Hunter's Heart: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 5) (4 page)

Chapter Four

Son of a bitch, indeed. He was out cold. Snoring.
Derek’s mouth hung open and drool formed at the corner of those perfect, full
lips. Kissable lips. The kind that felt both soft and hard, devouring, driving
heat straight through you.

“What the ever loving hell?” I whispered. Wolf
pheromones. Something. Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t real. I
was not, repeat
not
going to get caught up in some wolf thrall or
whatever this was.

Great. So I had the upper hand for the moment.
Except my
actual
hands were still bound uselessly behind me. I couldn’t
very well hop away with any degree of speed. He was going to come to again.
When he did, he’d likely have one sweet mother of a headache and a bad temper.

Unfortunately, Derek had landed on his back. My
phone was still out of reach in his back pocket with his full weight on it. I
tried anyway. I sat down and backed into him, trying to roll him. He stirred,
made a gurgling noise, but fell back asleep. No use. I flapped my bound hands,
trying to slide them under Derek and dislodge my phone, but I just couldn’t
reach it. Plus, being this close, touching him…even though his lights were out,
it still affected me.

Fine. No joy. And now, I couldn’t get back on my
feet. I scooted back over to the wall and tried to get leverage by leaning
against it. That worked. I strained every muscle in my body, but I managed to
get to my feet.

“Dammit!” I whisper shouted. If I could just get my
legs free even! I tried to snap the zip tie using the window ledge for
leverage. I only succeeded in cutting through the thin skin of my wrists. He’d
snapped the damn things so tightly, there was barely any space between them. No
give at all.

Sweat poured down my back from the effort of trying
to free myself. Mercifully, Derek kept right on snoring. I hopped back over to
him to get a closer look. My gun was also basically out of reach tucked into
his back pocket. God, if I just had one leg free, I could kick him over. And if
I
could
get to the gun, could I shoot him again? Theoretically, yes. I’d
have to aim blind, standing over him facing the other way, but at that range, I
didn’t have to be accurate.

I hopped over to the window. I could see a few
passing headlights. I had a pretty good guess where we were. This was the old
Tucker farm about a mile past the KOA heading west. The last Tucker died about
fifteen years ago. The county had tried to sell the farm for a while, but with
the economy in the tank, nothing came of it. Last I heard, they were thinking
of turning this place into another trailer park.

Bottom line, there was just about no way I could
pull off this hit without help now. Derek wasn’t moving unless he wanted to,
and I couldn’t wait for him to wake up. I had no choice but to try to get away
from him and get to safety. My best bet would be to hop down to the road and
try to flag down one of those passing cars. Except I’d be leaving behind a
sleeping werewolf who’d wake up pissed as hell and looking for me. Plus, he had
my father’s gun and its special bullets inside. That alone was worth
everything. If they got into the wrong hands we were screwed. The Coltranes and
the Cavanaughs were likely still out there somewhere. Lying in wait. They might
even have eyes on the junkyard to see whether Dad tried to leave again.

“Shit!” I shouted through the open window.

Dammit. There was no help for it. I needed to try
and get away from him before he woke up. I knew it’s what my dad would tell me
to do. The bullets weren’t worth my life, and I wasn’t stupid enough to believe
Derek’s moony-eyed promise that he wasn’t going to hurt me. Of course he was.
He was a werewolf, after all.

I hopped over to him and lowered myself to the
ground. I had to try one last time to push him over with my feet and take the
gun with me. Dammit, he was heavy. Every muscle in his body seemed to have
turned to stone. I couldn’t tell if that was the toxin or just the way all
werewolves were when they slept. But, I couldn’t stick around to ask him. I
struggled back to my feet and hobbled toward the front door.

I pushed it open with my forehead and started my
slow hop down the porch steps and toward the road. It was slow going and every
muscle in my body ached from it, but I made progress. I found I could alternate
hopping with painstaking, shuffling steps. Slower, but less likely to make me
lose my balance and fall on my ass. After the third time of doing that, I
decided I’d had enough. Shuffle-footed getaway it was!

