Wolver's Rescue (15 page)

“
Bull? Um, Bull?”

He was also beginning to understand why they
starved her. Starving, she didn’t talk. Fed, she didn’t give him a
moment’s peace. In more ways than one.

“
Bull! Stop!”

At her screech, Bull slammed on the brakes.
Tires squealed and the bed of the truck shimmied. Seatbelts kept
them both from flying through the windshield. Holy shit, had he hit
something?

Tommie was still screeching as she ripped the
seatbelt from its slot, tore open the door, and ran across the
street, angling back behind the truck. Her hands were in the air
and she looked like she was on the attack. The two women on the
sidewalk looked ready to run.

God only knew what the woman was going to do.
Bull charged after her. He reached her just as she reached the
women. Tommie’s arms were spread wide as if she planned to
clothesline the two.

“
What the hell do you think
you’re doing?” he roared. Grabbing her about the waist, he pulled
her back, lifting her off her feet in the process. He held her away
from the women.

“
Put me down, you big beast.
Put me down!” Her arms flailed. Her feet kicked.

Bull was suddenly besieged by two more pair
of flailing arms and kicking legs as the ladies he’d saved from
attack began attacking him.

“
Let her go!”

“
Leave her
alone!”

“
Put me down!”

Bull recognized them before they recognized
what he was.

He called on the power within him, and
because the full moon was so near, it came in an instant. The air
around him crackled with it. He felt his chest expand with it. The
already powerful muscles of his arms and legs grew more even more
so.

“
Stop it,” he commanded in a
voice that barely rose above a whisper, and everything
did.

Tommie froze in his arms. The two women
stepped back, heads slightly bowed.

“
Are you going to behave?”
he asked with his mouth close to Tommie’s ear.

Her head bobbed, which he took to be a ‘yes’
and he set her down on her feet.

She didn’t turn to him, but tilted her head
back until it touched his chest and spoke to his chin. “But I
already was behaving. You’re the one who came swooping in like some
big badass wolf and scaring my friend. It was pretty impressive,
though. Can I learn how to do that?”

Bull looked down into the face that was
grinning up at him. “No. Only males can do it.”

“
Chauvinist.”

He wondered if he could get the last word in
if he kissed her. Her lips were almost healed. The bruise on her
cheek had faded, and why hadn’t he noticed the dusky rose that
covered her cheeks?

The older of the two women cleared her
throat. Bull looked up and stepped back. He held out his hand.

“
My apologies, ladies. Bull
Bulworth. I didn’t know what my new friend here was up to. She can
be a little...”

“
Crazy,” Tommie
supplied.

Bull frowned at her. “I was going to say
impetuous.”

“
No you weren’t.”

“
New?” Cora asked and gave
her companion a look that Bull couldn’t read.

Tommie took up the older woman’s hands in her
own. “Oh, Cora, I’ll bet you thought I’d abandoned you, but I
didn’t. I didn’t. They took me, too. They kept me in a cage until
Bull came and rescued me. We’re going back in to get them out. I’m
so sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand...”

“
Um, spitfire?”

Bull tried to interrupt, but Tommie was on a
tear, her mouth and hands running wild in her attempt to explain
everything that had happened in less than five minutes. Precious
time was being wasted. When she ignored his second attempt to
interrupt, he slid one hand back around her waist. The other he
slid over her mouth.

“
You’re done, spitfire,” he
said firmly. “You can tell them later. It’s almost moonrise and the
light won’t work to our benefit.”

He wasn’t worried about the light. He was
worried about the wolvers inside. No matter how much they tormented
Tommie, she couldn’t shift to wolf. Outside of the Hunter’s Moon,
she would need the power of an Alpha to go over the moon. The males
inside were different. Both fully adult, they could shift under
their own power anytime during the three days of the full moon.
They could refuse to, of course, but Bull didn’t know these men.
How strong was their mental stamina, and under constant torture,
how long could they hold out?

“
We have a job to do and not
much time to do it.”

