Call of the Wolf (25 page)

The bright lights, the pulling at her as her clothing was removed, the poking and prodding and the hum of many voices around her kept her drifting in and out, but finally Abby felt herself slipping over the edge into a peaceful nothingness.

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Chapter Nineteen

The waiting room, Seth discovered, wasn't big enough for four Wolfen to pace. Resisting the urge to throttle Adrian after bumping into him for the third time, he finally stalked to a seat and sprawled in it, glaring down in revulsion at the ‘scrubs’ the hospital had thoughtfully furnished him and the others with when they'd arrived sans a stitch of clothing.

"Do you think anybody thought to dispose of the body?” Jerico asked, breaking the tense silence that had held them all for the past several hours.

Cameron shrugged. “There wasn't much to bother with."

"I was thinking more about the identification."

Seth glanced at him impatiently. “I can guarantee you they won't come looking for the son-of-a-bitch here. Whatever story he concocted, he wouldn't have wanted them to have any idea he was coming here. He wouldn't want them to connect the dots when his witness turned up dead."

"You think they hired him for the hit?” Adrian growled.

Seth scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to collect his thoughts.

"More likely the greedy bastard just got greedier, figured when he didn't hear from the hit men he could do the job himself and collect,” Cameron muttered.

Seth lifted his head and stared at the other man for several moments. “I don't suppose he said anything?"

Cameron sent him a look. “He screamed a few times,
mon ami
. I didn't catch it if he was tryin’ to tell us anything. You hear him say anything, Adrian?"

Adrian shrugged. “I wasn't real interested in anything that fucking bastard might think to say.” He ceased pacing and dropped into the chair next to Seth. “When are we going after the son-of-a-bitch that sent him?"

Seth shook his head. “I'm not goin’ anywhere until I know Abby's alright. Then I've got to make arrangements.” Spearing his fingers in his hair, he sat forward in the chair, staring down the floor.

"It never once crossed my mind when I thought about taking Abby as my mate that I'd have to face anything like this ... even knowing she was human,” Jerico muttered.

"Neither Wolfen nor Weres are invincible,
mon ami
,” Cameron pointed out tightly.

Jerico glanced at him miserably. “I know ... but she's so ... fragile."

Seth swallowed a little sickly. “I may have infected her.” He saw when he looked up that all of them were staring at him in disbelief, horror and dawning rage. “I was half out of my mind. All I could think about was trying to stop the bleeding.” He shook his head. “The bullet passed through me and into her. Even if I hadn't licked the wound..."

For several moments they glared at him furiously. Finally, Cameron shook his head. “If you had, they wouldn't still be in surgery with her."

Seth felt a flicker of hope at that—not that there was much to feel hopeful about as far as he could see. If he'd infected her, it might help her survive the gunshot but the chances were slim she'd survive the first transition. He got up after a few minutes and began pacing again, trying to outrun his thoughts.

Nearly another hour passed and it was nearing dawn when the surgeon finally came out to talk to them. Studying his face, Seth tried to brace himself for the worst.

"It's going to be touch and go for a while,” the surgeon said finally. “She's in recovery now. I think we patched up her pretty good, but she lost a lot of blood."

It wasn't the news he'd hoped for, but it beat the hell out of the news he'd more than half expected. Too restless to sit still anymore, or pace the waiting room, he left the hospital when the doctor informed them that she'd be in recovery for at least an hour before they could see her.

The others joined him when he reached his truck and the four of them drove out to the site of the shooting. When they reached it, they discovered that the body had already been removed and the site cleaned. The agent's car was gone, as well.

"Efficient,” Seth muttered, irritated for no particular reason beyond the fact that he felt the need to do something.

"As bad as I hate to point it out,” Adrian commented when they'd climbed into the SUV again, “I'm not going to make it much longer if I don't eat."

Realizing he was about to drop himself, Seth merely nodded and headed back to Mrs. Parker's. He wasn't particularly in the mood for a large gathering, and there were bound to be a number of guests at the table, but he didn't think he could face Abby's empty house and choke down any food and he wasn't just weak from his rapid metabolism. His own wound, and trying to shift before it had closed, had left him weaker than he liked.

Fortunately, since most of her guests had spent most of the night battling, and what was left of it—the fortunate ones—thoroughly acquainting themselves with their new mate, only a couple of her guests showed for breakfast. Beth immediately hit them up for news about Abby, which sent his spirits plummeting since he didn't have anything more heartening to tell than the fact that she'd survived the surgery and was in recovery.

He focused on positive thinking, however, arranging with Beth Parker to keep Abby once she was able to leave the hospital and take care of her since he wasn't certain he would be back by the time she was released.

