by V. A. Dold
Doug turned away from Lucas and leaned forward to focus on her. Clasping his hands around his coffee mug on the table before him, his eyes were sober and watchful. “Describe Leon for me. Try to remember as much detail as possible,” he requested calmly so as not to upset her.
Her wolf growled as she brought up an image of the creep in her mind. “About six foot two, dirty blond scruffy hair, brown beady eyes, and he’s balding in the front. I’ve never seen an unattractive shifter before, but this guy took the cake. Maybe he’s a half breed? He looks like he’s part hyena.”
An hour later, Krystal was losing patience. She wasn’t built for confinement. She was going to kill her mother. Kill. Her. Dead. Was living her own life and loving her mate too much to ask? For her mother, yes. Yes, it was. So, here she was, sequestered in the main house because her mother was a lunatic. At least there was a constant flow of traffic through the lobby and dining room and work to take her mind off of her screwed-up life.
She was reaching for the laundry detergent when she sensed aggression. Someone within the house was emitting very dark energy. In that energy, she felt a personal threat directed at her. Her gift centered around reading energy and seeing auras, and when she raised her shields, she could sense the smallest of shifts. The emotional energy battering at her wasn’t anywhere near slight, it was overwhelming.
Suddenly, she heard something shatter. What was that? Did that come from my room! Panic froze her for an instance. But only an instant. Then her mind kicked into high gear. Her first thought was, could Kensie or Jojo be in her room? No. Kensie was in town, and Jojo was working the front desk. It wasn’t Lucas or Doug either. No one should be in her room.
Quiet as a mouse, she inched to the door to peek down the hallway. The closer she got, the more the impression of violence and harm increased. Craning her neck, it was impossible to see into her room, which meant that whoever was in there couldn’t see her either. Krystal stilled, held her breath, and waited for a sound to give away the intruder’s position.
As if in answer, soft footsteps and the shadow of someone moving about preceded a low growl. She knew that growl. For a moment, she couldn’t think—or breathe. No. Hell no. She wouldn’t let that little troll control her in any way. Krystal shook off her fear and took a cleansing breath to relax her body and lower her energy output. She didn’t know what Leon’s gift was, so she had to take every precaution. For all she knew, he worked with energy. If she maintained an even energy signature, he’d have a harder time locating her.
Timing the back and forth movement of the shadow in her room, she bent her knees and bunched her leg muscles, readying to burst into action. The instant the shadow disappeared to the far side of the room, she shot like a rocket out the door and down the hall, running away from her bedroom toward freedom. How had Leon gotten into the house? Where were the men Lucas posted outside, and why hadn’t Jojo seen him?
Ignoring Jojo’s greeting, Krystal raced for the front door. They had guests in the dining room and throughout the cabin area. She was Leon’s target, which meant she needed to be as far away from innocent bystanders as possible. Unable to use her shifter speed, she ran as fast as humanly possible. Her destination was the one place she could make her stand, and the confrontation wouldn’t be seen or heard by the humans—the meadow behind her cabin.
With all the men on the other end of the ranch, there was no one coming to her rescue anytime soon. She was on her own but surprisingly unafraid. She’d bested Leon once; she could do it again. The instant she was within the tree line, and out of sight, she shifted. Four feet were much faster than two, even with shifter speed. Krystal moved so fast she was less than a blur. The only evidence of her passing was the leaves kicked up by the breeze she created.
Yelling and screams were her only warning. Leon was hot on her trail, and things were about to get ugly. If she weren’t already running at top speed, she’d have gone faster. The crash of Leon’s larger wolf smashing his way down her tiny ribbon of a trail gave away his position. He was midway through the trees, and she was on the far edge. Taking human form, she grabbed a fallen tree limb. Pleased with its size and weight, she gripped it like a baseball bat and waited behind a tree. Using sound and scent, she timed her swing. If Leon’s wolf head had been a softball, she’d have herself a home run. She hadn’t been the MVP of her fastpitch team for nothing.
