Ellis glared and yanked back on his wolf’s urge to rip the bastard apart. His inner beast yelped at the call to heel, then flung himself back toward the monster who had caused such hurt in Maylee’s life. Sendings pushed through his resolve, painting one scene after another with the bright red of fresh blood.
Dustin rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get the show on the road, eh? I’m here to collect those that belong to me, but I don’t see them anywhere. What gives, wolves? Are you trying to make this harder on yourselves?”
No matter the hurt that poisoned his veins, Ellis couldn’t let that murdering prick get his hands on either one. He stood by his duty to keep them safe.
He let his wolf bleed into his eyes. On either side, Jensen and Wyatt hung back. They let him take the lead, but they weren’t checked out. They’d throw themselves into the fight if he needed them.
He’d long been the muscle for someone else. Now, they were his.
“They way I see it, asshole,” Ellis growled, “is you don’t get to claim ownership of anybody. You have a choice. Leave here, and never return. Never think about that woman and that cub ever again. You lost the chance to pretend at fatherly devotion when you murdered Esme’s mother and Maylee’s sister.”
Dustin ended a bored spin around the joint by picking up an empty glass and tossing it between his hands. “Fine words, no doubt distorted and misconstrued by the lies poured into your ears. What’s my other option, as you see it?”
“We fought the Moonlight Slayers, and won. We took down the Ayers tiger streak. Do you honestly think your clan will be more than toothpicks for our fangs?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It’d make one hell of a fight. We could use a good war. My boys are getting soft, but me? I’m hard as a fucking rock thinking about spilling your blood.”
Ellis’s growl melded with those of his pack. Wyatt stepped forward, eyes narrowed, until Ellis held out an arm. “No need to wait. We can take this outside, you and me, right now.”
Dustin smirked. “Way I see it, she’s pulled her disappearing stunt on you fuckers. I see three big males here, which means you don’t have anyone standing guard. Probably have the rest of the mouths stashed somewhere in the back.” He took a sniff of the glass before setting it down with a hard clink. “Except this smells old. And you smell like pussy, but not like a freshly mated man. And believe me, I know what that blood smells like.”
Motherfucker. A deep growl crawled out of his throat as his wolf shoved forward. Claws bit into his palms as he tried to hold back on his wolf. He teetered right on the edge between ripping the bastard apart in the middle of the bar and... and...
For the life of him, he couldn’t think of any reason to let him stay breathing.
Dustin’s grin widened. “She run out on you, buddy? Help me find her, and you can have first dibs when she’s back in clan territory.”
Ellis blinked slowly. Utter calm descended over him and wiped out his rage. He wouldn’t show anger. He wouldn’t haul off and tear out the bastard’s throat. Dustin was nothing but shit on his shoe that he’d forget about the moment he wiped it clean.
“You touch her, and you die.”
Dustin folded over in an elaborate bow. “Well, if she ain’t here with my cub and you’re not willing to take the spoils for yourself, I guess the time to get to know one another has passed. Fuck off, wolves. Hope to never see your pitiful faces again.”
Ellis took a step forward and was tugged back by Jensen.
“Let them go,” his alpha urged. “You have more important things to do.”
“More important than ripping that fucker’s head from his body?” Ellis growled.
“Find your mate. We’ll keep an eye on them.”
He couldn’t protect Maylee if he was buried up to his elbows in blood and guts. Reluctantly, he nodded.
As the sound of Dustin’s entourage faded, he stepped out into the sun and charged right for his ride. The engine kicked over with a purr and he tore off toward his home.
The destruction looked as awful as it had an hour ago. As he suspected, Maylee’s car was gone from the driveway. She’d come back for her wheels, and disappeared into thin air.
Or someone made it look that way.
Fuck.
He clamped down on the possibility that she was already in Dustin’s hands. He couldn’t let any distraction drag him down. He would find his girls. He would keep them safe.
