by T. S. Joyce
Mae’s phone dinged with a text on the counter beside her. He didn’t mean to look because he believed in her privacy, but the noise was surprising in this quiet moment. The screen glowed with a picture of the old swing out front Mae had set as her lock screen. The text was one word.
Help.
“What the fuck,” he murmured, picking up her phone. “That’s Holt’s number.”
She grabbed the phone and opened up the text. Fingers flying, she typed out, “What happened?”
I need Fargo. Liam’s caught up. Bring a chain cutter if you have it!
Shhhit. “I’ll be back,” he said, flying for the door. Maybe Tabby had some chain cutters out in the storage shed.
“No! I choose you. I want all of it.”
“Mae, I don’t have time to make sure you’re—”
“I’m going.” Oooh, there was that stubborn look on her face. “They’re my people now, too. I’ll get the boat ready. You get the cutters. They’ll be on the tool wall if she had any.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, something bad was happening. Chains on a gator shifter? But Mae was already headed for the back door. “Shoes!” he called.
“Tabby has rain boots outside!”
Okay, later in the day when they’d gotten through whatever shitstorm was going down, he was going to appreciate his woman in rain boots and his T-shirt and. For now, he had to get his perverted mind right.
Holt needed Fargo? Well, he didn’t have control over that right now. The dog wasn’t even here. There was no Max ghost. It was just Cole, but Cole still had the speed and power of his animal. Whoever was fucking with his people better be ready for that painful death.
Rage and panic were making him dizzy by the time his bare feet hit the grass in the yard. The wind was kicked up with an oncoming storm, but as he ran for the storage shed, he felt watched. Cole skidded to a stop and rubbed the back of his neck where his hair was rising. He scanned the woods behind him, but he didn’t see anything. Nothing but trees. The birds and cicadas and frogs were all giving the silent treatment. Something wasn’t right in these woods. There was something dark here.
Movement caught his attention, and just on the edge of the woods stood Tabby’s ghost. Max sat somberly beside her.
He took a step toward her, but she shook her head. And then she said one word, “Run.”
The gunshot was deafening. It filled the clearing, filled his head. There was no echo because the bullet hit its mark with a sickening thunk. He was the mark. Cole was blasted backward, the pain searing through his side. He grunted, struggling to stay upright.
“Cole!” Mae screamed. She was supposed to be with the boats out back. What was she doing on the porch? No, Mae. She ran down the stairs toward him, fear in her eyes. They had no cover, no cover. He couldn’t keep her safe here.
“Mae, no! Run to the back of the house!” he barked out, hand over his side. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital, and he was a tough sonofabitch now. The dog gave him that. But Mae would be dropped with one shot, and he couldn’t…just couldn’t…
He spun and bolted for her. Good girl was already turning for the corner of the house. She was flying, legs pumping, and he didn’t catch up with her until they were climbing the stairs to the dock out back. He gripped her waist, hauling her over the edge of the boat. The engine was already going, warming up.
Another shot rang out, and he covered her body with his. A bullet whizzed past his face, so close he could feel the wind from it. Shit. Cowards, playing swamp snipers. Didn’t even show their faces.
He jumped in the boat and pushed her down in the bottom. “Stay down, baby,” he growled, ducking lower. He hit the throttle of the boat engine and gunned it. The back of the boat sank lower with the power of his acceleration. He looked back behind him to the dock, but he still didn’t see anyone. Fucking cowards. No honor in a fight. None at all.
Cole spat in the water and put more pressure on his side with his hand. He guided the boat to the first fork and took the right vein. And when he looked down at Mae, she was staring in horror at her shirt, the hem held up in her clenched fists.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, panicking. Maybe she’d been hit.
“That’s your blood,” she whispered. “Cole, you’re bleeding so much.”
He checked behind him again, but all he saw was Tabby and Max standing on the bank, watching them. He winced as he pulled his hand away from his side. “It looks worse than it is,” he lied. “Everything will be okay. I’m gonna keep you safe.”
A long, loud scream echoed through the swamp, followed by another. Aw, the monsters were out in Caddo Lake this morning.
