by Anna Lowe
“Leave me alone!” she screamed, running her hands over her belly. Leave my baby alone!
The man at the door rattled the metal with his foot and laughed. “I’m afraid we can’t, Miss Boone. I’m afraid you must die.”
His voice was calm and steady, pure evil despite the easy tone.
“What did I do?” she screamed. “What did I do?”
She wanted to throw a chair at him. Pummel him with her fists. Find a big, heavy bat and swing it a few times. Why wouldn’t these lunatics leave her alone?
“Humans are not permitted to mix with our kind. Not with wolves, not with bears. We must protect the purity of our bloodlines.”
Wolves? Bears? Was he part of some secret society? Some kind of creepy military unit gone badly wrong?
She covered her stomach with her hands. The baby. They were after the baby. But why?
“Soren!” she screamed, even though he was too far to hear.
The man at the door gave a heavy sigh as the thugs who accompanied him spread out along the front windows, peering in under the letters that spelled Blue Moon Saloon backward from the inside looking out.
“He’s part of the problem, my dear. Your whole twisted pack is the problem.”
“You’re the twisted one!” she screamed.
But screaming would get her nowhere, and she knew it.
Think, Sarah, think!
She spun around. She could run out the back, but who was to say there weren’t more men out there? Even if there weren’t, how long would she last? She wasn’t exactly the fleet runner she used to be with the baby throwing her gait off.
The saloon was dim. A single light shone over the mirror of the bar. Her eyes hurried over the shelves, wondering what she could use to defend herself. A broken-off bottle? A stool?
The men outside moved slightly, and light glinted off the antique rifle hanging high above the bar. She stopped, staring at it as the sound of metal rolling against metal echoed in her mind.
Bullets. Soren kept silver bullets in the cash register.
She burst into action, running to the register. It opened with a ding and the rolling sound she was listening for. Soren had cleared out the money for the night, and she could see silver shining in the back. She scooped up a handful of bullets and threw them on the bar. One rolled off and plunked onto the rubber mat behind the counter as she scooped a second handful with shaking hands. Could she really shoot someone?
The open drawer of the cash register bumped her belly, reminding her of the baby, and she straightened quickly. Hell yes, she could.
The men outside shook the metal shutters by the door. Not a rattle of warning, as before, but powerful yanks that tested the strength of the bolt.
She pulled a stool over to the wall and climbed the rungs. Not quite as quickly as she’d once climbed trees, maybe, but faster than she bet any pregnant woman ever had. She got up on the back counter of the bar and reached for the rifle on tippy-toes. Her fingers slid off the polished walnut of the stock, and for one horrifying instant, she thought she’d fall.
Her arms flailed. Somehow, she ripped the rifle down and grabbed for a shelf at the same exact moment, then stood still, panting wildly. But only for an instant, because the men were milling around outside, preparing to attack. She could hear it in their voices, feel it in the charged air.
“Miss Boone…” that mocking voice called again.
It was only a small hop from the back section of the bar to the counter on which drinks were served, but it might as well have been the Grand Canyon as she eyed the bullets, lying so far away.
Go! Just go!
She half stepped, half jumped across the gap, knelt for the bullets, and started feeding them into the rifle’s side gate.
Winchester, the stamp across the metal of the rifle’s action declared. 1873. Her dad would have paused to admire it, but she sure as hell didn’t. She shoved in one bullet after another. Five? Six? She dropped one or two along the way, her hands were trembling that much. There were at least seven men outside, so she chambered another few rounds.
But her hands were shaking to high heaven, damn it, and her teeth were chattering, too. She cocked the gun with a resolute click-click, and that bolstered her a little. She had a .44 Winchester, damn it. She could scare these assholes away.
Assholes who had no weapons of any kind, it seemed, and yet they continued hammering at the door.
A booming crash sounded from the back, and she swung the rifle around. God, they were coming at her from both sides now. At least she was perched on the bar, high as a catwalk, though that was both a blessing and a curse. One false step and she’d fall.
She backed down the length of the bar, raising the rifle to shoulder level. Her finger found the trigger as she inched toward a wall in a balancing act that took half her concentration and all of her nerves.
A huge figure darted out from the back room and, boom! She fired.
The kick of the rifle nearly sent her tumbling off the counter. She gasped, and her target did, too.
“Jesus, Sarah!”
“Soren?” she screamed.
He popped up from where he’d dived to the floor. Unhurt, it seemed. He stared at her with wide eyes as her body started to melt down. God, she’d nearly shot Soren! What had she been thinking?
“Right idea.” He nodded at the rifle, straightening to his full height. “Wrong target.”
“Jesus, Soren!”
He went on as though she hadn’t just made an awful mistake. “They set the fire as a diversion,” he said, red with anger. Then he nodded at the rifle. “Take good aim.”
“What?” She was thinking more along the lines of handing Soren the rifle and letting him do the shooting while she called the police and cowered in the back room.
Apparently, Soren had a different plan.
“Listen.” His voice was urgent, his eyes blazing. “You need to aim carefully and take them out, one at a time.”
