And still not a sound from the others. They were detached. Quiet. Watching. It was ... confusing. I licked my lips.
I was suddenly hoping that Aidan had found the children. That any second now the SUV would speed away and my pack would descend on the werecougars, because this quietness ... I didn’t know what to make of it. It was worse than seeing aggression. At least I would have known how to deal with that.
I turned to face the smiley face guy, who was looking at me thoughtfully. “What did you change your mind about?”
I blinked and shook my head, thrown off for a second. “Oh,” I said, and glanced back at the women. “I’m ready to make the deal. I’m giving you some of our females. In exchange, you all stay the hell out of Dog Mountain.”
“Thought they were the peace offering,” he said, eyeing me carefully, if not critically.
“Some are,” I said, and shrugged. “But you don’t get them all until I get confirmation from my dad that the deal is still on the table.”
He cocked his head slightly, shifting his gaze toward the woods, and then he leaned in close to my ear and said, “Did you hear that?”
I did. It had sounded like a strangled whimper. And a snarl. A vicious snarl that ended in a surprised yip. More whimpering, some growls. Cracks and creaks and crunches. Leaves crumbling. Twigs snapping. The sounds came from every direction. But I looked at him blankly and asked, “Did I hear what?
He was smiling again. The nice one. The infectious one. And it made my blood run cold as ice. “That, Jade Shaw,” he said, and his smile grew wider, “is the sound of your pack dying.”
CHAPTER 21
~ AIDAN ~
My father wasn’t a thinker. He had a problem, he fixed it — usually with unnecessary violence — but he didn’t think about it. He acted. And as much as that had bothered me in the past, right then I was seeing the wisdom in his impulsiveness.
I’d taken after my mom, though. I liked to have a plan. I liked to know what I was getting into. But the thing with having a plan was that you think you’ve got the situation covered. You lose that rush that keeps you on your toes. You miss things. You get cocky. And sometimes planning and strategizing and overthinking gets you to a place that you can’t see a way out of.
And right then, I was in that place.
The wolves around me looked a little confused about what they were supposed to do. Dominic was crouched down next to me, a continuous growl rumbling from his chest. Cougars were falling from the trees, surrounding us.
I remembered, with a sharp feeling of alarm, what Jade had said about the claw marks in the trees. She’d known. She’d told us. We’d even discussed it. And in all the planning and all the scouting, no one had paid attention to it.
They’d known we were coming. Dammit! They’d probably been watching us the whole time while we scouted out the location. I should have known they’d have some kind of security in place. Jeff wasn’t stupid. I should have …
No. I wouldn’t think about that. I couldn’t think about that. Because if I thought about it, I’d realize that they’d been hiding in the trees all this time and that we were probably staggeringly outnumbered. And if I thought about that, if I let those numbers get into my head, I’d start to worry about Jade and my females who were trapped and surrounded and alone in there.
The wolves in my group were pacing, circling, dodging, growling. Waiting for the signal. Waiting for my command that the fight was on.
I let instinct take over. I channeled my scent and gave the signal to attack — to fight.
And they did.
One of the wolves let out a full-out vicious snarl, and then everything happened quickly. Wolves moved, cougars pounced, and all I could do was hope that the kids were tucked safely in that cabin and they stayed put.
More whisper soft thumps. Wolves and cougars cried and screamed and snarled. It came from everywhere all at once.
Something dropped beside me and I pivoted, crouching down, and bared my teeth. I felt an ugly mix of anger and hatred churn within my belly, and I growled at the beast as it stalked toward me, with all the confident grace of a house cat.
It hissed. I snarled. It circled right. I circled left. I launched forward, and it slipped back. Playing with me.
My blood was pumping hard and fast, and a furious energy twisted and curled throughout my body. The sounds of flesh ripping, tearing, pulling, pounded through my ears. Hisses tormented me, a growl filled my chest. I could almost taste the blood that was being spilled all around me.
The cat lunged for me, a blur of beige in the colorful forest, and I twisted and dropped to my belly.
