Us? He frowned and looked around. There. Middle-aged partner leaning casually against the ambulance. Move! he ordered himself. Quit being a lazy shit! The man looked bored and a little bit pissed off.
“Ready for my help now?” the partner drawled.
“Chill,” Mark snarled. Not a snarl. A weak almost-whisper. He recognized the guy as a longtime townie. He wasn’t exactly in on the shifter secret, but he also wasn’t completely ignorant. He probably knew that sometimes he just had to back away and not get involved. But that probably pissed him off. Why his mind was focused here was anybody’s guess. But he took the moment of lucidity to grabbed for a joke rather than shove magic in the man’s face. “I like pretty girls better than your ugly face.”
The man grunted. “Same here.” Then he opened the back door and gave a courtly gesture to invite Mark inside.
So weak. Useless! How the hell was he going to help Julie? “Carl…” he managed.
“Get your shit taken care of while I focus on mine,” the alpha snapped. “I’ll let you know as soon as we find an answer.”
He had no excuse to argue, so he forced himself to nod. “Do it fast,” he said, because…Julie! Because…no focus. Because…what?
Then he was inside the ambulance with the doors slamming shut. Trapped inside. Mind spinning. Where was Julie? What clue had he missed? Why the hell hadn’t he saved her?
CHAPTER 16
Julie came awake slowly. It felt like swimming upward through cotton candy. Everything felt sticky sweet and left a foul taste in her brain. It made no sense, but that’s what she was thinking as she finally got enough neurons on board to hear what her body was saying.
First off, it was saying, Yuck.
Second, Ow.
Third, What the fuck am I lying on?
Her face was cold and smooshed, her hip had a hot point of pain where it took the brunt of her weight, and her arm…Oh, hell. Her arm was numb. Getting the blood back into it was going to be a painful process.
She shifted, rolling awkwardly to her back. That made everything worse, but she forced herself to crack her eyes open.
It was dark, though not pitch black, thanks to a grimy window across the room. Metal bars surrounded her. Frantic, she scanned further and nearly freaked. She was in a cage with a small door padlocked on the outside. Panic tightened her throat.
Look further.
To her left was a long wood table covered with books, binders, and some computer equipment. To her right was a large furry lump. A really large furry lump. Her ears told her it was breathing fast and shallow. A steady rhythm, but not a healthy tempo. Whatever it was probably had a fever. It was in a cage, too.
Good. She wouldn’t want to disturb the sleeping monster. Of course, she didn’t want to be locked in beside a sleeping monster, either.
She started moving her fingers and toes, getting blood flow back. Then she noticed a dull Band-Aid at the crook of her elbow. Peeling back the covering, she saw that it covered an injection site.
Not good.
Nausea threatened to overwhelm her but she choked it a back. Every part of her felt clammy and sick. Was that a result of what they’d given her? Or was it just normal panic? Was there anything else wrong with her? She couldn’t tell. It all ached, it was all terrifying, and she didn’t know what the hell to do.
So she closed her eyes and tried to calm down. Unbidden, an image of Mark rose in her brain. She saw him kneeling before her, his heart in his eyes. The man was powerful. Not just physically and financially, but to the core of his soul. He was strong in ways that impressed the hell out of her. And in this image, he was kneeling before her laying all that power at her feet.
It was a memory, but a favorite one from a couple days before. She’d been dozing on the couch and he’d been kneeling beside her, watching her sleep. When she’d opened her eyes, he’d given her this smile, half wistful, half lustful. It said as clear as day, “Take me. Take everything I have and love me.”
She did.
She loved Mark.
And wasn’t this a perfect time for that realization? When she couldn’t grab the man and tell him, then make love with him until they dropped from exhaustion?
But panic had a way of crystallizing certain thoughts. And right now it really cemented the list of things she hadn’t yet done in her life. She hadn’t told Mark she loved him. She hadn’t had children and watched them grow into fun people. And she hadn’t mastered waterskiing, though why that was important, she hadn’t a clue.
Well, then, she had plenty of reasons to get the hell out of this place. Or at least survive until Mark could come find her. That thought cheered her more than anything else because she knew for damn sure that Mark wouldn’t stop until he ripped open the cage door and held her safe in his arms.
Unless Mark was dead. She remembered the pops, then hearing his grunt and the groceries falling.
