Wolf Tales 11 (4 page)

Luc.
She really needed to reach Luc, not lie here on the floor of a public restroom with her mind wandering and her body bleeding, but she couldn’t seem to organize her thoughts. What the hell happened? She ran her fingers along her lower abdomen, gently probing for the source of the pain.

Holy shit!
There. At the sharp curve of her hipbone. A tear in her jeans and a fiery wound that must have come from either a knife or a bullet.

Bullet?
That’s what it was. She knew this, but when? How?

Tia closed her eyes, drifting in and out of consciousness, catching herself in memories. Walking along the open pavilions of the mall, too early, arriving before most of the stores opened for business. A few other people wandering about—not too many, considering how close they were to Christmas.

Still, the stores were quiet, the weather was cold and clear—a good day for two very pregnant ladies to shop, for one harried mother of twins to enjoy getting away.

Tia pictured the metal gates guarding the doorways into stores that hadn’t opened yet, turning the chic little shops into prison cells. That’s what they’d looked like.

Prison cells.

She pushed herself, searching for those missing moments. Lisa and Tala behind her, laughing. People beginning to fill the area, the sound of laughter, of voices.

Voices.
Men’s voices. Low, threatening. Lisa’s terrified mental shout, a silent warning that spun Tia around. She remembered now. They wore dark suits, neatly trimmed hair. Two had their arms around Lisa and Tala. Tia recalled the flash of hypodermic needles, the glazed looks on the girls’ faces. A thick arm latched on, catching Tia around her waist. She’d struggled, even after the sting of a needle in her neck, she’d fought him.

His hand covering her mouth. Biting down, hard. The deadly
thump
of a silenced handgun, searing pain.

Then nothing.
Okay.
She’d been drugged and shot. Left unconscious, but for how long? Where? Why?

Lisa? Tala? Where are you?

Nothing.
No sense of either of them. Head pounding, her side hurting like hell, she struggled to her feet, slapped her palms against the walls to keep from falling over. Gathered what strength she could, ignored the threat of that blinding pain through her skull, and sent out a mental shout.

If she was still in the mall in Corte Madera, and Luc was miles away in San Francisco, he might not hear her.

She called him anyway. Her purse was missing. Her cell phone. She felt something warm and sticky running along her thigh. Her wound was bleeding again. Black spots danced in front of her eyes and she knew, without any doubt, she was losing consciousness once more.

Luc! Luc, help me! Please help me.

There was nothing. No response. No loving voice in her mind. Her legs quivered and refused to hold her weight.
Luc? I love you, Luc. Can’t you hear me? Cami? Shay? Mommy loves you. Mommy will always love you.

She was sliding … slipping down smooth metal, caged in by the small bathroom stall, falling into a pool of blood on the tile floor.
So much blood …

Slipping away from the light, away from consciousness.

Away from Luc. Darkness descended. Called to her, and pulled Tia into its welcoming arms, even as Luc’s shout echoed distantly in her pounding skull.

Tia? Where are you? Tia!

“Luc? Are you okay?” Mik grabbed his arm as Luc collapsed into the big chair behind his desk.

“Tia. I heard her voice. Faint … far away. She’s hurting. I felt pain. Sensed an injury, smelled blood. Hers? Someone else? I don’t know for sure, but there’s blood and some kind of weird perfume.” He shook his head. “I can’t identify it, but it’s really familiar. Damn. Tia.”

“Share it.” AJ filled his vision, looming over him. “Share the smell, the perfume. Maybe one of us will recognize it.”

Luc opened his mind, remembering, pulling up the cloying scent until the smell seemed to fill his office. Perfume and blood. It made him want to retch.

Tia’s blood.

“I know what that is.” Tinker stared toward the window, frowning. “It’s that gross perfume they use in public restrooms. Sort of a combination disinfectant, hide the stink smell.”

“You’re right.” Luc concentrated again. Nothing. “I think she was somewhere north of us, but …”

“That makes sense.” Mik glanced at AJ. “Didn’t Tala say something about going to that big mall north of Sausalito? The one with Nordstrom and Macy’s. It’s got a lot of outdoor pavilions, big stores, lots of little boutiques …”

AJ nodded. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they still be there if someone’s kidnapped them?”

