Pawn Among Wolves Ch. 16

"I had hunters out who were close enough to run across the trail of your escaped humans, and suspicious enough of their strange scent to follow it," Mac continued. "The humans told us of the setup here."

He paused. "But the major offensive against Tzo is far from here; I could not divert my warriors without either alerting your captors that we were on our way, or risking losing the wider war against Tzo. So it had to be subterfuge."

Her wolves were all still, breathing lightly as they listened intently.

"I have a warrior with inside knowledge of Madam Faulk's - lifestyle, who managed to infiltrate it again and obtain an invitation to tonight's show. I came as his human guard," Mac explained. His eyes slanted to Gemma and he clarified, Samuel, silently.

Gemma growled softly, and Mac smiled grimly as he continued his explanation aloud, "I knew Gemma was melded with some wolves as soon as they lifted her collar tonight, my - mind called to hers, but she was busy, enmeshed, so I held myself back as long as I could. But when her scent changed to fear and they were about to whip her - I had to get her out of there," he finished on a growl.

"You smell human," Jorgen agreed tersely. "How the hell did you manage that?"

There was a smile in the Alpha's voice. "Before she was captured, my mate isolated the fix Grey uses to hold the binding drug to wolves despite their fast metabolism. A friend has developed a human-scent ..."

Better than me, thought Gemma morosely.

"...combined with that fix, to allow a wolf to smell like this for hours, but -."

There was a murmur of educated appreciation among the assembled scientists. "We never could properly isolate the human scent," said Jorgen.

"Then - how many of your wolves did you bring?" interrupted Ellen eagerly.

Mac's voice had a slight edge as he continued, "The drug is only bearable to a wolf with a very high tolerance for silver; otherwise it just debilitates him or her. I am the only one we've found who can metabolise it, so far. And it weakens me - practically crushing my shiele - that was a side-benefit tonight. I have been able to mingle here without the Faulk wolves being aware of my aura."

"So you thought it would be useful to just waltz in here alone, weak, and get trapped with the rest of us?" whispered Gemma, her voice hitching on a gulp as fear drove the anger in her higher again. "Not your best idea ever."

The green eyes were swirling black as he looked back down at her and Mac growled softly, carefully, "Having seen the advert for tonight's show, I wasn't thinking very clearly."

Her head lifted and her cheeks flushed. Damn. Those adverts.

Had he liked them? an excited little voice in her head wondered, before she snapped at it to Shut up.

Confusingly, the suspicion on the air lightened as the Alpha pair glowered at each other.

"He's an Alpha!" exclaimed Ellen on a note of discovery.

Gemma rolled her eyes, making her head hurt. You could call him that. Mac slanted a sarcastic look her way, then yanked her in for a bruising kiss.

I'll tell you later what I thought of them, he conveyed privately.

"So we can create ECMD keyed to him - inject the others, all of them simultaneously so that he can make them break from Grey or the Louse, fight with us," Ellen continued, gesturing around the outside walls, the wider halls of the underground complex. "He's so much stronger, can hold a lot more than our Little Gem."

Gemma growled, "The ECMD is a good idea, but key it to me, like before. You are my pack - you just melded to me." There was a tinge of pride in her veins.

"And you're exhausted," chimed in Jorgen, eyes flickering between Alpha and Alfamme. "Besides, he must have helped you. No-one could lead a battle-meld like that instinctively, it was so - streamlined, elegant."

The eyes of half of the wolves around them were eyeing Mac speculatively, or admiringly. It looked like most of her damn pack were allied to her mate already. Gemma was surprised to feel a little spurt of jealousy. She snarled and shook her head violently at them.

Mac stepped forwards, a light frown between his eyes. "Right," he said. "What do you need me to do?"

Gemma turned her snarl on him, but was halted by a low voice at her right elbow.

"I have a better idea," said Rupert. The lanky chemist also advanced a pace, he was looking down at his left forearm, a fingertip slowly circling the invisible site of a former puncture wound, the injection from days before.

"It would appear that our Alfamme has hit upon a second option, an antidote that shakes the mind free, gives back the clean choice," he said. A small smile was playing over his lips, and there was no frown between his eyes. Can you not feel how clear I am, my packmates? His conveyance seemed to boom almost as clearly as Mac's, in contrast to the muffled murmurs around him. And I have been re-keyed over the past few days - but it just doesn't work. No side effects, no rage. Our Little Gem has broken the fix.

