Wolfen Domination (14 page)

            Uncertain of whether he meant to kill her or not
now that he’d finished with Wagner, Erin began struggling to remove the gag the
moment he’d freed one of her hands, hoping she could convince him to set aside
their private war until Joshua was safe.

            “They’ve got the baby--your son,” she said a
little frantically, wondering just how much Jesse really understood when he was
in his beast form.

            Jesse grasped her jaw brusingly, his eyes seeming
to burn a hole in her as he met her gaze.  Apparently satisfied, he moved back
to Wagner as the man uttered a groan, placing a foot in the center of the
scientist’s chest.

            “Join the others and make sure every lab is
searched, and every specimen destroyed,” he growled at the other two Lycans. 
“I will have a little talk with Wagner about my son.”

            Wagner’s eyelids twitched and then, slowly, his
eyes opened and more slowly focused on the beast standing over him.  They began
to bulge then with fear.

            Leaning down, Jesse grasped him by his shoulders
and hauled him to his feet.  “Today you die, Wagner,” he said in a rumbling
growl.  “You have two choices, quick and easy, or slow and very painful.  Where
is my son?”

* * * *

            Apparently Wagner was laboring under the mistaken
belief that he wouldn’t die if he held onto the information Jesse wanted. 
Jesse stared down at the unconscious man speculatively for several moments,
realizing that the child would be moved the moment word got out about the
assault on the lab and, quite possibly, any information he did manage to get
out of Wagner would be useless by the time he could test the truth of it.  Even
if he’d wanted to, though, he couldn’t leave Erin to her own devices.  She’d
been sedated.  She was still conscious, but her reflexes were sluggish and
awkward, and in any case he needed to move her to a secure location for his own
reasons as well as her safety before he went after the child.

            Kneeling, he used the restraints he’d ripped off
of Erin to bind the scientist, then dragged him into the corridor and handed
the prisoner over to Tavian for further questioning.

            Returning for Erin, he scooped her off of the
table and left the examination room, following the corridor to the elevator and
taking it to the ground level entrance.  Even before the doors opened, however,
he heard gunfire.  The guards had dug in at the entrance.  Punching the button
again, he went down two levels and got off.  The Lycans who’d followed him down
the air shaft were still moving from lab to lab destroying the research they
could find, but that was
their
objective.  His was to get Erin and the
baby, and only that.

            “I can walk,” Erin said stiffly.

            Jesse slid a glance at her.  Without answering,
he shifted her onto one shoulder and loped down the corridor in search of the
main ventilation shaft.  When he’d found it, he settled her on the floor and
began pounding at the wall until he’d made a hole large enough to fit through. 
The fans had only been disabled temporarily and were once more churning, but
subterfuge was no longer necessary.  Searching for the wires that powered them,
he ripped them loose.  Instantly, the fan motors died and the lights all over
the facility began to flicker.

            Lifting Erin again, he hoisted her over his
shoulder and began the climb, pausing as he reached the first fan and ripping
half the blades out to climb past it.  He hesitated when he reached the top,
listening, but all of the gun fire seemed to be coming from the entrance. 
After a moment, he shoved the protective grid from the opening and climbed out.

            Almost the moment he emerged a bullet whizzed
past him.  It was followed in quick succession by a half a dozen more. 
Launching into a run, he headed for the cover of the trees.  A bullet slammed
into him before he reached them, punching a cry of pain from him and causing
him to stumble.  Recovering his balance with an effort, he gritted his teeth
and kept going.  He didn’t stop until he was certain there was no pursuit.

            When he thought it was safe to do so, he paused
long enough to check to be certain that Erin hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet
and then hoisted her onto his shoulder and headed for the rendezvous.

* * * *

            Erin didn’t even realize she’d succumbed to the
sedative she’d been given until she roused and discovered that she was no
longer moving, at least not in the miserable position she’d been in from the
moment she demanded Jesse let her get around on her own steam.

            The last thing she remembered was thinking she
was going to die when Jesse had climbed into the air shaft with her slung over
one shoulder.

            Maybe it wasn’t the sedative so much as abject
terror that had made her pass out?

            She was almost surprised to discover she wasn’t
hog tied when she roused enough to look around and discovered she was wedged
into the back seat of a Hummer between two Cajuns--the same two, she thought
with a mixture of dread and anger, who’d captured her at the old facility and
dragged her through the swamp to hand her over to Jesse.

            It was night, and except for the pale glow from
the instrument panel of the vehicle and the faint light from the moon and
stars, the vehicle was dark inside and yet she could discern enough to identify
the men on either side of her and Jesse.

            Jesse, now once more in human form as the others
were, was driving.  In the front seat beside him was a man that was a stranger
to her but whom she had no doubt was also Lycan.

            A noise behind her drew her attention and she
turned to discover two more men in the rear of the Hummer--make that three. 
Wagner, who
was
hog tied and gagged, was lying between them in the cargo
space.  The two Lycans were wearing bloodied bandages and had obviously been
wounded in the battle.

            She didn’t flatter herself that the skirmish that
had taken place between the FEDS and the Lycan had been because of her--Jesse
had made it clear enough that the focus of the raid was to destroy research about
the Lycan--but she still felt guilty to see that they’d had casualties.

            The soldiers must have had silver bullets issued,
she decided.  She’d seen the miraculous healing powers the Lycan had.  If
they’d been shot with anything else they would’ve healed themselves by now.

            Wagner didn’t look as if he was in great shape,
but then she was surprised he was even still alive.

