“There’s a north road,” Dane said.
“No, there’s not.”
“There wasn’t two years ago, but the tribe that owns some of the land to the north gave a timber company permission to come in and thin it. The term ‘road’ is being generous. It’s a flat path with an incline, and it’ll mostly be mud, but it had to be good enough for the lumber trucks. I came up to verify they were following property lines…and I hated being this close to that cabin again. Once the adrenaline wore off, I couldn’t wait to get out of there that day.”
“Where is the turnoff for this road?”
“In about two miles.”
Jordan turned in the Jeep and shouted out the window, “We’re taking a north road. Anyone who continues on this road, stop in another three miles and proceed to the cabin on foot. The cabin is about six miles ahead. The poachers will most likely be in tree stands, and they seem to have a one-thousand-meter range. Our alpha female will most likely be in the cabin with our rogue Lycan—do not approach the cabin. Pass the message back.”
Jordan dropped back into his seat.
“Please tell me Mom didn’t find out this way,” Dane said to his dad. “You didn’t tell her, right?”
The older man shook his head. “She’s helping with this benefit coming up for the Multiple Sclerosis Society—she keeps asking me if fish goes with rice or if people will notice if some of the napkins are a shade lighter blue. I figure we can wait until after that’s over to tell her that her kids married werewolves. Also, the fact that I was bringing a gun on a visit to my new son-in-law’s house might have alarmed her.”
“In other circumstances, it might have alarmed me,” Jordan said. His heart rate was picking up, and it was getting more difficult to dampen the panic. Talking seemed to help with that, too, but when they arrived and they were trying to be silent—well, hopefully, he wouldn’t run toward the cabin screaming her name. “Christa says you were a sniper. She said that’s where she learned to shoot so well.”
Her father grinned, and it looked so much like Christa’s smile that he swallowed painfully. “Yes. I like to think I still am. You already saw her shoot, did you?”
Jordan smiled. “It was…impressive.”
“That’s my girl.” He glanced at Dane. “How morally ambiguous will I feel for firing on these men?”
“They’ve killed dozens of people.”
“Over a hundred—just before they dissect them and sell their parts on the black market or to be ground up and used to cure impotence,” Jordan said. “They killed an eighty-five-year-old woman two nights ago.”
“So not so morally ambiguous.”
Jordan shrugged. “I killed one two years ago, and it didn’t dent my conscience even a little.” He went still and then turned to Christa’s father. “But he was trying to kill your son and daughter-in-law…just to be clear.” He wasn’t sure what Christa had decided to tell her father—if she’d shared her preoccupation with individuals getting their throats ripped out for minor infractions, he was so screwed.
Christa’s father laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “They took Christa. I would blow the nuts off them just for that. I’ve killed men for less.” All the humans in the Jeep looked at one another and laughed.
Jordan took a deep breath and exhaled. And Garret thought he was the freak?
“Did I ever tell you the story about how Jordan tried to kill me…twice?” Dane asked.
“You should have known then that you were destined to be family,” Garret said, shoving Jordan.
Jordan shoved him back and looked out the window.
“Twice!” Dane said, holding up two fingers.
“Well, hell, did you use his mom’s china for target practice? Because I gotta say, I still haven’t replaced that serving platter, and you had one foot in the grave that day.”
“Christa suggested it!”
Jordan tried not to smile. Hopefully they wouldn’t get back to that whole killing-Dane thing.
“I wouldn’t bring that up, because it doesn’t speak to your intelligence that she conned you into trouble time and time again,” his father said.
“Wait, I almost talked you into shooting at Vanessa’s favorite mug,” Jordan said. “You really don’t learn.”
“He’s always been trying to prove that he’s a better shot than his sister, but he doesn’t get what she has going for her,” the older man said to Jordan.
“That she’s annoying,” Dane guessed.
