Wolf (7 page)

She halted uncertainly when he spoke to her, shrugging his shoulder to shift his gun to his hands. A half dozen more dangerous looking men came out of the jungle like ghosts.

The man she’d spoken to used the barrel of his gun to summon her.

She stared at him warily, flicked a look at the others who were slowly moving to surround her. “I’m an American,” she said shakily, trying not to think about how many times she’d read in the news that the drug cartels and guerillas had kidnapped Americans and held them for ransom.

A quick glance around told her she had no where to run, that there wasn’t any cover close enough that she could reach it before they shot her. She inched back toward the water, trying to keep them from surrounding her.

One of the men laughed, making chill bumps run up and down her spine. “Here,
Gringa
. We help.”

The other men apparently found that highly amusing. They grinned, displaying teeth in need of dental attention.

Sylvie bolted abruptly. She realized the attempt to escape was futile even as she tried. She almost managed to race past the man closest to her. He made a grab for her, though, and managed to snag the loose shirt she was wearing. She screamed, kept running, trying to wrench free of his grasp, but he’d slowed her momentum. Another man grabbed her. Screaming again, she clawed at the man, twisting and jerking. He lost his grip on her when she used her weight to throw him off balance, tumbling to the sand, but he nearly peeled her shirt off.

Someone else grabbed the waistband of her sweat pants, jerking them halfway down her hips and suddenly her terror switched focus. She’d never, for a moment, been in any real danger from Mac and his men, she realized dimly. These men meant to rape her and either cut her throat when they were done, or carry her off and rape her over and over until they were tired of it and then kill her.

One of the men dove on top of her while she was struggling to crawl away, flattening her. She uttered a feral scream when he rolled her over, biting and clawing at him when he tried to pin her down, but she realized in despair that she was surrounded now.

* * * *

As hard as Mac tried to focus on the task at hand, he discovered once he’d left Sylvie on the beach that all he could think about was how helplessly inadequate she was for defending herself. They couldn’t take her with them, he reminded himself.

They couldn’t afford to take her any closer to the village without risking their own necks—risking everybody. The entire reason he’d worked out the plan was to throw the bastards off, to make sure they were still guessing. They’d know once they chased
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the boat down that they had to have gone ashore, but there was miles and miles of coast for them to search and the chances of them being found was remote—as long as there weren’t any locals to report having seen them in the vicinity.

He and Hawk had joined up with Beau and Cavanaugh shortly after they’d left Sylvie on the beach. He could feel their disapproval and it rankled.

It was the best plan he could fucking come up with for everyone concerned, he thought angrily. Even if he thought she would be safer with them, she would’ve slowed them down, increased their chances of getting caught and that wouldn’t go any better for her than it did them.

They were going to have to live off the land, keep moving. She wasn’t in any shape to handle what they were going to have to handle.

He was still trying to convince himself that she was going to be fine when he heard the sound he realized he’d been listening for since they’d left her. His blood turned to ice with the first scream. Sheer terror filled every note.

He stopped abruptly, lifting his head to determine the location. Beau, Hawk, and Cavanaugh halted, as well. Dropping everything abruptly, he launched himself into a run, battling his way through the heavy underbrush that reached out and snagged him like manacles. He felt the change coming over him as his fear and frustration mounted. For once, he didn’t fight it. He relaxed, let it take him, welcomed it. By the time she screamed again, he was in full transition, racing faster, unimpeded by the jungle growth that had been slowing him before.

The smell of the men reached him—their excitement made his stomach churn, increased his rage. He could smell her fear, hear her panting breaths of terror. Uttering a howl of rage, he pushed himself to run faster still.

Bursting through the heavy foliage at last, he landed in sand, whipped his head around and spied the knot on the beach. The men had all paused at his roar, lifting their heads. He could see the whites of their eyes as they spied him and the others.

One man screamed and whirled to run. The others seemed too frozen to move for several moments. Abruptly, one of the men screamed ‘
Chupacabra
!’—goat sucker—

grabbed his machine gun, and began firing. The moment he did, the others released Sylvie and scrambled for their own guns.

