Her Wolf

Chapter Twelve

Ashlee needed to get into that room and get the witch out of IPAG before her scent returned and Kendrick could smell her on the premises. The first problem was going to be getting the three men out of the room so she could get to the witch. At least the other men, whatever was happening with them, were strapped down. She had one needle filled with drugs; it had to be saved for the witch.

A plan came to her and she knew right away it was very dangerous. If she got caught, she was dead on the spot. She closed her eyes and thought of Tristan, the way his brown eyes shone when he looked at her, and tears filled her eyes. She searched deeper inside of herself and found his soul. He wouldn’t want her to do what she was about to try to do. He would have objected to the entire scheme from start to finish. But he needed her, and her love for him won over his arguments against doing it.

She knew she was about to run out of time anyway, and her wolf would be better at the fight that was about to come than she would be. She called the shift to her and was surprised at how easily it came this time. Engulfed in a warm, white light, her body painlessly reshaped itself until she was once again a fur-covered wolf.

My turn.

She had to agree, she’d certainly given her wolf leave to control the situation. She looked down at her ripped clothes and picked up the needle she needed to subdue the witch with her mouth. She was particularly careful not to inject herself. The worst thing she could do at that very second would be to knock herself out with the damn thing.

I’ll be careful.

Good. Her wolf looked around and saw her entrance. The door to the room with the witch was open a minuscule amount, just enough for her nose to nudge open the door.

She pushed and walked in. No one seemed to notice her entrance; the three men in lab coats and the witch were consumed with looking at one man who had started to scream.

“Do you think he’s going to shift, Mina?” The man to the left of the witch looked at the witch and then back at the strapped-down man.

Mina—the witch now had a name—nodded. “Maybe. We should unstrap him; the shift is too painful when they’re strapped. It killed the last one.”

Ashlee’s wolf sniffed the air quietly.

Sick wolves in here.

Wolves, where?

Men on table. Very bad things, not normal wolves.

The men on the table were wolves, but not ‘normal.’ What did that mean?

They make a wolf where no wolf should be.

Oh no. The IVs—whatever was in the IV was turning those men into shifters, sick wolves.

The man to the witch’s right scribbled on a clipboard. “How long ‘til he launches the assault?”

The witch shrugged. “He wants another twenty soldiers, but I think he could take down Westervelt tomorrow with two strong men. Thirty years have passed and they are still demoralized. It’ll be nothing to destroy them.”

I end her.

No. We need her.

I can’t kill her?

No.

Should I get rid of the men with her?

Don’t kill them.

The wolf set down the needle on the floor and crouched as she got ready to jump.

Her first target was the man on Mina’s left, and she leapt on him. He barely had time to yelp before the wolf had thrown him down on the ground and, using her teeth, picked up his head and slammed it onto the ground several times. He lost consciousness within seconds.

She turned and surveyed the room. The man to the right of the witch with the clipboard shrieked and jumped up on an unoccupied metal table.

Silly man.

Using her hind legs, Ashlee’s wolf knocked over the table he stood on, he fell backwards to the floor and knocked himself out.

She turned on Mina, whose eyes were huge. She’d backed into the wall. Ashlee called the shift onto herself and embraced the warm white light. The witch opened her mouth but no sound came out. Ashlee knew she was naked and she didn’t mind. If it increased Mina’s shock, and thereby kept her more defenseless, that was fine by her. She smiled and she hoped she looked as crazed as she felt.

Ashlee cocked her head to the side. “Are you afraid?”

“I, ah—” The witch shook in her shoes and grabbed her throat like Ashlee might rip it out in her human form, too.

“It’s very easy, isn’t it? To curse my people, to make them slaughter their mates?

Not so easy to see me in person.” Ashlee walked to the side and picked up the needle she’d dropped. She got really close to Mina, placed her face against the other woman’s throat until she could feel her breath in her face. “You took my mate from me; he is rabid right now. I want him back. I’m told you have to die for that, and I’m happy to let my Alpha and his brothers kill you, unless you give me a better option.” Up so close to the witch, Ashlee could see the wrinkles on her face and the grey that had started to expose itself under her hair dye.

The witch still hadn’t uttered a word. “Nothing to say? What did he promise you to get you to do it thirty years ago? Eternal youth? Power? What?” Ashlee jabbed the needle into the woman’s neck. Mina sucked in her breath in a little whimper before her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she slumped against the wall.

Ashlee let the woman fall to the floor as she walked quickly to the hall and picked up her cell phone out of her discarded clothing. She dialed Gabriel. It rang once and he answered.

There was no time for niceties. “She’s out cold. Are you here?”

“We’re here.”

Ashlee sighed. “One big problem we didn’t think of.”