“Was that Morgan?” she asked, easing up.
“Stay down.”
There was Tabby and Max again, just standing on the bank, blurring as Cole guided them past.
“I see them,” Mae said, tracking where the ghosts stood, her face arching with them. Her hands clenched the edge of the flat-bottom boat. She gritted her teeth. “It has to get worse before it gets better.”
He didn’t understand what she meant, but when she went for the storage unit at the front of the boat, she rocked it dangerously as she opened the metal lid and dug through. There was a package of white washcloths in there that she bit open savagely with her teeth, then made her way back to him. “Move your hand,” she demanded.
And the second he did, she had two of them pressed against him.
“Max!” he yelled at the bank. “Come here, boy!” I need you. Holt needs you.
But Max just stared at him from the bank, then glitched and disappeared right along with Tabby. What the hell?
A big wave slapped at the front of the boat, and another, splashing water against them. Another wave rolled for them, and then he saw it.
So did Mae. “Oh, my God,” she murmured as she followed his gaze.
A massive alligator did another death roll against the surface of the water, and from here, Cole could see the massive chains the gator was wrapped up in. Liam.
Holt was on the bank with Bre and Morgan, pulling as hard as they could on to the anchor.
“Liam, stop rolling!” Morgan screamed from shore. “Please!”
“We didn’t have time to get the chain-cutters,” Mae breathed.
“That won’t be our only worry.” Cole looked down at the washrags, soaking red, and it hit him. “They herded us here for a reason.” He didn’t want to scare her even more, so he kept it to himself. They’d been hunted. He could smell the sweat and greasy hair, the body odor that tainted the woods. The gunpowder.
Seamus and his poacher friends had come to snuff out the legends of Caddo Lake.
Chapter Eighteen
“Are there any weapons up there?” he murmured as he turned the boat and slowed.
“Couple pistols and a buck knife.”
“Give me the knife. You still know how to load them guns?”
“I think so,” she whispered, shaking. She felt so damn exposed out here on the water.
“You used to be a deadeye. Tell me you still remember how,” he said fast.
“I can try! Hold this,” she told him, yanking his red-stained hand to the washrags. She scrambled to the front of the boat and pulled out the knife, tossed it and the entire sheath to Cole, then pulled out the smaller of the two pistols. She grabbed the clip and shoved it in, cocked it back to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber.
Cole was breathing deep. He nodded as another huge wave hit the boat. “Give them cover, Mae. Bre’s gotta baby in her. Give them space to work Liam free. Don’t let nobody get to ’em.”
“What will you do?”
His face twisted into something she’d never seen before. It was feral and full of rage. Oh, he hid that very well from the world—the fury he was capable of. “I’m going to cover all of you. I can hear them on their walkie-talkies. Chaos. Running through the woods. They are out of position. I’m gonna keep them that way.”
“Be careful.”
C
ole inhaled deep and fell gently off the side of the boat, disappeared into the murky water, leaving Mae to hope he was clear of the engine as she eased the boat toward the bank. Oh, she felt watched. All of the fine hairs on her arms were standing up by the time she was in the shallows. She hopped out, water up to her calves, barely missing the tops of her rain boots. She dragged her legs through the heavy water, pushed back and forth by the waves. Liam was struggling in the water, thrashing around. God, don’t let him drown.
Bre was yelling something, but Mae didn’t understand. Her head was roaring with panic and anger. With a grunt, she pulled the boat to the bank and ran for them. Please God, let Cole be okay.
A man’s scream of pain echoed through the woods. Mae panted as she pushed her legs harder. Fear drove her. Fear for her man, for her friends…for herself.
“Fuck,” Holt gritted out, falling to his knees. “Bre…Bre…”
His eyes were bright gold with elongated pupils, and his face was red and strained. “I can’t…”
“Baby, you have to stay with us. You’ll fight Liam. He’s weak, and your gator won’t understand. Stay with me,” Bre begged. She was sitting down beside Morgan, pulling at a metal pole that was attached to the chain Liam was caught in.