Bullets whizzed past him like angry hornets, but he barely even registered them.

Sylvie hadn’t moved. She was naked, her skin so pale it shone—and he saw blood.

Around him, the others howled their rage and raced him to reach the men first. He slammed into one with a satisfying crunch of bones—the man’s bones. The man uttered a gurgling scream as he tore his throat out with one swipe of his claws and then looked around for another to kill.

Hawk bounded past him, racing after the man who’d run. Beau and Cavanaugh were shredding two others. He glanced down at Sylvie, torn between the need to see if she was still alive and the greater need to rend and tear and break bones. As he caught a whiff of the men escaping, that need took precedence and he bounded after them.

He managed to catch one of the fleeing men and settled to dismembering him, dimly aware of the screams around him as Beau, Cavanaugh, and Hawk managed to catch their own prey. By the time he’d finished, he discovered the others were well away and still running. Gasping for breath, he hesitated again, trying to decide whether to chase them down and kill them or go back to check on Sylvie.

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That time the urge to check on her took precedence. Turning away, promising himself he would hunt them down if they’d hurt her, he began jogging back toward the beach. It didn’t occur to him until he’d reached it that he was liable to scare her to death if she wasn’t dead already. Dragging in a deep breath, he focused on tamping the rage.

As he regained his control, he felt the change overtake him again.

He glanced down at his hands and discovered he was bloody all over, but he saw hands, not the paws of a monster. “Sylvie!” he called, stepping from the jungle and looking around for her.

The churned up beach was evidence that he had the right place, but he didn’t see any sign of Sylvie until he’d surveyed the beach from end to end. He caught sight of her as she raced along the water’s edge. The jiggle and bounce of her bare ass riveted his attention the moment he spied her. Equal parts lust and rage filled him. Giving himself a mental shake, he began to jog after her.

“Sylvie! Baby! You’re going the wrong way!”

She threw a glance behind her and then skidded to such an abrupt halt that she went down on one knee in her attempt to change directions. She leapt up immediately and charged straight toward him, her clothes clutched under one arm.

The bounce and sway of her breasts mesmerized him. She was barely a yard from him when she took a flying leap toward him. He had a split second to brace himself before impact. He managed to stay on his feet when she slammed into him, coiling her arms and legs around him, but he staggered before he caught his balance. Throwing his arms around her more from instinct to catch her than design, he tightened his arms when she burst into tears, babbling incoherently.

“Mac! Soldiers! Soldiers! They tried … and I was so scared and then these things, these horrible things … They came out of nowhere and they …
killed
those horrible men, and I thought they were going to get me …. It was so horrible! Blood everywhere and ….”

Mac dropped to his knees, carrying her with him. “Shhh! It’s alright now, baby.

I’ve got you.”

“They’ll get us! They’ll get us! We have to run!”

It needed only that to make him really feel like shit! “It’s alright, baby.

Nothing’s going to get you.”

He found himself rocking her, trying to soothe her and at the same time get his mind off the fact that her bare breasts were flattened against his chest—when they weren’t bouncing against him from her hard sobs. He was only partially successful in directing his mind away from his lust, even though he fully expected her to notice he had a raging hard-on any minute and start berating him for having his mind in the gutter when she was traumatized.

When she’d calmed a little, he caught her face between his palms and forced her to look at him. “Did they hurt you?”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

“Did they rape you?”

Her chin wobbled. “They were going to! I tried to fight them off, tried to run, but they caught me and they tore my clothes off and held me down and then …. Mac! Those things are still out there! I swear I’m not making it up. There’s something in the jungle!”

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“There’s nothing out there that you need to worry about!” he said harshly.

Sylvie sniffed, glancing around fearfully.

Which was when Mac realized he’d smeared blood all over her.

Drained of the adrenaline that had carried him, he had to struggle to get up with her. “Let’s get you cleaned up, alright? Drop the clothes.”

