Chapter 12
A few days later, Daniel dropped by Selena’s shop to pick her up for the Halloween party.
“It’s time to party.” She pirouetted, showing off her gold-trimmed, gold-belted white Grecian dress.
Wearing a short tunic and a short burgundy cloak, he took her in his arms and whirled her around. “You are beautiful. I can’t wait to dance with you.”
“Ditto. And you are so sexy. I just love you in this.” She ran her hand over his wool tunic.
Then they left the shop, locked it up, and climbed into Daniel’s SUV.
“So how are the wedding plans coming along?” Daniel had left it up to the ladies, though they asked his input on what he wanted to wear.
Since it was near Christmas, he wanted to wear a black tuxedo, while the ladies wore red gowns and little white faux-fur capes, and his sweet bride would wear a white gown with a long train. That’s all she would reveal.
Daniel’s and Carmela’s brothers would be his groomsmen, along with Peter and the rest of the deputy sheriffs.
Everyone was excited about going to the wedding.
But for now, it was time to join everyone heading to the Halloween party. “How was your day?” he asked, hoping Selena’s sales would continue to be good.
“I had fun giving out candy at the shop. I had a lot of sales too, but seeing all the little ones, teens, and some adults all dressed up was great. How about at the sheriff's office?”
“We had several kids dropping by. We gave chocolate out.”
She laughed. “I have a mixture of candy.”
“We had fun too.”
When Selena and Daniel arrived at the banquet hall for the party, a couple of pack members stood at the banquet door, making sure that no one entered who wasn’t a wolf—humans looking to crash the party for free food, drinks, and entertainment.
Dance music was playing, and Selena and Daniel met up with Carmela and Michael on the dance floor, happily dancing to the various tunes.
Several others got into the spirit of the music and joined them, no matter what they were wearing.
Darien Silver was a gladiator, and his mate, Lelandi, was a redheaded Cleopatra. Wizards, witches, cowboys and cowgirls, astronauts, pirates, you name it, were kicking up their heels and having a blast.
After several dances, the Hoffman family and Silva and Sam sat down at a table together to eat sliced roast beef and grilled veggies.
Deviled spider eggs were popular—little black olives cut in strips on top that made them like spiders.
And all kinds of desserts were made up in Halloween fashion—cookies trimmed with icing spiders, chocolate witches’ hats, mini-ghost cakes, and an assortment of other festive treats.
“Love your pirate costumes,” Selena said to Sam and Silva.
“Thanks, sugar.” Selena removed her three-cornered hat. “We’re still looking for the treasure.”
Sam laughed. “I found mine.” He leaned over and kissed her.
“Now that is just the right thing to say,” Carmela said.
“We love your Grecian costumes. Very sexy,” Silva said.
“Thanks. This has been so much fun,” Selena said. “I’ve never been to a Halloween party before and didn’t know what to expect.”
“They’re enjoyable. All the celebrations here are.
Everyone does their own thing for Christmas.
They have private parties. But we do have a Christmas parade with Santa and Mrs. Claus.
They have a New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day party at the banquet hall.
The Fourth of July party and Easter parties are at the pack leaders’ home.
They used to have a Thanksgiving celebration there, but then the pack got too big.
So everybody does their own thing,” Silva said.
“So there are lots of celebrations to enjoy,” Sam said. “We also have Victorian Days where we all dress up for that.”
“Oh, how fun. This sounds like a great place to live for adults and children alike. A great place to raise children,” Selena said.
Silva and Sam both smiled at her.
“In the future, I mean, about the kids,” Selena said, laughing.
Everyone laughed.
“We thought you had some news for us,” Carmela said.
“Not this soon,” Selena said.
Daniel squeezed her hand and smiled.
They finished their dinner and then all of them got up to dance. They only stopped long enough to get drinks of water, and then they were up dancing again.
They stayed until the bewitching hour, and then everyone said good night to everyone else. On the way home, Daniel took hold of Selena’s hand and kissed it. “You are the perfect dance partner.”
“I feel the same way about you. I’m signing us up for all the dances.”
He laughed. “I’m ready for them. I haven’t danced that much in one night ever. But being with my mate, I had the best time ever.”
“I haven’t danced that much at one event either. It was great. We also have our wedding coming up. I guess we won’t be doing a lot of dancing at that though.”
“We’ll make up for it at the other dances,” he said.
“I know why I mated you.” She smiled. “My dance partner for life. At the Halloween party, the costumes were all so great.”
“Ours were the best.”
She agreed. “We did get a ton of flattering remarks, and we complimented each other. On another subject, tomorrow night, I’ll finish up Jane Doe number two’s facial reconstruction, take the pictures, and send them off. I can’t believe the other one didn’t get any hits.”
“I know, but family and friends might not have reported her as missing.” He parked in the garage, closed the garage door, and they went inside the house.