“That, too. But also she’s so scrawny she’s always had to prove she was a force to be reckoned with. She used to talk her way onto the gun range to shoot every weekend. The girl had no social life, and she didn’t care as long as she could be better than Dane at something that would rub at him like a festering wound. The funny thing is that she only shoots to prove she’s good at it. She said she never plans to point it at something living.”
“She said she’s a pacifist,” Jordan said.
Dane snorted a laugh. “Yeah, she has a very different definition of that word. She turns into a shrieking monster around that time of the month. She’s worse than Lucifer.” He glanced back at Jordan. “Hey, another upside of you getting my sister…you get my sister.”
“She’s not that bad,” her father said. He and Dane exchanged a look. “Okay, she is, so plan to be elsewhere for a day or two.” He threw a look over his shoulder at the two in the backseat. “She gets that from her mother. They’re very emotional.”
Garret grinned. “She sounds fun.”
Jordan shoved him again.
They took the turnoff for the north road. Dane wasn’t kidding. The road was not a road, and the shocks on all the vehicles that came after them were going to need replacing when they reached the top of this. They couldn’t even talk. It was rattling them so much he was afraid he’d bite his tongue if he spoke.
Two jarring miles later, Dane stopped the Jeep. “We should probably continue on foot from here. It becomes less passable.”
“Less passable?” Travis asked, getting out of his SUV.
Ignoring him, Dane pointed east. “The tribal land ends just over that ridge right there. If we stick to the Forestry land, it’ll give us thicker cover.”
“Are we going on four feet or two feet?” Travis asked.
Jordan watched as more and more vehicles stopped on the primitive road. “It looks like others arrived.”
“Yeah, Black Tusk followed our group because they figured you’d be going after Ross, and they want payback for Colby. They’ve asked for Colby’s body back so they can bury him on pack land.”
Jordan raised his eyebrows.
Travis smiled slightly. “It turned out he didn’t die unmourned…and they hadn’t kicked him out. He was just looking for a mate. In fact, they considered him still pack. My pack wanted to take the poachers head-on, so I’m an Alpha without a pack, apparently, but I feel obligated to help with Ross.”
Lycans climbed up the road toward them. “I think we might need all the help we can get. How many do you think showed up?”
Travis grinned. “Your wife knows how to put out a call. I’d guess forty stayed on the lower road, and we have at least that with us. Also, I agreed with Dane’s theory and told the females in my group to stay at your house just in case this was a trap and the real action happened down there.” Alanna walked up beside him. “They didn’t all follow directions.”
“You were so full of it,” she said.
He turned and gave her a long look.
She cleared her throat and looked down.
“I’m staying on two feet with the Hansens and Garret, and we’re first to clear the cabin,” Jordan said. “If I’m right and Christa is in there, I’ll throw Ross out for you to deal with, but we’re not throwing a bunch of angry wolves into a small cabin with my mate.”
Travis nodded.
The Black Tusk Alpha, Miller, strode up. “Did I hear you right? You’re going to hand Ross over to us?”
It felt
foreign not to want vengeance—to only want Christa. “I just want my alpha female out of there safe, but I know Ross is gunning for Dane and me, so he might come to us. If he comes after us, you have my permission to take him off my hands. Dane and I are here on a rescue mission, not a hunt.”
More of the Glacier pack had arrived, and they nodded at this.
“My pack is going on four feet,” Miller said. “We’ll scout ahead since we’ll be faster.” The twenty from Black Tusk shifted and bolted toward the forest.
Christa’s father watched them go, shaking his head. “Incredible.”
“Glacier is on two feet?” Max asked.
“At this point,” Jordan said. He turned to Christa’s father. “How are you at running?”
“With my daughter in danger? You just try to keep up.” And he took off after Black Tusk.
“Your dad’s spry,” Jordan said. Wow. Look at him go.
“Yeah, you ought to try to outrun him when you’ve been using your mom’s china for target practice.”
“This is so…surreal,” Garret said, taking off at a jog.
Speed suited Jordan fine—he wished he could get to Christa faster, but he needed to stay beside her family. She had to be okay. She had to be. He couldn’t lose her now, especially when he’d been too stubborn to call for reinforcements.
