Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
"Augh," Leftie grunted as he lunged, aiming for my body.
I dropped to the ground on my back. As he flew over me, I kicked him in the nuts and lifted him, causing him to flip over and land on his back.
A loud thud and groan confirmed that I’d hit my mark.
I climbed back up and into a fighter’s stance with my feet shoulder-width apart, shuffling backward to keep an eye on everything going on around me while I moved into sight of Griffin and the others.
If I wanted their help, I had to position myself so they could see me and my attackers.
Leftie rolled over and vomited chunky bits of whatever he’d eaten; the stench stole my breath away. My own stomach rolled like it wanted to sympathy barf beside him.
Yeah, not happening. I breathed through my mouth and kept my eyes averted from him. He’d be down for a while.
The firing stopped, and the other three descended on me. They weren’t underestimating me as the other two had.
"Watch her," Hyena warned, and rubbed his neck. "She’s stronger than she looks."
"Yeah, dumbasses." Llama smirked. "She’s a fucking silver wolf. What did you expect? You’ve fought Julius."
"But he’s a man." Hyena waved a hand toward me. "She’s less than half his size, but she delivers a stronger punch."
Dammit. I’d fooled them at first, but the ruse was over. They were aware of what I could do…granted, they didn’t know to what extent. I smiled, hoping I looked crazed. If they were attacking me in groups now, then they were at least a little nervous, so I needed to play into it.
Act deranged.
I forced laughter from deep inside my belly while shaking my head. The sound chafed my throat due to the anxiety mixed within it. As much as they were scared, so was I. Not only for myself, but for my friends.
I was so tired of putting us all in danger.
My blood pumped with the moon’s magic. I took a second to glance in its direction, noting that it was above the trees now. The light shone on me, giving me a silver moon high.
Raising my hands, I watched my skin glisten silver. On nights like these, I could take on the world.
"Dude, her skin and eyes…" Solo sounded awed. "I’ve never seen anything like that before."
Wait. If they’d been around Julius, then they should’ve seen this before now. I glanced at the other silver wolf and noticed a faint hint of silver around him, but nothing like my alpha shimmer, or even like my pack members had. Alpha blood contained the strongest magic, and thus, Dad and I always looked more silver than the others—but they’d still shone brightly in the moonlight.
Maybe he wasn’t my brother, after all.
The thought both comforted and upset me. I didn’t need a family member who was out for my blood, but at the same time, having any sort of family would be nice…even a cousin. I understood that Griffin was my family now, but he couldn’t understand the struggles of being a silver wolf. No matter how hard he might try, he would never fully get there, just like Mom.
"What are you doing?" Julius yelled, turning to face us. "She’s leading you right in front of her friends. Get her ass back over there." He glanced at Rosemary, who was swooping toward us again, and fired a few rounds, stalling her. He shoved me back toward the front door, where Griffin and the others didn’t have a clear view of me anymore. However, when his hand touched me, the warm spot in my chest solidified as our bond snapped into place.
His conflicting feelings slammed into me almost as powerfully as Griffin’s. He inhaled sharply, and his gunfire halted as he shifted his entire focus to severing the connection between us.
Solo, Llama, and Twitcher descended on me like I was the prey they desperately needed.
Llama moved behind me and clutched my arms like he could restrain them permanently behind me. I played along and leaned back against him as Solo pulled out another set of handcuffs—as if those could hold me.
They hadn’t seen what I’d done to the other pair. They’d been downstairs.
As Solo got closer, I leaned back on Llama and kicked Solo in the jaw. He twisted through the air and landed several feet away, his head hitting the ground with a sickening crack.
"Don’t waste your time with handcuffs," Hyena said as he bounded off the porch, already recovered enough to join the fight. "The bitch shattered the other ones."
I was tired of being bullied and called derogatory names just because I was female. I pulled more power from the moon, making myself even stronger. I leaned forward and threw Llama over my body. His hold released as he tried to catch his fall, but he landed hard on his back, hitting his head and passing out.
"Julius," Twitcher shouted. "She’s kicking our asses."
Dammit, are you okay? Griffin linked.
Yeah. I glanced in his direction for a second and could just make out the three of them squatting in the tree line. How about you guys?
