Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Fin
Hearing Ricky’s voice, a safe distance back, both relieved some fear and terrified me.
He wasn’t in view of the twin who walked outside when I’d triggered the motion sensor.
I felt like an idiot and only had a moment to be glad Ricky had stayed back before he appeared.
He wasn’t the scared one from our fight last summer.
No, that was Zac who I owed a beating for how he hurt me on pack land.
The reason I still had fear running through me was the idea that Ricky was out here naked and in his human form instead of in his stronger wolf body. He had a full on argument by yelling from behind a tree while I moved back from the man who could shift into a bear at any moment.
Even if Ricky could take most people in human form with his fighting skills, his wolf was much smaller than a bear. Also…Drunk shifters didn’t stay drunk. He’d be sober and angry, ready to defend his territory.
Plus, he wasn’t the only bear in the house. I watched in horror as two men came out to see what all the yelling was about, flanking Zed on the rickety front porch in nothing but ragged boxer shorts.
Three bears against two wolves. Zac and Zed were alphas, and I could smell that this older, dark-haired guy was a beta.
We beat them last summer, but that was with Alpha King backing Ricky and I up. I didn’t like our odds.
Growling under my breath, I knew I had no choice. Channing’s scent was all over the driveway and leading up to the door. They brought her here, and we weren’t leaving until she was safe.
Worried about a certain beta wolf, I placed myself between the men and where I knew Ricky was hiding.
A vague memory that bears had an even better sense of smell than wolves hit my conscious mind, and I hoped the lingering campfire smoke hid some of Ricky’s scent.
They hadn’t seen him, and he’d made noise as both a wolf and human.
For all they knew, there were three of us.
“This will be fun,” Zac said, the scar on his face making his grin pull in a grotesque way.
A human would have died from the head wound, he was just left a little disfigured.
Going down onto his hands, his body started rippling as his orange body hair spread to cover his growing body with red fur.
He was the size of a grizzly bear, and the scar was present on this body as well, standing out from the corner of his mouth to under his eye.
His twin shifted beside him but the other man didn’t. I’d heard they had very few in their pack who could shift now. Whether this guy could or not left my mind when Zac lunged for me. His paw missed my head by inches as I hopped back to avoid the blow.
The growl in my throat was met by an echoing one from behind me. As much as I wanted Ricky to stay out of the way and safe from harm, I was glad to have him as backup. Fowler King was our Alpha, but Ricky had a lot more practice with fighting.
Ricky and I backed up as the bears advanced on us. The third man ran back inside, and I hoped it wasn’t for reinforcements. Two-on-two was more doable.
Away from the house, we were in a flat, open area. The light from the moon and the barn had the space lit up. If anyone was in the house, they’d have great seats.
Stopping before we could get backed into the barn or a trap, I stood my ground. Zed tried for Ricky, but he rolled and came closer to my side. We needed a plan, but all I had was to survive.
A howl rang out, but it wasn’t a wolf. There was a higher pitched yipping to it instead of the deeper, more haunting sound I was used to from my pack mates. A coyote.
There was no way a wild coyote would feel safe enough to wander onto pack land. This had to be someone from the tribe. Were they there to help?
Before I could process the new edition or wonder how far away they were, a bear pounced on me. The wind was knocked from my lungs as I hit the ground under his weight. I couldn’t lift him, but then I felt an impact and the bear was off of me.
Lifting my head, I saw Ricky had a bear by the scruff of his neck while hanging onto his back. The bear shook and Ricky hung on, his eyes fierce. The bear went to roll Ricky under him, and Ricky let go in the nick of time.
Getting to my feet, I moved out of the way as the other bear came for me. Zac. His scarred face had drool dripping from his jowls and teeth like a rabid beast.
Taking a page out Ricky’s playbook, I leapt on his back and bit into his neck. He roared and tried to scratch at me, but his arms didn’t reach. Using my claws, I gouged the other side of his face. Maybe he’d finally shut up if I destroyed his whole face.
The coyote yip reached my ears over the bear’s struggle and I saw another animal barreling towards Ricky. Letting Zac go, I jumped down in time to see the coyote was aiming for the other bear, who almost got a paw on Ricky. I recognized this coyote. It was Kono Dasan.
He’d been angry about the bears kidnapping Channing on tribal land, but I never saw him helping us fight the bears. His sleek body was smaller than Ricky’s, but he was an alpha. He was strong and I could appreciate his help.
As Kono bit into Zed’s neck, Ricky jumped back on his back again. Between the two of them, I saw blood spraying out from multiple wounds. Zac was still shaking himself off from my attack, so I rushed to join the others.
Biting into the opposite side of his neck, the bear let out a sound of pain and dropped to the dirt. I heard a bear growl behind me and let Zed’s neck go to guard the others’ backs.
Zac came at me and I lunged first. I caught a few claws, but didn’t feel the pain with the adrenaline racing through me. A door slamming in the distance didn’t distract me, but the sound of a shotgun blast did.
Scuffling back, I looked around for Ricky. He had blood on his muzzle but was standing on all four feet behind a still bear. Kono was backing up to flank Ricky’s other side.
“Did you kill him?” someone yelled and I saw it was the man who came outside with the twins running our way. A third guy was holding a single-barrel gun and shot towards the sky.
What the fuck was that supposed to do, scare us off like rabbits?
The bear on the ground started to shift back and I saw the damage. In addition to the many neck wounds, he had shot-gun wound in his side. These idiots shot one of their own alphas.
Zac shifted back and ran to his brother.
Kono yipped beside me, and we ran to the back of the house. At the door, he shifted back to open the handle and got inside. Ricky and I followed, but the scent trail for Channing ended in an empty room. She wasn’t there.
The sound of a bear roaring had us racing out of the house. Kono followed us all the way to our stuff, where we found his motorcycle stashed next to mine.
When we were all back in clothes, Kono finally spoke. “They’re going to be angry now.”
“I’m angry,” I practically yelled. “Where the hell is Channing?”
“We’ll find her,” Ricky spoke up, placing a hand on my shoulder. He turned to Kono. “Thank you for helping.”
Kono only nodded once in reply before tilting his head. I watched as his nostrils flared. “You two smell different.”
“I probably smell like nasty bear blood,” Ricky spat on the leaves. “I’m glad we killed one of them.”
“Agreed,” I replied, but my brain was still stuck on what Kono said about our smell. Did he know we had sex not long ago? How fucking embarrassing.
If that wasn’t what he was implying…I didn’t want to think of another reason Ricky and I might smell differently at the same time. Because the other option was impossible.