Wolf Under Fire, page 12
Jake risked a quick glance toward the woods, catching sight of Jes about twenty feet in. She’d caught up to the third guy and had somehow gotten the Robinson kid out of his arms. As Jake watched, she put one shot after another into the guy, backing away with the boy at the same time. Knowing how ineffective bullets were against the creatures, Jake desperately wanted to help her, but at the flash of movement to his left, he knew he’d run out of time—again.
The man was even faster than Jake realized, closing the last few yards that had been between them before he could do more than take a breath. The guy slashed at him with both hands, claws whistling through the air. Jake was able to block most of the strikes, but no matter how fast he tried to counter, some got through. The sting of those jagged claws as they tore through his suit jacket and into his arms wasn’t too bad, and Jake couldn’t help but wonder why the guy wasn’t aiming for a more vulnerable target. Then he sensed someone behind him and realized the guy he was fighting had been a distraction.
Cursing, Jake tried to spin around, only to feel a stabbing pain as Damien’s claws dug into his lower back.
Shit, he’d been had.
Jake slammed an elbow into Damien’s already-messed-up face even as he felt his legs go numb. For a moment, his heart froze solid, fearing Damien’s claws had found his spine and that he was going to be momentarily paralyzed. But when his legs didn’t collapse, he allowed himself a fraction of a second to breathe a sigh of relief before forcing his stubborn, pain-racked body back around to the man he’d been fighting with before.
His inner wolf shouted a warning, and Jake immediately jerked back, barely avoiding getting his face taken off as the guy’s claws swept by mere millimeters from his nose. The man’s momentum took him stumbling past, and Jake gave him a shove from behind.
Jake knew how lucky he was even as Damien came at him again, eyes glowing yellow.
This two-against-one crap was getting old, and Jake knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer. Sooner or later, one of them would get in a shot that would slow him down long enough for them to gang up on him, then things would go downhill quickly. Worse, once he was out of the equation, there’d be nothing to keep them from going after Jes.
Jake couldn’t let that happen.
A growl rumbling deep in his chest, he turned and quickly closed the distance between him and Damien, drawing back his leg before kicking the big man as hard as he could in the center of his chest.
Damien flew backward, slamming into the hood of the trashed SUV, then tumbling over the far side. Knowing that would only give him a few seconds’ respite, Jake pulled his gun as he spun back the other way, to see that the second man had regained his balance and was coming at him again.
Jake put two quick shots through the man’s chest. He already knew it wouldn’t do much, but at least it slowed him down enough so when Jake raised the barrel of his weapon and aimed for the man’s head, the guy never saw it coming. The .40 caliber round caught Damien’s buddy right in the center of the forehead.
And bounced off.
The guy shook his head as if to clear it, a pissed-off scowl on his face, then came at Jake, claws out.
Jake started to aim for the man’s chest again, knowing it wouldn’t do much good but not having a better idea. But at the last second, he shifted his aim, unloading his weapon’s entire magazine into the man’s knees. The guy grunted in pain and stumbled to the grass.
Jake reloaded before the man slid to a stop, putting two more rounds into each of his shattered kneecaps. It was vicious, but there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to stop these things and keep them away from Jes and that little boy. Doing a number on the man’s knees wouldn’t kill him, but it would keep him out of commission for a while.
That was when he realized he hadn’t heard the sound of Jes’s weapon going off in a while. He looked up to see that she was still in the woods. She’d shoved the Robinson kid into the bushes behind her, leaving her hands free. She must have run out of ammo because she was fighting off the third man by hand. Well, hand and foot actually, Jake thought, watching her spin in a tight circle and landing a powerful back kick to her opponent’s stomach, sending him stumbling back several feet, an expression of serious pain crossing his face.
But while the kick to the gut had obviously hurt, it didn’t slow the man down for long, and within seconds, he was advancing on Jes again. This time, he blocked her shots aimed at his midsection, relentlessly pushing her back at the same time. Jes was fast and strong, and she knew what she was doing when it came to hand-to-hand combat, but the man she was facing was way faster and strong enough to kill her with a single blow from those claws at the tips of his fingers.
Jake was already around the SUV and into the woods before he realized he was moving, crashing through the bushes to get to Jes and the kid. When he got close enough, he put a round into the man intent on killing Jes. When the man turned to see who was shooting at him, Jake put his next shot through the man’s left knee.
The moment the man went down, Jes scooped up the boy and ran toward Jake. She was still at least a dozen feet away when she suddenly froze, her eyes going wide in shock. Tingles of a warning raced up Jake’s spine at the same time. In his haste to get to Jes and the kid, he’d completely forgotten about Damien.
Fuck.
Jake tried to dart to the side, but pain slammed through him before he could even move. He stumbled forward under the impact, something tearing inside him. His gun slipped out of his nerveless hand and he fell to his knees. What the hell had Damien stabbed him with?
Somewhere in the distance, Jes screamed. He jerked his head up, expecting to see Damien savagely attacking her and the boy. But instead, she stood there, a horrified look on her face as she stared at him—or more precisely at his chest.
