“They’re daring us to come out,” Lucas said.
“Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint them,” Riley snarked. He spun from the window and paused only long enough to kiss Maia as he stalked to the door.
“No! Riley, you can’t go out there to face that many alone,” Maia rushed out.
“It’ll be okay. If they wanted to attack, they’d have done it already. Besides, the fuckers are on my land, in my territory and I’ve had e-fucking-nough! Stay here!” He looked to Richie first, “You stay here,” he demanded. Then, “Lucas, watch over my Reigna and my daughter by any means necessary.” And he was through the door, pausing on his porch to be sure the invading Pride saw him before he started down the steps and into his yard as he moved toward them.
The moment he started toward the other Pride, all but three of them turned and headed back down the other side of the rise and out of sight. The center three waited for him to get to them.
Richie was watching from the living room.
“Aw, fuck no. They’re going to circle around and ambush him. My father never could fight fair,” he said as he started stripping his clothes off in preparation to join Riley in what had no chance to be anything other than a battle.
“He said to stay here, Richie!” Libby said, on the verge of panic.
“And watch him be slaughtered while trying fight that many? No. Not going to happen.” Richie finished undressing, dropping his clothes on the floor, shifted to a very impressive black Panther and ran toward the door, which Maia readily opened for him.
Maia turned her eyes to Lucas, “You are going to help, too.”
Lucas’ posture was strained, “I’d be leading the way, but he said to protect you. I can’t leave you unprotected.”
“Do you think me helpless? I may not be a Panther, but I’m a Wolf, and I’m a very pissed off, protecting her family Wolf, right now.”
Lucas smiled, “Hold up. Stay right where you are.” He ran to his room and came back with his duffle. “Here,” he said, tossing the duffle on the couch. He unzipped it and dug around in the bottom of it, pulling out a smaller zipped pouch. He opened it and pulled out a pistol, “Can you shoot, Reigna?”
Maia was already moving toward him, “You bet your ass I can shoot. Better than you I’d be willing to bet.”
“Good deal. Here,” he said handing her the pistol, “it’s loaded, and the rest of the ammo is in this bag.” He handed it to her, then turned and rummaged around in the duffle again. He pulled out a very large, very sharp hunting knife, “And keep this, too. You okay with slicing somebody?”
“I’ll take their fucking head off if they threaten mine.”
“Good girl,” Lucas said, tearing his shirt off over his head. “If we come out of this alive, I may just steal you from Alpha. Love a girl that can kick ass,” he said, chuckling.
Maia smiled for him, but laughter was the last thing on her mind.
Lucas popped the snap on his jeans and stopped, looking at Maia. “Is it your demand that I follow our Alpha into battle?”
Maia understood. He’d been given an order to protect her, and he would be ignoring the order unless he were to accept another. “I order you to shadow our Alpha, battle beside him and bring him home safely. I’ve got it covered here.”
Lucas performed a perfectly executed bow, “Yes, my Reigna.” He shucked his jeans and shifted into a huge, so huge he filled almost half the living room, dangerous Kodiak Bear. He lumbered toward the door where Maia waited. She opened the door for him, and he wasted no time moving through it and down the porch at a run to follow Riley and Richie to face the offending Pride.
Maia locked and bolted the door. “Libby, please put Cristie’s pajamas on her. Gather up some blankets and pillows. Do you have your cell phone?”
“Yes, right here,” Libby said, reaching for it.
“Okay, I’m going to make sure everything is locked up tight, then grab the rest of our phones so we’ll have them with us if we need to move into the storm shelter.”
“Alright. Cristie, baby, let’s get you dressed,” Libby said, holding her arms out to the child.
Maia watched for only a second before she turned to hurry around the house checking the doors and windows.
“I want Poppy,” Cristie said, her forefinger and middle finger in her mouth as she picked up on the tension of the house.
