Unquenchable Desire (13 page)

Fully engaged by Brian, the
threatening wolf curled his lips, his gleaming incisors bared and leapt at
Brian again. How could she leave her dear alpha wolf while he was under such
vicious attack?
 
Brian thrashed about to
stop the crazed man-wolf from closing his jaws on his throat.
God, protect Brian. And give me the courage
to trust him to save
himself
. My first obligation is
this child.

Brian would want her to save the child—yet, leaving
him alone to fight this evil monster seemed impossible.
 

She shoved the loudly sobbing
Kindra
into a bedroom. “Don’t move!”

While Brian fought the wolf, muzzle to muzzle and
blocked bite for bite, she jumped up on the muscled werewolf’s back and dug her
incisors into his neck near the other recent bites. The deafening rumble of the
three of them growling echoed through the empty condemned house. The big wolf thrust
himself against a wall and knocked her off his back. Terrified yet determined
to save her alpha rescuer, she watched for a chance to get back into the
action.

Their werewolf faces weren’t
clearly identifiable but she’d know Brian anywhere.
 

Both hairy, muscular wolves stood
upright and slightly bent, leaning forward like arm-dangling apes. Her alpha
wolf held his arms a foot away from his hairy body, feet somewhat apart. Although
he was the smaller, leaner werewolf of the two, the span of his shoulders
appeared at least an inch wider.

He crouched into a karate stance,
his beautiful muscles flexed in readiness for battle. The bigger werewolf went
into a less agile crouch. There wasn’t enough width in the hallway for whirls,
so they stuck with kicks and thrusts. She watched for a window of opportunity
to help. Her alpha werewolf moved smoothly and effectively while looking confident.
She struggled to find an equal confidence that he could win without help, but
she feared he was above killing and his attacker lived to kill. The shadows on
the wall reflected the fierceness of the battle. The air was acrid with the
smell blood. She leapt onto the black
wolf’s
back
again. He shook her off onto the hard floor then
fixed his piercing gaze on her. He leapt and tried to close his
incisors on her throat. She dodged and rolled out of his reach. Brian used the
distraction to attack again. He went for the throat. The evil wolf twisted and
Brian bit into his shoulder. Blood gushed out. For an instant, he glared at Brian
and then ran toward the living room. They heard the door being ripped from its
hinges and then the house went silent except for
Kindra’s
sobbing.

Brian
was bleeding, but alive. Thank God.

Before she had a chance to sigh in
relief, she heard screeching tires. She ran to the window. “Brian, it’s the
police! They can’t see us like this.”

“Quick! Out the back before they can
surround the place.”

Brian opened the bedroom door where
Kindra
waited, sobbing and terrified. He bent,
whispered something to the child. She stopped crying,
then
he gently kissed her forehead and lifted her into his arms. Valerie crawled
through the hole at the back of the house first and then Brian handed the child
out to her. Once clear of the hole they ran with animal speed for the
foundation’s station wagon parked down the street. As they eased away from the
curb and drove through the barrio, she looked in the rearview mirror and then
scanned the streets. There wasn’t a neighborhood hoodlum in sight. Apparently,
even tough guys were intimidated by growling wolves and wanted to avoid an
encounter with the police almost as much as they did.

Chapter Eleven

Valerie felt pulled in a myriad of directions. Brian’s
blood streamed from his cuts and gouges, and he was trying to stem the flow
with his hands. She glanced back at the shivering little girl sitting with her
legs drawn up and bent into an almost a fetal position. When the three of them
rushed to the car, she hadn’t had time to check on the child until now. The
poor kid had gone from hysteria to abnormally quiet and must have a mountain of
questions. “
Kindra
, Sweetheart, please toss Brian
that towel from the storage area. The towel flew from the backseat like a
missile. “Thanks. And, Honey, put your seat belt on.”

Once Valerie had driven under the barrio’s arch and left
the walled community with mostly boarded up condemned homes, she started
breathing normally again. Too bad
Kindra
had seen
them in their half-morphed state. How would she keep the little sweetheart from
telling everyone that they were werewolves? If she kept at the forefront of her
mind the fact that they’d saved
Kindra
, she’d be more
equipped to handle the resulting trouble.

If the police spotted the station wagon leaving the
barrio, or if someone turned them in for being in the area at the time of the
break-in of boarded up condemned property they’d be in deep quicksand.

Valerie turned onto
Foothill Boulevard
, barely aware of the
strip malls dotted along the road. Her mind remained intent on her driving and
their narrow escape from the law. She hadn’t gone far when she heard the wail
of police sirens behind them. Oh, damn, damn, damn. For and instant, a crazy
thought raced through her mind. Should she make a run for it? What was she
thinking? She had a child in the car. Besides, the wagon had the foundation’s
name emblazoned all over it.

“Brian, I have to stop. Try to count backwards and
reverse the morphing.”

“That’s never worked for me.”

“Just do it!”

She pulled over, counting backwards like crazy. Nothing
happened. Her body froze, waiting for the inescapable fist of the law to come
down on them.

The police sped by as though they were invisible. Valerie
put her head on the steering wheel, her whole body trembling, and began to weep
and laugh, giving in to the most profound relief she’d ever felt.

“Don’t cry, Miss Valerie,”
Kindra
said. “Brian says that God wants us to be brave and everything will turn out
okay.”

Valerie glanced over at Brian. “I wondered what you’d
told her to stop her hysteria.”

“We aren’t out of the woods yet.”

“I know and we can’t go back to the office like this,”
she said, pulling out her cell phone before gearing the car in motion again.

Valerie quickly checked in with her secretary. “Any
news about
Kindra’s
mother and brother,” she asked
softly.