The yard around the Tucker farm had overgrown, and
the tall grasses stung my arms as I made my way through. Also, the land was
hillier than I realized. I’d only ever seen the place from the road and driving
at least fifty miles an hour. Which meant it was a hell of a lot farther from
the house to the road than it looked like. Probably close to half a mile. But,
I kept on going.

Of course, with my luck, dressed in all black like I
was, I ran a very strong risk of getting run over before someone spotted me. I
had one thing going for me in that regard. I’d lost my knit cap and my ponytail
holder a long way back, so my blonde hair spilled around my shoulders. It ought
to reflect pretty well in someone’s headlights. Hopefully, before they mowed me
down.

I was almost there. Just another thirty yards or so.
The ground leveled off and my steps got easier. I could barely see in front of
me as my hair plastered to my face from sweat and grime. But, I was going to
make it. I’d done a mental count on the way down. No more than a minute passed
without at least one car zooming by. Plenty of semi-trailers too. Hell, I even
recognized a couple the closer I got. These were Banchory people. My people. I
was just a few painful steps from help.

Something flashed in my peripheral vision. I’d been
so focused on the road and oncoming headlights, I almost didn’t have time to
adjust. My brain processed the threat faster than my eyes did.

Danger came for me in the form of the menacing flash
of wolf eyes and bared teeth. It moved like lightning. Sleek and gray. I
screamed. Every cell in my body wanting to run. I took one step and fell
facedown into the dirt. I rolled to my back just in time to see the wolf’s body
fly over me in a murderous arc, saliva dripping from his fangs as he came down.

A silencer pulse, quick and deadly. A cloud of red burst
from the wolf’s chest as the bullet took him straight through the heart. His
back bowed out as he fell. I had the presence of mind to roll to the side as he
landed. Otherwise, he would have crushed me.

Strong hands gripped me hard and flipped me to my
back. Derek hovered over me, his brow dripping with sweat, his wolf eyes
flaring hot and strong inside of his very human face.

He reached down and in one swift movement broke the
zip ties binding my ankles. Then, he dragged me to my feet and broke the ties
binding my wrists. Derek took a step back. The wolf lay motionless on the
ground next to me. Not dead. Paralyzed. Dad’s toxin flooded through his blood
vessels as his injured heart pumped for the last few times. Derek lunged forward
and grabbed the wolf by the head. In one powerful twist of his arms, he snapped
the wolf’s neck. The creature lay still and quiet, the life drained out of him.

“You? I thought…” I don’t know what I thought. What
just happened?

“Later,” he said, his voice more wolf than human. He
reached forward and grabbed me, lifting me off my feet he threw me over his
shoulder and ran.

The world was a blur of motion as Derek’s legs
gained purchase. Powerful muscles, ripping through the tall grass at blistering
speed. He took me back up the porch steps and burst through the door of the
Tuckers’ farmhouse. He dropped me, then turned and slammed the door, locking it
then shutting all of the windows. It wouldn’t help. Even I knew that. If a wolf
wanted to get in here, wood, glass, and metal locks wouldn’t stop him.

And here I was, trapped inside with one.

“What the hell is going on?” I gasped. “One of
yours?”

Derek shook his head. His chest heaved and his wolf
eyes still glinted. He seemed trapped between wolf and man. He staggered
forward then slid to the ground, running his hand through his hair.

“Not one of mine,” he said, finally able to come
back into himself. “Not even close.”

I crossed my arms in front of me. Derek still held
my weapon in his hand. I couldn’t take my eyes away from it. Derek saw me
looking and let out a bitter laugh. “It’s this, isn’t it?” He waved the gun
aimlessly, then pulled out the magazine. “The bullets?”

I swallowed hard and took a step back. The dead wolf
outside answered one of my big questions. Dad’s bullets didn’t fail when I shot
Derek. They were just as potent as ever. So, there was something different
about Derek that made them less effective.

“Goddammit, Jessa. What the hell did you do to me?”

