Wild Nights with a Lone Wolf (13 page)

Huh was right. Ash refused to believe that plan would work.

The van slowed and came to a stop. Jojo turned, his eyes glowing from the moonlight that came in through the front windshield. “’Cept we both know that bitch ain’t your mate. Yeah, cabrón?” He thumped Kyle in the arm and they both jumped out of the van.

Quickly, while they had a moment alone, Ash rose onto his knees and whispered to Sherri, “All right, listen. I’m sorry for all of this shit, but we’re gonna make it out. When we do, I want to get to know you. For real. The right way, without being locked in a room and having a forced bonding ceremony.”

“I wish you’d stop apologizing. I’m a big girl, and I can hold my own. You know, when I’m not being kidnapped by werewolves.” She sounded like she was fidgeting with her ropes. “You’d really want to go out with me?”

Ash’s heart paused for a few seconds. “Is that so crazy?”

“You did say you didn’t do repeats. Anyway, I took a look around that clubhouse. Lotta ladies like Zoe with her denim skirts and her platform heels. I figured they would be more your type.” Sherri’s soft laugh vibrated with nerves. “I assumed being with me was like walking on the wild side in reverse.”

He exhaled a silent laugh. “If I wanted a tail-bunny, that’s what I’d have,” he whispered. “There’s no shortage even outside the pack. I got a dozen of those girls waiting tables at my restaurant.” He cleared his throat, pausing at one of those flippy sensations in his chest. “I like that you’re different. Question is, am I good enough for a woman like you? Look where we are now. Thanks to me, thanks to Jojo. Jesus, I want to rip out his fucking throat,” he hissed.

Her sigh sounded so loud it drowned out the talk of the guys outside the van. Which really, he should have been listening to. “It’s clear to me that you’re good,” she murmured. “If we make it out of this in one piece, though, I’m going to need you to stop threatening to kill people on my behalf. It looks bad, given my profession.”

He gritted his teeth. “Done.”

His small rise of hope at what they’d agreed to died down when Kyle swung open the doors to the van. “Time to party, guys.”

T
here were no signs of police presence, which gave Sherri a sick sense of dread. They stood at the mouth of a crudely dug tunnel shored up with a few wooden posts, and the chances were good that if anybody went down that dark passageway, they were not coming back.

It was simply too murky to tell anything. The only light came from the nearly full moon and a few pairs of headlights. Two sets pulling up from inside the tunnel, and one set from the van she and Ash had come out of. Sherri didn’t want to get inside any vehicle so how they were going to get out of there looked iffy.

She tried to whisper reassurances to the frightened girl who’d been dragged along. “Stay behind me. It’s going to be okay.” Not that there were any real promises to be made¸ but surely it sounded better than “Brace yourself, we’re all going to die.”

With crazy-eyed Jojo leading the way, they approached a cluster of men, most of whom held what appeared to be automatic weapons. She’d only seen these kinds of guns in the occasional crate in an evidence locker. This stuff wasn’t her area of expertise, but she’d put it in the “Kills stuff dead, and fast” category.

One man stood in the center, holding no gun at all. By some trick of lighting his face stayed mostly covered by shadow. This one had to be the guy in charge.

“Mr. Hughes. Lovely evening. Let’s see what you’ve brought for me.”

“You first.”

One of the gun-toting henchmen tossed out a heavy-looking duffel bag. It landed with a thud in the dead zone between both parties.

Ash caught her eye and then nodded toward Jojo. Sherri nodded back. They’d gone over a bunch of different what-ifs. Ash didn’t trust Jojo to help broker a different deal, and suspected his father’s motives as well. If they made it as far as the trade, Ash planned to attack Jojo. Sherri’s job was to protect the other girl.

So when Jojo tugged on Sherri’s arm, she dug in her now-shredded heels. In that moment of hesitation, Ash became a blur of movement. His arms freed, he swooped to the ground and came up with that refrigerator wire he’d moved to his pants leg for the trip. In her next blink, the wire had skewered Jojo’s neck.

Jojo gurgled something that sounded like “motherfucker” before he crumpled to the ground.

Sherri threw herself on top of the frightened redheaded girl, who struggled and whimpered beneath her. “It’s all right. I’m trying to protect you. Stay down, okay?”

Sherri’s wrists rubbed raw as she tried to get free of her bonds while keeping her eyes on Ash. He had about twelve guns pointed at his head. In the face of his plans to negotiate, that equation looked like an awfully big losing scenario.

