The question was—would the cowboy shifter see through my bluff before the girls’ plan bore fruit?
Ah, here we go. A pencil was fumbled out of a waistband...just not by the girl I’d assumed would possess the small weapon. Instead, Savannah was the one who shrieked out an attack cry, Savannah was the one who lunged forward, and Savannah was the one who fell into the unnamed captor’s outstretched arms.
“What the...” he began. The outpack male had reached for the girl, I realized, out of some nearly forgotten sense of chivalry rather than in an effort to recapture a prisoner who was already restrained hand and foot. But when those bound hands raised and stabbed a pointy graphite tip into the male’s open eye, his scream was gut-wrenching.
The SSS member fell to the ground, writhing as he cradled his injured face with both arms. And without free hands and legs to halt her descent, Savannah plummeted earthward right along with him. But the spunky halfie shuffled to one side as soon as she landed, bracing her back against the altar even as Lia completed her shift atop the other standing stone.
My youngest pack mate must have begun calling on her wolf the moment I stepped into the clearing in order to have so quickly gained fur. And, even so, her transformation was far from smooth. She was excited and scared, I knew, Quill’s knife only inches away from her jugular and who knows what fate on the horizon if she failed. But with her captor’s attention trained on me and then on his injured compatriot, the teenager was able to not only don fur but also to wriggle her way out of the now-loose ropes that had previously bound her wrists and ankles together.
And then the fight was on. It still wasn’t a fair fight—a tired halfie wolf, a tied teenager wielding a pencil, and me with the pointy stick I’d just now scooped back up off the ground against two armed and able-bodied men. But as Lia leapt from one stone to the other and ended up crouched against her new friend’s back, I knew we made up in grit what we lacked in firepower. For the first time all day, I truly believed all three of us would make it out of there alive.
But I didn’t have time to join my companions beside the standing stone because Quill had finally gotten his act together and was reaching for his handgun. Mick was a bit slower on the draw, but I could tell from the look in the lead SSS member’s eyes that my almost-pack-mate wasn’t going to bluff this time around. He’d aim for my shoulder or leg—not quite close enough to the head or chest to kill me outright but still causing a serious enough wound that I’d be forced to stay put while he ripped out my beating heart.
Not happening, my wolf growled. We didn’t have time to think or to plan, just to lunge at the greatest threat in exactly the way Hunter had trained us to.
It wasn’t a killing blow, but it wasn’t meant to be a killing blow. Our goal was simply to get rid of the gun so our fight wouldn’t end before it really began.
And we succeeded. I heard the bullet burst through the barrel and explode out into the air at the same moment I felt the pain in my forearm. But it didn’t matter. My sword—my stick—whatever—had met its mark.
As I watched, the smoking hunk of metal skittered away across abruptly invisible leaves. A well-timed cloud had crossed in front of the moon, and Quill roared his rage as the weapon he depended upon to maintain his competitive edge disappeared into momentary darkness.
Then, far closer than I’d dared to hope, I heard an answering cry rend the night. One wolf howled, then two, then an entire pack.
My clan had finally come to our aid.
Chapter 28
They entered the clearing from every side. Hunter’s huge brindled wolf was flanked by two ginger-haired canines and one gray—my entire pack united at last. From the other direction, Wolfie and his mate soared forward ahead of an even larger number of furry marauders, their feet moving so quickly that pads barely touched the ground.
Without conscious thought, I reached out with the pack sense to greet them. But the only tether I found was the one linking me to Hunter. Every other thread of the tangled cat’s cradle that had recently bound our small clan together had since disintegrated into the warm summer night.
Still, the glowing strand linking me to my mate remained, and I couldn’t resist brushing the lightest finger across our tantalizing connection. In response, my mate immediately turned his head to meet my gaze with eyes that glowed pale gold in the returning moonlight.
Thank you for coming, I told him, not sure he’d hear the words but knowing my mate would at least see the welcome in my eyes.
Thank you for calling me, he answered, his reply clear and warm within my mind.
