* * *
"Come on, quicken your pace," Trace and Marco had Ashe running along the beach again before dinner. "You just sit in a chair all day. You'll shrivel up, man," Trace grinned. They'd run a mile down the beach, now they were nearly back to the beach house. Ashe felt a buzzing in his head and jerked to a stop.
"What's that?" Trace and Marco had stopped beside him. Ashe had seen something on the deck of the beach house, just before he'd heard the whine.
"Bullets!" Trace snapped. "Marco, move!" Trace and Marco took off at top speed for Winkler's deck. Several things were moving there, Ashe just couldn't make them out. He heard shouting, though, and then saw Trajan forcing his body through the glass doors at the back of the house, a rifle in his hands. Another whine and Trajan was knocked backward.
"No!" Ashe shouted, and then somehow, in some way, without ever turning to mist or becoming the bumblebee bat, Ashe was on Winkler's deck and gathering Trajan into his mist. Be careful! He shouted mentally to Marco and Trace, who were still running toward the deck. Ashe had arrived in a blink. Three men in sand-colored camouflage were on the deck, assault rifles in their hands. The bullets that now flew through the broken panes of patio doors flew straight through Ashe's mist. One of the assailants went down. Trace, as a huge black wolf, hit another of the attackers viciously, nearly biting through an arm and forcing the man to drop his gun. The other was now aiming at Trace when Marco hit him as a wolf so gray he was nearly black. Only a patch of white at his throat told Ashe it was Marco.
Winkler, bleeding from a shoulder wound and backed up by Gene and Gabe, who'd also been hit in the right arm and left thigh, raised rifles. The remaining attackers were down in seconds after two shots rang out. Ashe dropped Trajan into a rattan chair as carefully as he could.
"You okay?" Ashe waited for Trajan to open his eyes. The wound was on Trajan's right side and blood flowed sluggishly from the injury.
Winkler was cursing and kicking one of their assailants. He also heard the name Nick. Several times.
"What happened?" Ashe grabbed a towel from a stack the housekeeper kept on the deck in a basket, in case anyone wanted to swim in the gulf. Pressing the towel to Trajan's wound, he knelt next to Winkler's Second.
"Betrayal, that's what," Winkler came to examine Trajan's gunshot wound. "Spencer's dead. Marco, see if you can get Shirley Walker on the phone. One of her wolves works as a nurse at the hospital in Corpus. We need him. Pronto."
"Did they just walk in the front door?" Ashe asked, pressing the towel harder against Trajan's side to curb the bleeding. Trajan grunted in pained response.
"Nick did. Spencer didn't know not to let him in," Winkler cursed again. "Two came in with him and killed Spence. These three came around the back and started shooting into the house. Trajan and I got the two in the house; one of us wounded Nick, too. If you hadn't gotten here when you did, Trajan would probably be gone as well. Thank goodness Gene got suspicious and followed Nick when he left Star Cove."
"Marco and Trace got those guys, I just picked up Trajan before they could shoot him again," Ashe was shaky but didn't want to show it.
"They're on the way," Gabe pocketed his cell phone. Ashe watched Gabe. He'd just lost his brother, in addition to being wounded.
"No more questions right now," Trajan opened his eyes and blinked at Ashe. Ashe nodded his understanding. Marco was on the phone, talking with his father when Trajan passed out again.
The werewolf nurse who worked at the hospital showed up half an hour later, but he couldn't get the bullet out of Trajan until Anthony Hancock rose for the evening.
"My surrogate sire is better at this than I am," Tony muttered, forming a long claw on a single finger. "Hold him down," he nodded at Trajan, who was breathing shallow breaths. The nurse had given him something for pain and washed out the wound, but hadn't attempted to remove the bullet. Ashe hadn't been told to stay away, so he watched in frightened awe as Tony Hancock dipped his claw into Trajan's flesh and flipped the bullet out in seconds. It bounced across the tiled floor of Winkler's media room, coming to rest against an expensive, hand-woven rug.
"Now we can fix this," the nurse sighed and went back to work on the wound. Winkler had been patched up, as had Gabe—those bullets had either grazed or gone through. Ashe knew that feeling, having been shot when he was twelve.
"You all right, Son?" Aedan walked in with Marcus.