The shadowy man in charge signaled his guys to hold their fire and stepped forward. “It would appear that I have someone new to do business with, but I don’t know who you are. So before I let my men go ahead and kill you, I’m going to need an introduction.”

Ash took a step. “Name’s Ash. Your contact here was my half brother, but he put my bond mate into a van to sell her to you so our blood relationship no longer holds any weight. I’m hoping you and I can work out a deal. I’ve got contacts who can get you cars, guns, prescriptions, whatever else you might need.”

Focusing on the struggling redhead and a gasping Jojo, Sherri put on a pair of mental ear plugs and pretended she couldn’t hear a word from Ash.

“Takes sibling rivalry to a new level, eh?” The man laughed a nasal, oily laugh at his own joke that made Sherri work harder and faster on the ropes holding her hands, heedless of the blood slicking her wrists.

“You don’t hurt what’s mine.” The threat in Ash’s voice sounded icy and dangerous, given the number of guns on the field. Behind him, all the men who’d pulled up on their motorcycles ready to back up Jojo shifted and looked at each other, probably wondering whose side they should be on now.

If they were smart, they’d stay on Ash’s. Sherri’s senses told her this other guy spelled trouble for everyone.

“Here’s the snag with your proposal, young
were
.” The man stepped forward. “I don’t need guns or money. “I need the women.”

Sherri stopped for a second when his face came into the light, trying to figure out why his voice rang a bell.

Ash stepped forward. “We’ll reschedule. Bring you different girls. You can’t have these.”

“Rescheduling won’t be possible.”

“Shit. Shit, shit,
shit.
” Sherri bit her lips together and pulled one hand free from the loosened rope, silently screaming against the burning pain.

“I see.” Ash nodded with one hand on his chin as if this line of discussion all sounded perfectly fine. “Then I suppose I’ll have to go to my backup plan.”

“What do you propose?”

Ash disappeared. Dust kicked up in front of them. Three of the gun-toting henchmen collapsed to the ground, cradling bleeding calves.

With a blur of movement, Ash stood back in front of Sherri, bare-assed naked, blood dripping from his mouth. “Now,” Ash growled, “You ready to deal? Or do you wanna be next?”

Sherri had no concept of how Ash could move so fast. The single time he’d shifted in front of her, he’d done it slowly.

Jojo groaned faintly on the ground where he lay bleeding, right next to Sherri. “He killed his own mother you know,” Jojo gurgled. “You can’t trust him.” A shaking hand moved toward his gun holster.

Sherri pulled out the rusty pliers she’d hidden in her bra and brought them down on the hand. “Don’t you guys die?” She grabbed the gun from its holster.

She couldn’t ignore his warning. Words spoken by a dying criminal shouldn’t be trusted, but they plunged shards of fear and doubt into her center. Nevertheless, those words hadn’t changed what was at stake. She stood and aimed at the man across from Ash, who only laughed. Laughter in the face of a gun never did bode well.

“Okay,” she called. “Who wants to see if he can hobble the rest of you before I get a shot off?”

“Come on now, Agent Walker. Is that any way to treat your new boss?”

He knew her name. Shit. New boss.
New boss
? “Oh my God.” The voice. Her mind went back... The voicemail. Her call from Zoe’s phone. No wonder he sounded familiar. “Agent Fowler.”

Even in the light of the van’s headlamps, his eyes cast no glow. They looked vacant and empty. His smile flat. “We all have secrets, don’t we, Agent Walker? Bond mate to a wolf with known gang affiliations? I don’t recall seeing that in your file.” He snaked his tongue around his top teeth. It bodes well, though. If you’ve got what it takes to bond to a
were
, there’s a good chance you’re a latent. And I will enjoy turning you.”

“Hell fucking no.” Ash growled and shifted again to his wolf form. He dug at the ground, looking ready to charge.

Agent Fowler went for the buttons on his own shirt, and Sherri fired the gun. If they both shifted, things would get messy. A dark spot on Fowler’s torso told her she’d hit, but he kept coming. She fired again, but he only dropped his shirt and belt, morphing from man to beast in one swift motion. And what came forward was no wolf.

It was some kind of monster.

The thing had fur and claws. The resemblance ended there. Horns decorated its back, and its eyes looked like bottomless ovals. No warm glow like Ash’s eyes.

