Alpha On the Run: A BBW Wolf Shifter Paranormal Romance (7 page)

“Better idea,” she said. She dug through a trunk. “I have a big shawl. I can pin it over my head and neck the way my grandma does to go to mass. Less skin means less for them to smell, right?

Anna was soon dressed in clean underwear and jeans, a long button down shirt, and her newest pair of hiking boots. It was a little hard to tell when the whole cabin smelled of her, but he thought the clothes didn't smell much like her compared to the rest she had.

Then she pinned her hair up and wrapped the shawl around her face. It took her a few tries to keep it from slipping down her back. Once on it covered everything but her face, so it was hard to tell who she was from behind.

“I didn't know Catholic women wore headscarves?” he said, watching her.

“Not since the beginning of Vatican II in the sixties, but Abuela's a traditionalist. Dad said she was furious with the church for getting rid of Latin.” She turned to him. “How's this?”

Her scent was filtered through the smell of cotton, but still unfortunately detectable. “Well, you're not identifiable by sight,” he said.

“I have an idea,” Anna said then, and went to the spice cupboard in the kitchen.

“What are you doing?” he asked, mystified.

“Getting cayenne powder.” She pulled down a bottle. “Come get a whiff of this, but be careful, I don't want to hurt you,” she said.

She only had to open the bottle for him to understand what she meant. The smell was overpowering and sharp even across the room – if she opened the bottle in his face it would be painful. He got a little closer and sneezed.

“I thought I'd put some on me – not a ton, just powder my scarf and shirt with it,” she said.

“Good idea.” Soon he confirmed that even from a few feet away he couldn't concentrate on her smell at all. “Just try to keep your face down, so they can't recognize you that way,” he said. “They didn't meet you for very long.”

“Got it. I just hope no one who knows me asks what's going on.”

“You could say you found God at last,” Joshua joked. “Or hey, maybe you got a really bad sunburn and your doctor said you couldn't go out with any of your skin exposed.”

“My skin is
way
too dark for that, Mr. Tall, Mysterious and Pasty,” Anna joked back. “I'm going to head out now. I'll see you in an hour, I hope. If I'm not back call the cavalry.” She picked up a pair of mirrored sunglasses and slid them on.

“Don't worry, it'll probably be fine,” Joshua forced himself to say

He watched her leave from the doorway. He felt like he should be following, but he would just draw attention to her. He was supposed to be by his mate’s side. But instead she went alone.

Chapter Seven

Anna sped the whole way to the gas station. She was fueled by the fear she could feel in Joshua's mind. Her heart pounded with adrenaline. She knew it echoed Joshua's own heart rate.

She pulled into the station and looked over the parking lot nervously before she opened the door. Things she saw every time gained a dangerous significance. The trees came up to the edge of the parking lot. They would provide cover for sneaking werewolves. And it was impossible to watch the entrance from the single pump.

Weren't animals supposed to sense fear? She made herself calm down before she exited the car. She was just getting gas. Joshua was scared, and he had every reason to be, but nothing was going to happen.

Anna got out of the car and slammed the door. The sound made her jump and laugh at herself. She bent over the pump and inserted her debit card quickly. She was glad the owner had finally updated the previously ancient equipment two years ago. All through her childhood drivers had had to pay at the register for gas. She wanted to be out of here as soon as possible.

When she turned to open her gas gauge she froze. A new car was parking in the lot. She told herself it was probably nothing just as one of the werewolves she met with Stephen got out of the driver's seat.

Anna swore at herself. She ducked her head and let the shawl's fringe hang over her eyes. She busied herself with the gas pump. If she had only left a little earlier – -- or if she didn't speed on the way here. She could have seen them in the lot and kept driving to the next gas station.

Too late now. Bolting would look suspicious and she didn't have the gas for some kind of high speed chase.

She kept her breath even and did not look up. The werewolf walked over to her car with one other she didn't recognize behind him.

“Excuse me, ma'am?” he said. “I'm Officer Hunter, can I see your ID?”

Oh, hell. She looked up out of the corner of her eye. The badge was faked well. In panic, she improvised.

“No hablo inglés,” she said rapidly. “Cual es el problema?”

The man beside him breathed in very slowly and deeply, then shook his head.  Then he yelled over his shoulder “No dice, Stephen!”

The spice worked. Anna tried to breathe.

“I can hear her breathing from over here,” Stephen said from the car.