Maia said, “So do I, baby. So do I.” She rushed from room to room, checking all the windows, pulling all the shades down, closing curtains and checking the back door twice. There was no shade to pull over the back door and it was glass, but she checked twice to make sure it was locked. She peered outside, but saw nothing moving. She felt sure the battle was taking place across the highway, out of the sight of humans should any pass this way on the highway. She hurried up the stairs and checked the windows upstairs, too. All was secure, so she pulled the blinds on those, too. Then she went into Cristie’s room and snatched up Poppy the stuffed dog before hurrying back down to Libby and Cristie. Libby had taken down some of Cristie’s books from the shelf and was doing her best to distract her by reading to her.
Maia came back into the room, the gun in her right hand the stuffed dog in her left. “Here, baby, I brought you Poppy.”
Cristie lit up, “Poppy!”
She snuggled the dog and scooted back into Libby’s lap.
Libby looked up at Maia, “Now what?”
Maia didn’t have time to answer. The sound of smashing glass, of crashing and snarling with intermittent roars of intimidation broke the quiet of the night.
Maia hurried over to the window, peeking through the curtains there. “They’re destroying the store!”
Libby’s eyes filled with tears;she was terrified and angry. They’d all worked so hard.
Maia shook her head at Libby while looking intently at Cristie. They couldn’t lose it in front of her. Maia didn’t want her scared. But then Maia’s heart dropped. She heard the distinct sounds of animals fighting — it wasn’t just the crash of them vandalizing the store any more. She pulled the curtains aside and watched the opposite side of the road. Then she saw him, Riley, he was on the rise across the road silhouetted in the moonlight battling three of the males that had come for Richie. Richie was not too far away from him and was taking on two of the males himself. There was blood everywhere, flashes of white teeth and fangs, sticky torn fur with blood dripping from it. The terrifying yowl of the big cats combined with roars and screams of pain and outrage.
Maia’s heart pounded, her eyes fooling her into thinking she saw a flying Panther, until she realized she did see a flying Panther. Lucas was there, down in the trailer park just below the rise, and he was gripping first one Panther by the throat, then another, tossing them as far as he could after mauling them with his huge paws.
Then her view was blocked by a pair of eyes staring into hers from the front yard gate of their home. It was a large Panther, one that appeared to have lived a very rough life. Young, but scarred badly. He was a very light tan, with white framing his face, snout and throat. A fresh wound across his cheek, just beginning to heal. His eyes were unique, one was green, the other gold. His head turned just slightly to the right, like a confused animal would when trying to figure out a situation that confounded him. Maia’s adrenalin spiked, they were close.
Then she heard a clanging, and her line of sight flicked to the store again. They were trying to break the locks off the gas pumps. “Oh my God!” she breathed. She had no doubt they were going to try to set the pumps afire. “Come on! Now!”
Maia grabbed Libby’s hand and ran them into the kitchen. She went into the pantry, found the latch, pulled it open and hurried Libby and Cristie into the storm cellar. “Stay here! Do not come out for any reason, until one of us comes for you. And here, keep this with you. You stab anyone you don’t know.”
“Where are you going?” Libby demanded, taking the hunting knife Maia shoved at her, “Come in here with us. Alpha would want you safe, to
o.”
“I can’t, not yet. Stay here.” Maia pushed the wall closed, moved the food back into place on the shelf where the latch was hidden, then rushed back into the living room. She moved silently back to the front window and very gently moved the curtain aside. The Panther was gone, but still their gas pumps were under assault. “Fuckers!” she snarled.