"Yeah. Dad, I was never in any danger. We went for a run on the beach—Marco, Trace and I. Mr. Winkler got attacked while we were gone. We just came up at the end."
"Is this the end of it? Do you think there are more out there?" Aedan asked.
"No way to tell," Tony Hancock said. "But we'll certainly look into the matter. Would you like to place compulsion on Nick, so we can get answers?"
"Absolutely," Aedan nodded. Winkler, Tony, Marcus and Aedan all left the room.
"Damn," Trajan sighed.
"You're in no shape to go running after them right now," the nurse said, pushing Trajan back onto the sofa when he attempted to rise.
"Ashe," Trace jerked his head toward the back doors, which were still broken, with glass hanging in shards from the frames. Ashe followed Trace to the deck.
"Get me in there, Ashe," Trace whispered. Ashe blinked at Trace before going to mist and hauling the werewolf into Winkler's private office. Nick was cuffed with silver and tied to a chair when they arrived. Gabe stalked around the prisoner, growling even in human form. Ashe, holding Trace within his mist, hovered in a corner of the room.
"Now, you will tell me everything and you will be truthful about it, won't you?" Aedan leaned down, looking Nick in the eye.
"Yes," Nick said, nodding slightly.
"Who sent you?" Aedan asked.
"Dom Pruitt. He knows you have his boys, Winkler. He says you stole his family. He wants you dead. Paying a lot for it, actually. He said to kill you first and then grab the boys."
"No loyalty, Nick?" Winkler growled.
"Offered a lot," Nick winced.
"What do you think I might have paid to have the information brought to me?" Winkler asked angrily.
"What else did he offer you?" Aedan asked. "What did he promise?"
"Home in Mexico. On the water. Anything else I wanted, in exchange for your head." He stared at Winkler.
"Anything else?" Aedan asked.
"That's all I know."
"Gabe, he's yours," Winkler said. When Ashe saw Gabe pull the pistol from his waistband, he flew straight through the ceiling, dumping Trace on the roof before flying over the waters of the gulf.
* * *
"Your father wasn't happy that you took off," Winkler was waiting inside the media room when Ashe walked in just after daybreak the following morning. The patio doors had been boarded up and the blood washed from the deck and the floors inside the house.
"Yeah. I figured," Ashe said. "Trajan okay?"
"He's fine. Sleeping it off. He'll be healed up in a couple of days."
"Where's Nick?" Ashe watched Winkler. Would Winkler lie? His dark eyes never wavered from Ashe’s face.
"Sleeping. With the fishes," Winkler replied. "Shirley sent somebody who has a boat."
"Ah."
"Ashe, in this business, it's unavoidable. Vamps, weres and shifters don't have normal lives. We like to protect our kids, but the talented ones get thrown into it early."
"I've already been informed that I won't have a normal life," Ashe sat on the opposite end of the sofa Winkler occupied.
"Ashe, the trick is to keep as much as possible as normal as possible. Last night was definitely not normal. My wolves are extremely loyal as a rule. Every now and then, there's someone who thinks money might be more important. I handed Nick to Gabe because Nick killed Spencer. That's the worst kind of betrayal. It would have been more honorable to call Spencer out and offer to fight, instead of convincing him to trust Nick enough to allow him inside the house."
"Yeah," Ashe dropped his head in his hands. He ha
dn't slept. He'd been misting, flying as the bat or hopping—his newfound talent of jumping from one place to another—all night.
"Come on, you can call your mother and we'll both talk to her, and then you'll go to bed for a while. Trace and Marco are taking the early shift. They have to deal with getting glass replaced in the doors."
"How are you going to explain that?" Ashe studied the boarded up frames.
"Werewolf-owned glass company," Winkler said. "You'd be surprised at how many werewolf businesses are out there. We have our own phone directory. Shirley called him last night. He said he'd be out around nine."
"So, what's gonna happen to the one who hired Nick?"
"Ashe, we're working on that, all right? Most of my wolves don't know as much as you do right now. In the meantime, I have to get my Second back on his feet."
"Yeah. Trajan asleep right now?"
"Want to check? I'll let you take breakfast in if you want."
"I will." Ashe went to see Winkler's cook. Jimmy was preparing a meal in the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Ashe got two plates of food on a tray and went to Trajan's bedroom on the second floor.