It was obvious from the look on her face that she hadn’t realized she was still clutching them. She let go of them, but she didn’t let go of him. If anything, she clung more tightly as he waded into the water. He had to peel her loose and he was fighting himself, not just her, when he did. Bathing her was worse, but she was like a frightened child, too shocked and clingy to grasp what was happening or what he expected out of her.

She was shivering when he led her out of the water again. Picking up her shirt, he knocked the sand from it and pushed it over her head, threading her arms into the sleeves.

That was bad enough. When he knelt down to help her step into the pants, he was within inches of her mound and it took all he could do to keep from burrowing his face in it.

“We can’t leave her,” Hawk said, breaking the silence.

Mac straightened, heaving a shaky breath. “We can’t take her.”

Her face crumpled. “Don’t leave me, Mac!”

He caught her shoulders, giving her a slight shake. “I can’t take you, Baby. I can’t.”

“Why?” she wailed. “Don’t leave me here! Please! The monsters will get me!”

Mac clenched his jaw, glanced at the other men, and faced her again. “We
are
the monsters, Sylvie!”

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Sylvie stared at him uncomprehendingly and then turned to look at the other men.

None of them were smiling. If anything, they looked more grim-faced than Mac did. “I don’t understand.”

“It was us,” Mac growled. “Me, Hawk, Beau, and Cavanaugh. Those horrible things that tore those men to pieces—
it was us
! We
can’t
take you! We can’t guarantee that we won’t turn on you and kill you just like we did them! That’s why the military wants us back so bad. That’s why they’re chasing us, why they’re going to kill us if they catch up to us. Once we turn, we’re too dangerous even for what they had in mind for us—turning us loose on the enemy—because they can’t control us and we can’t control ourselves.”

It was too much to take in. She thought it would be anytime, but certainly now, after all she’d just been through. A memory flickered in her mind, though, a faint image she hadn’t even been aware that her mind had recorded. The beasts had been wearing military pants, camo just like Mac and his men, she realized abruptly—and she still felt blank, unable to accept it. “How?”

Mac shook his head. “I don’t know how—none of us do. All we know is we were sent out on a routine mission. We were to collect a spy satellite that had crashed in the jungle. We picked up something there—a parasite. Everything else aside, the longer you’re with us the more chance that you could get it, too.”

Sylvie touched her lips in horror as that sank in. He’d kissed her. Hawk had kissed her. If they had something, couldn’t they already have passed it to her? What were the chances that they hadn’t?

From the look on Mac’s face, she knew he’d instantly followed her train of thought. His face twisted and her chest contracted in empathy. “Now you know. Go to the village. You’ll be safe now. The ones we didn’t kill are long gone by now.”

A shudder raked through her at the reminder. The men had been wearing military style clothing. For all she knew they
were
military and if that was the case, she had absolutely no desire to put herself at their mercy again. Even if they weren’t military, they’d been close to the village and, to her mind, that indicated a possible tie between them and the village that she didn’t want to chance.

For several moments, she hesitated, but when she saw the men reach the edge of the jungle she dismissed everything from her mind beyond the fact that they’d protected her. She rushed after them. “Please, take me with you. I won’t be any trouble. I swear!”

Mac turned on her so fast it took her breath. “What part of that did you
not
understand?” he growled.

Sylvie’s heart thumped painfully. She swallowed a little convulsively. “I understand. You wouldn’t hurt me. I know you wouldn’t.”

Mac’s lips tightened. He was furious with her, mostly because he felt like shit leaving her and worse with her begging him to take her. Hadn’t he made it plain enough
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that she was in far more danger from him and his men than she was with the foreigners?

“Baby, you don’t know me at all! I’ve killed so many men I lost count a long fucking time ago—and that’s when I
know
what I’m doing. When the change comes over me, I’m an animal, a mindless monster.”

Despite her fear, Sylvie saw something in his eyes then that she’d never expected to see—fear, fear of what he was, and might become, and might do, maybe had already done. Strangely, it soothed some of her own fear, gave rise to the certainty that she’d be safer with him than anyone else in the world. “You aren’t. You didn’t hurt me. You saved me from them. I trust you.”

