Seduced by the Wolf

Chapter 7

As soon as Alex Wellington spied Cassie Roux's green pickup parked in the Mount Hood National Forest, twenty miles east of Portland and the northern Willamette Valley, he thought the area was just her kind of place.

With sixty square miles of forest and numerous streams, creeks, several lakes, more than a million acres of land, and a thousand-plus hiking trails, the national forest was perfect for a pack of wolves. He figured Cassie must have come across wolves somewhere out here or she wouldn't have been in the small town lecturing about them.

Wedging his pickup behind hers, Alex effectively blocked her truck between the oaks and Douglas firs so she couldn't steal away if she returned before he located her. Before meeting her, work had been just that... work, a job. But not with Cassie in the picture. She made it a game. Something fun.

Glad that the rain had died down to a thick mist, Alex grabbed his backpack, locked his door, and circled around her truck, searching for where her tracks would lead. She was a damned good wolf biologist; he had to give her that. And he wanted to know what made her so damned good. Well, more than that. He wanted them to be good together, a wolf biologist team. The perfect scenario. If that rich rancher hadn't kept him from visiting with her socially after her lecture...

He frowned and jerked his backpack straps over his shoulders, then looked around at the woods for a footpath she might have taken. Spying one, he started down it, the spongy ground cushioning his every step, while green leafy branches and ferns stretched out to the foot-and-a-half-wide trail and brushed the sides of his boots from time to time.

A mosaic of leaves and pine needles shed the previous autumn covered the earth, masking the ground and the tracks of anyone who'd walked this way recently. Eyes to the ground, Alex continued down the path, searching for an elusive hiking-boot tread, Cassie's small size-six footprint, or any other indication that she'd headed in this direction. No broken twigs, no crushed ferns off the main trail.

He knew she wasn't bound to manmade trails like the average Joe. Even when she hiked through pristine forests, she left the wilds of nature undisturbed as if she were a woodland fairy who melted into the scenery. He'd always admired her for that, but it meant tracking her was all the more time-consuming and difficult. As much as it was for him when he was tracking wolf packs.

He paused and looked back at her truck, which merged with the greenery. She always seemed to find the packs as if she had a divining rod for wolves. Hell, he could go months before he finally spotted one. And even then, getting to know them took a meticulously long time.

But Cassie Roux could blend in with a pack and form attachments, as if she had been one of the gang forever, within such a short time that it was unnatural. He swore she had to have been a wolf in a former life. When he'd said so to her once after she'd given a lecture at UCLA, she'd given him a quick smile and his stomach had flip-flopped, and in that instant, he'd fallen hard for the woman.

His step less sure, he backtracked down the path to return to her truck. When he reached her pickup, he peered inside. Spotlessly clean as usual. No sign of anything left behind so that anyone who might be tempted to break into her vehicle to steal possessions, like they did at trailheads sometimes, wouldn't be bothered.

Finally spying the faint tread mark of one of her hiking boots where she had slipped off the leaves from autumns past and made several small cuts in the muddy earth in between two grand oaks, he smiled.

"Got you."

But after four hours of hiking up and down hillsides through dense forest, he observed a set of boot prints. He measured his foot against them. Size ten like he wore. And they were following Cassie's.

Had she hooked up with another man? Another wolf biologist? His heart sank with the notion, but then a fresh worry plagued him. Was someone stalking her?

Then a set of wolf prints caught his attention, and he elatedly knelt down to examine them. Glancing around, he noted several more, crisscrossing the area as if frantically searching for something. And another wolf's prints, the tracks indicating a longer gait, the prints a little larger.

Another concern overshadowed his excitement at finding the wolf prints, though. Perplexed, he glanced around the area and studied the soil closer.

The wolves' prints were all over the place, but the trail of Cassie's boot prints and the man's tread markings had abruptly ended.

"Since he shifted, we've already poured two pots of coffee--full caffeine strength--into Leidolf," Laney said to someone in the great room down the hall at Leidolf's ranch house while he reclined in his bed, the tranquilizer the hunter shot him with still stirring in his bloodstream. "And you've already brought Quincy and Pierce home. Sarge... well, Satros said he'd find him and make him return to the ranch, Elgin. We need to find the woman Leidolf was with before she gets hurt. If she's not already."

Leidolf sat up in bed, so groggy that all he knew was he had to pee really badly, and he had to get to the forest as soon as humanly possible to rescue Cassie.

"He keeps rambling about her being in danger," Laney added, her words couched in concern, her voice lowered but not low enough that Leidolf couldn't hear her.

