Cassie stumbled, her loping run slowing to a trot now. A cold wetness matted her fur. Her heart beat too hard, and her breathing was labored, making her lungs ache. She stumbled again and swore at herself. She couldn't save anyone if she didn't keep moving, didn't stay on her feet...
She fell. Just collapsed against her will, the strength gone, unable to move an inch in any direction, the pain now streaking through her wound. Sprawled on the woodland floor half-buried by new spring ferns, she lay panting on her side while purple trillium wildflowers pointed at her muzzle as if identifying her hiding place. A few hours and she hoped she'd heal enough to make her way back to check on Alex.
The sound of two people running through the underbrush in her direction fed into her worst nightmares. She held her breath. The murderers would kill her if they found her. Then the footfalls abruptly stopped. For several seconds, they were quiet, which heightened her sense of fear.
Had they lost her trail?
Chapter 8
Despite Leidolf's insistence that he drive, Elgin wouldn't let him, and Fergus and Carver backed his sub-leader up. Who the hell was the pack leader around here, anyway?
Elgin kept defending his actions. "You could barely dress without my help."
Leidolf gave him a look warning him not say another word about it. Carver and Fergus tried to appear serious, but he noted the slight humor in their expressions. He ignored the other men, not wanting to see the same kind of smirks on the rest of his people's faces.
Not once had Leidolf ever shown a "drunken" side of himself, and they wouldn't ever see him like this again, if he had anything to say about it. "That was dressing. I can drive just fine."
His men looked half worried that he'd give them hell when he was feeling more like himself, but he could see they were proud of themselves for sticking up for what they felt was right. All of them stood taller, their chins raised, their expressions determined, their brows slightly furrowed.
Even in his fog-clouded mind, he knew that their standing up to him when they thought it was the correct action to take was a positive step in the right direction. If only he hadn't been so mad that they overrode his every order.
He growled at them when Fergus and Carver carried him out to the Suburban and helped him into the middle seat. He snarled at them when Carver had the nerve to fasten his seat belt for him. And damn if Elgin didn't drive like a little old man when he finally hit the main road.
"Drive faster, damn it, Elgin. I could trot out there as a wolf and make it there a hell of a lot faster."
He glanced at the rifles they'd brought with them, and Fergus said, "We brought tranquilizer guns in the event we run into the hunters who are armed in that manner. Figured you didn't want to shoot anyone with bullets."
"Good thinking."
Carver handed Leidolf the first of the thermoses of hot, black coffee that Laney had made for him. He seized the damned thing and began drinking. Taking a pause after swallowing another mouthful, he said, "Elgin... drive... faster!"
Then his cell phone rang, and Carver hurried to take the thermos from him while Leidolf fumbled to get the cell phone off his belt, nearly dropping it in the process. Carver raised his brows at him as if to point out that Leidolf couldn't have managed driving in the shape he was in. Leidolf gave him another hard scowl back.
When Leidolf answered the phone, expecting news from Laney or the other men in the truck following them, he heard his sister's too sweet voice. Mated to a gray and living in Silver Town, Colorado, his sister, Lelandi, would not have believed it to learn her stern brother was pampering a pack of psychologically and physically abused werewolves. But only within his pack. Elsewhere, he would take on the best of them if any threatened trouble for his kind.
"Laney called and said you found a mate. When would be a good time for me to visit?" Lelandi asked.
"Laney was mistaken." Hell, he might want Cassie for a mate, and she certainly seemed interested in him, although somewhat apprehensive to let on, but where women were concerned, he could never be certain. And what had possessed Laney to tell his sister what was going on anyway? Hell, she'd better not call his mother.
"You sound drunk, dear brother. Which is totally uncharacteristic for you. In fact, I don't remember you ever drinking anything alcoholic. What's wrong?"
"I've got--" He almost said pack problems. Not the thing to say. Hell, what if his brother-in-law felt the urge to come out and rescue him? Or worse, his sister? He sure wasn't going to tell her a hunter had tranquilized him. He growled. "I'm in the middle of... hell, nothing's wrong."
"Let me talk to Elgin."
"He's driving." As soon as the words slipped out, he knew it had been the wrong thing to say.
Such a long pause followed that he swore he could hear his sister's thoughts churning. If he went anywhere, he always drove. Even once he turned thirteen and was tall enough to reach the gas pedal because of their dad being wheelchair-bound. Well, more than that. He didn't trust women drivers. Or men.
