Inside, horses screamed in terror. They weren’t just his livelihood; they were his responsibility. No creature deserved such a slow and painful death as being trapped inside a burning barn.
“Soak me down,” he ordered as he stared at the flames. “Then get ready to corral the horses when they come rushing out.”
Ethan dug a bandana out from his pocket and tied it over his face. He held his arms out wide and didn’t flinch when the chilled water hit his skin. As soon as he was wet from top to bottom, he ran for the barn doors.
Smoke hazed the air and made the shadows cast by bright, angry flames all the eerier. Overhead, fire crackled as it ate through straw and wood and everything it touched. One of the cross beams looked like the red-hot top of a matchstick, and sparks rained down on the ground.
Ethan crouched low, trying to keep out of the danger as much as possible as he made his way to the first occupied stall.
Patches reared and kicked at the door. Jolie, across the breezeway, blew panicked breaths and spun around in quick circles. All down the line, horses made their terror of the heat and flames known.
It’d take too much time to dodge flailing limbs to punch open the doors leading to the paddock outside. Ethan unlatched Patches’ stall and waved for the horse to make his way toward freedom. Better to send them fleeing into the night than have no mounts in the morning.
Jolie followed quickly, then two more. He worked down the line, zigzagging across the breezeway as fast as he could. The fiery beam always got a glance as he crossed.
Ethan sent another horse running for the doors with a smack on the rump. One more. One last horse to set free.
Above him, the beam cracked. Ethan tucked and rolled just as the wood split down the middle. Burning pieces of roofing fell with it, igniting the straw left inside the empty stalls.
Ethan coughed his way to the last horse. Smoke rose from the bottom of the stall from embers catching fire. The mare—one of Trent’s—spun and lashed out with her back legs, but neither doors nor wall would give.
He glanced over his shoulder. Too much fire and debris. He wouldn’t willingly go through that hell himself, much less make a poor animal run the obstacles.
Ethan waited until she turned her head back his way, then unlatched the door and grabbed her halter. He held tightly and pulled her into a tight spin to reach the outer door.
Then they were in the night. Red still glowed and smoke still thickened the air, but the heat of the barn inside was washed away by cool spring air. Ethan spluttered and ripped the bandana away from his face to suck down a clean breath. The mare tossed her head, but he kept a tight grip on her until he could send her through the pasture gate with the rest of his herd.
Wailing sirens and flashing lights roared up his drive. Too late for his barn, but at least the animals were alive.
Chapter 22
Tansey dragged on clothes and raced to the window, phone already pressed to her ear to summon the fire department. She twitched aside the curtains and watched the horror unfold on the other side.
Glowing orange and red served as a backdrop to illuminate the shadowy figures scrambling around the barn. Hoses and buckets were pulled from thin air, but the water barely put a dent in the burning wood.
The screams were the worst. Cows trapped in the pasture nearby and horses still inside the stalls cried out for a desperate rescue.
Her stomach turned at the overwhelming sounds and the terrible sights, but she couldn’t look away. Wouldn’t.
The burning barn was on her. She got involved with Viho. She led him straight to Ethan. The problems that existed between the two were only exasperated by her. Right or wrong, she chose Ethan over Viho. To Viho, she was just one more possession stolen by the Ashford clan.
If she’d just stayed in Minnesota… If she’d never found her way to Bearden, to Black Claw…
Doubts tumbled end over end in her mind while she watched the clan struggle to salvage their barn and business. She was the match, the catalyst, that sparked those deadly flames.
After what felt like an eternity, a dispatcher answered and promised help was on the way.
It’d be too late, she realized. She wasn’t the only one with the thought. Cold washed over her when she saw a darkened silhouette run straight for the barn doors.
Ethan. It had to be. No one else would be so damned stupid and heroic all at once.
“No.” She pounded on the window. No one heard her. She wanted to yell at them to stop him. “No!”
Wood creaked behind her.
Tansey whirled to face the door left open in Ethan’s haste to get outside and help his clan. Hope flashed that she’d been wrong, and he wasn’t rushing headlong into danger. Maybe one of the others needed her. But neither Ethan nor one of his clan stood in the doorway.
Rye.
Tansey flung herself across the room and wrapped him in a tight hug. Then she took a step back and punched him hard in the chest.
“You asshole!” she yelled. Tears of relief and anger and frustration welled up at his sudden, shocking appearance. “Where have you been? Why did you leave? No note, nothing, just vanished into thin air? Didn’t you know how worried I’d be?”
Her onslaught of questions stammered to a close. Rye didn’t answer. He didn’t react. His dead-eyed stare straight ahead chilled her to the bone and forced her to look beyond her initial excitement.
He wasn’t the picture of health she remembered. Paler, lips drawn tight. His weight was off, maybe from living like a hermit for a few weeks. His greasy hair hadn’t seen a brush in that time, she was sure.
“Rye?” she asked, softer than before.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His eyes didn’t move from the battle of fire outside the window.
Tansey broke out in a cold sweat. She looked from her brother to the burning barn, then back to him again. Her hand raised to her gaping mouth of its own accord. Her entire body switched to autopilot as the realization smacked into her.