Tinker reached for the door. “Maybe they’re not all there. Maybe just Tia.” He stared at Luc. “Luc? You come with me. AJ and Mik? Stay here. Keep your cell phones
handy. Listen for our girls. I’ve got a link with Tia that’s almost as tight as Luc’s. If we can find her, maybe she can lead us to Lisa and Tala.”

Luc nodded. He reached inside the drawer on his desk, pulled out a dark, zippered bag, and removed a small handgun. As he checked to make certain it was loaded, he glanced at AJ and Mik. “Get in touch with Jake and Bay. Baylor mentioned coming out here—he’s frantic with both his sisters missing—but I think they can do us more good if they can get to Washington. Have them go to Anton’s apartment in DC. We’ll let them know what’s going on as soon as we know anything.”

Mik glanced at the phone on the desk. “What if you get a call from the kidnappers?”

“The guy’s using my cell. He told me to keep it close. It might be the only number he’s got.” He paused a moment after slipping the pistol into his pants pocket and put out another mental call for Tia. Silence mocked him.

With one last look at Mik and AJ, Luc followed Tinker through the house to the garage.

Keisha tucked Lily into her crib and waited in the doorway until the eighteen-month-old settled back into sleep. It wouldn’t be long now before they moved her into a regular bed, but at least as long as she was still in the crib, Keisha could think of her perfect daughter as a baby.

A baby with a powerful mental voice and the ability to understand well beyond her years.

“Is she asleep?”

Keisha had sensed Anton’s approach. She always knew where he was, often what he was thinking. Now, though, his thoughts were a tangled mess. So unlike him—he was generally so cool and unaffected by the emotions swirling about him. There was something especially touching about this unusual vulnerability she sensed in a man always so self-assured. She turned slowly, caught the question
in his amber eyes, and nodded. Then she took him by the hand and tugged.

Frowning, not speaking, he followed her.

“How long do we have?” she asked.

A sexy smile spread slowly across his face. “The plane won’t be ready for a couple of hours. Logan’s still gathering his medical supplies.” He stopped, draped his arms over her shoulders, and pressed his forehead to hers. “We have time for whatever’s on your mind.”

Keisha sighed. Talk about your typical male one-track mind. If she weren’t thinking exactly the same thing, if the situation weren’t so dire, she might have laughed. Instead, she said, “I need to know what’s going on, but I need you even more. Lily’s asleep now. I still have to pack my own bags. I’m coming with you, you know. I’ve already asked Stefan and Xandi to watch Lily for us.”

“You’re willing to leave her?” He raised his head, his expression nothing short of incredulous.

“I am. Tia will need me. Luc needs you. We have to go. But first, we need each other.”

She crossed the hall to their larger room, walked past the big bed, and stepped up to the sliding glass door. Sunlight glistened on fresh snow and the dark forest beckoned. The wind had died down to a gentle breeze. She turned and cocked an eyebrow in Anton’s direction. He frowned. Obviously he’d thought she merely wanted sex—as if making love with Anton could ever be described as
merely sex.

Keisha rested a hand on her hip and smiled softly at him. “Unless you intend to shift while fully dressed, I’d suggest you lose the clothes.”

His eyes lit up. He ripped his sweater off over his head, slipped out of his jeans, and kicked everything into a pile on the floor. So unlike her tidy, organized lover, but it was obvious he had too many thoughts crowding his mind, too many worries bedeviling him.

Too many to share now, as he was—as a man.

“Xandi and Stefan know we’re going to run. They’ll keep an eye on Lily for us. Come.” Keisha slipped her robe off her shoulders, opened the door, and stepped out onto the icy deck, but before she’d even begun to shiver, she shifted. Anton was right behind her, following her as she leapt over the railing to the frozen snow.

They’d had heavy snow, then freezing rain. Then the temperature had dropped and left a frozen crust atop the thick snowpack. Keisha’s paws slipped on the hard surface and she almost skidded ingloriously across the ice, but she managed to catch herself and stay in motion. Anton was right behind her.