“Well, you’re a damned fool! I can’t trust myself!” he snarled, and then held up his hand, holding his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “I was this close to doing exactly what they were trying to do. And I can fucking guarantee you that if you don’t take your ass off down that beach, sooner or later that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

It’ll just be me and my boys fucking you instead of the local boys.”

Dismay flickered through her, and fear, but she dismissed it resolutely. “You don’t have to do that,” she said quietly.

“You obviously haven’t been around too many men on the edge, Baby!”

“You don’t have to … take.”

He stared at her blankly a moment and swallowed audibly. “Jesus!” He scrubbed a hand over his face and finally turned to the other men. “She won’t be able to keep up.”

Hawk flicked a glance from Mac to Sylvie. “She can if we help her.”

“Cavanaugh?”

“We can take care of her.”

“Beau? You crazy, too?”

He grinned. “As a loon. Let’s just get goin’.”

Mac scanned the sky, shook his head in disgust, and urged Sylvie ahead of him.

She’d lost her shoes. She hadn’t actually given that any thought until she stepped from the beach sand and into the jungle brush. She gritted her teeth at the first jab of debris, wondering how the guys had managed to
run
through the woods barefoot. She was well aware that she was only allowed to stay with them on sufferance, however, and tried her best to hide the fact that every step was painful, and it only got worse.

As bright as it already was on the beach, it was dark under the canopy of trees, but it brightened steadily, revealing things she would’ve far preferred not to see.

She almost regretted pestering them to take her with them until they caved in.

She hadn’t actually given a thought to anything beyond staying as close to the men who had protected her as she could. She hadn’t considered that she was going to have to tramp through jungle growth so thick she could be lost in a matter of seconds. She hadn’t considered having to fight off more insects than she’d ever seen in one place in her life.

She hadn’t considered that they were on the run and didn’t dare stop more than a few moments at the time—partly, she knew, because she’d held them up and they’d still been on the coast at daybreak.

She hadn’t considered that she was going to discover more things she hadn’t adequately thought out almost hourly.

She wasn’t exactly free from fear either. She’d grown up in a city and had lived her entire life in cities. The closest she ever came to nature was a walk, or jog, in the park. Every living thing in the jungle scared the piss out of her. Oh, there was the
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occasional sighting of a beautiful, brightly colored bird and butterflies, but there were far more horrible things crawling all over the place than charming ones. The first several hours that they walked she was so busy searching for things that might bite that she was vaguely nauseated from the constant movement of her own eyes and head—motion sick—and so tense with anxiety that it took all she could do not to scream every time something new jumped out at her.

She finally became so weary and sick to her stomach her misery surpassed her fear, but it was always there in the back of her mind, a constant companion. When they finally took a break, she examined the spot where she wanted to collapse carefully and then wilted to the ground.

Beau handed her a bottle of water. “Make it last. We don’t have much.”

Nodding, she took a couple of small sips and put the cap back on.

Someone thrust a pack of peanut butter crackers at her. She shook her head.

“Thanks. I’m not hungry.”

“Eat anyway,” Mac growled.

She took it and swallowed a little convulsively. Opening the package with shaking hands, she took one out, folded the pack back up and stuffed it in the shirt pocket since the sweat pants she was wearing didn’t have pockets. She discovered she actually felt a little better after she’d eaten the cracker, not quite as nauseated anyway.

Mac made an irritated sound. “At least it won’t take much to keep you,” he muttered.

She flicked a glance at him and looked away. Clearly, he was still pissed off about her insistence on coming with them and her ‘offer’ hadn’t been enticing enough to appease him. Resentment flickered through her, but she was too tired to nurse it.

Regardless, she felt it. If he hadn’t decided to use her boat as a diversion, she wouldn’t have been in this mess to start with. She could’ve turned around and headed home and that would still have been a diversion.

