Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 03

The fight rolled out of sight among the trees, and Gemma blinked, the fierce snarls and sounds of scuffling receding. Then they were overlaid by the memory of the poor young undergrad's hollowed, haunting eyes as she was forced to her knees before Jim. She felt her anger rising as she recalled the look of cruel enjoyment on the man's face. Their own bloody security guard. Her rage pulled her unsteadily back to her feet and, hauling her lab coat tight around her waist, Gemma suddenly lit into a sprint back towards the side-door of the lab, yanking her pass over her head.

Her mind was racing as she ran. Nick's order had been to do whatever the fat slob commanded, so if she could stop Jim's mouth, the young girl-wolf could not be instructed to do anything to Gemma. Or be violated any further by one of the men employed to keep her secure. Gemma was seething, livid that it was Jim in there, doing this. Human, known and to some extent, trusted. He needed to pay. He needed to be stopped. Now.

The pass cleared the swipe first time, and as Gemma slammed in through the door the yelping cries of pain that were being forced from the girl seared a red mist across her mind. Anne was bent over holding the edge of a bench, naked apart from her boots, crying out and begging Jim to stop, to be more gentle, to let her go, each powerful slap of his groin against her buttocks bouncing her breasts and her whole slim body as she was ruthlessly drilled from behind.

Raging, Gemma yanked up one of the heavy mechanical stirrer bases by its cable and ran swiftly toward the man savouring his brutal penetration of the girl. Jim's intently inward, glazed eyes turned to her and she saw a flicker cross his face. Then an intense spasm of lust crossed his features, drawing him back, and he looked down at the sobbing youngster impaled on his cock and began to rapidly ram himself into her, fucking furiously toward completion as the girl cried out again in pain. Just as the incensed Gemma reached the rutting guard and swung the heavy metal box around her head, Jim groaned deeply, pleasure erupting across his face. The box collided with the side of his head and a heavy grunt escaped, before his eyes rolled back in his head and his overweight form dropped backwards like a stone, cock sliding, still spurting, from the quivering, naked figure bent before him over the bench.

A noise behind Gemma jolted her heart, and she pivoted back around to see the grey wolf in mid air leaping from the door towards her, jaws agape and a frighteningly bestial gleam in his eye. Her hand tightened in fear on the cable within it and instinctively she jerked the still-swinging box on at full circle of her reach, the momentum of the heavy weight almost tearing it from her palm. It smashed into the side of the wolf jaw, knocking him sideways to crash into the fume cabinet and he slid to the floor with a faintly dazed expression, shaking his head as an amazed squeak escaped the young female now sitting upright on the bench, arms wrapped protectively around her still-booted legs, folded in front of her naked torso.

Gemma sprinted for the door and made it across the corridor to the common room before a vicious swipe to the side of her head slammed her sideways to sprawl across the tatty, upholstered chairs, ears ringing as she rolled onto her back.

Why aren't you here yet? She screamed at Mac in her head, and then desperation pulled her focus back to the vicious predator standing over her.

He was back in human form, rapidly shedding his clothing, chest shuddering with adrenalin-fuelled excitement from the fight and the chase, and his erect cock began to throb at the sight of the human female splayed at his feet and the defiance in her eyes.

"He left a Leighton to protect you, so he must see something inside you, little manu. Although you hit like a girl," he jeered. Nick's jaw was lengthening into the wolf shape, slavering as he looked down at her, breathing deeply in rising arousal. Violence had fuelled his excitement, and he was planning now on more violence to flame it further as the claws lengthened on his fingers and he began to quiver. "Now let's see what a pretty little wereie you make for me."

Fuck you. Gemma's mind wasn't being very inventive right now, but at least she wasn't frozen in terror this time. And she remembered Mac's words, remembered Mac. Keep him talking. "You wouldn't, the Warlords - the law, you can't, why would you, why risk the punishment for biting a human?"

The immaculately groomed wolf shed his expensive trousers, his arousal beating up proud and free against his taut belly and he smiled nastily as her eyelids flickered, "My, my, what an insufferably knowledgeable little manu you are. I'd better change you or I'll have to kill you. Humans go missing every day, sweetheart, who's to know?"

Fuck you. Mac'll know.

The thought steadied her. "Mac'll kill you."