“What’s that, sister?” Gabriel’s voice had gone hard; he sounded focused. She suspected he would break down the gate of IPAG to rescue Tristan’s mate if he needed to.

“How am I going to get her outside? I’m not strong enough to carry her.”

“Wolf it.”

“Wolf it? You want me to drag her out with my teeth, like she’s a freakin’ tree branch?”

“Yep.”

Ashlee nodded, even though Gabriel couldn’t see her. “All right.”

She called the shift, and this time it was harder because she was tired. The white light hit her and she felt herself change. It was still painless, but her wolf’s first inclination when she appeared was to go to sleep. Ashlee would have liked nothing more than to find a few more wolves and curl up like puppies for a few hours but there was no time for that. She yawned despite her best intentions to act alert.

A scream sounded from one of the strapped beds. A small sound at first, it turned into a large pain-filled roar. He had started to shift and he was strapped to the table.

Ashlee couldn’t stand the sight. She trotted to the table and examined the mechanism that held the straps to that bound the man to the table. Once again, she called her shift to become human. All of the shifting around made her feel dizzy. She shook her head to clear the sensation.

She twisted the knobs that controlled the straps that held him down. The straps started to ease up on the man’s neck and head first. He lifted his head off the table and it twisted from side to side. His eyelids were open, but his pupils had rolled to the back of his head so all Ashlee could see were the whites of his eyes.

She twisted as fast as she could. She didn’t want him to shift strapped to the table.

Bad wolf.

Ashlee was so focused on her task that for a moment she did not listen to her wolf.

Relief swept through Ashlee as she pulled off the last restraint and the man’s screams ceased. In front of her eyes, his body started to twist and contort. There was no white light, no gracefulness about his change. His tongue hung out of his mouth, drool streaming from the sides like a slow faucet.

She hurried to release the rest of the restraints, hating the sound of the man’s screams. When the last one came off, he rolled over onto his stomach and Ashlee backed up. His bones cracked, his head shook back and forth, and he bucked back and forth on the table. Grey fur appeared on his skin, and each new batch seemed to cause the man more and more pain. He rolled onto his back until finally he was quiet.

When he leapt up, he was a large grey wolf and he was mad. He snarled at Ashlee and she took two steps back. He lunged at her, and without thought she shifted back into her wolf form.

Bad wolf.

Ashlee couldn’t think of anything she had done to warrant this wolf’s aggression but she was going to defend herself. She bit at his right ear and growled at him. He drooled and she suddenly worried that he was rabid. She decided not to bite him again.

But how could she fight a wolf that could make her sick? Short answer, she couldn’t.

Flee? Her wolf sounded disappointed.

Yes flee, but don’t leave the witch.

Ashlee’s wolf ran towards Mina and bit down on her hair. The woman didn’t even flinch—her father’s drug concoction must have been powerful. Ashlee pulled on her hair and dragged her along the floor behind her. The grey, crazed wolf growled and lunged at her. Letting go of the witch for just a moment, Ashlee knocked over one of the exam tables. It stopped him long enough for Ashlee to take the witch’s hair back in her mouth and drag her from the room.

She reached the hallway and using her nose, closed the door behind her. She panted and tried to regain her equilibrium. She sniffed the air, noting that her father and Kendrick had returned to the floor where Kendrick’s office was located, where she was supposed to be. Ashlee knew she needed to hurry.

She pulled, as fast as possible, backwards so she could drag the witch’s unconscious body behind her. Digging deep for strength she made it up the stairs and towards the front door of the Institute.

“Stop that wolf!”

Damn, someone had seen her. A bullet whizzed by her head, answered immediately by another bullet from behind her. She dropped the witch and swung around to look at who had defended her. Cullen and Gabriel stood behind her, each in their human form, Cullen’s gun raised as if he had been the one to shoot. They had exposed themselves to capture for her.

She whimpered in distress at their behavior. That hadn’t been the plan. They weren’t supposed to let their father know they were around.

Gabriel looked down at her and his smile was so much like Tristan’s she felt actual pain in her chest at the sight. “Like we would let our sister have all the fun here?”

Not what we agreed. It was her first chance to use telepathy with anyone in the pack other than Tristan but it came to her easily.

“I never agreed, and neither did Cullen. Sorry.” At the sound of his name, Cullen looked down and grinned too. It was disconcerting to see Cullen smile; she had thought of him as permanently pissed off.

Gabriel reached down and slung Mina over his shoulder. “Cullen, get Scott.” With his free hand, Gabriel picked Ashlee’s wolf up and swung it over his other shoulder.

“We’ll be in the car.”

Ashlee’s wolf groaned. She didn’t like to be manhandled by Gabriel and felt she could certainly walk. But if Gabriel heard her complaint, he ignored it.

