Jase
"Krissy…?!"
The bear and hyena had already beaten me here, I knew, but I held hope they'd left without the doc.
As I took in the mess in the house, that hope dissipated.
I called out for her again in vain, my boots crunching glass as I stepped further along. She'd put up a fight, I was proud of her for it. A trill ring echoed down the hall from her bedroom. Going to investigate, I stopped in the doorway when something on the floor caught my eye. I picked up the tranquilizer dart. It was drained of its poison. I crushed it in my palm as fresh rage boiled. The ring trilled again and I found Krissy's cellphone under her bed. The call display said her clinic was calling. I tapped ANSWER on the screen and lifted it to my ear.
"Ah, there you are!" It took all of my restraint not to crush the phone at the sound of Malcolm's voice. "We were beginning to fear you didn't care about this feisty little redhead anymore. Been redialing this number forever."
I merely growled through sharpening teeth.
"Tsk, tsk, alpha. You know where we are now, so be a good doggie. Come."
The line went dead.
If I got us out of the situation alive, I now owed the good doctor a new cellphone. This one was in pieces.
Krissy
I was surrounded by forest and as I recognized my four-year-old self toddling towards me, I knew I was witnessing a memory. I knew what was coming and shouted out to my younger self, even though I was helpless to prevent it.
"No sweetie! Turn around! Not this way!"
I rushed forward to pick her up, intent on carrying her to safety, but I passed through her like a ghost.
Just call me Scrooge. The Spirit of Christmas fucking Past!
So instead I fell in line behind the toddler, already dreading what was to come.
After half a mile of dense woods, we came to a rock face, a dark cavern open at its base. The cougar slinked out almost immediately to greet us, a growl vibrated deep in his chest.
But my younger self didn't stop her approach. So naïve I was then, not to be frightened. The cougar hissed and at last the toddler stopped. She reached out a hand to the lion.
"Kitty…" Her coos were beckoning. The cougar approached, head low, and the toddlers hand brushed over his whiskers, grasping fur below his ear in her tiny fist. She giggled.
And I started to remember bits and pieces on my own, before I saw them played out before me.
"I wasn't afraid…why wasn't I afraid?"
I remembered why I had wandered away to begin with. I had heard the mountain lion's calls faintly through the trees. Had he summoned me somehow? But if he was moon mad as Jase had suggested, how had the cougar had the strength of mind to do so?
My focus was brought sharply back to the scene in front of me as the big cat lunged forward and sank his teeth into the little girl's side.
The girl and I shrieked at the same time.
Just as quickly as the cat attacked he withdrew. The girl fell back on her bottom, started to cry.
And still…I knew I wasn't afraid then. In pain, absolutely, but it was like it needed to happen.
As I watched further, the cougar lay down beside the toddler and started to lick at the wound he'd just inflicted, and…was my skin glowing?! I moved closer to get a better look and watched as the bleeding slowed, then stopped. I could see the inner flesh start to knit back together. I was healing like a shifter! Could it have been the cougar's licking? Or the odd glow? Or both?
The toddler continued to cry but it was softer now, more sniffling instead of wailing.
Something rustled behind me and the three of us turned to look.
The cougar yowled as I cried out "NO!"
The rifle blast was deafening.
A sharp stab inside my elbow roused me from the remnants of the tranquilizer. I blinked my eyes to clear my vision as I tried to identify the source of the pain.
I inhaled a sharp breath as I first saw the shifter, then registered the needle in my arm. The heavily pierced one was drawing my blood.
"What are you doing?!" I tried to jerk away but the shifter had a vice grip. I was also zip-tied at the wrists and ankles and propped upright in the wheeled chair behind the front desk of my clinic. The blinds on the door and windows were all drawn tightly closed, but I could still see slivers of light. I hadn't been unconscious long.
The smile Metalface offered me turned my stomach. "A blood sample ships faster than we'll be able to deliver you, Babydoll." He applied expert pressure with a cotton ball as he withdrew the needle. "Our bankroller is going to want a head-start in figuring you out."
"You mean your Führer?" I spat.
His sickening smile only grew as he bandaged my arm and let the sleeve of my robe fall back into place. "So you've heard."
"I've heard enough to know you won't be leaving town. Not by your own choice anyways."
Metalface cackled as he admired his ruby red prize. "That so? Hear that, Mort? Think we should just surrender to Ginger now?"
I followed his eyes to the monstrous form leaned casually against the filing cabinets.
Mort is fitting. Looks like he's caused plenty of death.
Mort grunted a laugh at his partner's words. Assuming they had the tats, whatever kind of animals they turned into were hidden from me by their long sleeved shirts. They were dangerous, regardless.
His metallic partner grabbed the arms of my chair and yanked me too close for comfort. His breath was burning hot and carried a rotting stench. "If this is to be our last day on Earth, maybe you'd grant two men their dying wish?"
