Werewolves in Love 2: Yours, Mine and Howls (34 page)

A funny taste burned the back of his mouth. He felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. This was worse than the sudden, powerful urge to shift, which he could control.

This was fear—abject, borderline hysterical fear. He’d never felt this before, not even in combat.

He raised his eyes to Michael, whose face mirrored his own queasy fright. Michael, Dec and Dylan stood paralyzed. No wolf could move faster than a bullet fired at so short a distance. If it were only Cade, they’d take their chances, but not with Becca and Ally there.

Thirty, maybe forty-five seconds had passed. Now, when it was too late, he could smell nothing but the Seattle Alpha’s madness and rage.

And Ally. He could still smell Ally.

God bless his magical mate, he caught barely a whiff of fear. Mostly he smelled anger. She was still, as still as a wolf, and she was staring at him, waiting for him to show her what to do, because she trusted him.

It calmed him and helped him resist the urge to change. He needed to be on two feet to handle this.

So when he spoke, holding her gaze and drawing a strength from her he’d never imagined he would need, his voice was as steady and dry as when he discussed ranch business.

“Rufus. Why aren’t you off somewhere killing yourself like an honorable wolf?”

“What honor? You took my honor, MacDougall. Like you took my pup.”

“I didn’t take Aaron. He left you. He tried to kill himself because of you. Whatever Courtlandt told him, it must’ve been bad if he thought suicide—”

“Shut up!” Cade recognized murderous fury in Stapkis’ snarl. He shut up.

“In the car, female.”

Ally’s eyes went to Stapkis. “Excuse me?”

“Get in the truck. MacDougall, give me your keys.”

Now he turned to face his enemy. This wolf barely resembled the barrel-chested giant Cade had seen in photos. Stapkis’ salt-and-pepper hair, a matted, tangled mess, trailed below the collar of his sweat-stained white shirt. His stringy gray beard straggled halfway to his chest. The Alpha hadn’t slept or shaved in some time. A quick glance at his pale brown eyes revealed empty madness. This wolf probably couldn’t even shift right now.

“Leave them out of this, Rufus. You want me, you got me.”

Stapkis’ harsh laughter serrated Cade’s nerves.

“I’ll get to you. Give me the keys and back off or one of your females dies.”

“I’ll go with you, but leave Becca here.” There was no trace of fear in Ally’s voice. “She’s only four, and she’s sick.”

“Shut up and get in the truck. Don’t make me tell you again.”

“You’d never get out of here alive, Rufus.”

Stapkis smiled. “Think I care about that anymore?”

And there it was. Cade had no options. Stapkis didn’t care about his own life, and Cade didn’t care about anything but Becca and Ally’s lives, and the two Alphas knew it. He handed the keys to Stapkis and stepped away, keeping his hands out to either side. He could feel his wolves’ frustration. He trusted them not to do anything stupid.

His heart lodged in his throat when Ally tried to climb into the backseat with Becca. Stapkis shoved her toward the front seat.

With a morbid despair, Cade realized he might never see either of his girls again. It took all the strength he had, and more self-control than he’d known he possessed, not to ask Stapkis to let him kiss Becca.

But another thought occurred to him then, a thought that immediately banished the despair.

Stapkis believed he held a human hostage. He didn’t know he had a female with strength, speed and senses to rival his own.

To his amazement, Cade found he had to suppress a smile as a new, more familiar sense of control and resolve flooded through him.

“How’d you track me, Rufus?”

Stapkis’ lip curled in a sneer. “Easy. I spotted you in town the other night. While you were in the police station, I slapped a GPS locator on the Rover. A real Pack Alpha’s not so careless about security, MacDougall.”

This time Cade let the smile break out across his face. He shrugged. “It’s embarrassing, I gotta admit.”

“I’ll call you with instructions. Don’t even think about following me.”

Stapkis slammed the driver’s door and took off with Cade’s whole world.

“Think you’re a tough little thing, don’t you?”

“You have no idea.”

Staring out the window on her side as if she didn’t care they’d been kidnapped by a sociopath, she kept an eye on the rearview mirror. She saw several cars behind them, but couldn’t tell which one was Sarah Jane’s rented Lexus. She had no doubt Cade and the others had followed immediately—she just worried they wouldn’t be able to keep up without Stapkis spotting them.

