Chasing His Bunny (14 page)

Unfortunately for the soldiers, they
quickly dismissed Bailey as a threat when they got a look at
Bethany.  She snarled savagely, giving them a good look at her
teeth, as she pounded towards them, her back legs kicking out
powerfully.  Drawing as much attention as she could and making
herself as big a target as possible.

Behind her, she heard
another wolf howl, and the thing inside of her quivered with relief
and happiness.  She realized that she trusted Mr.
Hot-On-My-Trail to keep her safe, even if Dr. Montgomery's men
managed to knock her out.  So she didn't even bother to try
and hide in her shell - her soft bits could still be hit anyway,
all they had to do was aim inside the giant head and armholes.
 She wouldn’t get the kill, but Bailey would and Bethany could
assist.

Stinging needles hit her head and
legs, bouncing off the rest of her body (or getting caught in her
fur), and lethargy swept through her immediately.  The doctor
had tested enough drugs on the Bunson siblings to know exactly what
to use on her.  

Still, physics was going to work in
her favor anyway.  She heard the screams of Bailey's victims,
and smiled even as she lost control of her body and slammed into
the vehicle barricade like a bowling ball.

******

Seeing the huge, fluffy,
white body of his mate stumble and then roll, crashing into the
center jeep in the middle of the road, Steele roared his
fury.  While some part of him was shocked by the size of
Bethany in her shifter form - she was at least three feet higher
off the ground than him, not including her ears - that didn't stop
his protective instinct.  

Screams were coming from the vehicles
as a tiny, white bunny wreaked havoc on the soldiers, blood
dripping down its front as it attacked like something out of Monty
Python.  Darts were bouncing off of their body armor as they
tried to hit the vicious bunny and ended up shooting each
other instead - one of them took a dart to the throat and
immediately went down.  Those who saw him and Kasim bearing
down on them - a huge grey wolf and a monstrous lion - were
thrown into even more confusion as some of them tried to grab their
regular guns, wanting real, silver bullets instead of tranq darts
now that they were faced with two apex predators.

The unholy sound of chaos, guns
firing, screams, and snarls got even higher as Kasim leaped and
cleared the barrier, landing on the side where the humans
were.  He was a much larger target than Bailey's tiny form,
but his wicked claws and sharp teeth made it possible for him to
take out a soldier with a single swipe of his paw, rather than
having to go for the throat like Bailey was. 

Steele skidded to a halt next to his
mate, snarling and knocking the darts from her skin with his
snout.  Since she'd basically knocked the jeep over, anyone
who wanted to shoot at him or her was going to have to come over
the cars to do so, and going by the noises, they were a little too
distracted to even think about that right now.   Only two
darts had actually managed to bury into her flesh, blocked by all
the fluffy white fur.  He sneezed as some of it got into his
nose.  

Wake up, wake up, wake
up.

He didn't think Kasim and Bailey were
going to be routed, but just in case... if they needed to move out
of here in a hurry for some reason, they couldn't do that with
Bailey asleep.  Her shape in this form was just too big for
one person to easily carry.

Everything he'd ever heard about mates
ran through his head - most of which he barely remembered and
really wished he'd done a better job of paying attention to. 
Supposedly, he should be able to share his strength with
Bethany.  Would that be enough to wake her up?  He had no
idea, but he knew he had to at least try.

It wasn't hard to find that little
knot of emotions in his head that was 'other.'  Up until this
moment, he hadn't always been aware of it - especially when his own
emotions were running high - but now it was just this big blank
spot.  Even when she'd been sleeping, there had been something
there, taking up space.  The lack of it was making his wolf
feel even more panicked.

Steele pushed against that spot in his
head.  The screams and shouted orders fuzzed out as he focused
everything he had on the place in his head where Bethany was
supposed to be.  He could hear more people coming, more
violence heading towards them, and knew that this was rapidly going
to turn into a shit show.  It wasn't just humans heading their
way, but his own people as well; Main Street was about to become a
big battleground and his mate was lying helpless on the
ground!