“
You said ‘we’,” Tommie said
excitedly when he removed his hand. “That means I’m going with
you.”

Arguing would only waste more time. Bull held
her shoulders and looked into her face. “You do exactly what you’re
told, spitfire, or I swear to God, I’ll put you right back in the
dumpster.”

Instead of nodding solemnly at what he
considered a serious threat, the little wolver laughed. She turned
to Cora and her daughter, Molly, and gave them both a quick hug.
“Don’t you worry. We’ll get them out. And don’t worry about the big
guy, either. He thinks he’s hot stuff, but he’s really just a
pussycat.”

~*~

With Bull to boost her up, going over the
wall was easy and the dogs were delighted to see him. Bull had
changed into his orderly’s uniform. The pants were wrinkled and the
tee shirt wasn’t regulation, but it would do. It was his size and
face Tommie was worried about. Both would be hard to forget which
would make him easily recognized. He didn’t seem concerned.

“
Act like you belong and
people will think you do.”

No matter how she acted, her red sweater
screamed ‘doesn’t belong’. Bull solved the problem with a freshly
laundered lab coat stolen from the rack in the laundry. He was
moving toward a stack of grey patient uniforms, when a heavily
built woman rounded a set of dryers.

“
May I help you?” She
sounded suspicious.

Bull didn’t miss a beat. He offered the woman
a sheepish grin. “Yeah, as a matter of fact you can.” He took a
step toward her, blocking Tommie from her view and lowered his
voice. “They told me to show the new doc here around the place, but
here’s the thing. I’m kind of new, too. She’s supposed to be
sharing an office with somebody named Jones, but I can’t find
it.”

When he took another few steps forward,
Tommie turned her back to the woman and pretended to look
around.

“
Jones? I don’t know any
doctor by that name. Harry? Harry! You know a Doctor
Jones?”

“
Nah. Got a Jonas, but no
Jones.”

“
Shit, Jonas, that’s right.
Thanks. Do you know where it is? They said it was down here, but I
can’t find it.”

The speaker poked his head into the aisle.
“That’s because all the shrink’s offices are on the main floor.
Only research offices down here.” The man gave a friendly chuckle.
“New, huh? I’m surprised they didn’t send you down here looking for
the pool. That’s what they usually do and just so you know, there
ain’t one.”

“
See? Easy,” Bull said as he
escorted her through the door to the hall.

When he eyed her protruding belly, she
laughed and opened her new lab coat enough to reveal the grey
pajamas beneath it.

“
Good going,
spitfire.”

They’re second encounter was not so easy.
They were checking the rooms along the corridor where she’d been
held, each taking a side. Some of the doors were locked, but none
of them heavily, and Bull’s powerful thrust of a shoulder made
short work of the flimsy latches. He was just hitting another when
a guard came around the corner.

“
Hey! What do you think
you’re doing? Where’s your IDs?” One hand reached for the button on
his shoulder radio while the other fumbled for the unaccustomed gun
at his side. “Intruders,” he shouted, just as Bull’s fist hit him.
The gun when clattering to the floor.

“
Hanley! Where the hell are
you?” crackled a voice from the radio.

Without hesitation, Bull grabbed the gun from
the floor and held it to the guard’s head, his eyes daring the
dazed man to move or speak. He hit the button on the radio.

“
Sorry, false alarm.
Cleaning lady.”

“
Asshole, you scared the
shit out of me,” came the disgusted voice on the other
end.

“
Fuck you,” Bull answered.
He lifted his finger from the button and then hit the terrified
guard again. The man’s eyes rolled up into his head.

“
See? Easy.”

Tommie didn’t think so. The laundry room had
been easy, so easy it had almost been fun. This brought home to her
more realistic possibilities. What would have happened if the guard
hadn’t been surprised? What would have happened if he’d been less
inept with his weapon? Until that moment, their clandestine mission
had felt more like a game.