Jake looked down in confusion to see a tree limb sticking out of his chest a few mere inches above and to the side of his heart. If Damien hadn’t missed, that would have killed him as sure as a bullet to the head.
The pain hit full force then, and Jake collapsed to the ground, only to see Damien coming at him with a second tree limb. This one was long enough to qualify as a jousting lance and easily more than enough to kill him. And without a weapon, Jake had no way to protect himself—or Jes.
Then Jes was at his side, big Glock in her hand, firing round after round at Damien, slowly forcing him to back away from them until the slide locked back on an empty magazine. Damien stood there unfazed, blood running down his chest in freaking rivers, a smile slowly creeping across his ugly face to reveal his fangs as he strode toward them.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the roar of an engine echoed in the night and Jake turned his head from where he lay on the ground in time to see a white van swerve off the road and into the park, smashing into Damien. The asshole—and the tree limb he’d been holding—flew through the air, disappearing into the darkness.
The driver of the van slammed on the brakes, sliding across the grass for at least thirty feet before coming to a halt.
Jake had no idea what was going on, since the pain was making it nearly impossible to think. He dragged himself across the ground, fighting to get closer to Jes and the Robinson boy, growling in his effort to protect them from whatever was about to happen. When the doors of the van burst open and Caleb jumped out, he finally remembered the van was one of their team’s other rental vehicles. Misty followed close behind Caleb, a gun in her hands and looking distinctly out of place. Harley was there, too.
Jes was on her knees beside Jake. She wrapped her hands around the base of the tree limb protruding from his back and squeezed, like she was trying to keep his blood from pouring out.
“He’s dying!” she shouted to their teammates. “Call an ambulance. We need to get him to a hospital.”
Lying there on the grass, Jake decided he liked the idea of Jes being concerned about him. It would have made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside if it weren’t for the sharp, pointy piece of wood in his chest making him feel all cranky and pincushion-y.
“He’s not dying,” Caleb said drily, walking over to stand on the other side of Jake. “And we’re sure as hell not waiting around here for an ambulance. The Metro Police are already setting up a perimeter. This place is going to be ass deep with cops soon, and they won’t be very understanding when they see all this.”
Jes looked at Caleb like he was crazy. “But what about Jake? We have to do something for him.”
“We’re gonna do something.”
Casually putting the heel of his boot into the center of Jake’s back, he pushed down with his foot, and Jake had about a half second to think about how much this was going to suck at the same time Caleb yanked the tree limb out—hard and fast. Except it seemed to hurt a whole hell of a lot more this time.
Jake vaguely heard Jes screaming something about Caleb trying to kill him, then everything went dark.
He came to at some point later on, his back pressing against something harder than the leaves and grass he’d passed out on earlier. His chest felt like a thousand-pound pig was sitting on it, and breathing couldn’t have been harder if he were trying to do it through a drinking straw.
Red and blue lights spun above him, and it took Jake a while to figure out he was seeing the lights of police and other emergency vehicles reflecting on the ceiling of the team’s van. He tried to push himself up a little, wanting to see out one of the windows, but a gentle hand on his chest held him down.
“Don’t move.” Jes’s voice was soft in his ear. “We’re going through a police checkpoint and I doubt Caleb and Harley want to explain all the blood.”
Jake relaxed, trusting Caleb and Harley to get them out of there. Besides, there wasn’t anything he could do, not in this condition. So he closed his eyes and let the sound of Jes’s heartbeat gently lull him to sleep, her hand over the wound in his chest, her breath warm on his face as she whispered over and over in his ear that he was going to be okay.
Chapter 9
“Put him on the bed,” Jes said softly after she’d pulled the blankets back and placed several large bath towels down to protect the sheets from the blood and dirt. “Gently, so his wounds don’t open up again.”
Caleb—who’d carried Jake all the way from the rental van and upstairs to Jake’s room—snorted, practically tossing him on the bed so roughly he actually bounced.
Jes glared at Caleb. “I said gently, you jerk.”
She wanted to shout at him, but she didn’t want to wake up Jake. Then again, if dropping him on the bed hadn’t done it, she doubted raking Caleb over the coals would. Still, there wasn’t any need for Caleb to be an asshat about it.
“Relax,” Caleb said. “Jake’s a werewolf. If getting skewered with a tree limb didn’t kill him, he’s fine.”
She blinked. “Fine? You call having a hole the size of a baseball in his chest fine?”
“It’ll heal up.” Caleb regarded Jake, then shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to clean him up and get the debris out of the wound, though. If any crap is left in there, it slows down the healing and hurts like hell when it finally closes up.”
Jes opened her mouth to ask what he meant by debris, but before she had a chance, Caleb turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him.
Forgetting about Caleb and his crappy bedside manner, she turned her attention to Jake. She hoped Caleb was right about the wound healing on its own, because judging by Jake’s ragged suit jacket and bloody dress shirt, he was a mess under there. She didn’t know about the whole debris thing, but cleaning him up couldn’t hurt.
Hoping it’d be safe to leave Jake on his own for a bit, Jes slipped out of the bedroom and down the hallway into one of the two bathrooms on the second floor. Taking a stack of washcloths out of the small linen closet, she ran a few of them under the faucet, then grabbed the first-aid kit. She wasn’t sure what was in it, but there had to be antibiotic ointment and bandages, if nothing else.
