PAWN AMONG WOLVES CH. 05

Gemma hugged her arms around her knees and gazed out of the tall, deep window across the broad valley to the sun sinking beyond the mountains. A beautiful, tranquil scene that should have calmed her inner tension. Her wool-clad toes were tucked in close on the soft cushion of the window seat - it was cold up here in the mountains with the window open, but less oppressive having the gentle breeze curling around her, shielding her from the cloying opulence of the suite.

After annoying her for three days, her guards had finally stopped coming in to stare disapprovingly every time she touched the window catch.What did they think she was going to do, jump?she thought broodingly. Then shivered lightly. The view was breathtaking in more than one way; the first time she had looked down, her stomach had lurched sickeningly and head had begun to swim, and that had been with the window closed. On that first day, when she had still been overawed, amazed at being transported into a palatial, elegant suite in a Bond-villain mountain-crag fortress.

Three days later, her main feeling was irritated boredom. The sleek madam – Louise – had even taken her phone from her that first night. "For security," Madam had explained smoothly as she deftly extracted it with a sweet, false smile – and without permission – from Gemma's shoulder bag, before waving her involuntary, unwanted guest into the suite and leaving with a brief, "Ask the men for anything you need," tossed dismissively over one silk-clad shoulder.

That was the last Gemma had seen of her, thankfully. The silence in the back of the car on the way down had been glacial, Madam staring out into the night, and Gemma wondering what on earth had happened to her normal life, where Mac was, and what was nigglingly weird about the car they were riding in - although the vehicle suited Madam. Plush, silent and sneeringly superior. The cubs had since filled her in - apparently Madam -Gemma always drawled the title sarcastically inside her own head - hadn't appreciated Gemma introducing her to the novel experience of having a mere girl - a human - argue with her. In front of four alphas, Dr. Maynard and half the senior pack members, no less. And then Marsh himself had listened to what the girl said! The cubs couldn't hide their glee. And Madam hadn't even attempted to hide her acute, violent dislike.

Gemma wrinkled her short nose.

Mutual.

The men weren't much better. The guards. Most of the time they just rooted themselves in the knee-deep carpet in the corridor outside the door to the suite, and ignored her varied polite and less polite requests to let her out to explore. She had sensed their pleasure at the futility of her physical, furious attempts to get out – it had been like trying to squeeze between two warm, immovable rocks, or a rock and the door jam, and their warmth had made her hairs stand on end and an uneasy churning sensation pool in her stomach, making her back off abruptly.

They did fetch on demand, as Madam had stated – that's what the guards called her, "Madam Louise," or, "Madam Marsh," and Gemma had spent a bad-tempered, bored period yesterday afternoon thinking up the most bizarre and pointless fetch-errands she could inflict on them. A Frisbee. Strawberries and champagne. Ten orchids. A zebra. Her favourite DVDs. Fish and chips. Chocolate and ice cream. A piano. A Picasso. Ostrich steak (she'd never had it – Gemma thought she may as well make use of this). Her old teddy polar bear from home. A BlackBerry. One of them silently stalked off after each request, or merely stated after a brief pause, "I'm afraid Madam would prefer you not to risk your security with that, Dr. Smith."

She got the piano though, to her amazement.

She hadn't really thought she'd get a BlackBerry. But when the dark haired one had returned with her fluffy old toy, BigWhite, she'd dried up and retreated, unnerved, to her favourite seat. This one, here in the window. How the hell had they gotten into her flat?

She didn't want to know.

"Anything more, Dr. Smith?" the craggy one had drawled sarcastically after her as she'd retreated.

Gemma wrinkled her nose again. No way were those surly hulks allowed to call her 'Gemma'. Especially not when she needed anything to keep them at a distance. To keep her cool. Her courage. Her distain. Every day. Every morning.

Every morning they checked her neck.

It was unnerving, unsettling, the worst part of the day. They came in a pair each time – for protection against her contaminating human presence, it felt like, in the increasingly tense unease. They requested gruffly that she stand in the middle of the living room, loosen and fold down her collar, and let them, in turn, scent the fading mottling. Their breath against the tender spot made her skin writhe and tension clench in her stomach. She could feel the tautness of dislike oozing off them also, the shudder of their skin as they sniffed, the wrinkle of their noses, and the hardness in their eyes as they had to bring themselves to approach. And they shimmered with increasing antipathy and disappointment each day as the colour slowly faded - she could tell that they wanted her to get worse, wanted Mac tried and convicted.

Dogs.

She hated them for that. Her skin was so tight, tense even at the thought of the impending inspection tomorrow – made worse after another long, lurid night of Mac visiting her dreams and whispering to her skin what he'd like to do to her in that damned massive four poster in the luxurious bedroom, rolling her under him, pressing her down into the soft mattress. She knew they could smell it on her – the heat from the dreams. Eugh.

Damn him. Damn she missed his touch. Missed it more every day.

She used the opportunity, their enforced interaction, to question the guards – it was also a useful distraction from the revolting, real reason they were there. But they never said any more than they absolutely had to, never answered her questions about Mac or the trial, infuriatingly, which was why she'd ended up playing that stupid fetch game with them like the dogs they were. They liked keeping her in the dark. Madam liked it.

Luckily, Mac didn't.

Here it came.

Silently, twirling on the breeze, lowered on the spindly, almost invisible fishing line, today's offering spun gently into sight. She grasped the line, tugged lightly, and it stopped. Swiftly, sparkling with pleasure, Gemma unclipped it from the karabiner on the end of the line, hooked in place her own reply, and then tugged twice, gently. She breathed more easily as she watched the little packet disappear silently back up the cliff face. The guards came in at any moment and she really did not want to get the kids into trouble. They were so proud of themselves for working this out. Even if they couldn't get her a replacement mobile phone, which would've been a damn sight easier. Apparently wolves didn't use cell phones much, and they had no chance to buy one, especially without any of the Marsh wolves noticing.

A small smile was playing around her mouth. Megan, the youngest of the trio, had explained in her first note. Mac knew why Madam Marsh had taken Gemma's phone, but he'd wanted to check that she was OK himself, not rely on the reports, so he'd set up this relay with the MacKeld trainees at Marshmont.

There were three of them, up there in the dusk, perched on the wall of the roof terrace, the two boys hanging onto the legs and waistband of Megan so that she could lean out far enough to get the fishing line lowered past the rocky outcrop above this window.

They loved doing this, the excitement was evident in their scrawled messages – and the pride, the pride that the Alpha had given them this assignment, trusted them to work out how to get a message to Gemma. Which they had. He'd been right.

Today's package held four notes. The one dictated from Mac she saved until last. James, the eldest of them, had drawn her a meticulous, detailed map of the fourth floor – the floor below – to go with the one sent yesterday of this floor, with the position of her suite. She'd explained in her first note how frustrating she found it, seeing only these four rooms when she'd been dazzled by the bewitching array of lights shimmering down from above as the car purred its way up the valley on the night of her arrival. So he'd decided to map the place for her.

Kyle drew people, mainly pictures of her guards, there was one today of the two hulks who'd been outside her door at midday – he didn't have great talent, but she could tell who they were, and appreciated the short notes underneath."Lars – he's a bit irritable, but not bad. Teaches us restraint." "Mike – he works in the North quad usually, but I've never seen him come in empty handed, he can run like the wind." Kyle's notes left a lot of questions, but apparently all of her guards to date – they rotated three pairs during the day, and someone new had been substituted in yesterday – all were high-ranking and awesome and seemed to be snappy about being dragged in to guard a human.

