"But why the poisoned bullet?" Taron asked, his normally booming voice soft with contemplation.
Landa shrugged, her expression suddenly bored except for the color that refused to fade from her cheeks. "Maybe like Joshua said, they're thick as thieves. Shoot Clover or any other shifter up there first because you won't get a second shot."
One over-manicured brow shot up an inch or more as she seemed to reach some brilliant idea. "Or maybe it was a warning about getting cozy with humans. Clover's dumb video threatened to expose shifters to humans, but little Miss Hypocrite is practically all lesbian for one."
Fresh silence blanketed the room, this time lasting a full minute before Mallory broke in with the one question I had most dreaded.
"Tell us, Taron, does Paisley Williams know about the pack?"
"Has to," Landa smirked as she cozied up to Mallory, her breasts pressing against him as she draped an arm around his shoulder. Her gaze whipped around the room until it landed on Finch, one of the Woodsmen who had arrived to search the woods while I was healing my sister.
Landa smiled her bitchiest smile as her eyes hooked mine. "Didn't you say Braeden carried Clover out of the barn barefoot and wrapped in blankets?"
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Finch said nothing. I glanced over to find him staring at his feet. He shouldn't have been gossiping with the she-cat and he knew it. But he'd probably fed her every last detail he had in the hopes of spending a little time under her skirt or with her mouth around his cock. Maybe her mouth had been around his cock while told her everything.
Landa's conjecture took immediate root in the minds of the shifters around me. The men and their mates stopped thinking about a single shooter and started worrying about exposure to the human world. Hadn't the entire pack agreed a few short months ago that nothing was worse than just that scenario?
Now a human had discovered not only that shifters existed, but also knew all their social connections within the motorcycle club and Night Falls and could betray them all.
"Paisley Williams is not a threat," Taron reminded the room with his booming voice and a snarl. "But I understand how some of you are quick to bring out the pitchforks."
His gaze landed first on Mallory and Landa, the two of them almost cuddling and both wearing a smirk, before it skipped to some of the more hysterical members of the pack.
"Some of you," he continued, his honey gold eyes skipping around to pick out the newest members of the pack, "I barely know at all and most of you don't know the girl, not even by sight."
"I know Holly Ulster," one of the newcomer's announced.
I glanced over my shoulder to see an old bear, the oldest shifter we had among us and probably older than any human in Night Falls, even the geriatric couple that ran the hotel on the other side of Taron's mountain.
"She was a fine dancer when she was younger," the old-timer mused. "And an even finer woman, the kind who respected all nature had to offer. 'magine she raised the girl up right."
I blinked away the threat of tears, told myself they were fueled by nothing more than anger and not the old bear's generosity in speaking up on behalf of Paisley.
"A month," Taron said, retaking control of the discussion. "That's what I am offering everyone."
No more sedate than a two-year-old cub the morning after Halloween, my attention darted around the room, reading the faces of those gathered. Heads shook in confusion as the relevance of the month offered remained out of reach.
Taron elaborated. "During that month, Paisley Williams will not move without a shifter by her side."
I nodded as his plan started to make sense. He wanted a cooling off period, but I wasn't sure he could keep the peace for a full month based on all the fear palpably running through the audience.
"She will be guarded," Taron went on, his tone taking on a slick tone that had me jerking my head back in his direction.
"And she will be courted."
"Wait..." I fumbled with the word before drawing a sharp breath to recharge my lungs. "What are you saying?"
"Paisley will be viewed as less of a threat if her connection to the pack is more than just your baby sister," he answered, a bearish grin pushing up the corners of his mouth. "And I know more than one Woodsman who wouldn't mind having her as a mate."
"I second the president's plan," Joshua jumped in.
"Third," Mojo said, his mate standing next to him and urging him on. "We owe Paisley and her grandmother that much time."
"Any objections?" Taron asked with a trace of menace.
I looked around the room, saw no one willing to speak out against the idea, not even Mallory and the seething she-cat who glared at me when our gazes met.
Returning my attention to Taron, I found him staring at me.
"None?" he asked.
I had a line of objections as long as my arm, or at least as long as my dick. Paisley wasn't some club sweet butt for every horny, unmated shifter to go after now that that the pack leader had declared her fair game. She had a life beyond the pack, was halfway through a semester in college and had an internship to return to.
But nothing I could say stacked up against the irrational fear infecting the shifters around me or the memory of Paisley's body hitting the ground as the shooter's last bullet found its mark.
I shook my head, shoulders sagging as I signaled my acquiescence.
"So it's decided," Taron announced, the grin on his face too sly to belong to a bear as he continued to gaze into my eyes. "I'll leave it to you to break the news and make she understands exactly what's at stake."
********************
Paisley
Stuck in Rooster and Clark's basement, I didn't hear Braeden's motorcycle when he returned. I knew something was up anyway by the way Clover stiffened then sat up on the foldout bed.
"Here," I said, uncapping a water bottle and handing it to her. "You haven't had any for at least fifteen minutes."