Alone in the bedroom, Leidolf growled to himself, "I do not ramble."

"We already have two men on it. And I've talked to him about more of us going back for her, but he says no, that he has to be the one to rescue her. He's not making any sense. He can't go anywhere in the shape he's in. If she needs our help, we need to give it to her," Elgin said, agreeing with his mate wholeheartedly in the great room.

"Nothing is wrong with the shape I'm in," Leidolf groused in a mumble.

"Well, go do it, Elgin. You and Fergus. Go get her and bring her back to him. Don't listen to him. He's too drugged to make any sense. You're both great trackers and his sub-leaders, which means if he's incapable of leading the pack, the two of you run it."

"No!" Leidolf shouted.

Damn if he could barely remember what had happened except that hunters had shot him when he was trying to track Cassie down, and then she had attempted to rouse him. Roughly at some point, tenderly at another. And with neither working, she resorted to the words he wanted to hear. Hmm, the big, bad wolf isn't so big and bad anymore, rumbled around in his brain, the minx mouthing the words so sweetly even now in his half-tranquilized state, he was becoming aroused. And then? She had called him a lazy lout.

He snorted, then tried to climb out of bed but fell back against the pillows and swore under his breath.

The great hall remained silent, not a word spoken or a body moving around. He envisioned his pack members waiting in horrified silence until he gave them permission to speak. He groaned.

Hell, the nymph's last words to him were Leave me alone, and those three little words ricocheted around his tired brain. She was damned good at evasion, as much as he was damned good at tracking one of his kind down. So he was certain that if half his men were chasing her in the woods, they'd scare her off, and she'd leave the area pronto for good.

He reached up to run his hands through his tangled hair. He had to do something, even if he couldn't do much of anything.

"Elgin!" He tried to curb his anger, but he was afraid he didn't quite manage it.

Someone hurried down the hall and then poked his head in the bedroom.

"You wanted me?"

Leidolf ground his teeth and glowered at Elgin. "We need a damn nurse or doctor in our pack. Now! Damn it. If we had one, she could most likely give me something to counteract the drug in my system."

"Yes, sir, but we don't know any."

"Help me get dressed."

Elgin didn't move an inch into the room. "You can't stand."

Leidolf took an exasperated breath. "I have to make sure she's all right."

"Why didn't she stay with you until we arrived?" The accusation was right out front. Cassie didn't want him, that's why.

"She thought you were hunters. So she was trying to lead you away from me, only..."

Elgin's eyes widened a little.

Yeah, Leidolf knew just what Elgin suspected, that the woman realized the men were part of his wolf pack and had taken off, instead of coming home with them.

"She may already have a mate and a wolf pack," Elgin offered.

Not the way she tried to seduce Leidolf. Or had it only been an act, an attempt to protect him, get him on his feet, and on his way to a safer place? Sure, she'd said so. Then again, she smelled too provocatively not to have been intrigued by him. And the fact she danced with him... she was more interested than she wished to let on.

He smiled wryly.

Elgin stood taller. "Fergus and I are personally searching for the little lady."

Leidolf frowned. "No, she--"

His face flushed, cell phone in hand, Fergus rushed into the room. "All hell's broken loose. Sorry, Leidolf. Quincy and Pierce are determined to make up for all their mistakes, so as soon as they learned you found a red in Mount Hood National Forest, they took off to get her and bring her back to you... wearing their wolf coats--again."

"Holy hell. Gather our men, Fergus. And, Elgin, tell Laney to make me some coffee to go--"

"I'll fix a couple of thermoses," Laney promised, her voice raised so he could hear her from where she was hidden in the hallway, eavesdropping. She hadn't needed to raise her voice. As close as she was to the door, he heard her just fine.

Leidolf shook his head.

Fergus punched in numbers on his phone and headed down the hallway. "Boss said it's a go, Carver. Spread the word to your group."

"Elgin, help me get dressed," Leidolf demanded.

"But you can barely--"

Leidolf gave him a look that said he wouldn't argue about this, and Elgin headed straight for the closet. So much for trying to ensure he kept on an even keel where his people were concerned.

Hell, it was bad enough that Cassie was racing through the woods on her own in danger of being tranquilized by the same men who shot him, but once Pierce and Quincy joined her, it could turn into a total disaster. And Sarge? He didn't totally trust that Satros could locate Sarge on his own if he hadn't by now.