Of course, she didn’t know anything about boats or navigation. She probably would’ve run out of fuel, or gotten lost at sea, or maybe been captured by pirates. It was also possible that the manhunt for them would’ve netted her since they were following her boat, but that was beside the point!

It was his fault! He didn’t have to be so pissy about her tagging along when she wouldn’t be in the mess at all except for him—and the other men.

“If you feel the urge for a nature call, now’s the time,” Mac said pointedly.

Sylvie looked at him, and then looked around to discover everyone was looking at her. Her face reddened.

That was another thing she hadn’t adequately considered!

Swallowing the urge to whine about having to go in the woods, she stood up and picked her way carefully through the brush until she could find a little privacy. Once she’d squatted, she learned something new about her anatomy that she’d never known before. ‘It’ didn’t actually work with gravity. It seemed, in fact, to defy gravity. Hoping against hope that the leaf she grabbed to dry off with wasn’t poison-something-or-other, she cleaned up the best she could and adjusted her sweats.

The men were grinning when she returned. Glaring at them, she stared stonily at the woods until they shouldered their bags and started off again.

The lack of any means of personal hygiene offended her sensibilities. Since
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they’d left her bottle of water with her, she waited until she thought she wouldn’t be seen and tipped a little into her palms to hit at washing her hands.

“You’re going to get thirsty if you use your water for bathing,” Mac commented from behind her.

She flicked a guilty look back at him and nearly fell over a bush in front of her.

He caught her arm, steadying her, but released her the moment she’d regained her balance, making it impossible to view it as anything more than a courtesy.

Frowning, she took another cracker from her stash and nibbled on it thoughtfully.

Despite her offer, she hadn’t actually thought the guys would take her up on it. Not that she wasn’t willing enough to trade sex for protection if that was what it took! But she hadn’t actually thought they were as desperate for sex as Mac had seemed to indicate.

Obviously, she’d been right. Not only had none of them jumped at the chance to take her up on it, but they seemed determined to keep their distance.

Was it the way she’d offered, she wondered? Had it looked as pathetic to them as she’d felt at the time?

Or were they just not desperate enough and therefore not that interested?

She couldn’t honestly say that it had occurred to her any of the time that they would be. She’d been
afraid
they would rape her at first, well aware that rape rarely had anything to do with sexual attraction. Sure she’d gotten a rise out of Mac when he’d pinned her to the bed, but she wasn’t young enough and naïve enough to misunderstand that sort of thing. A man’s dick was erectile tissue and young men’s dicks responded to stimulus a lot more readily than older men’s did. They were generally aroused when it did—unlike a woman whose nipples sometimes stood erect when she wasn’t the least bit aroused—but not necessarily for a particular woman. Even if she’d been naïve enough or conceited enough, to think they found her attractive, he’d made it clear that he’d been imprisoned for a very long time, which meant he hadn’t had an opportunity to really exercise it in a while—with a woman, anyway.

They probably thought of her as an old woman, she thought glumly, which she didn’t suppose she could quibble with when she thought of them as the next thing to kids.

She wasn’t really ‘in’ to self-denial, unfortunately. She was nearly thirty-five.

She did her best to take care of her appearance, but she didn’t think she looked young enough to fool anybody into thinking she was a lot younger than she was and she knew damned well that she’d thought of anybody over thirty as old when she’d been in her twenties.

Paybacks were hell!

The more she thought about it, the more embarrassed she was by her behavior.

She was lucky they hadn’t laughed at her when she’d offered to give them some for protecting her! Or told ‘old pussy’ jokes!

Oh the humiliation of it!

The only upside to her mental anguish and self-flagellation was that it kept her too preoccupied to notice her physical misery nearly as much. She was almost surprised when she discovered it was growing dark enough it was beginning to be hard to see.

“That stream I saw on the map shouldn’t be far now,” Mac said, breaking the silence that had held everyone since they’d last stopped for a brief rest.

Sylvie felt a spark of interest. “Do you think it’ll be safe to bathe in it?”

“I don’t know. Guess we’ll see … if we find it.”

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“I smell it,” Beau, who was in the lead, said.