Before he left for some top secret meeting that probably included deciding my fate, Braeden had told me to push fluids on Clover. Not only had she lost a lot of blood, but he said the bullet had been coated with some kind of substance that would make Clover not only sicker but potentially mental until it was flushed from her system.
He had ordered Clark to stay in the room with me, as well, in case Clover freaked out from the possible hallucinations. Except for a few minutes of confusion when she thought we were still fourteen, she seemed okay, but I had managed to get about three liters of water into her over the last two hours.
She pushed the bottle back into my hands without even pretending to take a sip.
"This is about to become a water bed," she groused, throwing the blanket off and putting her feet on the floor.
She stood, unsteady but waving me off when I rose to help her.
"You really want to watch me pee?"
"Not really," I agreed with a sigh. But I also didn't want to be away from her. She was, after all, the only reason I was still alive after discovering the pack's secret.
"Tell Braeden to wait until I'm out," she said, feet shuffling in the direction of the basement's small bathroom.
"What?" My head whipped up and around just as the door at the top of the stairs opened and I heard a heavy boot hit the first step.
"Never mind," she answered, even her voice sounding hollow from all the blood she had spilled onto the dirt floor of my grandmother's barn. "I'll tell him myself."
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, the wobbly handrail supporting her weight as she looked up and waited for Braeden to appear.
His gaze met mine first then drifted down to Clover's. "Why aren't you in bed?"
"Chinese water torture," she sniped. "Under your orders if I recall correctly. And now I have to piss like a motherfucker."
He scowled as he always did when she turned into a complete potty mouth.
"Wait for me," she said, her shuffle restarting but impaired by the tight press of her thighs as she fought the urge to urinate.<
br />
"No," he said, his green gaze back on me and trying to skull fuck its way into my brain. "Paisley is coming with me -- now."
What the hell? Were they going to execute me already? Was he going to walk me out into the woods and put a bullet in my head, one that wouldn't just graze my flesh but snuff me out of existence?
"Braeden..." Clover's voice trembled with an unspoken question.
"She's fine," he snapped before his strained face mellowed slightly. "But this is about her, little sister, not you. So I'll talk to her first, and I'll do it alone."
"It's okay," I reassured Clover as I gathered my jacket into my arms. I wasn't sure I trusted what Braeden was saying, but, even together, she and I didn't have the strength to change the outcome.
"Really," I said, stopping at the foot of the stairs. "Go take care of yourself before Clark has to break out the mop."
She frowned, but relented after one last look at her brother.
Not looking at any of the shifters in the room, especially the big bad wolf still standing halfway up the staircase, I slid past him. I heard him pivot and follow after me, his hand catching one of the belt loops at the back of my jeans and hooking it.
"You find the shooter?" I asked, making small talk as we ascended the stairs.
"No, but we know it was a bolt action rifle, probably a 308 for the rounds based on the slugs dug out of the barn and dirt."
I stopped and looked at him. "I couldn't find Holly's rifle when I was out there."
"Bolt action, 308?"
I nodded, my stomach bottoming out as I realized I might have been shot by my grandmother's rifle.
Reaching the top of the stairs, I turned toward the empty living room but Braeden tugged me by the belt loop toward the front door.
"We'll talk in the barn."
Right. I had forgotten about Clover's earlier warning. Out in the open, most of the shifters could hear up to ten miles depending on the terrain. The walls on Rooster and Clark's home weren't thick enough to shield anything we said from Clark and Clover's hearing.
Good thing I had reflexively brought my jacket.
Not that a corpse needed one.
"Cut it out," Braeden growled as he pulled the front door shut behind us.
"What?"
Was I wrong about the whole mind reading thing?
Seizing my elbow, he steered me off the porch and toward the barn. "Your scent is dripping with fear. If Taron had ordered you killed, I wouldn't be the one carrying out the order."
"Nice pep talk," I snarked. "Seriously, you should consider becoming a life coach or something."
"You might want to curb that smart mouth for the next thirty days," Braeden warned as he opened the barn door just enough for us to slide inside.
Seeing the stalls, a chill ran over me. It didn't matter that the brothers' barn was only a few decades old and gran's was over the century mark. The similarities were enough in the near darkness to bring back painful flashes of memory. Dragging Clover inside, getting shot at as I raced for the first aid kit, the drop down from the loft to find a wolf...
I sucked a panicky breath in and tried to bolt out the door.
Braeden caught me by the back of my coat, spun me and pushed me into one of the few stalls that wasn't occupied by a cow or goat. He forced me to keep moving until my back pressed against the barn wall.
"Remember what I said," he snarled. "I can't heal you if you're hurt and I can't protect you if you run."
"You don't want to protect me," I bit out.
Sound vibrating through his throat and past his lips, Braeden pressed his big body against mine before he sank his first barb.
"What I want is irrelevant. You run and you put yourself and my sister in danger. Packs aren't interchangeable. It's not like moving to a new city and making new friends. You're either with a pack or you're dead and most packs don't let new members in."
"Fine," I whispered, my own breath bouncing against his massive chest. "What did you need to tell me?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead he issued a surly "stay" command and left the stall. He returned with a crate. When he ordered me to sit on it, I didn't argue, my knees wobbly from the flood of emotions.