Rye set the fire.
“What did you do?” She stumbled several steps away from him.
A low whine squeezed out of him and he turned bright gold eyes on her. “Don’t run from me.”
Tansey raised her hands and tried to calm her racing heart. New shifters were dangerous. That’d been explained to her over and over since she arrived in Bearden. She didn’t quite believe until that moment. Rye was her brother. He would never hurt her.
His wolf would, Ethan once said.
Rye lifted his nose and inhaled. “You smell afraid.”
The action was one she’d seen from many shifters. None looked so animalistic as Rye. “There’s a whole bunch of shifters outside fighting a fire that could spread with the wrong wind. Of course I’m afraid.”
Maybe she could convince him it wasn’t because of him. Maybe she could talk him down. She didn’t appreciate feeling like the mouse caught between the cat’s paws.
Or wolf’s.
“I had to do it. All of it. Viho demanded it of me. Said this would clear my debts.” The last word turned into another long whine.
“Debts?” She shook her head to tumble her thoughts into some semblance of order. “What debts? What are you talking about, Rye?”
She knew. She’d monitored his bank account. He had nothing but pennies to his name. Somehow, someway, they were connected to Viho. There were any number of ways to lose hard to an animal like that.
“You always were the tougher one. You got out. There was nothing to do after that. You left.” Golden eyes focused on her again and his whine turned to a growl. “You left.”
“Rye—Rye, you could have come with me any time. You know I’d always make room for you. We’re brother and sister. That’s what we do.”
The swing in emotion left her off balance. Her Rye, not the strung-out copy in front of her, never voiced anything close to the accusation of abandonment.
Her Rye and the wolf were different.
Rye cocked his head at so
mething Tansey couldn’t hear. Then she caught it. Heavy footsteps slowly thumped across the wood floor of the house, like someone taking his time to peruse things that didn’t belong to him. Each step felt like a nail driven into her coffin, death drawing nearer with every clunking step.
Out of the darkness, a lithe, dark-haired man materialized.
“Down, wolf,” Viho ordered.
Rye immediately sank to his knees. His eyes bore holes in the floor.
All trace of power from Rye fled, right along with the air. Viho took up the entire room.
Tansey looked from one to the other as the puzzle pieces slid together. Pack business.
“How long, Rye?” she snapped. Her hands closed into fists. “How long have you planned this out?”
She left? No, that was on him. Hiding out and luring her from her life? Him, too. Where her brother ended and Viho’s wolf began, she had no clue. Any departure point made her ill.
She worried her entire life about driving people away. She kept others at a distance to protect herself. There was no protection from the ones who abandoned her and still walked at her side. Betrayal cut deep wounds in her heart.
“Don’t be mad at him, pretty flower. He only did what he was told. You weren’t even a thought until I found you by pure accident.” Viho grinned. “Then you were the perfect carrot to force my wayward wolf back into submission. And now you’ll be the bait to bring down that fucking bear.”
“All for what? So you can kill Ethan because of some fucked up family feud?” Good lord, he needed therapy. “Guess bad blood runs in the family.”
“Killing him is too easy. Too clean. He needs to know loss. He needs everything he loves wiped out,” Viho snarled.
“Don’t hurt her,” Rye whimpered. “Don’t kill Tansey. That wasn’t the deal.”
Viho stroked a hand down Rye’s head and raised his lips in a cold smile. “I’m not going to kill her,” he reassured, dead eyes staring her down. “I’m going to turn her and ruin Ashford by claiming her for my own. Take her.”
The last words whipped out of his mouth as an order and snapped Rye into action. Already bigger than her, the animal inside him only increased his strength.
“Rye, stop!” she pleaded. She didn’t want to leave with him. She wanted nothing to do with Viho.
Tansey stumbled over her own feet trying to avoid her brother. Her slaps and punches didn’t register. Even a kick landed on his shin did nothing to stop him.
She scrambled over the bed and met Viho waiting for her on the other side. She reached for anything to use as a weapon and wrapped her hands around a lamp on the nightstand. Viho laughed as the bulb cracked and shattered against the ground.
Rye handily snagged her arms from behind, clamped a hand over her mouth, and followed Viho out of the house and into the night.
Chapter 23
Ethan knew something was wrong the moment he stepped through his front door. All trace of exhaustion left him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
His bear went silent.
The kitchen door swung in an uneasy breeze.
Strange scents filtered through his nose.
No, not strange enough. One belonged to Viho. The other had a tang of familiarity, but wasn’t anyone he knew. They layered over each other, in and out along the same path.
Tansey.
Ethan darted straight for his bedroom. His jaw clenched as Viho’s scent followed the exact same path.
Hope shriveled to nothing when he found the room empty.
His bear rampaged through his mind.
Their mate. Gone.
Sharp claws poked his palms when he clenched his fists. He should have come back to his woman, washed up and fallen back into bed with her to work off the agitation and exhaustion coursing through him. They had plans to make to get through the next days and weeks and months. They were going to feel each other out and see where they stood.
Instead, two unmated males entered his den and his mate was nowhere to be found.