Nick stepping stealthily closer, his lustful eyes locked to hers as the eerie shimmering light within them deepened. The quiver of excitement began to visibly shake his powerful frame and fur erupted along the lines of his powerful limbs. He sneered, "That whelp's been trying to kill me for decades."

Rage shook Gemma's small frame, both from shock at the raw scene in the lab and her own sudden, explosive violence, and from fear of the clear message in his eyes - that he was planning to make her scream much more than Anne had. In your dreams. Gemma was spitting words from her mouth even as she struggled backwards in a sitting position, away from the now looming wolf-man, "You've been trying to change people for decades but you're too weak, too undiscipl-,".

A paw shot out and Gemma was slammed down once more, bouncing her head against the frame of a chair and ending up against the floor, ears ringing and a trickle of blood running down her temple as she tried to focus on the frightening hair-covered lycan form moving to stand over her. His clawed, furry fist closed around his pulsing erection as he leered down at her, savouring his lustful anticipation, his deep enjoyment of her hatred, while he kicked her legs apart.

"But this way, sweetheart, I only need to add my shiele to his almighty lordship's - it hopefully won't have cleared your entire system yet. I've been wanting to try this out for years, but it's nearly impossible to get a bloody alpha to bite a human, so even if he's inconveniently healed you, it's worth attempting."

Nick lifted a foot and stomped hard on her stomach, winding her into immobility, then bent and ripped off her panties with his claws. "Even better that you're MacKeld's." He straightened again, looking down at her pussy, anticipation of the pain she would feel tightening his balls as he slowly stroked his throbbing, surging cock, and spread a bead of glistening pre-cum around the tip as he held her raging eyes, reading the deep fear hidden behind the fury.

His smile widened, "You were already finding it hard to say no yesterday - imagine what it'll be like when you're fully turned and you'll do whatever I like? I'll send him photos of you going down on me." His snarling smile widened into a vicious grin and he locked his eyes to hers, power and lust shimmering in their depths, "Screaming."

He pounced.

Gemma had been waiting, eyes a thin slit, concentrated, watching, refusing to be distracted by fear, fury, or the lust and anticipation shuddering off her attacker. One chance, one chance, the mantra echoed in her head. As she saw the shift in those eerie, gleaming eyes signalling the thought preceding movement, she jerked her leg up, knee folded toward his pulsing cock, and prayed, prayed he wouldn't notice, clawing at his eyes with her hands to distract him.

Nick, arrogance in every hair, held her eyes locked to his and effortlessly pinned the flailing hands of the feeble human, sneering into her face as he dropped onto her, wanting to savour her fear and watch her expression as he won and forced himself into her. His erect organ slammed into her braced knee with the full force of his weight behind it, and the male lycan shrieked in anguish as he dropped to writhe pole-axed across her legs.

Gemma screamed, her leg feeling as though it had splintered and he was now grinding it into the carpet, as she struggled and shoved desperately to free herself. She managed to roll out from under the incapacitated, yowling lycan, scrabbling in a searingly painful three-limbed crawl for the door, dragging the numb, useless leg. Then she heard a heart-stopping howl of fury behind her and claws ripping the carpet gaining on her, and knew she couldn't make it. So she hauled herself up by the door jam, standing upright to look back over one shoulder, glowering coldly at her adversary. He staggered back to his feet, a now lethal gleam in his furious eyes.

"Did you underestimate me, wolf?" she queried softly.

Suddenly, warm hands closed around her midriff and Gemma's heart stopped as she was lifted off her feet. Then the familiar, enticing musk curled softly around her senses, the world steadied, and her heart bounced from terror into staccato, desperate longing, relief shimmering along her skin.

At last.

Breathing deeply to recover from his mad run, Mac seated her gently on the kitchen worktop to the left of the door, then swung and launched into a furious leap towards her attacker; Gemma's scream still echoing in his head.

In the few seconds that Mac had taken to gently put Gemma aside, the grey lycan had hooked a silvery, slithering silken object out of the trousers lying discarded on the floor. He flung it with a panicked, snapping flick of the wrist towards the legs of the enraged alpha leaping for him across the tangle of chairs, and Mac abruptly fell to the ground, snarling and fighting to unwind the simple grey cord wrapped in a tight whipping around one shin.

