Timber Valley Pack: Lynx On The Loose( A Paranormal Romance With Shifters) (7 page)

              “No, it’s too risky. She’s proven herself very adept at escaping.  Listen, I’m flying out there today with my men. While you’re waiting for me, bring her to the nearest pack – let’s see, that would be the Hidden Hills pack in-”

              “What’s that? You’re breaking up!” Dash yelled.  He made a static noise with his mouth and then quickly clicked the phone off.

              “You did
not j
ust do that,” Isadora said admiringly. “Way to go, Dash!”

              “The fact that you approve is not reassuring to me at all,” he scowled.

              A short while later, they pulled up in front of a motel that Dash spotted from the road.  Dash parked the car at the far end of the parking lot, leaving Isadora cuffed, and booked a room towards the back of the motel.  Then he rushed Isadora in to the room, keeping her cuffed to him.

              “You could uncuff me now,” Isadora said as he locked the door.

              “I could if I trusted you.”

              “Are you this kinky with all of your girlfriends?” she smirked at him. He felt a flush creeping up his throat. Her scent was sweet and musky and strong, and he found himself breathing in, drawing it into his nostrils so he could savor it. Suddenly he was having a hard time sucking enough oxygen into his lungs. Where had all the air gone?

              “I have no girlfriends, and quit flattering yourself,” he said gruffly. “This is strictly business.”

              Isadora wasn’t to be dissuaded.  She stared straight up at him, her jade green eyes glowing.  “I’m a shifter. I can smell your excitement. And see it.” She glanced at Dash’s pants, staring at what he was sure was his clearly outlined erection, bulging against the cloth of his pants.

              Dash felt hot and itchy, his fur rippling under his skin. “Isadora, if you don’t quit needling me, I’ll…”

              “You’ll what? Arrest me? Put me in handcuffs?” Suddenly she moved closer to him, leaned up, and brushed her lips against his.

              A shocking jolt of arousal zapped through him at the feeling of her soft, warm lips.  He felt it rush through him, running through his veins like hot fire.

              “Did you feel that?” she gasped.

              “Feel what?”

“Like lightning shot through you and every nerve in your body caught on fire? Like if we don’t have sex right now, you’ll burn up and die?” She leaned in to him, feeling his thick, hard erection pressing into her stomach.

Please, let it not just be her. She’d die of embarrassment.

              “Oh, yeah, that. I felt that.” He hesitated. “Did you feel it too?”

              “Of course I felt it, you dumb wolf.  Stop talking and kiss me.”

              He cradled her face in his hands, bent down, and claimed her mouth in a hungry, devouring kiss.

              His lips were soft and tender, and the musk of his desire hung heavy in the air. He moved her up against the wall and pressed himself against her, shoving his knee in between her thighs.

              The kiss went on and on, both tender and demanding, as he guided her tongue with his in an intimate tango and probed the recesses of her mouth. She could feel her heart thumping in her chest, and a rush of wetness between her legs.

When he finally pulled away, she let out a little whimper of protest.

              “I’m going to uncuff you now.” His voice was husky with desire.

              “Hell no,” she panted. “Cuff me to the bed.”

              She didn’t have to ask twice. He swept her off the floor, tossing her over his shoulder, and crossed the room in three big strides. He cuffed her to the headboard so fast she barely had time to blink.

              Then, kneeling above her, he hesitated.

              “Are you sure?” he asked her. “I technically have you in my custody. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

              Damn him, did he always have to be such a decent guy?

              Frustration and raging need burned through her. “Nobody takes advantage of me unless I want them to. And I really, really want you to. I also really want to see you naked.”

              He still hesitated. “Isadora, I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life right now. I just – oh, hell, maybe we both need to get this out of our system.”

              “Yeah, we do. That’s it. We’ll get it out of our system.” Would they really? Isadora was suddenly afraid that once wouldn’t be enough. The fire that was burning through her was something that she’d never felt before. She’d had good sex before, sure, but the way Dash had kissed her, so hungry, so tender…

              Curse him. Maybe he’d been right. Maybe in the past she’d deliberately provoked him because she was afraid of him and trying to keep him at arm’s length. After a lifetime of her parents telling her that no decent man would ever love her, it was pretty hard to let a decent man get close to her.

              He shimmied out of his pants, and she admired his naked body, devouring him with her eyes. His broad muscular chest, with a dusting of brown curls. His flat stomach, with the squares of his six pack carved out in deep relief. 

              “Look at this. Dash Battle, breaking the rules.” She stretched out on the bed, luxuriating in the scent of his musk, and the sight of his thick, hard phallus pointing straight up at the ceiling.

              “I’ll show you some rules,” he growled at her, straddling her.

              “Oh yeah? Such as?” she taunted him.