A gasp on intaken breath hissed through her pack.

"And now we have the main ingredient here," Rupert added aloud, pointing to the large, tawny Alpha. "A wolf with an exceptional level of silver resistance."

"Oh," murmured Gemma on a low note of discovery. That was why she had been able to make this effective antidote from Mac's shiele. It hadn't made sense.

All eyes turned to her mate, who was standing straight, eyes narrowed in thought. "This would work on all wolves who have been given coerced - give them free choice?" he asked.

"The only test has been on me. We haven't had time - Gemma only finished it just before she was recaptured, we haven't had the formula," replied Rupert.

Mac's eyes were gleaming slightly in pride as they rested briefly on his coldly furious mate.

"We would be better just keying ECMD to the Alpha, to ensure loyalty," growled Jorgen. "He can hold them, and with them all we can definitely fight our way out of here."

Mac's eyes shot sideways, and his voice was cold, "But he will not. I admit it is no fault of your own that you have a distorted view of free choice, but do not suggest to me that I enforce the same lack of choice on others."

Jorgen's cheeks flared hot and he snapped, "They are already enforced."

"And you would prefer them to remain so, because they do not hold with your loyalties?" retorted Mac. "That is not wolf." His eyes returned to Rupert. "How long does it take to make this antidote?" he said.

"With all of us?" responded the tall, lanky wolf, "The cream of the lab-rats here? We can synthesise it in a few hours, if we can hold them at bay while we work, and what's more," there was a smug note in his voice now. "The store here holds all of the other ingredients, and the methods of administration that the Louse and Grey have used - blowpipes, pea injectors, inhalers, dart-guns. If you can give enough of your resistance through your blood, we can make enough for the whole complex, have it ready to administer in one fell swoop."

"Blood?" cut in Gemma on a squeak. "I used -," she shut up, realising as she met Rupert's eyes. Extraction from hair would take too long - it would have to be blood. No, said her heart - that would weaken him so much.

"What about making enough for the outside Faulk pack, too?" her mate murmured quietly, eyes inward.

Gemma's heart thumped and her eyes shot sideways to him, narrowing then widening in fear. "No," she vetoed quietly. "That would be an insane amount. Even the amount needed for the complex slaves and guards will leave you too weak - this is idiocy, you wouldn't be able to fight, defend yourself."

His eyes shot back challengingly to hers. "My mate will defend me," he retorted, lips twitching.

Gemma smacked him, "Mac, NO."

He ignored her and walked over to Rupert, rolling his neck to get a crick out of it.

"This looks like our best chance. As I said, what do you need me to do?" he asked.

Rupert's eyes flickered between Alpha and Alfamme, and his lips twisted, eyes holding Gemma's as he reached out a hand, palm up, and conveyed quietly, I would cleave to you, my Alpha.

"How the hell do you think we're going to hold them out if you're comatose?" cursed Gemma, her eyes smashing into Rupert as the damn traitor clove to her stupid mate. She stomped forward to tug admonishingly at the hair on Mac's upper arm. "Jorgen's right, I'm not a warrior!"

Her fingers tingled where they brushed against his fur, and a jolt of warmth shot through her at his proximity, the shimmer off his skin beginning to resurface. For now, until they drained him - damn him. How could she have forgotten just how damn stubborn he was?

"Alan is a formidable warrior," Mac responded calmly, "I suggest that you listen to him."

"Well in that case, I propose that we drop more hacking powder out of the broken duct to clear the main doorway," Alan said on a quiet note of evaluation. "Then if Ginger and Tim will mix us an explosive we can bring the roof down there where the rock above is weak. We could do with only defending the smaller side-entrance."

He stepped forward and also held his hand out, palm up, to the Mackeld, conveying the oath privately.

"Good thinking," agreed the Alpha, briefly covering Alan's palm with his own, and they both winced while the powerful bond knit. Gemma snarled and stomped off towards the store to get more dust, ignoring the rest of her small pack as they began to crowd in to fawn over her mate.

