RaleighPointRescueSue
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Authors: Victoria Sue
RALEIGH POINT-RESCUE
Victoria Sue
Erotic Paranormal Romance
Secret Cravings
Publishing
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A
Secret Cravings Publishing Book
Erotic Romance
Raleigh Point-Rescue
Copyright ©
2014
Victoria
Sue
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63105-373-3
First E-book Publication:
November 2014
Cover design by
Dawné
Dominique
Edited by
Larriane
Barnard
Proofread by Sarah Biggs
All cover art and logo copyright ©
2014 by Secret Cravings Publishing
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PUBLISHER
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Dedication
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especially my dad, who always bought his little girl big books.
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RALEIGH POINT-RESCUE
Victoria Sue
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Mac grinned at his mom as he strode through the playroom to
grab his mail. Half-buried in clothes of every size, she quickly sorted them
into piles. Although, to be fair, they’d had kids of just about every size come
through the doors at Raleigh Point in the last fourteen years.
Familiar pride tugged at him.
His mom smiled back as she disappeared with an armful. The
phone rang in the office, and he swiped it up, wondering where his brothers
were.
“Yeah?”
A laugh came down the line—
Brett.
“Only you, Mac, only you.
Your mom
could never get you to answer the phone properly.”
Mac grinned, remembering all the times his mom had scolded
him for not saying
Raleigh Point
like
some girly secretary.
“So how’s it going? Thought you two were all loved up on
your honeymoon.” He nearly growled, thinking there was too much of all that
nonsense around here lately.
Brett laughed. “We are, but I got a call, and I wondered if
you could handle it? We can’t get back for at least two days.”
Mac sat down. It had to be an emergency, as originally, they
would have been away another month.
“What’s going on?”
“I got a call from Dr. Michaels over in Springfield. He was
brought in for a consult on a girl. Well, woman actually. She’s twenty.
Schizophrenia.”
Dr. Michaels was a human psychiatrist, but he was mated to a
shifter, a panther. They were two of the trusted contacts who kept their eyes
open for shifter kids in the system that might need a home.
“Schizophrenia?
But that doesn’t
make sense.” Mac knew full well human diseases never affected shifters.
“Yeah, we know.
Definitely a wolf shifter.
Apparently she’s always been in care—no family—judged too unstable to be living
in anything but a secure psychiatric facility.” Brett paused. “Thing is Mac,
Dr. Michaels’ wife thinks she’s an alpha
female
.”
Mac gasped.
“An alpha female?
I
didn’t think they still existed. And it’s never been picked up on?” He mentally
kicked himself. Of course, it hadn’t.
“No, poor kid’s been on anti-psychotic meds since she was
twelve.”
How the hell?
Mac
shook his head, clenching his fists. Female wolves didn’t shift until they
mated, but still. “I thought alpha females were like pack royalty because
they’re so rare. How’d this happen?”
“What do you know about alpha females, Mac?”
He groaned. This was turning into his most favorite
conversation, not.
“Is this multiple choice, Brett? `Cause—”
“Okay, so not my favorite topic either, but Dr. Michaels
told me alpha females need to bond with an alpha male, usually their father,
when they first start their menstrual cycle. Obviously, they’re not claimed or
mated, but they go seriously insane if not. Rages, like off the charts.”
“What’s she saying? Did he talk to her? Does she—”
“Mac, you know as much as I do. She’s been shuffled around
the system since she was a baby.” Mac could hear a rustle of papers. “Yeah,
massive mood swings.
Very violent.”
Mac wondered if a couple of his ex-girlfriends had been
undiscovered alpha females.
“This is serious, Mac.”
Hell.
“
You adding
reading minds to your resume?”
“I don’t need it with you, but I bet Riley’s laughing about
now.”
Mac smiled. His brother Riley wasn’t exactly a mind reader,
but as a gifted healer and
empath
, he was as good as
one.
“Deemed unsuitable for anything other than a locked
psychiatric facility,” Brett read out. “Dr. Michaels was especially concerned
about the level of medication, and he’s instructed it to be reduced.”
Mac shook his head, and then realized Brett couldn’t see
him. “Human drugs don’t
work
the
same on shifters. They’d had
to have given her big doses.” He glanced at his watch. “You want me to go get
her first thing tomorrow?”
