"Hell, Joe, I don't swim well, and in this frigid water, we'd both suffer from hypothermia before we knew it. We'll have to return to the truck, and the first bridge we come to, drive across to the other side, and hike in to find him."
Silence.
Her heart pounding, the blood still rushing through every artery, Cassie waited.
"Okay, Joe, let's go before it gets dark. We'll never find him then."
Kicking stones, they tromped across the bank and disappeared into the woods.
I hit him, echoed through her brain. She didn't want the trouble she could get into with dealing with a local lupus garou pack. She sure as hell didn't want to be the cause of a lupus garou's death. Not that he would die if he were shot with something other than silver, but once they found him, they could kill him by other means. Past experience haunted her with the knowledge, and that's what sent chills racing through her.
She knew she shouldn't advertise her location if others of his pack were out here searching for her, too. If she could, she'd alert them he needed help and then vanish, like she'd done with him. And if he was alone, maybe he still had the strength to communicate with her so she could locate him. After that, she didn't know what she could do. She had to get him to safety, somehow.
She sniffed the breeze, and if it had been blowing in the right direction, she could have smelled him up to a mile and a half away. She didn't smell any sign of him.
In the lowest, deepest, most woeful lonely wolf howl she could manage, she called to him, begging him to respond, praying no other hunters were in the area or that Leidolf's men would locate her.
In his foggy brain, Leidolf heard the red female wolf calling to him, her howl the most winsome he'd ever heard, just the right resonance, the right tempo, sexy and powerfully stirring, if he wasn't so damned drugged he would stir. It wasn't the same as the howl he'd heard earlier. That first had not been as deeply seductive or half as close by. Was it Cassie?
He tried to respond but only managed a feeble woof. Hell. How could he howl with his head plastered to the moss-covered forest floor?
Instead, he listened for her to repeat her call, hoping in his not-so-clear mind that she'd grow closer to him and smell him when he couldn't vocalize his location.
She didn't make another sound, and he tried to lift his head again. Without success. Cursing himself for the predicament he was in, he thought briefly about his pack and what they would say if they could see him now. Not only that but what his sister would say if she knew what had become of her brother, who never made a mistake.
And then the darkness overcame his thoughts, like a heavy mist forming in his brain, disguising his mental notes and thickening until everything blanked out.
When Leidolf didn't respond, Cassie figured he was passed out and unable to call to her. Frantically, she kept crisscrossing the area, searching for his location. Finally smelling the scent from his footpads on the path through the forest headed away from the river, she ran after him with her nose to the soil. Not far from the river, she located the large red male lying on his side, half-buried in ferns and dead to the world. A beautiful big red, his fur dark and shiny, his body powerful and sturdy. She needed to get him some place safe where the hunters couldn't locate him.
She moved in closer and nudged his nose with hers. He didn't respond. Not good. She tried again, this time licking his face, rubbed her muzzle against his, and then she pawed at his legs. She woofed low next to his ear, trying to stir him. How far away had the hunters parked their vehicle? How far to the nearest bridge where they would cross over and be on this side of the river? And how long would it take them to locate the male wolf from the trailhead near where they would have to park?
Maybe hours. Darkness would come soon. She couldn't wait. She shifted from a wolf to a human. Then, in her chilled and naked form, she crouched in front of the wolf's head and lifted it, talking to Leidolf, trying to get him to wake. He didn't move. She laid his head back down and then ran her hand over his body, sifting through his fur, searching for any kind of wound, unable to see where he'd been hit. Which meant he'd probably been shot on the other side.
Only one way to do this.
"Sorry," she apologized beforehand, not wanting to hurt him but needing to see the damage. She took hold of his legs and used them as a lever to turn him over. He didn't groan or growl or anything, which concerned her even more.
She gingerly swept her fingers through his fur looking for an injury. No blood on his fur and no wound anywhere, but a dart was lying on the ground where he had been resting. She picked up the dart. Tranquilizer? She didn't know what the drug smelled like, so that didn't help. Crouching at his back, she rested her head on his side and listened. His heart beat slowly, tired, drugged.
She let out her breath in relief. He wasn't wounded. If hunters found him, he could still be in real trouble.
"You need to get up," she whispered in his ear, one hand stroking his neck, the other the crown of his head. "Leidolf, you've got to get up before the hunters come for you."
Still, he didn't respond. Figuring more roughness was required to wake him, she growled and shoved at his back. "Get up! Now!" Which didn't work, either.
Hell.
Okay, fine. She stepped around him and knelt down in front of his snout, intending to offer him what she assumed he really wanted and hope that he would stir enough to get on his way, while she took off in another direction as a decoy for the hunters. Kneeling before him, she stroked the top of his head between his ears and whispered in one of them, "You chased me, and now that I'm all yours, you're too tired to come out and play?"
His eyes opened, but he didn't seem focused on anything. She rubbed her cheek against his and scratched some more between his ears. "Hmm, the big, bad wolf isn't so big and bad anymore."
She swore he smiled in a big, bad wolf way.
Naked, the redheaded woman of his lakeside fantasies, the same little wolf biologist who had stirred his interest earlier, stroked Leidolf's back and rubbed her cheek against his, a throwback to their wolf ways, not only a form of endearment but something deeper. Her brows furrowed, her expression remained concerned. When she was in her wolf form and had nuzzled his muzzle with her own, the wolf scent glands in her skin had rubbed against his, indicating she had claimed him as part of her pack. Whether she had done so consciously, or as a way to get him on his feet and hadn't meant anything by it, he wasn't sure.
He took another deep breath of her scent, memorizing it, and managed a feeble wolf smile. Her swim in the river had washed off the hunter's spray, and now he could smell her delectable scent just fine.
Hell, if he hadn't been so dead to the world, he would have responded to her touching him and claimed her right back, tenfold. Her fingers swept over his fur, examining every inch of him, sensually like a lover would in the wolf's courtship phase. Or like a pack member would groom an injured wolf, comforting him both physically and mentally. He would have been in heaven, if he hadn't been so out of it. Damn it.
Her breath tickled his ear as she whispered into it and stirred his need to have her as she pressed her heavy breasts against his shoulder. Then she moved her fingers to his head between his ears and began to scratch. Her touch wouldn't scratch the itch she'd started. The scent of her stirred-up feminine pheromones was an enticing concoction as she leaned in close to him.
He should have had a raging hard-on. Why was he too tired to respond to her loving ministrations? He couldn't fathom why his body didn't react to her shoving at him or her whispered words in his ear. Or even earlier, when she was a wolf, licking his face, kissing him wolf style. He sure as hell wanted to show her just what her attentions meant to him and give her back so much more in return.