Cassie had successfully evaded Leidolf's men and hadn't run into any signs of the men with the tranquilizer guns. So she was back to her goal of finding the she-wolf and her litter. After she returned to the place a mile away where she had left the buried salmon, she uncovered it and then seized the fish and took off.

The advantage of being a wolf biologist was that federal and state grants and even magazines paid Cassie to do what she loved best--mingle with feral wolves to study them and document their behavior. If these people saw her now as she raced through the ancient Douglas firs, flourishing beside the creek in her red wolf coat, fish in mouth, they'd think she was one of those she was paid to research. She just had to be very careful she didn't provide the people who paid her all the money with clues about wolves that sounded like they had a lot of human characteristics, thereby giving anything away about her own wolf genetics.

Plus, she was an oddity in her field, beyond the obvious wolf difference. When other researchers studied wolves, they'd often go as teams. And many had asked to accompany her on her searches since she was so successful at winning wolves over. What techniques did she use? How was she able to get so close and document so much?

A smug smile touched her lips. Wouldn't they like to know why she had such a special rapport with the feral animals? She hadn't expected to find a female wolf in a dire situation that needed her help. Or a lupus garou she'd put in harm's way.

She stopped and listened for sounds of anyone following her again. No one seemed to have tracked her yet. Or they were being awfully quiet about it.

She had to hurry more now, had to find the wolf before Leidolf woke wherever his pack was taking him, regained his strength, and came back to locate her, insisting she taunt him with her attempts at seduction when he was fully awake.

She dove through the woods, searching again for the she-wolf, and hoped this didn't take the rest of the day and night. She had to sleep sometime. Definitely not during the day.

But after several hours, she brushed through the branches of a Douglas fir and stopped dead in her tracks.

Only a few hundred yards away, a man crouched over a patch of ferns. Nearly having a stroke, she stood still. Alex Wellington. The blond, blue-eyed wolf biologist was easy on the eyes and a nice enough guy. He thought he was a real ladies' man, and if she'd been interested in the type, she might have fallen for him herself. But although he loved wolves, she was sure he wouldn't be able to cope with what she truly was. And she wasn't interested in settling down with either a human or a lupus garou.

Alex's hand clutched a stick as he poked around at leaves and pushed aside fern fronds, his backpack most likely containing gear for a hike of several days. He was tracking her, damn it. Or the mother wolf. In some of the areas she had traversed, she was sure she'd left a few muddy wolf prints, enough to give her away to someone like him who could track a wolf.

A couple of Douglas firs screened her in part, so she half-blended in the woods. With her heart pounding double time, she hoped he wouldn't look up and spy her before she could back out of here, traverse the creek, and head to another area. As if he'd read her thoughts, he raised his head and looked in her direction. His lips parted slightly, and his eyes grew wide.

He'd never seen her in her wolf form, but he had the same look of admiration on his face as he did when she caught him studying her as she lectured on wolves. He really did love wolves, and if she had been in her human form, she might have enlisted his help at this point with the mother wolf and her brood.

He didn't move, and she knew he was afraid of frightening her off. She also knew he wouldn't hurt her, but then again, she feared he might have spooked the mother worse if she could have solicited his help.

Then men's voices carried to them, and she looked in their direction. Angry voices. Dangerous voices. "I told you, damn it. All you had to do was hide the body out here until I could get the proper tools to bury her. So where the hell is her body?"

Alex's tanned face paled as he remained crouched, unmoving, his head turned in the direction of the men's voices.

"And I told you," another man said, his tone as dark and threatening, "this is where I put it. Right here, damn it. Maybe a cougar dragged it off."

"Then start searching for her. We have to bury her, or she'll bury me if someone runs across the body. And believe me, if I get caught, so will you."

The two men headed in Cassie and Alex's direction. She could outrun them, avoid them, but Alex was at too much of a disadvantage. Heart in her throat, she dropped the salmon and covered it with leaves with her paw.

Alex wasn't moving, as if he was worried about her safety. She was worried about his! Move it, Alex!

She dodged into the woods away from the menace. Someone ran in her direction. She glanced back. Alex was hot on her trail. She could lead him away from the men for a while, and she'd have soon outrun Alex and the men, but one of them fired a shot in their direction. The bullet made a cracking noise as it hit a nearby tree trunk.

"Someone was spying on us," one of the men shouted. "He's gone this way!"

Oh, God, no. Alex was the kind of man who might scatter broken hearts all over the place because of his easy way with women and his inability to stick with a girl for the long term, but he was a nice enough guy as men went. She slowed down her run. Barely breathing hard, Alex was running toward her, his face not even sweating, a fine blond stubble just appearing on his taut jaw, his blue eyes full of worry.