“Don’t you fucking Change, Holt!” Morgan screamed, releasing her grip on the pole. She reared back and slapped Holt across the face, but it didn’t change the strain there. “If you hurt him, I’ll kill you.”
“I have to protect…I have to protect you,” he snarled in a terrifying voice.
The girls looked exhausted and scared. “Cole is in the woods,” she panted out as she ran up to them. “Holt, do what you have to do, but you heard Morgan’s warning. We’ll kill you if you hurt one of our own. Is this cemented in the ground?” she asked, testing the ring the chain was hooked to. “Cole was shot before we could get to the chain cutter.”
“Shit,” Holt growled.
“Yes, cemented,” Morgan rushed out, her eyes round. “Mae, he’s been in the water wrapped up too long.”
“Start digging,” Mae ordered. “It’s Seamus and his men. They’re in the woods, coming for us.”
“I can hear them,” Holt said on his hands and knees.
“Hey!” Mae yelled. “Cole is doing his job. Liam is fighting for his life. He’s doing his job.” She straightened her spine and looked him deadass in the eyes. “Use the gator and snap that chain.” She jammed a finger. “You don’t forget who the fuck he belongs to. Us.”
Holt’s face settled into feral acceptance. His glowing animal eyes churned with determination as a smattering of pops echoed through the woods. He thrust himself backward as the gator ripped out of him. He was at least eighteen feet long with prehistoric spikes running down his back. His body was made of armor in every green imaginable. He opened his massive jaws, exposing dozens of razor-sharp teeth as he dove into the water and aimed for Liam.
“Dig,” she murmured to the girls before bolting for the edge of the woods. Clever hunters had cleared the bank where they left the mutant metal gator trap. It kept them exposed, easy to pick off. Desperately, she searched for anything that could help. She set the gun down to dig a deep rock out of the ground. It had a flat edge and was the right size. She bolted back to the girls and handed it to Morgan. Her hands were covered in mud and blood from digging, and she took the rock without question, started scraping mud away from the anchor. Bre yanked the anchor hard toward her, butt in the mud, using her legs to give her momentum. “It moved!”
It wasn’t the only thing that moved, though. Someone ran through the trees, and even Mae with her human senses could hear the crackle and mumbled directions of the walkie-talkies now.
She lifted the gun and followed his movement. God, it had been so long since she’d shot at a target. Years. She exhaled a breath and held the gun steady. She brushed that trigger, but it hit the edge of a tree, shooting splinters.
“Fuck!” the man yelled, ducking behind a tree.
“Light ’em up!” someone yelled.
“Get down!” she screamed at Bre and Morgan as three men appeared from behind trees. Seamus was one.
As she dropped to one knee in front of Bre and Morgan and pulled her gun up, she saw him. Fargo, or Cole, or Max? The huge German Shepherd had taken Cole’s body, and he was a blur in the woods. He leapt and knocked the man flanking Seamus just as he lifted his rifle. They disappeared behind a tree, and the scream that followed turned to a gurgle and disappeared in a second. Time slowed.
She pulled her weapon up to aim for Seamus just as he aimed for her.
Fargo was running for him, but he would never make it in time.
His muzzle was covered in blood.
The sound of the snapping chain behind her was deafening.
She pulled the trigger.
“Mae!” Bre screamed.
The feel of the gun kicking in her hand as the bullet left the chamber was a shock against her wrist.
The sound of Seamus’s rifle as he pulled his echoed in her mind.
Boom, boom!
Cole wouldn’t make it. Couldn’t.
I’m sorry. She’d wanted to stay for him so badly. I’m so sorry.
She squeezed her eyes closed and waited for the pain, but it didn’t come. Instead, bullet made a thud sound, but didn’t hurt her. An echoing grunt sounded as something heavy hit the hard enough to vibrate through her legs.
Time resumed as the swamps lit up with the sound of gunfire, but those gators came out of the water with a vengeance. A tidal wave of water washed over them, and someone yanked her sideways toward the trees.
“We gotta move!” Morgan exclaimed.
Bre was ahead of them, running low. “Here!” she cried, pointing to thick brush.
What the hell had just happened?