              “Well, since I was raised with manners, unlike some people, I have a rule that the lady always has to come first.”

              He pushed her sweater up and kissed her stomach. She gasped at the feeling of his warm mouth on her, his tongue dipping to swirl in her navel as he unzipped her pants. She lifted her hips and he pushed her pants down to her knees, his mouth never leaving her.

              He moved down lower, sliding down on the bed until he was between her legs. With firm hands, he spread her apart, and ran his tongue along her inner seam.  She bit back a whimper as he lapped at her, and at the same time pressed the pad of his thumb against the swollen pearl of her clitoris, and began rubbing.

              “You taste like honey,” he groaned appreciatively. He sucked at her hungrily, and she felt hot flashes of pleasure zapping her body. 

              “Yes,” she hissed. “Like that. Oh, yes.”

              He had a stubble of five o clock shadow growing in, and she felt it scraping against her tender flesh, heightening the sensation.

              He thrust his tongue right up inside her, and she jerked, letting out a guttural cry of pleasure.

              “I’m going to…oh, God…”

              He sucked and licked at her, rubbing with his thumb until all the heat in her body rushed to one place, pooling in liquid ecstasy in her groin, and then exploding in a giant tidal wave that flowed to the tips of her fingers and toes. She felt hollowed out, filled with nothing but waves of pleasure that crashed through her as she lay shuddering and moaning helplessly.

              “Inside me,” she panted. “Now.” Her voice was pleading, urgent.

              He pawed a condom out of his pants pocket, rolling it on in seconds flat. Then he moved faster than thought, his hard cock nudging between her legs. As he thrust inside her, she could still feel her muscles clenching and convulsing from her orgasm. They squeezed and clamped down on his cock.

              He pumped inside her, his breath growing harsher and harsher with each thrust.

              “I’m going to come right now,” he groaned. “Oh, god. You’re so tight. So wet. I don’t think I can stop myself.”

              “Come,” Isadora said. “I want you to. I want to know how much I turn you on.”

              “You still have questions?” He moved his hips faster, slamming into her, until he let out a guttural shout of pleasure and she felt his body shuddering with release.

              Finally he carefully slid out of her, sliding the condom off, and lay beside her, panting.

              “Thank God we got that out of our system.”

              “Yeah, we’ll never need to do that again.” Isadora reconsidered this. “Well, maybe once more. Since we’re already here. And we’re naked.”

              “Yep. Once more.” He nodded.

              She felt a stab of disappointment at the thought that this could be it.  She’d never experienced sex like that before; she’d wanted to melt into him and become one with him. What was happening to her? How had she let someone in past the walls she kept around her heart?

              He rolled over and kissed her neck, then ran his tongue along the tender curve before nipping at it.

              “Oh,” she choked out.

              “Or maybe twice more.” He bit her again, and she whimpered aloud. “Mmmm.”

              “Or until you can’t walk.” He kissed the spot that he’d just bitten. “Damn it, Isadora, what have you done to me? I actually like you.  Well, I might not like you, but I
like
you. If that makes any sense.”

              A strange and powerful sense of relief washed over her. “Yes, it does. I think I like you too. Eww. How did that happen?”

              “The power of my mighty phallus. Also I’m good with my mouth.”  She started to argue, but he gently bit her neck and wrenched a cry of pleasure.

“You were saying?” he growled.  He sounded way too smug and pleased with himself, but he also pushed her shirt up and took her nipple in his mouth, and she forgot to give him grief for it.

              She definitely intended to take him down a peg or too, though…right after he’d made her come a few dozen more times.

Dash stared at Isadora as she pulled her shirt back on. They hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before.  She had no idea what his next move was going to be. She got the idea that he didn’t either.

              “What are you looking at?” she asked.

              “You. I like looking at you.”

              A slow smile spread across her face.  She liked the way he was looking at her, with a mixture of affection and possession. “Yeah? What are you thinking about?”

              “I’m playing mental movies of last night in my head. Dirty, dirty movies.”

              “Dash, I had no idea that you were this much of a perv. I highly approve.”

              “Of course you do.” His face went serious again. “Isadora, sooner or later I have to do something – like call the Wardens or bring you back to Timber Valley. This can’t go on forever.”

              “I know that, and I also know what a big deal it is that you didn’t hand me over to them right away. I really appreciate it.”

              “What are you waiting for? What were you doing breaking into the medical clinic? For the love of God, give me something.”             

              She paused. “You know how Timber Valley shifters have an especially high rate of mutation?”

              He nodded. “Yeah, now that you bring it up. I mean, there are mutations among shifters everywhere, but Timber Valley does have an unusually high rate.”

              “Has it ever occurred to you to wonder why?”

              “Well, not until you mentioned it. Why would that be?”

              She frowned unhappily. “That’s something that certain people are very interested in finding out.”

