Chasing His Bunny (9 page)

"Of course," the doctor said, pushing
at Steele's shoulder.  Mr. Too-Big-To-Actually-Push-Around
frowned, but allowed the doctor to steer him out of the door. 
It wasn't until Bailey tugged on Bethany's arm that she realized
she was staring after him, even as the door
closed. 

Clearing her throat, Bethany refocused
on her sister.  "I'm sorry, sweetie, what's wrong?"

"No, I'm sorry," Bailey said, her
voice high and tight.  "I'm sorry I interrupted your date... I
just..."  Her voice trailed off, her dark eyes looking even
more fevered.  She clung tighter to Bethany.

"It wasn't a date, there's no
problem," Bethany reassured her baby sister.  "Just tell me
what's wrong."

"I need to go outside," Bailey
whispered. 

To someone else that wouldn't seem
like an emergency, but Bethany understood immediately.  Even
though she and her brothers had shielded Bailey from as much as
they could in the lab, Bailey knew what her siblings turned
into.  She'd been so worried and stressed about not knowing
that it had finally been easier to tell, and then show, her. 
Her imagination had conjured up even worse horrors, so once she
knew about the things residing inside her siblings, she'd actually
been able to calm down.  

However, now that she was one of them,
she wouldn't want anyone else seeing when she changed. 
Bethany understood that completely.

"Okay," Bethany said, taking a deep
breath while her mind raced.  "Okay... I'm going to ask Steele
if there's somewhere we can go."  Bailey whimpered.
 "Don't worry, I won't let him come."  It was a relief to
be able to blame that on Bailey, even though if she was being
honest with herself, she knew that she was really just afraid that
Steele might reject her if he saw what she had become.  The
utter wrongness of it.  The monster inside of her huffed in
insult, but Bethany ignored the stupid thing.  It had been
slowly becoming more agitated ever since the door had closed
between her and Steele. 

Going over to the door, she ignored
its happiness as she poked her head out and stared at Mr.
Too-Enticing-For-My-Own-Good.  The scent of him filled her
nostrils almost immediately, making her nipples pucker, her pussy
cream, and her resentment soar.  The effect he had on her made
no sense... shouldn't she be satisfied?  Shouldn't she be
ready to be done with him? 

Instead, just looking at him gave her
pure pleasure, and she had the strangest intuition that he felt the
same way.  Surely she was reading too much into the expression
on his face.  

"Is there somewhere private where
Bailey and I can shift and run?  Like, completely private, no
one around to see us."

Dr. Mansfield and Steele exchanged a
glance.  

"The woods are pretty big, if she
needs to go out and run; it's not hard to keep to yourself if
that's what you want," Steele explained.  "I can take you to a
starting point that isn't used often."

"Fine," Bethany said, figuring that at
least they should be able to avoid anyone else who happened to be
out there.  The thing inside of her seemed to think so,
although it whined a bit that she included Steele in "anyone else."
 Dumbass thing, did it really think Steele would like it once
he saw it?

******

As badly as Steele and his wolf wanted
to run with Bethany, he could tell that he wouldn't be welcome in
either form by either his mate or her sister.  It frustrated
him that she still didn't seem to trust him, although his wolf
seemed to be more willing to be patient now that they were
mated.  Not that Bethany showed any signs of recognizing that.
 

He could sense her, very dimly, in his
head; worry and near-panic anxiety radiating from her as she got
Bailey loaded into his car.  The younger Bunson sister was
trembling all over, but she managed to give Steele a weak smile as
she buckled herself in.  The emotions coming off of Bethany
were so strong that he wondered if she would even notice him inside
of her head.  Or maybe their mating had only worked one
way?

At any rate, he could tell that right
now, for Bethany, Bailey came first, and so that meant Bailey came
first for him too.  Whatever he needed to do to make his mate
happy and prove to her that he would be a good mate.  His wolf
was already feeling protective of Bailey as an extension of Bethany
anyway, and it approved the patient stalking of their mate and
showing her what a good provider they could be.  