"What's wrong?" she asked again, sounding worried this time.
"Lelandi, nothing. And don't try to psychoanalyze me with that coursework you're taking. Your mate should know better than to let you try to become a psychiatrist."
"Psychologist."
"Same thing. Both think they can read your mind." Static began to fill the airwaves. "You're breaking up. I'll talk to you later." He hung up on his sister and saw Carver observing him.
Fergus quickly turned around to watch out the front windshield. None of his pack members had met his sister, so he was sure they were curious about his relationship with her. It was strained. Not only had she mated a gray against his wishes, which was a sticking point between them, but she resented him for leaving their pack when his family had needed him.
And considering what could have happened to his family and how their other sister had died, he would forever wear the guilt. He'd had his reasons for leaving, but Larissa's death made none of them count for anything.
Then something else occurred to him. "Elgin, why did you come looking for me in the woods? You were supposed to be searching for Quincy and Pierce."
"We had found them, and Carver took them back to the ranch. We were still trying to track Sarge down when we heard the female howl and located you," Elgin said.
"Did Elgin tell you a cougar killed two of our newborn calves?" Fergus asked. "Did you want us to hunt him down?"
The ranch had already lost a ton of money, but Leidolf couldn't figure out why. They certainly couldn't afford to lose a bunch of their livestock.
An accountant he was not. None of his pack members would volunteer for the job of keeping track of financial matters either, and he wasn't ready to force someone to do the tedious work. Not when he feared that whoever did the job would be afraid to own up to him that something was wrong with the finances or wouldn't know how to figure out the discrepancies, just as he couldn't.
"Might be a female with cubs. What about that zoo man who likes to rescue wild animals?" Leidolf suggested.
"The one who put the red female, Bella Wilder, in the zoo? Henry Thompson?"
"Yeah, that's the one." Feeling overwhelmingly groggy, as though he'd worked a week straight without any sleep, Leidolf shut his eyes for a moment. Damn the tranquilizer still clouding his blood. When he opened his eyes, everyone was watching him. Including Elgin, who slipped his gaze to the rearview mirror to check up on Leidolf. He was not sleeping, damn it!
"Maybe Thompson will take the lion into the zoo. I'd like to get to know the man a little better. Apparently, he's still looking for the 'missing' red wolf, and I'd hate to think he might grab one of our pack members some day, thinking it's her," Leidolf said.
"Alfred said he should have eliminated him when he had the chance after the man put Bella in the zoo," Elgin said.
"Alfred said and did a lot of things he shouldn't have. And look where it got him."
Everyone was silent.
Leidolf let out his breath. "We'll hunt the cougar down and turn her over to Thompson, along with her cubs, if she has any. If the zoo staff would rather, they can relocate her to some other location where she won't endanger livestock. Halfway monitoring Thompson's activities might preclude one of our people getting picked up in their wolf forms in the future."
Elgin grunted under his breath. "And stick him or her in the zoo."
"It helps to know your... well, not exactly enemy. Thompson has the best intentions for keeping the wolf kind safe."
"Confined," Elgin sourly said.
Leidolf sighed, figuring it was going to take a devil of an effort to get this pack turned around. He reached his hand out for the thermos of coffee, and when Carver gave it to him, he began drinking the hot, black stuff again. He just hoped he could walk on his own when he got to where they were going.
He glanced out the window. Hell, was Elgin driving even slower now?
"Elgin!"
He felt the vehicle surge forward and smiled.
Between drinking the second thermos of coffee and the time it took to drive back to the Mount Hood National Forest, Leidolf felt almost normal again when they arrived. Maybe not quite. He felt half drugged and half hyped-up on caffeine. But Leidolf wasn't about to slow down. Not when his people and Cassie could be in danger.
In a rush to locate his wayward pack members and the woman of his dreams, Leidolf and his men finally reached the place where he had fallen after being drugged and where she had run off.
"Spread out," he told the ten men with him. "Pass the word along if you see a sign of any of them."
Elgin and the rest of Leidolf's men quickly spread out in a long line through the woods.
Within minutes, shots rang out, and Leidolf feared the worst. Maybe Quincy or Pierce, who had gone in search of the female in their wolf coats, had been shot. Or maybe Sarge or Satros or his woodland nymph had. But perhaps none of that had happened. Maybe hunters had killed a deer or some other unfortunate creature.