She didn’t react at all. It was like he wasn’t even there. Now he was starting to feel annoyance prickling at him as he walked out the front steps into the cool, dark night. He wasn’t used to women ignoring him.
Hell. He really needed to have a roll in the hay with her to get it out of his system, he thought, as he let the door bang shut behind him.
That is, if she ever came near him again. Apparently she’d lost interest in arresting him. He was surprisingly disappointed at the thought.
Chapter Eleven
Chelsea stood in the woods, carefully watching the passed-out pack members who lay sprawled on the ground, and listening for any sound at all.
They were completely still, their spilled coffee cups lying next to them.
Her stomach was twisting itself into knots, and her heart was pounding, but her plan seemed to have worked.
She’d really done her homework this time.
She’d asked around town and found out the name of a female shifter who had moved to town a year ago and forgotten to mention an outstanding arrest warrant. This female shifter was a frequent party guest at Roman’s camp. Chelsea had tracked her down at the Hootenanny the night before and offered her a choice: drug the coffee of Roman’s pack with a concoction provided by the mayor, or be arrested immediately.
She’d gone with drugging the coffee.
The pack members were knocked out, snoring loudly. Were they all there? She did a quick head-count and nodded. She was pretty sure they were all there.
Satisfied that nobody was awake to give her any grief, she turned and trudged back towards the road, where she had a pickup truck parked…with an ATV hitched to it.
Her lips curled in a smile as she walked. That had been a good suggestion from that big, surly shifter, bringing an ATV. This time she’d brought Erika with her, and now she was sure all the shifters were knocked out, she grabbed her cell phone and punched in Erika’s number. She was confident that she and Erika, together, could haul Roman’s unconscious body off the ground and onto the ATV. She’d handcuff that bastard with copper, secure his wrists with zip ties, and also use rope. She wasn’t taking any chances this time.
“Thanks, Marcus,” she said out loud with a grin just as Erika answered the phone.
“What are you thanking me for?” Marcus called from the brush.
Chelsea let out a small shriek and jumped. Damn her lack of a sense of smell! Damn it to hell! Any other shifter would have been able to scent that bastard before he snuck up on her. But not her.
“Abort the mission!” she yelled into the phone, and hung up quickly.
“Why weren’t you eating breakfast with everyone else?” she demanded as Marcus quickly moved forward and grabbed her by the arm.
“I work with them all day long. Why would I want to eat with them?” he growled as he hustled her towards the camp.
“Some people actually like eating with their friends.”
“I don’t have friends. And I’m not some people.”
He stared at the sprawled-out bodies of the pack members and his fingers tightened painfully on her arm.
“What did you do to them?” he demanded angrily.
“Ouch! It’s a quick-acting drug—they’ll wake up in an hour!”
His grip loosened a little. He dragged her over to a couple of chairs, shoved her into one and sat down next to her.
“Then we’ll sit here and wait.”
It was a very tense, unpleasant hour. Marcus apparently wasn’t much of a conversationalist. While he sat there glowering, Chelsea kept busy by cleaning up. She picked up all the spilled coffee cups and washed them out using the old-fashioned pump that was connected to a well. Then she started picking up beer cans and beer bottles that were lying scattered on the ground.
As she finished, the pack members were starting to sit up, groaning and rubbing their heads.
“What the hell did you do to us?” Roman demanded, staggering to his feet.
“Fast-acting sedative in your coffee. But don’t worry, there was just one bad batch. Can I brew you some fresh?” she asked, smiling sweetly.
“No thanks, I’ll brew my own,” he growled at her. “Psychopath.”
“Criminal.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I’ll have some coffee,” Benjamin said to her. “Thanks for cleaning up, by the way. I try to keep up, but it’s hard to keep ahead of them.” He shot a glance at his packmates.
“Oh, my pleasure. I don’t suppose you have an oven? I could make muffins. I love to bake. Since I assume I’m going to be stuck here for the next 24 hours…”
“Muffins!” one of the pack members said happily. Paul, she was pretty sure his name was. Joyce had totally been checking him out the night before, and doing a terrible job of hiding it. “We never get muffins here. It’s all wild game and powdered eggs.”