"I'm not going to run," I whispered as Rooster picked up the two bags and followed after his younger brother.
"Good," he snapped. "Because I can't help you if you do."
I tried to twist my arm out of his tight grip but he only squeezed harder. He didn't want to help me, that much was clear. But time and again he had shown that he would do everything within his power to save his baby sister from having to shed a single tear.
A thick lump formed in my throat. I was only as safe as Clover's affection for me, and that had seemed to all but disappear the last few months.
I wasn't safe at all.
"We need to get in the Jeep and get moving," he said, dragging me toward the door. "They're sitting ducks while you try to stall."
I squashed the urge to point out that he was the one who had held me back. Instead, I let him fold me into the front seat, Clover in the back with Clark next to her and Rooster on his bike following behind the Jeep. Braeden kept his right hand on the stick shift the entire time, the fingers tensing whenever I moved the slightest and his gaze more often slanted in my direction than on the road.
When we finally pulled up to the front of Clark and Rooster's home, I was ready to jump out just to escape the silent antagonism, but I forced myself to remain in place until a curt nod of Braeden's head signaled his permission for me to unhook my seat belt.
Once inside the house, Clark helped Clover into the basement where the brothers had a massive recreational room set up complete with three couches, two giant screen televisions with all the major game boxes hooked up, a bathroom and a pool table that I still wasn't sure how they had ever fit it down the stairs.
I turned to follow, but Braeden seized my wrist and pulled me in the opposite direction.
"Borrowing the bedroom," Braeden said as we sailed pass Rooster.
"Already?"
The underlying hostility in Rooster's question shocked me. From what I had observed, the Woodsmen worked in many ways like a military unit. Club officers were to be treated with respect, even if you didn't like them. And Braeden was just one spot below the top position within the club.
"Watch it, cub," Braeden growled as he tugged me the rest of the way into the bedroom and closed the door.
A second later he had my back against the wall, his hard chest pressing against me as he forced me to look up at his scowling face, the green eyes blazing with anger.
"You don't run," he warned.
"I said I wouldn't."
Damn, he was really pissed about Clover's promise to protect me.
"You don't do anything that makes it look like you want to," he said, his chest pressing harder against mine, my breasts flattening and my lungs refusing to inflate. "Do you understand?"
I nodded, gasped for air and nodded again.
"Say it."
"Can't," I wheezed and pushed at his arms.
He jerked back, his body no longer crushing mine. His arms came up to cage me as he planted his palms on the wall. "I need you to say it, I need you to show you understand how much danger you are in right now."
At that second, the only person I felt threatened by was the man in front of me, his gaze boring into me with a fury I hadn't earned.
"What do you care?" I asked, my own anger finally flaring to a point I could not fully control. "Clover's barely talked to me the last few months. If one of your people kills me, she won't be nearly as upset as you seem to think."
I hoped it wasn't true, but I still felt the weight of the silence and strain that had blanketed our interactions since early October.
"I'm not doing this for my baby sister," he growled, his big head lowering to within an inch of mine. My eyes crossed as I tried to match his angry stare.
"Then why are you doing it?"
Certainly not for the reason I wished.
He pressed his forehead against mine, tapped them together once. "If you get hurt, I can't heal you like I did with Clover. If you get shot or cut up, I'd be as useless as a human."
"Jeez, thanks."
Nice to know his general opinion about my kind.
He growled, his lips so close to mine I could feel the vibrations.
"You don't have to like what I say or the orders I give, you just have to obey them. Now tell me what I need to hear."
"Fine," I snapped. "You're an asshole."
Hey, he certainly needed to hear that. May not have been what he wanted, but definitely something he needed.
His hands seized the sides of my head, fresh pain scraping at the flesh wound I had received during the shooting. Turning my head, he brushed his lips against my ear, his voice a menacing whisper.
"Don't be a smart ass, Paisley. I'm not fucking joking."
Releasing me, he stepped back and crossed his arms across his massive chest.
"I can't promise anything." A quiver danced across my lips. I couldn't count how many times I had wanted to be that close to him, his hands and mouth in the same position they had been just seconds before but the intent accompanying their placement entirely different.
"How can I," I whispered, "when all I want to do is run?"
********************
Braeden
I left Paisley sulking with my sister in the basement of Rooster and Clark's home, their proxy vote in my pocket as I made my way to the clubhouse for the special session of church that Taron had called as news of the shooting spread.
Pulling into the clubhouse parking lot, I knew we were facing October all over again. Instead of only bikes, there were cars and trucks. The male shifters with mates and children had brought them along. The exterior storm shutters were closed on the clubhouse and I would have bet my bike that the interior, steel plated, shutters were closed and locked, too.
The cubs were probably down in the basement, the entrance open to the underground caverns the pack retreated to in times of danger. That kind of hysteria didn't bode well for Paisley -- or Clover.
My baby sister had saved all their sorry asses back in October with a brilliant plan to blackmail a small army of shapeshifters in Illinois from attacking us. But knowing she was the target of the shooting at Holly Ulster's cabin would leave some of them drooling and ready to throw her to the packs in Illinois to save their own hides.
