Betraying the Pack (4 page)

Head craned backward, her eyes
darted about, frantically seeking the approaching menace. Distracted, she ended
up missing the solid trunk in front of her, but she felt it as she hit it full-on
and bounced back. Not a tree, she belatedly realized, but scorching, smooth
skin.

A shriek escaped her as hands
grasped her before she fell.
Caught!
Her
strident wail almost sounded like a howl.

“Shh, darling. It’s okay now.
I’ve got you.”

The soothing words didn’t
penetrate her panic, and she thrashed against her captor. He tightened his arms
around her, plastering her to his chest, murmuring softly, until finally, with
a deep sob, she stopped fighting, and she realized who held her.

A familiar musky scent surrounded
her, one she clearly remembered even though she’d only briefly encountered it
once before. “G-Gavin?” she hiccupped.

“Yes, darling. It’s me. I’ve
been looking for you.”

“Why?” The simple question
slipped from her.

“Because you needed to be
rescued.”

She met his words with a
hysterical laugh before tears flowed anew from her as his words touched her and
lifted some of her despair.
Who’d have
thought someone cared enough to look for me?

However, the warmth of his
words proved fleeting as a chill ran through her. The reality of what she’d run
from crowded her mind. “We have to leave,” she sobbed, trying to turn her head
and peer into the darkness.

He wouldn’t let her glance
away. Cupping his hands around her face, he held her gaze. “You’re safe now,
darling. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You have my word on that.”

Bailey ignored the inner voice
that wondered what he was doing wandering around the woods in just the right
place and pretended to not notice the fact he was just as naked as she was. Even
amidst her panic and fear, she couldn’t help noting his smooth, muscular body
pressing against hers, and his . . .

A noise distracted her, and he
released her face, allowing her to turn and peek. Mouth hanging open, and her
belly clenching into a now familiar knot of fear, she noted the black wolf that
came trotting out of the woods with familiar green eyes. Even in the darkness,
she noticed the muzzle appeared matted and damp—
with blood?

A whimper escaped her, and
Gavin stroked his hand soothingly down her back, but that didn’t stop her from
crying out again as the green-eyed canine was followed out of the gloomy forest
by another black-haired wolf and a lighter-coated one. Three wolves converging
on her?

A scream finally managed to
wend its way past the constrictive barrier of her throat. Terror overwhelmed
her, and with exhaustion dogging her, she succumbed to the welcoming darkness.

Catching her swooning frame,
Gavin thanked every god that might exist for leading him to this particular forest
at the right moment, in time to act the knight who rescued his damsel in
distress.

They’d only decided on this
particular set of woods after tossing a coin. Location decided for the evening’s
hunt, Gavin and his brothers had driven up in their two SUVS and parked on the
country road, a mile or so past the dirt track turnoff leading to where they
believed the rogues might have holed up.

There, in the darkness, not
even lit by streetlights, they stripped out of their clothing as they prepared
to shift to their animal selves, their keener senses as their beasts better
suited for a task such as this. As they prepared themselves, they needed no
words to communicate. No ribald jokes even peppered the air. They already knew
their task in the hunt, and besides, while a car engine would go unnoticed as
normal on this lonely stretch of road, conversation, especially at this time of
night, wouldn’t. They didn’t want to announce their presence to rogues who
might patrol the woods.

Taking a deep breath, Gavin
called to his inner wolf, a mental exchange that took but a heartbeat. A moment
later, the change came over him, and his body reshaped into that of a golden
wolf. He’d long ago mastered the pain of shifting, but he wouldn’t exactly say
it felt great.

Padding off on furry feet, he
and his pack mates infiltrated the dark copse of trees, not having to go far
before the scent they’d searched for came to them. They split off, loping off
into the woods, careful of their steps, and thankfully downwind of those they
hunted. Make that the prey his brothers hunted.

Gavin had a slightly different
goal—Bailey. He just prayed he didn’t find her too late

Ghosting through the forest, he
caught the scent of other Lycans, and followed it. Despite his precautions, and
surely those of his brothers, who knew how to travel in secret, a warning howl
went up by the rogues, their ululating cry lifting into the sky.

Screw stealth. Gavin went for
more speed, the thrill of the hunt rousing his beast. He stumbled, though, when
he heard a piercing scream, the sound ripping through him and sending his wolf
into a frenzy that saw him running full-out with no care for himself.

Bailey!

He didn’t doubt for one moment
the cry came from her. Perking his ears, he listened, straining for a more
concrete direction. He caught instead the sound of someone, or something,
crashing through the woods with no care that their flight lit a beacon. Then,
he heard the harsh gasps and whimpers of a fear so great the mind had come
close to shutting down.

Gavin shifted back to his human
self just a second before she came tearing through the brush, her head craned
back, her naked body a bright slash in the gloomy woods. He stood before her,
and still she didn’t notice him, running into his sturdy frame and bouncing
back. Raising his hands, he steadied her, but in her terror, she didn’t look at
him.

“Shh, darling. It’s okay now.
I’ve got you.” His throat closed tight as the sharp scent of her fear enveloped
him. A need to protect her surged in him. He would hurt those who had
frightened her into this creature of terror. But first, he needed to calm her
and get her to safety, right after she stopped fighting him.

Thrashing in his arms, she
pounded at him, whimpering and crying. He let her vent and tightened the circle
of his arms around her, murmuring soft, nonsensical things, until she let out a
deep sob and stopped fighting.

“G-Gavin?” Her voice emerged as
a whisper, broken and uncertain.

“Yes, darling. It’s me. I’ve
been looking for you.”
Looking my whole
life,
because holding her in his arms, her skin touching his, he understood
he’d found the one. His mate.

“Why?” The simple question
slipped from her.