The cougar missed me, landing with a hard thump to my right — not far away, but not on top of me, either. He let out a wail, and spun around. His eyes were wild and his lips were curled back.
I slammed into its body, hard enough to knock it down to the ground. I didn’t have long once he was down; the shock of the impact wouldn’t keep the beast at bay for more than a second or two. It flinched, trying to shimmy and roll back to its feet, but I didn’t let him. I pushed off, landing on top of him and bit down hard. In a second, the cougar went limp, falling face down, into the dirt.
I shot up quickly, scanning the area around us. More wolves were joining our group and seeing them sent a surge of hope through me. If they were joining, maybe, maybe, there hadn’t been that many cougars in the trees.
A high pitched screech came from my left, and I spun toward the sound. A bird — a large, black bird — dove at me. His talons sunk into my flesh near my neck and I snarled, tossing my body to the ground and shaking him loose.
The bird let go and then dove at me again, but as it lowered, it started to change. It got bigger. Fur replaced the feathers. Paws replaced the talons, and when the beast hit the ground, its wings seemingly melted away, and I was suddenly standing face to face with a cougar.
Jeff. I knew he wouldn’t have run.
I growled, curling my lips back and baring my teeth. He tensed, bracing himself, as I crouched slightly, leveling my eyes with his. He didn’t make a sound. No hisses, no snarls. His eyes looked as if they were laughing, full of humor, and I found myself growling again.
It’s another game, I told myself. He’s playing with me. I was sure of it, but his calmness made me uneasy and for a moment, it kept me rooted in place.
A loud, pain-filled howl erupted from my right, and my eyes darted to the side, just a quick look. I spotted Dominic, falling, tumbling, down. He tried to get up, but he wasn’t quick enough. A cougar landed squarely on his back, pinning him.
My heart twisted inside my chest. I glanced back to Jeff, but he was … gone. Melted into to chaos that surrounded me.
Another agonized howl tore from my best friend, and I launched myself toward Dominic.
A flash of pain rushed through my back leg. I stumbled, fell, and as I started to roll, I felt something sharp dig into my leg. It was crippling. It felt like my leg was being ripped off. I snarled. More pain. Sharp, hot pain.
The cougar tore into Dominic’s back, and my hope sputtered and flickered and died.
~ JADE ~
I kept my breathing under control, mainly by sternly telling myself that I had to remain completely together. The wolves around the hunting camp weren’t my problem. They each had a leader. They each had someone watching their back. My problem, my responsibility, was the women with me and Tommy. I had my breathing more or less managed by the time I spun from the guy, who was still smiling, a far too friendly smile, and I was able to say, “Shift,” without making it sound like I was panicking at all.
But the truth was, I was a little panicked.
“I wouldn’t do that,” a man said, and pulled a handgun from the waist of his jeans. He levelled it on me.
That was, for some reason, kind of a shock, because, well, he was a werecougar. He could shift and kill me. The gun just seemed really ... unnecessary. “You’re kidding me, right?” I blinked. “You’re pulling a gun o
n me?”
“It made them stop, didn’t it?” the man with the gun said, his voice sounding antagonistic and a touch condescending.
I could smell Aidan. His alpha scent, that sweet green scent, was rising up around me. Commanding our wolves. The sounds were getting louder. Snarls and painful whimpers. They were in trouble. They hadn’t reached the kids. The plan was falling apart.
My entire body was alive with feeling. My pulse was pounding in my ears and temples and wrists. My skin was buzzing and tingling. Warmth spread from tip-to-toe, adrenaline chasing through my system.
I took a step and more guns, small handguns, made an appearance. I laughed once. “Am I really that scary to you all?” I asked, and laughed again. “You guys better hope you have perfect aim if you plan on using them.”
Smiley face guy chuckled and moved in close to me, so close that I could feel his warm breath puffing against my face. I held his eyes, refusing to flinch. His vibrant eyes were smiling, taunting, cruel, and confident.
He was poison hidden behind pretty eyes and a killer smile.