She didn’t want to take anyone out. She wanted to get the hell out. Both of them needed to get the hell out. Maybe by running out the back…
“Soren—”
His hands balled into fists. “This is it, Sarah. This is where we stop them. You and me.”
He was serious. God, he was serious. And he was right. These lunatics had zigzagged across the country, following her. The only escape was to fight back.
She looked down at the rifle. It had gotten a shot off, so it worked. At least there was that.
One of the men outside the front raised his foot to kick in the window, and the rest backed up.
“Have you ever shot this thing?” she asked, swinging it toward the men.
“Once.”
“Once?”
“It pulls a little high and to the right.”
God, how could he be so calm? And what gun was he going to use?
“Do you have another weapon somewhere?” she yelped as the man outside kicked the glass. It rattled but held, to her surprise.
Soren’s voice went all low and growly. “I’m about to let it out.”
Let it out? Get it out? What did Soren mean?
“Look at me, Sarah,” he said in that flat, calm voice.
How could she look at him when a lunatic was about to kick the window in?
“Look at me.” His voice was so sure, so commanding, that she obeyed.
Soren took a deep breath. “Look at my eyes. Remember the color?”
She could have screamed in frustration. Of course, she remembered the color. No one else had eyes like that, except maybe his brother. The intense, honest blue, exactly the color of the sky back home.
“And remember this. Bears, good. Wolves, bad.”
“Bears, what?”
“Bears, good. Wolves, bad. At least, these wolves are bad.”
“What wolv—” she started to yell when the front window shattered.
Four men clambered in, and the others behind them continued that awful chant.
“Purity. Purity…”
Chapter Eighteen
Sarah swung the rifle around, cocked it quickly, and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The first man through the windows ducked and rolled as the bullet buried itself in the wood above the busted windowpane.
“Aim for the heart,” Soren told her in a strangely strangled voice.
She cursed. There were only so many bullets, and it sure looked like these men wouldn’t back down from the sound alone.
Click-click. The spent cartridge sprang out, and she rammed a fresh one into place.
God, she’d really have to do it. She’d have to kill a man.
“Hurry, Soren!” she called, not daring to take her eyes off the intruders. What was taking him so long? Was the second weapon hidden somewhere hard to reach?
She took a deep breath, widened her stance, and took aim at a big man whose eyes locked on hers like the angel of death.
He wants to kill the baby, she reminded herself.
She squinted, pulled the trigger, then winced at the sound of the shot. She watched in shock as a dark shadow spread across the man’s shirt. He stumbled back a step with a hand on his chest, strangely nonplussed.
“She thinks bullets can stop us,” one of the others jeered.
They thought bullets couldn’t stop them? How crazy were they?
The man she’d shot went from a sneer to gaping in disbelief, then crumpled to the floor.
“What? Jeff!” another one shouted and leaned over him.
They all hesitated for a moment, looking at the fallen man, and Sarah risked a glance to Soren on her left.
“Hurry, Sor—”
Her jaw fell open when she saw Soren hunch and groan.
Oh, God. Had he been shot, too?
His back curved as he fell to his hands and knees, half out of sight behind the bar. His shirt ripped right down the back and—
“Get them!” one of the men outside shouted.
She whipped back around, took aim at the nearest man, and pulled the trigger.
Ding! The bullet glanced off a copper light fixture just above him and to the right.
“Damn,” she muttered, remembering what Soren had said about correcting to the left.
The dark-haired man ducked, then came up looking at her with rage in his eyes. His hair was shaggy, especially around the ears, like he’d gone far too long between trims and had chopped off the excess with a knife.
“You die,” he hissed.
She was sure he’d come springing at her, but he just snarled. Really snarled like a dog and clawed at the air.
Soren growled, and she looked over again. Was he all right—
She froze in place at what she saw. Her heart thumped. Her blood slowed.
It was a trick of light. Or maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she had finally lost her mind, because she’d just seen the last of Soren — the Soren she thought she knew every scar, every hair, every inch of — disappear under a thick, full pelt that seemed to sprout right out of his skin and swallow him up.
“Soren!” she cried.
He fell out of sight, and she prayed he’d stand up and wipe the illusion from her poor, bedraggled mind.
A snarl made her whip back around and raise the muzzle of the rifle. She pulled the trigger almost before focusing on her target, and this time, it was a direct hit. A black-haired wolf with shaggy ears grunted and fell flat.
She stared and felt sick. Where had the wolf come from? Where had the man gone? She didn’t want to shoot a wolf. She’d been aiming at a man—
A rumbling, ferocious growl sounded from the end of the bar, and she looked back at Soren, then froze.
Not Soren. A bear. A massive grizzly with huge paws and golden ruff and—
It turned around to look at her with intense blue eyes, and she gasped.
Bears, good. The words echoed in her mind. Wolves, bad.
“Soren?” she peeped.
All hell broke loose as the bear jumped forward, setting off the fight. The saloon erupted into human shouts, canine barks, and ursine growls. Chairs and tables were shoved aside, and another shard of glass hanging from the front pane crashed to the ground.