Backing away from Mac, the grey wolf shimmered into place of the man and snarled ferociously at his escaped prey, promise of retribution in every line of his fur, before turning to sprint out of the far door of the room. There was satisfaction in Gemma's heart as she watched the faint wince, centred between his hind legs, which punctuated his every movement, even in wolf form. A little smile played around her mouth. She was only human.

Mac untangled the silvery grey cord from around one leg and hurled it aside, leaping back to his feet, just as they heard the slam of the front door of the building. He was a blur of impossible speed toward the exit, and then an engine roared into life outside and was punctuated by the screech of desperate car tyres.

Mac growled as he stilled in the doorway, a savagery to the long, low rumbling which seemed to echo around the room and shiver over Gemma's skin. She blinked at him, startled by the power of his voice as he turned to her, his black gaze fulminating as he held hers, striding over.

He came to stand in front of her countertop position, head only slightly higher than hers, and glared into her eyes, anger still simmering in his. Leaning on the counter, he encircled her with his arms as he bent forwards slightly to emphasise what he was going to say. A deep breath. Another. Mac's fists were clenching and unclenching convulsively against the worktop. He couldn't stop reliving the aching scream he'd heard as he reached the building.

Well, thought Gemma. Mac clearly had something to say and was quivering slightly as he held back the torrent of probably not very gentle words howling through his brain. Wow. Gemma watched the storm raging in his eyes in dumbstruck awe, but kept quiet - it didn't seem to be a good moment to start anything.

All that fire. If only he'd let her -. Her skin was tingling at his proximity.

"Do you mind explaining, Gem," the tone, when it eventually emerged, was a whisper of calm, in fierce contrast to the glare in his eyes, "why, when one of my best wolves nerves himself to delay the Grey by challenging him for you," his voice was deepening in anger, the words coming more rapidly, "instead of running, locking yourself in a vault, or waiting for me, you then turn and sprint to the only other threat around," the last four words ricocheted off her skin like bullets, and she winced slightly, " - the other grey pack-member?"

Um.

Um...

Gemma took a long breath. It wasn't that Mac actually scared her, but he was awesome, shimmering with power like this, and her blood was responding by making her mouth dry, her skin tingle, and a sudden sweet warmth flutter in her belly. And she had a feeling her voice would only emerge as a whisper. Besides, he maybe did have a teensey point, she had thought of that danger herself, only it had seemed irrelevant in light of the haunted eyes of the victim.

He stood over her, waiting for an answer, glowering down at her.

"She was being -," she began hoarsely

"She could've killed you," he cut her off flatly.

Let me finish the sentence. "She was being raped!"

"And she would have killed you on order." His tone was flat, ungiving.

"She didn't want-," Gemma's voice rose, but he cut her off again, a sharp movement of his hand emphasising his frustration with her inadequate reasoning.

"But she would have killed you on order. If Nick didn't. You didn't even call your police!" he whipped her phone out of her pocket and waved it under her nose, glaring at her.

Gemma eyed the handset guiltily. It would've been easy. And right. Because her plan might not have worked. Duh. "I didn't think," she admitted. And felt the angry male standing over her relax slightly, like she was answerable to him. Humph.

"But Nick didn't want me dead," she added. Not then. Maybe now. "He wanted - me," she shivered, and looking back up at her old flatmate, questions shading her eyes.

Mac tensed, staring down at her, a shudder rippling through his frame as the anguished scream replayed again in his head. "I thought he had you," he murmured on a thread of pain, tracing a trail of fire over her short nose with one fingertip, deep shadows in his eyes. Then the anger, the puzzlement slowly grew, and he took a deep gulp of breath, shaking his head in frustrated confusion as he straightened, muttering, "What the hell is he playing at? The council will torch him if he tries changing humans again." He added on a low growl, "If they got to him before I did." And began to prowl around the room, deep in thought.

Gemma watched him pace for a moment, a small smile ghosting her lips. He was clearly a wolf at this moment, whatever form he was wearing. She answered on a questioning note, "He said your - shield? - wouldn't have totally left my body yet and he wanted to-."

