Chapter 8
Skor
I have to admire Tabby’s game. She played us like a pack of fools. We are now looking at one another, knowing that police will be called at the next town and we will be charged with kidnapping. The door to the cabin is being guarded by train security, which is armed.
“What are we going to do?” Thorn asks the question softly.
Krall has been sitting on the lower bunk bed for a while now, his jaw clenched in frustration and anger. He thought he was in the process of dominating her thoroughly, but he was actually losing control while she was gaining it. It was fascinating to watch. He still hasn’t come to terms with it.
And this gives me an opportunity.
“We need to make our escape,” I say. “We need to get off the train, and we need to circle back and do our best to find her again. I think you and Thorn should run now. I will slip up onto the top of the train and ride it to the next stop. I’ll retrieve her there once she runs—and we know she is going to run.
And we can meet up somewhere wild enough to tame her properly. ”
“Train’s going too fast to jump from,” Krall says.
“It is now, but I’ll get up on the… wait. A new idea is coming to me. What if I go up on the train, sever the last carriages. That will force the train to stop. You and Thorn start running. I’ll grab our mate while everyone is distracted.”
“Fine,” Krall says. “Do it. Do it.”
He’s impatient. He’s angry. He’s confused. It’s perfect. I could not have scripted this any better if I tried. The magic mate I dreamed of is being just as difficult as I thought she would be.
I climb up and out of the broken window, clutching at the trimmings of the train to pull myself up and onto the roof.
It’s not easy work, but I am animated by what I am going to do to Tabby once I retrieve her.
My cock is hard even now, imagining the punishments she is going to endure.
I am going to fuck her tight little asshole so damn hard once I get her.
I am going to pin her beneath me and make her beg for mercy as I fill her up over and over, showing her body what her mind will not yet accept—that she is ours and nothing she does now, and no amount of human sympathy, will change it.
I move up and over the carriage, to the one in front of ours.
There are still three or four back there, and I work my way down to the connectors, which are rattling along with the motion of the train.
There’s a lever down there that is not supposed to be used while the train is in motion.
I know this because it says Do Not Use While Train is in Motion.
I yank the lever as hard as I can, and I listen to the screaming of an annoyed train as the carriages behind react to the loss of connection and automatically brake. The rest of the train keeps going.
Thorn and Krall will be able to escape out through the window now.
Night is gathering, and there is a good chance they will not be seen as they leave.
Even if they are, nobody will believe that wolves left the train.
We have an almost endless supply of plausible deniability when it comes to our animal selves.
I open the rear carriage door and start moving my way through the train, trying to avoid security and such. It’s still going, though I think it might have started to slow. Train carriages with the brakes on stop relatively quickly. Engines take longer to slow apparently.
I find my mate via scent. Her dress has been clinging to her for days now and smells of her body and our seed. I could find her absolutely anywhere.
I slide open a door and slip into a bathroom. This is the first class portion of the train, through the dining car. They have hot water here, apparently. I suppose it’s heated by the same coal that makes the engine run.
“Tabby?”
I say her name through the thick mist that clouds the air.
“What do you want?” She asks the question bitterly. “How did you get in here?”
“There are no lengths I would not go to in order to claim you,” I say, stepping closer and finding a copper bath full of sudsy water, containing my mate.
She looks up at me with annoyance.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” she says. “You’re supposed to be getting arrested and going to a human jail.”
I crouch down next to her and smirk. “Did you really think we’d let that happen? We are soldiers, pup.”
“Don’t call me that,” she scowls. “I am no puppy. I have proved that time and time again. Not that any of you seem to care.”
“Krall is an old-fashioned wolf, with old-fashioned beliefs about how mates should behave,” I say.
“I don’t care if he’s a thousand years old,” she pouts, splashing the water unintentionally as she makes a motion with her hand. “He can fuck off.”
She sounds like Thorn. Already she is bonded with us, though she doesn’t understand how deeply. I am enjoying this. I wanted a challenge. I wanted to feel her power, and I wanted to bend it to my will.
“I’m going back to the mountains once I have had a bath, washed my dress, and gotten some new clothes.”
“You know that’s not happening,” I say. “You’re coming with us.”
