Memphis Heat 1 Stakeout (4 page)

* * *

“Are you sure about this?” Jarod looked about as uncomfortable as Belle had ever seen him.

This werewolf thing had certainly brought out a protective streak a mile wide. It was kinda cute, but damned inconvenient to Belle’s way of thinking. “You want to infiltrate this pack, don’t you? Not like they’re going to send out invitations.”

“But you’ve never even shifted. How do we know it even worked? Maybe my bite can’t turn you. Maybe…”

“You sound like a woman. Quit thinking. Guys don’t think that much in a week.”

“Bite me.”

“That’s my line.” But she leaned in and nipped his chin, anyway. “You’d think the friggin FBI Werewolf Task Force would at least have a Handbook for Werewolves. When you’ve changed, how did you do it? What triggered the shift? Other than sex?”

He grinned. “What’s wrong with sex?”

“Nothing, long as you want to fuck me in front of a bunch of strange werewolves. That knotting thing might be kinda inconvenient, though.” She smiled sweetly, loving his look of mixed annoyance and mortification. “It was fun, though. Until the cleaning guy wanted into the closet.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groaned. “Next time, let’s try a bedroom. Mine.”

She had her doubts, but they’d see. “So we know sex works. What else?”

“You? Danger? When those guys were hitting on you in that convenience store last week it was all I could do not to shift and rip their throats out.”

So he had a jealous streak, too. Belle hid her smile. “But you didn’t shift. You controlled it. Interesting. Any idea how?”

He frowned. “Not exactly. I just… held my temper. Pretty much the same way you don’t cold cock some asshole who really deserves it.”

Sounded like he knew more than he thought he did. If they were going to do this, they both needed to figure out exactly what they could and couldn’t do. “And when you did shift?”

“The first time was when I went back to the crime scene, trying to figure out what the hell was happening to me. I smelled blood. My blood. His, too. I could tell them apart. I don’t know how -- and that was making me kinda crazy.” He looked away, like he was ashamed of himself. “All of a sudden, the smells just got to me. So bad I wanted to puke. And next thing you know, I was a wolf.”

She pictured that FBI bra hanging off a wolf’s neck. No. Not a great look. “What happened to your clothes? You know, when you shifted?”

“What? Hell, I don’t know.”

“Well, think about it. Were you standing there with your furry little legs all wrapped up in cop clothes?”

“No! Of course not. They… I had fur. I didn’t think about where my uniform went. I just ran. As far as I could go.”

He was starting to look a tad impatient with the third degree, but Belle pressed on. “OK. So if they weren’t on you, or the ground… when you shifted back were you naked?”

“No. I still had my uniform on. I was just three miles away and out of breath.”

“Did you know where you were running? Can you think? Like a man?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m still me. Just… furrier. And with a really acute sense of smell.”

Now they were getting somewhere. “Maybe we’ll write our own handbook. What else do you remember?”

“That’s about it. I wanted to get away, so I ran. When I was done running, I shifted back. And had a long walk home.”

She sighed. “Damn it, Miller said they could teach us about this stuff. Some help he’s been. Has he told you anything?”

“I haven’t asked.”

She punched him. “Why the hell not? Wait. Don’t answer that. You’re a guy. Of
course
you didn’t ask.”

“He’s FBI. They snatched us up from the paramedics right after the explosion without even asking, and then they tell us we’re being reassigned, again without asking. I was Army. I know how to take orders. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’m just not volunteering a damn thing to these assholes. If I don’t know everything I need to, they damned well don’t need to know what I don’t know.” He looked almost as confused as he was cute. “Or something like that.”

“Guy logic totally baffles me. You should come with a roadmap, but I’d still get lost.” Belle shook her head again, trying not to laugh at him. “So we know you can shift when you have a reason -- like needing to get away from the place where you were shot. Your clothes sort of POOF, but when you shift back they shift with you. You can shift to protect me -- or choose not to. That’s a good start. My skin itches all over, and I’ve been having… something. Like hot flashes kinda. I’m pretty sure whatever’s going to happen already happened. Just not as dramatic as you ’cause I wasn’t bleeding to death, you know?”