Her hands were shaking as she held the door
open for Bull to drag the guard’s body through. After checking the
safety, Bull tucked the handgun into the back waistband of his
pants and then handed the less dangerous stun gun to her. She
stared at it.

“
Hey, spitfire,” Bull called
gently as he touched the hand holding the stun gun. “We’ve done
this before, remember?”

Tommie shook her head. “You did this before.
I wasn’t really there.”

Emotionally, her memory of her rescue was a
series of vague impressions blurred by her confused shock and
constant fear. The bizarre circumstances of her treatment and
incarceration had given everything that happened that night a
feeling of unreality. She remembered every physical action, but
little of what she’d felt. Until now.

Her reactions had been visceral. She’d taken
an animalistic satisfaction in the deaths of the two orderlies. The
nurse’s humiliation was the same. She’d seen them not as human
beings, but as her tormentors. Having been treated as an animal,
she’d become that animal. She’d felt no sense of right or wrong, no
compassion, and no reasoning that could be considered rational.

Congratulations, Dr. Gantnor. Thomas Mortimer
Bane’s inner beast had finally been revealed.

“
Tommie, look at me. I need
your head in the game.”

Bull’s eyes swam into focus in front of her.
They were a hazel mixture of brown and gold and green that changed
with the light and his mood. These eyes were the color of concern.
Would he understand how much this new revelation frightened her?
Those eyes said he would.

“
Don’t kill him. Please
don’t kill him,” she said of the man on the floor. “He isn’t a
threat. He was only doing his job.”

“
Wasn’t planning to. I
promise, nobody’s going to get killed if I can help it, but Samuel
and Eli might if we don’t get a move on. You promised Cora and
Molly we’d get them out. Think about that and save the rest of this
for later. There’s no time for it now.”

He did understand.

Her wolf nudged at her
insides. “
Wolver. Pack.
First
.”

Tommie gave a sharp nod to both Bull and the
wolf. Then, she took a deep breath. “Rescue first, fall apart
later. Got it. I’ll be okay now. Let’s go.”

The fifth door yielded exactly what they were
looking for. Two men huddled in a cage similar to the one she’d
been held in, but this one was divided by a row of iron bars giving
each man only half the room. Tommie froze at the sight of them,
horrified by what she saw. This was what she looked like when Bull
found her.

They were naked, as she had been, but their
bodies showed signs of mistreatment far worse than anything she’d
suffered. The older of the two rose to all fours and pressed his
face against the bars, eyes shining, mouth opened in a grin that
showed two bloody gaps where teeth had recently stood.

Bull greeted them as if there was nothing
unusual about their circumstances.

“
It’s a good moon for a
run,” he said.

“
That it is,” the older man
returned in a raspy but clear voice. “Eli, I think the cavalry just
arrived.”

The younger Eli didn’t answer. He, too, was
on hands and knees, but his face showed no relief or pleasure in
their presence. Torn and bloody lips were drawn back from his teeth
and the snarl emitted between them had no semblance of humanity.
His eyes glowed fiercely, first at her and then at Bull and then
back to her.

Tommie felt as if the wolver was sizing them
up and she had been found the weaker opponent. It didn’t make her
feel any better when Bull took a step closer to her as if he felt
it, too. Bull stared down at the wolver and the wolver stared back
in a test of wills. As had happened out on the street, the room
swelled with power and energy. Tommie felt the hairs on the back of
her neck rise with it. The man in the cage turned his head to the
side, but he didn’t back down and when Bull touched the top of the
cage, he lunged.

“
Don’t be a damn fool now,
son. We’re almost there.” Samuel reached through the bars to touch
the younger man’s shoulder.

The response was immediate and vicious. Eli’s
head snapped to the side and he sank his teeth into Samuel’s
hand.

“
Dang and blast, Eli.”
Sitting back on his heels, Samuel brought the hand to his mouth and
sucked on the wound. He held out the raggedly scarred stump where
his left hand should have been and shook it. “I already lost one.
You tryin’ to take the other?”