Sasha and Hunter spent the morning in bed, talking, kissing, rubbing one another, but they didn’t make love again.

“I should check on grandpa,” Sasha said, as she climbed nude from her bed and found her clothes, pulling on her jeans without bothering with underwear and a tee shirt.

The old man was snoring in his bed, the scratches on his face already fading to shiny white scars. She returned to her room to find Hunter dressing.

“Are you leaving?” she asked.

“I have to,” he said, turning to her and taking her in his arms. He kissed her and then stepped away. “We have to find Kurt. The pack and I.”

Sasha nodded.

“There are men here, they can keep you safe,” Hunter said.

“How did you know there were people here?” she asked.

He laughed and tapped the side of his nose.

“I don’t understand any of this,” she said with a laugh.

“I know,” Hunter said. “I just need you to recognize that you’re in danger. For whatever reason, I think Kurt has set his sights on you. To hurt your grandfather I supposed, to hurt me.”

“Why would he want to hurt you? I understand grandpa I guess if Kurt wants to be the leader.”

“Your grandfather wants me to lead. Kurt would rather kill me than let me lead us in peace for years to come.”

“Who doesn’t want peace?” Sasha asked. “He sounds ridiculous.”

“He is,” Hunter said. He had finished dressing, and he sat on the edge of her bed to pull his socks and boots on. “He doesn’t want peace because he thinks we’re better than humans, and… other things.”

“Other things?”

“There are a lot of things in this world just below the surface, things you never knew about.”

“Well I didn’t know anyone could turn into a wolf, and I didn’t know I would sleep with a wolf this morning, so I’ll take your word for it,” Sasha said, trying her best to make light of the subject.

“Just stay here, alright? Take care of Connor, and promise me you won’t go anywhere without those men outside.”

“Okay,” Sasha said. She could tell by Hunter’s tone, but the pain and anguish and worry in his eyes, that this was serious. If she strayed from her protectors, it could be the end of her.

She said goodbye to Hunter at the door, grabbing his shirt and pulling him close to her. They kissed, long and hard, and then he stepped away. She watched him talk to the two men in the Jeep, and then he got into his truck and drove off.

As he made his way, Hunter couldn’t help but think about the morning he had just shared with Sasha. He had never been with a woman who was so accepting of his other side or desired it so strongly, even the woman who had sired him. It was refreshing, and Hunter was sure he had fallen in love with Sasha.

She would be in the back of his mind all day, both a fond remembrance of what they had done that morning and worry for her safety.

His first stop was at Damien’s house. It was a log cabin in the woods, and the man opened the door before Hunter could even knock, as though he had been expecting him.

“Come in,” Damien said.

“I’m here to figure out what we need to do about Kurt.”

“You know what we must do,” Damien said.

“I know, I need to figure out how we’re going to do it. Kurt has those in the pack who are loyal to him.”

Damien nodded. “And we have those who are loyal to Connor. And to you.”

Hunter had needed to hear that, and he smiled. It seemed as though the pack would need him to take the lead on this, long before he was prepared to take the lead. But he would step up, and he would do it.

“I need three men who we can trust,” Hunter said. “Help me come up with some names.”

Damien nodded and shut the front door. Then, the two wolf-men got to work.

 

There was a knock at the front door just before noon. Sasha was in the kitchen, cooking soup, hoping her grandfather would wake and be hungry. The knock sent a shiver of fear running up Sasha’s spine, but she turned and went to the door, breathing a sigh of relief when she looked through the window and saw one of the men from the Jeep standing there. He was younger even than her and Hunter, with tan skin and blonde hair. She pulled open the door.

“Hey there,” the young man said. “I’m Kyle. I was hoping I could speak to your grandfather quickly,” he said.

“I don’t think he’s awake,” Sasha said, leaning on the open front door.

“I know, I mean, I figured, I didn’t mean I needed to talk to him, I just, we’re all pulling for him, and I kind of just wanted to see him. Pray maybe.”

“Oh, sure,” Sasha said with a smile, and she stepped back so the young man named Kyle could enter. “He’s upstairs, first door on the right.”

“Thanks,” Kyle said, and he went up the stairs. Before shutting the door, Sasha glanced out at the Jeep. The vehicle was aiming away from the house, and she could see that a man sat in the passenger seat, his neck bent awkwardly, his head against the glass. Sasha watched for a moment, and the man did not move. He must be asleep. She shut the door, locked it, and went back to the kitchen.

She stirred the soup, unable to stop thinking about the other man in the Jeep. With Kyle inside, he needed to be awake. Her grandfather and Hunter would surely be furious to hear he was sleeping on the job. She knew he had been there most of the night, but that was no excuse, a crazed werewolf was trying to kill her and her grandpa!

She turned the burner off and went to the door, pulling on her shoes and a coat. She marched down the steps, ready to wake the man up and give him a piece of her mind, but as she came to a stop next to the Jeep, she could only stare in horror through the window.

