by Rosko, Mandy
* * *
Anna didn’t have to get very far before she found Derek. He wasn’t where she’d left him, but that was only because she’d been heading back to the main hall where her brother slept, and she didn’t make it halfway there before she found Derek and Joey arguing in the halls.
Joey was clearly trying to stop the other man from running outside.
Derek was having none of it.
“My father is out there! Are you out of your fucking mind? Of course I’m going!”
“You can’t go! You’ll just distract him and get in everyone’s way!”
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say to Derek in that moment. He pointed his finger at Joey, his body trembling with anger and adrenaline.
Had Anna looked like that when she’d been furious with her brother and Dennis?]
At least she could relate to the problems he was having. “Derek, wait.”
Derek looked at her. The expression on his face was one that screamed to leave him alone, to not bother him right now when he was in the middle of fighting with his mate, but she couldn’t.
“Come upstairs with me. To the attic. It’s safer there, and we can still do something if a fight breaks out.”
“I should be in the fight outside if it happens. I’m not an omega, and I don’t trust your worthless pack to watch my dad’s back.”
Joey flinched at that. Anna wasn’t so sure right now would be the best time in the world to explain to him he was now part of this pack.
“Please just come upstairs with me. Katie will have weapons we can use.”
“The only weapons I need are these.” Derek raised his hands, showing off the claws at the ends of his fingers. “Get out of my way.” He stomped forward, but Anna wasn’t done with him. She got in his way. He frowned at her. “What are you doing? Get out of my way!”
“No. Dennis wants you to stay inside. He doesn’t want you out there with him.”
Derek sneered at her. “You fuck my father and you think you have seniority over me, do you?”
Anna clenched her fists. She was never going to pretend to be this guy’s stepmother or anything. He was a year older than she was, but she wasn’t going to let him walk all over her either.
“Your father told you to stay the fuck inside, so don’t be a little bitch about it and do as your told!”
Derek snorted. He marched past her, bumping his shoulder against hers, though she wasn’t sure how on purpose that was.
And she didn’t care either.
Anna reached out, grabbing him by the ear.
She could remember Garret doing it to her when she was a little girl, and it just jumped into her head that this was what she needed to do to get his attention.
It sure got his attention all right. Derek yowled as she yanked him back. She released him quickly, but that didn’t stop the man from spinning on her, his eyes red and on fire, his fangs damn near popping out of his mouth.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Joey stepped forward. “Come on. I’m sure she didn’t mean it—”
“Shut up! This is my father we’re talking about, and you all want me to stick around here? Are you fucking kidding me?”
Joey backed up. Anna wasn’t about to let him get away with this.
“Derek Butler, your father told me to tell you to sit your ass back and wait. He got you a spot in the pack, and he doesn’t want you to ruin it by rushing out there and getting in everyone’s way, or getting killed right when he found a pack that would take you in!”
Derek blinked at that, as though he didn’t understand where that came from. “What? What do you…?”
Joey’s eyes lit up. “He can stay? Really?”
Derek looked just as disbelieving. He shook his head.
“Dennis is risking a lot for you. If you don’t care about risking your own life, then care about what he will feel if you get hurt.”
Anna reached for his hand. She was pleased when Derek didn’t yank himself away from her.
“Garret just said it to me. You’re part of this pack. You can live here. You can have all of this.”
She gestured around her, which was bad timing because as she smiled at him and tried to show him what a great deal he was getting, another one of those monstrous roars tore through the house.
The lights flickered, as though they struggled to stay lit when there was such anger and hate swirling in their midst.
Christ. There couldn’t have been any worse timing than that.
Derek looked at her, and she knew whatever affect her words had on him had been lost when he heard that sound.
“I’m going.”
He pushed passed her, avoiding her hands as though he thought she’d grab his ear again.
“Wait!”
Derek ignored her. He started to run.
Joey came to stand next to Anna. His eyes were fixated on the spot Derek had once been. “I…I need…”
She grabbed his wrist. “Don’t even think about it. You can’t go out there any more than I can.”
“He’s going to get hurt. They don’t just want Dennis. They want him, too.” Joey looked at her. “I can’t let them take him, Anna. I can’t just…”
Joey seemed to be hyperventilating. There was a panic in his eyes that she recognized, the same thing she felt deep down at the idea of Dennis being hurt was right there, out in the open on Joey’s face as he watched his, clearly stubborn, beta mate rush off to fight by his father’s side. The howling of the wolves outside and the savage barking roars she could hear even this far into the house didn’t bode well for what was going on outside.
They clearly weren’t having some peaceful chat.
“Joey, please, stay with me. We’ll go upstairs. There are guns up there, and everything will be all right. Okay? Listen, you can already hear Katie firing at them.”
The pop, pop, popping noises of her weapons were little comfort. Anna thought hearing those sounds would make her feel better, but they didn’t. It just meant things were bad enough outside that Katie needed to shoot at the opposing pack.
