by Terry Spear
He aimed his gun at her. Silver bullets or regular?
“What do you want?” Her heart racing, she tried to buy herself time.
Had anyone in the noisy tavern heard the shooting? She couldn’t tackle the gunman from this distance. If she dashed for the inn, he might shoot Mrs. Hastings, or the twin girls who kept hanging around the lobby, although Lelandi sure wanted to get her gun.
Where the hell was Ural, now that she could use his help? If he was in his wolf form like she suspected, his wicked canines could take care of the menace. Taking time to strip and shapeshift into the wolf herself wasn’t an option.
Out of choices, she did the only thing she could think of to rouse help for Toni and maybe scare off the hesitant gunman. She screamed.
The shooter’s eyes widened, his lips curved down, and he pulled the trigger, firing once, twice, three times. The impact of the bullets ripped into her chest, throwing her against the brick building, and she nearly collapsed. At first, no pain registered as she struggled to stay on her feet. When she didn’t immediately expire on the spot, he stared at her as if she was the devil incarnate.
Then the pain struck hard and for an instant, her thought processes threatened to shut down. When he raised his gun, her brain caught hold.
She dashed toward the forest skirting the town, intending to double back as soon as she could and get help for Tom. She’d give the shooter a real run for his blood money. Thank god the bullets didn’t burn like silver ones would. She’d live, if she could find refuge and allow her body time to heal.
“Bloody hell!” Her assailant took chase.
Stabbing pain streaked through every inch of her now, and she could feel the hot blood seeping from the wounds. Every second her heart pumped more blood out, and she felt her legs weakening.
Run, damn you, Lelandi. If ever she had to push herself, this was the time.
Branches broke several yards behind her as she dove around trees, scrambled over fallen, rotting trunks, clawed through thick brush. As much noise as the gunman was making, she again assumed he was human. Good. He couldn’t see the trail of blood she was leaving, nor could he smell her scent. Then again, the breeze was shifting so much, it would help to disguise her location. Oh hell, as much perfume as she was wearing, probably even a human could follow her. She tried to remain downwind of him.
Tried—was the key word, because her senses were failing—one by one.
She no longer heard the birds singing in the trees, or the wind whistling through the firs, just her heavy breathing and the blood roaring in her ears. Her eyes blurred and she misjudged the lay of the land. The ground seemed to give way. And she fell.
Striking branches and brambles, she grabbed for anything to stop her tumble down the steep incline, skinning and cutting her hands. She lost her hat first, her glasses next. A branch scraped off one earring, then the other. Her hair tangled on every branch in her path, yanking at her scalp, the branches and twigs giving up their hold as she roiled. Downward... downward, banging against rocks and stumps. her whole body bruised and battered, she gritted her teeth against the pain.
For a second, she worried about the damned disguise and the trail she’d left behind for the attempted murderer. Then her back struck something rock hard, unforgiving, massive. The pain shot straight up her spine, all the way to her brain, short-circuiting it.
Blackness enveloped her as her night vision and all her senses shut down.
Chapter 3
REACHING A DULL ROAR, THE CONVERSATION AT THE TAVERN centered around Lelandi’s sisters appearance in town when Darien’s cell phone rang. He wasn’t surprised to see Tom’s cell number and assumed Lelandi’s sister was causing trouble. He sure as hell hoped she hadn’t slipped away from him. “Yeah, Tom? What’s up now?”
“Got to come quick!” Tom yelled into the phone, his voice breathy.
“Tom?” Darien leapt from his chair. ‘Where are you?”
“Gunshots fired. Hastings Bed—” The phone died.
“Gunfire at Hastings!” Darien’s heart hammered his ribs as he and Jake bolted for the tavern door.
From the thunderous roar of boots tromping down the street behind him, everyone from the tavern must be on his heels. While he raced toward the hotel, his muscles tensed for battle, concern for the woman and his brother’s safety swamped him.
Although the insidious thought flashed across his mind that she might have shot Tom.
“Hastings Bed and Breakfast,” he hollered to Jake, clarifying it wasn’t Hastings Hardware.
