Free Jared by Sarah McCarty Page A

spiked a
bit to include weres in its effects.” He bent and started checking the assorted
pockets of the man’s camouflage jacket. “I can’t say that I disagree.”
    “Who is he?” Rai asked.
    “Just an overly friendly were, sugarplum.”
    He let her stew over the nickname while he removed the
pistol from the were’s shoulder holster.
    “What are you going to do with him?”
    “Kill him eventually.”
    She gasped but hushed for a second. A trickle of
energy teased his mind, knocking gently. When he wouldn’t answer the knock, she
slid in, utilizing that neat way she had of circumventing his defense. You
can’t kill a defenseless man.
    She was wrong. He could easily kill him. The bastard
had definitely planned on killing him, then probably raping her. With her
weakness, she wouldn’t have stood a chance against the brute. Stay out of it,
pumpkin.
    Are you going to keep calling me silly names every
time I talk to you when you don’t want me to?
    He found a small electronic device in the were’s left
pants pocket. That’s the plan.
    It won’t deter me.
    He didn’t imagine it would. That’s why I’ve decided to
amuse myself by seeing just how many I can come up with, sweet cheeks.
    He felt the move as her hand went to her cheek.
    With a glint of amusement he tacked on. Those weren’t
the cheeks I was referring to, by the way.
    Another gasp and then another bit of silence before
she was back. You’re outrageous.
    Nah. He slipped the device into his pocket. Just a
connoisseur of beautiful asses. Much like yourself.
    Dead silence. He never knew he could sense a blush,
but Raisa’s was coming loud and clear over the connection between them—a wave
of heat and awkward feminine discomfort as she gnawed on the possibility that
he’d heard her mental litany up the mountain. He smiled. She was a cute little
thing. And finally, blessedly silent.
    He removed the throwing knives from the were’s ankles.
“So, asshole, mind telling me what you’re doing up here, and why you jumped
us?”
    Not surprisingly the were didn’t answer. A probe of
his mind revealed nothing other than the disturbing fact that he’d been hunting
Raisa. Jared turned the were over and searched his back pockets. The crinkle of
paper in the right one drew his fingers there. The were’s mental tension
increased. “What’s this?”
    Jared pulled it free, opened it, and froze. It was a
picture of Raisa. Not the Raisa he knew with the sharp wit and terminal
optimism, but a woman with sunken, pain-filled eyes that radiated anger, but
Raisa all the same.
    “What is it?” she asked.
    He didn’t answer, just refolded the paper and put it
in his pocket and asked her, “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye out for
his companions?”
    “What makes you think there’re more?”
    He motioned to the downed man. “Wolves travel in
packs.” The were’s start confirmed what he suspected. There were more. “He’s a
were?”
    “Yes.”
    “That’s better than a vampire, right?”
    That was the McClarens’ and D’Nallys’ opinion. “So I’m
told.”
    And he had met some weres who put all but a few
vampires to shame for fighting skill and cunning. Derek McClaren for one, and
Ian and Creed of the D’Nallys for a couple others. Jared stood. He had about
twenty minutes of paralyzing effect from the bullet before he’d have to start
watching his back. He came to Raisa’s side. Her big brown eyes studied him
warily. The picture in his pocket crinkled with incriminating insistence.
    “Why couldn’t I sense him?”
    He pulled the small electronic device from his pocket.
“I suspect this might have something to do with it.”
    She took it from him, holding it in her open palm for
a moment before closing her fingers over it. Her eyes took on that unfocused
look that said she was concentrating inwardly.
    “It has a strange vibration to its energy.”
    “You can feel something?”
    “Yes, now that I’m holding it.”
    He took the device