I wondered if he could scent each one separately, knew what they meant or if he had only been guessing at my being afraid earlier.
"There weren't many people who spoke up for you at the meeting," he began, his words making me wonder if he was one of the few who had. "People are afraid. Some even think the shooter was after you and not Clover."
I laughed at the idea, the sound devoid of actual mirth.
"Yeah, I agree," he said, his voice equally humorless. "But it's a reasonable conclusion after watching the video."
"There's a video of the shooting?" Sweat popped out all along my body and my chest suddenly became too tight to breathe. What kind of sick freak videotaped a murder -- even if they had failed in their actual objective?
"Yes..." he hung on the word so long that I could almost imagine the images playing back through his mind.
He would have been shocked to see the bullet hitting Clover. I could only guess what he felt when the bullet grazed me -- probably remorse that the shooter's aim had worsened. With me dead, he'd have one less thing to worry about.
Surprising me, Braeden gathered my hands into his. "The video isn't important right now. Taron wants you mated to someone in the pack before the month's up."
"Mated!" I screeched the word, my voice certainly carrying beyond the confines of the barn to the patrols Braeden had assigned before leaving for the pack meeting.
"Married," he amended after shushing me. "Whatever you want to call it."
"Believe me, I've got plenty of things to call--"
Gently, he placed a finger over my lips to stop the flow of protests. "Remember what I said about keeping that mouth of yours in check?"
I nodded. He was right. I had thirty days to think my way out of this bullshit without endangering myself or Clover.
"You will always have someone from the pack with you," he continued. "Mostly me unless you're out on a date."
I grunted at him trying to pretty up a forced marriage by calling the inspection process a "date" but didn't otherwise interrupt.
"You don't have to date anyone you don't want to..."
I shook my head, a fresh wave of hysteria making the motion wild. My hair started to fall out of the loose bun I had piled it into. I reached up, snagged part of the pony tail holder and yanked it out before burying my face in my hands.
"Taron didn't think this through," I whispered. "I lived in this valley for eighteen years without meeting a boy who even wanted to hold my hand. Clover and gran were my only friends."
"Hey, that's not true." Braeden slid a finger under my chin and forced my head up.
I could barely make out his shadow but knew he could see me more clearly. Clover had already done her duty to the pack by warning me of all the ways I would be detected if I tried to escape -- the noises, no matter how quiet, I would make, my form visible no matter how dark, my scent carried for miles on the wind and clinging even to the rocks I walked on.
Closing my eyes, I pulled back from his touch. I was either going to die in Night Falls before the next month rolled around or be married to some aged skunk shifter -- if there was such a thing. If there wasn't, I would be shit out of luck and dead.
I couldn't stop the tears when they came. My pride took a back seat to my self pity. I didn't care that I was sobbing in front of the man I'd lusted after since my early teens, a man whose life would have been so much easier if the shooter's aim had been truer, a man who'd been sending heavy signals for half a decade that he wanted me out of his sister's life.
"Enough of that." Braeden cradled my cheeks between his big hands, the thumbs swiping gently at my wet cheeks. "You'll have plenty of suitors."
Snorting, I tried to slap his hands away but he wouldn't let go. For some stupid reason, he thought I should be happy ma
rrying an old skunk -- literally, an old skunk.
"And if I don't?" I challenged
"Then I'll claim you."
I snorted again then realized he was serious.
Launching to my feet, I stumbled backward, accidentally kicking the crate until it was against the wall. My hands balled into fists and I slammed one against his chest. "You vain, over-confident jackass!"
I hit him again, this time both hands beating against his chest. "What makes you think I wouldn't prefer dying over being mated to you!"
With his ego bruised more than his chest, Braeden lifted me off my feet and shoved me against the wall, my body suspended so that my toe of my shoes just barely touch the top of the crate.
"Put me down, you ass," I hissed. "You think I don't know how much you hate me? How you feel whenever you look at me or think about me being friends with Clo?"
"My feelings don't matter," he growled, his chest pushing against my breasts as his hands captured my face and my feet fully touched the crate.
His feelings mattered to me. But I wasn't about to tell him how many nights I'd cried myself to sleep over his growing disregard and hostility.
"What makes you think I would want you?" I ground out despite the heat building between my thighs and the way my nipples prickled from the contact of his chest against mine.
"The way your pussy smelled this morning." A soft, menacing laugh exposed my transparency. "The way it smells right now."
He burrowed past my hair and the collar of my coat to nuzzle my neck.
"Every pore on your skin is breathing out arousal, tickling my nose. Every time you visit, it permeates the house."
I froze as his hands tugged at the buttons on my coat. His lips vibrated an angry growl against my throat with each button undone.
"I almost lost you today, had to watch that damn video of it. And now you've got his scent on you."
Cold permeated my blouse to prick my skin as Braeden pushed the coat halfway down my arms.
"Sitting in his house, on his furniture..."
The growl grew more menacing. I started to shake, the cold and my body's initial reaction to Braeden's presence having nothing to do with the tremor that ran through me.
Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (A Night Falls Alpha Wolf BBW Shapeshifter Romance) Page 5
