Amy Blankenship - Jaded Blood

Looking around at the SWAT team, Tasuki almost snorted at the way some of the officers were acting all proud of themselves, puffing out their chests and patting each other’s backs for a job well done.

Personally, the only thing Tasuki thought they’d done was save three of the many kidnapped women and capture a few guards that were more muscle than brains. He wasn’t going to even consider celebrating unless one of those guards spilled the beans on where Lucca was holding the rest of the captives. He seriously doubted these lackeys knew much outside their own little jobs and their next cigarette.

He leaned against the wall watching as the big van backed up into the side garage of their building. His guess was that it would be Titus overseeing the removal of the she-wolf from the back of the van… Titus being Alpha and all. If it had been up to him, she’d walk into this building on her own two legs… or four… either way it would be her own choice.

As it stood now, her rescuers were keeping her just as much of a prisoner as the slave traders had done.

Tasuki just watched with a heavy glare as Titus got out of the driver’s side of the van and slammed the door. The main reason for the glare was the small crowd of men standing around the back of the van waiting for a glimpse of the so called she-wolf. His attention was taken when Micah came around the other side of the van with the fifth guard… none too gently he might add.

Micah had a firm hold of the guard’s jacket collar and was pushing him past the van. Tasuki smiled inwardly seeing that the cougar was getting a small slice of revenge as he forced the struggling man ahead of him. The werewolf’s feet were shackled very close together, making it hard for him to take more than a baby step at a time.

“Having fun?” Tasuki asked as Micah approached.

“Not yet,” Micah said with a smirk and pulled back hard on the werewolf’s collar so that the material of the shirt under the jacket pulled tight around his throat. The man made a strangling sound as he reared backwards. “But getting there.”

Tasuki arched an eyebrow at Micah’s behavior but had to agree that if someone had put a gun to his head… he’d be acting the same way. The guard saw him and snarled, showing all of his human looking teeth and Tasuki tilted his head wondering why the werewolf would even think that was scary when he was in his human form.

“Yeah, yeah. Roar, snarl, drool to you too asshole,” Tasuki shot back in a bored tone of voice.

Micah laughed at Tasuki’s courage in the face of a pissed off werewolf. He was starting to think that there was a good chance Tasuki would be the one to walk away from it if a fight broke out. Something about the rookie always made him look twice and a shifter never ignored gut instinct.

He pushed the guard ahead of him toward the special interrogation room and gave him a kick in the ass for good measure. The guard stumbled forward making his shoulder hit the steel edge of the door jamb. An involuntary yelp escaped the man’s lips… sounding distinctly like a kicked puppy instead of a ferocious werewolf.

“Oops,” Micah's voice dripped with sarcasm. “Did that hurt? I would be gentler, but I seem to have a problem with people who try to put bullet holes in my brain. So if I seem moody, please… take it personally.”

He took additional pleasure by literally throwing the werewolf inside the room. He sighed in contentment when the male crashed into the titanium table that was bolted to the floor in the center of the room.

Walking in behind him, Micah grabbed the werewolf and forced him into the matching titanium chair that looked much like the electrocution chairs they used for executions in the prisons. As soon as the werewolf noticed what kind of chair it was, he seemed to get another burst of energy and attempted to fight. Micah actually enjoyed wrestling the guard’s wrists into the bands on the arms of the chair and locking them in place.

“Now, no gnawing off of the limbs until we’re done… okay?” Micah instructed ignoring the long stream of curses being flung at him.

Tasuki shook his head at Micah’s antics then turned his gaze back toward the van where he could see the edges of the cage through the open doors. Just knowing there was a female inside that cage was disturbing him on many levels but only he understood the full extent of why.

Blocking the memory, he pushed away from the wall when Titus walked toward him empty handed.

“So, what are you going to do?” Tasuki asked quietly. “Put her cage inside of the cell?”

Titus frowned at the sarcastic edge of Tasuki’s voice. “I’ll open her cage and put her in a cell in a few minutes. Double caging her would be overkill at this point but we need a place for her to stay until we can figure out what will be the safest for her.”

“Why not let her stay at Night Light with the rest of the werewolves? At least that way she’d be under supervision,” Tasuki offered having thought about it on the way over.

Titus shook his head, “That’s a worse idea than putting her in a jail cell.”

Tasuki frowned, “I don’t get it.”

“You see the way they’re all gathered around her cage… right?” Titus asked giving the crowd a disapproving gaze.

“Yeah… it’s getting on my nerves,” Tasuki pointed out.

Titus locked eyes with him feeling a little more respect for the new recruit. “Then maybe we should break up the sightseeing tour.”

Micah chose that moment to join them and glared at the officers, “Yeah, they’re acting like dogs in heat.”

Tasuki cocked an eyebrow at the similarity, “In this case… it’s probably true.”

“More than you know,” Titus offered and turned on the men in question. “All right boys, time to get back to work,” he informed them. “It’s not like you guys haven’t seen a female werewolf before.”

Titus frowned when a couple of them looked like they weren’t going to obey… their sex drive already making them think with the wrong head. He really wasn’t in the mood to flex his Alpha muscles. As far as he was concerned, he was only the temporary Alpha… but Boris seemed to think it was permanent. With Lucca the only other acting Alpha in the city, it looked like temporary role play wasn’t an option.

“Now!” Titus thundered making the men jump and scatter. Once they were gone, he walked up to the cage door and unlocked it in preparation to move the she-wolf into a holding cell where she would be safe.

“Isn’t there an officer not living at Night Light that you can get to watch over her so she isn’t in another cage?” Tasuki asked feeling his skin crawl the closer he got to the cage.

“She needs the steel bars as extra protection from the pack your so gung-ho on exposing her to,” Micah explained. “You see, we’re not keeping her locked away just for the sake of keeping her prisoner. This is for her protection. An unmated female werewolf is a very valuable thing and Titus really doesn’t want to have to reprimand his pack for thinking with their nether regions… if you get my drift.”

“And to make matters worse… we found empty vials and syringes in the trashcan next to her cage after you’d walked off. The labels on the vials indicate that they were shooting her up with hormones.”

“Hormones?” Tasuki asked feeling like whatever Micah was pointing out went right over his head and kept going.

“They were trying to make her go into heat so they could breed her,” Titus supplied in a cold tone. “Over seventy percent of the wolves on the force are single and most married have human mates. It wouldn’t take much to start a riot. As far as I know… she’s probably the only female werewolf in the city that is of age and doesn’t have a mate. Our breed tends to start fighting over the females long before she becomes of age.”