Caleb (50 page)

The
wolf’s tongue touched her cheek. She scrubbed the spot. “I don’t need your damn
sympathy. I need your help.”

There
was another silence. She had a feeling they talked among themselves. The wolf
pinning her stepped back. Ian bent down and extended his hand. She took it. In
a smooth, oddly gallant move he drew her to her feet. His thumb stroked over
the back of her hand. One of the wolves stepped toward the tunnel. She leapt in
front of him, landing precisely where she wanted for once, blocking his way as
if she did such athletic feats every day. “No.”

His
lips pulled back from some impressive fangs in what could have been a grin. He
took another step forward. She stretched her talons to the limit and bared her
fangs right back. Caleb had enough on his plate. She wasn’t allowing a sneak
attack.

“Be
easy.”

She
didn’t take her eyes off the wolves gathering. “I’ll be easy when you get the
hell out of here.”

“You
asked for our help.”

“I’ve
decided I don’t need it.”

“Your
mate also asked for our help.”

Surprise
jerked her gaze off the gray wolf. “I didn’t know that.”

“It
was a hard decision to make, to aid an enemy.”

“Especially
for a hotheaded bunch like you.” No sooner had the retort left her mouth than
she realized what he’d said. “What swayed the decision?”

“Pack
members were attacked today. The men were killed, the mother and daughter
stolen.”

Exactly
like she’d predicted. Too much alike. Were they really going to help, or were
the D’Nallys just looking to attack while the attacking was good and get rid of
the Johnsons once and for all?

The
gray wolf in the back was definitely glaring at her, and if she wasn’t
mistaken, he looked a lot like the one she’d shot off her car.

“This
is a rather sudden change of heart toward the Johnsons, isn’t it?”

“We
have reasons for our anger.”

“And
I have a reason for mine.” She glared at the gray male.

“Enough
reason to see your mate die?”

Well,
hell. She met his gaze. “You touch him and I’ll kill you. I might not look like
much, but I’m capable of some very creepy stuff.”

“It
does not surprise me that the leader of the Johnson pack has an equally strong
mate.”

“We’re
not married.”

“You
are unattached?”

Remembering
what Derek had said about fertile females, she quickly amended the statement.
“No, just not married.”

“A
private issue between the two of you?”

“You
might say that.”

“Enough
so that you no longer wish the elder Johnson’s claim?”

“No.”

His
hands on her shoulders lifted her as if she weighed nothing. “Then step aside,
woman. The D’Nallys have come to fight.”

HE
wasn’t kidding. With the exception of Caleb himself,
she’d never seen men, beings, creatures move with such methodical precision.
After Ian transformed into a wolf, a startling enough process in itself, they’d
bolted down the corridor in a flowing mass of fur, moving almost as one,
creating the illusion of continuity. She’d run in their wake, only able to keep
up because she knew the way and didn’t have to slow to find the twists and
turns of the tunnel.

When
they reached the heavy door, they waited. Violence and anticipation radiated
off the pack in seething waves. A path separated for her. She ran through it,
breath sawing in and out of her lungs, panic an equal companion to hope. Were
they in time?

Fighting
still continued on the other side of the door as evidenced by the muffled
sounds coming through, but try as she might, she couldn’t feel any of Caleb’s
energy. Considering her last sight of him was a brief glimpse as he’d turned,
bloody and injured, to meet whatever had come crashing through the opposite
door, it was hard to hold on to hope. But she would because the alternative was
unthinkable.

She
dialed the combination with fingers that shook so badly she couldn’t be sure
which number she’d stopped on. She turned the handle. Nothing happened. Damn!
She tried again. Same results. Nothing.

Damn!
Damn! Damn! She forced herself to slow down, took a deep breath, released it,
vividly aware that while she fumbled on this side of the door, people she loved
were dying on the other.

“Third
time’s the charm,” she muttered. This time she dialed slower. The lock gave
with a barely audible click. She turned it in an agony of dread, felt the
slight thunk, and shuddered with relief. She carefully slid the bolt and tugged
at the heavy door. Hands fastened on her shoulders. Her scream died in her
throat as another hand slapped over her mouth.

“Your
mate sent you to safety,” Ian whispered sotto voce in her ear. “And safe you
will stay.”

She
shook her head. Caleb might need her.

Ian
pressed her back against the wall, against the sturdy hinges. “Lock the door
behind us.”

The
pack spilled into the void between her and the door. With a warning glance, Ian
shifted again, man blurring and animal emerging until all she recognized were
the golden eyes staring at her from his black-masked face. He touched his
muzzle to the shoulder of the equally big wolf beside him. A subtle tension
rippled through the pack. Hackles raised, a silent snarl on his lip, Ian eased
the door open with his nose. The sounds of fighting increased, grunts and
shouts, the grate of metal striking something hard, a shot, something softer
hitting the floor . . .

The
gap widened farther as another wolf pressed forward and then another. On a howl
that sent chills up her spine, the lethal mass sprang into the room. There was
a scream that ended in that familiar horrible gurgle and then the D’Nallys
added their deadly snarls to the cacophony. Allie took a step toward the door,
even had her palms flat on the wooden surface to push it closed, when she felt
it. A whisper of sensation in her mind.

Caleb?

The
whisper came again. Weak. Like she’d felt before. Fingers clutching the edge of
the door, she opened her mind farther.

Help
me.