Megan was the chatty one, explaining all about them, their classes, extra training, the Marshmont and how hard it was to get into the academy here. She reminded Gemma of her cousin Tina's daughter, and her notes had her smile with their joyous enthusiasm for life.

Then there was Mac's.

"Picchu, please try not to take out your irritation on the guards by making highly skilled warriors run after candy, flowers and teddy bears. It might come back to bite you someday. Although your demanding errands are already legendary and there was some joking around the council that I've obviously gotten you pregnant.

Before you panic, that's impossible.

I've been acquitted of endangering you, as the evidence clearly shows that you are healing. The Argen charge is still open but I've been released on condition that I leave you in Marsh custody and don't come near you. I said some slightly disrespectful things to the council in response to that, and they got snippy and demanded I promise to stay on the Range until you're fully healed or they'd stick me back in a cell. Wish you'd been there to shut me up – you excel at it."

That was it. Her hit for today.

Megan had told her that as kids – cubs – they weren't old enough to distance communicate in words easily, wolves worked more with impressions, feelings, and images sent mind to mind – "conveying", they called it, and the concentration required to receive words was exhausting, requiring a lot more control – they wouldn't be able to exchange words with even their parents at this distance. Only the Alpha, and it took the three of them the whole day, taking turns, to receive that many sentences even from him.

So a wolf only conveyed in words when he had feelings or images that he didn't wish to share, that were liable to leak through. Gemma had blushed scarlet when she'd read that explanation for why the dictated notes were so short. If Mac had any of the same feelings and images in his mind as cavorted repeatedly through hers whenever she thought of him, then she was damned glad he was sticking to dry words for these kids to write down, even if it left her aching for more and gave them a bit of a headache. And it's not as if he was that reticent! She snorted, blushing again. Pregnant. HAH. She wished shecouldshut him up.

Her nipples tingled and her mouth watered lightly.

The cubs had been astonished and immensely proud when Mac first spoke to them – they'd only each heard from him once before, mind-to-mind, when he congratulated them on gaining entrance to the Academy. But even then, he'd conveyed in words – their parents said that now, since the start of the third invasion, four years ago when they were only little cubs, the Alpha only ever conveyed in words. With everyone.

Megan's notes also left a lot of questions.

Gemma stroked the short pieces of paper, over and over, as she re-read the notes and studied her new map. Then with a little sigh, she went and hid them with the others, as instructed, in the empty, rinsed shampoo bottle behind the other toiletries in the bathroom cabinet. Scent masking, it was called.

The long night stretched ahead. What wouldn't she do to have the opportunity to shut Mac up.

Again.

And again.

Bedtime. Dammit. Her pulse was racing and she was so, so wet. Maybe a boring tome would cool her thoughts.

Later, much later, Gemma lifted her head and stared at the wall, unfocussed, mind working furiously with the book open on her lap.

Unbelievable.

Impossible.

Unthinkable.

But...

Distantly aware of the cold slowly spreading through her veins, she re-focused on the formula scrawled in the workings box at the chapter end. She'd only started flipping through the old textbook out of sheer boredom. When she'd demanded her own clothes as part of her frustrated game yesterday, the jailers had somehow retrieved the other girl, Anne's, rucksack, together with her own coat and gloves from the lab. No doubt they had thought it was hers. If she hadn't been skulking, unnerved, in her windowseat by the time the hulky one had dropped it in, she might have pointed out his mistake, and would never have found –

This.

It was a standard chelation chemistry textbook, she assigned it to students herself, and the scribbled workings in the boxes would not have held her interest if she hadn't begun to notice the predominance of silver in each working. In fact, in all workings. And once she'd begun to look, she found that the formulas had little to do with the questions, although someone was developing the knowledge shared in the chapters for their own use. And that use seemed to be -

Unthinkable.

Gemma checked again, feeling the cold dread deep inside her hardening. The moon was glowing softly on the peaks opposite, lengthening the silver shadows, echoing her mood.

Mac had mentioned poly, when talking about the chemo he was taking to rid his body of the residue silver. She had brushed soft fingers over the cold, shiny, stretched skin on his stomach. And the standard polymer for silver cleansing was right here, in these formulas. And...

She was staring at the wall again, shivering as her brain raced through the implications.

Poison.

Here, unless she was very much mistaken, was the painstaking working out of a method of coating silver, sealing it away, hiding it inside another compound. It was meticulous. It was fiendish. The majority of the calculations estimated how much of the coating compound would react with any of the standard cleansing polymer added to the body to eradicate silver. And the reaction would free the additional silver hidden inside.

So.Gemma found that she was shivering lightly. Was this Argen? True Argen - the silent killer? Or something else entirely? What had Anne been doing with this knowledge?

Here was a poison which hid silver inside it. If you mixed it with a little pure silver – there were calculations as to how much was a good mixture – then any time a wolf tried to cleanse out the visible silver with the standard chemo polymer, more of the hidden silver would be released, making matters worse, not better. Poisoning himself.

There was even a rough table of results of some experimental live tests. Survival rates noted coldly. Gemma wondered briefly, bleakly, who the guinea pigs – the guinea pig wolves – had been. If they had volunteered. Yeah, like Nick's wolf-girl Anne had volunteered for sex.

Gemma's blood was aching in her taut skin as she lifted her head to stare again at the wall, fingers clenching and unclenching, brain settling into cold certainty.

Anne, chemistry postgrad, had been, however involuntarily, part of Nicolas's pack.

Her heart was pounding hard inside her chest as her conviction deepened.

Mac's stomach was taking longer to heal than it should - the wound from the silvery spear that Nick had driven through him that first night still frozen into his abdomen. She suspected that it had spread, grown larger since she had first bandaged it.

No. No. No. No. No.

Unless she was very much mistaken, Mac was poisoning himself further every time he tried to heal himself. This would be the sixth day.

How much silver did it take to kill a wolf?

How much time?

Cold, cold clenched muscles ached throughout her body. A shiver of fear, and a wrenching-tight knot in her stomach. Memory of warm green eyes, the gentle touch of his lips brushing hers. Gemma flinched away from the idea of the cold wound spreading, spreading, leaching the heat from his skin, his eyes.No.

She had to get in touch with him.

Now.

Somehow.

After another long, long, pause while her thoughts echoed around her aching skull, Gemma padded through to the bathroom, and pulled out the packet hidden behind the shampoo, riffling through for the maps.

So.

Marsh's office was downstairs, two windows to the right. Or to the left, if you were looking out of your own window, deliberately not focusing on the distant, distant specks of trees marking the base of the cliff.

Gemma felt slightly light headed, divorced, like she was ludicrously part of a fictional children's adventure story as she hauled spare sheets out of the ornate chest at the foot of the bed, and knotted them together. Enough of them to make a long enough rope. With checked and double checked knots.

Not looking down.

Not.

That's long enough now.

One more for luck.

Thinking resolutely of Mac slowly poisoning himself, Gemma tied her makeshift rope to one of the bedposts, turned her back to the window, and wrapped the ridiculously silky fabric around her arms and across her back for a classic abseil. She leaned against it, testing, in the comfort of her room and took a deep breath.

It held.

Another deep breath.