"Are you sure you don't want me to go
with you?" he couldn't help asking, as he helped Bailey out of the
car.  He'd taken them to the edge of the woods on the far side
of the town; since most people entered the woods right near their
houses (because that's what made the most sense), he doubted anyone
would be nearby.  Still... if he could keep watch over
them...

"No, please," said Bailey, a hint of
real fear in her eyes, the sharp scent biting at his nose. 
She'd been fairly calm in the car, but now her shaking had
increased and the scent of her fear had his wolf snapping inside
his head... but there was no enemy to fight here.  Nothing
that he could tear apart.  "Just Bethany."

"Just me," Bethany said sharply,
practically shoving him aside as she grabbed her sister's
hand.  His tiny mate wasn't the least bit intimidated by his
size or strength as she knocked into him, he noted with pleasure,
as he allowed her to push him away.  While part of him wanted
to whine at the perceived rejection, he realized that - in this -
he didn't really understand what the sisters were going
through.  Whatever shifter animals had been awoken in their
genetics by Dr. Montgomery, it wasn't the same as having been born
a shifter.  They wanted privacy and dignity, something they
hadn’t had at the compound, and something which he could give
her.

It sucked being helpless, but there
was one other thing he could do...

He could go check in with Eli and find
out if there was any new intel on the whereabouts of Dr. Montgomery
or his backers.  That should make his mate happy.

"Do you want me to come back here and
pick you up?" he asked, hating the plaintive note in his voice but
unable to keep it out entirely.

Bethany hesitated, her blue eyes
flashing to him, and his wolf panted happily inside of his
head.  Distantly, he felt her reluctance to let him go, a tiny
speck of an emotion next to the flood of her anxiety about her
sister, but it was enough to salve his ego.  

"If you don't mind," she said, a bit
uncertainly.  "We should be ready in about an hour..."
 He couldn't tell why she would feel uncertain, but he could
at least reassure her that he absolutely wanted to come back and
pick her and Bailey up. 

"I'll be here," he said firmly,
stamping down on the urge to lean over and kiss her perfect
lips.  It was driving him a little nuts that he didn't have
her full attention so soon after mating.  His wolf was
agitated that their mate was going on a run without them. 
Although he understood that Bethany was focused on her sister right
now, and he wasn't hurt or anything, his instincts were driving him
to want to solidify the bond.  

Mouth set in a grim line, he forced
himself to turn and get back into his car.  It felt wrong, so
wrong, to be leaving his mate.  He could sense that she felt
that wrongness as well, even if it was drowned out in panic and a
kind of terror that he would stay, but at least some part of her
wanted him there.  Even if she was denying that part.  It
was going to be a late night.

******

Clinging to her sister, Bethany fought
against the urge to go chasing after Steele.  It was making
her skin crawl to see him driving away, and she had the strangest
sensation that she could actually feel the distance between them
growing.  Pure imagination, but not something she would have
ever expected. 

"Are you okay?" Bailey
asked, her voice strained but intrigued.  "What was up with
you and Mr. McHottie?"

"I'll tell you later," Bethany said,
turning and pushing Bailey towards the edge of the woods.  The
parking lot they were standing in was completely empty, to her
relief, and the woods looked thick and dark.  The thing in her
head seemed torn between wanting to race in the direction Steele
had gone and going into the woods.  Fortunately, Bethany was
one hundred percent focused on getting Bailey into the woods and
out for a run where no one could see them.  She knew that
Bailey couldn't wait; the urge for the first turn got more painful
the longer it was put off.  

She remembered exactly how much it
hurt because she'd fought it on principle... and it had been such a
relief when she'd finally let herself go and her body had
morphed.  Then she'd realized what a monster she was and the
physical relief hadn't been worth it at all.