She checked the gun in her hand to assure herself that it was ready to fire, unlocked the door, paused only momentarily to ensure no one was on the porch or in the front yard, then stepped just outside the door and took aim, standing exactly the way her daddy had taught her. One hand under the heel of the gun, the other relaxed on the trigger, she peered down the barrel with both eyes open, slowly let her breath out and held it steady while she pulled the trigger. She had to be very careful, she was firing in the vicinity of the gas pumps, and she had blow up Christmas Dragons and Santas in her field of vision as well, but as long as she hit the fuckers instead of the pumps, no problem. If she happened to kill a decoration or two, she’d buy Cristie some more of them. Plus, she hoped they were helping shield her from the view of those she was ready to fire at. The crack of gunfire was deafening, then almost instantaneously, the male with the sledge hammer trying to pound the lock off the first tank dropped. She took only a moment to snicker before repeating the stance Maverik had taught her and firing again at the second male. He too dropped. Movement in the parking lot caught her eye, two more - one Panther, one Leopard charged toward her. She rotated her arms in their direction, Pop - Pop! The crack of the gun sounding one right behind the other as she dropped them both in their tracks. She scanned the parking lot once more, casting one last look off toward the distance where she could just make out several bodies lying on the rise. She couldn’t see Riley, Richie or Lucas anymore, but the battle raged on. She could hear it clearly in the distance.
At the corner of the house behind her just at the end of the porch, Lazarus watched. He’d overheard the conversation between the Reigna and her Pride member. He’d heard her rush the other female and the child to safety, then return to defend her territory. This female was different than most. She was strong, honorable. She was worthy of the name Reigna. There was no game with her. She was what she represented herself to be. His ears perked as he heard his Alpha circling around the back of the house. Lazarus backed into the shadows and followed.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Libby was trembling, she was terrified. There was no way the three males of her Pride could defeat more than sixteen of another. She looked at the phone in her hand — she couldn’t call the police. But she could call Travis. “Cristie, baby, I need you to stay right here. Do not move. Do you understand?” Libby asked, sitting the girl in the corner of the storm cellar and piling up blankets in front of her to hide her from view.
Cristie’s mouth pulled down into a worried pout as she nodded and hugged Poppy to her chest.
Libby tiptoed back up the steps to the entrance of the storm cellar. She pushed the lever that would pop the latch on the other side and pushed it opened just a crack. She needed to get a signal, so she could call for help. Down in the cement-lined cellar, she couldn’t get a single tease of a signal. Most of her body lay out along the stairs, just her head and hand sticking out of the entranceway to the cellar, her phone in one hand, the hunting knife Maia had handed her in the other. She hit the speed dial button for the male she prayed would answer.
Travis was sitting on the edge of his bed, fully clothed, holding his pillow to his face. The fading scent of Libby just barely detectable, when his phone rang.
It startled him. No one ever called him, except Scotty, and Scotty was in the living room. He got up and reached for the phone jingling on his nightstand. He snatched it up and glared at it. When he saw the name displayed there, his expression softened. Libby. It was his Libby. He pressed the button to accept the call and brought the phone to his ear. “Libby?”
“Travis!” she hissed on a whisper. “Please! Please help us. There are too many. We can’t beat them all, please come!”
“Libby!” he bellowed, starting to move as she spoke, “Who, honey? Where? Where are you?!” he shouted.
“Riley’s. They came for Richie. I can hear them battling, there are so…” her last words were drowned out by gunshots ringing loudly in the background. Then the phone went dead.
“Libby?! Libby?!” he screamed into the phone.
By the time he got into the living room, Scotty was already standing by the front door, ready to go, “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Some kind of battle at Riley’s, Libby’s there, she said there are too many to fight, no way they can win, then there were gun shots and the phone disconnected.” All this was said while he rushed around the living room taking rifles and ammo down from the gun racks that decorated his house. He threw his phone to Scotty, “Pull up Roman’s name, hit call, tell him to meet me by the road, prepared for battle, I’m on my way.”
Scotty did what he was told while rushing to the gun rack in his own room and taking down his rifle and ammo, too. He ran outside just in time to jump in the passenger side before Travis sped away.
“What are you doing?” Travis demanded.
“I’m going, too. They’re my friends, too!” Scotty yelled at Travis.
“Fine, but you better shoot any damn thing that moves that isn’t one of us. Can you do that?”