He's killing himself. You're the only person who can tell him. Stop him.

Gemma shut her bedroom door to pretend she was asleep, and with careful footsteps, backed out of the window, walking slowly down the wall, resolutelyonly looking at where she carefully placed her feet.

For some reason, the lyrics, "On a rope, on a rope, got me hanging on a rope" were echoing repeatedly in her head with each slow step. She smiled, her heart lightening as she became more adept at moving smoothly, carefully with the sheet-rope– Mac would like the idiotic aptness of the words. Although, actually, it was probably a good job he couldn't see this. He was overprotective anyway, and Gemma wasn't sure that objecting to this activity qualified as "over". Her Dad would also ground her if he could see her now, having made her swear to always act sensibly on the rock before he even took her up that first boulder with her brothers. But thiswas sensible. In light of the alternative.

It's worth it.

She smiled softly, wryly, to herself again.

Therewas a phone on the desk.Hurrah!She could see it through the glass, a beautiful, sleek white model quietly waiting to be used.

And the next-door window was open.

Stealthily, Gemma edged herself closer, and peeked in.

The decadence of this bedchamber – it definitely wasn't merely a room, it was a chamber – surpassed even the outrageous opulence of her own. It was staggering, the vast, mountainous silk-hung four-poster dwarfing even the looming shadow of the heavy gothic carved wardrobe. Mirrors and beautiful, sumptuous tapestries vied with each other for wall space, and the dark red carpet looked as though it had been planted years ago, sprayed with hairgro, and left to run riot – while the drapes – hmmm, the drapes. Handy.

Gingerly, Gemma reached in and hauled herself behind the fall of heavy, dark red velvet, as silently as she could. She stood, unnerved in the heavy silence of this arrogant, masculine room, and listened carefully, heart hammering.

Nothing.

Silently, she untied the sheet-rope from her waist and fastened the end to the tie-back behind the curtain, hidden from the room.

Her heart was stuttering. Even as a human, she knew whose room this was. She could practically scent him, sense him in the air. And he scared her. Sent her heart into overdrive and a shimmer of aching tension across her skin, her scalp creeping back towards the window. There was just something so powerful, so predatory sheathed under that smooth exterior. If he found her in his room... She stood frozen, shivering, breaths short and fearful.

Mac.

The thought of her wolf, of the cold, poisonous scar on his stomach, jolted her, and she pulled herself together, cursing herself inwardly to impel movement, before edging carefully out from her hiding place, heading to the door of the empty study.

To the phone.

Luckily, Mac's number was one of those she had memorised – from the old days, when she'd just lusted after him quietly, drooling on her own in her room at their flat. Mmmm.

Happy days. Although there was definitely something to be said for putting thought into action. Like licking – she could never have imagined how damn good he tasted, or how his skin shuddered lightly under her lips... or - Not now, she cursed her stupid, wayward thoughts as the blood began to rush heatedly through her veins. The Wayward Ones, hauled to an abrupt halt in their abandoned, heedless rush into liquid fire memories, looked back at her with melting, reproachful eyes as she folded them up, stuffed them back in a mental drawer and turned the key.

That deep voice'll be whispering in your ear soon anyway, the smug murmur oozed disobediently out from behind the lock, causing her nipples to harden and the ache to tighten in her belly. Shut up.

"Marsh?" Mac's voice was deep, a slight rasp of sleep to the surprised tone as he picked up.

"Mac. It's me, listen." Gemma didn't dare speak above a whisper, hidden crouched in the knee space under the desk.

"What're you doing in Jon's rooms?" Mac's voice shot to an aggressive rumble, hackles audibly rising down the phone. Irritatingly, liquid heat pulsed between Gemma's thighs. He cares! squealed the insatiable corner of her mind. She ignored it, concentrating on why she was here, and fear for him dampened the heat rushing through her.

"I snuck in," she whispered back. "Shut up and listen."

"Gemma, get out of there – you're – you can't be found in his private rooms, he -."

"I know, listen to me," Gemma hissed at him, "They may find me any minute but I had to contact you, had to." She was almost in tears, worry tightening her throat, and abruptly she heard silence on the other end of the line. Then, "Listening, Picchu," he murmured softly. His tone was dangerous, poised, alert.

She explained swiftly into the silence echoing down the phone. His breath became slightly less angry, heavier with every word, while Gemma slowly became miserably aware of how far-fetched, how ludicrous it all sounded. She could feel her own doubts creeping into her tone as she faltered to a halt, and could hear him thinking what to reply through the calm breaths in the silence.

"I had to tell you," she whispered forlornly, "I know it sounds stupid, but I'm so scared, what if it's true?"

"It doesn't sound stupid, Gem," he breathed quietly back. "In fact, it explains a lot."

Her heart clenched – fear and relief, and she leaned silently against the polished hardwood side of the footwell, tears rolling down her cheeks. He really was being poisoned. Maybe. Oh please let him get better.

"Can you tell me the compound? Or actually, Will's just picking up, can you speak to him? - he'll understand better." There was a click and abruptly, another voice, brisk and calm, was on the line and Gemma heard herself reciting her theory again – a woman also cut in occasionally, posing additional questions, asking for clarity, sifting alertly through what Gemma could recall of the complex formulation.

There was a resounding silence after she had told them as much as she could, and promised to write out the formula for the MacKeld cubs as soon as she got back to her room – apparently they'd just been woken up and told to go and get ready to collect it.

"Can you use another treatment?" whispered Gemma. She heard the woman sigh, and then the silence down the line echoed ominously. "Mac, please!"

"Will?" Mac queried softly.

"There's the old method," murmured the male voice, his tones clipped with held-back feelings, "but it was never reported as very reliable, and I've no idea where we'd get hold of half of the ingredients nowadays. I'll look into it."

"I can find something," said Gemma determinedly, "I'll head back to the lab and sort out an alternative that will leach out this Argen, so –."

"This isn't Argen," murmured the woman, worriedly.

"And no way - don't you dare move from Marchmont, Picchu." Mac's voice was deep, harsh. "The Grey is definitely after you, and if he finds out you know this – they already killed Anne."

Gemma's breath stopped in her lungs. "What?" she murmured, sharply, shocked. That poor, prostituted young girl. "But I - I thought she'd be safe as a MacKeld!"

"Ambushed on the way back to the range with Sam – he barely managed to stay on his feet until Mark's squad arrived in answer their SOS, but the girl ..." the growl was rising in his voice, deepening, "She'd had her teeth filed. Torn to pieces. Defenceless."

Gemma gasped softly, a shudder of revulsion, "Why would a wolf do that?"

"For blow jobs," Mac's growl was disgusted, "Some yips wear caps, some idiots grind their teeth to blunt stumps to please their mates," his voice darkened again. "Then some - some I don't think have a choice, but that's an idea so alien to wolf culture that it's unthinkable to most."

Caught in hot memory, Gemma murmured, "So if I were a wolf, I couldn't have -," then suddenly recalled the other two listeners, and flushed scarlet, falling silent.

The silence echoed. Then she heard Mac rumble huskily, "Get off the line, you two." He wasn't talking to Gemma, and she heard the slight ping of a replaced receiver, her heart picking up as his soft breathing deepened. A long sigh sounded in her ear, and her blood tingled.