Growling, his wolf pressed his body
against hers, rubbing his scent over her throat and fluffy cheek,
sneezing again as her whiskers tickled his nose.  

Come on baby, wake up... I
need you.

That spot fluttered with something
almost like awareness.  Encouraged, Steele pushed harder,
imagining his own energy pushing into her emptiness and filling her
up, trying to give her himself. 

It... felt like something was
happening.  He felt weaker.  He felt her waking up, felt
her emotions snapping to life... and himself draining into
her.  It was like having his energy sucked up into a vacuum,
except that he was happy about it. 

To his shock, his wolf suddenly
shivered and he shifted back to human without meaning to.  The
energy transfer stopped, as if the shift had broken the connection,
even though he could still feel Bethany in his head - that part of
the connection hadn't broken.

Totally naked, he knelt in the street,
stroking her sides.  "Baby, wake up, please wake
up."

A shudder went through her and she
suddenly rocked, the way any animal did when it was lying asleep on
its side and something startled it.  Her back legs kicked and
Steele was glad that he was standing up by her head.
 

"Thank god," he whispered as she
rolled onto her feet, nose twitching, and whiskers brushing his
face.  Her cute pink nose was the size of his hand and, if
he'd been standing, her face would be almost level with his -
although her long ears put her well over his height.  Right
now it felt like his legs were too shaky for him to get up; he was
as exhausted as he was after a night of running and hunting in the
woods.  Which was not real fucking ideal, right
now.

Growling, his mate suddenly flipped
around, blocking his view of Main Street with her bulk.  He
could still hear the approaching fight, though... well, not so much
a fight as The Company's soldiers trying to retreat to what they
thought of as their base, only to find a bear-sized bunny blocking
the way.

Hearing Kasim's low rumble - not quite
a roar, but certainly a threatening sound - Steele forced himself
to his feet so that he could see what was happening.  His
strength was returning, just more slowly than he was used to. 
On the other side of Bethany, The Company's mercs were fighting for
their lives against shifters.  They'd managed to get out of
range of the snipers, although Steele was pretty sure they weren't
far behind. 

With one hand on his
mate's fluffy shoulder, he turned to peek over the cars behind
them.  Kasim was still in lion form, one paw squashing a
little ball of sticky red and white fluff.  Bailey was
squirming, trying to get out from under him, snapping her sharp
little teeth at the still body of Dr. Montgomery.  The doctor
wasn't dead - not for lack of trying by Bailey - and Steele was
relieved.  He needed the doctor alive.  Just for a little
bit longer.  Once Steele and Eli had the information they
wanted from him, Bailey could go all Monty Python on him if she
wanted.  

"Bailey," he said, projecting his
voice over the sounds of violence coming from behind him, his tone
Alpha stern.  "Stop fighting Kasim.  We need to ask Dr.
Montgomery some questions, which means we need him alive right
now."

The wiggly, blood-stained
vicious bunny stopped moving, peering at him suspiciously.  He
nodded his head at her, keeping his hand on her sister's shoulder
as Bethany growled her own displeasure, her upper lip lifting
menacingly.  Damn.  His mate's fangs were even bigger
than his.

Not that he was intimidated by her
teeth.  Size wasn't everything.

Steele petted her,
surprised by the hardness he felt underneath the soft fur... a
bunny the size of a bear, with a bear's sharp teeth, and a turtle
shell on her body?  Geezus... the doctor had a lot of
explaining to do.  It was like Bethany was a mish-mash of all
the animal genes her family possessed.  Whereas it looked like
Bailey had gotten the teeth, but not the size.  He wondered if
she had a shell underneath too... going by the way Kasim had no
compunction about keeping her under his heavy paw, even though
she'd stopped struggling, Steele assumed so.  This went so far
beyond impossible… no wonder any growling the Bunsons did sounded
completely unnatural. Still, talk about having the best of all
their animal genes. Steele might even be a little jealous. His wolf
was big, but not like, bear-size big.

