Desired by the Wolf Box Set (BBW Werewolf / Shifter Romance) Page 10

  “Humans have a flavor similar to lean pork,” Nick admitted.

  Lenore looked Stan up and down, and he stepped back. “One bite and I’ll make myself an only child,” he warned her.

  “Ah, but one bite and you’ll be a werewolf. Right?” Her question was addressed to Nick.

  A shadow slipped into Nick’s eyes and he frowned. “That is a fate you should not inflict on another against his will.” Both Stand and Lenore scowled at him, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Unless it is for a noble cause,” he added.

  “Uh-huh. Well, now that we’ve got that bit of hypocrisy out of the way, what do we do about these Hunters?” she wondered.

  “I will deal with them,” Nick promised.

  “No, I will,” Stan spoke up. He strode past Lenore and snatched his empty shotgun from the entrance to the living room. “If they’re after my sister then I want to make sure myself that they don’t get her.”

  “But you do not know their habits like I do,” Nick protested.

  “No, but I do know the town better than you. If they’re staying at one of the motels or hotels, I know who to talk to to find out for sure,” Stan pointed out. He moved toward the door, paused, and turned back to the pair. “This might take a while. Can Lenore stay here?” The question was directed at Nick.

  Nick smiled and bowed his head. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Stan frowned. “Don’t get too familiar with her,” he warned Nick.

  “Too late,” Lenore mumbled. Stan’s face drooped and he tightened his grip on the gun.

  “In the werewolf sense we are married,” Nick spoke up.

  “Not until I see a ring, so don’t get anymore ideas,” Stan objected. He strode out of the house on his mission to find the Hunters.

  Chapter 17

  Lenore sighed and shook her head. “I’d be mad at him for being so pushy, but his heart’s in the right place,” she murmured.

  Nick wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pressed her to his side. “No one can doubt that,” he agreed.

  She looked up into his smiling face and smiled back. “Yeah, just me and Stan. It’s been like that for a long time.”

  “And I won’t change that. I merely intend to add myself to the group,” he told her.

  A dark cloud swept over her face. “And when he’s growing old and I’m dying?” she wondered.

  The smile slipped from Nick’s face. “Everyone must say goodbye some time,” he insisted. Lenore frowned and turned away. Nick grasped her chin between his fingers and turned her back to him. “Perhaps we should speak of that bridge when we come to it. For now I have many others more pleasing things to show you,” he commented. Her eyes unconsciously drifted down to his waist, and he chuckled. “Not that, but another time,” he promised.

  Lenore’s face drooped. “Then what are you planning?” she asked him.

  “Practice with controlling your appetite,” he explained.

  She perked up at the promise of food and grinned. “Let me guess what you’re planning on cooking. Could it be-hmm, steak?” she guessed.

  Nick grinned and nodded. “However did you guess?” he teased.

  “Oh, it’s one of the perks of working at the only grocery store in town,” she replied.

  The pair of werewolf romantics wiled away what remained of the morning and afternoon in talking, eating, and watching the day tick by. As the hours that remained in the day shortened and the shadows lengthened, Lenore found herself staring out the front windows and door looking for her brother. Nick stepped up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

  “I know you want to, but you shouldn’t call him. Wherever he is he may wish to remain concealed, and a ringing phone would ruin that,” he told her.

  The color drained from Lenore’s face and she turned her head around to stare into Nick’s face. “You think he’s in that big of trouble?” she asked him.

  Nick smiled and gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Whatever trouble he is in I’m sure your brother can handle himself,” he comforted her.

  Lenore sighed and a small smile slipped onto her lips. “I suppose you’re right. He did take his gun with him,” she remind him.

  Nick chuckled. “And he has exceptional aim if his target isn’t an experienced werewolf,” he agreed. He glanced out the window at the setting sun. It would be dark in half an hour. “Would you like to take a walk with me? The night air is refreshing.”