“Doesn't speak English anyway,” the man said. “Probably just scared we're immigration or something –”

“La Migra?” Anna asked, trying to sound appropriately panicked now. “Yo soy –”

“Shut up,” he said curtly, and she fell silent.

She wanted to contact Joshua via the bond, but she wasn't sure if they would know. Hadn't Joshua said they sometimes could?

“Check the license plate before we go,” Stephen said grouchily from the car. Anna's heart froze.

The one she recognized, “Hunter,” walked around the car to check the plates against a paper in his hand.

“It's a match!” he yelled.

At his words, three things happened. Anna dropped the pump and tried to bolt, the second man lunged forward, and Stephen exited the car.

The man grabbed her by the shawl. She jerked forward, and he swore when it came off in his hand. Anna wished she had the pump still and could blast it into his eyes, but instead she ran around the car –

Straight into Hunter, who grabbed her by the arms with an iron grip.

About a second later he started sneezing. Anna tried jerking again, but his hands didn't give. Before she could fight more, the other man pressed cool metal to the back of her neck. A gun.

“I take it you speak English,” Hunter said.

She remained dead silent.

“What the hell is this?” he asked. “Curry powder?”

“Anti-werewolf poison,” she said. “You'd better let me go if you want the antidote.”

He laughed. She wished she had her hands free so she could punch him. “Nice try, but I know how to cook. This is some kind of spice.”

“First grade Cayenne pepper,” she said through her teeth. “Rated at 50,000 Scoville units. Hottest thing I keep in my kitchen.”

“Fuck,” the man said appreciatively, and sneezed again.

She thought she should be scared, and she was, a little. But mostly, she was angry.

She sat in the back of the car, on the opposite side of the driver. One of the men sat next to her with the gun. Hunter was in the front with Stephen. His tracker, the man who originally scented her, wasn't in the car. He was unable to stand being so close to Anna. She took vicious pleasure in the way his eyes had watered when Stephen ordered him to scent her for Joshua.

She had a sneaking suspicion he knew, though. They had no reason to grab her just based on the car license plates, when they had let her go before. They must have known something. If only she knew what it was. If only she knew how they even had the plates from that first day. They could have had someone else circle around in the woods and write the numbers down, maybe?

The car stalled and slowed going up another steep hill. Anna smirked a little. It was a stick shift, but she bet it was rented, because Stephen kept messing up the gear changes. That, or he'd never driven anywhere with hills like Pennsylvania's.

If only she could get the door open and jump out when the car slowed. With three werewolves right behind her she had no illusions about how that would go, though. She needed a head start, or people around to protect her, or some advantage. Any advantage,

She touched Joshua in her mind, very carefully keeping her face blank in what she hoped was a good impression of utter terror. She didn't dare try to send him more specific emotions, afraid that they would be able to tell somehow. But just his presence was reassuring. She felt a determined white noise that made her think he must be coming after her. She hoped he had an actual plan. Unlike her.

Feeling him there helped her stay calm and still. She would not start crying or begging. She would
not
tell them where to find Joshua if they didn't already know.

The car turned onto a gravel path. She resisted the urge to grab the door at the way the tires bounced. It would suck if they shot her over a misunderstanding.

She wanted to look up to see if they were coming to a destination. They'd told her to keep her face down – whether to stop anyone from seeing her clearly or so she couldn't tell where she was going, she wasn't sure. Surely they'd have blindfolded her if that was it? Or would that be too visible? She couldn't believe anyone would get more than an instant's glimpse of the windows. There probably wasn't anyone to look. They'd hit the middle of nowhere five minutes out of town.

The car stopped.

“Get out and open the gate,” Stephen said to the man sitting next to him.

Anna made a mental note – gravel road with a gate a few minutes down it. She didn't know if it would be any help, but she was trying to keep track of the car's turns. It was hard when she couldn't tell if they were turning because of a switchback or an actual intersection, though.

Hopefully Joshua would find her with the pack sense and it would turn out not to matter.

She heard metal screech and a curse. “It's stuck!” the man called.

Anna didn't let herself tense, but her heart rate picked up. She wondered if they could hear it.

“Push harder,” Stephen ordered flatly.

There was a brief argument. She gathered pushing harder wasn't helping.

“Give me the gun,” Stephen finally said, exasperated. “Go help him get the damn gate open.”

Anna turned her head very slightly to look to the side. She barely dared hope. Should she just wait for rescue? Would it do any good to wait for one that might never come?