He looked one way down the street, then the other. Where the hell would she have gone? North, south, east, west?
He let his heart be the needle of the compass, pointing him in the direction he needed.
Some deep instinct dragged his attention toward the park. They’d ridden there, exposed their hearts to one another. He’d have hit the road in the other direction, but not Maylee. She wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. What was one more bite when she’d already been mauled?
The park’s winding roads and turn-offs and miles and miles of wilderness offered her options to hide not found on straight highways. Once inside, there was no telling where she’d exit.
If at all.
Chapter 15
The further Maylee drove from Redwater, the worse her stomach clenched and her heart ached.
The worse she felt, the harder it was to concentrate on the road in front of her and the reflection in the mirror behind her. She needed to pay attention to both. The twists and bends in the road needed her attention just as much as that car she was sure was following her.
Maylee slowed on the empty road just before she rounded another bend. Maybe she was crazy and imagining things. That was better than being chased through a near-empty park with too many places to make her body disappear. Fucking hell, she should have taken the highway out of town with more cars than the two she’d passed since entering Yellowstone. Her clever little trick to avoid extra eyes and obscure exactly where she shot out of the park would be the very thing that did her in.
She held her breath when a black SUV poked its nose around the bend behind her. They were looking for something. Looking for her. Holding back, tracking. Hunting.
Definitely not tourists.
“Shit,” Maylee muttered.
The SUV stopped.
She gunned it forward.
She was at a disadvantage inside the park. She didn’t know the roads and couldn’t predict where offshoots would be placed. A mile down the road, more? Would the turnoff lead to a scenic overview where she could be easily spotted, or to some secret campsite hidden by trees? If she skipped one, would the next offer better or worse coverage from those following her?
Maylee tore around another bend and nearly sobbed when she saw a break in the trees. She put her trust in fate and flew between the trunks, skidding to a stop when the road was partially hidden behind her.
She cut the engine and hoped she’d pulled down far enough that she couldn’t be seen from the main road. She prayed that they hadn’t spotted her turning off.
Even Esme picked up on her agitation. The cub fussed in her car seat and threw her toys out of arm’s reach, then wailed when they weren’t returned immediately.
“Shh,” Maylee tried to quiet the girl. She twisted in her seat and shook a toy, but her attention wasn’t on the cub. Her eyes stayed locked on the road.
She never should have left. She thought she’d be safe until nightfall and Dustin’s deadline, but clearly she’d gone soft in the head in her desperation to leave as few casualties behind as possible. Of course he’d have the roads watched in case the Rawlins pack tried to smuggle her out of Redwater. Only she’d done the deed herself and was left without any protection but her own dim wits.
She clearly played the role of the first person to die in every horror movie ever created.
Maylee breathed a sigh of relief when the SUV flashed past her hiding spot.
She gave it a full sixty seconds before she turned the engine back over. She wanted to get as far from her old clan as possible before they realized the tr
ick she’d played, and that meant heading back toward Redwater.
Her bear rejoiced and a fraction of the weight sinking in her stomach disappeared.
She glanced down as soon as she eased back on the road. There was no running far with the gas tank nearing empty.
Another disadvantage. Gas stations were few and far between the vast expanses of nature. At that moment, she wanted to pave the whole place and dot it with pumps every three feet.
Luckily, there had been a station at a closed campground not too far behind her. She’d avoided the stop before, not wanting to flash her identity in the wide, open world as her tail sped past.
She drove like a bat out of hell, no longer bothering to disguise herself as a simple tourist. Distance was the name of the game. Distance, and refueling.
The deserted gas station was a blessing and a curse. No surprises jumped out of other vehicles, but the lonely stretch of parking lot pumped her full of adrenaline as she waited for the other shoe to fall. Danger didn’t just disappear. It lurked around corners and waited to grab her when she least expected.
Except she did expect it. She took a deep breath and eased out of her door, her keys sandwiched outward between her fingers. Anyone who tried to snatch her would get a sharp jab of metal in the eyes.