But instantly, they smelled that the three brothers had been there, and neither Selena nor Daniel had their guns with them since they had been at the Halloween party.
Plus, they really had thought the brothers were long gone.
He didn’t see the men, who might be hiding in the house, waiting for them to return.
He motioned for Selena to stop and return to the garage. She stepped backward into the garage and began texting on her phone. Daniel saw that the second Jane Doe’s partial reconstruction, which had been sitting on the dining room table, was no longer there.
He wanted to get his gun from the gun safe, but it was in the bedroom. It was impossible to tell where the men were. He suspected that they were hiding in the house and hadn’t left. Were they in the bedroom?
He suspected they were. Anticipating ambushing them. Had they heard the garage door rumble as it opened? He wasn’t sure. He could hear it, being a wolf, but the master bedroom was on the other side of the house, so humans might not be able to hear it.
Still, he thought that if they tried to open the garage door again, they could be rushed, and he didn’t have bulletproof car windows. Under a barrage of bullets, Selena and he could be killed.
“Peter and the other deputies are coming,” she whispered to Daniel. “Can you move back into the garage and shut the door and lock it?”
“Yeah, but they can unlock it from the other side.”
“You can’t just stand in the house. Come on back to the garage.”
Then he remembered his other gun. “Hell, I’ve got a gun in the glove box. I was going to put it away before the party, but forgot.”
“You still can’t shoot it out with the brothers.”
Thinking of the last time he had faced the three men, guns firing, and got shot, he had to agree. He stepped back into the garage and slowly closed the door.
“I’m turning into my wolf. At least I’ll have teeth to fight with.” Selena began stripping off her clothes.
“I’m getting my gun out of the glovebox.” He locked the garage door with his key. Then he retrieved his gun from the car while Selena finished removing her clothes and shifted into her wolf.
Someone on the other side of the garage door unlocked it. Daniel hit the garage door opener in anticipation of the reinforcements' arrival. But Peter and the others were already too late.
The menaces were coming through the door.
The brothers charged into the garage, guns blazing.
Daniel dove down behind his car, his heart pounding.
All he worried about was Selena being hit.
Selena sneaked around the SUV and leapt on the man closest to her.
Daniel shot from under the SUV at the other two brothers in the legs to incapacitate them.
They dropped to the floor, crying out in pain. Selena had made the third guy drop his weapon while she kept hold of his arm, protected by the leather jacket, growling and snarling, putting the fear of the devil in him.
“Get it off me!” the man called out.
Just then, Peter arrived with five other deputies, their lights off and sirens silent.
“Two are down, leg wounds,” Daniel said.
“My wolf has still got hold of the other one. The man will need to be checked over for bite marks.” They couldn’t afford to have him bitten and turned, but Daniel suspected that’s why Selena had attacked his arm, covered in a leather jacket, forcing him to drop his weapon, but not biting through the heavy material.
Trevor gathered their guns while the EMTs arrived and came to take care of the wounded brothers.
Peter talked to Selena. “You can let him go now. We’ve got his gun. We need to check him over and take him into custody.”
She finally released the third brother, and he put his hands up in the air, his jacket sleeve torn, but Daniel didn’t see or smell any blood.
While the wounded men were loaded up in two ambulances, Peter removed the other brother’s leather jacket and pulled up his sleeve. No sign of any blood or bite marks. “Looks good.”
“Your dog tore up my jacket.”
“You’re lucky she held back. She has the bite of a wolf and could have chewed your arm right off.
She’s trained to take down armed combatants.
If Daniel had given the word, she would have ripped out your throat.
” Peter took him in his car. “Meet me down at the station for witness statements,” he said to Daniel.
“We’ll be there in a minute.” He thought about how proud he was of her. Both their hearts were still beating like crazy, and he thanked God that neither of them had been hit by all the rounds the brothers had fired. He closed the garage door so she could shift in privacy.
“I’m going to see how the brothers got into the house.” Then he hurried into the house while she quickly shifted and began dressing.
The breeze was blowing into the guest room where one of the large windows was broken.
Bastards. He would have to replace it tomorrow.
He also found the nearly finished skull of the second Jane Doe on the guest bed.
He was glad that they hadn’t broken it and it wouldn’t take too long for Selena to finish it.
Selena joined him in the guest room. “Oh, they broke the window. What rotten brothers.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
But then she lovingly picked up the skull she had been working on.
“You’re safe. I was worried about you.” Then she said to Daniel, “It’s a good thing the brother I bit had a heavy jacket on, otherwise I would have had to have shoved the brother down and hope it would have knocked him out. You couldn’t take out three at once.”
“Yeah, I needed you.”
She put Jane Doe’s skull back on the bed. “We needed each other.” Her heart was still pounding as she pulled him into an embrace. “Let’s get the statements done. So we can finish off the Halloween night in the way we had intended.”
He smiled at her as he hugged her tightly. “Let’s call our statements in.”
“Even better.”