The simple sentence was a soothing balm plastering over the aching hole in my gut, and my hunched shoulders settled down from around my ears for the first time since I’d cast Hunter out of our shared hotel room thirty-six hours earlier. My relief was almost tangible.
But there wasn’t time for further honeyed words because Quill didn’t give up easily. I smelled bananas—a preemptive strike against Hunter’s uber-alpha abilities—and then the air around me was abruptly consumed by dense black smoke.
Coughing, I stumbled with watering eyes toward where I thought Lia and Savannah might have been located. It was impossible to see the girls through the haze, but I was able to use my bond with Hunter as a guideline to orient me in the abrupt pitch darkness. Just a few more steps this way....
Then hairs abruptly stood erect on my arms as Quill transformed far too close to my exhausted human body. His wolf was invisible amidst the fumes, but I could tell my enemy was present as easily as I could tell that Hunter was still racing toward me. The former’s hunger and anger were a palpable presence now, and I knew without being told that Quill had one intention and one intention alone—to eat at least one halfie heart before he fled the field of battle this night.
No! I screamed within my own mind. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let my opponent leap atop the girls we’d all converged upon this clearing to protect.
So, despite the fact that my adversary now boasted sharp teeth and claws to back up his claims, I stepped boldly in front of him. “You’ll have to go through me first,” I whispered harshly. I couldn’t muster any impressive volume due to a smoke-tightened throat, but I was pretty sure grimness would get the message across.
My enemy didn’t appear at all chastened though. Instead, he continued to stalk closer until I could see his wolf easily through the man-made fog. The huge dark shape was so near, in fact, that I could have reached out and patted his tremendous head.
Not that I wanted to. Not when Quill appeared to be elated at the opportunity to snare me instead of the weaker teenagers.
I could feel the SSS member’s hot breath on my bare shin when he halted, opening his mouth into a lupine snarl wrought with anticipation. Hard animal eyes bored into mine and I found myself unable to move. My chest tightened and my vision tunneled, even my heart slowing its beat in the face of Quill’s silent compulsion.
So this is what death looks like.
And then a huge brindled wolf was flying through the air toward my opponent. Hunter didn’t bother with a warning blow, simply landed atop the other beast’s back and crunched down with iron jaws. Immediately, Quill shuddered, legs losing their ability to hold him upright as his spine snapped. Life fled his dark eyes in an instant.
Rather than letting his deceased prey go, though, Hunter instead fell to the ground with his enemy’s ruff still firmly clamped between his teeth. Then the uber-alpha shook his head so vigorously that blood splattered through the air and landed on my cheek.
I didn’t look away as my mate tore into the shifter who had killed innocent women and who had tried to do the same to me and my friends. For long moments, the uber-alpha growled and ripped and battered, not stopping until Quill had become an unrecognizable lump of meat and fur splayed across the wet ground.
My mate was a beast. He was wild and rough and barbaric.
And utterly glorious.
I could hardly take my eyes away from Hunter’s welcome
form long enough to peer out through the thinning fog. But I had to check on the rest of my pack, and especially on the teenage girls who had so recently been lying atop twin sacrificial altars in preparation for losing their hearts.
Because there was still that final uninjured SSS male to deal with. Savannah had taken down one captor with a pencil to the eye, Hunter had made short work of the other, but Mick was still unaccounted for.
I hoped that with so many shifters rushing to our aid, Lia and Savannah would have been safe from the final shifter’s aggression. But I wouldn’t believe it until I saw the girls with my own eyes. So I wrenched my gaze away from Hunter’s depredations with an effort and scanned the clearing.
The first form I was able to pick out through the clearing smoke was Ginger, the trouble twin resembling nothing so much as an avenging goddess as she stood two-legged and naked beneath the moon. Her brother was still in fur form at her feet, while Glen surged upward into humanity even as he caught my eye. In response to my questioning gaze, my steadfast beta stepped aside as soon as his transformation was complete, allowing me to take in the huddle of female limbs on the ground behind him.