Ashlee heard five more gunshots behind her and struggled to see what was happening but Gabriel had her tightly in his grip and didn’t let her down.

Daddy?

Both she and her wolf were petrified for her father. They got through the front gate and Ashlee looked down to see three dead guards, including the driver who had brought them to the compound, each with their throat ripped out, sprawled on the ground. Ashlee remembered a similar scene from the parking lot outside of the zoo. That time it had been Tristan and Rex who had ripped out their attackers’ throats. At least the pack was consistent in their violence.

Gabriel opened his car’s trunk and dumped the witch into it before he shut it with a thump. He swung open the back door and slid Ashlee inside.

“I’ve got him.” She heard Cullen say as the backdoor opened again and her father jumped in. Her heart pounded hard in her chest and if she’d been in her human form she might have cried out with the relief she felt at seeing him alive and unharmed. Gabriel and Cullen took their seats up front, Cullen in the driver’s seat, and sped down the road.

Her father raised one eyebrow. “Ash?”

It’s me, Daddy.

“Do you think you could change back now? I have no problems with your mother like this, but seeing you as a wolf is freaking me out.”

I don’t have any clothes. If I switch back I’ll be completely naked.

“Here Ashlee,” Gabriel pulled his shirt off and handed it to her father.

Thanks.

She called the shift on herself and this time it was hard. Her bones hurt, head pounded, even her teeth ached. Ashlee didn’t know if all the shifters had a hard time shifting back and forth as many times as she had, but she’d reached her physical limit.

Inside, her wolf snuggled down and went to sleep. Ashlee wished she could do the same.

She took the shirt from her father and covered her naked form.

“Glad to see you back.” Her father sounded relieved.

“How did it go with Kendrick? What happened when the alarm sounded? Where is he now? Did you see Claudius?” The words spit out of her mouth fast and she tried to slow down.

“The man likes to hear himself speak. Whatever else he might be, he is totally committed to his place. He thinks he’s going to change the world here. When the alarms went off, he excused himself and left me standing there in the foyer. I tried to look inconspicuous and walk out the front door but I never made it. He must have suspected I was somehow involved, because he came back and grabbed me by the arm. I thought for sure I was going to have to use that gun, but then Cullen showed up and I think Kendrick looked actually alarmed. He let go of me and ran off. I met Claudius in one of the labs.

Kendrick called him his chief medical researcher. But I only saw him briefly.”

Ashlee nodded. “He may have already changed the world.”

“What do you mean?” Cullen looked at her through the rearview mirror.

“He’s made himself an army and they’re getting ready to come after us.” She really was tired; she looked down and was surprised to see her hands shook.

“Would you say that you shifted more than twice this hour?” Gabriel turned around in the seat so that he stared directly at her, his eyebrows pushed down, a severe look on his face.

“Twice? Try five or six times.”

“You’re going to crash, sister.”

Ashlee opened her mouth to ask Cullen how he intended to get them over the border to the United States with an unconscious witch in the trunk, but she never got the chance as the darkness hit her and she fell asleep.

Tristan looked down at his arms. They were covered in burns and hives. He laughed, the sound choked and raspy. At least his outside matched his delusions now. Under normal circumstances, he could heal himself using meditation, but there was no way he could muster that much concentration now.

“Trip?” Tristan turned his head to the sound of the voice. His eyes hurt but he made out Theo’s silhouette over by the window. Theo stepped closer to Tristan. “Are you in a lot of pain, Trip?”

Tristan choked. “Yes.”

“Victoria is here with Ashlee’s sister, Summer. They’re outside the door. Michael says Gabriel, Cullen, Ashlee, and her father are on their way back. They’re an hour away, maybe less. When they get here we’ll start the ceremony and you’ll be better.”

Tristan blew out his breath. Theo was actually trying to be comforting. He must really be dying. “I don’t know, little brother, I’m not sure I’ll still be here in an hour. I feel like I’m going somewhere, fading.”

“No one has ever hung on as long as you have. You were afflicted three days ago; you’re still here, and so is Ashlee. You’ll make it, and so will she.”

Kill her, it will cease.

“When you say her name it becomes difficult for me to resist the urges I’m focused on keeping at bay.”

Theo nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, I’m going to do my best to make it through this but you must promise me something. You won’t let me kill her. You’ll kill me, instead. I know we’re both doomed, but I can’t be the cause of it. Ashlee’s light can’t be snuffed out because of me. I can’t go off into the next life like that.”

Theo looked solemn. “I promise. I won’t let you hurt her.”

Maybe they’d all get through this, but Tristan wouldn’t place money on it. At least he’d gotten to be with Ashlee that one night. It was more than he ever imagined.