Free Witch Interrupted by Jody Wallace Page B

wolf, rarely had his id ruled. He’d fought it and hated it and fought it some more.
    This felt magnificent.
    Tonya screamed. Katie cursed. Zhang Li thumped through the living room, shouting questions. The noise faded to a low buzz as Marcus’s adrenaline surged. He leaped beyond the bed, kicked down the bedroom door and dodged the old man brandishing a glass jar.
    He was out of their apartment, down the stairs and in the darkened street before Katie had taken a third breath.
    His truck, parked outside, wasn’t locked. The crappy streetlight blinked off, as if eager to conceal his escape. He swung open the door and tossed Katie into the cab. She hit the seat, bounced and scrambled toward the opposite door.
    Her reaction time was impressive. He’d expect no less of an assassin. But he was faster. Marcus latched onto her ankle and slid her back to the passenger’s side, clapping a hand over her mouth.
    She bit him. He winced but didn’t let go. He needed to hurry; he could hear movement inside the shop as Tonya and Zhang Li marshaled whatever weapons they had handy.
    “I’m acting in self-defense.” Using his thumb, he popped open the metal cuff around his wrist. Katie hit him and kicked at his legs. Landed a solid blow. It would bruise and heal within an hour, like his hand. “You threatened to kill me, Chang Cai. Did you expect me to bend my neck?”
    She quit biting long enough to snarl something as furious as a wet cat.
    The night air whooshed his bare torso, a crisp October breeze. Marcus wanted to laugh again, he felt so galvanized, so completely alive. Instead he flopped his prisoner over on her stomach. As soon as he released her mouth, she screamed, the sound piercing enough that it hurt his ears worse than her teeth had hurt his hand. He handcuffed her more roughly than necessary and let his gaze rest on the curves of her ass.
    He wanted to bite it. And more. The cuffed wrists, the struggling woman… He was enjoying this too much.
    “If you don’t quiet down,” he growled, “I’ll make you quiet down.”
    As threats went, it wasn’t particularly menacing. His prisoner responded in kind, inhaling deeply and loosing another shriek.
    He slanted across her body, his hips pushing against her, knowing she’d feel his erection. She bucked, and not in a sensual way. Her heels whipped up to drum him wherever she could land a kick. The tense situation wasn’t having the diminishing effect on his libido one might expect.
    She might smell aroused, but she wasn’t going the Stockholm route anytime soon. Marcus stuffed his pocket handkerchief into her mouth.
    She hurled curses at him, distinguishable though the hankie. He crawled over her, slammed and locked her door, and started the truck with the key still happily in his trouser pocket. He was losing his tie, his shirt, his briefcase, his travel pill pack and his suit coat, but he was gaining a test subject.
    Good trade.
    Just as Zhang Li limped through the shop door, Marcus peeled out, grateful this run-down neighborhood was mostly vacant and little trafficked.
    He quickly realized Katie wasn’t going to make his first ever abduction easy on him. She scooched to the passenger door and tried to open the lock with her chin. He grabbed the back of her stretchy pants and yanked her to his side.
    She rammed his shoulder with her skull. He looped his right arm around her until he could grip her throat.
    “Are you crazy? You can’t jump out of a moving vehicle. I’m doing almost fifty.” Not used to driving with one hand, he took a turn too fast. Braked. Thank Goddess for automatic transmission. The truck fishtailed onto another side street. He braced his knee against the wheel and flicked on the headlights with his steering hand. While his night vision was superior, human drivers didn’t have that advantage.
    Marcus knew the roads through this town and everywhere on the Birmingham border patrol’s path like the screen of his smart phone. When you were a