Anna could almost see Joey’s pulse thrumming in his throat. The little vein right there that travelled up his neck was really working overtime. Then he shook his head, and Anna felt the cramping in her stomach from the disappointment of it.
“I’m sorry. I can’t!”
“Joey, wait!”
He didn’t. Like Derek, he ran off in the direction of the snarls and roars and gunfire.
If Anna couldn’t keep Derek and Joey inside, with the promise of guns to fight off any attackers, then how in the world did she ever think she was going to have the ability to talk Dennis out of being out there?
She would have to think about that later. For now, she could still hear the popping noises of Katie’s weapon. Anna needed to get up there and get a gun in her hands.
She might not be able to fight or convince some pig-headed males they needed to stay put, but if anyone got a little too close to her man, she knew what to do. Her brother liked to think she was a total princess, but Katie had taught Anna how to fire a gun, and Anna was going to make the people who thought they could get near Dennis or Derek dance.
26
There was no stand-off. There was no confrontation on Garret’s vast front lawn where Dennis got to stand across from Laurence and demand to know what the fuck his problem was. He couldn’t even ask Carl or Wallace what he could do to make them turn around and walk out of there.
Even Dee and Joe had shown up, along with the rest of the pack.
Which was just perfect because it meant the takeover was officially complete.
No sooner did Dennis get outside when he realized there was no going back from this. The fight was already well underway with the bear shifter and a few other betas Dennis had seen from time to time over the years barely holding the lot of them off.
They tore up the pristine grass of what had to be an expensive lawn. Any other time, Dennis would hav
e been childishly gleeful at a bit of property damage for the bastard to deal with, but not while his former pack was here to do harm to his son.
And he couldn’t believe how bad things had gotten.
The tide had clearly changed against his favor much more than he thought. Dennis thought there was the chance he could talk the rest of the pack out of this, out of following Dennis, but that wasn’t going to happen when they were actively fighting Garret to bring him and Derek home.
Luckily, the instant Jax shifted into his dragon shape it seemed to be enough to make the rest of Dennis’—of Laurence’s—pack think twice about rushing him.
A dragon was a dragon, after all.
Dennis’ former pack wouldn’t exactly pause their attack because Dennis was joining the fight, but a dragon larger than any bear with thick golden scales who roared at them before swooping down was more than enough to make them rethink their battle plans.
Then Dennis rushed down to the muck of it. He shoved out of his borrowed pants and shifted quickly, not going straight to his wolf shape, but to the creature in between. The beast that most betas, and nearly every omega, desperately wished they could be. Could only dream of becoming.
A damn-near monster right out of a horror movie and Dennis relished the look of the beast now that he really had an enemy he wanted to make suffer.
Garret did the same, shifting almost as quickly as Dennis had, rushing down with him into the thick of it. They ran side by side, as though they were still in sync with each other after all these years, and Dennis didn’t hate it. He liked having the other male at his side as he stormed his enemies.
Jol, in particular, looked like a wild animal caught in the headlights of something about to pulverize him. Dennis almost felt sorry for the stupid bastard as he and Garret crashed into the man, taking him down. Jol shrieked when Dennis sank his teeth into the man’s shoulder.
He didn’t go for the neck. He should have, but perhaps it was the fact that he used to live with these men, that he’d tried to lead them after promising something better, that held him back. Whatever Garret’s excuse was, he apparently decided he didn’t want the trouble of having Jol’s blood on his hands either. He bit down on Jol’s hand when the man tried to fend him off.
At the very least, they would both make sure the man thought twice about following Laurence into battle or challenging stronger males for the territory.
The blood in his mouth felt primal, and the shrieks Jol let out as he thrashed and fought almost made Dennis feel like a wild animal in the middle of a kill. He found himself biting harder before he was thrown from his prey by a heavy force.
Even Garret let go, but he seemed to take a little of Jol with him after being brutally shoved away.
It was Carl. The man looked down at Jol, surveying the damage with a horrified, pale expression. He seemed to recover quickly before he turned his enraged expression back onto Dennis. The man let his claws out, his dark eyes transforming to something wilder, and definitely redder.
And Dennis was still standing next to Garret. As though they were allies.
Whatever. He was going to ignore that little fact right now; all he cared about was the shithead in front of him who stood as though he was getting ready to spring on him.
Carl shook his head, as though he were genuinely torn by this. “You're a traitor.”
Dennis spat the blood from his mouth. “Says the man following Laurence.”
“So you go back to him?” Carl pointed a clawed finger at Garret, who started to slowly circle around him. Carl was no fool, though. He adjusted his stance, still keeping a protective watch over Jol while Laurence, Wallace, Dee and the others did their level best to take on a dragon.
And a bear shifter, and the other wolves who had come to meet with them.
“You betrayed us for him?” Carl demanded. He really did look hurt.
Boo, fucking hoo.
“Not him, no.”
“The bitch then? That’s so much better, you fucking traitor!”
Garret growled. Dennis let it go.
For now.