My gut lurched again. I kicked up my feet, aiming for his groin, but he was quick and shoved my chair at the wall with a wild chuckle.
I bit back my urge to scream. He'd probably like it.
"Malcolm." Mort barked.
I think I preferred Metalface.
Malcolm's head snapped to Mort furiously, his eyes flashing yellow. Unfazed, Mort gestured to the front door.
I heard the motorcycle then and my heart skipped a beat.
With a fiendish smile, Malcolm grabbed my chair again, shoving and letting me roll all the way over to Mort.
"New game, Ginger. Time to rustle us an alpha."
I wanted to bare a brave face when Jase walked through the front door a few moments later. Wanted, tried and failed. Mort looming over me didn't help my efforts.
Jase met my distressed gaze with an expression a mixture of relief and frustration, then narrowed his eyes on Mort. I heard the angry rumble in his chest from across the room.
"There's a good doggie." Malcolm sneered.
"Let her go." Jase's voice was low yet perfectly clear.
"But you just got here!" Malcolm mocked. "Now it's a party!"
"Let her go," Jase repeated. "and I'll go with you without a fight."
"What?" Malcolm asked, disbelieving, at the same time I shouted, "No!"
"I'm not actually the alpha of the Tucson pack." Jase confessed. "I'm not even part of it. As a matter of fact, they've ordered me out of town within the hour for sleeping with another shifter's mate." Jase glanced at me like he wanted to say something right to me, but refocused on Malcolm. "If you take me, they won't come after you. But she's under their protection while she waits for her mate to return. She's more trouble to you than she's worth."
Malcolm seemed to consider, like he was buying the bullshit Jase was selling.
Maybe it wasn't entirely made up.
My mind raced as I felt the sinking suspicion that my clever wolf was trying to speak to me in code.
Within the hour…
The pack's protection…
Was Jase trying to tell me that's how far away the wolves were? If I walked out of here would they find me? Jase already let me know a few times now how strong a shifter's sense of smell was. The pack probably couldn't risk getting too close to the clinic if they were planning something.
Even if Malcolm and Mort just let me walk away, they still had my blood. If they found something in it they liked what was there to stop them from coming after me later? Malcolm was looking at me in such a way that I knew he was thinking exactly that. I couldn't expect the wolves to watch over me twenty-four/seven, and no way in hell was I going to avoid one kind of prison only to wind up in another. Jase didn't know about the blood and I feared what might happen if I tried to tell him here. I had to stall, to distract Mort and Malcolm somehow until I could find a way out for both Jase and I. If the wolves were in fact not so far away, maybe it wouldn't need to be much.
The improvised idea that came to my mind was a terrible, awful idea, and the only one I had by the time Malcolm looked ready to speak.
"Wait!" I screeched. "You don't want Jase either, he's useless to you."
Malcolm's eyebrow lifted at me. "Is he?"
I swallowed a lump in my throat and looked at Jase apologetically. "He's sterile."
After taking in this new information, Malcolm started to laugh hysterically.
I kept talking, trying to ignore the horror filling Jase's eyes. "That's why The Harvester wants alphas right? Strong DNA. But Jase confessed to me before we…" I cleared another lump from my throat. "That's what made him all the more appealing to me, actually. A tryst with no worries of having a pup instead of a…kitten."
Malcolm went quiet and still. I felt Mort glare down at me.
"I can prove it, if you'll indulge me." I added, trying to appear coquettish without having any bile rise from my stomach.
The silence went long enough for me to fear my idea really was the worst ever.
"How do you expect to prove it?"
I didn't know if he believed me or if he was playing a game of his own. It didn't matter as long as it was buying us time.
Jase, I am so sorry! Shit, I hope this works!
I held my hands and feet up to Mort. "First I need you to untie me. Then I need you to lock Jase and myself in my office."
Jase
To say having one's virility put in doubt was upsetting would be an understatement.
My wolf was absolutely livid.
I exerted great effort into not shifting when Krissy and I were escorted to her office, and Mort's bear claw grip on my shoulder made it all the more difficult.
Krissy's freckled face stayed impassive, though her eyes had flitted in my direction several times.
Malcolm scanned the room, possibly looking for potential escape routes. But there were no windows save for a small one in the only door, no air vents big enough for a person or wolf to pass through.
"What is it you plan on doing in here?" Malcolm inquired of Krissy.
"Collect the evidence." She answered coolly and waited.
The other shifters seemed dubious. Still, they left the room, closing the door behind them.
"Doc, what the fuck—"
Krissy snapped a finger to her lips to silence me. "Baby, I'm sorry I had to tell them." She said louder than necessary, then mouthed can they and pointed to her ear.
She wanted to know if the shifters could hear what we were saying. I could hear them still standing just outside the door, so I nodded yes.
"One way or another you were leaving town today, Baby." She went on. "At least this way I can be with you one last time."