"Thank-you, Picchu." She had never heard or felt such warm depth of feeling in his voice, and it spread through her, warming her, heating her. He would be alright. She waited, peaceful now, despite her vulnerable position crouched under a desk in a forbidden room half way down a cliff. Some things were unimportant.

"Are you alright?" he murmured in concern.

"I'm worried about you – what's the alternative method?"

"No idea, Will'll let me know. Don't worry, I won't get any worse now, and we'll find a solution in time – there's no hurry. How are you?"

"Nick wouldn't know I knew, Mac," she pleaded softly, rushing the words out, "If I go and test a few possibilities, he'd have no reason to suspect, no way of knowing I was even there-."

"Gemma," Mac interrupted on a sarcastic drawl, "Nicolas has been after you from the start. Whether he suspects you're on to him or not is pretty irrelevant, I'd say, he'd try and collect whatever. You are not safe elsewhere. Leave it. I'll be fine – William'll sort it. You need to get out of that room, stay safe in your own suite – it won't be much longer now."

"But -."

"Leave it," he growled deeply. "And get going, Gem, you - my blood is seething with the idea that you're in Marsh's rooms, even though I saw him in Himlesky six hours ago and know he'd be hard pressed to be back yet." Gemma relaxed slightly at this piece of information. And the rough feeling in his voice. "Get back to your rooms, Picchu. Jon'll know that you've been there as soon as he gets in, but if he asks, tell him I ordered you to call me. Just don't be there in his rooms - leave now."

Arrogant alpha. There was something very stirring in his vehemence. The heat in his demanding voice melted into her blood – she knew how much she loved the demanding side of Mac. But she wasn't one of his obedient pack. Not going just yet.

Gemma sighed huskily, "Bossy, bossy. You do need me to shut you up. Somehow. Hmmm. Let me think." And she swallowed, audibly, luxuriously, down the phone.

There was a harsh intake of breath. A pause for two heartbeats. Then Mac's voice came, silkily dangerous, down the line, "You really, really do not want to provoke me when you're in such a defenceless position, Gemma. I'm angry enough as it is that I've been forbidden to protect you while you finish healing."

Gemma instantly felt a little ashamed of herself. Although her blood wasn't cooling down, if anything it was simmering to the boil in response to his tone. She sighed again, her nipples hardening back to aching peaks. "I know, I just – I can't behave around you. Please, Mac, say something – um. Something to take to my lonely bed with me." Her cheeks heated to crimson as a pulse of heat surged liquid between her thighs and she whispered, "Please?"

What was wrong with her? Slept with him twice and now she was turning into an insatiable wanton? She never said things like that. Um. Except to Mac. Constantly.

His voice as he replied was deeper, controlled, soft biting words wreathed in silken heat.

"How about this, Gem. If you don't get off his phone and back to your room in the next fifteen seconds, then when I do get hold of you, I'll tie you to my own goddamn bed and make sure you learn what the consequences of scaring me like this are. And believe me, I'd make sure you were begging, begging me for forgiveness with every breath."

Her heartbeat shot to racing in an instant, and her throat dried as a hot wave of lust pulsed through every fibre of her. She trembled uncontrollably, gulped in a breath, and rasped weakly, "Thanks."

"Ten," he shot back curtly, she could hear his anger deepening again - her blood was singing in response, heat thundering in her veins.

"I wish I could kiss you goodnight," she whispered huskily.

"Four. Dammit, Gemma." Her heart skipped a beat at the soft fury in his tone, but she could hear the tension of worry underneath and murmured softly, "Sorry. I'm gone. G'night Mac." And quickly, co-ordination completely shot, she lurched out of her hiding place to gently, shakily replace the receiver.

Her breath was heaving and she tried to keep it quiet as she edged back into the bedroom. Hot, hot want was aching between her thighs and she had to bite her lip to keep quiet as she scrambled fumbling back behind the curtain, shuddering. Was she insane? Of all the stupid, idiotic places to beg for phone sex – her cheeks flared again as she began dazedly to knot the sheet end back around her waist.

And she was pretty sure that her final goodnight had pushed her just past the time limit. What if Mac actually did carry out his threat? Oh please, please. Her lips parted and she had to bite hard on her lower lip to halt the moan that rose in her throat. Tied to his bed. Begging. Get a grip, she hissed at herself inwardly.

Gemma was lightly shuddering as she wrapped the sheet-rope back around herself and eased her overheated frame out into the cool night breeze. It played over her peaked, aching nipples, and she lost a little whimper into the darkness. She hauled herself up to the knot above her head as she edged sideways, scrambling back towards being directly underneath her own bedroom window. Her sweating hands slipped a little and she slid down, the silky sheets twined around her legs, until she was halted by the hard jam of the next knot against her aching, wet slit. A bolt of pure, numbing desire thundered through her and before she knew what had happened, she was in freefall, the adrenaline of terror finally shattering the tangle of lust clouding her mind, her scream smothered by the wrenching jolt of the knot around her waist as she landed on it, knocking the breath out of her.

Urg. Uh.

As she swung in a sickening, dizzying arc across the dark and light squares of the windows in the lower floor, Gemma furiously ordered herself to remain silent, regaining her breath, inwardly thanking her Dad for years of practice falls while rock-climbing. Her momentum then began to carry her on in a rising arc, sweeping her past a brief view of soft firelight on warm skin behind a long window– a lot of warm, bare skin, and realisation made her cheeks flare with heat just as she was brought up short, abruptly jerked to a halt when the sheet-rope above her caught on something. Desperately she grabbed at the edge of the next adjacent window to stop herself from swinging back into view as she heard a deep, roughened male voice murmur, "What was that?"

Heart pounding, Gemma stared, incredulous, at the wide open window she had halted just in front of. If she had swung two feet further, she would have gone splat into the pane like a cartoon character. She bit her lip savagely again as she smothered the insane urge to giggle, her toes settling gently on the small ledge crossing between the two windows just below her feet while she turned her eyes gratefully up to the flagpole above the first window that had saved her from such an ignominious discovery.

Then the urge to laugh left her abruptly as she heard the careless, husky silk of Madam replying, "Hmm. Obviously I need to work a bit harder at keeping your attention."

Damn.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Mac really was going to kill her for this. Tie her to his bed. Both windows gave onto Madam's room, and there was no way she could climb up without swinging back past the first. She didn't know what Louise would do if she found here, but didn't really want to find out. Damn Mac for making her so damn fluttery just at the mere hint of his tying her to a bed. You asked. Her blood pulsed longingly again. Oh please. Control yourself, woman. What is wrong with you?

A long, low moan drifted out on the night breeze.

That.

"Your musk smells so divine," the words were interspersed with soft slurping sounds. "Intoxicating, bewitching, and I have never felt you so hard." There was a touch of awe and – irritation? – in Louise's breathless voice, colouring her tone. There was also a strange lisp to her words, as though she was wearing a brace.

"Intoxicating," she repeated, and her voice was muffled on the word, a smothered grunt shutting her off, which was then echoed by the hard, rhythmic breathing of a large, excited male.

Oh-oh. Gemma so did not want to hear this, but she daredn't move, could only quiver, soundlessly, trying to close her ears. And trying to ignore the damn, unwanted tingling of her blood in response to the breathless sounds. A memory of Mac's muscled torso arched in pleasure as she muffled herself around his straining cock shuddered meltingly through her where she stood and Gemma again had to bite hard on her sore lower lip to restrain her whimper. Not NOW.