“You’re going to jail.”
“We’re not,” I say calmly. “Do you want me to help wash your hair?”
She pauses for a moment, considering the offer. “Very well,” she says finally. “You can help.”
I roll up my sleeves and move around to the head of the tub. There is a bottle of hair wash placed there already, petal and twig scented, apparently. I set about washing her hair.
“Have you ever seen a man’s spine torn out through his neck and played like a xylophone?”
She asks the question with devastating calm, like she doesn’t understand or care about the horror of the mental image she is conjuring. She came from a very dark place, and things like these are not particularly stimulating for her.
“Can’t say I have. That would be difficult to achieve.”
“Not difficult at all. Sever at the pelvis, beat the flesh, and pull with enough force to dislocate and sever connections,” she says, closing her eyes as I massage the shampoo into her scalp.
“Of course. How silly of me not to imagine.”
“I don’t have to imagine,” she says, her voice cool and light and feminine. “It happens all the time back home.”
“I’m sure it does,” I reply.
“I’ve found some britches that might fit you, and…” A hearty female voice falls into annoyed silence as the door opens. “What do you think you’re doing here? You’re supposed to be under guard, you are!”
“I’m not,” I say, standing smoothly. “I’ll take the clothes, though. It’s time she was dressed.”
The woman hands the clothes over reluctantly. “I’ll be going for the conductor then,” she says.
“You do that,” I say as she rushes away indignantly to get a man who cannot help her because he’s several miles further down the track than she thinks he is.
“Alright, up and out of the bath,” I say to Tabby. “Things are about to get hectic, and you are going to want to be clothed.”
“What have you done?” She grins a little as she dries herself hurriedly, her cute curves dancing with little droplets of water that don’t quite get all the way dried before she starts pulling more contemporary attire on.
She’s got a pair of snug black leggings on that show the shape of her legs to great advantage. The top is a fawn and green knit that brings out her eyes and complements her hair. Her own boots fit well with the outfit.
“Very nice,” I say.
“It’s from the Lost Property,” she says. “Other people lost these somehow. Now I’m wearing them.”
“Yes. You are. Come with me.”
She follows me out quite obediently, which I find amusing. She put so much effort into rebellion and now she is doing just as she is told. Krall got her quite riled up. His overt dominance does not work well for her.
“What’s happening?”
“We are escaping.”
The train has stopped by now, and escaping is a simple matter of just getting off. Somewhat anticlimactic.
“What about all my things?”
“Which things?”
“The things in my bag and such.”
“Hopefully Krall and Thorn will have picked them up when they escaped. Otherwise they’re gone.”
“Not gone, just where the rest of the train is,” she says. “I’ve got to go get it. It’s important. I had all my things in it. And I need my dress. I don’t want to leave anything behind.”
The dress was folded at the end of the tub. She picks it up and makes her way out of the train. There’s a general air of confusion from the passengers and such, helpful in making our escape, which doesn’t feel much like an escape.
The night is getting quite dark now as she sets off down the tracks in the effort to reclaim her belongings.
I know better than to argue with her. Krall and Thorn will be long gone by now, so I don’t mind.
The train conductor and such will have more to worry about than arresting me if they happen to see me. Their train is in two, after all.
I enjoy the sight I am treated to while following from behind. Her ass is very shapely, and I am reminded of how it felt to be inside it, how hot and tight and forbidden it was. I will do that again soon.
Jogging back to the remnants of the train, she shows a good level of fitness.
Makes sense, given she is from the mountains where running for one’s life is part of any given day.
She was hard to hunt down when she ran the first time, if we give her too many opportunities, and she gets a good enough head start, she might be impossible to catch up with.
We make it to the remnants of the train, where disgruntled passengers are doing their best to see by torchlight. She and I make our way into the cabin we all shared, where she immediately scoops her bag out of the corner.
“They left it behind,” she says. “Idiots.”
She’s quite harsh when she wants to be. Furious at Krall, too. He overplayed his hand with her considerably. She needs a more sophisticated touch. A girl who grew up slaying monsters is not going to be impressed by a man who tries to push her around by force of personality.
“Happy?”