Page 25 of Callen's Captive
Chapter Six
KATE
Bark flew in all directions as a bullet struck the tree Kate was hiding behind. She yelped and ran. As soon as she turned the corner, she stopped and glanced back for Callen. Her instincts were telling her to run for her life, but she couldn’t leave him there to be captured, not again.
The best she could figure, there were two shooters, at least five houses apart. The shooting had stopped, probably because they’d lost sight of her. The street was completely empty now. Bikes had been abandoned, grocery bags dropped, and cars left in the middle of the street with the engines running. Fortunately, she didn’t see any bodies on the ground.
The WSSO was getting too ballsy and sooner or later, the government would be forced to step in and take them down, hopefully, though she wouldn’t count on it, given what she knew. The WSSO didn’t care about innocent bystanders at all. The same people the WSSO tried to convince to kill shifters on sight were the very people they targeted the second they got in their way. She wasn’t the least bit sorry for stealing from the WSSO, despite Callen’s condemnation of her actions as being risky.
Kate crouched behind a delivery truck, not sure which direction she should go. The area was dead quiet, and the shooters could be on the move—away or toward her. What of Callen? What if he was hurt? What was she going todoabout him?
Every time Callen got close, her knees got all weak and her body thrummed with need. One peek at that gorgeous physique of his had her picturing a lot of ways of getting to know him, the man whose eyes traveled her body like she was a hot fudge sundae that he’d delight in licking all over. God, the thought of that was making her hot and bothered. She wasn’t sure she could handle him or his expectations if she showed any interest in him. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience, at least not all the way.
“The shifter went that way,” a mercenary yelled from some twenty feet away, yanking her head out of the clouds. A growl echoed from an alley up ahead. Screams followed, and a man ran, shooting behind him as he reached the street. A huge black wolf leapt and brought the man down. Within seconds, the man was dead, his throat torn out. The wolf’s massive head snapped in her direction. Yellow eyes stared right at her. Kate rose, transfixed by those brilliant yellow daggers.
Whatever terror she’d had at seeing the wolf kill the mercenary disappeared as the wolf let out a howl. She didn’t know how she knew it, but that howl had been for her. Callen wanted her to leave, to be safe.
Kate ran. More shots rang out, followed by a hail of bullets as she dove behind a mail truck. They had her pinned. When she peered around the back of the vehicle, Callen’s wolf was gone. In the distance, beyond the alley, more bullets fired. He was leading them away from her.
Her panic rose to an all-time high. How was he going to outrun mercenaries with automatic weapons? Kate held her fear in check and escaped between two houses as fast as she could. She could do nothing for Callen here, only do as he wanted. Find safety and pray he’d survive.
When she could no longer hear gunfire, Kate collapsed at the base of a tree in a park. Eventually, Callen would follow her trail and find her, like the last time. She only needed to be patient and wait.
Through the course of the day, kids came to the park, ran around, and played as if nothing had happened earlier, as if no one had fired into a neighborhood only blocks away, as if men—and possibly a very sweet shifter—hadn’t been killed.
As dusk approached, and Callen still hadn’t appeared, Kate wiped her tears and decided it was time to face the facts. He wasn’t coming for her. If he had survived, he had fled toward his home. If he hadn’t survived. . . No, she wasn’t going to think about that. It was much better to think of him alive and returning to his pack. She’d pick up where she left off and not think of how soft and demanding his lips were against hers, how his scent made her tingle almost as much as his hand on her lower back, how being held secure between his legs was more erotic than any touch, any kiss she had ever known. Callen holding her, his hand on her, had been safe. He had felt like home.
When Kate finally reached the safe house she’d set up last month, she was ready to collapse. She fished out the spare key hidden in the hollow of the nearby pine. The smell of oil and burning plastic assaulted her nose as she reached for the lock—the lock that had been sawed open.
With one push, she flung open the corrugated metal drum door and stood horrified at the sight inside. The few meager belongings she had stored there, clothing, canned food, water, a cache of money, and a Canadian passport, had been thrown into the center of the unit and burned. The motorcycle, her means of escaping Riverview and what she could have used to search for Callen—if he was still alive—was gone. On the back wall, “DEATH TO SHIFTER SUPPORTERS” had been spray-painted in glaring red paint.
Aimlessly she walked through the pile of burned clothing and supplies.Deep breaths. Just breathe. The motorcycle was a thing. Things can be replaced. Need to figure out the next step, that’s all. Breathe.
Maybe this was a sign that she wasn’t supposed to leave, that Callen was still back there, where she’d left him alone to face the people who’d stop at nothing to get their hands on her. She had to go back to search for him, but where? The area had to be crawling with mercenaries by now, and Callen could be miles away, in the woods, or in Briggs’s hands. Or dead.
God, please don’t let him be dead.
The entire situation felt hopeless. For the first time in her life, Kate didn’t know what to do. She ran out of the storage unit, right into a solid wall of muscle.
Strong arms circled her as she buried her face in his chest and simply breathed him in.
“Callen!”
“Hi, Princess.” He squeezed her and rested his chin against her head. “You okay?”
God, it was so good to hear his voice. The fact that she cared so much about him in such a short time was unnerving and scary, but he was there, in the flesh, alive and well. “I’m fine now.”
His body tensed, and she realized he was reading the death threat. He eased from her embrace and slowly walked around her burned possessions. He bent down and picked up a partially burned passport. Then he tossed it back into the pile, his face void of emotion. She wished she knew what he was thinking.
From across the unit, his gaze found her. “When I tell you to run and hide, I mean it. Don’t ever come looking for me.”
“But—”
“No buts, Kate.” His voice was harsher than usual. That’s when she noticed the layer of dried blood on his left arm and a small pucker of skin that was noticeably lighter than the rest of his skin.
She approached and for the first time since she’d met him, Callen backed away. “You’re mad at me?” she asked, stunned.
“I’m on edge.” His eyes were as yellow as when she’d seen him in wolf form.