              “Colonel Bradwell?”

Her face wrinkled in distaste. “Hell, no. I’ve already said all that I can, and more than I should. Not everyone in the shifter nation can be trusted; we were reminded of that yesterday.  That’s why I can’t say anything more at this point.”

“You know that you can trust me, don’t you?” Dash asked, sounding exasperated.

“I know that I can trust you not to harm me. I know that I can trust you to follow the law and also to fight to the death to protect the welfare of shifters of any species. Unfortunately, I don’t know if I can trust you not to pass along information to your superiors, who may either be working with some very shady characters, or who may accidentally pass along anything that you tell them to the wrong people.”

“What kind of information?”

“That’s the thing. If I told you, you’d feel like you had to call up Warden Redthorne. I get that. I don’t blame you for it.  But there’s a time-critical element here, and I just can’t risk it.”

Frustration was bunching up inside her. She really wished she could tell him and be done with it, and then see where things went between them. With this hanging over her head, Dash’s loyalty was torn and she couldn’t even blame him for it. He just didn’t have all the facts.

              Arms folded across her chest, she began pacing their small motel room. Something had been nagging at her all night, but in her haze of lust, she hadn’t really tried to think about it too much. A vague, nagging worry…then suddenly it hit her. 

“Thomas and Sally.”

              “What about them?” Dash asked.

              “Those humans who came looking for us. They were awfully close to the Hobo camp.”

              “But they were only looking for you, weren’t they? Or for us.”

              “We don’t know that for sure, though, do we? We’ve got to check on them. We really should warn the whole camp that Bradwell’s men might be in the area.”

              Now she kind of wished that she hadn’t ditched all of her stuff. Thomas had a disposable cell phone with him, she could have tried to call him, although reception out in the woods was really terrible.  She still had her wallet and cash, but that was it.

              At some point in the near future, she was probably going to have to ditch Dash again, a thought which made her heart clench oddly in her chest. 

              She had to do it. Her mission was more important than her feelings.  She needed to call her boss, check in with him and find out where they stood.  To do that, she had to ditch Dash, buy another disposable cell phone, and be ready to go wherever she was needed at a moment’s notice.

              First, however, she had to make sure that Thomas and Sally were all right.

              Dash appeared to consider for a minute, then nodded. “You’re right. We can’t leave those kids in danger.”

              They headed back onto the main highway and drove towards the Hobo camp. Dash parked on the side of the road by the woods, and grabbed a small bag which Isadora suspected contained a change of clothes in case he had to shift. When they got out, Dash slapped the handcuffs on Isadora’s wrist again, cuffing her to him. He’d been carrying his jacket in one hand; he draped it over his arm, hiding the cuffs.

              “Until you’re willing to talk, I have to assume that you’re going to run off at the first opportunity,” Dash said. “Once we get to the camp and see that Sally and Thomas are okay, there’s nothing stopping you from running up the nearest tree and disappearing. I’m already going to be in enough trouble for not checking in with the Wardens; if I let you escape, they’ll have my head.”

              “And you like having me cuffed to you.”

              He winked at her. “That too.”

              “I’m starting to sense some control issues here,” she grumbled as they walked through the woods.

              “I’m starting to sense some trust issues,” Dash shot back.

              “You’re just starting to sense them? And there I thought you were such a bright boy.”

              They trudged through the underbrush. Isadora tried not to worry too much.  Thomas and Sally where there with Thomas’s uncle, surely he wouldn’t let anything happen to them. Still, it would be best if he took them and headed out of town immediately. She’d tell him that when they got to the camp.

As they approached the camp, Dash slowed down.

              “What is it?” Isadora glanced around nervously.

              “I smell humans. They’re gone now, but they were here pretty recently; they could be close by. Screw it, I’m going to uncuff – hey!” 

              Isadora had stepped away from him. Her wrist was free of the cuff.

              “What the hell?” Dash asked, staring at her in astonishment. “You mean you could you have done that at any time?”

              Instead of answering, she shifted and ran towards the camp. He undid the cuff on his wrist, shifted, and ran after her.

              They burst through the underbrush, to find an empty, abandoned campsite.  The makeshift tents had been ripped from their cords.  There were heavy boot prints in the dirt. Several suitcases had been dumped, their contents spilled onto the ground.

              A duffel bag that had belonged to Thomas and Sally had been ripped open with a knife, and their clothing was scattered in the bushes.

              Isadora and Dash quickly shifted back to human form. They stood there naked, their breath steaming in the chill fall air, hugging themselves for warmth.

              “I don’t smell any blood. Nobody was injured here,” Dash said. “I recognize the scent, though; it’s the humans who tried to run us off the road.”

              “Thomas! Sally!” Isadora cried out, looking around wildly.  Her heart pounded in her chest. This was all her fault; she should never have left them. What if the humans had kidnapped them? What would they do to the children? “Answer me!”