She grabbed my hand and led me around behind her desk, her arm darting out to a shelf to grab something on the way. She held it in her hand out of sight of the door, but I could now see it was a pair of cylindrical beakers. Keeping one hidden at her side, she made a show of setting the other beaker on top of her desk.
I still didn't have the faintest idea what Krissy was up to, but she clearly thought the shifters would be watching as well as listening.
Krissy untied her robe to reveal she wasn't wearing much more than what she had been the first time I saw her. She let the robe slide off her shoulders, down to the floor, and swiftly followed, going to her knees.
I suddenly had a clue where her mind was.
Fuck. Pun intended.
She set the second beaker down silently beside her under the desk and reached up for my belt buckle. I reacted impulsively, grabbing her wrists to stop her. As always I was afraid to lose control of my wolf around her. The added perversity of likely having an audience didn't improve the scenario.
"Please," Krissy's voice was wanton as well as pleading and I wasn't sure it was entirely an act. "Let me help you feel good. Before I have to go back to Cat Daddy."
I had to literally bite my tongue and avert my gaze to the ceiling to keep from laughing. The doc was trying to quell my unease. Against my better judgement I let go of her wrists, swinging my arms to my back and grabbing my own wrists instead.
Despite spending the last moment saying no in my brain, the part of my anatomy I felt surging against my zipper had already said hell yes. My cock continued to engorge as Krissy freed it from my jeans and stroked it slowly with one hand.
I risked looking down and found she wasn't actually focused on my member. With her unoccupied hand, she had opened a large cupboard door in the desk, revealing it was hiding a refrigerator. She removed a test tube from the fridge, poured its contents into the beaker she'd left under the desk, spit—yes spit—on them, returned the tube to the fridge and sealed the cupboard back up.
When her eyes met mine and saw my flabbergasted face, she merely smiled slyly and winked.
She wasn't done with me.
After a minor adjustment of her shed robe to give her knees some slim amount of cushioning, her full focus was pinpointed on my dick. Still slowly stroking me, she leaned forward and parted her lips to snake her tongue over my tip, licking away the bead of pre-cum that had already leaked out. I tried to remain still for her, like she was a shy deer that could flee at the slightest movement. Unhurriedly, she took the thick head of my cock into her mouth, tongue swirling around like she was mapping it out. Inch by agonizing inch she licked her way up and back down again, going a little farther each pass. Changing pace, Krissy traded her grasp on my erection for cupping my balls, fondling them while taking my cock deep into her mouth. My sac pulsed, my hips surged forward at the sensation and the head of my cock connected with the back of Krissy's throat, making her gag. I yanked myself back, feeling like a jackass as she gasped for air. Before I can mutter a pathetic apology, she gripped the base of my dick again and squeezed gently. This time as she drew me into her mouth she started to pump in concert with her fist, speeding up the rhythm little by little. My hands made their way into her hair, I started to rock forward and back, urging her to take me deeper. I felt her teeth rake carefully across the sensitive flesh and I seethe as sparks of light started to burst over my vision.
She's testing her limits. And mine.
The good doctor was being naughty.
Krissy tried releasing her grip again to take me fully into her mouth, moving my cock over her tongue and against one cheek pocket then the other.
My wolf was going wild. We needed to push this test further. My alpha desire to dominate my female flared.
"Suck me, Krissy."
Her eyes blazed with dark heat and the corners of her luscious lips around my cock flexed into a brief smile. She suctioned around my width, pulling down my length, gliding back up. I tightened my grip at the back of her head and she sucked harder, with more vigour. I took control, holding her head still and pumping into her hot mouth. Krissy raised her hands up to her own breasts, taking the nipples through her thin top, rolling them between her fingers. She made a moaning purr sound that vibrated her mouth and everything inside it, sending a shudder through me. The view and sensations launching me to crest, my sac tightened again and my thighs went rigid.
"I'm going to come, Sweetness." I warned, my breath laboured.
She pops off as I remove my grip on her hair, but grabs hold of my cock again, aiming me at her open mouth and stroking enthusiastically.
My eyes roll back as I come, but I can feel the fluid ribbons jutting out in my release.
As my vision cleared I see Krissy grab the beaker she'd left on top of the desk and lean down to spit my cum into it. As I shoved my dick back into my jeans, she secretly leaves the beaker with my seed under the desk and rose to her feet holding the first beaker containing her spit and—whatever that stuff was.
She smiled smugly at me, her lips still glistening with the evidence of our foray.
Cradling the side of her face, I swiped my thumb across her lips to wipe it away. I mean to kiss her—predictably, Malcolm and Mort chose that very moment to barge into the office.
The stone gargoyle that he was, Mort's face was emotionless. Malcolm ogled my female.
"That was…quite the show."
I moved protectively in front of Krissy, growling deep.
She placed a careful hand on my arm and stepped beside me, holding out the beaker. "I can show you this proof in my lab."