“The mother was dead when the police got there,” Geri
said. “The baby is in bad shape but will make it.
”

After hearing the sad details
about the mother, Valerie decided to wait until the next day to lay the
distressing news on a child who’d already had a hellish morning. “
Geri, we won’t be back to the
office for the rest of the day. If something crucial comes up, call me at
home.”

She hung up, pulled back into the lane of traffic, and
glanced at Brian. He was bleeding from the cuts and bites on his torso. “You
have a lot of surface bites and claw gouges. But the hospital is out of the
question in our present half-morphed conditions. But luckily, I’m a pretty good
nurse.”

She headed up
MT
Baldy Highway
to the mansion.

“Sorry about messing up the foundation’s new car,” he
said in a pained voice. “But I’ll detail it as good as new tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She forced
a
lightness
into her tone. “You had an advantage with that evil wolf. He
underestimated you.”

“Apparently, so did you.” The inflection of his tone
carried some bitterness. “Why didn’t you get out of there?”

“You’re welcome for the help,” she muttered.

“Thank you,” he said in a defiant tone. “But who saved
who?”

He was right. She should be thanking him. Valerie
glanced at his pain-etched profile. Even in pain his features were strong,
handsome, and very alpha. “Where did you learn your eclectic fighting style?”

“It’s a combination of many lessons by top men in the
field of combat. One of my teachers was an ex-marine, another was a navy seal. They
taught me the quick kill tactic, but I don’t think I could ever finish off a
man, even to save my life.”

“What about to save a child? Or me?”

He moaned in pain. “I was there wasn’t I?”

“I wasn’t asking about your courage. It’s clear that
you’re one of the bravest men I know. I was talking about using the killer
instinct when absolutely necessary.”

“Let’s just say, I’d try my darnedest to find another
way to defeat my attacker.”

“But if we don’t find a permanent
solution, Dad says he’ll just keep coming back. And Uncle Hugh said that Reeves
seems to be gathering knowledge and the experiences of each body he morphs
into. If that turns out to be true, it’ll be like having three brainy people in
one after us. Next time, that combination of minds and experiences will have a
new ploy in mind and it’s bound to be more deadly. Maybe something he can do at
a distance. I believe our goal now should be to identify the killer and, before
he can hurt us, someone at the foundation or my family, we must take him out.
Permanently.”

“How did I manage to fall in love with such a ferocious
female?”

She winced. “Killing, even an arch enemy, is a moral
dilemma for me as well. But—
You’re
in love with me?”

“Like I said, I’m here, aren’t I? And how do you
propose to kill the walking dead that an evil force keeps resurrecting?”

She touched the cross Brian had placed around her neck.
“I don’t have all the answers, yet.”

“Well, neither do
I
. And maybe
there isn’t an answer.” He groaned, closed his eyes, and rested his head
against the window. “Do you have any painkillers at home? And could we not talk
anymore now?”

Her heart went out to him and she patted his thigh. He
was right again. She glanced in the rear view mirror at
Kindra
.
They shouldn’t be talking like this with little ears listening. The child had
been so quiet she’d almost forgotten about her.

****

Valerie drove up the long tree-lined lane to the
mansion, wondering what her parents would say about her and Brian’s wild
daylight
morphing
. It didn’t matter. By the time she
turned into the circular, brick lined driveway, they were t
otally morphed into their human forms.

She glanced over at Brian resting his head against the
window with his eyes closed. “Are you awake?”
He was still
bleeding. “Lets go in the back entrance.”

They slipped in the
back door. She carried Kindra who, still trembling, sucked her thumb like a
much younger child. The tramatized girl would need special couciling and
therapy to help her with the aftermath of the harrowing experience. In order to
keep Kindra from exposing their werewolf tendencies and although, not the
expert Kindra needed, she’d have to play therpist until she could arrange to
turn her over to the proper authorities.
 
She’d learn whatever needed to bring the child
back to good mental health. She had some experience with trauma. She knew what
she went through after she was kidnapped as a child. And of course the psychology
courses she’d taken in college would help. The rest she could get from books
written by experts and instinct. The police would be looking for the missing
girl and then child protective services would get into the mix. But for now, she
had to keep Kindra close as long as possible and then follow her care once
forced to release her to the authorities.

She paused in the
kitchen. Kyle was nowhere in sight but a pot of stew simmered on the stove,
filling the kitchen with wonderful aromas of meat and vegetables. She heard
symphony music coming from upstairs.
 
Her
parents must be up there. Probably doing what she’d like to do with Brian.

She paused and studied
Brian. His eyes looked clear. “If you’ll be okay for about ten minutes, I’ll
take care of Kindra first. I think I’ll need more time to fix you up.”

He gave her a weak
smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She sent him a
sidelong glance that she hoped conveyed,
give
me a break
. She pulled a plastic shower liner from a drawer and threw it
over the leather chair. Just stretch out in Dad’s chair and I’ll be right
back.”

Carrying Kindra,
Valerie tip-toed up the spiral stairs and slipped into the upstairs bathroom
with it’s round Roman tub and well-stocked medicine cabinet. She gave Kindra a
quick bath first. Afterwards, she changed the water and poured in some fresh,
healing bath salts for Brain. She wrapped Kindra in a towel and while inhaling
the clean scent of soap and shampoo whafting from the child in her arms, she stepped
out into the hallway.

Brian was just
coming up the steps. “I’ll be right back, Brian. Undress and get into the tub.”

She hugged Kindra
close.
I have to
block out the image of Kindra’s mother and her torn out throat
from my mind.
 
Kindra
is alive, I’m alive, and Brian is alive.