He called his office and arranged to have his deputy fill for him until further notice and summoned his lieutenants to meet him at the hospital. He felt a little better when he'd arranged to have men posted both inside and outside of the hospital while Abby was there and at Mrs. Parker's once she left the hospital. Until he took care of Mikhail and made sure there wasn't a price on Abby's head anymore, he wasn't taking any more chances with her.

He discovered when they reached the hospital again that she'd been removed from recovery and sent to intensive care. He felt like blubbering like a baby when he saw her, but he stayed until the nurse ran him out so that the others could go in to see her.

He spent most of the day either pacing the waiting room or pacing the hospital grounds, stubbornly refusing to leave until she woke up, refusing to accept the possibility that she might not. His diligence was finally rewarded toward evening. When he was allowed in for another brief visit, she opened her eyes and looked straight at him.

Relief flooded him that was so profound he thought for several unnerving moments that he'd pass out. He squeezed her hand, trying to think of something to say, wondering if he could say anything at all past the constriction in his throat.

"What happened?"

Seth swallowed convulsively a couple of times. “You were shot."

She frowned, obviously searching her memory. “You knocked me down."

Seth stared at her in dismay, wondering if it was an accusation, wondering if that was all she remembered and she thought he was the one that had hurt her. “I heard a gun cocked."

She stared at him. “Heard?"

He nodded. “Wolfen hearing."

She studied him a moment and finally smiled a little wryly. “Good thing."

Seth closed his eyes. “I wasn't fast enough. You got hit anyway."

She squeezed his hand lightly and he opened his eyes to stare at her. “I'm ok. Go home and rest. You look tired."

He studied her for a long moment and felt his lips curling in a faint smile. “Bossy woman,” he murmured. “You tryin’ to tell me I look like hell?"

She smiled back at him. “You look beautiful."

He felt himself blushing, but he couldn't prevent a chuckle. Leaning down, he kissed her lightly on the cheek, resting his cheek against hers for a moment. “You're the one that's beautiful, Baby,” he said huskily.

"I'm the one that looks like hell ... feel like hell, too."

"You're beautiful to me, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Rest, Baby. I'll be back to see you in the mornin'."

As badly as he hated leaving her, he knew he'd have to fight the hospital staff to spend the night in her room and he was dead on his feet. He was more than half asleep at the wheel before Cameron, Adrian, and Jerico finally trooped out of the hospital and joined him. He headed straight to Abby's house, climbed into her bed, snuggled his face against her pillow so that he could breathe her scent and passed out. He grunted irritably when Cameron shoved him over and took the other side of the bed.

Adrian and Jerico, after glaring at the two of them furiously for several moments, finally turned and looked at each other. Shrugging, Jerico looked around until he spied her robe. Snatching it up, he strode from the room, headed for the spare bedroom. Adrian followed him, wrestled with him for the robe for a few minutes and finally left to hunt down something else with her scent. Jerico was sprawled in the middle of the bed when he returned with the panties he'd collected from the bathroom floor. Giving him a shove to make him move over, he dropped onto the other side of the bed with his own prize.

Catching the delectable scent wafting from Adrian's prize, Jerico roused up enough to glare at him resentfully, studied the panties speculatively for several moments and finally decided he was just too fucking tired to fight him for them. Cuddling the robe, he rolled over and went to sleep.

* * * *

For his part, the guard thought it was a strange time of night to be moving Zodorf, but he supposed it had to do with the bastard's background—well, that and the rumor that had been picked up that someone planned to off the son-of-a-bitch. Him being one of the ‘gems,’ a real feather in their caps as far as the Feds were concerned, he could understand their dismay at the possibility that Zodorf's sentence might be cut short. They weren't keen on having to let go of their criminals.

He didn't believe it himself. Zodorf was king shit among the inmates, but stranger things had happened.

Shrugging it off since he really didn't give shit one way or the other, he escorted the prisoner to the waiting bus, walked him into the cage and secured his restraints. “Behave yourself, Zodorf,” he admonished as he stepped away.

Zodorf sneered at him. “Eat me."

The guard snorted. “You ain't my type, but maybe you'll find a new boyfriend when you get where you're going, huh?"

Zodorf glared at him, looked as if he was considering spitting on him and then, apparently thought better of it when he met the gaze of the bus driver in the mirror. “What are you looking at?” he snarled, transferring his attention to the driver.

"Looks kinda like a piece of shit wrapped in orange sherbet,” the driver retorted.

The guard who'd escorted him uttered a snorting laugh as he stepped outside and secured the cage door. “Better watch your back,” he murmured in a low voice as he passed the driver, jerking a thumb in the direction of the prisoner. “He's got connections ... outside, and they're some mean bastards."

"Who is he?” the driver asked.

"Mikhail Zodorf—used to be a big crime boss, didn't you, Zodorf?” the guard shot the question at the prisoner.