  “And distracting,” she added. She lifted her nose and sniffed the air. Her heightened sense of smell caught the whiff of a lit barbecue eight blocks away and her hearing picked up on the tiniest mouse scratching in the yard. “Is there anything our sniffers and ears can’t pick up on?” she wondered.

  Nick smiled and offered her his arm. “They can’t offer to take you for a stroll through the lawn,” he replied.

  “Weeds, you mean. You haven’t made it into a lawn yet,” she pointed out.

  “I’ve been very distracted by a certain beautiful, charming young woman,” he returned.

  Lenore took his arm and he led her through the front door. “A beautiful and charming woman? Sounds like I should be jealous. Do I know this young woman?” she teased.

  Nick grinned. “Can a person be jealous of their own good fortune?” he wondered.

  “If they have a split personality they can be jealous of a lot of things they do,” she countered. Their walk took them down the path toward the road. She furrowed her brow and tapped her chin as a pensive expression slipped onto her face. “Come to think of it I suppose we do have that. A wolf and human side,” she mused.

  Nick stopped them at the steps that led down to the road and turned so they faced each other. His eyes sparkled as he looked at her with an intense gaze. “However many personalities I have you must know they all love you,” he told her. She blushed and looked away, but he caught her chin in his hands and turned her face back to his. “No matter what happens always remember that I love you,” he whispered.

  Nick leaned down to capture her lips with his own. Lenore closed her eyes and waited for the pleasure of his flesh against hers. She waited. And waited. And waited. Finally she opened her eyes and saw Nick had pulled back and his attention lay down the road. She followed his gaze and saw Stan’s truck bouncing toward them. Lenore was both relieved and angry with her brother when he parked the car in front of the walk and stepped out.

  Lenore turned to him and crossed her arms over her chest. “You have the worst and best timing,” she snapped.

  He frowned. “And I have the worst and best news,” he returned.

  Nick raised an eyebrow. “What sort of news?”

  “It took me all day, but I found out where the men were. They’re staying in one of the motels just outside of town. The Grizzled Grizzly,” he told us.

  “The old one with the grizzled old man on the porch outside the main office?” Lenore guessed.

  “That’s the one. It took me a while to get anything out of the old man and his wife. She’s the one who runs the office. For some reason she didn’t like me,” he continued.

  Lenore snorted. “That’s not hard to believe. You went out there during high school during Halloween and “decorated” their entire building,” she reminded him.

  He shrugged. “It was a harmless prank.”

  “And egged their office,” she added.

  “Just some fun.”

  “And managed to capture her poodle puppy and shaved its head.”

  He furrowed his brow. “I thought that old dog she had in the office with her looked familiar,” he mused.

  “May we focus on the problem at hand?” Nick requested.

  Stan cast a warning glare at Lenore, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “As I was saying, the owner lady wasn’t going to talk, but I ran into an old buddy of mine who did the repairs around the place,” he continued. “He said he’d been getting a lot of complaints about a room on the second floor of one of the wings. Something about how they
kept strange hours and whenever they were there the internet wouldn’t work in all the other rooms.”

  “That would be their hacking into the security systems,” Nick assumed.

  “That’s what I figured, so I had my buddy point out their room and their cars. One was an old green jeep, one of those ones that you could pull the top off, and the other was a dull-red van. I tried to look through the van’s windows, but the back ones were blacked out and I didn’t see anything in the front seats. The jeep didn’t have anything in it, either. I hid in some bushes near the stairs leading up to the second story for an hour or so waiting for the guys to come out. One of them finally did, a husky fellow who wore a lot of black. He came out on the balcony and smoked a few cigarettes.”

  “Did you see the other Hunter?” Nick asked him.

  Stan shook his head. “Nope, not a sign of him, but the other guy did keep the door cracked open behind him. I figured the other guy was inside.”

  “Did he see you?” Nick questioned.

  Stan pursed his lips together. “I’m not sure. The guy stood there smoking his cigarette and tapping his ashes onto the parking lot, but when he finished he flicked the burning butt into the bushes I was hiding in. Then he went back inside and shut the door behind him.”