“Crap, Darien, what now?”
“Gunshots were fired. Hell, I don’t know.” Darien berated himself that he’d put Tom’s life in danger, when he should have gone instead.
His cell phone rang, and he jerked it off his belt. “Tom, what the hell’s—”
“I’ve been hit.”
“Where are you?”
“Behind…” Tom quit speaking.
In the eerie silence, Darien held his breath in anticipation as he and Jake stopped dead. “Tom? Tom!” Silence. “Armed gunman somewhere near Hastings. Get Doc Oliver. Tom’s been shot.” Darien shouted to his men.
Gray-haired and bearded Mason. still wearing his gray suit—the usual attire for Silver Town’s bank owner—yanked out his cell phone. “Got it. boss.”
“Silver bullets or regular?” Jake asked.
“Phone went dead.”
More shots sounded in the woods farther away. Darien cursed and quickened his run toward Hastings. “Careful, men. Not sure what kind of bullets the shooter’s using.”
He motioned for some to skirt around the front of the B&B. Then he, Jake, and several others headed around back.
“Where the hell is Tom?” Jake asked under his breath.
“Passed out maybe.”
“I’ll kill whoever the son of a—”
Groans came from behind a Dumpster. Anger blazed through Darien’s veins as he and Jake bolted around the green trash bin.
Tom lay on his back, holding his bloodied head, his eyes dazed. “Where’d she go? Odin’s beard, my head hurts like a—”
“Tell the others we found Tom!” Darien shouted to some of the men as they drew closer. One of them handed him a handkerchief. Crouching next to his brother, Darien lifted his head in his lap, then tied the handkerchief around the bleeding wound. “Silver or regular?”
“Not silver. My body’s rejecting the bullet, but it hurts like hell.” Tom closed his eyes. “Where’s Larissa?”
Two more men came running toward them.
“Doc Oliver’s on his way.” Mason shoved his phone into his pocket. “No sign of the girl or the gunman.” He arched a gray brow in question. ‘Sure they aren’t one and the same?”
Hoping it wasn’t so, Darien looked at Tom for an answer.
“Thor’s thunder.” Tom’s gaze drifted and he squinted his eyes closed. “He shot Larissa. too.”
Darien swore under his breath. The notion the maniac threatened Lelandi’s sister’s life twisted his gut. Issuing the next order took all his strength, when he wanted more than anything to take care of the matter himself. “Find her, and get that damned gunman.”
Any other decision would sound like he cared more for the red’s safety than his own brother, or a pack member—not a leadership quality. Applying pressure to the wound, he hoped Doc Oliver would hurry, because no matter how much he told himself otherwise, the woman looked too much like his dead mate to deny his feelings for her. Even in death, she held his heart captive.
Unable to contain his impatience he shouted. “Where the hell is Doc Oliver?”
Three more shots rang out, reverberating through the forest, and Lelandi cringed. The gunman must be shooting at shadows. She hoped.
Survival of the fittest. That’s what ran through her mind as she lay in the underbrush nestled at the base of a stand of spruce, her back wedged up against a moss- blanketed boulder. Her mind drifted when the pain from the three bullets lodged in her heart
intensified. Her back didn’t feel too swift either. She’d survived worse. Hunter’s wounds when she was a wolf, an attempted rape, a near drowning, now this. Her guardian angel sure worked overtime for her.
The pain grew hot, but the perspiration on her skin, refrigerated by the cool breeze and the blood soaking her turtleneck chilled her further. Something moved toward her. Intently, she listened to the sound of its scurrying and smelled the scents. Cold, crisp autumn, a hint of moisture in the air, a time when she baked apple pies, made special soups and hot spicy chili, decorated with pumpkins. squash. and colorful mums, the colors complementary to her fiery red hair and green eyes. Autumn, her special time of year.
Darien was a winter, sable hair, dark eyes, cold, brooding. North wind chilled. Winter.
