He pushed so hard that his jaw ached as the bones popped, making room for more teeth. Lacey’s scent immediately got stronger, and he broke into a run as he moved out onto the main road in front of the building. But once again, the trail began to fade the moment he got to the place where the vehicle he was trying to follow had picked up speed. Alex let out a growl of rage and frustration that reverberated off the nearby buildings. Spent, he dropped to his knees in the grass beside the road.
He closed his eyes and sat back on his heels, shoving against that wall inside himself that had always kept him from fully connecting with his inner wolf. Even though he’d spent years training with Gage and the other members of the Pack who could pull off a full shift, he’d never knocked a dent in that wall. He had no idea why he hadn’t been able to do it, and right then, he didn’t care. He needed to track Lacey’s scent, or she was going to die. He was going to push his shift as far as he had to, because he flat-out refused to let another person—especially Lacey or Kelsey—die because he’d screwed up again. What had happened with that family in Rochester was never happening again. He didn’t care what he had to do.
Gage always talked about relaxing and letting the shift roll through you, but Alex didn’t have time to relax and let anything happen. He needed to shift—and he needed to do it now.
Eyes still closed, he visualized the wolf form he wanted to take, then reached out to that shape. He dug his fingers into the fur of the mental image of the beast in his head, dragging it toward him. He poured every ounce of rage, frustration, and fear he had into the effort, imagining himself becoming one with the wolf inside. He didn’t have to try very hard to find the ragged and raw emotions necessary to do it. The thought of Lacey and Kelsey ending up like Nicole Arend was all it took.
He hadn’t realized he’d fallen forward onto his hands until he felt his arms explode in pain. He ignored the sensation and kept reaching for the image of the wolf in his head.
He could feel the change coming, so fast it seemed like every part of his body was ripping apart at the same time. The pain of bones and muscles twisting into new shapes, ligaments and tendons popping like pieces of wet string, and fur shoving its way through his skin was so intense, all he could do was let out a sound that started as a shout and quickly became a howl so loud, it seemed to tear apart the night air.
A part of Alex realized he probably should have pulled off his clothes before trying to shift, but it was way too late for that. There was no way to stop it now. He wouldn’t know how to stop this even if he’d wanted to.
His T-shirt shredded like tissue paper as his back elongated and shoulders twisted downward in a totally different shape. The jeans didn’t hold up much longer, though the big leather belt started to hurt like hell as it constricted across his stomach. He instinctively reached down with his head and snapped through the thick leather with a mouthful of teeth he hadn’t realized he’d grown. He was more worried about the boots, but they were the easiest part. When his feet changed into paws, he simply stepped out of them.
He felt powerful, ready to explode into motion as he stood there on all four paws instead of his hands and knees. He would have expected everything to feel strange and off-balance. But he felt as comfortable in his wolf form as he did in his human one.
He looked down, lingering on the broad expanse of his furry chest before moving to his huge paws sinking deep into the grass. He took a few quick steps and was relieved to discover that all four legs seemed to work together properly without him having to think about it. He glanced back at the remains of his clothes, wallet, cell phone, and weapon. There was nothing to be done. He would have to leave all of it here.
Alex moved forward, not sure if it would be as easy to run as it was to walk, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He had bigger concerns to focus on, namely Lacey. He took a deep breath through his nose, and a million different scents seemed to explode in his head. Within seconds, he filtered through them and tossed aside all of them but Lacey’s.
If he wasn’t so freaking worried about Lacey and her sister, Alex would have laughed at how easy it was to pick up Lacey’s scent now—if a wolf could laugh. It was almost like there was a glowing line of fireflies flowing in the air above the road. But the line wasn’t visible to his eyes, only to his nose.
He took another deep breath and locked on the direction of her scent, then tore after the vehicle. Fortunately, his paws and legs behaved, gathering more and more speed by the second.
Alex had no idea what the hell he was going to do when he found Lacey and Kelsey, since he was in wolf form and didn’t have a gun, but it was something he’d deal with later. He would find Lacey and her sister in full wolf form—or his naked human one. He didn’t care which. All that mattered was that he saved them.