So far she’d succeeded in stuffing the fear deep, deep down inside. She was almost certain he couldn’t smell any on her, and she hoped it was freaking him out.

“How old are you, anyway? MacDougall land himself a teenager?”

She didn’t answer.

“That’s fine. You just sit there and keep quiet. You and the kid will be fine as long as your wolf does what I tell him.”

She was trying to make a plan, be prepared for what she’d do when they got to wherever they were going. If she attacked Stapkis the minute he parked the car, just went fists and nails and teeth on him before he had a chance to unbuckle his seat belt…

Behind her, Becca stirred. “Ally?” The sleepy little voice set her pulse racing. For a second, she was afraid her control would slip.

“Shh, baby. Go back to sleep.”

But could she catch him by surprise, even with her speed? A Pack Alpha would be faster. Maybe his age would slow him down, though…

“Where’s Daddy?”

“We’ll see Daddy in just a little bit, Becca.”

No matter how many scenarios she envisioned, they all ran into the same problem—Becca. Alone, there would’ve been a half dozen things she could try, up to and including throwing herself out of the moving car, or jumping Stapkis as he drove. Alone, she’d have taken her chances. But she couldn’t do anything that would endanger Becca.

As much as she hated it, she had to bide her time and see what Stapkis would—

“Ally, I want to go home! Take me home!”

“Shh, honey, we’ll be home soon.”

She turned her head toward the backseat but wouldn’t look straight at Becca for fear she’d start crying and upset the girl even more. It made no difference—with that sixth sense small children seemed to have for knowing when an adult was frightened, Baby Girl started crying.

“I told you to keep the kid quiet!”

“Shut up! She’s sick and scared!”

He didn’t slow down as he made a sudden right turn off the highway onto a two-lane blacktop. She’d never ventured this far out of town. The ranch lay sixty miles behind them on the other side of Fremont. They were alone, no traffic or any other sign of life. Apparently someone had paved a road through the trees without bothering to add buildings, cars or people.

There was no time to wonder about it because she suddenly smelled something terrifying.

“Are you
changing?
” She didn’t want to imagine what would happen if Stapkis changed while he was driving. Would they be ripped to pieces even as they spun out of control?

“What the hell are you talking about?” he snarled.

“I can smell the change on you! You can’t tell you’re doing it?”

His eyes were normal, though—red-rimmed and filled with madness, yes, but the sclera weren’t yellow and the pupils weren’t elongated. And it wasn’t the typical change scent, either. It was lighter, more floral…

“Ally!”

This time, the panic in Becca’s cry made Ally spin around. “Baby? What’s wrong?”

Becca thrashed against the car seat straps, eyes clenched shut, mouth wide open in a silent scream. Ally ripped off her seat belt so she could turn all the way around.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Stapkis shouted.

“Leave me alone! Something’s wrong with her!”

He grabbed her right arm. She jerked it free. The Rover careened across the deserted road, but she ignored Stapkis’ yells and curses as he fought the steering wheel to stop the tires sliding off the blacktop. One arm wrapped around her headrest to keep herself upright, she leaned across the backseat and brushed the hair out of Becca’s face.

“Becca? Breathe! Right now, baby!
Breathe!
” The child’s face was hot, far hotter than a fever could make it, as hot as…

…as hot as a werewolf’s skin.

Unconsciously, instinctively, she snatched her hand back as she realized the strange, almost-change scent was coming from her little girl. Now it filled the car.

“Ally…” Becca whimpered. Her voice was mutating, stretching. Ally stared in silent shock as the small body began to flex and undulate. She didn’t hear bones popping as when a wolf shifted—these bones were softer, more malleable. The shift was almost silent.

To Ally’s horror and shame, a part of her recoiled. She’d never been entirely comfortable watching her own wolves shift. The sensation of rippling flesh, the sight of sprouting hair, morphing limbs and emerging claws—it was all so alien, so
physical.

As she witnessed the unthinkable transformation, the past three months flashed through her mind. How many times Becca had chattered about changing into a kitten, how she wished she could do it on purpose, but she couldn’t, how it only happened sometimes, and not for very long, and it wasn’t scary but sometimes it hurt a little, and…

And then it was over, in far less than the minutes it took the strongest alpha wolf to shift. A tiny black kitten huddled, shivering, in the midst of Becca’s white Winnie the Pooh T-shirt and pink shorts.