Maylee unhooked the hose and punched the buttons to start filling her tank. The gas gurgled with audible glugs, one right after the other, sounding for all the world like a countdown.
Glug. Glug. Glug.
“Come on, come on,” she chanted.
Pins and needles jabbed at the back of her neck. She felt watched. Exposed.
Glug. Glug. Glug.
Her bear roared and slashed at her middle, desperate to get back on the move. They’d stood still for too long. There was no telling how long the clan would keep searching in the other direction, or who could be coming up behind them.
Glug. Glug. Glug.
A black SUV roared up the road.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
Maylee unplugged the hose and slapped closed the gas tank as the SUV screeched to a stop behind her.
Her fingers scrabbled for the door handle when the first set of feet hit the ground.
She jumped into the driver’s seat with shouts filling her ears.
Maylee slammed the locks into place right before Sheila yanked on the handle.
The keys in her hands rattled with shakes that felt entirely disconnected from her own body. But those were her hands, her fingers, trying to drive the key into the ignition. Unsteady aim scratched the housing.
The first tap on the window rushed the air from her lungs and her fingers dropped the keys to the floorboards.
“Maylee, come out and play,” Greg taunted.
The others knocked on the windows, tried the handles. They circled her like sharks who’d caught the scent of blood in the water. She was chum to them.
She was still responsible for the life strapped in her back seat.
Maylee closed numb fingers around her keys and shoved the correct one into the ignition.
Two of the clan jumped onto her hood and pounded against her windshield. She bared her teeth at them both, feeling her bear surge under her skin. The beast wanted to bite and tear and fling them away, but that meant stepping outside the vehicle.
She growled and slammed forward, then reversed real quick.
One on the hood fell off. Those behind her scattered.
“You crazy bitch!” the other still clinging shouted at her.
She shifted back into drive and swerved around the man still on the ground. She whipped the wheels back and forth to try shaking off her hood ornament until finally, thankfully, he rolled to the ground.
Maylee glanced behind her long enough to see the SUV peel out of the gas station right on her tail.
She pushed hard on the accelerator. Her car lurched forward with the complaints of an old man who was forced out of his favorite chair. The recent repairs were just that—repairs. They hadn’t turned the insides racetrack-ready.
She never should have left. Stupid pride and fear blinded her to her reality. She’d tried to keep out of Dustin’s hands on her own and failed. She’d avoided him, but never quite managed to shake him in the six months she’d been on the run. He always, always, found her. Numbers were on his side. His pack, their contacts, the ripples spread outward and always caught her in the waves.
She couldn’t keep going on her own. She needed a pack to survive.
Ellis topped the list as her biggest protector, supporter, caregiver. The hours apart and ache in every inch of her body were as clear of signs as her roaring bear. He was her mate. She couldn’t run from the fact.
He wasn’t Dustin. She wouldn’t end up like her sister.
Not by his hands, anyways.
The SUV zipped forward until it filled her rearview. Even when she dared to glance behind her, shiny black was all she could see.
Then they hit her bumper.
Her car jerked forward with the love tap. Maylee tightened her hands on the wheel and focused entirely on the road ahead. She urged her car faster, and faster still, but the SUV loomed behind her.
Another tap bounced her in her seat. Esme started the huffs and grunts that signaled an incoming wail.
Maylee’s lungs unfroze when the SUV backed off, but the relief was temporary. They swerved around to the side of her car and squeezed out the space between rushing vehicles.
Trees ahead. Trees to the side. Maylee slammed on her brakes just as the SUV swiped the side of her car.
The car jumped off the side of the road and slammed into a thick trunk. The passenger window shattered, the side mirror disappeared. Maylee jerked forward, her forehead colliding with the steering wheel, and Esme screamed.
No. No!
Despite the pain shooting up her neck, she turned in her seat to check over the cub. Her cheeks were red and her scent filled with fear, but she didn’t look injured.
