An owl screeched overhead, but Allie didn’t hear another sound other than the quiet, familiar calls of insects. Then there was another screech, but still no sound of wings.
Lowell.
Jena’s oldest son shifted to a barn owl in his natural form. Even young, he was the most silent hunter she’d ever seen. Had they already told the Crowe clan to be on the lookout?
Ashford must have had a similar thought, because the mild expression fell from his face.
“Put the boy down,” he said. “You’ll shift and take me to the money. I know you have it. I’ve been listening.”
“Forget it.” She hoisted Chris up to get a better grip. “I’m not leaving my son here. And if you’ve been listening, you know I don’t have the money. It’s in a safe. Miles away from here.”
“You’ll leave the boy and call McCann. We’re not far from your house. Tell him to come alone, and Jesús won’t hurt your son. It’s very simple, Mrs. Smith. Even you should be able to understand. Once I have it, Jesús and I will be gone and your children will be safe.”
“And you’re simple if you think I’m leaving my son alone in the desert with an animal I don’t know!”
She didn’t even see his arm rise before he slapped her. It was hard and sharp. The back of his hand drove her jaw into the top of Chris’s head, and he started wailing in fear and pain.
“Mama!”
“Don’t test me,” Ashford said quietly. “You know I could do far worse. Adrian Lorra died after only an hour or so. My venom is even more effective on smaller, more delicate creatures.” He ran a hand down Chris’s back before she could jerk him away. “Leave your son and come with me. Or do I need to be more convincing?”
Ollie, where are you?
“You need me,” Allie said softly, her eyes watering but steady. She refused to show weakness to this man. She just needed to stall him. If Low had spotted her, if Kevin had made it to Ollie, it would only be minutes before the cavalry arrived. She just had to keep her boy safe. “You’ll never get that money from the McCanns on your own,” she continued. “They’d squash you like the little snake you are. So don’t raise your hand to me again. And don’t threaten my child.”
“I’ve been pleasant so far, Mrs. Smith. I don’t think you realize just how unpleasant I can be.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m a waitress. I deal with assholes professionally.” She heard the distant call of another owl and the short yip of a coyote in the night. “And, mister, you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
HE couldn’t get the scent. The children and Allie had been all over his property, and he was too enraged to sort through the maze of which scents were new and which were old. The bear had taken over, but without any direction, his fury and frustration only grew.
The screech sounded overhead, followed by a lower hoot. The bear stopped in its tracks and listened, huffing heated breaths into the cool night air. He turned his head to follow the screeches.
There.
The bear didn’t catch the scent of his woman or child first, it was a bobcat with a sickly smell.
He didn’t smell like us. …it almost smelled sour. Unhealthy…
Allie had smelled the bobcat before. This was the shifter who’d been tracking her. If the bobcat was in his territory, Allie would be with him. And so would the snake.
A primal roar tore out of his throat, and he charged into the night. Then a wolf was at his side. Familiar. The scent told him it was Alex. The bear and the wolf ran over gullies and across the scrublands separating Ollie’s property from Allie’s. He launched himself over the fence, arrowing toward his woman as he felt his rage build.
Simon Ashford would die that night.
The wolf broke away and ran at an angle away from him, circling around as two other wolves joined him. The pack would cover the wash. His clan should be spreading through the tunnels. They would cut off any means of escape.
But Ashford was a snake.
They can get anywhere. Everywhere.
Not if they were dead.
Ollie let out another enraged roar when he crested the small hill and saw the two shadows. He was going by scent. His night vision was weak, but he saw one shadow break away and run toward Emmet Wash. The other ran toward him.
“Ollie!”
The running shadow was there, then it was gone.
And the snake was loose in the desert.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ALLIE RAN TOWARD HIM. Chris was crying on her chest, but Allie didn’t stop.
“Ollie, I need you!”
The bear stopped its rampage and jogged toward her as she heard the sound of wolf calls fill the night. The pack was hunting, but Ashford was a snake. If he burrowed, they’d be confused. If he slithered into the rocks, they’d lose him. Brute strength wasn’t needed now. They needed stealth and delicacy. They needed a fox.
The bear huffed up to her and pushed against her side, almost knocking her over.
“Take him home!”
Ollie shifted in front of her, his chest heaving, his eyes on fire. “Where’s Ashford?”
“He shifted.” She shoved Chris at him. “Get him out of here. Please!”
“I’ll shift back. I can carry you both.”
“No, take Chris. I need to hunt.”
Ollie’s eyes went wide. “No.”
“Don’t argue with me. I have his scent and I’m better at this than the wolves. You know I can find him.”
“Allie!”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him down, pressing a hard kiss against his lips. “Please,” she whispered. “Take care of my son. Get him home. You’re the only one who can carry him that far, that fast. Then come back for me.”
The growl in his throat told her he wasn’t pleased, but he held Chris out to her, shifted, then waited for Allie to put the boy on his back.
“You hold on,” she whispered to her son. “It’s Ollie. He won’t drop you no matter how hard you hold his fur. Do not get down. Don’t put your feet on the sand until you get back to the house.”
