Chapter 3
Hank glared at the woman zip-tied in his backseat. She didn’t believe him. And she was planning to run the minute he parked.
Damn it, why had Simon ordered him to do this? No non-shifter doctor would listen. She might as well have pulled her white lab coat right over her eyes. She’d labeled him a lunatic the minute he’d mentioned shifters, which was apparently even worse than kidnapper because at least she’d been willing to talk when he was just a criminal. After the screaming, that is. Damn, what a set of lungs she had.
Didn’t matter. Mother was having a crisis and he was two blocks away.
“Don’t fight me on this, Cecilia. It’s too dangerous.” He used her first name to see if that made a difference. He’d gone with “Dr. Lu” when he was trying to be deferential. Educated people tended to like that, but he could already tell she wasn’t susceptible to flattery. So he was trying to be friendly.
No go. She just smiled that false smile and was clearly counting the seconds until she could run. Which meant he had two seconds to come up with a new plan because he was arriving at Mother’s right now.
He pulled into the driveway, slamming the car to a stop. They were in werewolf territory and who knew how many of the dogs had drunk the tainted water. Simon had put out the word as soon as he could, but bears and dogs in Detroit did not get along. Hadn’t for generations. Knowing these wolves, they probably liked the aggression rush the tainted tap gave to full-blooded shifters.
He glanced at the night sky. Nearly a full moon. Just what they needed…not. Though the wolves claimed they didn’t react to the phase of the moon, Mother had called bullshit on that years ago. And she lived in the thick of it, so she would know.
He hit the send button on his phone. No words in the text but Mother would know he was outside and pull open her door. Which meant it was time to run. But first, he popped open the big blade on his Swiss army knife.
He heard Cecilia gasp and he shot her a hard look. “Extend your feet to the door. Be ready to run.”
Her eyes widened and once again, he regretted the fear he’d put on her face. Damn it, he was not a man to terrorize innocent scientists. He popped open his car door, took a deep whiff of Detroit air as it mixed with wet dog, and rushed to her door.
She was ready; her legs were extended and she had a fixed smile on her face. He could feel her tension in the air and see the twitch of her gaze as she looked past him to where she meant to run. It would be a bad choice. There wasn’t a cop around for miles and plenty of regular human trouble she could get into on the way. Even worse, he smelled werewolf thick in the air. Damn it, they were too close.
He grabbed her ankles and slit the plastic in one quick move. Then he grabbed her by the waist and helped her scramble out of the car. The minute her feet touched pavement, she took off.
Or at least she tried. He still had a hand around her waist and when she surged forward, it was just the momentum he needed to throw her over his shoulder. She screamed and kicked as he moved—double time—to Mother’s front door, all the while keeping his eye out for werewolves. Given the way she was wailing, she was going to attract the whole damn pack.
He hit the front porch and Mother swung open the door. Her eyes were huge in her weathered face, but she stepped out of the way while he barreled through. Then she slammed and bolted the door with a speed one wouldn’t expect given her age.
“Help! Help!”
“Shut up, you damn fool!” Mother snapped as Hank set Cecilia down on her feet. He wasn’t too gentle about it because she’d just nailed him in the center of his sternum. Her knees buckled enough that she tumbled backward onto the couch. She was going to leap up again but he kept a hand in the center of her chest. And—damn it—he was human enough to feel the soft mounds of her breasts. It was a damn shame that this was the first time he’d touched a woman’s breasts in nearly two years, but he also felt the way her pulse beat like a frightened rabbit. She took a deep breath, obviously prepared to scream again, but he shoved her hard enough to cut it off.
“Stop it or I’ll gag you,” he said.
He didn’t think she would listen, but then Mother racked her shotgun and aimed it straight at Cecilia.
“Why would you bring a damned fool here?” Mother demanded.
“Jesus, Mother, aim that outside.” Hank stretched his hand back, knocking the shotgun toward the window.
“I’ll aim that where I want in my house,” she said pulling it right back to Cecilia’s pale face. “And if she don’t shut up—”
“She’s a doctor. She’s going to help fix things.”
“She can’t help if she gets us all kill—”
Roar.
It’s hard to describe a grizzly roar up close. To someone who’s never heard it, it’s like putting your face right next to a locomotive as it speeds by. But even that is just a machine. Loud and overwhelming, but still impersonal. A grizzly roar is damned personal. It contains threat and fury headed straight at you. It can be felt in the vibration against your ribs and in every hair on your body.
And that’s what all three of them felt. A roar coming straight from the door behind the couch. Obviously, Mother had slid the couch in front of the basement door to block it. And now that he took a second to look around, he saw that she’d shoved the kitchen table and a couple chairs against the far end of the couch, too. Not that any of that would stop a mature grizzly from getting through. Fortunately, this particular bear-shifter was very young. First shift, to be exact. And that made the creature a little smaller and a lot more unpredictable.
Meanwhile, Cecilia scrambled off the couch. He let her, though it was only to pin her against the wall.
“What was that?” she gasped.
“The reason we’re here,” he snapped as they heard claws scratching at the basement door. Then he looked to Mother. “How long has that been going on?”