I bounded up the steps to the front. Knowing by the closed shutters that the entrance would be locked as well, I slammed my fist against it a few times. The door jerked open to reveal Joshua Reeves, one of the pack's few cats, with a sick sheen to his skin.
"How are things?" he asked, squeezing each word out like he was pissing watermelons.
"Clover will be fine," I snarled, stepping around him.
Mojo slid next to us and closed the door as Joshua grabbed my arm. "I heard P--"
I froze him with a look before he could say her name. If he was going to try to use Paisley to inch his ass a little closer to the pack leader position, I would rip his guts out and feed them to him.
"That's everyone," Taron said, spotting me at the door. He stepped from a chair onto the only table capable of holding his weight, his head almost brushing the twelve foot ceiling. Standing next to the table was Onyx, his mate and the source of last October's tensions.
I looked around. The place was standing room only. The official ranks of the Woodsmen had swelled since the clash with the Illinois packs, the more isolated shifters that hung at the fringes of Night Falls under a truce finally joining the pack.
"By now you've all heard about a shooting up at Holly Ulster's ranch," Taron bellowed.
A wave of whispers erupted. Taron raised his hands, a building rumble in his chest audible over the discontented murmurs of his audience.
I shook my head. He was crazy if he thought I would ever want to step into his shoes. Hell, I didn't want to be veep, but I'd be damned if Mallory Craw was going to fill my seat. All that damn wolf knew how to do was rile everyone up to advance his position.
As Taron quieted the crowd, I glanced around in search of Craw. He was
just a few feet from me, his back braced against the bar, his face set like stone but still looking like he was an oily bastard.
My stomach did a sick flip as Landa Judd leaned forward from where she stood behind the bar to catch my eye. I gave her a hard stare meant to communicate that whatever had happened in my drunken state the night before was a never-to-be-repeated event.
Her lip curled at one corner, the bright blue eyes crinkling as she sneered at me.
Fucking cats...
I forced my attention back to Taron and tried to forget I might have actually fucked a cat -- especially that one.
"Clover Hughes was shot," Taron said, his hands palm down and pressing at empty air to keep the room's noise to a low buzz of shock. "She's healing at a safe location at the moment. We don't know who the shooter was, but we believe he wasn't human."
Taron's hands could have danced for an hour and he wouldn't have lessened the outbreak of protests and chest beating among the shifters assembled.
"Calm yourselves!" the big bear roared. "If you're going to act like children, go down to the basement and sit with your cubs!"
I snorted, but quickly sobered. There was more at risk than finding out who had shot at Clover and whether a larger threat to the entire pack loomed on the horizon. Paisley's life was at stake, too.
"I've talked to the leaders of the Illinois prides and packs," Taron continued. "They all disclaim any knowledge. As disturbing as the idea is, this could be no more than a personal vendetta against Clover."
A few nods broke out in the crowds before the shifters in question uncomfortably looked around to find me staring at them. Yeah, my little sister could be a pain in the ass when she was on a mission to do good, but she had saved every sorry skin in this club.
Mallory gave one of his slick, interrupting coughs, his lanky frame pushing away from the bar as he began to speak.
"While I appreciate the desire some might have as regards Miss Hughes..." Pausing, he reached behind him and swiped his cell phone off the bar top. "I received a rather disturbing video this afternoon that suggests someone from one of the Illinois groups is behind this despite the smoke they may have blown up our esteemed pack leader's ass."
Nervous snickers punctuated the air before the room went silent once more.
"And you decided to withhold this information why?" Taron boomed, climbing down from the table.
The crowd parted around him as he stalked toward Mallory, the older wolf shrinking back against the bar.
Just when I thought he was about to piss himself, Mallory straightened and looked at the shifters gathered closest to him.
"I wanted everyone to see the video rather than having you pick and choose what information we get."
His authority challenged one time too many, Taron opened his mouth a little too soon.
"I'm being completely transparent." His big hand swiped at the phone, but Mallory managed to slide it to his opposite hand just as he landed a verbal blow to his pack leader.
"So you're just being slow letting us know that Paisley Williams was also shot?" Mallory sniped. "Is she also healing or did the shooter at least take care of that little problem for us?"
Fire flamed at my face and torso. I took a step toward Mallory, a growl on my lips, but Taron ordered me back with his eyes just as Onyx slid in front of me and placed a restraining hand against my chest, her alpha energy flowing through her palm to soothe me.
"Garland," Taron shouted as he cast his gaze about for the elk shifter who was just as much a tech nerd as my little sister and the club's go to for all our hardware and wiring needs.
The seventeen year old gracefully shouldered his way through the crowd of larger men and their mates to stand by Taron's side, announcing his arrival with a soft cough. Taron jerked his head at Mallory who handed his phone over to the boy.
"Can you get this to play on the television?" Taron looked around at the pinched and scowling faces. "We'll all watch it together."
"Yes, sir," Garland answered after a glance at the bottom of the phone. "What's the security pin?"
Saying nothing, Mallory gave the boy a guilty look and Garland grinned.
As the young elk passed within a foot of me, my legs twitched with the need to leap forward and snatch the phone from his grasp. We had no idea what was on there, only Mallory did. The video might clearly show Clover transforming and Paisley discovering her wolf.