Now or never. Belle took a deep breath and looked deep into his eyes. “Chase me. I wanna run.”
Run
, she thought.
Run
.

Chase me
. Jarod wasn’t about to admit he didn’t have a clue how. But when Belle shifted before him, turning into a beautiful silver-black wolf and took off at a run, he knew he couldn’t let her go alone. Shifting to his larger, blacker form was as natural as taking a piss. No way he was letting her run off alone and unprotected. She ran. He chased.
Where you lead, I will follow
. He’d never been big on poetry, but the line came to mind and it felt right. His tongue dipped over the edge of his teeth, sampling the night air. Cool, cool air against his heated blood.

Where the hell was she going? But with a sinking desperation, he knew. Back to the damned warehouse.
No! Dangerous
, he warned in sharp yips. Like she’d ever listened to him. Why? Why would she… Because he’d told her more than he thought he had. She knew what he would have, if he’d been thinking like a cop. They could smell. Whatever’d been in that warehouse, this was the only way they’d be able to find out now.

She was still thinking like a cop. She slowed from a full run long before they reached the warehouse district, slinking into the shadows, only mildly distracted by the garbage behind the Italian restaurant. Damn, he was hungry.

Jarod took the lead now, shaking off the scents that threatened to seduce him, slinking slowly to the wreckage of the burned-out building. Yellow crime tape ordered him to stay out, but it was meant for humans. No one would question a hungry dog nosing through the wreckage.

They approached cautiously, like stray dogs used to being chased off. Jarod scented the air, trying to pick up anything. Burnt wood. Scorched metal. That he could see. But what had been worth…

No. They’d got it all wrong. It wasn’t
what
was in the warehouse, but
who
-- who was watching them. They’d known. It had been a trap -- just not the trap he thought it was. They weren’t guarding the warehouse, they were after
him
. And that meant…

No
! he barked at Belle.
Trap
!

Belle looked over her shoulder at him, evidently not understanding the universal language of growls and barks. He ran at her, hitting her shoulder, knocking her back, away from the… fuck. Too late. A circle of large, silver-black wolves surrounded them, yellow eyes and laughing tongues mocking their cleverness.

The largest shifted before their eyes, becoming a six-foot-four Viking look-alike who seemed almost familiar. “Welcome home, my children. You will come with us now.”

Jarod shifted as well, finding the transition as smooth as aged whiskey and with just as much bite. “And if we don’t?”

The Viking’s gaze swept over Belle. “Nice bitch. Perhaps you’d like to introduce us.”

Rage tore through Jarod. “Mine!”

“That remains to be seen. Come. Run with us. We will settle this. Like wolves.”

Jarod’s instinct was to attack, but he could almost hear Belle’s voice in his head.
This is why we’re here, remember
? Blondie shifted back and took off at a run, Belle surrounded by his pack. Jarod had no choice. He ran. But the first chance he had, he’d let his wolf have its way. And his wolf wanted blood.

* * *

Belle had a bad feeling about this. The pack ran, surrounding her and Jarod so there was no mistaking who was in charge. They loped along until they reached an abandoned factory out in the middle of nowhere. The place was huge. Acres of land and buildings standing empty, parking lots beginning to show grass where crisp white lines had once marked off coveted territory. Belle hadn’t seen a soul since they’d left the city limits. There was nothing left here. Without the factory, there was no reason for traffic. Apparently, the pack had chosen its den well.

They made their way through a well-worn break in the fence and into what had once been the main offices, one of the wolves shifting to unlock the door. So, they had keys. They were either renting the property, or they’d bought it. Places like this could be had for a song at tax foreclosure sales.

They were led deep into the interior, though they were still close enough to the exits should they need to make a run for it. Surprisingly, her wolf senses let her see quite well even though no one had turned on the lights. Moonlight poured in through skylights that dotted the rooflines.

Belle followed Jarod’s lead when he shifted as the others did. Normally, she was very self-assured and a take-charge kind of woman, but here she was perfectly happy to rely on Jarod. He didn’t have any more experience being a werewolf than she did, but this was obviously a male dominated species. Being assertive and demanding would probably only get them both killed.