“Get them!” the man in white yelled to the wolves.
Wolves, where a second before, there had been men.
Of course, she’d heard the stories spread by old-timer woodsmen back in Montana. Stories of humans who turned into wild animals — wolves, bears, lions. But she’d never, ever considered that they might be true.
She whipped the rifle to her shoulder and got off a shot just in time to ward off the nearest wolf, jumping toward her.
A distant corner of her mind told her they weren’t regular wolves. They had matted, clumpy fur and burning red eyes. More like satanic dogs, if there were such a right thing.
Rogues, a voice that sounded just like Soren’s echoed in her mind.
Whatever they were, they wanted her dead, so she had no choice but to shoot. Several attacked the bear while two others eyed her — cunning beasts who darted between tables, chairs, and even the pool table in the corner to stay out of her sights. One of the two ducked out of view while the other slunk behind the poker tables.
She cocked the rifle, aimed, and fired at his feet. And, bam! Wood splintered as a chair was blasted backward, toppling several others. The shot missed, though, and the wolf leaped right up onto the counter before she could cock the gun.
“No!” she cried, barely stepping clear.
The wolf snarled, then yelped as his claws scratched across the varnished surface the way a dog might slide across linoleum. Two of its four legs slid clear off the counter. Sarah struck out with a mighty kick and sent the beast toppling to the floor.
A roar that wasn’t human or wolf but pure, angry bear thundered out. In the bar mirror, she saw it hurl a wolf right out the broken window, just under the spot where the shard with the word Saloon still hung precariously in the frame. She turned just in time to shoot the wolf springing at her from out of nowhere. It crashed into the side of the bar and fell out of sight.
Sarah spun back to the wolf that had fallen behind the bar and took a hasty shot as it darted into cover around the end.
“Damn it.” Another miss.
For all the melee in the saloon, she could hear more voices chanting outside. “Purity. Purity.”
God, how many more were there?
She spotted the gray-haired man in the white suit and raised the rifle. Hate pumped through her heart. The need for revenge. The need to stop the man who seemed to be overseeing the attack from a safe distance — the man her heart told her had orchestrated the attack on her home.
He was right in her sights.
She aimed a little lower and to the left to correct for the rifle’s error. She had him. She’d kill him. Now.
She squeezed the trigger.
Click.
One weak click of metal hitting metal, but nothing else. She’d spent all her ammunition.
“Shit!” she hissed.
“Get her!” the man in white yelled, seizing the moment.
Sarah jumped behind the counter and scrambled for the bullets she’d knocked to the floor. One…two…three… She threaded them into the gate, one by one. A fourth lay just out of reach, so she left it. She sprang up, banged the barrel of the rifle across the counter to keep it steady, and took aim at the man — a man this time, not a wolf — barreling at her from across the saloon with a knife in his hand.
His eyes went wide as she squeezed the trigger. The rifle kicked wildly as another shot hammered through the room.
Sarah stared, feeling sick as he fell to the floor.
There was no spreading pool of blood, though, no strangled cry. It was as if the bullet — the silver bullet — cut the lifeline of whatever mixture of man and beast that was.
Silver bullet… She shook her head, not quite able to admit what that might mean.
Concentrate!
She sig
hted along the rifle. The left side of the room was in chaos where the grizzly fought for…for…
Sarah stared. The grizzly wasn’t fighting for his life. He was fighting for hers. Drawing the enemy away.
Soren was drawing them away.
Her mind superimposed the memory of Todd fighting for her in the same way at the fire back in Montana. Laying down his life just to give her a chance.
Wait, part of her mind coughed. If Soren was a bear…
She scanned the room for danger as her mind whirred away.
If Soren was a bear, could Todd have been a bear, too? They were cousins, those two.
A shadow moved between two tables, and she tracked it with the rifle, waiting for a shot.
Wait a minute, part of her mind protested. How can anyone be a bear?
But the rest of her brain followed the thoughts racing along like a runaway train.
If Todd was a bear, that meant…
Her heart just about leaped out of her chest as she made the connection. Soren — a bear. Todd — a bear. Her baby…
Jesus, could it be true?
A wolf moved into the open, and she pulled the trigger, then reloaded with a curse at her miss. One shot left.
She shook every thought out of her mind and concentrated on the fight because that was all that mattered now. Everything centered around the bear, who raged and clawed and struck with fangs as long and thick as fingers. One wolf lay motionless on the floor, and another nursed a wounded foot. Three more were taking turns drawing the bear out to strike while the others leaped in, trying to get to its neck.
Her top lip lifted free of her teeth in a silent snarl of her own. She squinted down the barrel, waiting for a clear shot.
Soren, she told herself over and over. That was Soren, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to clip him with a silver bullet tonight.
Two wolves closed on him at the same time, and she cried in alarm. The grizzly reared up on its hind legs and swiped a massive paw, scattering the wolves and sending one flying into a table that toppled and broke.
A cry slipped out of her throat as she registered the damage to the saloon. The saloon was Soren’s new life, his livelihood. He and his brother and the others worked so hard to eke out an honest living here, and it was being destroyed.