The scurrying stopped, bringing her drifting mind back to her current set of circumstances. The creature’s blood rushed through its small heart and veins, and she got a whiff of its unique smell. A rabbit. She closed her eyes and hoped Darien had found his brother and was easing his pain, like she wished someone could do for her.
A wolf howled. I’m here, where are you?
Ural? He’d find her, come for her, eliminate her assailant.
The gunman couldn’t kill her with regular bullets, but she had to heal up some before she could move again. Getting the gunman away from Tom had helped him, but now she didn’t have the strength to move an inch in the direction of Hastings Bed and Breakfast. Worse, she had no idea where she was.
Footsteps crunched on fallen leaves maybe a half mile away. The gunman’s or Darien’s and his men? She made out only one set of footfalls, most likely the gunman’s.
Her chest hurt like it was on fire, and she stifled another groan. Don‘t pass out! If the gunman found her, she’d make a horrendous racket, but if she passed out, he could move her somewhere else and kill her. Snapping her neck would do the trick, when regular bullets wouldn’t.
Her thoughts shifted to the tavern, and she could imagine Darien racing out with half his people or more in hot pursuit if Torn had been able to call for help. Too late, she’d seen the gunman hiding in the shadows of Hastings, and she berated herself again for not being more alert.
Would the grays waste their time searching for her if they discovered Tom was hurt? Maybe not, but they’d continue to look for the gunman who’d shot Tom.
She tried to concentrate on the bullets seated in her heart. Tried to envision her body working miracles to expel the foreign substances, stop the bleeding, and seal the wounds. But she’d lost too much blood and felt weak, nauseous, disoriented. It would take some time to rebuild her blood. She groaned again.
Footsteps trudged closer, stopped, moved again.
No one spoke any words. Friend or foe?
She looked up through (he tree branches shuddering in the wind. A sprinkling of twinkling stars littered the dark night sky. Star light, star bright... Sharp pains coursed through her body, down her arms and legs, and up again, sending blinding pain into her skull. Her vision blurring, she clenched her teeth to keep from fading away.
Where was Ural? Originating from one of the purest lines of the first lupus garou, she was a royal like him and could change into the wolf despite it being a [noon- less night. Being a wolf in this condition wouldn’t help, however. Except the gunman wasn’t looking for one. Yes! Then she could howl and return Ural’s call. He’d come to her then and protect her.
She fumbled with her jacket buttons, but didn’t have the strength to unbutton even the first one. As weak as she was, she wasn’t sure she could even shapeshift.
Where the hell was Ural? He could rip away the gunman’s life in a flash. She’d be safe—or safer. But she didn’t trust Ural’s motives either. If he found her weak and unable to resist, he could return her to the pack. Damn him.
Wincing, she closed her eyes, trying to will away the pain.
Had the shooter targeted Lelandi because she looked like Larissa? Or did he assume she was here, trying to discover who had killed Larissa?
She swore a gray had murdered Larissa, angry that the leader of the grays had mated with a red. Or had her ruthless pack leader Bruin located Larissa, pretending that he hadn’t? Now Lelandi wasn’t so sure.
Then she thought she smelled Ural. Please. Ural. come and bite the bastard! But he didn’t show himself, didnt attack the gunman. Maybe it was powerful wishful thinking.
“Larissa!” Darien shouted from a good half mile away.
Here! No, not Larissa... Larissa was dead Lelandi! Here.
Lelandi closed her eyes. A whisper of a breeze caressed her face and strands of hair tickled her cheek, but she couldn’t gather the strength to shove them away. And the pain. Oh, god, the pain.
Someone shuffled only feet from her. She squeezed her eyes tighter and barely breathed. How had he gotten so close without her hearing? Her mind drifted. Keep alert! If he was wolf and downwind of her, he could smell her spilled blood. He could hear her heart pumping at a furious rate.
She heard his beating rapidly, his heavy breathing, the grinding of his teeth, his fingernail scraping the metal of the gun. Then he moved farther away from where she curled up in a fetal position, trying to conserve energy and the heat of her body, trying to make herself smaller and unnoticeable.
