every little sound amplified and playing right into a fear of the dark she thought she’d left behind in childhood.
 

Every skitter of wind-blown leaves behind her was a zombie creeping up. Every creak of a branch above was one of those creatures dropping like death from above. A vampire…no, Blood…whatever the things were called. She shivered as she remembered the look on the woman’s face. Rage and a soul-deep hatred she’d never expected to see in another person’s eyes. Not directed at her anyway. She was a hospital manager, for heaven’s sake. People didn’t look at her as though they’d happily rip her limb from limb. Or if they did, they saved their ire for a complaints form.
 

The moon came out from its hiding place, the silvery glow illuminating the path ahead of her again. How Darce had seen where they were going, in the pitch black and at the speed he was going, she had no idea. It gave her a new appreciation for just how inhuman he and the others were.
 

“Oh, thank God.”
 

She darted down the newly revealed path, her eyes wide as she scanned the woodlands either side of her. Just one glimpse of a furry hide was all she wanted. She didn’t care which one of them she found, all Lillian wanted at the moment was the feeling of safety being near one of the werewolves gave her.
 

A hysterical snort escaped her as she rounded a corner and clambered over a fallen log. Her foot slipped again, and she lost precious seconds retrieving her shoe. What kind of twisted world had she fallen into where she looked to the creatures of nightmares for protection?

“Well, well. What do we have here?”

At the new voice she squeaked and shot upright, her wayward shoe clasped in one hand as an impromptu weapon. Not as effective as an axe for dispatching zombies, about all she would manage with the flat heel would be to spread its nose over its face.
 

Durr…
zombies didn’t speak and they certain didn’t have the tonal range to manage lewd.

Standing in front of her was a soldier. At least, since he was dressed in black and carrying a rifle, she assumed he was a soldier. He had that vague military air about him that proclaimed him as such. Knowing her luck, she’d probably found the only soldier fan-boy serial killer in existence.