Judging that he would be out cold for a minute or two, she backtracked to her cabin. Leon was bigger and stronger than she was, which meant she needed a weapon to even the odds. Running for her bedroom, she jerked open the closet door and grabbed the shoe box off the sweater shelf. Tossing the lid aside, she scooped up her handgun and ejected the clip. Fully loaded. Smiling to herself, she snapped the clip in place and loaded the chamber. Thumbing the safety off, she headed for the meadow at a leisurely pace. Krystal’s gun wasn’t a prop to scare off intruders, no sir. Both she and her sister were crack shots. She’d once shot a horsefly off her brother’s innertube while he was floating on the river. To this day, she and Quin argued about that shot. He accused her of trying to kill him. She informed him she’d saved him from a nasty fly bite. What was the big deal, anyway? She hadn’t come close to hitting Quin or popping his innertube. The fly wasn’t so lucky.
Nearing the meadow, Krystal slowed her pace. Watchful, she listened for movement or breathing. Regardless of how much noise a person made, they still had to breathe. Neither seeing nor hearing Leon, she stopped short of where she’d left him. During the time she’d been retrieving her pistol, he’d come too and moved. But to where?
Holding her position, she waited. Patience was yet another lesson her brothers taught her. More battles were won by the person who waited than the one who charged in. Two minutes later, Leon’s stench wafted on the breeze from her right. Very, very slowly, she shifted position, searching the brush and trees. He was there, she just had to spot him without being seen herself. A head ducking behind a tree caught her eye. The little bastard wanted to play hide and seek? She could do that. Easing back out of his line of sight, she moved five feet to her left and took up position behind a boulder.
Apparently, patience wasn’t one of Leon’s strong suits. Thirty seconds later, he leapt from behind the tree and charged her location. Krystal took aim and shattered his left knee cap. Leon went down hard.
Writhing on the ground, Leon yelled, “Fucking Bitch! You’ll die for that.”
Taking advantage of his distraction, Krystal moved again. This time she settled on a tree branch about eight feet above the ground, no more than ten yards from Leon. Given the man’s general health and fitness, his shifter healing should have him on his feet in a matter of minutes. Not that he’d be dancing a jig anytime soon, but walking would be manageable.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long, and he was limping toward her previous location. Finding her gone, he cussed a blue streak and cast around for her.
Krystal had a bead on him the entire time. Suddenly, the wind changed direction, carrying her scent to him, and he looked straight at her. Grinning evilly, he limped to the base of the trunk. “Looks like I treed a mate. That’s a first for the books.”
When he crouched for the leap up to her branch, she fired off a second shot—this time into his right shoulder. The entire time she was shooting Logan’s voice was in her head demanding she take a kill shot. Krystal had never been able to do that. At least not with people. Fly’s yes, people not so much. She was more of an incapacitate her enemy kind of gal.
Leon toppled backward, screaming bloody murder. “I’m going to tear you limb from limb!”
“You have to get near me first,” she taunted.
Krystal felt the rush of adrenaline as she leapt from the tree and ran for the meadow. Yeah, egging him on wasn’t the best idea, but she couldn’t help herself. There was a small animal den on the far side of the hill. The animal scent was thick in the area and would offer good coverage while fixing her gun. Something had jammed up
after that last shot, and it wasn’t reloading. Squeezing inside, she carefully inspected her gun and found the spent shell hadn’t fully ejected. It took a couple of tries, but eventually, she got the casing free and loaded a fresh round.
Suddenly, every hair on her body stood on end. It was quiet. Too quiet. No bird song or buzzing insects. Cocking her head, she listened. Nothing, no footsteps, swish of grass, or snapping twigs. Not a dang thing. Out of nowhere, Leon grabbed her, yanked her out of the den, and threw her to the ground.
Jojo was finalizing a new reservation when Krystal flew through the lobby and out the front door.
“Hey...” her greeting trailed off as Krystal cleared the porch steps without touching a tread. Rushing to the front porch, she yelled, “What’s going on?” But Krystal just kept running.
Glancing about, Jojo spotted a pair of boots sticking out of the shrubbery. She was making her way there when Leon crashed through the front door and shoved her to the ground in his haste to catch Krystal.