"You keep thinking that, Shithead."

The guard shrugged. “Look's like the way of it to me. Drive safely,” he said to the driver, heading down the steps of the bus. “Wouldn't want to bruise the little Rusky prince back there. He might tell his
family
."

Stepping back when he'd exited the bus, the guard watched as the bus pulled out, stopping for inspection at the gate. Shrugging, relieved to see the last of Zodorf, he headed back inside, wondering if he could squeeze in a quick smoking break before he reported back.

Zodorf glared daggers at the back of the driver's head for a while but when nearly thirty minutes passed without the driver once glancing back at him, he finally turned his attention to the darkness beyond the window, wondering why he hadn't heard anything about the hit. Granted, news traveled fucking slowly these days and this particular piece of news wasn't something he was willing to chance the Feds getting their hands on, but still ... it had been weeks since he'd gotten word that a snitch had come forward with the information he'd been looking for. His lawyer was just about ready to file an appeal. He wanted to be damned sure the Feds’ prize witness wasn't going to be in any condition to testify before his appeal came up.

He wasn't sure what to make of the transfer—particularly not considering the time they'd picked to do it. The suggestion that somebody had planned a hit on him was pure bullshit, of course. He had plenty of enemies, but they were busy trying to take over his enterprises while he was locked up. None of them had any reason—that they knew of—to try a hit in Federal lock-up.

He was sure it was some bullshit the Feds had come up with to try to put a wrench in his appeal plans. He just wasn't sure what they had in mind or how they thought the transfer would make any difference.

Unless...?

He shook that thought off before it fully formed. They wouldn't move him to a prison where he was likely to run in to one of his enemies just to see if they could get him bumped off.

He discovered when he emerged from his thoughts that the bus was taking a damned peculiar route. Ordinarily, they stuck to the major highways just like everybody else. There damned sure wasn't any reason that he could think of to explain what the fuck they were doing on a back road in the middle of nowhere. Not only did he not see a sign of a light indicating any houses, but he didn't recall passing another vehicle in a while, not since directly after they'd turned out of the prison.

Of course, it was pretty late. Traffic on the back roads tended to thin out a lot earlier than it did on the highway.

He still felt a prickling of uneasiness.

Flicking a glance at the guard sitting just outside the cage, he discovered the man was staring at him—realized he had been almost from the time he'd been ‘buckled’ in, although he hadn't said anything.

His uneasiness intensified. He tried to shrug it off. The guard was young—damned young. He didn't look to be much more than twenty-three, maybe twenty-four.

He looked a bit shaggy for a guard for that matter.

Since when had they started allowing guards to wear their hair that long?

"You got something you want to say?” he growled at the boy.

Something flickered in the young man's eyes, but it wasn't fear as Mikhail had expected. It irritated him since he'd decided the reason the guy was staring at him so hard was because he was some green-behind-the-ears recruit, probably scared shitless about escorting his first prisoner.

When the guard didn't say anything, he finally returned his attention to the view from the window. His gaze was snagged almost immediately by headlights in the road up ahead—headlights from a vehicle that seemed to be sitting still—in the middle of the road.

Even as he felt his belly clench in sudden apprehension, the lights on top of the vehicle flashed.

What the fuck? Some country bumpkin cop had decided to pull over the prison bus?

Feeling the bus decelerate just about the time he lost his view from his window, Zodorf transferred his attention to the front of the bus. He couldn't see anything then, though, but the flashing blue lights. The bus continued to slow and finally pulled to a stop. The driver grabbed the handle of the door opener and flung the bus doors open.

Vaguely relieved when he saw that the man coming up the bus steps was wearing a cop uniform—looked like a cop, Zodorf relaxed fractionally.

"Any problems?” the cop asked the driver.

"Nope. Went smooth."

Zodorf felt tension seize him as the conviction abruptly assailed him that he'd been set up. “What the fuck is going on?"

The cop that had entered the bus lifted his head and looked straight at him. “This is Mikhail Zodorf?” he asked the driver—or maybe the guard. His gaze was focused on him, however.

"Who wants to know?” he growled.

The cop, followed Zodorf saw, by another man not in uniform, advanced toward the cage. He stared through the security fencing for a few moments, his expression hard, dangerous. Glancing down at the lock, he reached for it, closed his hand around it—and wrenched it clean off the door.

Zodorf gaped at the man, trying to assimilate what he'd watched the man do.

Looping his fingers in the wiring, he wrenched the door off its hinges with no apparent effort and set it aside.

Then he smiled.

It wasn't a pleasant smile and Zodorf, for the first time in his life, felt real fear.

"Abby sends her greetings,” the man said in a deep, rumbling growl of a voice.