Tsk tsk, you should learn to share, taunted Mac silently. I shared the Whites with you.

Ellen was standing too close to the Alpha, holding her palm out and smiling admiringly up at him when Gemma re-emerged from the small storeroom with a large bale of plastic-wrapped sawdust in her arms. Mac completed the last link with Ellen while Rupert, to his left, carefully rolled up the Alpha's mangled sleeve to expose his now-human forearm, tapping lightly to expose a vein.

"Gemma's right, you know," he said quietly, "We will need a lot of blood to make this feasible, to tip the balance - you would be better lying down."

Gemma froze where she was.

Please don't do this, Mac, she whispered, the dread pooling in her stomach. He would be unable to defend himself. His head lifted slightly, and calm green eyes met hers.

What would you have me do instead? This is our best chance.

Gemma winced at the 'our'. I don't want you here, her heart cried. Distractedly she noticed that the pain slashing through her head had disappeared. Disappeared when he had kissed her that second time. Wasting his shiele - dammit.

Picchu -.

We had a better chance when you were outside! she cursed him.

His eyes were warm.

Oh, Gem. You mean you felt better. I felt much, much worse.

Gemma growled and stomped off to thrust the bag of hackdust into Alan's arms, where he was assembling the defence and the pyramid.

If you die in here, then so do I, she hissed at her mate.

Copycat, he returned cheerfully. But I'm not planning on dying: your damn adverts show that you can now handle being tied up, and so I have a promise to fulfil.

Gemma's anger grew at the leap of excited blood in her veins, and she turned her back on her mate pointedly, trembling with what she told herself was fury as she began scrambling up the new pyramid.

Not excitement. No. This was fury.

You'd have to catch me first, she snarled at him. Then her hackles yanked alert at the response of her female wolves to the pulse of Alpha mating doft that suddenly perfumed the lab behind her while she leapt for the ventilation duct. Angrily she retrieved a tightly folded wedge of paper tucked and tossed it down at Jorgen, then caught the hackdust bale that Alan threw up and pushed it into the vent, preparing to heave herself up.

Abruptly the siren scent of Mac's lust cut off.

"No!" he called, striding forward, shaking off Rupert's grip on his arm as he gazed up at her. "Send Opal - you are too vital in this."

Gemma's brown-black eyes were wide, incredulous, as she hung from the rectangular opening, swinging lightly and turned her head to glare back down at her mate. "What did you just say?" she asked. "Talk about double standards."

"This is not an emotional decision," he growled back up, a low note of menace to his voice. "We need chemists urgently - whereas anyone can fight. And I am the only source for the resistant shiele - the standards are no-where near the same, Gemma."

"Need I point out to you, you're in a room full of bloody chemists," she snarled back, then pulled herself up into the opening with the ease of long practice.

There was a rush in the air behind her, a couple of startled grunts from the members of the pyramid, and a firm clasp snapped around her left ankle just as she was about to push off into the darkness. The weight which dropped like a stone onto the end of that unmoving grip yanked her painfully back through the opening with a scrape of her stomach and an echoing bang of her skull against the roof of the duct. Gemma yelped as they fell, struggled against the strong grip which shifted to hold her securely about her waist, then punched Mac hard in the stomach as he landed holding her. She was snarling in anger - how could he embarrass her that way in front of her pack?

Her Alpha dropped her to her feet and yanked her closer by the shoulders, power fizzing along her nerve endings as he glowered into her eyes.

"There is a fucking war on, Gemma. Think. We need you here."

"All RIGHT," she snapped, and her fist lashed out to strike him again. He caught it in mid-air, holding it stationary, and growled back, "Not now. We will fight this out when we are out of here, if you wish."

Gemma glared back up into the pulsing green-black swirl, seething in rage that he was so damn autocratic, and repeated her earlier defiance aloud, spitting staccato words through her anger, "You will have to fucking catch me first."

Lust surged from him.

The other wolves were frozen in the explosion of pulsing tension, halted in shocked poses around the room, staring.

Then the oldest of them, Mo, abruptly shook himself, letting out a snort, and said dryly, "Yup, definitely Alphas, and definitely mates." Andrea hiccupped on a laugh, and a wave of releasing tension washed through the wolves in the room, easing the fear and causing a happy little hum of a hopeful sigh, into which Jorgen said tentatively, "Uh - Alfamme? None of us ever have made this solution before, so if you don't mind stepping us through it -."