  Nick frowned. “And at no time did you see the other man?” he wondered.

  “No, but he had to have been there because both their cars were there,” Stan pointed out.

  Lenore scrutinized Nick’s worried face. “Is there something wrong with Stan not seeing both of them?”

  “When an animal feels it’s being hunted one of the group will keep watch of the predator while the others will hide,” he told us.

  “You mean like quail?” she suggested.

  “Yes, but what we have here are a pair of far more dangerous animals,” he countered.

  Stan frowned. “So what you’re saying is one of them purposefully hid from me while the other guy went out onto the balcony to see what I was doing?” he guessed.

  “Exactly,” Nick agreed.

  “How’d they see me?” Stan asked him.

  “Does their room have windows that look out on the parking lot where you met your friend?” Nick wondered.

  The color drained from Stan’s face. “Yeah, a big one,” he replied.

  “Then one of them was watching you. No doubt your friend pointed at their room and their cars for your benefit, and that alerted them to your curiosity,” Nick explained.

  Stan balled his hands into fists and turned his head away from his companions. “Damn it!” he swore.

  “But why’d that one guy leave the room at all? Why not just hide in the room and wait for Stan to leave?” Lenore asked her mate.

  “Perhaps they believed the revealing was worth the risk,” Nick suggested.

  “Either way I messed up,” Stan spoke up.

  Nick smiled and shook his head. “No, you did quite well for your first time hunting a pair of Hunters. We know where they are and what vehicles they have at their disposal,” he pointed out.

  “So what now?” Lenore wondered.

  “Now we-duck!” Nick yelled. He shoved Lenore down and Stan obeyed the order as a quiet bullet whizzed past them. The three huddled against the side of Stan’s truck with Nick between the siblings.

  Lenore clutching at her beating chest to keep it from ejecting itself from her body. “What the hell was that?” she yelped.

  “A bullet from a gun with a suppression cap,” Stan told her.

  She leaned forward and glared across Nick at her brother. “That’s not what I meant,” she snapped. Another bullet hit the truck and penetrated both fenders to shoot out the right one over their heads.

  Nick’s clear, whispering voice broke the tense atmosphere. “Now is not the time for squabbling,” he ordered the siblings.

  Lenore glared at him, but dropped her voice to a whisper. “I thought that was better than panicking,” she snapped.

  “The situation isn’t as grave as that. We have some advantage over our foe,” Nick argued.

  She snorted. “Like what? This hunk of junk?” She knocked her elbow against the truck tire and it let out a little hiss.

  “This piece of junk is the only thing keeping us from being ventilated,” Stan hissed.

  She glared at him. “This piece of junk is probably what led this gun-happy guy to us. It’s exhaust leaves a trail a mile long.”

  Another bullet hit the truck and broke through the fender a few inches from the first penetration. Both Stan and Lenore opened their mouths, but Nick pressed his hands against them. “Focus, my friends,” he insisted. “The Hunter no doubt followed your brother, but it is better to face them here than anywhere else. We have the advantage of the wilderness of my land and the setting sun.”

  Nick nodded up at the darkening sky. It would be night in a few minutes. The street, filled with old houses and occupied by older people, was dark and deserted. That helped explain why no one was curious about the three of them ducked down behind the truck.

  Stan tore Nick’s hand off his mouth. “So how do you suggest we reach the lawn without being picked off by our new friend here?”

  Lenore yelped and raised her hand. Embedded in her palm was a small piece of rock from the gravel beneath them. Nick’s eyes widened and a sly smile slid onto his lips. “We will give our friend more targets than he expects.”

  Chapter 18

  “We’re going to do what?” Lenore asked him.

  He grabbed a handful of gravel in both hands and pushed off from the truck so he faced toward the pair. “These rocks will provide us with both a distraction and a cover. Our friend has revealed the direction in which he hides through the penetration of his bullets. We will each throw a handful of gravel in his direction and, all at once, we race for the trees and the house.”

