"Hell, we've got to get her to the vet. At least the bleeding's stopped. We can use this between us to carry her to the truck. Here, help me roll it out. But I'd hoped we could get some more men out here to search for her mate, and we could take them both to the zoo at the same time, Joe."
Mate? Hell, these were the two men across the river who had shot him! And planned to take him to the zoo?
Elgin looked at Leidolf and smiled as if Thompson's words were an indication of things to come--as far as the mate comment went. He better not be smiling about the fact Leidolf could have ended up in the zoo.
Thompson? Henry Thompson? Hell, the zoo man. This was not the way Leidolf had in mind to get to know the man better.
"I couldn't find any sign of the male after looking for him for the last few hours. The drug in his system might have worn off," Joe said. "He could be anywhere by now. But I guess if she's got a mate, this means we can't hook Rosa up with Big Red once she's sufficiently healed."
"Never know," Thompson said. "We might not ever find the male out here to pair them up again, so Big Red might have a chance. As soon as we get her to the zoo, we'd better ensure some additional security measures are in place in case someone tries to free her again."
No way was his woodland nymph going to be stuck in a pen with a horny lupus.
"Should we shoot them and rescue her?" Elgin whispered to Leidolf.
Moving as quietly as a wolf, Leidolf nodded, stepped closer to get a visual on the men, and raised his rifle, but before he could give the final order, all hell broke loose. In their wolf coats, his lupus garou upstarts raced toward Thompson and Joe, their hackles raised, their teeth bared, both fiercely growling and prepared to lunge.
Holy crap! Pierce and Quincy!
Leidolf would kill them.
Alex hid in the woods, desperate to chase after the wounded red wolf and take care of her, but he didn't dare move. The black-bearded man had fallen hard, hit his head on the edge of a rock, and wasn't moving. Dead, maybe? At least Alex could hope. Even though he believed in justice by trial, in a case like this where the murderer had just shot a wolf and was ready to kill him, too, he hoped the rock had done the guy in.
His companion paced, called to him, tried to get him to his feet, but the guy was too big. The other man was a sawed-off reddish-blond with a butch haircut, a tough-looking little dude, but despite his determined scowl, he couldn't budge the bigger man.
The blood in Alex's veins ran like ice as he worried about the fate of the wolf. He had to find her. He couldn't fail her after she had protected him.
He gripped his knife tighter. Normally a pacifist at heart, he wanted to kill the shooter himself for wounding the rare red wolf.
But what he couldn't get over was the way the wolf had attacked the hunter. Not attacked him exactly though. Leapt at him, and at once Alex had expected to see a torn jugular. But instead of hurting him, she'd just stopped him from shooting her, as if she had human instincts. As if she had been someone's pet.
As a wolf, she should have continued to run away. She should have left Alex behind to fend for himself. Her actions didn't make any sense.
"Can you hear me?" The short guy paced some more. "Hell, you just stay here then. I'll look for the guy who was listening to us." He cocked his rifle and stalked into the woods to the left of where Alex was hiding.
As soon as the man disappeared from sight, Alex headed for the wolf's trail as quietly as he could, hoping like hell the shooter wouldn't find it, too. He suspected the shooter would only go after him, not a wounded wolf. He scrambled over tree roots, tripping through ferns and wildflowers after the wolf, trying to locate the trail of blood she was leaving on leaves and branches before the shooter discovered it. This was not the kind of study Alex had had in mind when he began his wolf research eight years earlier.
As a weird afterthought, he wondered what Cassie would do for the wolf, if she were in his shoes. Then a new concern flooded his thoughts. What if she was nearby and ran into this maniac on her own? And the shooter thought she also had overheard their conversation?
She would be in terrible peril.
Hidden in the woods, Leidolf cursed his impulsive new red lupus garous right before they attacked Thompson and Joe as they were laying out a makeshift canvas stretcher while the wolf lay still on the ground. Leidolf immediately fired a shot.
Both of his wolves fled from the sound of the gunfire, and the dart made its target. Thompson reached for the dart in his left buttock and tried to stand but stumbled. Before a stunned Joe could react, Elgin took a shot at him and the man parroted Thompson's actions.
"We've... we've been tranqed," Joe slurred and then passed out next to the wolf.
"Hell." Thompson fell beside him, his eyes shut tight in sleep, and he began to snore.
Leidolf and his men hurried forth to check on Cassie, while his wayward lupus garous licked her face, whimpered, and pawed at her feet, trying to get her to stir. Then the sound of crashing through the woods garnered all their attention. Leidolf readied his rifle, but it was only Fergus, his face red with exertion.
"Got trouble..." Fergus stopped speaking and stared at the red wolf. "Is she one of us?"
"Yeah." Leidolf jerked off his coat, then tugged his shirt free and tied it against the wound on her shoulder as best as he could manage. "What's the trouble, Fergus?"
"The hunters who shot her, I suspect, are on their way here."
"All right. Let's get her out of here." Leidolf yanked his jacket back on and then lifted Cassie off the damp earth. He gave his new pack members a scowl that said he'd deal with them later. He had to get his pack members to work together as a bona fide pack. It was the only way they'd ever survive and flourish.
"What are you going to do with her?" Elgin asked, looking hopeful that he'd keep her.
Leidolf's wolf half said that he rescued her while she was in his territory and that she as much as attempted to seduce him when he wasn't able to respond, which meant she wanted to be his. His human half warned him to get used to disappointment. "She stays at the ranch until we learn why she was out here."
"But are you going to make her one of us?" Elgin asked.
Leidolf raised a brow at him. Everyone in the pack had to know he would be interested in Cassie if she was free to mate. But did they think he'd stoop so low as to force her to join them?
"What about them?" Fergus asked, motioning to Thompson and Joe as Leidolf carried the injured wolf away from the zoo men.
"The hunters can take care of them. Just be thankful that Thompson and Joe didn't see us. But how is anyone going to explain the appearance of two male reds and the female in the area?"
Not to mention Leidolf's own run-in with the men from the zoo.
Leidolf let out his breath. "They'll think a whole pack of reds have moved into the woods around here. No more hunting in our wolf coats here now for a long damn time. But something else concerns me. The wolf I smelled earlier was a different one. Had Cassie been alone? Or had she been with another?"
Elgin rubbed his chin and frowned. "If another unattached lupus garou female is in the area, you'll have a fight on your hands for sure."
Over only one of them. This one for damned sure was his to pursue.
As they stalked in the direction of the turnout where they'd parked the SUV about four miles from there, Cassie slept soundly in Leidolf's arms, and he held her closer. Then she stirred. He'd expected she would remain asleep until after they got her in the SUV, or even better, until they got her back to his ranch, but she wriggled a little more.
Leidolf shifted his hold on her, tightening his grip in case she became combative. A wolf was a wolf, whether it was a feral lupus or a lupus garou, and either could be a handful if it took exception to being transported in this manner, especially one that was wounded.