"What do you expect?" she heard the deep, male voice growl in angry reply. "You have to let us fight it out, Madam."

Louise made a soft, mewling sound, muffled, and a second voice added hoarsely, "Yes, that's it, take it deeper, Madam, relax."

Holy cow, there were two guys in there with her!

And – no way did Gemma want to join them, but the sounds sighing from the room made it even more achingly excruciating that she was stuck here at Marshmont, forced to listen to this. She hadn't seen Mac for days – long, increasingly aching hours. She could practically taste him on her lips. Gemma's tongue snaked out between her teeth, and licked slowly. She wanted him. Burned to touch him. Hear him make those soft grunts of pleasure as she sheathed him in her mouth. Oh please.

"The Alpha is not back yet," the first voice interrupted her spiralling thoughts brusquely, "And the alfamme doft is driving us all crazy as she ripens – you have to let us fight for precedence."

What? a tingle of unease ran up Gemma's spine, and a little rational thought crept back in, halting her gentle rubbing of her peaked nipples against the rough stone. She hadn't even been aware she was doing it, lips parted, dreaming of Mac groaning under her soft bites.

"Deeper, deepest. You love all of this fucking huge monster down your throat, don't you Madam Capped?" growled the second voice, "That's why you make us each inspect her now, while she's coming into blood heat. Scent her." The slapping, slurping gasps increased, tempo picking up as he groaned.

"Oh god, her scent," he groaned again, deeper, "Remnants of the alpha shiele melding into her doft, that intoxicating mix – ." He began to grunt fast, an impossibly rapid rhythm of muffled little cries, punctuated by squelching slaps drifting out to where Gemma clung, frozen, to the wall, the ache in her thighs still infuriatingly strong, despite the clear, cold thoughts congealing in her mind. Aroused and cold and furious.

What? What if -? When was her period? No. No way. No way.

A loud, gagged female shriek suddenly exploded from inside as a deeper grunt joined the slapping noises.

"You want us this fucking hard all the time. This is what you want." The first male was growling, breathing deeply, rhythmically as he punctuated his sentences with further, deeper grunts. "Enjoy it while you can, Madam – i'll give it to you as hard and fast as you want." A second, muffled moan sounded on the air, punctuated by the pounding noises and both males' harsh, heavy breathing. "But tonight or tomorrow, she'll be ripe and then you won't be able to fucking stop us all from fighting for her any more, we'll be on the rut."

There was a shadow of shame in his voice as he continued angrily, breathlessly, pounding, "And you should've let us convey to the Alpha so he could come home and have her. She's not turned - can't protect herself from one of us, let alone the pack. And the doft is already driving us insane."

"Fuck, yeah," groaned the second male, panting feverishly. "I've never felt this – I understand the legends of the female weres now. If they smelt like her..."

No way. No way. No way.

Oh.

Gemma was frozen, shivering, holding herself to the rock even as the infuriating pool of heat in her belly swirled and her blood tingled with unbearable, unprecedented lust. Damn. Damn. Damn. No way.

No.

Gemma tried to pull herself together to formulate a plan, tried to ignore the mental images heating her feverish blood from the sounds in the room, memories of Mac's husky growl, fantasies of being tied to his bed, begging – she just couldn't, couldn't cut it off. Except – NO. She wanted Mac. No-one else. Where the hell was he? This explained why she was so damn horny. So damn, damn horny. And why the guards left that uneasy, aching, quivering irritation in her stomach – getting worse these last two days. No. It couldn't be. She was human, for god's sake.

Mainly.

What had Mac said? Healed within a week – and that had been three days ago. Her period was due tomorrow. No.

NO.

Damn damn damn.

Trying, trying furiously to ignore the inferno which had ignited inside her at the soft breathless sounds, and the lustful heat in the male voices – heat engendered by her, of wanting her - no - Gemma suddenly became aware of a soft slithering sound and looked up to see a white thing fluttering in the darkness toward her face. She flinched away, then recognised that it was a piece of paper on the end of a rope. In the shimmer of light from Madam's windows, she could read the stark capitals scrawled on it.

OUR ROPE'S BETTER.

Urgently, she looked up and saw three pale circles of faces shining in the soft moonlight, peering down from the window above. Thank god. One handed, she carefully tied the rope around the sheets already knotted to her midriff, and then grinned up at them. She kept her arms stretched wide, holding herself carefully between the windows by the edges as they began to haul her up, gently.

Three sets of hands reached to tug her easily over the windowsill into the echoing emptiness of a peculiarly bare classroom, and she smiled into the anxious, shining eager faces of her young rescuers as she met their eyes in turn in silent, heartfelt thanks. Megan had a finger to her lips. Then abruptly, the eyes of the tallest, James, snapped to jet black, glittering, and he leaped for her and hauled her against him, crushing her body to his as he rubbed a surging erection against the crease of her thighs and tangled his fingers in her hair to tug her head back and jam his lips ineptly against hers.

Frantically, she bit him, trying to break free from his strong, urgent hold, and he growled appreciatively and slid a hand over her arse to press her more firmly against him. Then Kyle got a head lock around his neck, and Megan forced an arm free and Gemma managed to wrench herself out of his hold, shirt tearing in his grasp as the others grappled him to the floor. The cubs rolled in a snarling, fighting heap across the wooden boards as Gemma yanked in all the slack in her sheet rope and scrambled, panicked and unnerved, back out of the window, hauling herself frantically up the rope, scrabbling slantwise to her own, open window.

A loud, desperate whine caused her to glance back and she saw Megan cuff a hard blow to the side of James' head as he hung out of the window, panting after her. The girl barked, "Snap out of it! The A'd kill you," as she shook her packmate.

Heart pounding, Gemma pulled herself back over the sill of her room, adrenaline tingling through her veins and unwanted lust writhing between her thighs. It was true.

Damn.

And the scent of the boy's arousal - eugh. Hot.

Damn. Eugh.

Her head was fighting her lust. James had smelt - delicious, achingly enticing.

He was fourteen at the most!! Revulsion shot back through her, a sour taste in her mouth.

No way. No way. And no way all those guards hovering panting in the hallway were having her either.

Mac? Why are you so damn far away?

Her skin shuddered and she flinched inwardly, even as her arousal pulsed between her thighs and her blood purred through her veins at the thought of him.

Shit shit shit.

What on earth was going to happen now? She could - just about - still control herself, her lust, with the fury in her head and the revulsion on her skin. But – tonight or tomorrow? – was it going to get worse? - it was already so hard. So damn hard to think - especially when that male scent had been in her nostrils, and James was just a boy, what about the guards? - her mind wouldn't be screaming pervert at her so loudly with them. Her arousal pulsed with a brief, internal image of the hard, chiselled contours of one of her guards. Dammit - eugh. Then memory of the furious glitter in a pair of green-black eyes curled through her and she shuddered, hard, in hot wanton desire. She wanted Mac, and they'd forbidden him to come to her. Dammit, she wanted Mac. Damn them. They were so not going to do this - she was so not going to do this. She was not an unthinking animal.

Poisoned Mac. Her blood cooled at the chill of the thought, and her mind cleared somewhat. She had other stuff to worry about first.