“Actually, I want your ass out there now. Dr. Michaels
kicked up a storm, and I think he’s worried they may try and move her. Their
new place is across state lines.
Could be awkward.”
“I’ll be there today.” Mac grimly jotted down brief details
and hung up.
His mom walked into the office. Her hair was black like
theirs, but he could now count the gray that he and his brothers were no doubt
responsible for. Blue-gray eyes were surrounded by laughter lines. He hoped
they were responsible for those as well.
“Emergency?
Do you need us to stay?”
“Nah, Mom, we’ve got it covered. You go get ready.” Mac
smiled at her as she left the room. Their dad had surprised her with a short
cruise, and they were leaving that afternoon. First vacation on their own in nearly
thirty years, and they were all determined that nothing would spoil it. The
three-year-old twin bear shifters they’d had for the last two years had just
been successfully placed. Raleigh Point only housed seven-year-old Jamie and
eleven-year-old Alex at the moment, and they could handle them.
Just then, the door opened, and his brothers entered. Zack
had to duck. They were all huge. Both he and Riley were six feet four inches,
but Zack was even bigger. Everyone always thought he and Riley were the twins,
not Zack and Riley. Zack looked like their dad. He even had the same crooked
nose, but Mac could see his mom in Riley. At twenty-eight, they were older than
him by two years.
“Zack, I need a ride.”
Zack’s eyes rose questioningly. “What’s up, Mac, an
emergency? Your latest date broke a nail?”
Mac ignored that. Okay, so he dated a lot, and yeah, they
were usually high maintenance, but as long as they were as good in bed as they
looked out of it,
who
cared? “Yeah, Brett just called.”
He quickly gave them a run down on their new arrival.
Riley interrupted. “How did Dr. Michaels manage to get her
released to us, though? I mean, she’s an adult. Twenty’s a bit old for a group
home.”
“I don’t know.” Mac shrugged. “To be honest, I don’t care,
so long as they did.”
“Well, Cassie’s finished college except for her exams, and Brett’s
gonna
be back soon. We haven’t much going on since
the Western Bank contract was wrapped up.”
Mac nodded. His brothers ran a computer security firm. Riley
was the computer geek behind the initial planning, and Zack, a licensed
helicopter pilot, flew all over supervising installation work.
Riley looked at his twin. “I’ll run Mom and Dad to the
airport.”
Zack nodded. “Come on then.”
Mac checked all his IDs before following Zack out. He
briefly fingered his F.B.I. one and sighed. He had a feeling he was going to
need it today. He only got asked to track missing people for them sometimes. He
wasn’t an actual agent, and he didn’t do any
James Bond
shit, but whatever, it came in useful. Even if he just
wanted to impress girlfriends with broken nails.
* * * *
Mac stared out the window at the toy scenery below. His
phone vibrated, and he returned a call he had missed from Brett as they were
setting off.
“Zack says we’ll be at Lennox airfield in about thirty
minutes.”
“Don’t bother. Zack’s cleared for Springfield itself. He’ll
be getting instructions through right about now. There’s a small private
airfield there, closer to where you are now probably.”
Zack was talking to someone via his headset, and the
helicopter veered slightly.
“There’ll be a car waiting. Dr. Michaels has some pull, and
if he didn’t have an emergency patient himself to deal with, he’d be down there
shaking things up.”
The short silence that followed was deafening. “Brett, what
aren’t you telling me?”
“The place is bad, Mac.
Some hangover from
a bad Hitchcock movie.
Mostly closed down, just a few elderly they are
transferring. No idea what our girl’s doing there, and I have no idea what
state she’s in. Dr. Michaels only saw her by chance when he was consulting on
another patient. Think they were ready to throw away the key on this one.”
“But how, Brett?
This isn’t the
1800s.”
“Yeah, I know, but I think she’s just slipped through the
cracks. No family to
complain,
and I wanted to warn
you about the bitch in charge. Complete piece of work. We’re only giving them a
few minutes’ notice of your arrival and the transfer deliberately, so they can’t
do anything.”
“Christ, Brett, what the hell they
gonna
do?” Mac asked, wondering if Brett wasn’t being a bit too dramatic.
“Just giving you a heads up. Let me know when you land.”
“Anytime now.”
The helicopter
lowered down almost perfectly next to the black car waiting for them.