The kitten, jet-black like her father—and cousin, and uncle—blinked her bright green eyes and mewled softly.

“Oh, baby,” Ally whispered in awe. For the space of one caught breath, she forgot their mortal danger, wonderstruck at the sight of Becca, a
female shifter.

Was she the first? The only? If there were others, why did no one know about them, and why—

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Stapkis grabbed her arm again, much harder this time. It felt like it would snap under the pressure of his huge hand.

Ally yelped in pain.

Becca screeched in fright.

Stapkis whipped his head around, saw a cat in the backseat, and hollered, “What the fuck?” He shoved Ally against the passenger window, then reached back to grab Becca.

The kitten yowled again and leapt straight for Stapkis’ head, her claws digging into his scalp and face. He pulled her off and flung her away. Becca went sailing over the backseat. The Rover swerved off the road and bumped down to the gravel shoulder, fishtailing until Stapkis got his hands back on the wheel.

When Ally heard the tiny body hit the rear window, a white hot rage engulfed her. Bracing herself against the passenger door, she gave the werewolf a mighty kick across the jaw. Before he had a chance to recover, she planted another one in his ribs. Once she started kicking, she just couldn’t stop.

Which was unfortunate, because this time when Stapkis let go of the steering wheel and the Rover veered onto the gravel shoulder, it kept going. He was too busy blocking her kicks to regain control of the truck. As he struggled, his foot jammed the accelerator to the floor.

The Rover plunged into the dense brush, spinning and skidding a few feet before the rear end crashed sideways into a pine tree and the back window shattered.

“Run, Becca! Go!” Ally screamed.

Giving Stapkis one last kick to the face, she launched herself across the backseat.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Cade and Michael were in the Lexus before Stapkis reached the end of the street. Michael threw the car into reverse and was about to take off when Cade realized Dec and Dylan weren’t in the backseat.

MacSorley stood motionless on the sidewalk, one arm outstretched toward Dylan. But Dylan wasn’t looking at his uncle.

He was staring at Adnar, who’d appeared from—where? Nowhere. Thin air. The Fae hadn’t been on the sidewalk thirty seconds ago when Cade had leapt across the street and into the car.

Cade jumped out of the car. “Dylan! What are you doing?”

The teenager walked right up to the Fae and said something in a foreign language. Adnar listened for a moment. Then he said something. Dylan’s reply had a strange effect on the Fae. While his stoic expression didn’t alter, at least as far as Cade could tell, something in his posture, his demeanor, changed. If Cade had to guess, he’d have said the Fae appeared surprised.

The Fae raised his head. His eyes met Cade’s, and then Cade was certain. Something Dylan said had shocked him.

Cade reckoned he’d spent hundreds of hours in the past thirty-three years imagining what he’d do if he ever came face-to-face with his father’s killer. In some fantasies he was on two feet, in others, four. No matter what form he was in, every scenario ended with him ripping the bastard’s throat out.

Now, in the glow of the fading afternoon sunshine, with his mate and his daughter in the hands of one enemy and his nephew inches from another, Cade did…nothing.

Adnar turned and disappeared.

Just like that. There one minute, gone the next.

Dylan elbowed MacSorley out of the way and slid into the backseat. MacSorley climbed in beside him, and Cade got back in the car.

“We’re not gonna wait for him to call, are we?” Michael asked.

“Fuck no. After him.”

They took off. The sedan was a little crowded with four large werewolves.

“What the bloody hell were you thinking?” MacSorley barked at Dylan.

“There he is,” Michael said. “I see the Rover.”

“Yeah, me too,” Cade replied. “Hang back. Keep him in sight, but I don’t want him—”

“I know how to tail someone, Cade.”

Michael was as scared as he was, and Cade loved him for it, so he ignored the insubordination. He dialed the ranch and told Seth to forward all calls straight to his Blackberry. He didn’t say anything about what had just happened.

“All right,” he said as he ended the call. “Just what the fuck was that about, Dylan?”

“I told Adnar that Stapkis kidnapped my little sister, and that we’re Eirny’s grandchildren, and that Eirny’s dead and it’s his fault.”