I caught my breath. No! We’d been too late. I’d been too late.
But then Lia moved, the knife in her right hand slicing through the final rope binding her friend in place. And the two girls rose arm in arm, stiff and a little wary but also clearly giddy with relief. They bounced and hugged with the resilience of youth, wide smiles opening their faces as they realized they were encircled by friends instead of enemies at last.
Just as I was now being encircled by Hunter’s strong arms. He was flecked with guts and goo, but I didn’t care. I squeezed him so hard I thought I might break a rib, and he hugged me back with equal vigor.
For the first time in days, my muscles relaxed and my wolf released her wary stance. We’d succeeded. We’d survived.
And with Hunter in my arms, I was finally home.
Epilogue
I slept fitfully even though I had little reason to complain. My bullet hole—a flesh wound only—had long since been cleaned, and members of both my pack and Wolfie’s were now spread out across soft beds in the adjoining hotel rooms. We were all safe and alive and together.
Well, not quite together. Hours earlier, pack mate after pack mate had invited me to join them in a post-battle jumble of furry limbs. But it hadn’t felt right to bed down with other shifters when the network of incandescent filaments that bound us together as a cohesive whole had been severed by my own free will.
So I thanked each friend but declined their advances. And, one by one, my companions had acceded to my wishes and left me alone.
But now, isolated in my solitary den, I dreamed of a deep, dark hole in the ground. I dreamed of Quill ripping the still-beating heart out of Lia’s chest. And I dreamed of the agony in Hunter’s eyes when I’d cast my mate out of the pack two mornings prior.
Only when a warm, furry body leapt up onto the bed beside me did I finally jolt out of my fitful drowsing. There was no need to open my eyes as the heavy weight settled into the hollow between knees and stomach. Instead, I simply smelled sassafras with a hint of agitated spring water and knew I was safe.
The thread of sound that I realized was my own whimpering eased as Hunter shifted into human form just long enough to pull me up against his long, lean body. “Shhh,” he whispered, stroking my hair. “I’m here.”
I meant to open my eyes and respond. But, instead, my mate’s soft puffs of breath tickling against the inside of my ear lulled me into a slumber as deep as the one I’d enjoyed when my wolf took the lead during our game of hide and seek a few hours earlier. With Hunter at my side, I could finally let go.
But my mate was gone when I woke again, this time to late morning sunlight streaming through my window. Instead of the uber-alpha, a red-haired bombshell perched on the edge of my bed.
Ginger was fully clad this morning and just as perfectly coiffed as ever. Looking at her now, in fact, I was pretty sure the trouble twin hadn’t so much as chipped a fingernail while single-handedly tearing Mick to shreds the night before. She’d looked like a raging beast when I first reached her side, her worry over Lia’s safety completely squashing her usual civilized facade of humanity. But the essence of sure-of-herself pack princess had since returned with a vengeance.
I breathed a sigh of relief that lasted...oh, about as long as it took for my companion to open her mouth. “Wolfie says the pack bond might regrow,” Ginger told me without preamble, raising one eyebrow as she waited impatiently for my response.
I was barely awake. My mouth tasted like old socks, and my throat was as dry as a desert ravine. But, okay, it looked like we were really going to get into this here and now. “What are you trying to say, Ginger?” I croaked out.
“I’m saying,” she began, deleting the mitigating word that held no place on her tart tongue, “that we can still be a pack. I know you want to ditch us, to tell us to move back in with our old clan. But that’s not happening. Once you’re all healed up and ready to go, we’re coming right along with you.”
“Coming with me where?” I asked gently. “Coming with me to wander through outpack territory hoping we won’t get snatched up by another sociopath who thinks halfies make good appetizers to prepare the palate for a pack-princess lunch? Coming with me to watch your cousin traumatized all over again?”
I knew I’d struck a nerve when Ginger glanced aside, and I smiled grimly at my success. I wanted our clan to remain united as much as anyone. But it was time for us both to face reality. Whether or not I’d been a capable alpha in the past, I no longer boasted the strength necessary to lead us to safety.