Half an hour later, her hand was aching from the frantic copying – formula for Mac - and she folded the pages and stuffed them unsteadily into an envelope. The line was there, outside the window, and she hooked on the packet, zipped up her fleece and checked the rope for a last time as the flutter of white disappeared soundlessly up the cliff. The synthetic rope the kids had unearthed was much better than her makeshift version, and luckily she'd hauled it after her unthinkingly, swinging from her sheets like a very long tail during her frantic scramble to escape James' hug. Gemma climbed much less cautiously out of the window this time, and began to slide expertly down the rope past layer upon layer of lighted windows.

Below the jut of the vast Marshmont complex, the cliff curved in, then outward to a ledge just wide enough to hold her, trailing back towards the steep, wooded hillside abutting the sheer sandstone face. Gemma checked for a better option, but she was running out of rope, and so gingerly untied the knot and set off edging carefully along the rough surface. Ten minutes later she broke into a loping trot down the rough path through the trees between the road and the cliff. Trying to outrun a wolfpack in the woods - idiocy, but better than waiting in her rooms for them to come and find her. Fuck her. The damned liquid at the join of her thighs was unceasing.

But her blood was up. Damn them. There was something heating about this chase - she wasn't going to let any of them to catch her. Not one of them.

Some hours later, as the weak morning sun began to peer out over the mountains, she limped, hot and panting, down the last foothill towards the base of this damned endless mountain. She could hear the faint rumble of occasional traffic down there, in the trees, and it gave her hope. She peered longingly down at the deep pool to her right- the stream had crossed under the road and the path hours ago, and that was the last drink she'd had. For hours it had splashed enticingly down dangerous, damp precipices to her right, and then, at last -here - it landed in that delicious, accessible giant cup.

She hesitated, and glanced back for the thousandth, millionth time.

A flicker of movement in the distant trees, the glimmer of sunlight glinting on fur, and her heart jolted in fear, in fury. Oh look - she could still run, flat out, precariously down the steep path. Gemma glanced back again at a bend and this time she could see a glint of black eyes, and further back, more rippling fur. She tore a short, strong branch up from the pine floor just before she shot out onto the asphalt of the woods road, and stretched her legs further, faster, away, furious to feel a new surge of tenderness pooling between her thighs. Her damned body didn't want her damaged for lack of lubrication, even if she hated the thought of being caught by one of these panting prowlers. Welcome to the animal kingdom.

They were not going to catch her. Damn Mac. Damn heat.

Sooner than expected, she heard pounding feet and hot breath closing behind her, and spun to face her pursuer, hefting her staff. He slowed to a halt two metres away, and began slowly, meaningfully, to circle her, dark fur ruffled in tension, panting deeply, eyes aflame and intent in every hair. Gemma swallowed, keeping her eyes coldly fixed on his, turning slowly within his boundary to keep pace.

He was slightly closer now, upwind, and the damn lubrication was pooling between her thighs as his musk drifted down to her. Her damn body knew she couldn't win this, and she felt a shudder of submission in her belly even as her mind snarled no. Then he was downwind, the gleam in his eyes shimmering as his mouth opened and he began to breathe more deeply, drawing her scent into his nostrils, trembling.

Suddenly he spun swiftly on the spot and leapt to meet the attack of a second, smoky wolf who was diving from the trees. The musk of their arousal rolled over Gemma as the pair tumbled past her in a brawling, tearing roll, and she trembled at the fire in her blood. The spike of anger at herself shot through her and she exploded back into a sprint down the road. Dammit, no. She was not a wolf. And whatever she currently was, only Mac was allowed to touch her. Although she was also damned angry with him for making her smell this sexy then leaving her with these rutting dogs.

By the time she reached the bottom, muscles screaming at her flatout pace, softly pounding feet were closing in swiftly behind her again and she could hear hot, panting breaths. She'd lost her stick in a lurch of unsteady footing, and now just sprinted headlong, despairing, out across the wide road in the early morning sunlight. A screech of tires sounded to her left and she felt a breath of slipstream, heard a startled oath as a deep-voiced motorbike swerved around in front of her and skidded to a halt, just before a heavy weight hit her between her shoulder blades and tumbled her, bruisingly hard, across the metalled surface. Razor sharp teeth closed precisely in her waistband and her jeans were ripped to her knees before Gemma realised. yelled and twisted over, aiming a kick at the dark wolf's nose. He dodged easily and pounced on her again, sticking his nose between her thighs and eagerly snuffling her wet scent as his teeth closed delicately on her panties.

They tore as the wolf spun to dodge a heavy boot aiming at his ribs, howled furiously and gathered himself in a deadly crouch to leap at the burly biker facing him, then abruptly stilled as he saw the handgun aiming between his eyes.

"Don't!" gasped Gemma, rolling to her knees and grabbing the biker's thigh. "He can't help it!" If he felt anything like she did.

"Gotta shoot a rabid mutt, miss. He's crazy."

"He's not rabid, he's -," the biker interrupted her with a screaming yell and dropped the gun as a set of razor-sharp teeth clenched over his wrist, the second, smoky wolf answering the call of a pack member above mating lust.

Gemma staggered dazedly to her feet as the two wolves, snarling, began to drag the struggling man toward the ditch at the side of the road. "And don't you two hurt him for helping me, either!" she yelled furiously after them. Then she froze as two lust maddened, heated pairs of black eyes turned back to her, glowing. Was she nuts?

Gemma spun and dove for the still-purring bike propped on the kickstand, landing with a moan straddled on her aching, throbbing clit as she kicked into gear and twisted the throttle into a neck-snapping roar of movement off the stand. The leather of the seat behind her ripped under razor claws and hot breath shivered on the back of her neck just as the powerful machine shrieked into speed. Gemma felt the heavy four-legged pillion behind her tumble off as she desperately clamped her hold around the bars and clung on, gasping for air, breathless as she streaked away down the road with tears rolling down her cheeks in the cooling breeze. Her incredulous brain demanded why she had been defending that ravaging beast. But her stomach knew, somewhere in the churning mass of lust, fury and anxiety, that the dark one had been careful not to hurt her. Those teeth had been so precise. Fuck him. Fuck Madam – she was the one behind this setup.

Gemma crouched low over the bike, trembling as she twisted the throttle, faster. Away. Away from them all.

Shit. Shit. Shit. How long did this damned heat last? Two days? Five? More?

The night was sill, calm, the faint shimmer of the moon dim in the sky as the pitch of night faded with the coming dawn. It was still difficult to clearly see any more than the faint outlines of the rolling hills around the hollow where the farm buildings nestled, and the dark shadow standing still as death beside the back door was indiscernible from the night.

Mac waited beside the dark gape of the doorway, motionless, his entire focus directing and channelling his wolves in the almost silent, furious battle going on inside the farm complex. One of the juniors behind him was shuddering slightly in tension, and Mac noted the lapse with the corner of here-and-now awareness that never entirely tuned out. Steady, he shot the order backward silently.

Finally, the awaited image flashed from Debbie, and Mac refocused on the black opening, poised. He seized and lifted the figure that came streaking out of the doorway before it had a chance to see him, then allowed the lycan to scream, as had most of his predecessors, before he silenced him and threw him to the crew behind. The alpha turned silently and slipped off around the building to the kitchen window, his shadows following.

The teeming seethe of images and cries in his mind were whirling, melding, dancing in their ceaseless pattern and he could feel his internal concentration balanced, braced against the melee, pulling in harmony on every fibre of his being to hold steady and sustain his calm, his control and clarity.

