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For any hope of getting out of this fight in one piece, Rory had to ignore Justin and Vic, everything except the two wolves heading toward his jaguar.
Where the first wolf had the whacked-out, glowing eyes of a rabid shifter on drugs, this second one looked downright alien with black empty orbs for eyes. That monster wolf stood another head taller than the runner and had the misshapen body of a shifter on mega-steroids. Beneath the rust-colored coat, his muscles bulged in an unnatural way and his shoulders expanded so much he had a deep valley between them. His head was too big for his body size, but he could probably cut a Rottweiler in half with one bite of those jaws.
Human steroids hadn’t altered that shifter’s body.
Rory would bet that wolf had been pumped up with some unholy drug the Black River pack had cooked in their labs.
A demonic growl rumbled from Ferrell.
Two juiced up wolves against one crazy, injured jaguar.
What Rory’s beast lacked in intelligence, he made up for with arrogance.
Well, Ferrell would take down at least one and Rory never planned past the moment in which he lived for a good reason.
Time was not something he dwelled on.
When it came to fighting, Rory and Ferrell were always on the same page. He gave the jaguar his head.
With a roar of fury, Ferrell burst from the thicket with claws out and jaws open, but he didn’t go straight at the wolves. Instead, he dove to the side and rolled, coming up on all fours, then turning to meet the enemy.
Not expecting that move, the massive wolf ran over the smaller one in his rush to attack Ferrell. Saliva dripped from the wolf’s snarling lips. No sane thought going on there. Just a locomotive load of power determined to kill a cat.
Ferrell didn’t budge until the last second.
When the wolf dove to make his attack, Ferrell flipped to the side, vacating that spot in a microsecond. Rory’s cat twisted in a brilliant move to push up on all four paws and spring onto the wolf’s back just as the wolf tried to stop and turn.
Ferrell locked his jaws on the wolf’s neck, but he only got a third of the bulky mass. Jerking and twisting, the wolf snapped his teeth, trying to latch onto Ferrell’s leg. His jaguar dug his front claws deep into the wolf’s shoulders, pulling hard to rip muscle. He bit the wolf’s neck again, going for a better grip, but nothing slowed down the monster they rode.
Teeth snapped hard against Ferrell’s back leg and Rory shuddered at the pain the second wolf was inflicting.
Ferrell reached around with a claw and ripped at the big wolf’s throat, yanking to tear it apart.
The second wolf shook his head back and forth, ripping Ferrell’s leg the same way.
Rory told Ferrell, Let go of this one and stop the other one from tearing our leg apart.
His jaguar snarled something that could have been the word no.
Fucker.
Slashing sharp claws across the big wolf’s neck again, Ferrell’s paw came away with bloody muscle and veins this time.
The steroid wolf folded to his front knees.
Now Ferrell swung around, dragging the second wolf with his torn hind leg. His jaguar lunged to catch the wolf’s hindquarter with his teeth and claws, shredding fast as a revved-up sewing machine.
That forced the wolf to howl and whine, jerking to get away from Ferrell. Rory’s jaguar had once again proven himself in battle. He let the jaguar finish off the wolf.
One thing they agreed on was no playing with an enemy. If attacked, kill the opponent in the fastest way possible.
A massive grizzly bear and a wolf that looked like a giant fox crashed through the forest as Ferrell finished off his kill.
Then Ferrell wobbled two steps and collapsed on one side.
No longer in the middle of battle, Rory opened his mind to hear Justin yelling at the top of his telepathic voice. Answer me, Rory!
I hear you.
Justin’s grizzly and Vic’s wolf—a maned wolf?—padded up to Rory’s jaguar. The grizzly took one look around and brought his gaze back to Ferrell.
Panting through the pain, Rory said to his jaguar, You did it, you beast. We live to fight another day.
For that, he got the image of Ferrell sleeping in the middle of Rory’s bed, which he might just let the cat do this time.
Sucking up his courage, Rory called up the shift back to human form. That really pissed off his mangled leg. His foot flopped at the wrong angle.
Energy flowed around him as Justin and Vic returned to their human forms, too. Justin took one look at Rory’s leg. “Fuck, that’s ... we can’t fix that right now.”
“I know.” Rory couldn’t say much until he got the damn thing healing and that wouldn’t happen quickly. “What about ... captives?”
“Right before Vic and I inserted, I sent word of what we were doing and for the helicopter on the way to come in hot rather than setting down a click away. I had a feeling something was off and feared they might hurt the captives before we could take all of them down.”
Rory gritted out, “That’s why you’re the leader.”
Justin didn’t respond to that, instead saying, “We’ll lose whoever was coming to pick up those in the cages, because the first transport should have been arriving by now and would have been scared off, but we saved the women and children.”
From all the blood on Justin and Vic, they looked mauled from head to toe. Good thing Justin had gone with his instincts for the sake of the captives. With the chopper on site, no one had to carry Rory out of here.
“What can I do for you?” Vic asked, his gaze on Rory’s leg. “I’m not a medic like you, but I can follow instructions.”
Rory started directing Vic on how to wrap up his leg until he got home to rest and heal. He sure hoped this would get better soon. They all had fast healing, but with the problems Rory had been experiencing, this level of damage could take days to heal instead of hours.
When his healing had stalled over the past months, he hadn’t been sure it wasn’t Ferrell fucking with him, but regardless of what was going on, he wasn’t going to give Justin a new reason to jaw at him. The last two injuries had been simpler wounds and he’d been able to hide his sluggish return to solid health.
