Clay's Instinct (BBW Paranormal Romance) (Wolf Call) (2 page)

So it looked like they had opened a book of twentieth century poets to get their false names.

'We know who you are and why you're here,' Keats continued, 'so let me lay down the ground rules. Number one: no photos. Number two: let us do our job and don't get in our way. Number three: you can write the story about the werewolf sightings in the area and you can name the target but you can not mention the Temple's involvement in any way. We are a secret organization and we want to stay that way. Your story will simply say that the target left town.'

'How can I name the target if I don't even know his name?'

'It's Clay Adams. He's the local sheriff.'

'Wow, a town with a werewolf as a sheriff. That'll make a great story.'

Keats nodded. He pulled a gun from his belt and ejected the clip to check the load. The bullets shone silver in the interior of the vehicle.

'I thought you weren't going to kill him,' Lucinda said.

'This is just a precaution.'

Shelley, a fair-haired man who looked like he had made a living as a bare-knuckle brawler at some point in his life, held up a tazer and grinned. 

Keats patted the tazer in his own belt. 'We're going to take him alive, Miss Everett.'

She sat back and looked out of the window at the woods and the distant mountains. "I'm doing this for you, Mom and Dad," she said inwardly, "The world will know these monsters exist and are living among us."

*

Clay stood in his back yard, sniffing the early morning air. He had felt uneasy since Ronson's visit and now he wondered if the sense of foreboding that sat in his gut like a coiled snake was an actual portent of bad things to come or just a lingering reaction to Ronson. In the distance, storm clouds rolled across the sky. The air felt charged with electricity. 

He should change out of his t-shirt and lumberjack shirt and jeans and put on his uniform and get to the station like he did every morning but
this
morning everything felt different, like he had fallen down a rabbit hole into a different world. But it wasn't Wonderland he stood in now; it felt like hunting season had just started and he was the prey.

Were they coming for him? Had Ronson's visit been a reconnaissance mission before they sent the troops? What did he even know about the Temple of Thul and how did they know
anything
about him? They were rumored to have access to old ways of sorcery. Once, Clay would have laughed at such a notion but now he was willing to believe anything. After all, he had been bitten by a lycan and become a werewolf. If the ancient legends of werewolves were true, then why not the ancient legends of sorcery?

So they could have tracked him down using supernatural methods.

He looked back at the house where his sheriff's uniform hung in his closet waiting. If he went and put on that uniform and went to work like any other day and these people really were hunting him, they would know where to find him.

He looked at the mountains sitting beneath the dark storm clouds. Up there, in the trees and among the streams, was a habitat where he felt in control. His inner wolf knew how to survive in that environment.

He fished his cell out of his pocket and called Lassiter. His deputy answered on the second ring.

'Sheriff.'

'John, I need you to look after the town for a few days.'

'Okay, sheriff, no problem. You okay?'

'Yeah, I just need to take a leave of absence for a few days. If anyone comes asking about me, just tell them you don't know where I am. That will be the truth because I'm not telling you where I'm going.'

'Are you in some kind of trouble, Sheriff? I want to help. Hell, the whole town will help if you let us. You're a good sheriff.'

'If you want to help me, John, just take care of my town while I'm gone.' He hung up and went inside the house, turning off the phone and placing on the kitchen table. If they were using more conventional methods to track him, like following his cell signal, the trail ended here.

After locking up the house, he went back outside and prepared himself to leave. As a lone wolf, he had adopted the entire town of Faith as his pack, nurturing it and protecting its citizens. As sheriff, he held the alpha role and it was his responsibility to lead the town and ensure its survival. The best thing he could do now to ensure that survival was leave. If the Temple of Thul really were after him, they were trouble and Faith could do without that kind of problem. His final act as pack leader would be to sacrifice his position as alpha and lead the trouble away from town. 

He hit the sidewalk and hurried toward Main Street. Once he reached the woods there he would be gone, vanished before anyone could find him. There were places he knew in the mountains that would afford him shelter. The old hunter's cabin hidden deep in the pines halfway up the mountain would serve all his needs. A stream ran close to the abandoned cabin and he would have no problem finding food. The wildness within him longed for such an environment.

But as he reached Main Street, he realized reaching his sanctuary would not be so easy. A black Range Rover with tinted windows turned into the street and the engine growled as it sped toward him. His senses kicked into overdrive, telling him to run for the trees. But the vehicle was between him and freedom and it was approaching fast.

Controlling the panic that threatened to rise within him, Clay took two determined strides toward the road then sprinted toward the Range Rover. It would be the last thing they were expecting and he hoped to use the element of surprise to aid his escape.

The vehicle skidded to a stop, rubber squealing on asphalt, smoke rising from the wheels.

Clay leapt onto the hood of the Range Rover, then onto the roof and over the other side, landing on the road behind his enemies. They had no chance of turning around in time to stop him and the only choice left to them was to exit the vehicle. He hoped to be in the woods and running by the time they got the doors opened.

He ran along the road, arms pumping to give himself more forward momentum. Just a few yards before he got to the trees. A screeching sound ahead made him jerk his head up as a second Range Rover, identical to the first, skidded into the street. The doors opened and three men and a woman got out. The men had tazers in their hands, the woman seemed unarmed. All wore black.

Clay halted, adrenaline surging through his body. He felt confused and trapped and the crazy part was that the confusion was caused by the sight of the woman. As soon as he saw her, a part of him deep inside cried out in recognition. Did he know her? No, he had never seen her before in his life. But as he looked at her attractive face, long auburn hair tied up on her head, and womanly curves, he felt as if his inner wolf was howling with longing. He had read about this emotion and knew it was called the Call but he had never experienced it before now. Of course he wouldn't have experienced it before because the Call only happened once in a lycan's life, the moment a mate was recognized.