Biting her lower lip, Bethany felt a
keening sense of guilt that her sister would have to go through the
same thing.  That she hadn't been able to protect Bailey,
because she'd been unwilling to change into a monster until after
it was too late to actually stop Bailey from being taken for the
damned doctor's experiments.  Her baby sister, who was just as
petite as Bethany but even more slender and delicate, leaned
against Bethany, her steps stumbling as they moved.
 

"It's okay," Bethany crooned
reassuringly as the shadows of the trees slid over them, blocking
out the light from the parking lot.  Despite the darkness,
Bethany could see well enough.  Her eyesight in the dark
wasn't perfect, but it was a lot better than it had been before the
experiments.  "Just relax and let it happen."

Bailey whimpered, stumbling again, and
this time Bethany stopped moving forward and helped lower her
sister to the ground.  "It hurts."

"I know. It'll stop hurting if you
just let it go," Bethany said, trying to sound calm when she was
anything but.  The agony on Bailey's face made it clear that
her sister couldn't relax.  She practically fell
onto her side, curling up into a little ball.  

"Bethy!"  It was a cry of anguish
that tore at Bethany's heart.  The first time had been the
worst, not just because of the pain but because of the terror as
her body morphed and grew.  Bethany reached for Bailey's
pants, thankful that they were drawstring so that she would be able
to get them off before Bailey shifted and ripped them to
shreds.

Bailey curled tighter, looking almost
like she was shrinking...

Was she shrinking?

Panic shot through Bethany as she
realized that her sister was getting smaller, not bigger. 
What fresh hell was this?!  No longer caring that it might
hurt, she reached out for her sister... 

But with a loud popping sound Bailey
suddenly disappeared, and Bethany was so shocked that she froze,
her hands hovering over Bailey's empty... no wait,
Bailey's moving clothes.  A small lump was moving
around in the center of Bailey's shirt.  Confusion flooded her
as she lifted the hem of the t-shirt and a completely fluffy, white
bunny hopped out.  

"Oh Bailey," she said with a sigh,
resentment and relief warring within her chest at how utterly
normal her baby sister was.  She reached down to stroke the
soft, white fur, and froze as she felt the hard shell underneath
the fur.  Apparently, Bailey only looked normal.

The fluffy bunny tilted its cute
little head and twitched its pink nose at her, hopping over to put
its front paws on her knee.  Trembling, Bethany slid her
fingers into the soft fur, feeling the heavy ridges of Bailey's
shell underneath the fur.  Well, at least Bailey was the right
size for a bunny, even if she did have the same shell under her fur
that all her siblings had. 

Actually, that wasn't a bad
thing.  It would mean she was protected.  Bailey knew
from the tests at the lab that her and her brothers' shells were so
strong they were actually bulletproof... if Bailey's was the same,
Bethany definitely would be okay with that.  A fluffy, little
bunny like this would need all the protection she could get.
 

"How do you feel?" she asked, stroking
her sister's back.  She really was the cutest bunny Bethany
had ever seen.  Bailey's nose twitched again, and then she
shook herself all over, hopping away - a little awkwardly at first
and then with more assuredness.  Bethany watched as Bailey got
used to her new shape, and then the bunny looked back at her,
tilting its cute, little head and her ears.  

"Alright," Bethany said with a
sigh.  A kind of grim resignation swept over her.  Bailey
wanted to go exploring in her new body, and she would need a
protector, even if she did have an exceptionally hard turtle shell
underneath all her cottony fur.  Besides, who knew when
Bethany would get the chance to let the monster out again, without
any witnesses around?  She doubted Steele would let them keep
running around alone.  He'd want to go with them, and he
wasn’t the type to keep taking no for an answer. In fact, she was
kind of surprised he’d let them do so today, and she was pretty
sure it was only because this was kind of an emergency
situation.  Which meant that she needed to let the monster out
to run for a bit... it was either choose to do so now, or risk it
taking over in its need to have some time in control. 
Something that she'd learned at the lab.