If things weren’t bad enough, every single man in the damned place was eying her up and down, sniffing as if they could smell her even in their human forms. Maybe they could. She hadn’t been wolf long enough to know what new tricks her body could learn.

A few members of the pack remained in wolf form and continually tried to stick their noses in her crotch. If she made it out of here without killing every last one of them, it would be a damned miracle. Not that she was going to try that hard to restrain herself.

“Call off the hounds, Blondie,” Jarod growled. One look at him and Belle knew he was in no mood for anything other than instant obedience. She knew it well because it never failed to get her hot. Which wouldn’t help at all in this situation.

Several of the wolves bared their teeth, snapping at Jarod and trying to separate him from Belle. Jarod was having none of it. He grabbed her upper arm, yanking her to him so hard she knew her arm would sport bruises later.

“
Now
, damn it!”

The Viking merely shrugged. “You may call me
Alpha
. Or Snorrasan. We don’t have many women. The pack tends to share, unless the female is able to fend them off. Which she never is.”

Snorrasan. A Viking name, at that. And he didn’t sound Russian at all. What the hell?

Jarod stepped in front of her, his hand leaving her arm to find her wrist. He snarled, baring his teeth, obviously ready to defend her.

Defend. That was something Belle could do. She was a cop. Hand-to-hand combat was something she was equipped to deal with. “You get the dogs,” she said mildly. “I’ll take the dogs masquerading as humans.”

A couple of the wolves jumped at Jarod then, but he easily knocked them out of the air, his strength seeming to be much greater than it had been before “the incident,” as Belle was beginning to call it. One of the human men made a try for her, but she jabbed at his throat at the same time she kicked out and caught him in the balls. Her attacker dropped like a stone, but she was already readying herself for the next attack.

“
Stop
!” Snorrasan bellowed. No doubt who was the alpha here. The entire pack froze, and the room went deathly quiet. “This is getting us nowhere. If the boy can tame the bitch, he can have her.” The wicked smile and lust-filled eyes told Belle he had something more in mind than her simply giving her word. “But she’ll have to submit here. And in any way I see fit.”

Well, shit.

How the fuck they were going to get out of this one, Jarod didn’t know. Even if he were willing to take Belle in front of God and everyone -- which he wasn’t -- there was no way in hell Belle would allow it. Their only choice was to fight their way out and hope their newfound resilience stood them in good stead.

“Jarod’s my mate,” Belle spat. “He’s man enough to claim me -- and he’ll do whatever it takes to keep me, too.”

Blondie sneered. “Jarod, is it? I knew your Sire. I smell his stench on you. Both of you.”

“Then you know more about him than I do. Closest I ever got to that bastard was the muzzle of my gun down his throat.”

Blondie’s sneer turned shrewd. “If that’s true, you may earn a place in my pack.
If
you can learn to behave. Your Sire’s done you no favors. You’ve a lot to learn, and you better learn it fast. I am Alpha. My word is law. If I tell you to get down on your belly and crawl, you will.”

Jarod stood his ground, shifting smoothly into his seven-foot-tall, half-man, half-wolf form. “Or?”

Blondie shifted as well. “Are you challenging me, Pup?”

Jarod growled, deep in his belly, but he neither backed down nor pushed himself into Blondie’s face. The tension was thick enough to cut. “I won’t challenge you. Yet. Not till I’ve learned what you can teach us. This body didn’t come with instructions.”

Blondie growled, too, but then his growl turned to a burst of hard laughter. “I could learn to like you, Pup, once you learn some manners. You’ve got balls.”

“Good luck with that. What do I have to do to claim my mate?”

Mate
. Belle’s heart gave a lurch. It was probably just a figure of speech, a wolf thing, but still. They’d never had any formal sort of relationship. More than just a pleasant fuck after a bad day, maybe, or a good one, but less than a -- less than whatever
mate
was.

“Fuck her. Now. In your true form.”

Damned if the idea of watching all those men watching Jarod fuck her didn’t make her wet. Belle knew she was probably going to hell, but fuck if she cared right now. Besides, surrounded as they were, she was right next to helpless. That idea had more than a little appeal for her, as well.