Fucking Mr Always-Right Alpha.

Gemma shook herself free of the clasp on her shoulders and stalked regally over to the lab bench where Ellen and Warner were setting out the vessels needed.

Her heart was shrinking, swirling in jumpy fear, as she heard Mac settling back on the wooden bench behind her, joking to Rupert to relax the chemist while he advanced nervously with a makeshift bloodbag: needle, tube and flask swiftly sterilised in the furnace.

No, her heart keened.

Abruptly she spun and raced back to her mate, grabbing his face and mashing her lips to his to halt the sob rising to her lips. Mac's hands lifted to cradle her head. His thumbs stroked softly over her cheekbones and he gentled the kiss, nuzzling over her lips, soothing her, his mind whispering silently, Shh. Shh, my picchu. I know. Shh. I love you too.

"Huh," she growled under her breath as she pulled away and spun back to the workbench where her packmates awaited her.

A little waft of amusement from the watching wolves followed her on the air.

*

Over an hour later, Gemma was standing beside Rupert's shoulder where he was seated at the main workbench, verifying the readout of the concentrations in the antidote they had synthesized with the first quarter pint of Mac's blood. They both checked once again against the results for the original mixture that Gemma had created, then Rupert slowly filled an injection dart while the other lab rats looked on with bated breath, watching out of the corners of their eyes while they continued to make more.

The noise around them was appalling; there was a heavy continuous battering and threatening howling at the side door, where Alan's small force was determinedly battling to hold back the horde of Faulk wolves trying to break in. However, Gemma barely heard the sounds of the fight, the concentration she had pulled around the lab rats absolute: they had to do this. It was the only way out, for all of them.

But a sudden piercing, sharp spike at her heart broke her focus, her face blanching as she almost doubled over at the drag of the pain. All of the wolves working around the bench with her winced in unison, catching an echo of her agony, and a collective half-gasp, half whine arose when Gemma automatically lifted her aegis, stumbling around to look over at her unconscious mate lying on the far bench.

She knew that drain.

Natasha.

But Mac was too weak, too fragile to take it just now. Why didn't he just give it up?

She knew why.

Even from here, she could see the palsy-like tremor in the comatose figure. Her mind hurtled over to help, but she couldn't get past his shields, he had blocked her out from his physical pain, and was automatically blocking her out from this too - damn the damn stubborn wolf!

A shot of panic jolted through Gemma as the shaking grew even as she watched. She felt the agony in him increasing, leaking past his shields.

This was deliberate; a second front by the enemy. The timing couldn't be chance; although equally they couldn't know just how weak Mac's defences were just now.

Fear ignited the killing rage within Gemma, but she reeled it in easily, containing the power, using it to block the pain. She spun back to face the bench, grab up the filled dart and turned swiftly away, barking, "That is correct. Finish it, load all the darts and deploy them, as agreed."

A corner of her mind noted her pack members straighten and stiffen in reaction to something in her tone, a gleam of light firing in their eyes as most turned instantly to get on with the final steps of making and administering the antidote to the fix.

Five however sheared off towards the pile of rock which had been brought down to block the main doorway, behind which they could hear noises of more enemies steadily burrowing their way through. Following her silent orders they assembled in an unstable, makeshift pyramid atop the rough stones, and Gemma scrambled up and leapt from the top to grab the edge of the old vent, flipping herself inside with an uncannily fiery agility which she didn't even stop to question.

Hurry! Hurry! urged her heart.

Alarms were already sounding all over the complex, although Gemma noted a new one bursting into a cacophony above her as minutes later she slithered dangerously fast down the shaft to the lower level, into unknown territory. The high security cells.

She could only hope that the guards were a little preoccupied - although her cover was blown sky-high by now anyway.

Reaching the bottom, with no more time for subterfuge, she slashed oven the ventilation shaft at the right-angled bend, and dropped straight onto two startled guards waiting in the gloomily lit rock corridor beside the lift entrance, below.

They were slow fighters. More skilled than she, but strangely slow.