“Mama?” Her big boy had disappeared. Chris was panicked and confused.
“Christopher, you go with Ollie.” She spoke firmly. “Go now. Kevin and Grandpa are waiting for you. Mama needs to hunt.”
He nodded and twisted his little hands in Ollie’s fur.
Then Allie bent down and kissed Ollie near his ear. “Run fast. Come back.”
As soon as he took off, Allie stripped out of her clothes and looked up in the sky, hoping that the keen owls were still flying.
“Come on, Low,” she yelled at the top of her lungs, not caring about stealth anymore. She didn’t need stealth, she needed his eyes. “Help your auntie out!”
She shifted and immediately circled back to the place where Ashford had been, sticking her nose to the ground until she found his scent.
The bobcat had fled, the young man panicking and running as soon as he heard the pounding gallop of the grizzly bear. But Ashford…
He’d escape into the night if she didn’t find him. Come back to haunt them, just because she’d pissed him off. He wanted that money. He’d killed Joe for it. Betrayed his boss. The man was desperate, despite his calm facade. She had to find him and kill him.
She caught the scent, but it went underground. She pawed at the old gopher hole for a few minutes, but the scent didn’t grow stronger.
A barn owl screeched.
The fox lifted her head and waited.
Another screech, a little farther away.
Allie ran.
Her feet barely touched the sand. She ran toward the sound of the owl’s call. He was circling slowly and silently, moving toward the wash.
Of course. Ashford and his man had parked at the Cave and hiked up the wash, avoiding detection from any locals who would know better and avoid it. The tunnel opening wasn’t far from the crossing near her house or the old farm road where the men who’d broken into her house had parked. Ashford was heading for his vehic
le. If he didn’t get there before the bears, he’d survive, but he’d be stuck out in the desert for who knows how long.
Allie had a feeling the prissy man wouldn’t like that.
She ran toward the wash, the wolves catching on and following after her. But she was faster than they were. She leapt over rocks and ran under fallen trees when she reached the dry waterway. Every human instinct told her to crawl away, but her fox reassured her. Flash floods were always a danger in the desert, but there was no smell of water on the wind.
Allie ran, stopping periodically to sniff. She darted back and forth. The scent of the snake was faint and foreign. She’d noticed his accent when he spoke. What kind of reptile was he? The fox was a curious hunter.
The wolves waited at her back, a few pawing and yipping as she trotted. She was far faster than a snake. She’d only lose him if he managed to sneak off out of the dry creek bed. That was why she was being so careful. As long as she stayed on track, she’d find him.
She ran forward, then halted.
Forward again.
No scent this far down the wash. Allie ran back.
She circled around a wide spot where a rusted-out car had caught bushes and even a tree as the water swept through. Everything was dry now, but it created a tangle of nooks and crannies where the snake might hide. Allie trotted around the wreck but didn’t see anything.
Still, instinct and a tickle in her nose told her the snake was here.
So she sat primly, her tail flicking the sand, and she waited.
And waited.
No snake was leaving that wreck without her catching him, and the snake knew it.
The wolves stayed on the banks above her, yipping and pawing at the dirt. The night birds called and the owls hooted. She could hear Ollie and two other bears chuffing on the edge of the wash. Soft cat paws padded through the weeds.
And still Allie waited.
The waxing moon was high in the sky when she saw movement. Ashford was moving inside the old car. Slowly. He must have been dark scaled, because she could barely see him. He slithered from under the moon shadow, hiding in the branches of an old manzanita, its reddish-brown bark smooth and its branches as twisted as the serpent.
Allie saw him from the corner of her eye, but still she waited.
The far side of the wash was in shadow. The snake would try to slither there, then flee in the darkness, past her and the wolves who were waiting on the high banks.
She waited until his forked tongue started to flicker, tasting the air. He poked his head out of the manzanita branches.
A little farther.
A little more.
Allie pounced, then darted back, avoiding the quick strike of the snake’s deadly fangs. She hopped back away from it, then snarled and darted back toward its tail.
The snake was fast.
Its dark brown scales lay in a smooth chevron down its back. It was almost featureless except for the pale cream face and the flickering tongue. The snake whipped its tail away from her and slithered back as the wolves began to howl and pant. Allie lunged forward and the snake circled, striking again.
His body was twisted over itself protectively; the length behind his head twisted into a sickening S curve that warned Allie he was about to attack.
She ran.
Not away, but around. She circled the wreck on silent feet, jumping over the twisted metal and skirting the manzanita to come up behind the snake. Then she darted forward, her mouth wide, and clamped her jaws around the tail and shook.
A sharp hiss and the thunk of his body flailing, but she felt no strike. No venom entered her bloodstream.
She bit harder. Tasted blood.
Then the snake was rolling away. Growing. Her tongue tasted the bite of human flesh and she released it, running back into the safety of the twisted car. The fox knew she was no match for a full-grown man.
But the bear was.
He leapt on Simon Ashford, who was clutching his leg and vomiting. Ollie knocked the man to his stomach, put a giant paw in the center of Ashford’s back, and roared.