Suspicion
leapt before she could act on her first instinct to reach for him. That wasn’t
Caleb. Caleb would die before he invited her to walk into danger. She threw her
mental shield up, probing along the edge of the energy pouring to her,
practicing everything she’d learned from Jared and Caleb, but more importantly,
from that sneaky bastard Vincent. At first touch, the voice sounded like Caleb,
felt like Caleb, but as she explored there was something majorly missing.
Whoever was faking being Caleb obviously didn’t have a grasp of the man’s
personality. She closed the door and turned the bolt, jumping when something
heavy hit the other side, feeling the vibrations up her arms. The force of the
collision only served to prove one thing. As much as she wanted to help, she
simply was not equipped to fight the supernatural on this level.

The
whisper came again, this time loaded with pain and desperation. Oh, the guy was
good. Very, very good. So good, even knowing it really wasn’t Caleb calling to
her, anxiety swelled. She let just a little of that anxiety out. A diversion to
amuse the peeping Tom while she did a bit of peeping on her own. She turned her
back against the door and slid down it, focusing on that stream of emotion,
reaching back along its route to its source, going deeper than before but still
keeping her touch light. She might not have the muscle to fight a full-out
invasion, but she was equipped to fight this. Curling her hands into fists, she
braced them on her thighs, breathed in five slow, steady breaths as she turned
her energy more and more inward, tuning out the here and now and stretching
herself into the mental void to find the enemy she didn’t know.

Two
things became immediately apparent. He wasn’t close. And he was definitely
male. It was very masculine energy she was following. Whoever, he was working
from far away, tapping into her mental energy, experimenting with the tags
everyone had that were like mental P.O. boxes. Her response to what she now
recognized as a broad scope probe had given him her address. Caleb was not
going to be happy about that.

The
foreign energy flared and probed. There was a familiar pattern to his search.
It was like Vincent’s, but different. More sophisticated. Stronger, without the
fanatical hyperactivity that had blurred the edges of Vincent’s probes.

Allie
smoothed her energy as she felt a push from the stranger, faking neutrality,
keeping herself hidden behind normalcy. At least she hoped it was normal. So
much adrenaline was flooding her system, she wasn’t sure of anything. The probe
came again, scattered. Whoever it was suspected she was there, but couldn’t
pinpoint her enough for a direct hit.

The
bolt on the closet door rattled. She gasped and jerked. The start shattered her
concentration. Bright light flooded her mind, heralding the invasion of that
mental presence. She clapped her hands over her ears to squeeze it out as she
scrambled away from the door that was opening. More light flooded her mind,
obscuring normal vision. She blinked, but all she could see was that white light.
It flickered with images of the door opening. Hinges murmured a protest beyond
her ability to see. Oh God, she needed to see. She pressed her palms into her
skull. “Get out of my head.”

She
felt the presence start, felt it gather as if for battle. She stabbed at it
with something, she hoped it was negative energy, and she hoped it hurt. The
effect she was hoping for didn’t materialize. The light stayed as bright as
ever.

She
was lost. She didn’t know what she should do, what she could do. Everywhere
around her was disaster, and in her mind there was only white light and
confusion.

The
door continued to open, the hinges continued to protest as she struggled with
her breathing, trying to quiet the rasping breaths, battling the adrenaline
surging in her system, which increased the beat of her heart, the rhythm of her
breath. Betraying sounds she couldn’t afford to emit. The door hit her toes,
and she quickly crawled back, staying a fraction ahead of it until her heels
tucked against her hips. The door kept coming. She tucked herself into a ball,
but eventually there was no place left to go.

The
door hit resistance. The person on the other side pushed harder. Her knees
collided with her chest. She stopped breathing altogether. The odors of blood,
wet fur, sweat, and violence slipped into the stale passage, crippling the hope
within. Until a split second later, another scent wafted over the stench of
battle. This scent she recognized.

Caleb?

She
still couldn’t see. The light consumed her mind, the masculine presence taking
over her brain, manipulating neurons she didn’t know she had, working to ready
her. For what? This time she said it out loud, “Caleb?”

“Allie
girl?” No one said her name with just that combination of reprimand, softness,
and emotion. No one but Caleb.

Oh
God, it was Caleb.

She
launched herself in the direction of his voice, trusting him to catch her. Hard
hands locked around her waist, pulling her into the familiar solidity of his
chest. The tattered edges of his shirt scraped her cheek. Smears of blood eased
the glide of her hands around his neck, but she didn’t care. He was alive.
Alive and holding her. The presence in her head stopped its probing. Foreign
satisfaction gilded her joy. A sting of light demanded her attention, and then
five words flashed across her mind’s eye in mental bold print.

Tell
him he’s not alone.

As if
that opportunity was all the man had been waiting for, the light vanished and
her reality once again consisted only of corridor, the only light breaking the darkness
that came from the open door, and the only thing she could see was Caleb
frowning down at her.

His
hand behind her head was a relief, his thumb under her chin giving her the
support she dearly needed. “Are you all right?”

She
didn’t get a chance to answer before his hands were all over her, one under her
hips slowly working her back to where he needed her, pressing her against him.
His thoughts bled into hers. She felt his need to hold her, mark her, claim her
as his.

Her
need was no less urgent. She locked her arms around his neck, her legs around
his waist. She couldn’t get close enough to obliterate the fear of losing him.

Images
of the battles he’d just fought flashed from him to her. She clung tighter.
She’d come so close to losing him so many times tonight and there was nothing
on this Earth scarier than that. In the short time they’d been together, he’d
become everything to her. The sun, the moon, the stars. Laughter and light. All
this from a vampire, supposedly a creature of darkness and night. She cupped
his cheeks in her hands. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m
too ornery to die.”

“Too
ornery and too arrogant.”

He
smiled, dropping his forehead against hers. “Yup.”