Mac directed Graeme over to the front door and himself took down the three lycans who tried to force a breakout through the kitchen, before moving on toward the garage, tightening the pattern of Mackeld warriors fighting inside to force the invaders back down to the ground floor. The mental images conveyed from his pack were melding into a seamless stream - Tzo's troop were making a stand, regrouping in the passageway between the living room and the garage as they didn't dare to break out of the building, knowing that the Mackeld was waiting somewhere in the dark outside.

The had heard what had happened to their packmates when they had attempted to run.

Mac halted his fighters while he conveyed the idea of yielding to the invaders, and got a silent Fuck You in response. Tzo was notoriously not at all lenient on the families of warriors who didn't fight to their last breath; there was no joy in living if your family died for it. Tzo wolves were allowed to retreat but not to surrender.

Live to kill his people another day? -- fuck that. Mac streaked through the garage and led the four poised Mackeld warriors in an abrupt charge down on the remaining eleven enemies braced in the passageway. As he leapt into the melee he could feel the burn of Will and Karl and Rebecca's exasperated fury in his mind, but he ignored the silent censure from his seconds. He had kept mainly out of the battle this far, but he was damned if he was going to send his wolves in against that formation while he hung back. So what if Tzo's fighters noticed that his skin was a bit grey, his frame gaunt, and his reflexes fractionally less fast than they should be. They wouldn't have time to convey anything back to their Alpha- he had the last bunch of them cornered now and was positively enjoying holding their entire focus.

The weak, early morning sun was gleaming on the slate roof of the old farmhouse by the time it had all quietened down. Will was rapidly cleaning and stitching closed a deep gash on Mac's left shoulder, grumbling to himself under his breath while his patient tilted back his stool and leaned tiredly on the mellow pine boards of the kitchen wall. Mac could feel his battle focus gently relaxing, the creeping guilt that always rose afterwards beginning to colour his mind. He tensed slightly as the pounding in his head from holding focus for so long began to bore into his skull, intensifying as he silently acknowledged and disengaged from each pack member in turn, assessing their wellbeing with each brief exchange, hiding his own. Yes, his responses were actually way too slow -- damned silver. He cracked open an eye.

The warm pine kitchen was a shambles, the splintered pieces of the smashed chairs and cupboards had been scraped messily into a corner to make space for the wounded, and the drying blood on the floor was mixed with flour, broken eggs, spilt wine and shards of glass. His wounded wolves were spaced around the walls, the least badly hurt standing quietly, while others occupied the remaining chairs or the long stone settle beside the doorway opposite him. Each was having pieces of shrapnel extracted, or bark antiseptic carefully coated onto various wounds, before the skin closed over and any contamination began to fester. Most were back in human form, slowing their bodies' healing in order to give the pack-mates tending to them more time to work.

However, three of the wounded were still lycan, leftover tension from the battle or the pain of their injuries not allowing them to relax enough to make the shift. Mac centred himself and conveyed to each of the three, the calm he had mastered over the years leaching into them with the quiet words he sent, settling them, and they in turn slowly shimmered to human, briefly meeting his gaze in thanks. He felt the wince in one of the minds he spoke to. Helen had never been in a battle before, never had to hold her focus so hard for so long, and it hurt. Many of the wolves moving quietly around the kitchen were frowning, the assorted grimaces twisting their features testimony that the piquant, the battle headache, was grating through their minds in the aftermath.

Then the slight shudder of an unsteady intake of pained breath drew Mac's eyes to the tableau in the centre of the room.

His cousin, Katherine Mackeld, was standing over the sturdy pine table with his sister Rebecca, tears rolling slowly down her face as they gently, silently cleaned and groomed the blood and dirt from her mate's body. The heavy lycan form seemed smaller and older in death, a quiet copy of a boisterous wolf. Katherine's youngest son had an arm around her shoulders, staring down at his father, expressionless, as his quiet, tired voice continued to describe the ambush in the middle of the night, then the ferocious retreat they'd fought while holding on for the Alpha to answer the distress call. Four of the ranch fighters had died in the failed ambush, and six more with his father Michael as they held the retreat, but they'd defended the stairway, with the non-warriors safe on the upper storey. There was quiet pride mixed with the pain in the hoarse young voice, and silence fell as he completed his report.

Mac tried to fully release his own focus, but a tenuous thread of tension held. There was nothing further he could do here. He could feel Karl out of sight, directing the rest of the crew, Mackelds from this ranch and the main Range quietly clearing up the signs of the battle throughout the rest of the complex. Damned scentless ambush -- Tzo was now using the stuff as well as the Grey, and he had to find out how they were masking scent. It had to be silver, there was no other block that effective. And as far as he knew, Mackeld pack was still the only target they used this weapon against. The Grey was cunning - the MacKeld-Grey feud was now so deep that the council would not credit the reports Mac had sent, and there was no point collecting any of the enemy fighters to try to prove the lack of scent again - by the time they were transported to the council centre, they would just smell of death. There was nothing he could do.

Tzo still hadn't won any major ground, yet. Mac checked all of the outer watchwolves across the Range, still uneasy. Something, somewhere was wrong, but he couldn't pinpoint it. All clear. All perfectly clear. Dammit, he was just spooked by what Gemma had told him before Michael's call. Relax, he ordered himself, mind skimming the whole circuit for a third time. Nothing. His smothered the tension and slowly felt his control sink, still not convinced that there was no longer the need to maintain it.

A distress call shot in with the lowering of his focus, and Mac winced at the jolt of panic rebounding in his mind at the conveyance. Will's hand gripped his uninjured shoulder hard and the doctor growled softly, "Whatever it is, you can't do any more right now, boss." The wolves in the room all glanced uneasily over at the grey, gaunt hulk of the Alpha, he could see the concern in their eyes, the fear for him. There was also a warm buzz of disbelieving, fear-tinged awe from his seconds - all that silver and their Alpha was still fighting.

Mac ignored them as he absorbed Sharon Fealman's message -- something was wrong at Marshmont. He sat up, abruptly alert. This was it. Her son James had managed to convey a panicked yelp to her hours ago, but she couldn't reach that far without Stephan to find out why, and Stephan had been in the fight at the ranch. She hadn't been able to breach Mac's battle focus to let him know. Yes, she'd conveyed to Peter but the Range second couldn't reach the cub either. It was too far.

Mac snapped his mind from the ranch kitchen, and tuned to the distant cub. As soon as he felt the Alpha contact his thoughts, James cringed with terrified apology, dropped, and rolled onto his back as shame and guilt raced through his mind, tangled with images of his pounce on Gemma, and the raging arousal still evident at the trace of her unforgettable, intoxicating scent. Mac's skin bristled tightly as his blood began to rage, while he absorbed the realisation and controlled his own arousal at the recognition of that doft. How the hell was that possible?

However it happened, it happened. He felt himself shift to lycan, trembling, but didn't even try to hold it, focussing on preventing the fury that washed through him from gaining mental control. Her Marsh guards must have scented it coming. Cool it. That won't help her. His skin was cold, tingling with the physical manifestation of a held-in snarl as he pulled himself back in, fighting his thoughts as they tried to tear free in rage. He'd been in battle focus since just after the call from Gemma. What if -- had someone caught his picchu? She was human. She couldn't withstand -- he'd torn her himself when he'd first taken her. Mac shook his head as he felt the howl rising, gritting his teeth and forcing down the rage. He focused back on the messenger.