I couldn’t help it, I blinked hard and reared back.
“Do to you?”

“Yeah. This!” He waved the magazine at me. “Poison?
Magic? Are you a witch? What’s happening to me? Jesus. I just saved your life.
That wolf wasn’t here for me. Didn’t you notice that? He was here for
you
!”

Oh, shit. I took a staggering step back. My knees
seemed to have turned to jelly. I sank down and sat on the floor in front of
him. Was this the Harlans? It made no sense. If Jeff and Gunther wanted to send
someone after me to collect on my father’s debt, they sure as hell wouldn’t go
to a wolf.

“Shit,” Derek said. His eyes finally settled back to
their human but still piercing amber. “Are you all right?”

“Am
I
all right?”

“Yeah. And are you ever going to answer a fucking
question without asking me a question?”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Sorry. I swear I
didn’t mean to. It’s just. Yeah.”

“Okay. So, lemme ask you this then. Other than me,
do you normally see wolves traveling alone around here?”

“What? Uh. No.”

“Right. Because they don’t. So, I’m thinking that
bastard’s friends aren’t going to be too far behind. Now, I don’t know what
your plan was, but you really think this little thing is going to be enough to
take down the rest of the pack?” He waved the gun again. “I mean, we’ve already
established your aim isn’t exactly infallible.”

I opened my mouth to tell him off, but clamped it
shut, thinking the better of it. Derek’s eyes widened and he cracked a smile.

“Right. So, I’m going to ask you again. What the
hell did you do to me? It’s poison. I can feel it under my skin. It’s
spreading. And I can’t shift.”

“You what?”

“Right. What happened out there? Pretty much if I
hadn’t had your nine, that wolf would have ripped you apart. I couldn’t shift.
It’s like my muscles were paralyzed. Can you fix it?”

My mouth went dry. The world became the space of two
heartbeats. Could I fix it? Even as my wheels turned, I saw strength draining
from Derek again. This time, it scared me. No matter what else he was, he had
just saved my life. But how did I know he wasn’t lying and that wolf wasn’t one
of his? I didn’t. And I couldn’t be stupid.

“Okay.” Derek broke the silence first. “So here’s
how this is going to work. You don’t trust me. I don’t particularly trust you
either. But, right now it looks like we’re stuck with each other. There’s
likely a pack of wolves out there who are about to find out one of their own
just got shot through the heart by
your
gun. I’m not from around here,
but I’m guessing they are. They’re going to put two and two together. So, I’m
your best bet for not dying before the sun comes up. And like it or not, it
looks like you’re
my
best bet for not dying before then either. You with
me so far?”

I crossed my arms in front of me. “You’re right. I
don’t trust you. Like . . . at all.”

“Brilliant. I don’t care. But you
are
going
to help me.”

“I can’t help you.” That was the truth. There was no
antidote for the toxin in Dad’s bullet. We’d never seen the need to invent one.
For all I knew, Derek
would
die. Probably slowly. Definitely painfully.
Even as I thought it, his eyes went in and out of focus. But, he recovered and
braced himself with one palm planted on the ground.

“Yeah. You are. I’m not letting you out of my sight
until you do.”

“How? Exactly how do you expect me to help you? The
only person who has even a sliver of a chance of knowing how to do that is my
father.”

Derek smiled. I thought it would be easy. The plan
hatched the instant I said the words. If I could just get Derek to take me back
to the salvage yard, I’d have Dad ready to plug him again, and Grammy with her
shotgun.

But, Derek Monroe was a lot of things. Even with the
toxin coursing through his veins weakening him, he stayed sharp and deadly.
“Not a chance in hell, Jessa. This is you and me for the long haul. First
things first, we’re heading down to my truck. I’ve got some supplies there.”

“Supplies for what?” My heart thundered in my chest.
He rose and took a step toward me. God, he was strong. Stronger than he was
supposed to be. Stronger than any wolf I’d ever seen. It wasn’t natural. Again,
I felt drawn to him, even as I feared him.