When she paused, he waved at her to keep going as if she should know human signals. But the men were running straight after them, finding the trail of stomped-on ferns and broken twigs, hearing Alex's crashing through underbrush and heavy footfalls. And they were gaining. Maybe she could delay them. Or sidetrack them so Alex could get away. She couldn't communicate with him to let him know what she had in mind to do. She had to factor in that although their bullets wouldn't kill her, an injury could put her in peril.

When she stopped, so did Alex. She shook her head. He would try to protect her. He pulled out a hunting knife, and she stared at it and then looked into his eyes. He had a desperate look in his expression.

She hadn't thought to kill the men, but Alex was right. They were in danger of being murdered. Or at least Alex was. The men drew closer. Alex couldn't survive when the men carried guns and he was only armed with a knife.

Before she could change her mind or think about the wolf pups and what would become of them if she didn't help the mother or worry about facing down a pair of hunters, she focused on Alex. Her only thought was saving a human's life. A human she respected in the field of wolf biology. A friend, not close, but close enough.

She charged off in the direction of the men.

"No!" Alex shouted.

Damn it! Stay hidden and be quiet. He ran after her. He'd get himself killed.

"Over here," the one man said and switched direction, coming straight for her.

She circled around a ponderosa pine and came face-to-face with one of the devils himself, Blackbeard, his black hair long and curly, his beard just as black and scruffy, his clothes Army-issue olive-drab that blended into the new green leaves of the forest. She couldn't get a hint of his scent. Since she was downwind of him, she should have sensed something. What he'd eaten, garlic, beef, his male human scent, sweat, fear. Something. Hunter's elimination spray.

She narrowed her eyes at the menace. As a wolf, her instincts would be for self-preservation. As a lupus garou, she had to be concerned with secrecy at all costs. As a human and fellow wolf biologist, she had to save Alex. Yet what she was about to do was not only dangerous, but also went against her better lupus garou judgment.

The hunter aimed his rifle at her. She leapt at him, noticing his brown eyes were nearly black as he regarded her with shock and surprise. A distressed cry pealed from his lips.

Her action so startled him that he didn't shoot. But the cocking of a rifle to the left of her forced the fur to bristle along Cassie's back to the tip of her tail. Half-hidden in the shadows of the woods, the man's companion in crime pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out across the forest, the sound deafening to her sensitive ears. The bullet hit her in the shoulder, like a rock striking her, but she didn't feel any pain. Not yet. Her lunge had knocked the first man flat on his back, and she figured the other would shoot her again.

She had no choice but to run and hope like hell Alex took care of himself. She bolted for the woods, and the man fired again two more times but missed her both times, the bullets splintering bark off two nearby trees. She ran straight past Alex, who was crouching in the ferns, knife still in hand.

"Hell, man, you all right?" one of the murdering bastards said to his companion.

The other just groaned.

Good. Maybe Alex would still have a chance to get away. But new gunfire rang out from somewhere in the distance. Three shots in rapid succession. She zigzagged away from the new gunfire, the adrenaline in her system running so high that she didn't feel the pain yet. She knew when it hit, she'd better be somewhere safe or she'd be in a hell of a lot more trouble.

Despite pushing herself, Cassie felt her run slowing, but she didn't hear any sound of the men following her. Was Alex all right? Staying hidden? With her wolf speed, she'd managed to put a good deal of distance between her and them. Which in part was good--maybe they wouldn't catch up to her, although she was sure they'd be more interested in killing the human who had overheard them than a wounded wolf that would probably die anyway, to their way of thinking. But that meant they would probably continue to look for Alex.

Cassie stumbled, her loping run slowing to a trot now. A cold wetness matted her fur. Her heart beat too hard, and her breathing was labored, making her lungs ache. She stumbled again and swore at herself. She couldn't save anyone if she didn't keep moving, didn't stay on her feet...

She fell. Just collapsed against her will, the strength gone, unable to move an inch in any direction, the pain now streaking through her wound. Sprawled on the woodland floor half-buried by new spring ferns, she lay panting on her side while purple trillium wildflowers pointed at her muzzle as if identifying her hiding place. A few hours and she hoped she'd heal enough to make her way back to check on Alex.

The sound of two people running through the underbrush in her direction fed into her worst nightmares. She held her breath. The murderers would kill her if they found her. Then the footfalls abruptly stopped. For several seconds, they were quiet, which heightened her sense of fear.

Had they lost her trail?