“I love that sound,” he said, and he looked almost … wistful. His nostrils flared wide as he hauled a full breath into his lungs. “And that smell. I bet some of it’s coming from your mate.” He licked his lips. “And some from that friend of yours.”
He could have been right, but my nose was telling me that the blood wasn’t just from wolves, and well, I wasn’t even going to consider the possibility that some of that blood could be Aidan’s. I just couldn’t.
I forced a snide smile. “Nope. Smells like cougar blood to me. I’ve killed a few of those recently. I know that smell.”
He slapped me in the face so quickly that I hadn’t even seen him move until he connected with my cheek and sent me staggering back. My whole body quivered, and a growl ripped from my throat. Bones started to break. My ankle went first, then my elbow. My face was shifting, my teeth, lengthening. All around me I could hear my pack, fighting, snarling, and falling. Okay, maybe I couldn’t hear them actually falling, but my brain was conjuring up a pretty vivid image of wolves lying motionless on the ground, blood pooling, cougars watching …
I hardly noticed the guns anymore. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew they were still trained on me, but I didn’t care. I let my scent gather, and I was about to force my wolves to shift when Tommy said, “Jade, don’t.”
He was still leaning back against the truck, and I had to admit, it shocked me. At some point he’d raised his hands, carefully holding his palms out in surrender. But those hands had claws now, and coarse, dark hair layered the tops. His face was like stone, set in a murderous expression, and his eyes blazed gold.
The man — Mr. Smiley Spokesperson — barked out a laugh. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Don’t.” He didn’t seem to notice how close Tommy and I were to shifting or maybe he just didn’t think that any of us were a threat at all. He actually turned his back on us and looked at my girls, who I noticed, were just barely holding onto their skin.
Underestimating us was a stupid, stupid mistake.
My breath caught. A string of pops and snaps rang through the air. Fabric tore. Flares of heat shot through my limbs.
The guns opened fire. Shots rattled against the truck and the windshield exploded into cracks. But by the time the first searing bullet grazed my skin, the guy who turned his back on me was already falling.
CHAPTER 22
~ AIDAN ~
I could only stare. The body lying not even ten feet from me — Dominic’s — didn’t look to be alive. He wasn’t moving. He didn’t look as if he were breathing. The rusty-brown wolf had fallen to his side. His muzzle was open slightly, his eyes were shut, and his legs and paws looked loose and relaxed. He almost looked as if he were sleeping, and if it weren’t for the chunk of flesh and fur missing from in between his shoulders and the blood soaking into the ground around him, I might have thought he was.
Except he wasn’t moving at all. Not even a quiver of his chest from a shallow breath.
I squeezed my eyes shut. This couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t be dead. He just couldn’t be. But when I opened my eyes, Dominic was still on the ground and he still wasn’t moving.
I hadn’t felt scared during the attack. Not really. Not until now. I’d been focused, determined. But now ... now I was terrified. My mouth was dry, shriveled up, and so was my throat. Dominic was my friend, the best friend I had in Dog Mountain, and he was ... I let out a painful whimper.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware that gunshots were still ringing out, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him.
Seeing him so still hurt worse than anything I’d ever felt before. I should have saved him. I was his alpha, his friend. I should have gotten to him. I should have ...
Jade.
My heart started to pound and my chest constricted with dread. She was still in there with her team. I needed to get to them. Get them away from the bullets. I needed to get them out of there.
I tore my eyes from my best friend, my beta, and surveyed my surroundings with a quick, swiping scan. I was surrounded by death. Cougars and wolves. Bodies and blood. My wolves were everywhere. Some lying on the ground, injured, some still fighting.
I tried to stand up, but the pain in my back legs seized me up tight. They were broken. I could feel the bones grinding as I tried to get to my feet again, and when I glanced down and saw how not straight they were, I winced. They were a mess, bones snapped and flesh torn up.
I growled. I was useless to Jade, to my pack, like this. I needed to shift and let my broken bones reset and mend.