With Onyx shadowing my every step, I followed after Garland as he approached the television with its seventy-inch screen. A big hand landed on my shoulder. Taron's alpha energy took over for his mate's in seeking to calm me.
I tried to shrug him off. The hand slid up to squeeze at the back of my neck.
"I know exactly how you feel," he growled softly into my ear, his proof standing next to him, her eyes as black as her name.
I huffed. I was in no shape to listen to reason. I was deaf to his reminder of his own mate being threatened just a few months before and how he had kept his advocacy for her so veiled she had thought he had abandoned her for the good of the pack.
Done coddling me, Taron directed a hard wave of his energy at me. Thrown off balance by its force, I landed on my ass in one of the chairs near the television. With both hands on the top of my shoulders, he exerted enough pressure to pin me in the chair unless I wanted to fight back.
A fight between me and my boss would tell the pack everything they needed to know.
Garland glanced up, found Taron and lifted a bushy brow. "Ready?"
No, no, and hell no!
"Yes," Taron rasped, his grip on my shoulders tightening.
Confusion rippled through me as I saw some of the video the pack had made last fall. It had been Clover's idea, a sort of post-apocalyptic movie trailer of the fallout of the Illinois packs attacking Night Falls and the human world learning of the existence of shifters then hunting them to the brink of extinction. We had also exposed the truth to the packs that different species of shifters could successfully breed with other shifters.
"What is this, Mallory? A joke?" Taron growled. "We've seen this."
"Give it a few more seconds," Mallory answered from where he watched some ten feet away from where I sat.
A leap and a half and I could be tearing his throat out. The thought calmed me and I forced my attention back to the television set just as the video switched from the pack's cut to Clover and Paisley coming out of Holly Ulster's cabin.
My body slowed as Paisley reached the barn and started tugging on the door. Clover grabbed a pair of gloves from her Jeep, put them on and started to tug on the other door. Overlaying the video was the quiet sound of the woods and the deep, even breathing of the shooter -- calm as a cat snoozing in a puddle of sunlight.
The first shot snapped through the air. I knew Clover was hit first and so I kept my gaze on her, saw the first shot slam into her shoulder and spin her ninety degrees before she bounced off the barn door and hit the ground.
Then the shooter took aim at Paisley, someone whose sole crime was being Clover's friend, someone who didn't know the pack's secret and had always been an outsider to the shifters gathered around me.
Wood splintered near her as she finally realized that Clover was hit.
My stomach tried to squeeze its way up my throat as Paisley dropped to the ground and rolled to where my baby sister lay bleeding. Pride swelled my chest as she dragged Clover into the safety of the barn. Anger soon followed as she foolishly darted across the aisle, exposing herself to the shooter once more to get the first aid kit from the supply stall.
None of it, not even seeing Clover hit the ground, compared to the moment Paisley wandered dazed from shock into the center of the aisle once more, phone to her ear as she talked to me. I heard as the shooter pulled back the handle on the bolt-action rifle and ejected the spent casing. Another bullet was inserted as the bolt closed.
The tip of the barrel came into view as the shooter angled for a kill shot, the breathing still that of a trai
ned assassin -- calm, even, deadly.
The shot rang out. Paisley jerked, her head snapping back and to the right. The phone slipped from her fingers and then she collapsed to the ground and the screen went black.
A short-lived silence of maybe ten seconds followed what looked like a kill shot, the sadistic shooter editing everything from the last slide of his bolt to Paisley hitting the dirt so that it played in slow motion.
When the whispers started up, they all had the same flow. Had Clover transformed? Had Paisley seen Clover shift? Was the shot that dropped the human actually a kill shot? That was good, right? Holly Ulster was dead. No one outside of the pack would know Paisley went missing in Night Falls. Would anyone at her school even bother to investigate?
My nails erupted and clawed at the chair as Taron pushed harder on my shoulders to keep me in place.
"Don't make me sit on you, cub" he rumbled softly in my ear before pulling entirely away and roaring the crowd back into some semblance of order.
"Enough! Paisley Williams is alive. Her good health is no threat to the pack."
"We need to focus on the shooter," Joshua agreed, his words surprising me.
Usually he was second in line to cause trouble for Taron or me, his cat's whiskers halfway up Mallory's ass, both of them jockeying to claim position as pack leader.
"Paisley was nothing more than collateral damage--"
"I wouldn't be so sure," Landa hissed as she slinked in front of the television, her face purpling. "Why would someone go out to Holly Ulster's and hide in the woods to shoot Clover?"
"There was datura on the bullet," Taron announced, his words greeted with a collective gasp. "And Paisley has nothing to do with last October."
"Plus everyone knows the two of them are thick as thieves," Joshua added.
I stared at him, slowly processing his words and the hard red spots that colored his cheeks as he glared at Landa.
Fuck, the bastard liked Paisley.
That was one revelation I couldn't process.
"Then why wasn't the shot of Clover in slow motion?" Landa snarled as she moved in on Joshua. "Why did the shooter stay until Paisley dropped?"
Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Wolf BBW Shapeshifter Romance) Page 4