We’re trying to get to you. He sounded frustrated. We hit another one of them.
I’ll be there to help in a second. It was time to end this.
Not wanting to be on the defensive any longer, I decided to take control of the situation. I no longer had any reason to not go all out. I called to my wolf, asking for her to come forward. She gladly obliged, and within seconds, my bones began to crack and reform. Before long, I was on four legs, completely shifted into my animal form.
"Holy shit." Hyena stopped and stared.
On nights like these, my wolf was huge; on all four legs, I was the same height as I was in human form. I bared my teeth and stalked toward Hyena, letting him know that he was the prey, not me.
His bottom lip quivered as he seemed to realize he was on the wrong side…at least, at the moment.
That wasn’t going to win him sympathy. He’d proven that he had no remorse about handing me off to a horrible fate. The only reason he had regret now was because of his fear.
As if realizing his best chance of survival was in his animal form, he began his own shift.
I’d never fought a bear before, so this would be interesting. More hair sprouted along his body even though I wasn’t sure how. The asshole had been hairy as fuck, to begin with.
He roared at me in his beast form.
However, he didn’t have the size advantage he would on standard wolves—because I was the same size. He barreled toward me, probably planning on using his brute strength against me. I easily dodged him, and he ran past me several feet before he could stop. He skidded in the gravel and spun back around.
Drool dripped from his teeth as his chest heaved. He lumbered back in my direction but, this time, didn’t race like before. He anticipated that I’d dodge him again. So, when he got close, he stood on his back two legs and wrapped his arms around my body, countering my move.
He’d surprised me…and it infuriated me. I’d been trained better than that.
As he tightened his hold, pain coursed through my body, alerting Griffin.
Sterlyn . Griffin cried through our bond.
I’m fine. If he did something stupid, then both of us would get hurt. There was no way in hell I’d let anything happen to him. He doesn’t have me.
As Hyena wrapped his arms around me, I sank my teeth into his upper shoulder.
He grunted as he stumbled back and then attacked again, swiping a paw at me. I tried to get out of the way, but his claws slashed into my leg. Pain radiated, but luckily, I’d gotten out of the way enough that it wasn’t detrimental—only a minor inconvenience, since I could heal quickly under the Silver Moon.
Not wanting him to gain the upper hand, I lunged at his neck. He swung an arm, swatting me like a fly. I flew back several feet and landed on my side. Fighting through the ache, I forced myself back onto all fours.
Hyena scuffed his paws in the gravel, throwing out small rocks and dirt that hit my face and legs. The rocks stung, but the dirt in my eyes was the bigger concern.
Dammit, he was fighting dirty. Of course, he was.
I closed my eyes and focused solely on hearing as heavy paws pounded my way. Hyena was running at me at an angle. At the very last second, I dropped and rolled in the opposite direction, forcing him to fall with a thud. I then jumped on his back and sank my teeth into his uninjured shoulder.
Growling, he bucked like a bull in a rodeo, trying to fling me from his back—but I dug my teeth in deeper, along with my claws. I shredded the skin all along his back, and he whimpered in pain. Eventually, he dropped and rolled, capturing me under his weight.
For a second, I couldn’t breathe, but it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Getting my head on straight, I stretched, reaching the side of his neck. That was all I needed. I bit down right where the artery was. Even though I wasn’t fully ripping out his throat, he’d bleed out too quickly to heal this way. It wasn’t an instant death, but it wouldn’t take long.
Blood poured from his wound, coating the fur around my neck and chest crimson. He lurched to his feet as if he thought that would reverse the fatality of the injury. Within a few steps, his legs gave out, and he succumbed to the inevitable.
Not worried about him anymore, I turned my attention to find Llama back on his feet. He’d been trying to sneak up on me while I’d been preoccupied with Hyena.
His eyes widened, and he shook his head and raised his hands. "Look, I don’t mean to cause any trouble."
But that wasn’t the truth, according to the horrible stench swirling around. Everyone here had a darkness within them that told me otherwise. And, unlike Julius, they didn’t seem to have any redeeming sensibilities. They’d be after me again in a heartbeat. Hell, to be fair, Julius probably would be, too.
"Don’t be a damn pussy." Leftie climbed to his feet, his face red with either pain or rage. Most likely a combination of the two.
