"Carver's girls should be home. They live on the perimeter of Forest Park, close to the zoo. About two miles from here."
"Would he have left his girls home alone?" Cassie asked, cuddling with Leidolf in the cold, damp cement wolves' den.
"Maybe. We'll give it a shot. If the girls were home and heard us, they'll know to call my ranch house and alert whoever is left there, maybe Laney or one of the men. They'll know what to do."
"And if they don't?"
"It'll take them two and a half hours or so to reach us. It's been nearly that long. If we have no word from anyone in a few minutes, we'll do it our way."
"Which is?"
"We'll climb over the fence, although I hadn't wanted us to be exposed in that manner. Too much speculation if we get caught--two more naked people in the zoo? Two more red wolves vanish?" He shook his head. "I had hoped some of our people could have gotten us out while we remained in our wolf forms in the event someone spotted us trying to escape."
"Couldn't we just jump the fence as wolves?"
"Too high."
Cassie sighed. "Bella couldn't manage either."
"The exhibit was different back then. The moat and the wall were such that she couldn't make it out. An elk exhibit didn't border the wolf exhibit at the time with just a fence in between, either."
"If we make it out of this all right, I have a question to ask you."
Leidolf tightened his hold on Cassie. "You might as well just ask now. We have nothing better to do to kill time."
She sat quietly for some time, her fingers stroking his arm, the silence killing him.
He finally let out his breath and said what he had to say, even if she couldn't find the nerve to ask her question. "Cassie, you're not a lone wolf at heart."
"I've been one forever."
He dragged his fingers through her hair and held on tight. "You did what you had to do in the beginning as a necessity. But later..." He looked into her green gaze, her spirit drawing him in. "... later, you did so because you were used to being alone."
"I didn't want to lose anyone else I cared about."
"You can't stop that part of yourself from being." He leaned down and kissed her lips, her mouth softening against his. "You can't hide what your heart is truly telling you. That you want babies. You want to be part of a pack. You want to have a family. A mate. Physically you're very aware of your needs. Psychologically, I feel you're still in part holding back."
"You can't understand. I know you said your sister died, but you can't feel that it was your fault, not like in my situation. I did want to ask you how you came to be a loner, though."
He touched his thumb to her bottom lip and briefly caressed it. "I left my family back in Colorado to keep from getting myself killed tangling with the leader who had taken over when my father had become injured. I traveled all over the States until I settled in a cabin in the mountains, far from civilization. But I missed my family and having a pack, their idiosyncrasies, the good and the bad. My father..." He took a deep breath.
"He was injured in an avalanche. His entire pack died. When I arrived here, I saw the troubles the pack was having, but I couldn't fight the ones in charge. Not all of them. It was like living the whole horrible scenario all over again. At first, I fought the notion that this pack needed me. Then I realized they were just what I needed to live again."
He stroked her cheek. "I still love to get away, but pack business takes priority, and I needed that focus again in my life. You study wolf packs because you want what they have--the pack dynamics, the closeness, the loyalties." He smiled and kissed her forehead. "Playing games. You've just been afraid to be part of a lupus garou pack. Now that you've found me, you have to realize this is where you belong."
When she didn't say anything, he lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. "Cassie?"
"I'm a wolf biologist."
"Of that I'm well aware." He kissed the top of her head.
"I wouldn't give up my job for anything. The wolf pack that took me in saved my life. Then hunters killed them. Every last one of them. For a price. They were paid to kill them! The pups, too. I only escaped by turning into my human form and then the men caught me. They believed I was a wild child raised by wolves. I was, but not in the way they thought. I escaped them and moved farther south."
She leaned her head against his chest. "I have to show that wolves are not monsters, just survivors like everyone else." She gritted her teeth. "All I could think of was how I could have saved them. They were my second family, and I lost them, too."
"I promise you won't lose us also. And I can't afford to give you up, either."
"But I'm a wolf biologist."
Which he still wasn't happy about, but he schooled his reaction.
She gently pulled the hair on his arm and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "I won't give up studying them and sharing what I learn with the world."
He dropped the subject. He didn't want her studying wild wolves and putting herself in danger, despite promising her he'd allow it. "The feral wolves are the only ones you intend to care for?"
She twisted her mouth and then gave a little ladylike snort. "As if you truly believe that."
"I have a pack to run."
"So run it. Nothing will change. Only I'll return and we'll have mind-blowing sex, and then I'll leave to do my studies again."
He sighed darkly. "I have a question for you. Did Sarge force you to take him with you?"
Cassie smiled. "Yeah, or he'd rat me out. He wasn't hurt, was he? What about your Jag?"
"The Jag's the former leader's sports car. Nothing mattered to me but that you were safe."
"And Sarge."
Leidolf grunted.
Cassie ran her fingers over Leidolf's chest in a teasing caress, stirring him up. "You talk tough, but if you'd really felt he needed to be terminated, you would have done it. Admit it. You have a soft spot for the guy."
"I would have killed him if he'd harmed you in any way. Or if he'd killed anyone when he was a werewolf hunter. But for his cooperation, he got off a lot easier than the rest of the Dark Angels. You sure he didn't threaten you?"
"If he had, he'd have seen some wicked wolf's teeth. He'll come around. And I suspect you believe he will also."
"Maybe you can help to influence him to settle down."
She laughed softly. "When I left him in the car by himself, headed down the hill? Don't think he'd be happy with me in the least."
"Served him right to mess with my mate." Leidolf tightened his hold on Cassie. "I believe it's time to find our way out of the zoo on our own."
Aimee hoped she wasn't making a mistake, taking the man chasing her as a wolf into her confidence as she leapt over another fallen tree in her own wolf form. She had to let someone know that her cousin had been captured and taken to the zoo. The mother wolf and her pups would be well taken care of. But the man who had been with Cassie needed rescuing, too. And this was way over her head. She just prayed the man in hot pursuit of her wasn't one of the villains' friends who had planned to kill her.
"Wait! I won't hurt you," the man shouted from the woods, having changed to his human form. "Are you a lupus garou?"
She stopped among a stand of hemlocks as the feathery leaves brushed her fur and waited for the man to catch up. He appeared in his very naked form covered in water droplets from the river, his hair dripping wet. His breathing came hard and fast, and he blinked a couple of times as if not believing she was real. He was cute in a hard sort of way. A sturdy jaw, amber eyes that hinted at a stormy past, no scowl, but no smile either.