Chapter 6
A sharp crash of shattering glass jolted Avi from the best sleep of his life. For a few disoriented seconds, he lay still in the darkness, heart pounding.
The room was quiet again.
Had something just broken, or had he dreamed it?
Then another loud cracking sound woke Fallon up with a loud gasp. Something hit the side of the barn—hard—and this time Avi knew he wasn’t dreaming.
“Stay put,” he told Fallon as he got up and grabbed his jeans, tugging them on. He heard another smacking sound against the exterior of the barn, and then something shattered the window in the bedroom.
Fallon cried out and he turned quickly, pulling her off the bed and onto the floor as glass pinged around the room.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I think so. What’s happening?”
“I think someone is shooting at us.”
He found his phone on the floor where it had fallen out of his pocket and called Crew.
“Someone’s shooting at the farmhouse!” Crew said when he answered. “Fucking paintball pellets. I got hit in the shoulder covering Zara. Are you guys okay?”
“Someone is shooting at us too!”
“Can you get to the house? It’s safer here than the barn, you two are alone.”
“We’ll sneak out the back and run.”
“I’ll be at the door. Ford’s got the shotgun to cover you.”
Tucking his phone into his pocket, he told Fallon to dress quickly as he moved to the window and pulled the edge of the curtain back so he could see.
The window was shattered and the curtain was shredded, but beyond that he couldn’t see anything in the darkness.
No security lights had been tripped by motion, so whoever was shooting at them hadn’t come close enough to trigger them.
There were more thuds near the window, and then a paintball streaked by him, nearly getting him in the head. He ducked back with a low curse.
“Do you see anyone?” Fallon whispered.
“No. I think it’s my cousin and his herd, though.”
“Not Otto?”
“He doesn’t know where you are. As far as he knows, you’re still at the park. It has to be Colton.”
“Asshole.”
He agreed one hundred percent.
“We’re going to the farmhouse. Stay with me, no matter what.”
“I’m on your butt like glue, I promise,” she said.
He gave her a quick kiss and they hurried to the door.
He opened it slowly, listening intently in case one of Colton’s herd members had made it inside and was waiting for them.
He didn’t see or hear anyone, so he opened the door more fully and led Fallon down the stairs.
He couldn’t believe Colton was causing such a ruckus with so few herd members.
“Ready to run?” he asked, his hand on the side door that was closest to the farmhouse.
“Yes.”
He was worried she’d get hurt, but they were sitting ducks in the barn.
Inhaling deeply, he touched his stallion for speed and strength, gripped Fallon’s hand tightly, and pushed open the door.
Eyes on the farmhouse porch, he tried to cover Fallon as much as possible as they raced full tilt to the house.
Paintballs zipped by them, splattering against the dirt.
One clipped Avi’s arm, stinging sharply.
“Hurry!” Ford shouted, opening the door, rifle in hand and aimed above their heads.
Avi pushed Fallon ahead of him into the house and slammed the door behind them once Ford was inside.
Windows shattered one after the other. Crew hurried them into the kitchen, where Zara and Tatum were standing in their pajamas in the walk-in pantry. “There’s no windows in there,” Grey said. “It’s a safe place.”
Fallon walked in, hugging the females.
“Close the door. We’re going to find Colton and his herd and put a stop to this,” Crew said.
“Be careful,” Fallon said.
“We will be,” Avi promised. The door shut and he turned to his friends. “It has to be Colton trying to draw us out. But they wouldn’t be able to kill us with paintballs, they’re just wreaking havoc.”
“If they’re drawing us out of the farmhouse,” Ford said, “then they may be planning to take us out with real weapons or kidnap some of us.” He looked pointedly at Crew, who snarled.
A window shattered in the next room and paintballs exploded against the wall in rapid fire.
“Let’s figure out where they are first,” Crew said. “Then we’ll plan our counter.”
The males split up, checking windows discreetly and looking for anything in the darkness that would signify where the males were. They didn’t seem to stick in place long, shooting out windows and then moving.
Then Avi saw the glint of metal in the darkness just before paintballs hit the wall behind him. “I see them!” he whispered loudly. “In the tree line by the barn.”
Crew was by his side a moment later. “How many?” He looked through the window and ducked quickly as paintballs splattered around them, spraying them in colorful paint.
“Two, I think,” he said.
“There’s one at the side by the pasture,” Ford said as he joined them.
Paintballs slammed into the wall behind them again, making them duck as plaster sprayed down on them.
“Fire a few warning shots,” Crew said. “Make them duck and we’ll go for them. Avi, you’re with me for the two at the front. Grey, take the back. Ford, take the side.”
“On it,” Ford said.
“Be careful,” Grey said.
Ford opened the front door and raised the rifle, firing twice into the tree line. “They’re scrambling, I can see their shadows. Go, go!”
“Strike hard, don’t kill. Let’s drive them away.”
Avi and Crew darted off the porch into the shadows as Ford fired off a few more shots and then raced for the side yard.
Paintballs hit the ground as Avi and Crew ran for the trees, ducking the projectiles.
Avi saw someone just inside the trees as he raised his paintball gun to fire.
He burst from the shadows and hit him low, driving his shoulder into the male’s stomach.
Crew grabbed the weapon and cracked the male in the side of the head, rendering him unconscious with one blow.
Avi and Crew moved forward through the trees, ducking and weaving blasts from another paintball gun.
As the clouds moved away and the waning moonlight lit the area, Avi saw his cousin Colton, eyes wide and paintball gun raised.
“You’re outnumbered,” Crew shouted.
