Within minutes, they’d made it through the towering pine trees and stopped at a clearing.
“Thank heavens we managed to shake those two crazies. Seriously, I can’t believe-oh, for the love of God. More company? Is there anyone in Blue Moon Junction who hasn’t followed us out here?”
Then Coral hesitated. She smelled something…a familiar scent. She felt a prickling of warning, and the hairs on the back of her neck raised.
“Melinda’s here,” she said to Frederick. “She was using Scentsbane to disguise her scent, but not enough of it.”
Frederick nodded eagerly. “I know. She asked me not to tell you in advance, because she knows how you feel about her, but she’s meeting us out here. She’s going to come with us.” He beamed with pride, a smile stretching across his homely face. “She said that if anything happened to me, she couldn’t stand it. She just had to be here to protect me.”
“What?” Coral whirled on Frederick, furious. “No fucking way! I do not trust that crazy bitch as far as I can throw her.”
Melinda strode out from behind a clump of trees, dressed in camouflage gear, holding a rifle. The smile contorting her features was ugly.
“Your instincts are dead on,” she said, and the rifle came up and Coral felt a sharp sting in her thigh, and then the world turned into a blurry watercolor. She fell to the ground with a heavy thud.
Coral heard a yelp, and then another thud as Frederick fell to the ground.
“You stupid motherfucker,” she heard Melinda snarling. Struggling, she managed to turn her head, with enormous effort, and she saw Melinda kicking Frederick in the ribs as he lay helpless in the grass.
A dozen armed humans in camouflage gear and camouflage paint swarmed out of the woods. They all must have been doused in Scentsbane, which disguised their scent so that shifters couldn’t detect them.
Melinda kicked Frederick again, hard. “That’s for thinking that a puke-faced piece of shit like you would ever have a chance with me,” she snarled. Frederick whimpered, a pathetic mewling sound wrenched from his throat.
Panic choked Coral. When she and Frederick didn’t come back, Blanche and Maybelle would go into town and get help eventually – but would help come in time? And what if Blanche and Maybelle decided to launch a rescue effort themselves, which was highly likely? Two crazy old ladies against a gang of human mercenaries with rifles, which were undoubtedly equipped with illegal silver coated bullets.
Melinda knelt over her, holding up a serrated knife. She slashed at Coral’s leg, and Coral jerked in pain, making a strangled noise. A hot line of fire burned down Coral’s outer thigh where the knife had cut her, and she felt blood dripping onto the ground, but her limbs were so heavy she couldn’t move them an inch. She felt fabric ripping away from her pant leg, as Melinda ripped a bloody patch of cloth away from her pants.
Then Melinda moved up, crouching over Coral and pressing the blade against Coral’s cheek. “That’s for fucking my boyfriend, you whore,” she hissed. A mad light danced in her brown eyes. “He loves me, you understand? He’s going to marry me. He’ll forget you ever existed.” She raised her knife high. “Before I cut your throat, I’m going to make you so fucking ugly-”
Suddenly, she went flying, as one of the camouflaged soldiers kicked at her, knocking her away from Coral. Melinda let out a snarl and began to shift, brown hair sprouting from her face and fangs springing from her lengthening snout, and suddenly all of the men were pointing their rifles at her.
“I’ll trank you right now, you crazy bitch,” one of the men barked at her. “The doctor said to bring them both to him unharmed. Back the fuck off.”
Snarling, Melinda lumbered away, and Coral felt consciousness slowly fading until mercifully, the world went black.
She woke up gradually, groggy, with no idea how much time had gone by. Had she been knocked out for minutes, or hours?
She lay on a cold hard table, in a brightly lit room, and even in her human form she could smell the presence of other shifters. Her leg throbbed where Melinda had slashed it, and an I.V. was in her arm. Her arms and legs were restrained with straps, and her wrists itched and stung. The straps must be woven through with copper wire, preventing her from shifting to wolf form.
She twisted her head to the side, and looked around the room.
It was a huge room, with walls of industrial white. She couldn’t even see how big it was. She also couldn’t see any windows. There were other people strapped down on the tables as well. They were all naked.
They all had I.V. tubes inserted in their arms, and wires running from patches on their chest to monitors that were placed on stands next to their beds. So did she, she realized.
Frederick was lying on a table, she realized. He was sobbing quietly, tears running down his cheeks. She could see bruises on his ribs where Melinda had kicked him.