            She doubted he would be long if the looks his two
guards were giving him were any indication of the general attitude toward the
man who’d so callously chosen their species for his experiments.

            After the brief glance behind her, Erin covered
her face with her hands, massaging the throbbing pain in her temples and
between her eyes.  Her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton.  She
swallowed several times, trying to gather moisture into her mouth, realizing it
was the after effect of the sedative, as was her swimming, throbbing head.

            Something nagged at her.  She frowned, trying to
focus on what it was.

            “They’ve implanted a tracker on me,” she said
finally.  “Jesse!  It’s how they found me before.  Wagner’s probably got one,
too.”

            Jesse glanced at her in the rearview mirror but
said nothing.

            The man beside him swiveled around in the seat
and gave her a once over that made her distinctly uneasy.  “Doan you worry
about it,
chère. 
We’re goin’ to take good care of you.”

            Dark or not, Erin was all too aware of the hungry
gleam in the man’s eyes and it unnerved the hell out of her.  She glanced uneasily
at the back of Jesse’s head and then at the two men beside her and subsided,
wishing she’d simply kept her mouth shut.

            She was still wearing the hospital gown, but
nothing else, and she felt completely naked and vulnerable.  Clothing wouldn’t
have protected her if the man was serious about what he had in mind, but it
would’ve given her the illusion of security, at least.

* * * *

            By Erin’s reckoning, it was nearly midnight when
Jesse pulled the Hummer off the freeway and took to the narrow backstreets of
the city.  Some forty five minutes later, they pulled off the road and into a
small parking lot in front a small block building.  Instead of parking in
front, Jesse drove around the side of the building and parked behind it beside
another Hummer which, as nearly as she could tell in the dim light, was painted
jungle camouflage.

            She wondered if it was a custom job or if the vehicle
had been purchased from the military.

            A light came on by the rear entrance even as
Jesse stepped out of the vehicle.  Erin thought at first that the light was
motion activated, but at almost the same moment a woman opened the door wide
and stepped back, inviting them to enter.  As Erin climbed out, she heard the
barking of what sounded like a sizeable pack of dogs.  The Lycan that had been
seated on her right side grasped her arm just above the elbow, urging her
toward the door and Erin realized the barking was growing louder as they
approached the door.

            Glancing back, she saw that Jesse and the man
who’d so unnerved her had helped one of the men from the back and was
supporting him between them.  The Lycan who’d been seated beside her was
helping the second man.

            The stranger was the only one of all of them who
showed no sign of an injury she realized, even as she studied the bloody
bandage around Jesse’s upper chest and shoulder in consternation.

            As she was dragged inside the building Erin’s
attention was snagged by the woman still standing in the doorway.  The woman met
her curious gaze with a calculating one that didn’t hold so much as an iota of
friendly curiosity.  In point of fact, her gaze was downright hostile.

            Erin couldn’t fathom why until the woman’s gaze
lit on Jesse.

            Enlightenment blossomed.  The woman had a ‘thing’
for Jesse.  Either they had a history, or they were currently involved.  Erin
wasn’t certain of which, but she knew the two of them weren’t just casual
acquaintances and it was also obvious from the deadly look that the woman knew
about her.

            Encountering the woman’s challenging glance with
a neutral expression, Erin held her gaze just long enough to allow the woman to
know she wasn’t intimidated and then assuaged her curiosity about the building
they were entering.

            Cages lined the walls.  Dogs and cats, every hair
bristling with alarm, stood at the door of each, raising a near deafening din
as the rag tag group entered the building.

            The woman was a veterinarian?  She supposed she
had known that in the back of her mind from the deafening racket the animals
were putting up from the moment they’d gotten out of the vehicle, but it hadn’t
connected in her mind with the bullet holes in the Lycans until now.  Horrified
at the thought, Erin turned to glance at the men entering the building behind
her.

            From what she could see no one was either
surprised or disturbed besides her, which, when she added in the fact that the
woman had been ready to let them in when they arrived, meant that this wasn’t
an unscheduled stop but an arranged one.

            As soon as everyone was inside, the woman closed
the door and locked it, then threaded her way to the front of the group and led
them down a narrow hallway.  The men filed into an examination room.  When Erin
paused and turned to follow them, the woman took hold of her upper arm, drawing
her to a halt.  “You’ll come with me.”

            Erin frowned, but the woman’s grip was
surprisingly strong.  “Where?” she demanded.

            Instead of answering, the woman gave her arm a
tug that nearly wrenched it from the socket.  Erin was still trying to decide
how much of a threat the woman represented when Jesse stepped into the
hallway.  “We need to lose that chip,” he said tightly.

            Erin glanced from him to the woman and back
again.  “You might have said so,” she retorted.

            “I suppose you would have considered cooperating
if I had?” the woman said tartly, speaking directly to Erin for the first time.

            Erin glared at the woman and then glanced at
Jesse again, realizing that, with or without restraints, she was obviously
still considered a prisoner.  Now wasn’t the time to argue, however.  If the
FEDS had recovered their cool by now from the assault on the facility, they’d
discovered their prize breeding mare and mad scientist were missing.  “I
wouldn’t have told Jesse about it if I hadn’t intended to cooperate,” she said
tightly, following the woman into another examination room.

            The woman shoved her in the direction of a table.

            Pushed off balance, Erin fell against it and
turned to glare at the woman’s back as she moved to the supply cabinets.  “Get
on the table.”