It looked to be almost everyone in Dennis’ former pack who had come here to fight, to take Dennis and Derek back, and even with all their might, it was almost two dozen of them to another fifteen of Garret’s.
They wouldn’t win.
Carl could cry all he wanted about how unfair it was. For the first time, Dennis was happier than a pig in shit over his men, his former men, being so outnumbered.
But that didn’t matter. Dennis wanted blood. More blood, at least.
He would settle with having Laurence’s.
“Walk away right now, take that little bitch with you, and I’ll call them off.”
Garret snorted at that. “Who says you get to be the one to decide that?”
Dennis decided to ignore him. For now. He knew Garret well enough to know by now that he would be too much of a pussy to want to kill anyone he didn’t have to.
After this fight was won, most, if not all, of these people would be leaving here alive, but that was the primary reason Dennis had kept coming back every time he’d been thrashed in any of his plans.
Because Garret hadn’t been willing to go to that level.
Dennis was.
Laurence had taken over his pack, and now he was using these idiots to try to force Dennis to bend his knees to him. They wanted to hurt his son. They wanted to hurt his mate. Not lock them up, not scare them and let them go.
They wanted to do something permanent.
For that, Dennis was more than all right with the idea of one or two of these cunts dying tonight, regardless of how Garret happened to feel about it.
Carl abandoned Jol and started walking back when Dennis began marching towards him. The man let his body change, fur coming in around his neck first because he knew that was a target place for a proper bite, but Dennis ignored it as he slammed his palm forward.
He caught Carl in the nose. Carl yelped, even as his feet came over his head and he went flying.
The man recovered quickly, but Dennis kept coming.
“Call me a traitor?” He smashed his fist into the man’s stomach. Carl bent over, the wind sailing from his lungs as he did. Dennis grabbed his hair, yanking him up to stand straight. “Think you can hurt my kid?” He let his fangs pop from his mouth, yanking Carl closer, his head pulled back, and Dennis could smell the terror on the man. “Think you can hurt my mate?”
Dennis felt the heavy beating of Carl’s heart, even as he tried to grab for Dennis’ throat, as though that would save him if Dennis really wanted to make him bleed.
“You left us. You promised us you would lead us and then you left us for that little bitch! You wouldn’t demand the ransom money!”
“And you were supposed to accept that decision, keep your mouth shut about it, and do as you were told.” Dennis leaned in, biting down hard before pulling back.
Carl yowled a nasty sound as Dennis threw him away, though he kept the man’s ear between his teeth, but just for another second before he spat it away.
Carl held tightly to his head, blood oozing from his fingers as he rolled on the grass. His screams were drowned out by the roars and animalistic fury that came from the other shifters in the midst of their battle.
Jol trembled with fear at the sight, and the air around him suddenly smelled of urine.
Garret looked at him with a raised brow.
Dennis spat out the ear in his mouth. He stared back at the other man. “What?”
Garret shrugged, backing up a step, as though he didn’t want to deal with it. “You do your thing. I’m going to be over there.”
He hooked his thumb to Jax and Dane. It didn’t much look as though either of them was in need of help. They seemed to be doing a well enough job on their own forcing Dee and the others to back up, but it didn’t seem as though Dennis’ former pack was quite ready to give it up just yet.
The ones in their wolf shapes continued to struggle,
their heads bent, and their hackles raised up high, lips pulled back and fangs exposed.
They were going to fight for their new alpha to the very end. Because their new alpha demanded it.
Meanwhile, the distinct popping sounds of gunfire sounded over their heads.
Dennis ducked his head on instinct, so did Garret, until he looked back and stood straight, having a clear idea of where the gunfire was coming from.
Dennis looked up, and when he spotted the end of a rifle poking out from one of the attic windows, he still wasn’t so sure he should stand up straight. He had a pretty good idea of who was up there, and he wasn’t so sure if she remembered he was fighting on her side right now.
“What the fuck is she doing? We got this!”
“She’s firing off some warning shots, that’s all.” But when Dennis had a look, he could see that the gunfire was having little to no effect on the situation at present.
The dirt kicked up at the paws and feet of Dennis’ former men, but even though they jumped and looked around nervously, they refused to back down.
Because they couldn’t.
Stupid fools. Even Dennis never pushed them like that. Laurence had always disagreed with how early Dennis would call to retreat, but he’d never wanted to risk a death on his own side.
It had been the cause of many arguments.
The stupid bastard was clearly getting his chance to test his suspicion that he would win the day if he refused to retreat.
If Dennis wasn’t so disgusted with them right about now, he might have pitied them.
Not so much. He only cared that Laurence stood behind the lot of them in his wolf shape. He snapped at their heels, growling at them to push forward, to fight when he clearly would not.
When his own men were being sent warning shots.
That cock gobbling coward.
It was enough to make Dennis forget all about Jol and Carl. Fuck them. They’d made their bed and could lie down in the shit they’d created for all he cared.
He wanted Laurence.
“Where are you going?” Garret demanded.