The buildings began to blur around him as he leaned forward and pushed for more speed. He had no idea how fast he was running, but it was definitely in the hauling ass category. As he ran, he couldn’t help but take in the world around him. He was surprised how different everything looked. He seemed to be missing some parts of the color palette, with most of the colors seeming to be toward the red end of the spectrum. He could see better and farther in the dark than he would ever have thought possible.
Alex abruptly realized that he’d veered onto a fairly busy road and was running right down the center of it. Drivers honked their horns and veered off the road to avoid him. He couldn’t blame them. He was as big as a bull and probably ten times as scary looking. Alex winced when he accidently sideswiped a car that steered too close to him.
He wasn’t sure how long he ran. Time didn’t seem to feel the same to him in his wolf form. All he knew was that he covered fifteen miles in a ridiculously short period of time. He followed the unwavering scent trail to another fancy brick-and-glass facility called West Ridge Surgery Center. He ran straight past the main entrance and around to the rear of the building. The place looked nearly empty, with only a few of the windows lit on the upper floors and maybe a dozen cars scattered around the parking lot.
The nondescript ambulance parked by the automatic doors in the back told him he was at the right place. Lacey’s and Kelsey’s scents were all over the vehicle. He could smell them clearly, even though he was still two hundred feet away.
Three of those damn Westcott Security guards were standing outside the automatic glass doors, obviously stationed there to keep people out. Alex headed straight for them, letting out a long, deep growl and picking up speed as he closed the distance between them.
Three heads jerked up and looked in his direction, eyes widening in shock and amazement. One of the men threw himself to the side to escape Alex, while another froze, completely paralyzed by fear. The third man drew his weapon and started firing wildly in Alex’s general direction. Bullets smacked into the pavement around him. One nicked his right foreleg, but just barely. The guy was too freaked out to shoot straight.
The man was still shooting when Alex leaped forward and rammed his shoulder into the guy’s chest. The crush of the impact was loud, but not nearly as loud as the sound of shattering glass as the security guard flew backward and crashed through the automatic doors.
Alex spun around to face the other two guards before the glass had even stopped falling. One man was already running away, while the other finally reached for his weapon. Alex wasn’t going to give him a chance to fire it.
He lunged forward and swiped his paws across the man’s chest and arms, ripping through the fabric and skin underneath, sending the guard tumbling backward. The urge to rip into the fallen man was intense, but Alex ignored the animalistic instinct. This was taking too long already. He gave a low warning growl as the guard made a move to retrieve the pistol that had gone flying. The guy immediately scrambled to his feet and ran in the other direction.
Alex leaped over the fallen guard lying bloody and unconscious in a pile of broken glass, once more turning his attention to tracking Lacey’s scent. It was so close, he felt like he could reach out and touch her.
Then a new scent hit his nose, a scent that had the hackles on the back of his neck standing straight up and a vicious growl rumbling from his throat. He’d never smelled that particular scent before, but he knew exactly what it was—Lacey’s blood. It completely overrode every other scent in the building, making hers the only one that mattered.
Even though his wolf instincts screamed at him that there were other armed men in the building who would be coming for him any second, all he could think about was getting down the dimly lit main corridor of the surgical center to the heavy steel door at the end of the hall where his werewolf nose told him the scent of blood was strongest.
That single-minded focus almost cost him as two men stepped out of the stairwell doorway near the reception desk and started shooting the moment they laid eyes on him. There was another man in the stairwell too, but that one turned and headed back upstairs.
The two men who stayed seemed to be more determined than the security guards outside. Their hearts might be beating at a hundred miles an hour, but they didn’t let it show as they took aim and did their best to kill him.
Alex ran right at them, closing the distance in the blink of an eye. He felt himself get hit, once in the chest, another in the left shoulder, and a third creasing a line down his right side. The bullets stung, but just barely. He wondered if that meant the wounds weren’t serious or if his wolf form was just better at ignoring the pain.
He slammed hard into one of the men, knocking him backward into the reception desk. As the man rebounded, Alex raked his claws across his neck. Blood flowed freely, but he paid no attention to it as he spun and lunged at the second guard. That one went down just as fast.