Two miles later, Miller returned and shifted. “There’s a female in the cabin…singing…loudly…and off-key.”
Jordan breathed out a long exhale. His heart was still pounding, but it didn’t ache like it had a moment ago. He’d never heard Christa sing, but he knew that was her…and if she could sing, she was okay.
“It smells like Ross is in there with her, but I can’t hear him over her singing. The poachers seem to be watching the south as you predicted. I counted eight in the trees and five on the ground.”
“Thirteen?” Dane repeated. “You’re sure?”
“Maybe more—but that’s what we saw.”
“Looks like someone picked up some new recruits,” Travis said. “Or maybe the info we found was only on the leaders, and they have a bunch of underlings. That would make more sense as to how they’ve managed to wipe out packs like they have.”
Jordan shook his head. His pack would have been slaughtered. Even though they outnumbered the poachers now, having that many snipers up in the trees was going to make things difficult.
Miller nodded. “How are we getting those monkeys out of the trees so they don’t mow down the two packs coming from the south?”
Dane cleared his throat. “And that’s why you bring along a few humans.” He gestured at their guns.
Miller glanced at Jordan. “I heard you got a biped for acting Alpha. It’s like he’s the human version of you.”
Jordan said, “No, he’s not,” just as Dane also disagreed.
“Okay, let’s get these guns down there, because it’s only a matter of time before my pack all decides to go Alpha,” Travis said.
For how many Lycans and humans were in the square mile surrounding the cabin, it was dead still—and almost silent. The lack of wildlife would have alerted him to the massive number of predators.
Ross was definitely in the cabin with Christa, because he was yelling at her to stop singing. Christa was the only noise in the area, and it sounded like she was getting hoarse as she sang “Memory.” She sounded awful…and like the most beautiful thing he’d ever heard. If she kept singing, he could focus and get through this—and then he’d ask her never to sing again.
They met the Black Tusk pack forty feet from where the clearing started. Dane pulled a pair of binoculars out of his backpack. “The tree stands are facing to the south. We won’t have a clear shot at the snipers.”
His father laughed quietly.
“What?” Jordan asked.
“Not a clear shot of them, no—but shoot the top strap on those tree stands and they’ll pitch forward. That’ll get those monkeys out of the trees.”
“How are you with a gun?” Dane asked Garret.
“As good as, if not better than, Jordan.”
“How good is Jordan?”
“I have no idea.”
And with that, Dane handed him a gun. “You guys really are brothers.”
“We can’t use the cabin as cover,” Jordan whispered. “They’ll shoot right through it to get to us.”
They were moving quickly to the west when the first shot was fired—followed by a staccato of bullets. They ran another twenty feet before turning to face the clearing.
“Hell, we’re out of time,” Travis said, pulling out a revolver. “I told you how they are. Troy’s probably dead already.”
“Well, let’s throw off their aim then,” Christa’s dad said, kneeling beside a downed tree. He steadied the rifle on the trunk and took deep breaths as he adjusted his scope. A moment later, he inhaled, held his breath, and the crack of fire was followed by the snapping sound of a strap. The sniper in the tree shouted and grabbed for the stand as it tipped forward. He managed to hang on, but it broke the confidence of the snipers briefly. It stopped the hail of bullets on the ground, and Jordan watched in amazement as a wave of Lycans rushed forward.
There were so many. It looked like the forest was moving in a wave of fur.
“Holy hell,” Christa’s dad said.
“Yeah,” Dane agreed and knelt down behind the same fallen tree.
Garret shook his head and dropped down beside him. “I’ve known about them my whole life, and that still looks like CGI.”
“There’s no way I can get a clear shot at those poachers on the ground, and I couldn’t hit those straps without a scope,” Travis said. “I’ll watch to see if we draw their fire.” He scanned the tree line with his revolver ready.
The gunfire began again, from both the ground and the trees.