The MacKeld cub was out of doors somewhere -- James was rolling on stubby, dry grass coated in pine needles, and Mac's mind followed the whelp's through a deluge of rapid thoughts and images. They were slinking back up the mountain to the Academy -- all three of the Mackeld trainees, illegally, and very dangerously, awol, as they'd been tracing the mating-hunt of his human for him, trying to stay out of the way of the exceedingly highly strung wolves chasing her. James' ear throbbed painfully, part of it had been torn away when they had run into one of the slower hunters; they'd bellied to him when he'd attacked, and he had let them go with a savage, snarled reprimand, before the hunter had refocused on Gemma's scent trail. Mac bristled at James' memory of the glazed, heated lust in Jerome Marsh's eyes, the growl rolling from in his throat.

Yet the cubs had still, later, circled back to trace Gemma's scent down to the stench of the main road, even more careful to remain well out of the way of the dangerous pack of hunters. They liked the human, her notes to them had made them laugh, especially those about Madam. Incongruously, into James' mind flashed the joyfully savoured memory of when he'd met Lee - the Marsh prime hunter, three-time winner of the NA Circuit- stalking up the stairs at Marshmont towards the fifth floor with a fluffy white polar bear toy clasped in one huge hand, his eyes darkly daring the cub to say anything. Mac smiled wryly, despite the rage and fear shuddering through him. That was his Gemma.

She'd better not be hurt.

James' mind was tumbling on; the cubs knew that the girl was the Alpha's -- they kind of thought of her as one of their own pack. When she'd gotten to the main road she must have found a lift in some vehicle, there was the scent of another human where her trail had disappeared, and the hunters had all headed northeast, following the roadway, in pursuit. Mac could feel the echo of awe in the cub's mind that a human girl had managed to evade the elite of the Marsh wolves that far. Mike and Tapio had caught up with her but she'd still gotten away from them, somehow. Wow.

Mac's blood was shuddering hot and cold through his veins. Yes, he knew how resourceful, how stubborn Gemma was, but she couldn't evade the rut for ever. Her blood would start to call her back -- the run was only the first stage. Let her be changed enough for the male rut doft to subdue her once she was caught, a small part of him prayed. Let her not be hurt. The majority of him hated the idea. She was his. He wanted to kill every one of the fuckers -- and he wanted her to fight.

She couldn't win.

He could feel the heat of fury rising in his throat again, and smothered it automatically. God, it was hard.

First things first. Mac forced his mind to focus again, to calm, and returned to the young wolf, writhing, throat vulnerable, on the edge of a pine forest hundreds of miles away, waiting for his punishment. Mac told him to be still, and listen, then in clipped words conveyed congratulations and deep thanks to the scared cub for his resourcefulness, both in rescuing Gemma from her idiotic escapade halfway down the Marshmont cliff -- he was going to have a few words with her -- and for leading the others in tracking her as far as they had, and conveying the knowledge back to their Alpha.

If he hadn't been in this damn fight , he'd have got the message a lot earlier.

James was still trembling, waiting, motionless on the ground. Mac surveyed him coldly, and then sighed. 'You are only fourteen, still striving to learn control,' he reminded the cub sternly, then directed him to Harrison's Ways to Survive in the Marshmont library, assuring him that the assault on the Alpha's human would be forgotten as soon as he'd mastered the exercises in the chapter on sexual restraint. Mac could feel the grateful fawn of relief echoing back at him as his focus splintered.

The control gained from those exercises would still give the cub no chance against alfamme mating doft, but it was a start. Hell, most alphas found it nearly impossible to withstand that scent. Dammit. The rage was getting harder to contain.

"Alfie!" Mac heard his brother's voice calling his private nickname through a fog of far-focus and rage -- the earlier calls had barely registered while he was tuned to James, but as he pulled fully back into himself, the sound was a full-volume worried bellow above his head.

"What?" he snarled back, the full weight of fury of knowing that he was probably already too late, that Gemma had probably already been caught, been torn and savaged by some damn uncaring, undisciplined soon-to-be-dead cur, rolling out in the word, and all movement in the kitchen shimmered to a breathless halt.

Karl's eyes were wary, worried, as he looked down at his Alpha, his older brother, absorbing the explosive level of anger simmering just below the surface in him. He murmured softly, "Whatever it is, you're already over-extended, too tired to ..." then broke off at the look on Mac's face. He sighed and changed tack and tone, "What do you want me to do, boss?"

"Finish up here," replied Mac tersely, swatting away Will's hand as it smeared a cream over the stitches on his knitting shoulder. "And get me fast transport to Huxley County." He sprang to his feet and turned past the doctor, flipping up his shirt to briefly bare the aching scar on his stomach, ignoring the hisses and gasps from his audience. "Will, you're going to have do whatever obnoxious stuff you have planned in the car." He ignored cries of protest from Will and Rebecca and his brother's sigh as he stepped over to the table, "And find me some speed."

Karl flitted out of the door and the room fell silent as the Alpha looked down at the body of his old ally, his friend and his father's before him, cold and motionless on the scrubbed pine boards. Mac traced a finger gently over the familiar, loved contours and touched the soft fur on his temple, drawing himself back into focus, collected, for the farewell that was deserved. "We'll win this somehow, Michael," he promised him softly, then lifted his head and met Katherine's eyes. For one moment, tightly controlled, he lowered his shields and conveyed to the widow the full weight of his feeling for her mate, wordlessly raging in shared sorrow the depth of his regret for this loss, this wolf, fiercely loyal, the kindest he had known.

Her head drooped as fresh tears ran silently down her cheeks, and she sighed a breathless, broken sob as she swayed on her feet. Then she stepped forward to lean into the hollow of his shoulder, face pressed into the cloth. Resting, seeking comfort. Sharing.

Mac's hand lifted and cradled her to him for a long moment.

There was a wet sheen of tears in Ben's eyes as he met Mac's over the top of his mother's head, and he blinked as he conveyed fiercely, 'Don't you leave us again.' Mac nodded in acknowledgement of the rebuke for the strain of his three year exile, as the lanky wolf teen turned his mother back within his embrace, and hugged her convulsively against him. She sighed, and shook her head, stepping back and straightening as she smiled at her son, wiping her eyes, before turning back to Mac again.

They smiled at each other, gently, sadly. Conveying shared emotions.

"May your hunt be successful, Alpha." Katherine said the words of the traditional farewell clearly, her smile filtering through tears, wavering as the phrase ended.

"May your ..." the words of the reply choked him, and Mac turned abruptly to the door, striding out to the car waiting on the gravelled driveway.

...

May your home be at peace.

'Look after them,' he conveyed fiercely to Karl.

'Look after yourself,' his brother replied equally fiercely, "Don't you dare drop alphaship back on me, you malingerer." Mac snorted as he slid onto the back seat beside Will, slumping back against the cool leather. God, he needed Gemma. She relaxed him, lifted his strain in this whole fucked-up, silently screaming war. A smile tugged at his mouth as he remembered her breathless teasing last night. Then abruptly his brows snapped to a frown as he recalled where she'd been at the time. Leaving her scent. In those rooms.

'Marsh,' he conveyed harshly as the car purred into motion, his fury at his warlord thundering through the far-reaching call. The silence echoed back. Marsh was focussed. Hunting.