Wolver's Rescue (6 page)

He’d learned early on that women didn’t
respond well to the I’m-horny-let’s-fuck approach even when it was
obvious that’s what they were feeling, too. Women were irrational
creatures who liked to play games. To get a woman into bed required
a smile, a few winks and a nod, followed by idiotic small talk. A
little flattery didn’t hurt either. It was ridiculous, but not
difficult. Getting them into bed was the easy part. The hard part
was getting them out of it.

Bull began to smile. Maybe the same tactics
would work to get him the information he needed. God knew, she
probably got little or no male attention even at the best of times.
Smile, nod, small talk, flattery. He could do this.

He looked at the filthy creature sitting on
the bed.

First he’d have to find something to talk
about. ‘Do you come here often’ wasn’t going to cut it. Next, he’d
have to find something to flatter. ‘Looking good, babe’ wasn’t
going to cut it, either.

And maybe throw in a little food to sweeten
the pot. Her skin was drawn too tightly across her face, but sagged
everywhere else, though by the looks of her, she most likely hadn’t
had much meat on her in the first place. His first impression was
that she was short. Looking at her now, he realized that it wasn’t
her height, but her delicate build that made her appear tiny in
stature.

The pinched looked on her face did something
to his insides he didn’t like. He had a sudden urge to bathe her
himself, wrap her in something soft and warm, and feed her the
biggest steak he could find. He shook the feeling off. This was
business and pity had no place in it.

“
Why don’t you go get
yourself cleaned up a little?” He pointed to the back of the room
where the bathroom was located.

He saw a flicker of interest on her face, but
it disappeared as quickly as it came. He tried again.

“
Go on. I won’t bother you
while you’re in there and you’ll feel better after a hot
shower.”

She didn’t smile, nod, or shake her head in
objection. She showed no emotion at all, simply got up and walked
toward the bath, following his order like a robot. He heard the
water turn on and, satisfied she was doing what she was told,
thought no more about it as he leafed through the stack of menus in
the nightstand drawer. He only began to worry when he knocked on
the door a few minutes later to ask what she wanted him to order
for her meal and got no answer. He knocked again, a little harder
and louder.

“
Hey! Um...” Shit! He didn’t
even know her name. “Are you okay?”

He listened to the water from the shower, a
smooth and solid drumming against the old metal tub. There was no
one in that shower. What if she’d suffered internal injuries during
her captivity? What if starvation had finally taken its toll? In
spite of her condition, she’d seemed strong, but maybe that
strength came from adrenalin and not from her inner core. Had he
pushed her too hard? Maybe he should have carried her across the
grounds as he had to the truck. Maybe that fragile body had given
out and she’d collapsed on the bathroom floor.

“
I’m coming in,” he called
through the closed door, giving her one last chance to answer. He
turned the knob, found it locked and heaved his shoulder against
it. He countered the force of his shoulder with a tight grip on the
knob. The bathroom was small and he didn’t want to injure her
further with a blow from the opening door. He opened it slowly and
met no resistance.

There was no body on the floor, no body in
the shower. There was, however, an open window over the toilet, so
small he’d doubted the skinny little wolver would fit through it.
But she had. The sneaky little fraud had played him.

He stuck his head out the window, looked both
ways, and saw exactly what he expected to see. Not a damn thing.
Fortunately, he had something better than sight. She couldn’t do
anything to mask the scent of her body or the dead man’s
clothing.

His escapee had a good ten minutes’ head
start, but she was barefoot and weak and unlikely to hitch a ride
or call the cops. Either of those could land her back at the
clinic.

Bull stripped off the polyester slacks and
poly blend shirt he wore for work and pulled on a pair of jeans and
a pure cotton tee. Leather boots replaced the work shoes.
Synthetics didn’t do well during a shift and the crepe soles would
never survive the change. He left everything else behind except the
room key which he hid under a loose bit of pavement when he reached
the back of the building. Then he pushed his way through the
overgrown shrubs that blocked the view of the business next
door.