The sounds of violence had completely
died down on the street behind him, so he turned to take care of
that.  They needed to pile the bodies, separate them from the
wounded enemy, get any of their own people's injuries taken care
of, and interrogate any of The Company's men that were still left
alive.  Like the two kneeling in the middle of the street,
their hands twined behind their necks, heads bowed in defeat.
 

Smart men.

Taking a step, Steele almost stumbled
on a rock, steadying himself with his hand on his mate's body
again.    

"Thanks," he said, patting her. 
His bunny made a strange, almost growling noise.  Could
bunnies growl?  Or was that the bear part of her?  He was
99% sure it had nothing to do with the turtle.  "Are you going
to change back to human anytime soon?"  She looked away from
him.  "That's fine, if you don't want to," he said
reassuringly.  He assumed she might feel safer in this form
right now.  Or maybe she just didn't want to get naked in
front of all of his soldiers.  Nudity didn't bother shifters,
but he didn't expect Bethany to behave like a normal shifter.
 "Will you walk with me?"

Turning her head back towards him, the
bunny made that same little funny growl.  It was pretty cute
actually. 

"Kasim, let Bailey up, and
keep Dr. Montgomery secure.  I want to question him back at
base."

Orders given, Steele
grinned and walked forward, keeping his hand on her body - he
couldn't keep it in the same spot as they moved, because her little
hops meant her shoulder didn't stay at the same height.  Her
fur flowed over his hand as they moved, and he couldn't help but
grin.  She was so soft and cuddly, even if she was also big
and vicious, in this form.  Even though he hated the way she'd
become a shifter, he couldn't help but admire how incredible she
was.  

Although he scowled as he noticed her
bunny eyes going wide, her gaze skipping across the street half
full of naked men.  Only half full because some of them were
still in their animal forms.  Nudity wasn't a big thing, but
it suddenly occurred to him that he was probably the only naked man
Bethany had ever seen until today, and now she was getting an
eyeful.  Steele growled under his breath.  She better not
be enjoying it too much.

The sun glinting off of metal, sending
up a bright flash of unintentional light, saved his life.
 

"SNIPER!"  Someone yelled at the
same time Bethany's body suddenly bowled him over.
 

All he could see was white
fluff as he was completely covered by his mate, her heavy weight
pinning him down.  The sound of a gun going off, followed by a
strange thud that he could only assume was the bullet impact;
Bethany's body shook and Steele knew that the shooter had been
aiming at him and she'd just thrown herself in the way!  That
was his job!

"Bethany!" He roared her
name, shoving at her, frantic to push her off of him so that he
could see the damage, not caring about the scrapes he was
collecting as the street tore at his bare skin.  Good god, she
weighed a ton in animal form!

Another gunshot.  "Got him! 
Shooter down!"

Raoul sounded pissed. As
well he should be – it had been his job to keep any snipers from
getting into position! The amount of ground they’d all had to cover
(and the fact that Bethany had moved a fucking mile from her
initial position) obviously had made that a hell of a lot more
difficult, but if his mate was hurt, Steele wouldn’t care what the
reason was.

"Bethany let me up!"  He pushed
as hard as he could, rolling her back... and stopped dead. 
There wasn't any blood anywhere.  In fact, she looked like a
big white cotton ball.  "Bethany?"

Her head suddenly popped
out, making him - and everyone else around him - stare in
disbelief.  The bunny twitched her nose and then sighed,
shifting back into her human form, which seemed even tinier by
comparison.  Sitting on the street next to her was the silver
bullet.

******

Curling into a ball, Bethany tried to
stop the trembling of her body.  She wasn't even sure what she
was more upset about - the fact that now everyone knew what a
monster she was, that she was naked in front of all of them, or
that Steele was staring at her like she was a freak.