I wasn’t sure what had happened. One second I had one of those bastards trying to gnaw off my legs, and the next there’d been a series of cracks that sounded a heck of a lot like gunfire and the cougar had let me go.
It felt as if it took hours for my body to change forms, but I was sure it was just a few seconds. My inner-wolf fought against the shift, struggling to stay in control. All he wanted was to fight, kill, and claim back what was ours.
Each broken bone in my legs burned as it snapped again and reset itself, and by the time I finished, I was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and my breath was strained and labored.
Another round of sharp, loud cracks came from the direction of the hunting camp. Panic weld up inside me. I pushed up to my feet and a twinge of pain shot through me as I put my weight on my legs, but it wasn’t unbearable. My legs were moving before my brain could catch up, and I was running toward the edge of the forest.
I saw her — my mate — through the trees. She was in wolf form, just lying there on the ground. A man — it was the man who’d been at her window — was standing over her. The shoulder of his T-shirt was drenched in blood, I noticed, as he bent down beside her. He reached out to touch her midnight black coat and I felt the wildest, strongest impulse to rip him apart from limb to limb. I could visualize it, and it was alarming and so very satisfying.
And then Jade moved. Her skin started to crawl and she began to shake. She was shifting, I realized, and I felt myself run faster.
I reached the edge of the tree line just as a set of arms wrapped around my chest, hauling me back. “Aidan, stop!” Mark said.
“Let go of me,” I commanded, my tone firm, direct, and full of fury. My imprint was blazing and my scent, thick in the air. “Let go!”
“They won’t hurt her,” he growled. His eyes were red and blurred with exhaustion. “They need her. Stop and think, Aidan!”
Mark started to pant and his arms were weakening. I twisted, and yanked my body free of his grasp and as I did, Craig darted in front of me and shoved me back a step. “You can’t help her, or any of us, if you’re dead.” He was straining, too. Fighting to stay strong and on his feet under the force of my alpha scent. “Look around!” he shouted, panicked, and flailing his arm to point behind me. “They need you more than she does right now!”
When I only growled, Craig shoved me again. He puffed o
ut his chest, squaring off with me, and pointed behind me again. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to see. I wasn’t sure if I even cared. In the back of my mind I knew that if the enforcers thought Jade was in real danger, they wouldn’t be stopping me. They’d be killing anything that stood in their way to get to my girl. She was one of theirs just as much as she was mine.
My nostrils flared, and every muscle in my body was strung tight as I did a slow circle, looking to where he’d pointed.
There was movement all around me. Whimpering. Heavy breathing. Disturbed leaves crunched and crumbled. My wolves. They were stirring, limping to their feet, healing.
And the cougars that had been hiding in the trees were dead. All of them.
Someone coughed, a hacking, painful cough, and the sound made my breath hitch. My gaze snapped to Dominic. Beck was standing by him now, his bloodstained muzzle nudging at Dominic’s shoulder.
A strangled sound worked up through my chest and my eyes started to burn. Dominic wasn’t dead. I blinked and then blinked again. He’d managed to shift and pull himself into a sitting position, resting his head in his hands. He was breathing hard, sweating, shaking, coughing. But he wasn’t dead.
Silence fell. Complete silence. The gunshots stopped. The screams silenced. I swallowed hard and looked back to where Jade was lying, to see the man drape a blanket over her. And the other females, they were being lifted and carried to the cabin. They weren’t being hurt. The men looked as though they were being careful, gentle even, now that my females were unconscious.
And everything snapped into hot, sharp, clarity.
Uniting the shifters. Jeff didn’t want us dead. He wanted us to join him. But he wouldn’t be that stupid, right? Keeping the girls, even if they were wounded was dangerous. They’d heal and he had to know that we’d come for them.
Craig’s hand fell on my shoulder and tightened. “We’ve got to move.”
“What?” I asked, and turned my head to look at him. I felt rage, so hot, so pure, it felt as if I were burning from the inside out, and it felt terrifyingly good. “We’re not going anywhere without our females.”