“I may not be able to shift, but my eyesight is as good as yours. I’ll know who to shoot,” Scotty said as Travis floored the gas, taking the old truck out onto the highway faster than it had moved in years.
Three miles down the road Travis started slowing, laying on his horn. Out of the shadows stepped a huge mammoth of a male. He purposefully strode into the path of the truck and just as it slowed enough, he grabbed onto the side and launched himself up and over the side, landing in the bed of the truck.
Scotty said, “Got him,” but Travis had already started accelerating. He had no doubt that Roman was already securely in the back of the truck. “When we get there, I’m going to stop about a third of a mile away from the house. We’re going in on foot, silently. You go to the house, you find Libby and you keep her safe!”
“And Maia and Cristie, too.”
“Keep them safe, Scotty. You shoot any fucking body that you don’t recognize. You got it?”
“Yes. Got it.”
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
The gunshots startled Libby. She screamed and dropped the phone. She fumbled for it, then realized the line had gone dead when it hit the floor. She lifted it to dial the number again, then saw golden eyes watching her from the back door. She squeaked, slid back down the stairs and pulled the wall closed behind her. Pulling the latch firmly to lock the door back in place. She knew her hiding place had been compromised. She looked around for the knife, but couldn’t find it. She was more than sure she must have left it outside the pantry door when she dropped her phone. Now she had no weapon at all. Her only hopes were that the owner of those eyes couldn’t figure out how to open the wall entrance, that the gun shots were Maia and she’d shoot whoever it was watching them if they tried to come in the house, and that Travis was coming. She made her way over to where Cristie hadn’t moved since she’d placed her in the corner. She situated herself in front of the child, blocking her from view should the door be forced open and sat down to wait for whatever happened next.
<<<<<<<>>>>>>>
Three males sat in the shadows behind Riley’s house while the battle raged on across the rise on the highway.
“See? I told you we could take the female while the others were distracted by our other males.”
“Yes, Alpha. You did. It was very sharp of you to realize that.”
“I didn’t realize it, I planned it!”
“Of course, Alpha.”
“Wait! Look! Do you see that? The wall inside the pantry just moved,” the Alpha said. “Wait here while I get a better look.” The Alpha moved up onto the back porch to better see.
When the female laying on the floor, crying and speaking into her phone noticed him watching her, she dropped the phone and the knife she was holding and scurried back into the pantry, pulling the wall closed behind her. He let her go, making no move to go after her. She wasn’t the female he coveted.
He heard scuffling behind himself in the yard and went back to his original hiding spot hissing, “What the hell is the problem?”
To his complete disgust, Lazarus answered him, “You cannot steal this female. She deserves better. She’s courageous and strong. She is made for so much better than you.”
“I’ve had enough of you questioning my authority. I allowed you to join my Pride because I thought you’d be beneficial to my personal guard, but you’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side. I should have known when no other would have you. No more!”
“Fuck you, you egotistical old bastard,” Lazarus shot back at him. “The only reason I’m here tonight is to make sure you don’t fuck up some innocent’s life while on your demented path to revenge. You are not taking that female!”
Alpha didn’t answer Lazarus. He smiled coldly, then motioned with his chin to someone behind Lazarus.
Before Lazarus could turn to see who it was, his abdomen exploded in pain. Then that pain tore through him as the blade of one of Alpha’s men was sunk deeply into his gut, then torn sideways across his waist.
He didn’t shout, he barely flinched, the only proof that he was even aware he’d been stabbed was his hands coming up to press to his wound.
“Now lie here like the dead male you are, and maybe you’ll live long enough to watch me make their Reigna ours.”
Lazarus fell to his knees, then over onto his side, blood starting to trickle from the corner of his mouth, his clothes rapidly becoming soaked in his own blood. His hands covered in it as they pressed to his own gut.
Alpha kicked Lazarus aside, “I’m going inside that house to wait for our Reigna to make an appearance. Stay here and stay hidden. I’ll call for you when I need help carrying her out.”
Riley's Pride Page 23