Allie yipped and ran toward him, brushing her tail across his flank.
That’s my bear.
THE infuriating vixen brushed her tail over his belly, and it was all Ollie could do not to roar. He wanted to bite down, crush the soft neck of the human who’d attacked his family, but he didn’t. Ashford had information, and Ollie wanted it.
With a shrug, he shifted back to human, clamping his hand around Ashford’s neck.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ollie growled. Then he brought his fist up to the man’s temple and knocked him out.
Ollie sat and leaned against the cool dirt wall, and Allie came and jumped on his legs, carefully walking across his naked skin.
“Darlin’,” he said with a sigh. “I thought it’d be the kids, but I’m pretty sure you’re the one who’s going to give me a heart attack.”
ALLIE shifted and rolled off his lap, well aware that they had a whole audience of Cambio Springs shifters and an unconscious murderer with them, no matter how excited the shift and the fighting had made her.
“Hey.”
Ollie grinned. “Hey yourself.”
She couldn’t help crawling toward him and pulling his mouth down to hers, but she let him go after only a few seconds.
“Told you,” she whispered against his lips.
“Told me what?”
“Big. Bad. Grizzly.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
OLLIE CROSSED HIS ARMS, watching the twisting brown taipan in the large chicken-wire cage behind Henry Quinn’s cabin.
“How did you know this was here?” he asked Allie.
“Let’s just say that large chicken-wire purchases make me suspicious. He must have gotten the screening somewhere else.”
What Henry Quinn had built with all that chicken-wire was effectively a snake prison. While some of the most skilled snake shifters would be able to change to something small enough to fit through the caging, most of them wouldn’t, including Simon Ashford, who hadn’t shifted to anything but the six-foot-long brown snake that must have been his natural form.
Sean came to stand next to him. “Australia.”
“Hmm?”
“Taipans are from Australia. I’ve looked there, you know? Didn’t find anything.”
Ollie shrugged. “The world is a big place. Never made much sense that we were alone out there.”
He heard Allie giggle and turned toward her. “What’s so funny?”
“Do you think there’s a town in the outback with kangaroo shifters?” Her cheeks were pink. “Koalas? I’m sorry. I know this is serious.”
Sean tried to control his smile and failed. “Wombats. The fearsome were-wombat. I thought it was only an urban legend.”
Ollie chuckled, but his eyes never left the snake in the cage.
He was thinking more about crocodiles.
“How secure is this thing?” he asked.
“Henry put screen under it so Ashford can’t burrow. As for smaller forms that could fit through the chicken wire… He hasn’t tried any.”
Just then, the taipan shifted back to human and leaned against a post. “I’d like some water please.”
“Answer our questions,” Ollie said, “and we’ll give you some.”
Ashford was silent.
“Fine. Just so you know, it gets pretty hot out here.”
“You people are animals.”
Sean said, “Well, yes, we are. And so are you.”
“I’ll tell you about Lobo. I’m not answering any questions about myself.”
Sean exchanged a look with Ollie, who shrugged.
“Sure,” Ollie said. “Tell us all about Lobo.”
“His name is Efrén Abano, and he hates you all.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Ashford smiled. “He isn’t one for chatting.”
“What does he want?”
“Money. Power. Revenge.”
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“For what?”
“As I said, he isn’t one for chatting.” Ashford cracked his neck. “You’re not going to let me go, are you?”
Allie stepped forward. “Did you kill my ex-husband?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he had something I wanted,” Ashford said. “And he had information that Efrén wanted about this town. I wanted the money, and I didn’t want Efrén to have the information. It was a simple calculation, really.”
“Simple,” Allie murmured. “Right.”
Ashford started smiling. “I’m going to enjoy knowing he’s out there, waiting for you all. Eager to take your territory and kill your young.” Then his smile dropped. “Or maybe I won’t.”
With a macabre grin, Ashford opened his mouth and hissed, short venomous fangs on either side of his front teeth.
Sean shouted, “No!”
Ashford sank his teeth into the inside of his left bicep, inches from his heart. He held on, pumping venom into his own veins until his body began to twitch. His back arched and sweat bloomed over his body as the poison took hold.
Within minutes, he was unconscious. Within a half an hour, he was dead.
The Quinns hid the body. And Ollie was right.
It would never be found.
HE held her on his chest that night when he fell asleep, ignoring her protests that she was too heavy.
She wasn’t too heavy. She was necessary.
So was making love, even if it meant waking in the dead of night and being extra quiet. He needed to feel her alive against him. Needed to feel her heat when he sank so deep in her that he knew he’d never escape whole. She wasn’t just in his heart, she was his heart.
He moved slowly and silently, holding her on his lap so he could touch her face. Her eyes were closed. Her head fell back. Her mouth was soft and open, swollen from his kisses, flushed with desire.
“Ollie,” she whispered.
His mind flashed back to the twisting serpent who’d struck at her. The careful dance of her paws as she dodged. Her patience, waiting for the predator who had threatened her young.