“Okay, calling them now. Make sure you get to her pronto,
Mac.”
Mac rang off and looked at Zack as he cut the engine. “That
was Brett. He’s ringing through our authorization now. He didn’t want to give
them prior warning, and apparently, we’ve got to get the girl quick.”
Zack nodded. “Mac, if I hadn’t been there on some of the
pick-ups we’ve done, I wouldn’t have believed what some sick people are capable
of.”
Mac relayed to him what Brett had told him.
Zack looked around the empty airfield. “Sorry, but I can’t
just leave it here. I’m going to have to wait until you get back.”
Mac nodded, wishing he had thought to bring Cassie with him,
but he shrugged.
Okay then.
After flashing his ID a few times at various gates, he found
himself shown into a small office. The mousy guy, who’d told him to wait, hadn’t
impressed Mac one bit. He smelled of stale cigarettes and beer, and the
surroundings were
creeping
the shit out of him. Hell,
the place looked like it should have been shut down fifty years ago. Peeling,
stained walls and floors weren’t agreeing with his shifter sense of smell at
all. Disinfectant he expected, and that would have been bad enough, but this
place took Hitchcock to a whole other level. He half-expected a film crew to
walk by.
A thin, fiftyish woman walked into the office. “Mr. Knight?”
she asked, looking at the papers in her hand. “This is most irregular. We’ve
only just received the transfer orders for Miss Butler, and she isn’t ready. It
would be better if you made an appointment for tomorrow.”
“No, I’m sorry. I have my transport waiting. I’m afraid we
have to go immediately.”
“Well, yes,” the woman flushed, frowning.
Mac could smell the unease
grow in her and wondered if Brett hadn’t been exaggerating how quickly they
needed to get her after all.
“I’m sorry, but I will have to make some phone calls to
verify these orders. Miss Butler was due to be transferred today to our new
facility.” A brittle smile striving for sympathy cracked the heavily made-up
face. “She is a really desperate case, and we feel she needs a higher degree of
monitoring.”
Just as Mac opened his mouth to demand he be taken to Miss
Butler’s room immediately, a piercing scream rent the air, and every hair on
the back of his neck stood up. Cursing himself for not taking Brett’s warning seriously
enough, he took off in the direction of the scream.
Heart hammering, his nostrils flared. More powerful than the
stench of unwashed bodies and moldy furnishings, he smelled bleach, panic, and
worst of all, fear.
Charging through a door, he processed the god-awful scene in
two seconds. Two big, fat burly guys—looking more at home in a concentration
camp than a hospital—were struggling to hold a female down on the
bed—ridiculous given their size. Another woman, either a nurse or a doctor
holding a syringe, was fighting with the girl who was trying to avoid the
needle. Mac’s nose barely registered the nurse as some type of shifter.
Mac roared in fury. With one powerful swipe, he levelled
both guys, and in another second he had a hold of the arm, stopping the woman
with the syringe. The girl shot off the bed and curled herself up in the corner
of the room.
“How dare you!” spluttered the gray-haired woman, as Mac
forcibly curved the needle at ninety degrees and dropped it onto the tray.
Mac didn’t give her time to continue. “This patient is for
immediate transport. Dr. Michaels was clear she was to have no more drugs. If
you doubt those instructions, I can get Dr. Michaels on the phone.” Mac glared
and released her arm. “Lady—and I use that term generously—I can get the
fucking F.B.I. on the phone. Now get the
hell
out
.”
The woman shot him a hard look and ran out the door.
Mac breathed a huge sigh. God, he hadn’t been that close to
losing his temper for many years, especially around humans. As kids, they’d
always been brought up to respect their bear strength, and no human—as big as
those two guys were—could go up against all five hundred pounds of Mac’s bear
when he was in full shift.
Not all humans
though,
as he remembered the smell of the woman with the syringe. He
instantly dismissed the thought as he realized he had more important worries.
Fuck.
Mac hunkered
down in front of the shaking, curled-up form in the corner.
Humanity?
Some people didn’t know the meaning of the word.
Mac hesitated as he took her in. He couldn’t smell her as
the stench of the place was masking it, and he wished again he had his mom or
Cassie with him. He also acknowledged that Brett had it right. They were
drugging her to move her, and he’d only just got here in time.