“Cover us, and we’ll go at them from the other side,” Miller said. “Remember, Ross is ours.” He shifted and with a howl led the Black Tusk pack around the rim of the clearing to attack and draw fire to the west.
Christa’s dad fired again and swore. “Don’t tell Christa I missed.”
Dane fired. “Don’t worry, I got that one.”
Others in his pack were kneeling and firing at those in trees, too.
Garret was definitely not as good a shot as him.
“Uh-oh, duck,” Travis said, shoving Alanna to the ground, diving down on top of her.
They all took cover just in time for a spray of bullets to pepper the trees all around them.
“Get off me,” Alanna complained beneath Travis.
“No, stay down.” Travis motioned over to Jordan. “That came from a Hummer out on the road just past the cabin. It’s been hidden behind those damn bushes.” The bloated black vehicle pulled forward, giving the passengers a clear shot of everyone on their side of the cabin.
Glacier pack scrambled behind cover and Jordan pushed his brother forward out of the line of sight. Snapping his head toward his group, his eyes met Max’s.
“On it,” Max said, nodding at several Glacier pack. “Shoot out the windows for us when I signal.”
“I can do that,” Jordan said, taking Max’s rifle.
“You sure?” Dane asked. “I saw you get schooled by my little sister.”
Another spray of bullets erupted from the Hummer.
“Hell, they got Kennedy,” Jordan said, standing up.
“I’ll cover you,” Garret said, standing up, too.
Jordan shouldered the rifle and walked forward, firing steadily on the Hummer. His first two bullets broke through the windows, the third and fourth shattered the glass, the fifth took out the sniper in the driver seat and sent the other gunmen ducking and hiding. He reached Kennedy just as Max and several Glacier Lycans jumped into the Hummer. Kennedy hadn’t shifted back, and he knelt beside her. A large patch of blood was spreading on one of her shoulders.
“I got this!” Alanna said, kneeling beside Jordan. She turned to Travis as he dropped with a bu
lky backpack. “See, this is why I ignored your asinine order to stay behind.”
“I wasn’t actually talking to you,” Travis said, yanking the zipper open. The bag was full of medical supplies. “It would have been stupid to bring all this first aid equipment and leave behind a doctor.”
“You said all the females!”
“Not you,” Travis said, handing her gauze.
“Bleeding to death,” Kennedy said, finally shifting. The fact that she’d shifted relieved him. Lycans stayed in wolf form if their wounds were mortal. It was their way.
Alanna pressed the gauze to Kennedy’s shoulder. “The bullet went straight through. It’ll hurt like the devil, but if we can get this bleeding stopped, you’ll be fine. Here, Travis, put pressure here while I get this tied. Are you saying I’m not a female?” She scowled as she wrapped the gauze and tied it in place.
Travis went still. He handed Jordan his revolver. “My pack needs its Alpha.” He shifted and bolted straight through the clearing rather than around.
Swearing, Jordan sighted on a poacher on the ground who’d turned toward Travis. He aimed high to avoid hitting Lycans behind the human. Moments after the bullet ripped into the poacher’s throat, the poacher reflexively shot up into the air just above Travis.
“That was crazy awesome,” Kennedy said, lifting her head to watch. “Both of you.”
“Travis did that just to avoid answering my question,” Alanna said. “Stay lying here if you can—if it’s safe,” she said to Kennedy. “I should work my way around to the other side. Only I’m not going to stroll through the clearing like an idiot.” She got up and ran at a low crouch, carrying the bag.
Inside, Christa started singing “Oklahoma.” He inhaled and pushed back the desire to rush to her side. She wouldn’t be singing if she were in danger. They had to be able to hear the gunfire in the cabin, but Ross wouldn’t kill Christa—she was his way to get to Dane and him. She’d be okay.
The wolf snarled, but he pushed it back. He couldn’t shift. He could reason with the man, but the wolf wouldn’t be able to stay away from Christa, and they still needed an Alpha out here—and running toward the cabin might draw fire that way.
This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) Page 26