“Because you needed to be
rescued.”
Because I failed you and I
needed to rectify that mistake.

“We have to leave,” she cried.

“You’re safe now, darling. I
won’t let anyone hurt you. You have my word on that.”
I will kill them first. No one will ever get to hurt you again. I swear.
So many emotions swamped him in that moment. First and foremost, though, he
needed to get her to safety, needed to soothe the terror from her eyes and
limbs and calm her until she lost the sharp, fearful aroma that called to all
the predators.

A shift in the air currents let
Gavin know he was no longer alone as Jaxon slid from the woods, his muzzle wet
with blood. Parker and Wyatt soon followed. Apparently, the sight of his pack
brother proved too much for his human mate. With a final shrill scream of terror,
she slumped in his arms, the toll of her ordeal too much for her to handle.

Swinging her up into his arms, he
enjoyed the lush feel of her, and relished even more the relief he’d found her.
“I need to get her back to the motel. How many in the woods still?”

Jaxon cocked his head as if
thinking and then tapped his paw on the ground one, two, three times.

“Can you and the others take
care of it, or should we regroup and call in reinforcements?”

A snort from Wyatt answered
that question.

A grin crossed Gavin’s lips.
“Keep one alive for questioning. I’ll see you back at the motel and will expect
a full report.” He turned to leave, but as he walked away, he tossed a
cheerful, “Be careful, puppies.”

The short barks of reply made
him grin. A part of him wished he could stay behind and mete out a thrashing to
the rogues who’d taken Bailey, but he wasn’t about to jeopardize her safety
just for the satisfaction of hitting something.

It didn’t take him long at a
quick jog to make it back to the truck. However, he didn’t arrive alone. Just
as he reached the gravel verge, a mangy cur slunk from the woods, its lip
peeled back over its teeth.

“Come to play, have you?” Gavin
settled Bailey onto the ground in a patch of weeds before he shifted. This
close in succession, and after his sprint through the woods, fatigue pulled at
him, but he refused to give in.

Trotting on four feet, he met
the rogue’s rush in a clash of fur and bodies, the sound of their snarls rising
in the night air. It didn’t take him long to pin the thug under him, his jaws
locked around its throat. The skin in his mouth changed from hairy to human
skin, and Gavin joined the rogue in shifting back, panting only slightly from
the exertion. His hands replaced his teeth around the man’s throat, who eyed him
with sweaty and nervous trepidation.

“Who are you?” When the thug
didn’t immediately answer, Gavin rapped his head off the ground, hard.

A grimace crossed the other
man’s face. “Leroy.”

“Hello there, Leroy. Care to
tell me what you and your friends are doing in these woods?”

“Nuttin’.”

Letting out a sigh of
annoyance, Gavin rolled and picked up the rogue by the throat, his greater
strength no match for the scrawny cur. He shook him as Leroy’s hands scrabbled
at his iron grip.

“Care to rephrase your answer?”
Gavin mocked before easing up on the pressure at the man’s neck.

Leroy coughed, and his voice
emerged raspy. “We was just following orders.”

A chill went down Gavin’s
spine. “Whose orders?”

“I c-c-can’t—” Leroy’s
terrified gaze rolled around, and a keening noise came out of his mouth. Brow
knitted in a frown, Gavin dropped the rogue on the ground. Leroy hit the dirt
hard without any attempt to brace his fall. His twitching body shook, and a noise
that sounded like . . . laughter emerged from him. With jerky motions, Leroy
sat up and faced Gavin, only the whites of his eyes showing.

“Well, well, if it isn’t one of
Nathan’s lackeys.” The eerie voice that emerged from Leroy’s mouth sent a
shiver up Gavin’s spine.

“Who are you?”

“What? Didn’t my son Nathan tell
you?”

“Roderick?” Gavin’s query came
out high-pitched with incredulity. “That’s impossible.”

A rusty chuckle made Leroy’s
body shake, but what Gavin truly found disturbing, apart from the white-orbed
gaze, was the trickle of drool tracing its way down the man’s chin.

“Stupid dog. And to think I was
once as blind as you.”

Gavin fought hard not to let
his repugnance and discomfiture show. “What do you want with Bailey?”

“Is that the chit’s name?” The
creature’s feigned ignorance didn’t fool him. “Nothing anymore, I guess, unless
you’d be willing to hand her back. My boys never did get a chance to taste her
goods once I tossed her to them. You know she screams quite delightfully.”

A roar of rage burst forth from
him, and he couldn’t prevent his foot from kicking out and smashing into
Leroy’s face. The rogue went slamming back into the ground, chuckling even as
the blood from his broken nose trickled.

“Go ahead and hurt this body.
It’s not like it belongs to me.”

“I’m going to kill you!”

“Yeah, good luck with that.
First you’d need to find me.”

“I’ll make Leroy here tell. Or
one of the others.”

“You can’t make the dead
speak.”

With those final words, Leroy’s
body went into convulsions. Gavin took a step toward him and then stumbled back
as he watched in horrified fascination the blood pouring from Leroy’s eyes and
ears. The rogue died with a bubbly wheeze, but Gavin couldn’t escape the chill
of the encounter.

I need to get Bailey out of here.

Scrounging under the wheel
well, he yanked out the magnetic key box and unlocked the SUV. When he picked
up Bailey, he found her naked form chilled, but he didn’t have time to deal
with it. He needed to get her out of here before Roderick changed his mind
about her use. Placing her into the backseat, he covered her with a blanket he
kept in the trunk for emergencies. He then dressed himself quickly before he
hopped in and started the truck.

It took him a moment before he
pulled away, a part of him wondering if he should return to aid his pack
brothers, but a peek in his rearview mirror made him decide they’d be fine on
their own. Or at least better off than he currently was alone with an
unconscious human.