“Shit!” Jojo swore as she got to her feet and ran for the walkie talkies. Cell phone coverage was spotty throughout the ranch, so they’d taken to using walkies.
Grabbing it from under the counter, she depressed the button. “Base to Lucas, come in.”
There was static for a second then Lucas’s blessed voice. “Lucas here, what do you need? Over.”
“Leon is after Krystal. It looks like she’s headed toward her cabin. Over.”
“On our way. Over.”
Jojo held the walkie away from her like it might bite. That last response sounded distinctly animalistic. Angry, biting animalistic. Sometimes the Le Beau’s freaked her out. She was about to call the sheriff when she realized he was with Lucas. Pacing, she tried to think of a plan. That was when she remembered the boots in the bushes. She needed help, and those cowboys were going to give it to her.
Hearing the walkie, Doug swung his mount around and headed for Lucas. Something was wrong, he and his tiger sensed it. He opened his mouth to ask when he heard Jojo’s voice. Snapping his jaw shut, he listened instead.
That’s when the words he dreaded came out of Jojo’s mouth. “Leon is after Krystal.”
Spinning his mount on its haunches, he raced back to the compound. Too slow! With a roar, he leapt for the horse’s back, shifting in midair, and hit the ground running. Screaming in terror of a full-grown tiger landing next to it. The horse reared and tore off the other direction. Doug didn’t give the animal a second thought. Given time, it would return to the barn.
Finding speed he’d never used before, his beast ate up the acres in a blur of four legs and orange and black stripes. What would take thirty minutes on horseback took him a mere three in cat form.
Slowing when he reached Krystal’s cabin, he listened, scenting the air. She had been there only minutes ago. Leon’s stench was there too. The cabin was utterly silent, though, and the scent trail drew him into the trees. The meadow! She was drawing Leon away from the humans. Doug’s tiger chuffed in approval. The man approved as well. Taking human form, he quickly made his way to the meadow, watching for signs of battle or blood as he went.
He found the first traces of blood on the far side of the trees, and it wasn’t Krystal’s. Grinning, Doug cast his gaze around the open space. Finding no sign of Krystal or Leon, he began to walk the meadow. They were here somewhere; he could smell them. The problem was, the air was swirling, hampering his ability to pinpoint their location.
Seventeen
A huge shadow fell across Krystal, blocking out the sun. “Hello, mate,” Leon snarled.
Krystal went from zero to What the eff in two words. His whiny, nasal voice grated on her nerves, sending an icy chill down her spine. The massive blinding backlight in the sky made it impossible to see his face. Not that it mattered one iota, his stink gave him away.
He was too close to utilize her gun. By the time she raised it to aim, he’d either rip it from her hand or kick it away. Shifter speed made weapons useless in tight quarters. Although, if the idiot was stupid enough to make another move on her, she could see the gap between his legs just fine to land a direct hit.
“Did you hear me? I said hello. But then maybe you prefer to dispense with the pleasantries and would rather get down to mating?”
She heard the annoyance and ugly excitement in his voice. This was worse than she thought. He wasn’t just certifiably insane; he was also a masochistic pervert. She had to get the hell away from him immediately.
“I’m not your mate. Nor will I ever be your mate. And the last thing I want to do is get down to mating you. Get off of my ranch and don’t come back, or I will sic my real mate and my cousin on you.”
“Your mother said I would be welcomed.”
Krystal sat up and shielded her eyes. No luck, she still couldn’t make him out. “My mother says a lot of things. I don’t know what crazy ass plan you hatched with my mother, I’m not the prize at the end of the game. She lied to you, that’s what she does.” Suddenly, the scent of her family swirled on the breeze. “This is your last chance to leave under your own steam. If I have to call for help, you’ll leave here in a body bag.”
“Yeah, right. Now get up. You’re coming with me.” Large, meaty hands grasped her forearms and yanked her off the ground.
The sudden jerk knocked the gun from her hand, leaving her without her weapon. But not without options. “Like hell. Doug! Lucas! I’m over here!” She ripped her arms free, kicked him in the balls for the second time in as many days, and turned to run.