“Fuck!” Ethan swung a fist into the wall. The flare of pain felt good. He wanted to feel that when he beat Viho into submission.
Because that meant he caught up to the asshole and set his mate free.
He could almost see what happened. Tansey’s scent was still fresh. Fear and apprehension were strongest near the bed. But by the window, her anger had spiked. The scent he could recognize advanced to her there.
Fucking Viho. It wasn’t enough to burn his barn with animals inside. He used it as a distraction to get to Tansey.
Ethan stalked out of the room, nostrils twitching with every deep inhale. In, then back out. Tansey’s anger turned to fear the further through the living room they dragged her.
He found her phone tossed aside and broken near the fireplace.
He whirled at the sound of footsteps, a snarl raising his lips. The soot-covered faces of his clan watched him from just inside the front door.
“Viho took her. Find them,” he snarled. They couldn’t have gotten far. There still had to be a chance.
They didn’t move fast enough.
Ethan grabbed the back of the nearest neck—Hunter—and dragged him through the great room and out the kitchen door.
“Find them,” he snarled again.
His bear slammed into his chest and he did nothing to stop the beast. The sharp tips of claws lengthened from his fingernails. His clothes shredded as he dropped to the ground. Muscles broke apart and reformed new connections with the thicker, bigger bones of his inner animal. A full-bodied shake settled his fur.
Nothing settled the rage boiling in his veins.
The wolf stole onto his land and into his den. His livelihood was threatened.
His mate was taken.
He wanted blood.
Around him, the rest of the clan finished shifting. Eyes lowered as he swept a murderous gaze over them. The four pulses of life inside his head tried to shrink back as much as the bears in front of him.
War had arrived.
Ethan roared his challenge into the night.
* * *
Ethan drummed his fingers on the bar at Defiant Dog and waited impatiently for his drink to arrive. He downed the shot as soon as it was slid to him and slammed the glass back down.
“Another,” he growled.
By the Broken, he needed the liquor. The warmth spread through him and made him feel a flash of... something. That flicker of emotion, be it rage over the injustice or grief of a denied future, was better than the ice that chilled him from the moment he lost Tansey’s scent at the edge of his land.
Was that how it started with his father? Needing to feel anything at all?
Ethan frowned at the whiskey sloshing in the shot glass, then gulped it down.
“Another.”
What did all those crime shows Colette loved to watch say? Missing people were rarely found after two days. The outliers were so small that he was better off hoping for some device to travel time and spirit her away before the point of abduction than thinking she’d ever be back in his arms.
Day one ticked to a close without a damn sign of her anywhere.
There was no losing his shit. He’d lost it within the first hour.
Everything hurt. His bear wouldn’t stop roaring in his head. He had no leads. He wanted to drown out the pain that made him feel like he’d taken a bath in acid.
His mate was stolen from him and he couldn’t find her. Failure was not an option, and yet she still remained apart from him.
“Another.”
That they took her alive was something. It was all he had left to cling to. Viho took Tansey alive to use as some fucked up piece of his game. Ethan just needed to wait and see how it played out.
Too bad he was never good at waiting.
Defiant Dog was his last hope of finding something to go on. Viho wouldn’t make the mistake of showing his face inside Bearden, but maybe one of his stupider pack mates would stray into the dive bar at the edg
e of the enclave.
And if not, he intended to get well and truly sloshed.
He’d snapped at every person he’d come across so much that his clan avoided meeting his eyes or sticking near him for longer than it took to receive a new order. He’d reduced all four men to shaking messes whenever they were forced to interact. They didn’t deserve it, and he couldn’t help it. His bear was out of control and grabbed hold of power wherever it could be found.
They’d searched all night with him and zipped through emergency work when the light of dawn colored the sky. Fences were checked, the herd and horses secured and treated for any burns, then they were right back to prowling the territory.
Every last one of them came up empty.
He’d lost count of how many times he followed the faint trace of wolf scent from his den to the kitchen door and then off the property where she’d been shoved into a vehicle. Dozens, at least.
He still had no sign of Tansey.
The bar door swung open and Ethan dipped the brim of his hat. The scent of fur, gas, and grease clung to the newcomer. Wolf. He didn’t wear the vest that marked him part of the Vagabonds nor did he carry a hint of Viho in his scent, but he wasn’t anyone from the enclave.
Jesse and Alex trailed in after the wolf. Neither looked at him, but they took up spots near the door. Once settled, Jesse passed a bland look over the room and nodded once.
Ethan raised his fingers and ordered a beer while the wolf leaned against the other end of the bar. He followed up on the signal by faking a trip to the outhouse. His beer waited for him when he returned.
He grabbed the bottle by the neck and slid unsteadily down the bar to the wolf. Anger burned through the shots he’d down. Viho dared send someone to watch him? Maybe he wouldn’t need to wait long before the hunt resumed.
Ethan tightened the leash on his bear and added a stumble to his performance for good measure. “Hey, that your ride out front? Pretty sweet Harley if it is.”
The wolf grunted. “She’s mine.”
“Must really hurt when she gets a scratch, huh?”
Wrangled Fate: Book One: Black Claw Ranch Page 15