With a shriek of metal and a crack of concrete, one whole piece of the wall came out. That only drove her to pull harder, and a few heartbeats later, she was through the door. Ignoring the red and blue lights flashing overhead, she pushed even harder, running faster than she ever had in her life.
When bones cracked under her skin, Harley realized she might have pushed too far. She glanced down to see her arms elongating, her fingers merging as fur erupted through the skin. The sensation was painful, but surprisingly, not as terrifying as she thought it probably should be.
The popping and cracking as her head and back reshaped itself was unnerving for sure, but it didn’t hurt any more than anywhere else. She shook her upper body violently, fighting to get out of her uniform top and tactical vest before she could become trapped. Amazingly, the worst part of the whole ordeal was trying to grow a tail while still wearing her pants. She swore the long, bushy appendage was being twisted into a knot in its efforts to break free.
Following her instincts, she lowered her head and tore at the web belt and pants hanging loosely around her middle, noting in the exhilaration of the moment that her teeth were incredibly sharp as they ripped right through the material. It was only after the fact that she wondered what the hell she was going to wear now that she’d destroyed her clothes.
She pushed that thought aside. Save Sawyer first—worry about clothes later.
Having only a general sense of her wolf form, the first few running strides she attempted once the change was finished were incredibly awkward. But within a few feet, she was running at full speed, all four legs moving in concert, the wind created by her passage ruffling her fur. Damn, she was fast!
From her lower perspective, it took a second to find Sawyer once she entered the reactor room. In that short time frame, she was nearly overwhelmed with grief and terror, fearing the worst. Then her nose took over, leading her to the center of a jumble of ripped-up drums. That’s when she finally saw him slumped over on a bizarre-looking tile-covered floor.
She realized then the drums must be the electromagnets. Given the way they were toppled and tumbled around, the heavy cables coming out the top of each one sheared away, Sawyer must have been able to get them shut down. The fact that the klaxon alarms weren’t ringing as loudly seemed to support that theory. Not that it mattered very much for Sawyer. His skin was pale and sweaty, his breathing slow and labored. Her big ears told her his heart was beating far too slowly.
Was she too late? Had he already absorbed more radiation than he could survive?
She forced herself to stop thinking and latched her teeth on the shoulder of his tactical harness, tugging violently as she started backing away. It was a cumbersome way to rescue someone, her paws slipping on first the tiles and then the slick concrete flooring. She fell over on top of Sawyer more times than she could count, but she kept pulling, dragging his body through the gap she’d made in the door until they somehow ended up outside the building entirely.
Harley collapsed on top of him on the damp grass, the cool evening air blowing through her fur, her large snout nuzzled against him, breathing in his scent while she prayed he’d be okay.
She had no idea how long they lay there. She absently heard Jake’s voice coming through the earpiece Sawyer was still wearing, asking if the two of them were okay. The voices of their other teammates soon followed, words urgent and worried. There was nothing Harley could do. It wasn’t like she could talk, and she sure as hell wasn’t leaving Sawyer to find any of them.
She allowed the slow but steady beating of his heart to lull her into a state of relaxation. She guessed a person could only go for so long on pure adrenaline and fear. Even werewolves crashed at some point.
It was as Harley was lying there, draped across the chest of the man she loved, that the change occurred. Maybe shifting wasn’t as painful in this direction or maybe she was simply too exhausted to care. Either way, one moment she was a four-legged furry creature with a long, bushy tail; the next she was naked and human, draped half on Sawyer’s chest and half on the wet grass.
Sawyer’s chest was much more comfortable, even considering all the tactical gear he was wearing. But Harley forgot all of that when she looked up and found him gazing at her, his beautiful eyes making her think he was fully aware, but also somewhat baffled.
“Was there a wolf sitting on my chest a minute ago?” he murmured, one of his hands coming up to caress her bare back, his touch making little sparks skitter across her skin.
“You’re alive!” she squeaked, shoving herself upright to get a better look at him She knew how stupid that comment sounded, but she couldn’t come up with anything better.
Sawyer’s mouth edged up. “Yeah. I’m tired and it feels like I was hit by a truck, but I’m alive. I guess I was right about werewolves being able to recover from radiation exposure. But back to my question, why are you naked and did I really see you shift back from a full wolf?”
Harley stared at Sawyer for a moment, finding it impossible to explain how relieved she was he was okay. She should probably be worried about long-term effects of the exposure, but at that moment, all she cared about was that he was alive.
And that he’d scared the hell out of her!
Moving to straddle him, she smacked her fists against his chest in frustration. “Don’t you ever do anything that stupid again for as long as