Doug swung his head toward her call, fangs bared. Unleashing the roar in his chest, he barreled across the field. No one laid hands on his djairi and lived. Flashing to tiger form, he bounded across the open area, cresting the hill in three strides.
His cat took in the scene, eyes narrowing aggressively, and roared its challenge. His body tensed, back legs bunched, and he leapt the entire distance between him and his prey. Krystal must have realized what he was doing and scrambled back. At the same moment that he tackled Leon, taking the stinking wolf shifter to the ground, she got to her feet.
Standing on his quarry, Doug turned his massive head to survey her. Concern filled his golden eyes. His inattention to the fight gave Leon the chance to grab her fallen pistol. Krystal opened her mouth to yell a warning but realized she had a much more efficient way to communicate. A picture says a thousand words and is much faster, so she sent him a telepathic image of what she was seeing.
Her mate flattened his body over the wolf, who was still in human form, pressing him to the earth with his entire weight. He easily ducked the bullet before swiping the handgun away with his dinner-plate sized paw.
Krystal grunted from the bullet’s impact but quickly hid the wound from Doug’s sight. “Stop playing with your food. I’ll be pissed if anything happens to you.”
She watched the tiger’s striped body flex in preparation of movement. That was the only warning she got. Scuttling like a crab, she pushed her body back to the nearest tree. She was far enough away to be relatively safe and yet able to help if needed.
The instant Doug’s weight lifted from Leon’s prone body, the wolf shifted. With both men armed with teeth and claws, the battle turned bloody. Roars and growls of challenge echoed through the air.
Four-inch claws flashing as the tiger swiped at the lunging wolf. Leon darted forward, taking a bite out of Doug’s hind leg. Roaring in outrage, Doug sent the wolf crashing into the trees thirty feet to her left. A thud and grunt were heard when Leon struck a tree trunk, ending his wingless flight.
Limping from the tree line, Leon paused only long enough to glare at her before rushing Doug again. In mere minutes, blood stained the fur of both animals red. The iron-rich fluid permeated the air as it soaked the earth beneath their punishing paws. Claw rakes and bites riddle the wolf’s body until Krystal wondered how Leon remained upright. Both he and Doug were sticky with his blood. Having healed almost instantly, D
oug’s wound offered little to the carnage covering their bodies. She’d never seen a paranormal being heal so quickly.
Will you be okay, honey? Stefanie asked, wringing her hands in concern.
Oh, yeah. I’ll be fine. I just need to get the bullet out so the wound will heal.
Excellent. You take care of that. I’ll watch your back.
Out of the corner of her eye, Krystal could see Stefanie air boxing like she was fighting alongside Doug. Grinning through the pain, she kept an eye on the combatants as she got to work.
“Miss Krystal, may we be of assistance?” Nick asked as Derick squatted beside her. “We smelled blood and came to investigate.”
“An errant bullet hit me. Just give me a minute and I’ll have it out.”
“In that case, we’ll stand guard while you take care of that.”
“Thanks,” Krystal grunted as she focused on the bullet in her shoulder. Gritting her teeth, she pressed at the edges of the wound, feeling for the slug. Using her fingernail, she could feel the edge, but it held fast when she poked at it. Great, it was lodged in the shoulder bone, which meant manual manipulation to dislodge it. Pressing her lips together to silence her gasps of pain, she dug deeper to get a fingernail under an edge. Taking a deep breath, she began to pry it free. It took a couple of tries, but it finally came loose.
Breathing through the burning pain, she calmed her mind to relax her body. Once the tension left her muscles, the pain lessened. Opening her eyes, she focused on the muscles around the slug, systemically flexing and squeezing to push it in the direction she wanted it to go. She’d managed to work the projectile back along the path created when it entered her body. Thankfully, she hadn’t loaded it with R.I.P. rounds. Those bastards splinter into eight nasty shards and required surgical assistance to remove all of the pieces. What she had in her shoulder was a good old fashion bullet that stayed in one piece.