              Dash sniffed at the air. “They’re close by,” he said. “I’ll shift and track – oh, there they are.”

There was a rustling in the trees overhead, and Dash pointed up. “There’s Sally.”

              A minute later, Sally scrambled down from the tree, and Thomas shot out from the bushes. They both shifted back to human form, and ran over to Isadora, who threw her arms around them. They were shivering in the cold.

              Dash opened his bag. “I’ve got a sweatpants and sweatshirt you can wear,” he told Isadora. He quickly started pulling his clothes on.

              Thomas and Sally started pulling their scattered clothing off the bushes and got dressed too, as did Isadora. The sweatshirt and sweatpants were huge on her, but she pulled the pants drawstring as tight as she could.

              “You both gave me a freaking heart attack!” Isadora growled. “I thought you were dead!”

              “She came back for us!” Sally said excitedly, pulling her clothes on. “See, I told you she’d come back for us.”

              Thomas shrugged unhappily. “She’ll probably just leave again. Everybody does,” he said, as he stuffed their things back into their duffel bag.

              “She’s standing right here,” Isadora said, gesturing at herself impatiently. “I left because I thought you had someone decent to take care of you. What the heck happened with your uncle?”

              “Me and Sally went out to catch some rabbits for dinner last night, and when we came back, him and Delia were gone. Burke said that Delia had heard about some construction job in Ohio, and they decided to go check it out.  Then this morning, before sunrise, we smelled humans coming, so we all took off. I don’t know where everybody else went.”

              “What were you doing still hanging around the camp?” Dash asked.

              Thomas sighed. “Sally wanted to come back and see if Isadora would come for us.”

              “Told you she would.” Sally stuck her tongue out at him. He swiped at her, his hand quickly turning into a paw, but she ducked easily.

              “Slow,” she taunted.

              Isadora and Dash exchanged glances of dismay. “I can’t leave them alone again, Dash,” she said. “The shifter world is a dangerous one even without factoring in Colonel Bradwell. They need protection.”

              Dash nodded.  “Yes, they do,” he said. “There’s only one way that I know for sure to keep them safe. We’re going to Lonesome Pine.”

              “Seriously?” Isadora stared at him. She’d never thought that Dash would surprise her, but he’d been surprising her plenty over the last couple of days.  Ditching the Wardens, hiding out with her, giving her so many orgasms she’d lost count, and now, risking everything to keep these kids safe…clearly she didn’t know Dash as well as she’d thought.

              The fact that Dash wasn’t normally a rebel or rule breaker made it that much more meaningful that he was willing to break the rules for her.

              “Yes.  We’ve got kids in the picture now, and we’re up against mercenaries, and you’re right, we don’t know who in the shifter nation is a traitor and who isn’t.”

              “If you do this, you run the risk of being exiled, just like Steele was,” Isadora pointed out. “I could just take the kids to Lonesome Pine by myself. I can claim I escaped from you.”

Dash shook his head. “It’s too dangerous for you to travel alone. I’m not leaving you guys. I mean, I’ve already ditched the Wardens and I called Steele since I’ve been here. If I’m going rogue, I might as well go all in.”

“I smell something,” Thomas said suddenly, looking off to the east. Isadora quickly moved in front of him.

“I do too. Wolf shifter,” Dash said.   

              They waited, and a couple of minutes later a shaggy haired man with a scarred face, wearing stained, faded jeans and a plaid shirt, came trotting through the trees. “I know him,” Isadora said. “His name is Pyotr.”

              Pyotr rushed over to her, long hair flopping over his face. His breath came in harsh gasps, and his eyes were wide with panic. Dash moved in front of her protectively, watching Pyotr with a wary expression.

“The humans were here! They came to my cave while I was hunting. They were waiting for me!” he wailed. “What should I do? You said your people could protect me!”

              “We can protect you. You need to come with us,” Isadora told him. “We’re going to a town near here where there are plenty of shifters.  The police chief there is a shifter; he can keep you safe.”

              “That accent…is he from Korslovia?” Dash asked.

              “Yes, he is. What do you know about Korslovia?” Isadora asked.

              “I’ll tell you if you tell me,” Dash said.

              Isadora considered this.  It couldn’t hurt to fill him in on the basics. “A scientist in Korslovia discovered the existence of shifters about sixteen years ago, and built a lab at a remote prison site, to experiment on them. The lab was destroyed two years ago when the dictatorship was overthrown.  The existence of shifters was not exposed to humans, and only one of their scientists survived and escaped.”

              “Had you heard that they actually succeeded in turning humans into shifters?” Dash asked her.

              “Yes, we had. As far as we know they only succeeded with one test subject, who was killed,” Isadora said.