Colton aimed the paintball gun at Crew, and Avi shoved his alpha to the side, taking one in the shoulder. With a growl of fury, he raced for Colton, who disappeared into the shadows.
Avi backed off, exhaling slowly as his heart pounded in his ears, and scanned the area for threats.
When he didn’t sense anyone else, he turned to find Crew, who was picking himself up off the ground.
“You saved me from taking a paintball pellet to the face. Thanks, man. How’s your shoulder?”
“Sore and colorful.” Avi looked at the spot where dark paint bloomed. “That’s going to bruise up nicely.”
“Yeah.” Crew put his hands on his hips and looked around. “What were they doing? Just luring us out of the house? To what end?”
“I don’t know. It’s weird.”
They moved back to where they’d left the unconscious male, but he was gone, most likely grabbed by another herd member as they fled.
“Looks like someone dragged him off,” Crew said.
They turned toward the farmhouse. “Wait,” Avi said, his stallion letting out a worried whinny.
“What?”
“Doesn’t something feel off?”
“Aside from Colton using paintball guns meant for children to shatter the windows?”
“No, I mean it’s really quiet now. They were firing like crazy and then when we got out here, they retreated.”
Crew inhaled with a growl. “Zara.”
“What about her?”
“I don’t know. I can feel her. Something’s wrong.”
They raced to the farmhouse, Avi worrying that one of the herd males had gone into the house where the females were hiding in the pantry.
Zara was at the front door and waving her arms. “Don’t come onto the porch! It’s a trap!”
Avi and Crew skidded to a halt a few yards from the bottom step of the porch. Zara pointed down. “I could feel something was wrong, so I snuck out of the pantry and saw Weston kneeling on the porch. When he ducked away, I saw a wire.”
Avi pulled out his phone and turned on the flashlight, illuminating a nearly invisible tripwire stretched across the bottom step.
Ford and Grey appeared, pausing as they saw the light focused on the wire.
“This must be why Weston took off,” Grey said with a snarl. “I had him in my sights and then he disappeared like a jack rabbit. I couldn’t find him.”
“Those fuckers turned the house into a trap,” Ford said.
“They wanted us to chase them so they could take us out when we came home,” Avi said. “Colton is a menace.”
The thin black wire ran just inches above the porch step, stretched taut across the threshold of the front door and anchored to a support beam, which led to a small bundle tucked into the shadows behind one of the rocking chairs.
Crew crouched and looked at the bundle. Avi joined him, shining his light on it. It was a small propane tank, the kind used for camping, rigged with nails taped around it.
His heart dropped into his stomach.
“If we’d come charging up the porch, this could have taken us out,” Avi said.
There was a crude spark mechanism next to the tank, a rusted lighter striker tied to the wire. It would scrape and spark when pulled tight, igniting the propane tank and turning it into a shrapnel-filled fire bomb.
“They lured us out of the house to plant this,” Crew said.
Avi looked at Zara. “It’s a good thing you had a second sense about something going on, or we might have been in deep shit.”
She nodded. “Should we check the other doors?”
“I’m on it,” Grey said. He disappeared around the house.
“Baby? Head back inside with the others. If things go south, I don’t want you to get hurt,” Crew said to Zara.
“I don’t want you to get hurt!”
“I’ll be careful. We all will be.”
She nodded and blew him a kiss before hustling away.
The three males inspected the bomb carefully, finally figuring out how to disable it thanks to Ford’s mechanical mindset.
Ford pinched the spark mechanism to keep the striker from hitting it, while Avi clipped the wire with his pocket knife. As the tension in the line released, Avi exhaled slowly as no fire or explosion followed the snap of the wire.
Crew took the tank away from the porch and placed it gently in the center of the yard, then walked back to the porch. “He was trying to maim or kill us. It’s like he was trying to remind us that he’s still around and dangerous.”
“We got that message loud and clear,” Ford said with a grimace.
Grey joined them, reporting no other rigged entrances, including around the barns.
When all was safe, Avi rushed into the house to the pantry and pulled Fallon into his arms.
She sniffled and hugged him tightly. “I was so worried!”
“I’m fine, we’re all fine. Thanks to Zara’s quick thinking.”
“It’s what being an alpha female means,” Zara said with a smile. “Taking care of everyone.”
Crew, Ford, and Grey joined them, the males holding onto their females while Ford watched with barely veiled longing.
“It’s late as hell, or early as hell, I guess, depending on your point of view,” Crew said. “Grey, do you want to return to your patrol or help with cleanup?”
“I’ll get back on patrol,” he said. “I want to know how they snuck up on us when I was walking the perimeter all damn night long.”
“They’re clearly watching us,” Avi pointed out. “They knew Fallon and I were in the barn.”
“Good point,” Crew said. “Keep your head on a swivel, Grey. The rest of us will get to the cleanup and order new windows as soon as we’re able to.”
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Fallon said, giving him a hard squeeze. “Your cousin is a terrible person.”
“Yeah, he really is. But hopefully he’ll realize we’re not worth the effort in trying to take over. He’d already be settled in his own place if he’d just focused on that instead of trying to take over the farm.”
“You can’t reason with lunatics,” Ford said.
They grabbed supplies to sweep and bag the glass and debris and got to work. “So much for waking up to a sexy good time in the morning,” Avi whispered to Fallon.
Her cheeks pinked. “Was that your plan? Now I’m doubly pissed at Colton.”
“I promise to make good on my plans when we’re able to get back into bed. Or somewhere else private.”
“I can’t wait.”