Chapter 24

Anna

Austin slowed as we approached a dirt pathway that led off the road. “This is it.” He murmured.

Cody turned to me. “James followed the path and it leads to a house. He’s checking it out now, but it looks like our prey is in the house along with three others. We are staying far out of sight.”

My heart started pounding. This was it. We were so close.

Austin drove up the road a little and turned off the headlights, leaving us in complete darkness. We were far enough away from the dirt road that we would have more than enough time to leave the area if we saw headlights coming our way.

“James is on his way to the car.” Austin stated calmly, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

“So now what?” I asked anxiously. “Are we calling the rest of the pack?”

Austin met my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Now we set up surveillance on them. We find out who’s involved, who they are working for, and what their plans are.”

“We just leave?” I asked incredulously.

Austin chuckled softly. “This isn’t an action movie or a western showdown.”

“It’s not smart to rush in there, Anna.” Cody told me gently. “What if half their group is out on a run? We will have only taken out half of our enemies, let them know we are on to them, and let them escape to plot against us.”

Austin nodded. “We want to make sure we get all of them, especially whomever is footing the bill and making the calls.”

I huffed and sat back. What they were saying absolutely made sense, but it was very frustrating knowing that one of the men responsible was so close, and yet untouchable. I knew these guys were the experts when it came to this kind of thing.

There was a loud crack that sounded like a shotgun and Cody and Austin whipped their heads around at the sound.

“Shit!” Cody cursed.

“He’s not going to make it.” Austin said grimly.

I started to panic. “James? Was he hurt?”

Austin turned to look at me before turning back to Cody.

“Stay with her.” Cody said. “I’ll see if I can get him.” He reached under the seat and pulled out a glock, checking the chamber before slamming a mag in.

I swallowed nervously. “I don’t need a babysitter.” I told them resolutely. “If you don’t want me going after James, fine. But I can still be a getaway driver.”

They both turned to me in surprise and saw a faint smile on Austin’s face. “Cody, go. Anna, we’re both staying here. I need you to be ready to be the medic to my getaway driver.”

Cody shut the door quietly upon his exit and I saw him disappear into the woods. “What kind of injury are we talking about?” I asked Austin assertively. This was something I could do- prepare to treat a patient the best I could.

“It feels like… maybe a wound to the abdomen?” Austin said slowly. I watched him carefully. Could he feel what James was feeling? What kind of a bond did the pack-master have with his pack-mates?

I took a deep breath and climbed into the back to see if James kept anything useful in the trunk. I rooted around until I found the edge of the carpeting that peeled back. In the small compartment that normal people used to keep a spare tire, James had two black boxes.

I opened the first box to find another glock, spare magazines, a couple knives, and electronic equipment. Nothing that would be useful to treat a possible gunshot wound. I hurriedly opened the second box, praying I would find something useful.

I let out a relieved breath when it turned out to be a first aid kit, probably military issue. I could work with this. There was a combat tourniquet, Celox, and Halo Chest seals along with a variety of other items. As long as Cody got James back to me quickly, I should be able to keep him alive long enough to get him medical attention.

There was another crack and the glass in the back window above my head shattered. I ducked down even further, staying low. If I had chosen that moment to climb into the back seat…

I heard the sound of men shouting getting closer to us. Austin put the car in gear and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. We lurched ahead, only to come to a screeching halt a second later.

“Stay down, Anna. Don’t make a sound no matter what you hear.” Austin murmured to me out of the corner of his mouth. I could barely hear him over the sounds of my loud breathing.

I tried to stay calm. James was going to need me to be at the top of my game, not having a panic attack like a useless twit. I focused on slowing my breathing down and staying hidden in the back.

I couldn’t see what was going on from behind the seats, but I could hear a male voice giving Austin orders to keep his hands up. Was that the police? Or was it the bad guys? Austin would not have told me to stay hidden if it was the police.

I very quietly tried to dig into the first black box again to get the glock I had found. The guys had not given me any lessons on how to shoot, but I wasn’t going to just wait here to be murdered. I was pretty confident I could avoid shooting myself and I could probably hit a target if it was close enough.