Breathing deeply, Bull relaxed his shoulders,
dropped his head to his chest, and pulled the force of the moon
into his body. The full moon was a few days away, but the call was
strong enough and Bull answered it. His wolf leapt with the joy of
it.

Muscles contracted and reformed. Bones
crackled as they reshaped. Snout stretched, and short, pointed ears
sprouted along with the heavy coat of brown fur.

The wolf chuffed and chortled with pleasure.
His hind feet scuffed at the dirt beneath them. He pranced from
side to side in his excitement. The human Bull had to shout to make
himself heard.

“
We need to find the
spitfire.”

The wolf snarled, shook his
head, and being in control of the body, started off at a run.
“
Need bitch
,” it
said, not in words, but in thought. “
Play.
”

“
No, this isn’t about
playing. I need her for other reasons and we need to find her.”
Bull forced his will into the wolf. “Now slow down. Use
caution.”

His wolf fought him. It had always been
strong, and resentful of the loss of freedom and power he’d had in
their younger days, but they were wolver, not wolf, and Bull was no
longer a boy. He was already tired and hungry, and fuming at the
pint sized bitch who’d made a fool of him.

“
Find stinky
bitch
.
Our
bitch.”
The wolf grinned.

Bull gave up. The damn animal didn’t
understand. “Yeah, sure, whatever. But she’s only ours until I say
otherwise.”

That seemed to pacify the beast.

It took a while to find her. The wolf was
enjoying the stir he was causing and took every opportunity to stop
and taunt every dog that barked. While big dogs were common, wolves
weren’t, and even if he wasn’t recognized for what he was, his
scent proclaimed him a predator. His presence set the neighborhood
watchdogs to howling and a pair of Rottweilers had the boldness to
actually confront him when he leapt the fence surrounding their
yard.

His wolf wanted to answer the challenge and
normally Bull would have considered it, just for the exercise, but
a fight would only draw more attention. Besides, these were city
dogs that didn’t fully understand the power of the beast they were
facing.

“
I teach
.” While his wolf never spoke in words, his meaning was always
clear.

“
Not tonight,” Bull ordered,
tired of the wolf’s attempts to delay finding the girl in its
search for fun.

The wolf obeyed, but not without a vicious
show of fang. His raised hackles and enormous size made the dogs
hesitate. It was the best the wolf was going to get. In a show of
contempt, he turned his back and scuffed his hind legs as if
covering scat. Without looking back, he trotted across the narrow
yard and leapt the chain link into the next yard.

Bull spotted his prey a few minutes later, a
walking scarecrow limping southward in a way that told him she knew
where she was headed. She had a safe place, a den somewhere. If she
was rogue, she might be living with others, including the elusive
Thomas Bane. She might even be mated to one of the renegade
wolvers.

His wolf snarled at the
idea. “
No! Want!
”

“
This is not another tail
for you to sniff. We need her,” Bull replied automatically, but
when the wolf sat and refused to budge, he didn’t argue. He was too
busy trying to remember if he’d caught a whiff of male wolver among
the many scents that covered her. He didn’t think so and he didn’t
think she was marked by another male though he hadn’t looked too
closely.

The thought of inspecting her body for such a
mark aroused more than a passing interest. That she might be marked
by another, and therefore off limits to him, was infuriating and it
seemed to anger his wolf as well.

“
It’s business, nothing
more,” Bull assured his wolf as well as himself. Whether she was
mated or not had absolutely nothing to do with his worry or
concern. It was only the possibility of a male protector getting in
his way that bothered him. Yet the more he thought about it, the
more it bothered him. His wolf was aroused by her nearness, too,
but its anger came from a different perspective.

“
Want her
,” the wolf snarled and snapped at his tail when Bull made him
move.

“
You may want her,” though
God knew why. “But I need her.”