The man wasn’t asleep, he was dead, his throat ripped out, red blood had dried to a sticky brown paste down the front of his body. Sasha stepped back, and she screamed.

Kyle!

She turned and ran back to the house, not thinking about her own safety as she took the stairs two at a time and came skidding to a stop in her grandfather’s doorway. Kyle stood by the bed, his hand covered in blood. Her grandfather lay in bed, his throat gone, his lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

“No!” Sasha screamed. Kyle turned, and as she watched, he began to change, growing yellow hair on his body, his wolf form ripping through his clothes.

She turned and ran. Her feet barely touched the stairs as she moved down them, not daring to look back, knowing it would cost her a step or two, but hearing the wolf bound after her, slamming into the hall wall when it came speeding out of her grandfather’s room.

Her grandfather. He was gone. She had seen him, bloodied, torn open, his eyes wide but unseeing. She couldn’t believe it. She reached the front door just in front of Kyle in his wolf form. She leaped down the porch stairs after wrenching the door open, hitting the snowy ground and slipping backward onto her butt. The fall saved her life, Kyle had jumped at her, jaws wide, and he went right over her head, hitting the ground roughly and rolling.

Her car. It was close, she had to get there. No, she didn’t have the keys, they were inside on the small table next to her bed. She always kept her doors locked, like she had in Chicago, though her grandfather had made fun of her for it, telling her there was no reason to do such a thing in Tall Tree.

His truck. It was close, just to Sasha’s left. His doors wouldn’t be locked. She was up and running, the decision lasting a split second in her mind. The wolf was up too, snapping at her heels. She got to the truck, sidestepped, and wrenched the door open, slamming the heavy metal side into Kyle’s wolf snout. He yelped and fell backward, and she dove in, reaching back and pulling the door shut.

Her palm slammed the lock in the door down, and then she reached across and did the same to the passenger door. The truck lurched, and she looked through the windshield and saw the wolf had jumped onto the hood. Drool ran from its mouth, in stark contrast to the majestic beauty that Hunter had been that morning as he made love to her in his wolf form. Kyle was crazed, his eyes shining a sickly yellow.

He jumped forward, slamming into the glass and Sasha screamed and pushed back, her head hitting something hard. She rubbed the back of her head, seeing stars, and when her vision cleared, and as the wolf kept howling and snapping its jaws at her through the glass, she turned to see what she had hit.

Hanging across the back window of her grandfather’s truck was a shotgun. She had made a comment about it when she had first seen it, making a redneck joke that her grandfather had laughed at.

“Thank you, grandpa,” she said as she turned fully and took the shotgun down, snapping it open to see if it was loaded.

It was.

She turned and pointed the gun through the windshield. The wolf’s eyes widened, and then to Sasha’ surprise,e Kyle changed back into a human, his hair and the teeth and claws gone in an instant. He was trying to make himself look less threatening.

“Sorry?” he said, his voice going up at the end to make the statement a question. “Just following orders,” he added.

Sasha didn’t say a word. She merely pumped the gun and then fired, blowing Kyle back and off the hood of the truck in a spray of red. Sitting in the truck for a moment, her breath laborious as she waited to see if the man would get up, she couldn’t see him down on the ground in front of the truck. Minutes passed, and she was alone.

Slowly she got out of the truck and walked to the front, the gun with its last shell held out in front of her.

Kyle was dead, that much was plain.

She dropped the gun and then immediately thought better of it and snatched it back up. Sasha ran inside, up to her grandfather’s bedroom. There was a moment of confusion when she saw the bed was empty, and then she looked down and was shocked to see her grandfather there on the floor, having tied a shirt around the wound in his neck, and on his stomach crawling for the door.

“Grandpa!” she said, rushing forward.

“Help,” he said, the word a gargle. He had looked dead, and if Sasha was true to herself, he still did. She had no idea how he had managed to survive, but she knew she had to keep him alive.

She left him there, running down to her room and then back up as she dialed the police. She spoke quickly with a 911 dispatcher, a conversation she wouldn’t be able to recall within minutes. When she was told help was on the way, she hung up and sat on the ground beside her grandfather, holding his head in her lap.

The paramedics found her like that, and they wasted no time working on Connor enough to get him moved, and then getting him on a gurney and taking him outside.

“Are you riding with him?” one of the men asked Sasha, and she nodded and got into the ambulance. As they drove, the siren blaring above her even though the roads were as empty as ever, she tried Hunter. He didn’t answer his cell.

For the first time since all of the horror had begun, going back to the previous night when Kurt had attacked her, Sasha felt hot tears sting her eyes. She tried to hold them in, but she couldn’t, and as she rode along, they fell freely and quickly, sliding down her cheeks, leaving shining trails along her pale skin.