Mae skidded behind the rough shelter and pressed down as flat as she could beside Morgan and Bre. From here, she could see the war beyond the bare brambles. In the clearing, Liam and Holt’s gators were destroying everyone and everything in their path. Trees and poachers, bitten and thrown. The chain still clung to Liam’s jaw by a massive hook, and was wrapped around his front leg, but it didn’t seem to affect him too much. Those gators were terrifyingly fast. She hadn’t realized the power her friends had hidden.
Huffing breath so hard it kicked up dust in front of her face, Mae whispered, “Oh, my gosh, they’re killing everything.”
“I hope they bite even deeper,” Morgan growled savagely. “I hope they kill every last one of them.”
From the sheer power and fury, the snapping teeth and the gunfire that seemed to do nothing to them, Mae thought they surely would. But they were staying in one place. Fighting and backing up. Lunging, retreating. One would go farther and stop someone’s gunfire, snap them in half, toss them in the air, but the other would hang back…almost as if they were protecting something.
Tabby was standing in the clearing behind the gators, staring down at a body. At fur.
“No,” Mae murmured, standing up.
Tabby turned to her, and her eyes were so sad. “Raina’s coming.” The words echoed through Mae’s mind.
“What’s happening?” she heard Morgan say, but her slow words were muffled as if she was under water.
“It’s Fargo,” she heard Bre say in the same slow words.
Mae bolted for him. Screw the threat of the war. The gunfire was only sporadic now, and the gators were charging into the woods. Mae skidded to her knees in the mud beside Cole. He struggled to breathe.
“Oh, baby,” she squeaked, waving her hands helplessly over his body. “Did you take my bullet? Or Seamus’s? From the red, matted fur, she thought he took both of them. A keening cry clawed up her throat as she picked up his giant head and laid it in her lap, stroked behind his ears. “You shouldn’t have done that. Bad dog.”
The world around her blurred. There were red and blue lights in the woods now. Sirens. The sound of a boat engine, the sound of Liam’s chains. The girls w
ere beside her, but they were fuzzy. Everything was fuzzy, but not Cole. He was crystal clear. He’d always been crystal clear.
His breaths were too far apart, so labored. He looked up at her with pained eyes. Whiskey brown. Beautiful boy. Hers. She knew his language.
You’re worth it. Everything will be okay.
“No it won’t,” she sobbed, hugging him closer. “Cole, it won’t be okay. I won’t be okay without you. I can’t lose you again.”
“Give us some space, girls. Bre, go lead that ambulance right to us.”
Raina?
Mae looked up at the woman’s face. She dropped a leather bag on the ground next to Cole and unrolled it. Mae stared dumbly at it, unable to identify the instruments. Bones? Miniature jars of powder. One of them, Raina jerked the cork off and poured onto Cole’s wounds.
“Raina, he stopped breathing.”
“Good,” she murmured, lighting a bundle of plants in her hand. “We need him to die.”
“What?” Mae shoved Raina away from Cole’s body, but the woman grabbed her wrist and looked straight into her soul when she said, “Max has to go. Let me work, or they’ll both die.” Raina chanted something in a language she didn’t understand.
Thunder rumbled, and above, the clouds circled them like a slow-forming tornado. The hairs on Mae’s body electrified. A dark fog edged toward them from the water, reaching for Cole with hand-like tendrils, and Raina’s eyes rolled back in her head as she chanted louder, waving the pungent burning plants over his body. The clouds darkened, and around them, the police, the medics, and the Lachlans looked up at the sky.
He wasn’t breathing. Cole wasn’t breathing, and it’d been too long. It wasn’t working.
Lightning struck close, cracking against the earth, and rain started pouring down on them in sheets. Cole’s body seized, arching against the shore of the swamp. Bones cracked, but Raina chanted louder.
The dark fog was choking Mae, filling her lungs. It tasted so bitter, and she couldn’t breathe when it got too thick. She set Cole on the soft ground and backed away. Morgan came to stand beside her, took her hand, and then Mr. Jennings and Holt stood on her other side. Then Liam. They couldn’t see Cole or Raina anymore; the fog had concentrated around then.