The other human in the group, Kyle, uttered a “holy shit.” His surprise made him drop his gun. Great.

What they could do against that thing, Sherri didn’t know. She prayed Ash was strong enough to fight it, but she didn’t know about that either. Some of the guys from Ash’s former pack were shooting. A couple didn’t seem to have a clue.

She waved her arm to get everyone’s attention. “Get behind the van!”

One of the remaining henchmen came to his senses and fired a burst of rounds, catching that Kyle guy in the arm. He went reeling, landing backwards on top of Jojo. Yuck.

“Get to cover, folks! Fall back. Come on.” Jeez. She’d only fired a weapon on the range before today, and even she knew that one. Wouldn’t a criminal know better? She bent down and tugged on Kyle’s good arm, trying to get him and the poor frightened redhead to safety.

A bright swarm of lights and sirens rushed in from behind.
Finally
. Relief flooded her as three SUVs and a handful of cars swooped in. Guys came streaming out, ready to clean up.

Her relief didn’t last long. When she turned back to the clearing, Agent Fowler had been cuffed and put on his knees. Blood dripped from his snarling mouth.

Ash lay in a tight ball on the ground in human form. The flesh on his neck and side was torn. Blood shone on his skin in the light of the nearly full moon.

He wasn’t moving.

Ash. No.

Sherri ran over. “Ash. Come on.” She was afraid to even check for a pulse. Blood ran
everywhere.
She pulled off her shirt and pressed it to the wound at his neck, hoping to stop some of the blood. “Come on, honey. You need to hang in there. I can’t lose you. I just found you.”

A younger version of Ash in a uniform dropped to one knee. This must be the brother. “Shit. We had trouble with surveillance or we would’ve been here sooner. We need emergency services,” he said into his radio. He glanced at Sherri. “He shifted rapidly?”

“Twice. I couldn’t even follow him, he was so fast.”

The man muttered a tired-sounding “fuck,” and spoke into the radio again. “Tell them to bring adrenaline shots. Be prepared for a crash. We’ve also got unidentified bites and significant blood loss.”

Sherri looked down at Ash and back up, waiting for an explanation. “The transition is hard on our bodies. Doing it so fast, especially for those of us who are more human...” He shook his head.

No.
“He made it sound like it was only about stress to his joints.”

“We’re rearranging everything when we shift, organs and all. Trying to force it at the snap of our fingers can cause shock to the system.”

Sherri shook her head. Squeezing Ash’s hand, she whispered, “You have to get through this. You promised me a date, okay?”

Ash’s brother smiled, moving back for the paramedics who had arrived to take Ash away. “Hang in there. He’s tough.”

Sherri pressed her lips together. “Jojo said something about Ash killing his mother. I know Jojo’s nuts, but I can’t help but wonder what he meant.”

The brother turned, frowning. “You should talk to Ash about our mom. When he’s able.”

Something squeezed tight in her chest. Whatever it was, she refused to believe it would be a deal-breaker.
Please don’t let it be a deal-breaker.
Wondering would make her crazy, she knew that much.

Her heart jammed in her throat as she looked as Ash, bleeding there on the ground. Right now, she needed to know he could pull through this. Without that, there was nothing more to say.

In the hubbub of emergency workers and officers interviewing witnesses, a shot boomed. Everyone turned to see a nude Zoe standing over Jojo, who now had one very large hole in his forehead.

Zoe dropped the gun. Tears streamed down her face. “You idiots, he wasn’t dead yet. You gotta be damned sure about these things.”

What the hell? Where did she even come from?

“Ash is in good hands. I’d better see about Zoe.”

As Ash’s brother ran off, Zoe shifted into something large and catlike, and disappeared into the dark. Holy crap, how many nonhuman things were out here in this desert?

Sherri stood as they took Ash to the ambulance, hoping she’d had her last new experience for a long while.

***

A
sh groaned at the nurse who brought him lunch. “Do I look like I eat broth and Jell-O?”

Jett flicked at his arm. “Suck it up. You’re lucky to be alive. Be grateful. And if you don’t want your Jell-O, give it to me.”

“Yeah, buddy. Quit your bitching. Nobody else on this ward wants to serve you before the full moon. I’m what you’ve got, or you get no food until you’re released.” Ash’s nurse was a burly lone
were
who’d amazingly been kicked out of his pack for being the runt of the litter. The male stood nose-to-nose with Ash at six-two. Or he would, if Ash was allowed out of bed.