She was cut off this time by a string of curses as Mac lurched fully upright, scraping the fingers of both hands through his tawny hair. It looked like he was trying to pull it out as he swung to face her, his face contorted with anger, incredulity, fear, enlightenment. Finally settling on pure fury.

"What the hell? He'd kill you - or you'd kill yourself, or him, or rip into anything you could get your teeth into - experimenting with two mordeurs? Having just one master makes a were insane! Two?! That's crazy."

Gemma recalled the eerie light in Nick's eyes and another shadow crossed her eyes as she shivered again, faintly, "I think he is crazy."

"He -," Mac halted abruptly, head lifting and swivelling to the door as he heard something beyond her ears. Eyes suddenly alert, he was beside her, pulling her down from the countertop with a warm hand engulfing hers.

As her right foot touched the floor Gemma let out a gasp and crumpled over the limb, pain shooting fire through her veins. Almost before she had time to register the horrible scraping feeling in her knee, she heard another soft curse and was in the air, in his arms, and they were out in the corridor, beside the main door to the laboratory building.

The brush of her pass cord over her neck filtered through after the door had already beeped acceptance, and then suddenly they were outside, in the trees, where Mac bent over to pick up her jeans. The jolt to her leg as he leaned over forced a moan from Gemma, and she bit down hard on his cotton shirt, pressing her face into his shoulder to suppress another as he straightened.

Another heartbeat and they shimmered back through the smashed side-door to the lab, whipping across the room too fast for human eyes, past the tear-streaked, subdued face of the girl, huddled on the bench wrapped in a coat, past the cowering security guard, who tried to focus on them as the wind of their passing stirred the air. Jim was held in a tight grip by a burly, towering male with grey hair who nodded solemnly to Mac.

Gemma picked up the distant echo of the fast approaching siren as they re-emerged in the common room, and Mac set her gently back on the counter where she'd started, before whirling to replace the knocked about chairs into a semblance of order and push Nick's discarded clothes into the bin, growling slightly as he touched them. The carpet had always been shabby, and he rapidly grouped chairs over the ripped surface and scooped up the grey cord.

Then she was in his arms again, mind ticking over what he was doing while they flew silently upstairs, upstairs, and along the dark empty corridor to stop outside her office door, light gleaming through the crack at the base, just as the screeching police cars shuddered to a halt outside the front entrance.

He tried the door, then, "Key," he breathed softly, as he pulled a hand from her lab coat pocket, dangling the faintly jangling bunch by the ring.

Autocratic, thought Gemma with faintly satisfied amusement as she sorted swiftly through the chain and found the correct one. There was so much more to Mac than the laid-back photographer and barman she knew.

They could hear the heavy footsteps entering below, loud voices beginning questioning, oblivious to the faint click upstairs, and the quiet creak of her office door swinging open. Gemma's eyes struggled to adjust to the bright glare as Mac stepped in and the door lock softly clicked behind them.

He stilled and listened. Gemma couldn't hear anything at all, but watched him as he stood intensely still for a silent moment, then relaxed.

"How is she - the girl?" she murmured, slightly wary of reopening the subject. But she couldn't just leave it.

Mac quirked an eyebrow at her as he transferred her onto one arm for a moment so that he could scoop up the pile of books currently resident on her desk, and place her gently in their stead. "She'll be fine." He began looking around for somewhere to put the books, frustrated by the piles of them already heaped around the small room. "She switched to the MacKeld pack when I ran through the first time, she's clear of Nicolas and lodging an assault charge against the human with your police right now. Sam is acting the proverbial passing Samaritan who broke in to stop the assault."

Abruptly, Gemma's brows twitched together into a light frown.

"She took one look at you and switched packs? Does that happen often around you? With girls?"

Mac smiled crookedly at her, a teasing sparkle in his eyes, "I only accept the young and pretty ones." He bent to place the books on the floor just as she smacked him on the shoulder. Her hand bounced off and he didn't even twitch - she wasn't even sure he noticed.

"Actually her bond was weakened when she saw how feeble the Grey really is – flattened by a mere human – a teeny wee female human at that, with only a little metal box," said Mac.

He was grinning at her when he straightened up, and she scowled at his chauvinist racism, but then his eyes narrowed and his expression sobered." You held him off with your leg, too, didn't you picchu? But that didn't fare so well."