So this could not be the Call because the woman standing before him was one of them, a member of the Temple of Thul. She was here to capture him.

Shaking off the feeling and concentrating on his escape, he ran toward the three men. The fair-haired one had his tazer out and trained on Clay. He pulled the trigger and the electrode darts shot out, trailing wires behind them like spider webs. 

Clay dropped to the road and rolled. The electrodes passed above him and the man cursed. The dark-haired man was pulling his own tazer from his belt but before he had a chance to use it, Clay had reached him and sent a fist into his face. The man went down clutching his nose, the tazer dropping harmlessly to the asphalt.

Clay whirled and sent an elbow into the gut of the fair-haired man, dropping him to the road alongside his colleague. 

The woman's green eyes were wide with shock, her mouth open slightly as she watched her companions fall.

The driver pulled a pistol from his belt, shouting at Clay to freeze.

The doors of the first vehicle opened and four men spilled out, all brandishing pistols. They had obviously decided Clay was too dangerous to try and take down using tazers and were utilizing more deadly force.

Clay grabbed the woman by the throat and positioned himself behind her.

'Let me go or she dies,' he said. There was no way he would hurt her but he hoped that their preconceived ideas about him, about what he was, would make them take him seriously. Being so close to the woman set off savage sparks in his body. She was beautiful and plush and her curves seemed to form a secret geometry that awakened his inner wild lust. He could smell her fear but also arousal. No, this can't be happening. She is the enemy.

Yet his instincts told him otherwise.

The driver aimed his gun at Clay. 'You think we care of she dies?' He pulled the trigger and the gunshot sounded like a crack of thunder in the early morning.

Clay barely had time to react. He pulled her to one side and twisted his body to shield her. Every action was made instinctively, without thinking.

He felt a sudden stabbing heat in his side as the bullet hit him. The woman screamed. The searing pain almost made him black out but Clay's protective instinct kept him moving. He dragged the woman to the trees. She came willingly.

Another shot rang out and the bark of a pine tree exploded in showers of wooden shards.

'We need to get to cover,' Clay told the woman.

She nodded and followed him into the trees. 

If he was alone, he could have shifted and moved much more quickly through the woods. But now he had the woman to think of. He just hoped she wouldn't hold him back enough to get them both killed.

What the hell was he thinking protecting one of the enemy? He should just leave her here and go. That was the only option that assured his safety but he couldn't bring himself to leave her.

She seemed placid enough as she followed him. How had she become involved with the Temple of Thul? He had plenty of questions but for now they had to wait. There were armed men coming through the trees behind them.

A sharp stab of pain in his left side slowed him for a moment and he grimaced against the agony of moving forward. He leaned against a tree, breathing hard, resting his forehead on his arm.

'Are you okay?' the woman asked. 

'Do you really care? You came here to kill me.'

'No, that isn't true...'

'Or capture me, which is the same thing.'

She fell silent.

'What's your name?' he asked to distract himself from the pain.

'Lucinda. Lucinda Everett.'

'I guess you already know I'm Clay Adams, sheriff of the town you just invaded.'

She cast her green eyes back along the path they had travelled. 'I think they're close, we need to move.'

'What do you care? They're your friends.'

'They shot at me.' She seemed confused as if she didn't know that getting into bed with snakes would get you bitten.

'With friends like that, who needs enemies?'

'They aren't my friends,' she protested.

He managed to stand up straight, the pain subsiding. He would heal from the wound and his lycan abilities meant he would heal faster than a human but it still felt like a fire had been lit in his side.

'It's a couple of miles to where we're headed,' he said, 'but there's a place ahead we can lose those men.'

'You can just leave me here if you want,' she offered.

That would suit him just fine but he had to protect her. There were still feelings swirling around inside his head and heart that he had no explanation for.

'You're coming with me.'

She nodded and they started up the side of the mountain again.

Clay watched her as they fled their pursuers. She was a big woman and something about that appealed to him. She was also pretty and despite the circumstances seemed to have an air of innocence about her. But the biggest draw was the fact that his wolf instincts told him he had just met his mate.         

CHAPTER THREE

Run

Lucinda felt breathless as they scrambled up the side of the mountain and not all of that was because of the physical exertion. The man leading her though the woods, Clay Adams, was nothing like she had expected.

He had an air of confidence and control despite the fact he had been shot and his calmness seemed to infect her because despite the armed men following them, she felt an inner sense of peace. 

The air around Clay seemed to crackle with his powerful aura as he moved his lean, muscular frame. He had collar-length dark hair and his face was ruggedly handsome in a way that made her heart pound when he spoke to her. She had to remind herself that despite the fact he had rescued her from a bullet, he was a shifter. His kind were killers. He could be leading her into the wilderness to murder her.

He stopped and pointed to an outcropping of rock. 'There.'

She followed him to the rocks and he pulled at branches and bushes, revealing a tunnel that led into darkness. This was no cave; it was literally a small tunnel and she worried she wouldn't be able to fit inside.

'In there?' she asked, praying he'd say no.

He nodded. 'We can hide inside. They'll think they lost us.' He gestured to the opening in the rock. 'You first.'

'I...I don't think I'll fit inside there.'

'You're not claustrophobic are you?'

She shook her head. 'If you'd seen some of the apartments I've lived in, you wouldn't need to ask that question.'

'So get in. Quickly.'

'In case you hadn't noticed, I'm plus-sized.'

He nodded. 'I noticed.'

'That hole isn't plus-sized.'

'It's larger inside. You'll fit. Now move.'

'Isn't there another way?'

He strode over to her and grabbed her arm, leading her forcefully to the tunnel. 'If you don't get in there now, they'll find us. They already took a shot at you, do you want to risk that again?'