She felt his hot breath across her flank as she gathered her feet beneath her, dug her claws into the ice, and raced away from the house, away from all that linked them both to their often fragile humanity—raced with all her might toward the freedom of the forest.

Much of the woods had burned during a huge fire just a few weeks ago, but the thick blanket of fresh snow hid the devastation the fire had wrought. Once they slipped between the trees and found the trail, the going was easier, the surroundings almost surrealistic in their monochromatic beauty. Stark, black branches encased in silvery ice, pale shoots from willows and dark fir needles and pine trapped within their glittering, icy shells. The frozen snow crunched and crackled beneath their paws and puffs of steam burst from warm muzzles.

Keisha listened for the sound of life and heard only the harsh breaths of the wolf behind her. She opened her mind to his thoughts and found nothing beyond the feral processes of a wolf running through a frozen forest. He searched for game, listened for threats, followed the scent of the female ahead.

It was as she had hoped. She’d recognized the overload, knew that Anton had reached a point where processing all
that he knew, all that he needed to do to save lives, had overwhelmed his brilliant mind. She’d never seen him this way, but then there’d never been so much at stake before.

Not only the lives of the missing women, but the three unborn children they carried. And, as if their desperate situation wasn’t enough, a threat against the leader of their country, the man they’d sworn to uphold and protect. Who did they save? Which lives were theirs to protect?

Mere hours from now, it was all due to come together.

There wasn’t enough time to gather other Chanku from all their various homes across the country, and yet Keisha knew that Anton drew his strength from the power of the pack. Knew his abilities were limited only by his connections to the energy each of them could share.

But how, when they were scattered so far and wide? Baylor, Jake, Manda, and Shannon, even now on their way to Washington, DC, where they would keep an eye on a few very questionable members of Baylor’s old secret service agency as well as their handlers.

Poor Baylor.
She’d hardly given him a thought, but Lisa and Tala were his sisters! He was such a good and loving man. How was he handling this, knowing both of his sisters were the targets, his unborn nieces and nephew’s lives at risk?

Ulrich, Millie, Daciana, Matt, and Deacon were all in Colorado, awaiting direction from Anton, information from Luc, reassurance that all would be well, that lives would be saved. Were they close enough to share their energy with the one they’d all accepted as the pack’s leader?

She and Anton would be boarding a plane in a couple of hours and flying to San Francisco. At least if he got closer to the action, he had a better chance of controlling the outcome, but Adam and Liana, Stefan, Xandi, Oliver, and Mei would remain behind, watching the babies, sharing energy, waiting to offer whatever help they could from a distance.

Logan and Jazzy … Keisha sighed as she thought of the young doctor and his mate. They would be flying to San Francisco, too. Adam had offered, but if Lisa and Tala ended up in a hospital, a certified physician would have a better chance of getting access to them for care.

If it came to that. Keisha’s feet pounded the frozen snow and the wolf behind her kept a steady pace just off her left flank. If only she could lose her thoughts to the feral world of the wolf! It was not to be today, not with her worries about Anton paramount in her mind, drowning out the beast. Though she would love to run forever, run fast enough and far enough to leave all their troubles behind, there was no time. Not if she wanted to make this run through the forest truly count.

She dipped and spun to the right, slipping between frozen branches, finding a trail barely wide enough for one wolf to pass, yet she hardly broke stride, turning and twisting along the narrow path, with Anton following close behind.

She didn’t want to exhaust him, but she knew he needed this run, the chance to leave the world of men behind and bond more tightly with the feral instincts resting so close beneath his terribly civilized human skin.

He would need contact with his wolven self more than he’d ever needed it before. Somehow, even when he shifted, she hoped he’d hold on to the powerful instinct that allowed the wolf to kill without remorse, to use whatever tools he had to protect the pack.

There was no doubt in Keisha’s mind that they might be called on to take lives tonight. But it would not be the life of the president that was at risk, nor would it be the innocent females and their unborn young. No, the ones who had set this terrible plan in motion might need to die.

Keisha had no problem with killing to protect those she loved, those she honored and respected.

Her mate, though, often allowed his human conscience
too much free rein. He’d weigh the options, consider all the possibilities, often taking the greatest risk himself in order to keep others safe. Not this time. The risk was too great.