I heard footsteps coming closer and I froze. I didn’t even have the gun loaded yet and I would not be able to do that silently. Should I take the chance of putting the magazine in or stay silent? I slowly dragged both pieces to where I was laying in the back, so I could snap the mag in.

“You’re going to want to put that down, little miss.”

I hesitated for a split second before I heard the sound of a round being chambered in a shot gun. I looked up through the broken window to see a man looking down the barrel of a shotgun at me.

Another man opened the trunk and pointed a handgun at me. “Out you go.” He said cheerfully.

I was shaking so badly I could barely stand but I managed to climb out of the vehicle, leaving the gun behind.

One of the men roughly grabbed my arm and I looked longingly in that direction before he threw me on the side of the road and pointed his weapon at me again. “Don’t move.” He growled at me.

I stayed put but looked around desperately for any signs of the other guys. Did Cody find James in time? Were they both hurt? I cursed myself for being so useless. What would James have done if he had been in my situation? I’m sure he wouldn’t be shaking in fear right now.

I took a deep breath and tried to look around strategically. There were two men with weapons pointed at Austin in the road in front of me. That was in addition to the two men who pulled me out of the vehicle.

“I should just shoot you now and be done with it.” One of the men growled at Austin.

“Need to get the boss’s okay for that.” One of the guys hovering over me shouted. “He’ll behave as long as we have his female.”

The same man turned to look at me. “And you’ll behave as long as we have three of your males, no?”

I nodded and looked nervously in Austin’s direction. It looked like the trigger happy man had backed off and was motioning for Austin to walk up the road ahead of them.

One of the men standing over me motioned with his shotgun for me to follow. “You too, girly.”

I stood up slowly, not wanting to startle either of them since they seemed to be on edge and ready to shoot. They both kept their distance from me, but followed as we made our way up to the dirt road.

My heart was about to pound out of my chest. Remaining on the main road was our best chance of getting help. Someone had to have heard gunshots, right? I tried to remember the last time we had passed another house, or even another road. My heart sank as I realized it had been a while. We were truly in the middle of nowhere.

I walked slowly, wanting to postpone what was going to happen for as long as I could. I prayed for another vehicle to pass us on the road, but none ever came. All too soon we were walking up the dirt road, further and further from potential rescue.

The dirt road turned out to be a super long driveway, it was half a mile before we came to a house in the middle of the clearing. It was dark, but when we started to get close I realized that Cody was kneeling down on the ground with his hands on James who was still in his wolf form.

I wanted to run over to them, but caution made me continue to walk slowly. I wouldn’t be able to help James if I got shot as well. The men stopped Austin about fifteen feet from where James and Cody were in the yard. My two guards stopped me when I was about the same distance from all of them.

“Everyone have a seat. We’re going to be here awhile.” Mr. Shotgun said in a cheerful voice. Mr. Trigger-happy growled at Austin when he hesitated and looked in my direction.

I took in a deep breath before I dared to speak. “I have medical training. May I check on the injured?”

Mr. Shotgun laughed and turned to his buddy. “She has medical training. Should we let her work on the wolf if we’re just going to kill him anyway?”

His buddy grinned. “Why not? If she’s busy it will keep her mouth shut.”

“I have medical supplies in the vehicle.” I said calmly. I didn’t expect them to run and get anything, but I had to try.

One of the men picked up a com that was hooked to his belt. “Yo, Evan. Bring the medical supplies with whatever else you find in the SUV.”

“Roger that.” I heard a voice answer.

I wondered why they weren’t using a pack bond to communicate? The men that had come close to me both had the distinctive scent that indicated they were wolves. Were some of them human?

Mr. Shotgun pointed his weapon at Cody. “Away from the wolf so we can send the girl over there.”

Cody backed up about five feet before stopping.

“Go ahead.” Mr. Shotgun said to me.

I walked quickly over to James and knelt by him. He was still in his wolf form, so I had a difficult time getting his vital signs. He was still breathing and had a steady pulse. He had a gunshot wound to the abdomen, just like Austin had thought.

I gently stroked James’s coat. “I need to take a look at the wound.” I told him softly. I didn’t want to startle him and have him try to snap at me if he wasn’t in his right frame of mind.

His eyes opened briefly, and I saw them clouded with pain before he shut them again. His body was relaxed enough that I gently rolled him a little so that I could take a look. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound had started to clot, which was good.