As she made her way back to Jake’s room, muted conversation drifted up from downstairs. It sounded like Misty was putting together the videoconference equipment. Harley and Caleb must have been helping, since Forrest wasn’t back yet.
Forrest had been waiting for them when they got to the house, along with the Robinsons. Immediately after reuniting the couple with their son, he’d taken them to a safe house the support team had set up outside of London and probably wouldn’t be back for a few hours.
When she got to Jake’s room, Jes tried to close the door quietly behind her—and failed. She winced and could only hope it wasn’t enough to wake him up.
“You can stop trying to be so quiet,” a deep, husky voice murmured from behind her. “One, I’m already awake. And two, you suck at it.”
Jes turned with a sigh to see Jake struggling to sit up and trying to work his shredded suit jacket over his shoulders. From the grimace on his face, it was obvious moving around hurt like hell.
She darted over to the bed, dumping the towels and first-aid kit on the nightstand. “Stop trying to sit up. You’re going to make it worse. Let me help you.”
When it looked like he wanted to argue, she grabbed one lapel of his jacket, using her free hand to ease it over his shoulder. Even though she did it slowly, she couldn’t miss the grunts and groans of pain as his jacket came off—or the way her hands came away stained red.
“If you help me to the bathroom, I can shower off.” He fumbled with the buttons of his dress shirt as he started to sit up again. “I’ll be fine after a few hours of sleep.”
Jes pushed him back down again. “Yeah right. You wouldn’t make it two minutes in the shower before falling on your face. So why don’t you skip the drama and let me clean you up? It’s why I brought all that stuff in here in the first place.”
She pushed his hands away from his shirt and undid the buttons. He scowled and looked like he wanted to protest, but then gave up, letting her gently peel his jacket and shirt off. She wasn’t sure she even needed to bother with the buttons. It was so torn, it probably would have come off in pieces anyway.
Jes cringed when she saw his skin was just as damaged, especially along his forearms and biceps. But those lacerations were nothing compared to the gaping wound in the side of his chest. Even though it wasn’t bleeding much now, it still looked god-awful. She’d never been particularly squeamish at the sight of blood, but now she found herself looking anyplace other than that hole.
Fortunately, it was easy to distract herself with the other parts of his body. Like his broad shoulders and the smooth, sculpted pec opposite the wound. To say Jake was well built would be a disservice to the definition of the term. He was an Adonis, with perfect muscles layered on top of other perfect muscles. Jacked enough to make Jes think he could bench-press a small car, but wiry at the same time. The combination of the two was breathtaking.
And those abs? If there’d been more men like him around back in the day, Maytag would have gone out of business before it even got started. She suddenly had visions of long lines of women standing around him with their laundry, waiting for a chance to put those washboard muscles to good use.
Forcing herself to stop thinking of things as distracting as that, she focused on the reason she’d helped him get his shirt off to start with. Picking up one of the wet washcloths, she sat down on the bed and gently cleaned the scratches on his forearm. The lacerations had almost completely sealed themselves with fresh pink scar tissue, which was rather amazing. Even so, there was a lot of blood to wash off, and her stomach twisted into multiple knots resembling balloon animals. Furry, wolf-shaped balloon animals.
The funny thing was, it wasn’t the blood soaking into the washcloth that had her so bothered. It was the idea of Jake bleeding. Obviously, she never wanted to see a teammate get injured, but she was stunned when she realized it was much more than that. The thought of Jake being hurt made her ache somewhere deep inside.
It took three washcloths and one trip to the bathroom to rinse them out before she was done with his forearms and biceps. After that, she turned her attention to his chest. The wound still hadn’t closed over. If anything, it looked worse than before. Like it was getting infected. There was no way in hell that tree limb had missed his lung and she wondered how he was still able to breathe.
“Why isn’t it healing like the others?” she asked softly, carefully wiping the blood away without making the wound bleed more.
“I think there are pieces of that tree left in the wound,” he said. “My healing abilities are slowing down to give me time to get the crap out.”
So that’s what Caleb had meant by debris. Jes blanched at the thought of how they were going to get the crap out. “What happens if it stays in there? Will it heal?”
“At some point, yeah,” he admitted. “But it will take a few days, and I’ll end up with reduced lung capability from the twisted scar tissue that will build up around the wood pieces.”
Okay, that didn’t sound good at all. “What do we need to do to get the pieces of wood out?”
“I’ll need someone to root around in the wound with a pair of tweezers or forceps and pull the pieces out one by one.”
She was afraid he was going to say that.
Jes bit her lip. “Should I get Caleb?”
Jake let out a half-hearted snort. “You don’t seriously think I want a ham-handed brute like Caleb poking around inside me with a sharp implement, do you?”
Yeah, probably not. But that didn’t leave a lot of options.
“I guess I could do it,” she said, even though the idea made her queasy. “I don’t have any medical training beyond basic first aid, but if you want me to try, I will.”
His gaze locked on hers, the warmth in his deep brown eyes drawing her in. “I don’t want to ask you to do something like that. I can do it myself.”