"He said no coffee," Ashe set the tray down on Trajan's bedside table. Trajan had asked for coffee the moment Ashe walked through the door after knocking.
"Who?" Trajan was grumbling.
"The cook. You know—Jimmy."
"I'll have a talk with him later. Kid, I've got to find a way to stop getting rescued by you."
"I'd hope you'd do the same for me. Or Sali or Marco or Winkler."
"Yeah. Hand that plate over, I'm starved." Ashe handed a plate and a fork to Trajan, who'd slid his legs over the edge of the bed so he could eat.
"Your mother," Winkler handed his cell to Ashe after walking into Trajan's bedroom.
"Mom, I'm fine," Ashe said right away. "I was nowhere near the grassy knoll." Winkler threw back his head and laughed.
"Ashe, do I need to come over there?" Adele asked, worry in her voice.
"I think everything is under control. Everything all right there?"
"Yes, things seem to be fine. Another werewolf showed up to help Ace guard Marcie's boys, but that's it. One of Shirley Walker's, I think." Winkler was nodding—he knew about it already.
"Good. I guess Dad made it home okay?"
"Yes, but he was worried about you."
"I only went down the beach a little way. Nobody saw me, I promise."
"Are you sure you're all right?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. Really. And so are Mr. Winkler and Trajan."
"All right. But if anything like that happens again, you'll come straight home. Do you hear?"
"Mom, don't worry, okay? I'm fine."
"I'll be bringing in more guards, Mrs. Evans," Winkler promised. He knew she'd hear.
"Fine. Ashe, your father will call tonight when he rises."
"Okay."
"I love you, honey."
"Love you, too, Mom." Ashe flushed. Winkler and Trajan both grinned.
* * *
"Here's your mail, Adele." Denise handed over the stack of mail she'd gotten from the Evans' new post office box. Nobody in the community had mail delivered to their homes. It was safer that way. Mailboxes were lined up outside the housing addition, but those only received advertisements and flyers addressed to occupant.
"I got a card from Dawn Smith," Adele lifted the postcard so Denise could see. The photo on the front depicted a famous chapel in Santa Fe.
"What does she say?" Denise asked.
"Doing fine, hope the move went well," Adele read. "Randy heard from Cori that you had to leave Oklahoma. Sorry to hear that. Love to you and yours—Dawn."
The card had been addressed to the old post office box in Cordell. Dawn knew it would be forwarded.
"That was nice of her," Denise said.
"I wonder if she'll ever marry again," Adele sighed, setting the card on the kitchen island.
"I don't know. She and Terry were so close; I think it did major damage when he was killed and then Randy was almost killed, too."
"Randy would be dead if Ashe hadn't pulled him away."
"Too bad nobody else remembers that, including Dawn and Randy," Denise agreed.
"It's just too dangerous—too many people would come looking for Ashe. I wish there was some way we could protect him better, so he can lead something close to a normal life. Want a cup of coffee, Denise?" Adele went toward the coffeepot.
* * *
Ashe blinked at the television screen. And then blinked again—he was still half-asleep. Winkler had gotten him up to see the breaking news on all the television stations.
"Congressman Howard cannot be located," the journalist reported on a popular, twenty-four hour news program. "The Justice Department has warrants out for his arrest, for investing campaign funds in South American casinos and other illegal enterprises, with profits funneled to an offshore account. It seems that the congressman may have been tipped off and chose to leave town before arrests could be made." A photograph of the congressman, coming back from the supposed elk hunt in Colorado, was shown on the screen.
"I think he's running to Pruitt and Pruitt's contacts in Mexico," Winkler muttered. "If he makes it past the border, we may never get our hands on him again. If my hunch is correct, Pruitt was helping Tanner—with a lot of things. That means Howard knows of Pruitt and vice versa."
Ashe's hands were balled into fists. The congressman had tried to kill Wynn. He wanted to curse. "That creep. We should have taken care of him when we had the chance," Ashe snarled.
"We don't always get what we want, and criminals go free every day," Winkler said gently. "Don't let it worry you. He's likely out of the country, and Wynn is safe."
"But what about other shifters? There have to be some in Mexico, right?"