Relief faded fast when the SUV pulled to a stop. Her ears rang from the blow to her head, but she imagined each and every step sounded like a bell ringing her death.
Someone tried her door, but the locks were still engaged. Easy enough to fix with one of her windows busted out. An arm snaked through and hit a button.
She swiped at the first person who reached inside her door, lashing out with nails and teeth. They tried to pull her out, but her seatbelt held her locked in place until someone crawled inside and hit the button.
Maylee yelled as she was dragged out of the car. Panic and fury crawled up her throat. Her bear raged inside her, cracking her bones with the onset of a shift.
“Stop fighting,” Greg growled in her ear. His arms tightened around her waist.
She’d bleed every last one of the motherfuckers until they forced her to her knees before she gave up fighting.
Esme didn’t belong with her mother’s killer.
“All right!” Greg shouted. “Break one of the brat’s fingers!”
“No!” Maylee yelled. Red bled into her vision. Her bear barreled through her. Blood. She wanted blood.
She struggled against the arms still around her waist until Greg snarled in her ear.
“Then behave yourself. We need you both alive. Breaks heal.”
She froze as Sheila reached inside the car and ripped out the car seat. Esme screamed her little head off, but at least she wasn’t in pain.
Yet.
Helena’s face weaved through Maylee’s scattered thoughts. Bruises on her arms, legs, face. Welts over her skin. The fading marks of claws. Esme didn’t deserve any of that.
She’d failed her sister’s final wish. Esme wasn’t safe.
The roar of a motorcycle slid her eyes closed. “No,” she pleaded with the universe.
Her wishes had always gone unheard. A safe home? Her sister alive and unharmed? Someone always came along and crushed what she wanted beneath their heel.
“Shit,” Greg swore. “Move! Don’t want anyone passing
to see this.”
Esme was loaded into the car and they’d dragged Maylee to the door by the time the motorcycle pulled into view.
Ellis flew off his bike, ditching it in the dirt. Fury clouded his scent and distorted his face. He lunged into the fight with a roar, his wolf breaking his form apart between one step and the next.
A single gunshot stopped him with a jerk.
Maylee snarled as the others piled on Ellis. Kicking, punching, they drove him to his knees. A final blow to the back of the head left him crumpled in the dirt.
Greg spat on the ground and lifted a menacing glare to her face. He snapped his fingers and pointed blindly to someone else.
“Call Dustin. Tell him we got the goods.”
Chapter 16
Awareness flickered somewhere in the darkness like pinpoints of lights dancing from a distant cluster of campfires.
The cold was the worst. And the scent of earth, like he’d been tossed into a grave and buried alive.
His wolf slunk forward with a tired growl, then disappeared into oblivion once again.
Ellis jerked awake when another scent teased his nose. Under the sharpness of blood, the stillness of dirt, something sweet curled in place like a whirlpool.
Maybe it wanted to drag him under like one, too.
He pried his eyelids open and blinked in the darkness.
“You’re awake,” Maylee said flatly, more statement than question.
Ellis slammed his eyes closed at a sudden wave of nausea and willed the lurching of his stomach to disappear. Neither cooperated, but he’d be damned before he spilled his guts in the enclosed space. The sour stench of sick would just make everything worse.
Instinctively, he reached for his wolf. Hollow, distant impressions came to him, but nothing else. The beast was trapped inside better than he’d ever caged the animal himself.
When he trusted the room to stop spinning so furiously, he cracked open his lids and found Maylee staring straight ahead. Like him, she was propped against a cold, cement wall with her legs straight out in front of her. Unlike him, though, her hands were unbound and hung heavy between her thighs. Her hair was mussed and knotted, but her clothes weren’t hanging in shreds. Not the ideal reassurance that she hadn’t been mistreated, but a start in the right direction.
Bourbon and Bears: Book Three: Shifters and Sins Page 10