  Lenore tilted her head to one side and her face twisted with disbelief. “That sounds like a terrible plan,” she commented.

  “Do you have a better one?” Stan countered. He picked up two handfuls of gravel and looked to Nick. “On who’s mark?” he asked Nick.

  “I will count to three and we will all throw our rocks across the hood at the bushes across the road. I believe he’s hiding there,” Nick replied. Lenore hurriedly grabbed her own supply in her shaking hands and waiting for the countdown. “One-” A bullet flew under the car and between himself and Stan.

  “Two-three-throw!” Stan yelled.

  The three of them jumped up and tossed their gravel at the bushes. Normally such a barrage wouldn’t have scared a child, but two of the tossers were werewolves. Their strength meant the stones were thrown as though from a high-powered slingshot, and several handfuls penetrated deep into the bushes. They heard a cry as someone inside the brush was wounded.

  “Run!” Nick yelled.

  The three scrambled toward the dense trees and brush that enveloped the property while from somewhere in the brush a man swore and cursed. The companions zigged and zagged to avoid being easy targets as their foe fired off a dozen shots. The bullets whizzed and whirled past them, and Lenore aimed her steps toward a large tree. Nick came up beside her and pushed her out of the way just as a bullet struck where she’d been only moments before. The bullet his Nick in the shoulder, and he cried out and fell to the ground.

  Lenore hit the ground close beside him and crawled over to where he lay. Nick clutched at his bleeding shoulder and his teeth were clenched together against the horrible agony. “Let me see it,” she ordered him as she pried off his hands. Her eyes widened when she glimpsed smoke rise from the wound. Deep inside she could see the shimmer of the shining bullet.

  “Silver,” he growled in explanation.

  Stan slid down on Nick’s other side and grabbed the man. “Get up! That guy isn’t going to let you two sit here forever!” he ordered them.

  Stan pulled Nick along the ground, keeping low in the brush, and Lenore followed behind. The bullets stopped flying, but the silence didn’t
bring them comfort. Lenore’s new sensitive ears picked up on soft footsteps treading the path to their far right. Their foe was on the move. She glanced around them and spotted a large bush with a hollow center. A small path created by countless generations of rabbits led inside.

  Lenore grabbed Stan and nodded toward the bush. “You hide in there with Nick. I’ll go distract this guy,” she offered.

  Stan looked at her like she was nuts. She couldn’t blame him. This plan was nuts. “Are you crazy? He’ll kill you for sure,” he protested.

  “I might be crazy, but he won’t kill me,” she argued. She jumped to her feet, turned toward the path, and wildly waved her hands in the air. “Over here, crazy Hunter!” she called out.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Stan yelled at her.

  “Get moving!” she hissed at him. Stan pursed his lips, but lifted Nick and dragged him toward the house. Nick’s wound oozed blood and he was only semiconscious.

  A bullet whizzed past her head and she took off across the wide expanse of yard. Lenore ducked and zigged through the brush while the shots grew closer and closer to her head. Without her werewolf reflexes she would have been shot down halfway across the lawn. She dove behind a large tree just as a bullet hit the bark near her throat. Lenore clutched at her beating heart and listened. Stan and Nick reached the house and slipped inside. She sighed with relief and focused on the man’s footsteps, but instead she heard his gravely voice.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, miss,” the man called to her. He took a few careful steps and stopped. “Whatever he’s told you, what this monster’s done to you can’t be cured.”

  “I already know that, but thanks for caring,” she called back.

  “Did he also tell you that you need to kill to sustain your life?” the man wondered. Lenore froze and her eyes widened. Nick hadn’t said anything about needing to kill. The stranger chuckled. “No witty reply for that one? It’s true, though. That store bought meat isn’t going to satisfy your hunger forever. You’re going to need fresh meat, and when you do you’ll take it when you can get it.” He stepped a little closer to her and she heard his fingers rifle for bullets in his pockets. “Maybe you’ll eat that man that was snooping around our motel. He looks a lot like you. He your brother?”