Wolves healed much more quickly than humans, but an abdominal wound could still be dangerous. He might have internal bleeding from vital organs that would need to be repaired before the wound healed. The best thing for him would be to have Austin change him back to his human form.

During the change, the wounds would partially heal but would still be there in his human form. It would be a lot easier to monitor his vitals and bleeding if he was human right now. It was difficult to work through his thick coat and I wasn’t as familiar with wolf anatomy.

I leaned down to James so I could whisper in his ear. “Can you change? Are we still connected by magic?” I had no idea how the spell worked, or even if it was still active. But if James could draw on my magic to trigger the change he might be able to turn human without Austin’s help.

James just gave a low whine. I sighed in disappointment. That sounded like a no. At least he was not in danger of bleeding out, not externally. Ideally, I would like to get him an IV started to replace the fluid volume that he may have already lost.

A door slammed on the house in front of us and another man came out. This guy looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. “Boss said he’s on his way but to go ahead and kill the black wolf, he’s the most dangerous.” He shouted out.

I threw my body over James, trying to shield him. This could not be happening right now. I heard shouting as Austin and Cody came to their feet to argue. I took a chance and raised my head to see what was going on. All of the men with weapons had surrounded Austin and Cody and were ordering them down to the ground.

I was hoping that they momentarily forgot about us and looked around for anything I could use as a weapon. To my dismay, I saw Mr. Familiar watching me intently. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” He said with a scowl.

I shook my head. I knew him from somewhere, but my brain was just not functioning right now. “I work at the gastro clinic.” He told me with a smirk. “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

I swallowed nervously as his eyes wandered over me. “You’ve been hiding a lot under those scrubs, huh?”

“Back off, Ben.” Mr. Trigger-happy said. “Girl! Off the wolf.”

I closed my eyes and clung to James even tighter. There was no way I was letting him go.

“Just shoot both of them.” Mr. Shotgun suggested.

“Boss said not to hurt her.” Ben said darkly. “At least not enough to leave marks.”

“We can’t just shoot her in the leg or something to make it easy to pry her off him?” Mr. Shotgun said doubtfully.

“That would leave a mark, dumbass.” Ben said sarcastically.

“Get the tranq gun from in the house.” Mr. Trigger-happy barked out.

A tranq gun? WTF? Did every group of wolves have one of those things? I did not want to get shot with that and be helplessly unconscious while my guys battled for their lives.

I started to panic. I was surrounded by three men with weapons, I had no way to escape. Even if I could, I wouldn’t leave James to die. All I could do was hold James close and murmur to him. If these were our last moments together, then I was going to make them count.

Helpless tears gathered in my eyes and I started to shake. This couldn’t be the end. I had just found James and this pack. My pack. I was just starting to live the type of life I always wanted. I couldn’t even think the L-word to myself, but deep down I knew I felt more than just friendship with these guys. I was falling for them. I would do anything for them.

Rage started to fill me when I thought about how quickly and easily these men were willing to end our lives. What gave them the right? They were not going to get away with this.

I held James close as I felt hate and rage fill me. The emotions were so strong that it felt almost like a physical presence inside of me. Like molten lava, bubbling beneath the surface. I could feel my blood boiling, my skin was on fire.

“Got it!” I heard Ben shout as he came back out of the house.

I thought about how he had gone to work every day. Watching me. Planning to harm me and my pack. Plotting against us. Smiling at the thought of causing us pain. I started breathing heavier as the rage consumed me completely. The heat was almost unbearable now and my skin felt like it was stretched too tight.

I reached deep down inside of myself. I wasn’t going to lie here and let them get away with this. If they wanted to harm James, they were going to have to kill me first. My vision shifted to red as all I could think about was their blood, splattered across the clearing. I wanted to rip them to pieces.

My intention was to explode forth into my wolf form and shred them with my claws and teeth. But when I reached deep down to release my magic to shift something happened.

Instead of releasing my little ball of energy to shift, the red-hot magma boiling inside of me exploded out. A part of me heard distant screams and smelled something burning, but I was enveloped in a red haze of hate, anger, and bloodlust. I let it all pour out of me for what seemed like an eternity. The heat flowed out until it slowed into a trickle and eventually stopped.

