Chapter 15 #3
My eyes fall on Sasha. “We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
“Be careful,” she pleads.
I nod.
Tyson and Jax follow me outside. They strip off their clothes.
“You two remember where we’re going?” I ask as I remove my shorts.
“Yup, to the barn off Clifton Road,” Tyson says.
“Good. Fitch and Blake will meet us there,” I confirm.
“Let’s kick their asses,” Jax says.
I wave to the deputies sitting in the cruiser a few feet away.
They nod back in understanding.
I feel eyes on me. Peeking over my shoulder, I notice Sasha standing in the doorway. Tara and Genevieve are behind her.
We don’t waste time shifting.
This is a part of who I am. Sasha should become familiar with my wolf.
I hear her gasp as my body transforms into my wolf.
Gripping the banister, she slowly makes her way to me. Her fingers glide through my gray and white fur coat. “You’re a hot wolf.”
I nuzzle into her before moving toward the woods.
The evening air is thick with the smell of cut grass and coming rain, the kind of ordinary summer night that makes everything a second later feel wrong before I understand why.
Snarls sound in front of me, low and close, closer than they have any right to be.
What the fuck? They came for my omega.
One of them breaks from the treeline in a dead sprint, low to the ground, jaws already open, and leaps over my body — not at me, past me, straight for Sasha’s throat.
A blood-curdling scream rips out of her. Behind me, I hear Tyson and Jax already engaged, snarling and snapping, two more shapes tangled together in the dark, but I don’t look. I can’t. There’s only one thing in the world right now, and it’s the arc of that wolf’s body sailing toward the porch.
I’m faster.
I twist mid-stride and catch him out of the air, my jaw closing on the side of his neck before his paws ever touch the steps.
We hit the ground together, hard enough to knock the wind out of both of us, and I feel him thrashing under me — desperate, wild, realizing too late he picked the wrong target to go through.
My teeth sink deeper. He stops thrashing. Then he stops moving at all.
No one touches my omega.
I didn’t want us to have to kill the rogue wolf shifters, but they came onto my property, so they got put down.
Jennings and Sanchez step closer.
“We’ll take care of cleanup and ensure Sasha, Tara, and Genevieve are locked up tight,” Jennings says.
I have to trust the tiger shifter. If she has to shift, she’ll rip our enemies’ bodies apart. Sanchez is a fae — he’ll try to keep from killing, but he won’t let the enemies slip away.
“I know how to do the protection spell,” Sasha says.
“We’ll be fine,” she says, planting a kiss on my head. “Go.”
This time we run through the woods at full force, ready for blood.
Quietly, we assess the barn from our position near the property line under the moonlit sky.
The night has gone still around us, crickets cutting out the second we go silent, replaced by the distant, uneasy shuffle of too many bodies moving inside a wooden building that was never built to hold this many.
The smell reaches us even from here — old hay and diesel and, underneath it, the unmistakable musk of shifters trying and failing to mask their scent.
Fitch saunters toward us in his brown bear form, huge and silent for something his size.
Blake gracefully halts at his side, tawny coat catching what little moonlight makes it through the trees.
We all take in the wolves going in and out of the barn, backlit gold every time the door swings open.
Time to play.
My team and I had already gone over the plan this morning, so we know what to do. We break off from each other. Taking long, predatory strides, I approach the side of the barn, close enough now to hear voices over the animal sounds inside.
“Where the fuck are Harris, John, and Rick?” Carson asks.
“Shit, they should be back by now,” he grunts.
“We need to get out-of-town now,” Jenny urges.
“We’re leaving soon. I need that other painting.”
“Forget the painting. You’ve made more than enough money on the first one.”
A loud slap sounds in the air. “Ouch,” Jenny cries.
“Beta, shut up and make yourself useful. Make sure the boat is ready to depart tomorrow night at eight p.m.,” Carson orders.
Stepping around the corner, I growl.
His icy blue eyes are trained on me now. “Seems the wolves I sent after you just can’t get you to stay down.” He runs across the oversized barn, his hired help stepping in front of me. I count six. I’m not sure if there are more covering the perimeter. Carson uses this moment to shift.