"I'm sure your father would say we can't let that upset us. Howard was likely doing this for a very long time inside this country. Now he's an outlaw and hunted. Hopefully, he'll be too busy hiding to do a lot of hunting of his own from now on."
"He's still a creep, and a murderous creep on top of that."
"I don't think I've ever seen you this upset before, Ashe," Marco sounded surprised. He'd come in to watch the news program with Ashe and Winkler.
"You didn't see him, Marco. He was going to take pleasure in killing Wynn, and he knew what she was. He knew she was human most of the time. He was so determined to kill her, even after I knocked him off his horse, that he grabbed his rifle and fired off a shot without looking. He killed one of his own guards."
"There are people who know what we are. Howard likely had that information from Tanner. They don't think any part of us is human," Trajan was not only out of bed, he was eating a sandwich as he walked into Winkler's media room. Ashe was still fuming when his cell phone rang. He checked caller ID—it was Sali. Ashe mumbled a greeting.
"Dude," Sali said, "you're not going to believe who came home for the summer."
"Who's that?" Ashe grumped.
"Jeremy Booth," Sali replied. "And Chad Hollis is with him."
Chapter 11
"Arch nemeses Chad Hollis and Jeremy Booth? Chump and Wormy?" If Ashe thought his day couldn't get any worse, then he was very wrong. "Does Cori know?" Not only did Chump and Wormy hate Ashe, but Cori and Jeremy hated one another, with a capital H. Ashe agreed with Cori's sentiments concerning Jeremy—Ashe didn't think there were many redeeming qualities in Jeremy Booth. Jeremy had given Ashe a black eye, too, when Ashe had responded to one of Jeremy's insults at age twelve. Jeremy had hurled a terrible insult at Ashe, and Ashe hadn't taken it well.
"Yeah," Sali answered Ashe's question. "Man, I thought she was gonna march over to the Booth's house and punch Jeremy in the face," Sali chortled. "She'd probably get Chad, too, if he didn't duck and run."
"Good old Chump," Ashe grumbled. Chad Hollis wasn't any better than Jeremy; in fact, he was probably worse. For three years, he'd blamed Ashe for his mother's death when Ashe had nothing to
do with it. He'd also set a mobile home on fire two years earlier, when he and Jeremy had attempted to frighten the human families and their half-human children who'd come to Cloud Chief for protection.
Chad and Jeremy had gone to the same college in Arkansas after graduating from Cloud Chief Combined. They'd both called Ashe empty, the worst insult one could level against a shapeshifter, before Ashe revealed the bumblebee bat. They had then gone on to ridicule Ashe for shifting to such a lame and wimpy animal, before reverting to calling him empty again. The act of compulsion played a large part in the difficulties that seemed to follow Ashe everywhere. Ashe had breathed a very relieved sigh when Chad and Jeremy had gone away to college.
For the past two summers, they'd worked at jobs in Little Rock. For some reason, they'd decided to take the summer months off this year. Jeremy's parents had adopted Chad since he had no living relatives, and Marcus received funds from the Grand Master to help support him through college.
"Ashe, you'll be here, they'll be there," Marco said softly. He and everyone else inside Winkler's media room had listened to the conversation. Holding any sort of private communication around werewolves, vampires and shapeshifters was nearly impossible. They all had exceptional hearing.
"I'll be home on weekends," Ashe sighed. Sali heard Marco's comment, and then Ashe's reply.
"I'll help you punch them if they call you empty again," Sali offered. "They don't get to dis the bat. That's my job."
"They call you empty?" Winkler lifted an eyebrow.
"Yeah." Ashe nodded at Winkler. "Sali, I need to go." Ashe hung up before Sali could say good-bye. "I'm going to the beach." Pocketing his cell, Ashe headed for the doors that held newly replaced glass panes.
"I'll come," Marco rose from his chair.
"Marco, I need a little time," Ashe said and shut the door behind him.
* * *
"Let him go," Winkler motioned Marco down again. "I think he'll be all right. Just in case, Trace, can you watch him from the deck?"
"Yeah." Trace walked out the door and settled on one of the patio chairs.
"I've disagreed with Dad a lot over the years, but taking Sali's memories away that Ashe can do most of what he does? That's just lame." Marco rose and went to join Trace.
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