When my vision cleared, the sounds and smells of the world around me came back into focus as well. I slowly raised my head from where I had buried it in James’s thick black fur. The outpouring of fire, or emotion, or magic, or whatever it was had left me weak with exhaustion. My body now felt empty and sluggish.

I looked around numbly. There was a ring of charred earth around us, smoke still coming from the ground. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a boot, lying on the ground, the rubber melting on the soles. The scent of charred earth and burnt meat was thick in the air.

I heard shouts from across the way and looked up in time to see Cody smash the butt of the shotgun into a man’s face. Austin was standing up from where he had been crouched beside another man, holding a handgun in his hands.

Austin watched me carefully. “Anna?” He said softly.

I started to move slowly off of James and I saw Cody twitch. I took in the scene around me as I stood. There were several dead bodies around where James and I had laid. Further away, I saw what looked like Ben. His skin was charred and his clothes burned off but he was still moving.

Realization set into me. I had done this. The scent of charred meat was the scent of men that I had killed. Ben was still alive, but dying in agonizing pain because of me.

I stumbled to the side and vomited. “Anna, we need to get out of here.” Austin told me urgently. I heard him walk closer and hesitate before closing the gap between us. He tentatively placed a hand on my back as my vomiting turned to dry heaves.

I looked up at him and nodded resolutely. Whoever ‘the boss’ was, I knew I did not want to meet him like this. I had a feeling that he would not be coming here alone, he would be bringing reinforcements. James and I were not in fighting shape right now, and Austin and Cody couldn’t take on an entire pack by themselves. We had no choice but to retreat to fight another day.

Cody picked up James where he lay and started to walk back to the forest. I was guessing that we didn’t want to walk down the dirt road since that was how the boss would be coming here.

I took one last glance at the scene around me, but my eyes lingered on Ben. Austin didn’t say a word, but he followed my gaze. He took several strides in that direction and aimed the glock. “Close your eyes, Anna.”

“Okay.” I said numbly. But I watched as Austin fired a single bullet into the skull of what used to be Ben. Blood and brains splattered onto the ground, and the body stopped moving.

Austin stalked back to me and grabbed my arm. “Can you walk?”

I nodded but my body was shaking. I don’t know if I was in shock or if releasing whatever that was out of my body had taken a toll, but I could barely stumble after Austin.

“It’s not far.” Austin said in encouragement. “I’d pick you up, but I need to be mobile because Cody is carrying James.”

I followed the sound of Austin’s voice. All of my concentration was on placing one foot in front of the other, trying not to trip or fall. It took everything I had to remain upright and moving forward.

Austin would occasionally murmur encouragement to me to keep me moving until finally, we could stop. I collapsed down on the ground, looking up at the moon through the trees. Cody had set James down and they were both looking through the trees at where our vehicle was parked a hundred feet away.

“I’ve been watching for a couple minutes now.” Cody murmured. “No movement.”

“And if he’s in position as a sniper?” Austin asked.

They must be talking about Evan. He was the guy that was sent back to the SUV to search it while the others held us hostage. I was too tired to even move my mouth to speak, not that I could add anything helpful.

“Stay with them.” Austin murmured. “I’ll check it out.”

Cody put a hand on Austin’s arm to stop him. “We can’t risk you. You’re the ideal target for a sniper.”

“And you’re a larger target.” Austin said drily. “And I’m not willing to risk you.”

Cody huffed. “Rocks, paper, scissors?”

If I had enough strength in me I would have rolled my eyes. Cody must have won because I heard him start moving through the woods towards the vehicle.

Austin stayed alert, with his weapon ready to fire. There was no sound of a shotgun or a rifle firing, there was only silence as we waited. I heard the purr of the engine as Cody backed the vehicle up to where we were hiding on the edge of the forest.

Austin reached down for me, but I stopped him with a softly whispered word. “James.”

He cursed but let me lie there as he picked up James and carried him over to the Range Rover. I sighed and heaved myself over to my side. I was just gathering my strength to stand when Austin came back for me.

“I have you.” He murmured softly. That was all I needed to hear. I let go of the tenuous hold on consciousness that I had desperately maintained and let myself sink into the darkness.