Chasing His Bunny (13 page)

The look on Steele's face
said he'd agreed. He'd gone from imposing and focused to absolutely
fucking enraged when she said the doctor's name.  She could
practically feel his fury - oh wait.  She
could
 feel his fury swirling
inside of her, feeding hers.  Kasim had explained some of the
finer aspects of the mating bond to her this morning, including the
fact that she would be feeling more and more of what Steele was
feeling as it grew stronger.  

"That fucker's coming here?!"
 The deep, rasping growl in Mr. Hot-and-Furious' voice went
straight through Bethany's core.  Something else that Kasim
had explained to her - she and Steele were going to be boinking
each other's brains out for the first few weeks of mating while the
bond solidified.  Whether the timing was appropriate or not,
they were both going to be horndogs.  

The timing sucked donkey
balls.

"He's got some kind of tracking system
with him," Raoul said, cutting off whatever more either Steele or
Bethany might have said.  His deep, velvety voice made her
wonder what he looked like.  She felt strange relying on a man
that she'd never met or talked to (well, before this moment), but
Eli and Steele trusted him.  

Then the impact of his words hit her.
 "Tracking system?"  Immediately her hands went to her
body, even though she couldn't feel anything through her clothes
and she'd never noticed anything when she was naked.  "That
bastard put something in us!"

It explained how he knew where they
were... which meant they had to find the trackers and get them out
and warn her brothers - 

"Calm down," Steele snapped, taking
her by the shoulders and giving her a small shake.  She looked
up at him with wild eyes and actually whimpered, hating the way she
felt out of control.  His voice softened, his hands gentled
and he pulled her into his chest.  She took in a deep breath
of his comforting scent, feeling it like a warm balm against her
rioting emotions.  "Now that we know it's there, Doc will find
it and get it out.  Okay?"

"Okay," she whispered, pulling herself
together.  Shit.  She'd just fallen apart in front of
Bailey.

Gathering herself, she pushed away
from Mr. Suddenly-Touch-Feely-and-Reluctant-to-Let-Go, and turned
to face her sister.  Bailey was trembling from head to toe and
Bethany immediately abandoned Steele to give her sister the same
comfort she had just received.  Behind her, Steele started
talking to Raoul again, barking out orders and calling his squad
leaders on their radios to update them on the enemies'
movements.

"It's okay," Bethany whispered,
pulling Bailey into her arms.  It didn't matter that her baby
sister was much taller than her tiny frame, Bailey snuggled in like
a cub huddling into its mama bear.  "They won't get us. 
I won't let them.  We'll get the trackers out and
-"

"No."

"No?"  Shock and confusion. 
Bethany pulled her sister away from Steele, distracted by all the
movement and orders going on behind her.  She yanked Bailey
off to the side; no one was paying attention to them anyway.
 "What do you mean no?"

"I mean, not yet," Bailey said. 
She was still trembling from head to toe, skin completely blanched
of color in her fright, but her voice was firm and the look in her
eyes was... calculating.  Her gaze met Bethany's and held it.
 "I have an idea."

******

Eyes skimming over the maps, Steele
barked out his orders.

"Robert, you're going to take the
squad on Water Street; Jacqueline, you've got Centerway; Jordan,
Briardale.  Try to take at least one man alive from each group
for questioning.  After that, Robert, I want you to head down
past the group on Main, come at them from behind."  Steele
blew out a long breath, his mind jumping around the possibilities.
 "Raoul, keep us informed on Main's movements.  If it
looks like they're going to reinforce anyone's troops, I need to
know.  Just in case, I want everyone to hit their target at
the same time, in exactly ten minutes."

That way, hopefully, Main would be
left floundering.  Right now his squads were outnumbered, four
to six, which weren't bad odds since they were all military trained
shifters, but he didn't know what kind of training the enemy would
have.  Raoul couldn't tell him that, or whether or not they
were armed with silver.  Regular bullets could kill a shifter
too, but only with a direct shot to the head or heart - and
sometimes even that didn't work.  The best way was
silver.  It leaked into a shifter's bloodstream like poison,
causing much greater damage on impact than a regular bullet and -
if it wasn't removed immediately - the effects slowly spread
throughout the body, causing destruction as it went.
 

Considering Dr.  Montgomery's
experiments, they all had to assume the mercs were armed with
silver weapons and go forward accordingly.  Steele's people
were trained, as well as being faster and stronger than any human,
but the pain that silver caused was more subversive and more
intense than regular bullets would be to the human mercs. 
With greater numbers, if they got reinforcements from the group on
Main, it was conceivable that Steele could end up losing some of
his people.  

Which was unacceptable, as far as he
was concerned.  He didn't want to just beat the mercs, he
wanted to send a message.  

Don't ever come
here.  Don't risk your lives for The Company. Don’t ever move
against us.  It's not worth it.

So these poor, unfortunate
souls were going to have to die to make a point.  Raoul would
be sure to spread the word.  Taking The Company's side in
anything was dangerous.  Eli agreed.  It was the best way
to keep their people safe; Steele just didn't want to lose any of
them in the process of keeping that safety.  If they weren't
outnumbered, he wouldn't be so concerned, but any backup Eli sent
was going to come too late at this point.  

"Everyone copy?"

They all gave their affirmatives,
synched their watches, and clicked off their radios.  Out in
his town, his pack was moving into position.  In the bunker
below him, the rest of his pack was hunkered down.  Not that
they were just sitting there; they were shifters after all. 
Adults were tasked with watching the children, assembling first aid
supplies, preparing food, and setting up defenses in the case of a
last stand situation.  One or two would be scouting out the
escape tunnels, ensuring that they were still secure and
secret.  Everyone had a job and no one down there was
idle.

Still, he much preferred being up here
where he could keep track of the battle, even if he couldn't
participate, and his mate.  