Others took up the call, shouting Lelandi’s name as they spread out and drew closer. She frowned. How would they know her name? Larissa would have kept her family a secret so the grays wouldn’t learn she already had a pack—and a mate.
The gunman tromped farther away, stealing her attention, but he was still too close.
The breeze suddenly shifted and Darien’s brooding brother Jake shouted, “This way!”
She watched for them, nearly quit breathing in anticipation, not to mention the pain grew so sharp she could barely focus on anything else.
But her rescuers didn’t come.
Darien paced back and forth in the thick of the woods in front of thirty of his men, every one of them now armed. Although normally they hunted in their wolf coats, the pack had always kept guns—their way of dealing with human troublemakers over the last one hundred and fifty years in the area.
“We thought we smelled her perfume several times, but the damned wind isn’t cooperating! So where the hell is she?” Darien asked.
“We need to turn wolf,” Jake said.
“Can’t for three more days,” Sam reminded him.
“Hell, I know that, Sam. I was just saying...” Jake didn’t say anything more. Just poked the toe of his boot in the pine needle—covered dirt, his hands shoved in his pockets, his face dark with a mixture of concern and annoyance.
“We’ve searched for hours. Where the hell is she?” Darien asked again, voicing his own irritation.
They hadn’t found anything—her hat, glasses, nothing—as if she’d vanished in thin air like a puff of mist on a hot, sunny day. He rubbed the pounding in his temples, the thought stirring his blood that she was Lelandi, wounded, hurting, waiting for him to come to her aid, and not her sister. For now, she was one and the same, and he’d protect her with his own life. For now.
Once he found her and she’d healed, he’d send her home to her pack and out of his life for good.
“She doesn’t know these woods. She could easily get lost without her wolf senses,” Jake warned.
Darien stared into the wilderness, remembering a time when he dashed with his mate through the woods as wolves, running until they were exhausted, mating, then collapsing like two half-spent dogs. He shook free of the immobilizing memories.
“What if he got her?” Jake asked, a question Darien was sure everyone else was thinking. “What if he took her body in a vehicle and planned to dispose of her somewhere else?”
Darien wouldn‘t consider that scenario.
Mason rubbed his bearded cheek, his hair whipping in the breeze. ‘We’ve searched all night. We’re dog tired. If they’re just regular bullets, she can’t die from them. Why don’t we get some rest
and try again in a few hours?”
“She saved Tom’s life.” The muscle ticked in Jake’s jaw like it did when he was on the verge of striking someone. “I’ll keep looking until some of you get rest and relieve me.”
Having every intention of hunting for her until he dropped from exhaustion, Darien slapped his brother’s shoulder with approval. “We’ll do it together.”
If she’d been one of the pack, his men would have continued searching for her. Without her being one of them, he couldn’t ask them to give up any more of their energy without getting some rest. He was glad his brother had offered, despite the fact he had distanced himself from Darien the last couple of weeks. Probably because of the foul mood Darien had been in since his mate died.
The smell of Sliva’s feminine scent wafted in the air, and the men turned to see her stalking toward them dressed in tight jeans, hiking boots, gloves, and a short-waisted corduroy jacket. “I’ll help ya.” Her expression and tone of voice were as determined as Darien felt.
“No women.” Darien said, his voice harsh, annoyed she’d offer to join them.
“Why? Think I might want to kill her, too? Or maybe you’re a tad worried about little ol’ me? But I can handle myself.” Silva smirked. “The woman’s got spunk and she deserves our help.”
Considering his options, another body that would fill the gap couldn’t hurt. “Stay with one of the men at all times.”
“Jeez. Darien, I would almost think you have a thing for me.” She blew him a kiss and sidled up to Sam. “Want to be my team mate?”
“Okay, those who want to continue the search, do so. The rest get some sleep. Let’s get moving.” Darien took off with a lengthened stride, determined to find her before the night was over.
“What do you think is going on?” Jake ducked under the branch of a spruce.
“Gunman’s human.”
“Why go after our brother? Why go after the red?”