So, risking getting slapped, I reached out with my right hand and slid workmanlike digits between the trouble twin’s slender fingers. “I appreciate your loyalty,” I told her. “But without the alpha mantle, it’s just not safe for me to drag Lia around hither and yon any longer.”
My unoccupied left hand tightened unconsciously around the envelope that Wolfie had dropped off in my room the night before. Truth be told, I wasn’t actually going to be wandering aimlessly once my bullet wound healed. But Ginger didn’t need to know that right away.
Not when my goal was for her to accept responsibility for her own safety and for that of our shared friends. To let our pack drift apart as organically as the threads that once bound us together had disintegrated into the summer air the afternoon before.
“Then ask Hunter to let you move back into Haven,” Ginger demanded, ice-blue eyes flashing. She wasn’t willing to let the issue drop and my throat tightened as I realized the trouble twin really did care about me as a friend, not just as a crush. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have brought up my mate’s ability to reverse the decree that had kicked me out of Wolfie’s pack in the first place. No, her words now were as much of a show of acceptance as I’d ever get for letting the uber-alpha into my life and my heart.
Still, Ginger’s suggestion—while the easy way out—wasn’t the right solution. “I could,” I agreed. “But I won’t.”
“You won’t?” Ginger leapt to her feet, unable to sit still any longer now that anger filled her body with unharnessed potential. She paced from bed to door and back again. “You won’t ask him for one little favor to make your life better? He’d give it to you in heartbeat.”
“I would.”
The deep male voice carried easily through the closed door and I smiled. Ginger had clearly begged my mate for a minute alone with me. But while Hunter had been willing to step away from my bedside, the uber-alpha hadn’t gone far.
I was glad.
So I spoke to them both when I answered. “I know he would,” I said. “But back when Hunter kicked me out of Haven in the first place, he realized I needed that nudge if I was ever going to flee my safe but constraining little nest. He said I’d thank him for it later, and he was right. This is me thanking you, Hunter, for helping me learn who I really am. Or at least for proddi
ng me into taking the first step in that direction.”
Then I turned my attention back to the girl who had sunken down onto the bed beside me once more. The girl who had been a true friend, even if a little scattershot with her emotions. “But you don’t need to remain a part of Wolfie’s pack forever,” I told her. “If anyone in our little clan had the potential to grow into an alpha’s abilities, it was you. So rest and regroup...and then spread your wings and fly.”
It was true. Ginger had led our fur-form hunts for a reason—she possessed the strength of will necessary to turn a group of independent-minded werewolves into a cohesive pack. Once she matured a little and learned to mind her tongue and passions, the teenager would become a powerful alpha. I was proud to think I’d had a small hand in her growth...even if it meant losing a friend and pack mate in the process.
I think we were both crying a little when Ginger hugged me one last time. “Okay,” she muttered. Then, eyes flashing, she landed one last peck on my lips before flouncing out the door and into her future. My mate growled at the twin’s forwardness but otherwise held his peace.
Watching her go, I knew that Ginger would be fine. She’d have Cinnamon at her back, and Lia would remain her full-time project until the younger girl overcame any post-traumatic stress developed as a result of her imprisonment. Maybe they’d even form a clan of their own some day.
Still, the hole in my gut felt cavernous as my mate slipped in through the entranceway that the trouble twin had left gaping wide open. “What will you do next?” he asked, pushing the door closed behind him.
I swallowed down my sorrow, then flourished the envelope I’d hidden beneath the covers to keep it away from Ginger’s keen nose and eyes. “Wolfie brought me a note from my mom last night,” I told him. “From the parent I haven’t seen in twelve years. The human who couldn’t stand the thought of living among werewolves and who was willing to orphan her daughter if that’s what it took to get out from under the beasts’ terrifying thumbs.”
Shifter Origins (Series-Starter Shifter Variety Packs Book 1) Page 34