Not now.
What about that healer nymph? Where was she when he needed her?
Maybe he had imagined the whole thing. She’d said she wasn’t a healer. Could be that his animal pushed more energy to the wound when it sensed a potential threat from her power.
He’d like to think that, but Ferrell did only what Ferrell wanted and lately had been stingy with giving aid.
It would take a damn magician to heal sooner than two weeks. He had a real concern that the damage to his leg could be severe enough that he might not make it all the way back to fully healed even then.
He and his Gallize teammates had something better than a magician.
They had a three-hundred-year-old sea eagle shifter they called the Guardian, but that didn’t mean Rory had any desire to point out his healing issues to the boss.
Now that the ringing in his ears had died down, he heard women and children wailing in the distance. “Are the captives okay?”
“Yes,” Justin said, then explained, “I left them in the cages and they’re pissed, but if I let them out you know most of them will take off. I tried to tell them someone was coming to deliver them to a sanctuary. That really set off two of them, screaming at me that they were not living on a reservation.”
“I know. I rescued a woman from those two jackals and told her we were here to help her, but she took off while I fought that bald bastard. We need to find her.” Why had he said that? She’d clearly wanted to run.
But knowing she was out there alone twisted his gut in ways he’d never felt before.
Justin looked around and came back to him. “By the time I can cut Vic loose to hunt her, she’ll be gone. Can’t save everyone.”
The urge to crawl after that woman and make sure she was safe ate at Rory in spite of the pain riding his body. He didn’t like the idea of letting her go. Not being able to heal pissed him off. He had to fix this shit.
As soon as he could hobble, he was coming back to track her and find a way to convince his nymph to let him help her.
Whomp, whomp, whomp announced the helicopter’s arrival.
“That’s Hawk comin’ in,” Vic muttered as he tied off the bandage he’d put around what was left of Rory’s leg.
When Vic went to meet the helicopter, Justin squatted down next to Rory. “I’m gonna say this now while no one else is around.”
“What?” That came out nasty, but Rory’s hackles went up at Justin’s tone.
“You should talk to the Guardian about whatever is wrong.” Justin held up his hand. “Don’t waste time bullshitting me. I know something is up with you. I’ve noticed issues from time to time over the last couple months since Cole and I found mates, but I’ve tried to leave you alone.”
“Noticed what?”
“You never make anything easy, do you?”
“You’re the one who started this,” Rory snapped back. His leg hurt like a mother and the rest of his body felt like he’d been beaten with a spiked log. Couldn’t Justin find someone else to rag on?
Brown eyes bearing down on him, Justin said, “Fine. You’ve got a fucking death wish or you’ve got some skewed reasoning about being point man in every mission. Not that the rest of us don’t appreciate you diving in to take the first bullets, but that’s not how we work.”
“You could just say thank you instead of being a dick,” Rory said, but the levity was lost on Justin.
“Unless you want to be laid up for a while, you need to call the Guardian about fixing your leg. You’ve been hiding wounds for some reason. I’m guessing they aren’t healing the way they should. While he’s working on your leg, you’ll have the perfect opportunity to straighten out whatever the hell is going on in your head. If you don’t, you’re off the team.”
“Don’t threaten me, Justin.” Rory clenched his teeth against a wave of pain from moving around. “I’m going home to heal. I’ll let you know if I need the Guardian.”
Ferrell sent Rory a video image of the Gallize headquarters destroyed worse than a tornado hitting the building.
He sighed. If the Guardian took Rory out of the field, his jaguar would last maybe three days before he forced the change while Rory was sleeping.
It had happened once overseas, eight months ago when Rory had been badly wounded and passed out for more than a day from exhaustion. The shift had helped him heal faster, but his jaguar had gone tearing through the jungle looking for something to kill.
Not to eat, just to kill.
Rory regained consciousness right after shifting, but he couldn’t grab control of Ferrell while the jaguar was on a rampage. When Ferrell finally slowed down, and before he’d harmed anything, Rory seized control. He’d been able to keep that from the Guardian and his team, but back home in the states he couldn’t hide something so glaring if it happened again.
Truth was, he wouldn’t hide not being able to manage his jaguar. If Ferrell pulled that trick again, they wouldn’t be waiting on a mating curse to submit to the Guardian.
Justin shook his head. “It’s not a threat, asshole. That’s a promise. I’m trying to keep you alive. If you’re suffering from the mating curse, say so. We’ll figure out something.”
“It’s three years too early for me to have the curse and you know I’m not lying when I say I’m not affected.”
“Fine. Then get your head out of your ass if you want to stay on the team. I’m not standing by watching a brother of mine walk into hellfire because his head is screwed up, or risking that whatever is going on with you won’t put someone else in danger.” Justin stood and started giving directions via his comm unit.
“When have I ever put any of our team in danger?”
Growling softly, Justin sighed heavily. “Never and I know you never would, but something is going on. I’m just saying if you can’t figure it out, talk to the boss.”
Rory held his tongue when he wanted to lash out, but Justin was only doing what Rory would do in his shoes. The problem was that no one could save Rory.
Without a mate, he’d eventually fall victim to the curse, and the Guardian would put him down.
Rory didn’t see any of that as a problem.
There would be no avoiding the curse, because Rory refused to consider a mate.
There would be no more monsters like him.