They weren't looking at her. She crept her hand over to the door. When they pointed the gun down to pass it, she pushed the door open and flung herself out of the car.

Shots rang out over her head. She rolled, got around the miraculously close tree and stumbled to her feet. Another gunshot missed her as she took off running – hit another tree? It was hard to get a clear shot on a moving target in the woods. Anna had gone deer hunting before.

How fast could wolves run? Faster than her, surely.

She heard a yell behind her and dared to twist her head. They had stopped. She saw the ripple of fur across skin and understood – they had to stop to change. She had seconds, maybe minutes.

Joshua had mentioned it was hard to shift, and recovery time was needed before you could do it again. There were some places canines couldn't go that humans could.

Anna ran until she was out of sight. Then she found a good tree, grabbed at a branch, and started up.

It was only a temporary solution. They would eventually turn back. But maybe, if they bypassed her she could find a better hiding spot. Or maybe she could steal the car.

The wolves entered her sight again.

They were huge – much bigger than the gray wolves in zoos. Was Joshua that big when she met him? She couldn't remember. The one in front she assumed was Stephen; he was immense and so pale gray he was almost white in places. One of the others was a more classic gray color, and the third was a rusty brown.

There was no hesitation – a single sniff and the wolves turned towards her.

Anna cursed herself. The damn cayenne powder would still be incredibly strong. They'd smell her no matter where she was.

She put it on the clothing, not on her skin. Maybe if she could get away again she could ditch the clothes? And then run around naked in the woods. Great idea.

She met Stephen's eyes and he drew his lips back and snarled. Anna shivered and looked away.

The tree she chose was immense. Anna had been afraid the smaller trees in the clearing wouldn't hold her weight. She hesitated, then started climbing again.

She made it a good thirty feet further up the tree before the limbs started to shake and she had to stop. The branches obscured her view of the wolves, and presumably theirs of her.

Jumping from this height might kill her – or worse, leave her trapped for them with a broken leg. She must be almost fifty feet in the air. Could she make it to another tree?

She started back down; there were more sturdy branches ten feet below. Once she had carefully descended, she started inching her way out. The branch looked like it might reach all the way to the conifer nearby. Hopefully she wasn't so high up the conifer's branches would be brittle and broken.

If she cleared the leaf cover she'd be in sight again and right back where she started. Anna gritted her teeth and told herself there might be another escape path from the next tree. The trip out was terrifying. The branch started to shake and sway before she even breached the leaf cover, and she had to return.

Dammit. It looked like her only way out was to stall and hope Joshua came before they did – and hope Joshua could take three other wolves.

Anna braced her back against the trunk and sat back. She took out her phone after a while. She didn't have any reception here, but she could check the time.

The drive hadn't been long, apparently. Only an hour ago, Anna had told Joshua she'd be back soon. Anna tilted her head back against the trunk and wished she had changed her mind. She didn't know if they'd even need the car in the coming weeks, and it wasn't available to either of them
now.
The tracker had taken it. She wondered where he was. Would he arrive soon and up the odds against her even more?

She closed her eyes and reached out in the mate bond to Joshua. She felt his fear for her – and then felt him notice her attention. This far out, they couldn't use words. She felt a sudden rise in curiosity that might as well have been the question,
What's going on?

She pictured the wolves at the tree's trunk. After a moment she felt him get it, and twin emotions of fear and triumph.
Why triumph?
she wondered, and sent her own curiosity over.

Frustration came across briefly. A mental image slowly rose in her mind of her pushing Stephen in wolf form back with one hand.
What?
she thought, and then realized – he felt triumphant his mate had got one over on Stephen.

He sent another feeling, a mix of concern, reassurance and determination. She decided to interpret it as
I'll be there soon
, and ignore the possibility that it was just wishful thinking.

It took a full forty minutes before anything changed.

She heard a strange, almost sick crunching noise. Wondering what was going on, she reluctantly climbed down enough to see the ground. The rusty red wolf was shifting back. Oh, god. She felt for Joshua. He was closer, but still not there. There would be more than enough time for the wolf to catch her.

The others just sat and watched. Maybe they needed more recovery time? Or they only told one to shift back, since it wasn't like more than one could come at her high up a tree trunk.

Anna climbed back up the tree to delay. If only she were lighter weight, she might be able to hide so far up the tree he'd break the wood if he came up, but she must weigh about the same he did.