My natural instinct was to focus on Leftie, but Llama had proven he had no problem trying to attack me while I was preoccupied. Since he was pretending to surrender, I couldn’t force myself to kill him, but I could knock his ass out.
Using the element of surprise, I kicked at his head, forcing his body to spin hard to the ground.
Leftie said with disgust, "That asshole deserved it."
Not wanting to hear any more of his lip, I lowered my head and bulldozed him, past Julius—who was still shooting at Rosemary—and five feet away into the trees where Griffin and Killian were located.
Leftie tried to get a grip around my neck, but his hands slipped on the fresh blood. I picked up my pace and slammed his body into a tree trunk, and his arms jerked with an accompanying crack . When I stepped back, his body crumpled at my feet. I realized that I must have broken his neck, and his heart wasn’t beating any longer.
I spun back around to locate Twitcher, only to see him racing down the gravel road. One of the men dressed in black growled and shot at him, and he cried out as he fell.
"You know there is no escape," Bass Guitar yelled at him. "Now you’re going to wish you’d died."
I imagined they planned on beating the shit out of him, and God knew what else. No wonder the first bear shifter to kidnap me had killed himself that day.
Rosemary landed beside me, her twilight eyes filled with worry. She touched my fur, and her power entered me, but after a few seconds, she sighed with relief.
My heart raced with fear from her being here since she’d been fighting Julius. However, I could feel the connection still between me and Julius, and I turned to find him lying still on the ground. My body tensed, then sagged with relief when I realized he was breathing.
She must have understood because she wiped the blood from her hands onto her pants and sighed. "I was told to protect the silver wolves no matter what."
She’d told me that before—and I realized it applied to Julius, too. The weight that lifted from my shoulders once I understood that told me I already cared about this man more than I should. The connection between us was familial.
I nodded and focused on my next few targets. Once we eliminated them, we could get the hell out of here.
Rosemary ran next to me, pointing to the man on the far right, and gestured at herself. Then, she motioned at the one on the left and at me. The message was clear. We’d get the two on the outside, and Bass Guitar, who was in the center, was already hurt and not able to react quickly; because of his injured shoulder, he wouldn’t be able to train his gun in opposite directions, so when he turned to shoot at Rosemary, I could take his ass down. They wouldn’t shoot at me first since they were supposed to keep me alive.
Moving as quietly as possible, I trotted toward the man on the left. Of course, that was the moment that the breeze changed directions and blew my scent his way. He tensed and pivoted toward me. His attention flicked to the bodies that lay scattered around, and then to the angel who was about to attack his cohort.
"How the hell do you all keep doing this?" he asked, his voice thick with anger. "We were told if we couldn’t take you alive, we should kill you on the spot." He pulled out his gun and aimed it right at me. I pushed my legs, trying to reach him before he could fire.
The mixture of my parents’ scents invaded my senses…almost as if I was trying to remember them one last time before I died. Panic sank deep inside me and seeped through the bond connecting me and Julius. But that didn’t make sense. He was passed out behind me.
Griffin’s cry filled my ears as gunfire went crazy, and I linked to him. I love you.
Rosemary flapped toward me, her hand reaching out for me.
The sound of a gunshot echoed loud, and a flash of silver slammed into me as Julius’s voice popped into my head, No! She can’t die.
I landed hard, my breath knocked out of me by either the force of the impact or the fact that we had some sort of bond that now allowed him to mind-link with me. Julius held me down, his face set with pure determination.
Gunshots rang from Bass Guitar and his two friends, back in the direction of Griffin and the others. So, when Griffin reached my side and shoved Julius off me, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to be imagining him in my final moments alive—but I didn’t care as the mirage pulled me into his arms, tears running down his face.
Grateful to be with my mate, I focused on what had just happened between Julius and me. But how? I linked to Julius, even though my mind was reeling from everything else. I wasn’t sure what I was addressing—him saving me or talking in my mind. Our eyes locked as some sort of battle sprang up between us like our wolves were fighting to dominate one another.
Was it that important to him to get paid and hand me over to whoever had hired him?
It didn’t matter.
He’d soon regret saving me from that bullet…because our fight had just begun.