They followed her for another few blocks.
They watched her stumble and fall and struggle to her feet to
continue her journey. The woman wouldn’t quit and as angry as he
was at being duped, Bull couldn’t help but admire her tenacity. She
really was a spitfire.

When she fell again, he couldn’t take any
more. He would carry her back to the motel if he had to, make her
eat and bathe and wrap her in something warm. After all, if she
died, he’d be shit out of luck. Right? He started forward at a
trot, intending to move ahead of her, shift to human, and meet her
head on.

That was when the dark car bearing the
clinic’s logo stopped beside the woman and two men got out.

Tommie fell again. Her damn feet felt like
they were encased in lead and she no longer had the will or energy
to pick them up. Her shuffling gait caught every broken section of
sidewalk and each time she stumbled, it was harder to right
herself, but she had no choice. She had to keep moving. Sooner or
later the big guy would figure out she wasn’t in the shower.

She was still on all fours, bracing her
bruised foot against the pavement to heave her body upright, when
the car pulled up a little ways behind her. She glanced back at it
with the hope that it was only a concerned and kindly driver and
not a cop. It was neither.

She was caught and had no strength left to
run or resist. She barely had enough to keep steady on her
feet.

“
We’ve got her,” the orderly
said into the phone he held to his ear and then to her, “Come on,
honey, it’s past your bedtime and time to go back. A lot of folks
have been worried about you. It’s not a good night to be out
without your shoes or coat.”

His voice was kind and conversational. She
didn’t recognize it as belonging to one of her keepers. It was
clear he thought she was just a patient who managed to go
walkabout. She wondered briefly what he’d been told and would he
believe her if she told him the truth.

She didn’t recognize his partner, either, but
she recognized the tone. He wore a security guard’s uniform.

“
God damn it, Robbins, quit
playing Nancy Nurse and get her in the fucking car. Fucking
lunatics,” he muttered as he rounded the hood.

Tommie continued her push up to standing, but
her exhausted legs wouldn’t hold her and she staggered forward in
an attempt to keep her balance.

The two men shouted at once.

“
The bitch is going to
run!”

“
No! Look out!”

A hand grabbed her shirt, yanked her back,
and then it was gone as a great, snarling beast leapt out of the
shadows and onto the man holding her. Tommie’s ass hit the ground
hard. Her feet scrambled and pushed against the sidewalk, scooting
her backward until she was against the brick wall of a building.
She reached above her head, grasped the window ledge and hauled
herself up.

The dog was huge. Its snarls were frightening
and ferocious. It shook the guard like a rag doll and the man
screamed with fear. This wasn’t a random attack. The animal must
have been trained to protect, because when it finished with the
first man, it looked directly at her, frozen against the window,
before it turned to the orderly who was moving cautiously backward
in the direction of the car.

With a shout of fear, the orderly turned and
ran, which was probably a mistake on his part. The animal leapt and
the poor orderly never made it to the open car door.

“
Go get ‘em, Bruiser.”
Tommie’s mouth pulled back into a snarl that matched the
dog’s.

She didn’t stay to watch. Shuffling along the
wall, she passed the groaning guard who was rolling back and forth
in the middle of the street. From the way he was attacked, she was
amazed he was still alive.

She slipped into the first narrow opening she
found between the buildings and headed for the dimly lit area
behind them where deliveries were dropped off and garbage was
tossed into big bins. She’d avoided this area before because of the
dim lighting and dark shadows. Now, those shadows would provide
cover. The men were still out there. When they didn’t return to the
clinic, help would come to them. Too weak to run, Tommie needed a
place to hide.

Someone or something had tipped a dumpster on
its side. It would be the perfect place to hide and rest. Tommie
pulled the lid open just enough to crawl inside over the slope of
rotting food scraps. She squeaked in fright, right along with the
rodents that scurried over and around her and out into the freedom
of the night. She squeaked again as something wiggled on top of her
head. She shook it sharply and a piece of soggy lettuce leaf fell
into her lap, left behind by one of the rats as it made its escape.
Another rat scurried past.