Bone cracks and fur rips through skin faster than I’ve ever watched another wolf do it — sloppy, urgent, more animal panic than practiced control. He transforms into a black-and-white, menacing wolf, saliva already dripping from his fangs.
Jenny clutches her stomach and scampers to a corner. Doesn’t look like she’s healing from Sasha’s magic. Good.
My team moves in beside me. Carson’s wolves step aside like they’re parting the Red Sea. He ambles down the aisle toward me, unhurried, like he still thinks this ends his way.
The wolves howl as he approaches me.
What the fuck? Is he their pack leader?
Carson growls. We walk around in a circle, and I bare my teeth, saliva dripping from my fangs.
I’d love a little snack.
He lunges at me, nipping my leg. I attack his belly, trying to dig my teeth in.
Before I know it, fights break out all over the barn — the crash of bodies into stall doors, splintering wood, Tyson’s snarl somewhere to my left, Jax’s roar answering it, the whole building filling with the copper smell of blood and the panicked stamp of something in a back stall that isn’t part of this at all. My focus goes back to Carson.
He shot a gun at my omega and ran her off the road. He has to pay for almost killing her.
He jumps back, growling, baring his teeth.
We leap in the air and our bodies collide, full weight and momentum meeting in midair, and for a second neither of us has the ground under us at all.
We ferociously try to rip each other’s heads off.
We fall to the ground, clawing and biting, rolling across the barn floor through scattered hay and worse, until I get the angle I want and pin him down, teeth ready to sink in.
My brother howls, getting my attention.
I took an oath as sheriff to bring bad guys to justice.
It costs me something to remember that with his throat an inch from my jaw and his eyes wide and furious under me, but I do. I ease back, just enough, and shift down to human, my knee still planted in his ribs to keep him there.
“Sheriff,” Fitch yells out, concern heavy in his tone.
Letting this narcissist go to prison is just the punishment he needs. No easy way out. He’ll live behind the wall with no one but himself to be upset with.
I notice sirens glowing through the barn window. Looks like our backup arrived.
I climb off him — still wolf, still snarling, refusing to give me the satisfaction of shifting on his own — and notice the barn doors are closed. Carson and his pack can either be escorted out in handcuffs or cages. Either way, they will return to human form before going to trial.
Deputy Mavins places one of my many uniforms in my hands. Four other deputies stand with their guns drawn, keeping the crime scene secure.
Once I’m dressed, I call out, “Fitch.”
He approaches. “Yes, Sheriff?”
“Toss Carson some clothes.”
We keep clothes on hand when we patrol. Never know when we’ll have to deal with an unruly shifter.
Carson is still in his wolf form. Does he think he has a way out?
Fitch flings the clothes in front of Carson.
“Put them on,” I order.
He snarls again.
“Don’t make me tase you.”
Stubborn as ever, he leaves me no choice. I unhook my taser from my belt and zap him. When tased a few times, our bodies transform to our human form whether we want them to or not.
Finally, he shifts back and climbs into the shorts and t-shirt. I remove my cuffs from my belt and approach him. “You have the right to remain silent.” As I reach for his wrist, he twirls around and bolts toward the side door.
“I got him,” I yell.
Gun raised, I shout, “Carson, stop or I’ll shoot.”
He points a weapon over his shoulder and fires. Somehow he must’ve grabbed it on his way to the door. Maybe it was stashed.
I dart to the left, dodging the bullet.
He runs deeper into the woods. I return fire.
“Fucking stop running, Carson,” I roar as I pick up speed, branches tearing at my sleeves, the ground uneven and treacherous underfoot in the dark.
He knows this stretch of woods better than I expected — every cut and turn like he’s run it before, planned this route out as an exit long before tonight.
He lets off another shot. I feel the heat in the side of my arm before the pain catches up to it.
“Fuck,” I grit out.
I let off two more shots.
“Shit,” he cries out.
I hear a thud hitting the forest floor.
The light on my Glock lights my path. “Hands where I can see them.”
No response.
I find Carson on the ground, gripping his chest, blood pouring between his fingers.
I kick his gun aside and drop to my knees.
I yell, “I need the paramedics.”
My hands move over his, applying pressure. “Don’t you die on me, coward. Hold on.”