Bethany's scent had faded, and he
turned to where she and Bailey had been sitting before, assuming
that she had gone back to where she was supposed to be.
 

A growl rose in the back of his throat
as he realized that, of course, his mate wasn't where she was
supposed to be.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see
Kasim looking up to see what was wrong.  The lion shifter's
dreadlocks swung through the air as he snapped his head around,
quickly picking up on what had Steele snarling. 

"Bethany!"  He roared her name,
his fists clenched at his sides, fur beginning to sprout all of his
body as his wolf howled inside of him.  He could actually feel
his skin rippling with the effort of keeping the animal
contained.  Silence fell around him, as everyone stopped what
they were doing and immediately looked for his mate.  Who was
nowhere to be seen.  "Where the fuck is she?!"

"Zane, Luke, Thomas, report," Kasim
barked out, naming the three snipers who were on the rooftops above
them, spread out around the theater.  "Did you see anyone
leave this building?"

"Negative."

"Negative."

"Thomas?"

The tension grew as Steele's canines
lengthened, his fury growing.  He couldn't even sense his
mate's emotions, because his own were too strong.  

"Thomas?"

"Holy fuck..." Thomas' voice was a
mere whisper, hoarse and shocked.  "There's a... holy
fuck..."

"THOMAS!" Steele roared, not bothering
to use the radio.  Thomas would be able to hear him from all
the way outside. Steel was already moving towards the back of the
theater, which was where Thomas was positioned.  He could hear
every word coming through the radio, though, thanks to his shifter
hearing.  The only thing slowing him was that he wasn't sure
that whatever had rattled Thomas had anything to do with
Bethany.

"There's a giant fucking rabbit headed
down Slip Street," Thomas said, sounding choked.  "Like,
bear-sized.  It's fucking huge, and... something small, but I
can't get a good look at it, even through the scope.  It's
fucking fast as hell.  What the fuck?!  They just turned,
it looks like they're headed towards Main."

The last vestiges of Steele's control
shredded as he realized that somehow his mate and her sister had
left the theater without anyone seeing them and were now headed
into direct confrontation with The Company and Dr. Montgomery, and
his wolf exploded out of him.  When he caught up with his
mate, she better be unharmed, so that he could put her over his
knee and then tie her to his bed, where she could be pampered and
cared for as long as she didn't move, for the rest of her
life.

Chapter 7

Bethany and Bailey had
heard enough of Mr. In-Charge-and-Oblivious' plan to know that the
group on Main could be a problem.  Although, even if he'd had
the people to easily overwhelm the entire enemy force, the sisters
would still be headed straight for Dr. Montgomery.  He was
theirs to deal with, on behalf of their whole family.  Despite
her terror for her little sister, Bethany still wouldn't have left
Bailey behind, given the choice.  Both of them were
owed
.

Keeping to the walls, Bailey was a
white blur ahead of Bethany; running slowly enough that her older
sister could keep up, even though she probably could have left
Bethany in the dust.  She was a fast and furious little thing,
and Bethany felt like a lumbering giant next to her, but she didn't
care about her big size.  That just meant she'd probably draw
the most fire.  Well, that's assuming that they'd be fired on
at all.

She was partially counting on the fact
that the doctor would want them, safe and unharmed.  And he'd
recognize her, even if he couldn't know what Bailey looked like in
this form.

For once, she and the thing inside of
her were in perfect agreement - they both wanted the doctor's
blood.  The quaint shops on Main, all lit up - although empty
- to try and fool the enemy into thinking that everything was
mostly normal, slid past her.  Hopefully this full out assault
wouldn't kill her.  She'd really been looking forward to going
through some of those shops; shopping was something that had been
denied to her for so long and she'd thought it would be a good
bonding experience once Bailey was up and out of bed.

Instead, they were heading down the
street for a bloody confrontation.  

That sounded about right for her
life.

The street curved at the
end, so she couldn't see the enemy yet, but she could smell
them.  Hear them.  The sharp scent of gun oil and metal,
the musky scents of humans (and one of them definitely needed a
bath), and their raised voices.  One of them grated as the man
shouted, his voice rising over all the others.

"Tranqs only!  Don't you dare
shoot them with anything else!"

A snarl rose in Bethany's throat, her
bunny lips lifting above her huge fangs and sharp teeth.  The
damn trackers.  She'd almost forgotten about those.  When
she caught up with the doctor, she'd let him live long enough just
to tell her where the tracker was inside of her and her siblings so
that she could take them out.  

So, no point in even attempting a
sneak attack.  The doctor was obviously watching their
approach.  It was going to be a balls to the wall frontal
assault.

Somewhere behind her, a
wolf howled, and some part of her that identified as
prey
 quivered.  The other part of her, the enraged
predator, recognized the competition for her own prey.
 

My kill! 
Mine!

As if Bailey had the same thought, her
tiny form suddenly darted forward even faster, going around the
gentle curve of the street.  There were shouts and the sounds
of shots fired, and then Bethany was rounding the curve as well,
getting her first look at the enemy.

They'd used their SUVs and Jeeps to
create a kind of barricade across the street, between the antique
store and the florist, with men spread out behind them.  They
were all dressed in black, wearing body armor, and looked like
professionals.  She ignored the looks of shock and horrified
awe as they got their first good look at her - although part of her
cringed at knowing Mr. I'm-Your-Mate would probably look the same
way when he saw her - and focused in on the real target.

Dr. Montgomery was bouncing up and
down in one of the Jeeps, completely oblivious to the target he was
making of himself, pointing at Bailey's tiny, furry form. 
Well, trying to point.  Bailey was moving so fast that he was
a second behind her every move as she darted back and forth, easily
evading the tranquilizer darts that sped her way.