Enough was enough. A thin layer of dust covered the last bite of his cake, and Cole eyed it with annoyance. Ruined. It wasn’t enough that people kept trying to interrupt his time with Anja. They also had to take from him the last delicious morsel on his plate.
Adding to his annoyance was the fact that those attacking the house—and not very well—were after his woman. My woman.
Cole never did share well with others.
Mine. All mine. Perhaps it was time he explained that to them.
“They broke the door. I loved that door,” mumbled the old woman. “I special-ordered it to look like the one I had in the old country. And they broke it. Death to them all!” The feisty grandmother headed toward the hazy archway, in her hand a knife pulled from somewhere under her shawl.
As if he’d let her have all the fun. And, later, I need to find myself a manly version of that shawl. Because it apparently acted as a pocket dimension that could hold a weapons cache.
He stepped quickly in front of the grandmother. “After such a fine repast, you should rest. I’ve got this.” Gallant? More like selfish. He needed to work off that excellent meal. Then he could justify asking for seconds.
“You’re a guest. You should sit. I’ve got this.” His blond temptress hip-checked him and slid through the opening, first tossing him a challenge.
He accepted. A heartbeat later, he dove through the arch. She shot him a sultry look over her shoulder, which could have also been annoyance, given that her lip curled.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes you do.” He saw the red dot a moment before she did and propelled her into the wall, his body quickly pressing against hers.
Thwack. The tufted dart wobbled in the plaster not far from her cheek.
Darts, not bullets? Where was the fun? “Don’t you have real guns?” he asked as he moved away from the soft cushion of her frame. He stepped in front of his woman. Not usually a protector, and yet, in this instance, it seemed only right.
Acting as her shield also gave him a chance to show off lightning-quick reflexes, meaning he caught the fired darts and dropped them to the floor.
By the fourth failed shot, the attackers realized they needed a better plan. Or so he assumed since they shouted guttural gibberish back and forth, gibberish his lady understood as she yelled back at them, hands planted on her hips.
A Russian hit squad. Things just got even more interesting. Exactly whom did my Russian farm ladies piss off? Did he care? A person should never argue with unexpected fun.
The fellow at the door—the one who would die first—sneered as he put his dart gun away and pulled out something more sinister, with a gleaming black barrel and a long clip underneath.
Not to be outdone, Anja pulled a shotgun from the umbrella stand.
She just pulled out a bigger fucking gun.
He almost came in his pants, especially when, with a cocky Russian accent, she said, “That’s not a gun. This is a gun.” And, yes, she might have winked at him as she declared the biggest cliché of all.
It made him more determined than ever to kill her because she was entirely much too perfect. It couldn’t last. She would prove his destruction. He needed to eliminate her before he got in too deep.
The guy with the totally inadequate gun didn’t seem to understand just how fucked he was. He shouted something. Something stupid Cole’d wager by his Russian girl’s laughter.
She sneered as she pulled the trigger. “Tell your boss it’s still no.” She dropped to one knee, a good thing since the other fellow fired in a panic, but the bullet went high. Her ammo, on the other hand, didn’t. She fired the shotgun at almost point-blank range.
The scattered buckshot hit the fellow in the chest, slugs of hard salt and silver shrapnel. Interesting choice. The intruder screamed like a man having his testicles singed by a lighter. It was a sound that stayed with a guy.
The injured fellow dropped to the ground, wailing and bitching but not dying. She’d get fewer points since it wasn’t a kill. And, yes, he totally kept score.
What a shame the fellow wore a bulletproof vest. He also brought attention with his caterwauling. From outside, Cole could hear voices barking in what he now assumed was Russian. More shots were fired, some of them actually making it into the house. Real bullets this time, one close enough to skim past his cheek.
“Finally, a real challenge.” He dove forward, away from Anja and yet still managing to shield her, his arms spread wide and his teeth bared. Big bear teeth. He let a little of his feral side push at his face, changing his features, turning him partially into a beast. “Grawr!” Translated, it was something along the lines of, “Hello, I’m going to fuck you up.”
Apparently the Russians understood it. With a scream born of terror, and the acrid stench of one pissing himself, the invaders finally turned tail and ran. That was what they got for sending humans.
Cowards. But for humans, they did run pretty fast. Yay. He would chase them down. Swipe at them with his—
“Don’t you dare go after them. Let them leave.” Fingers grabbed hold of his T-shirt, putting even more stress on the bulging seams. He worried less about his shirt than what she thought to do.
Order me around? Not this man. He yanked away from her, hearing the fabric tearing but not caring as he ran after the fleeing cowards, waiting only until the lights of the house were far behind before kicking off his boots, shoving down his pants, fully shifting shape, and loping on four paws.
The men ran for the perimeter of the property, and Cole wasn’t the only one chasing them.
While a crew of invaders might have managed to infiltrate the front of the house, the others at the rear didn’t get that far. They couldn’t. Not with the pack of wolves, a single tiger among them, haranguing the intruders. The furry critters herded and nipped at the men, sending them fleeing from the house, but the pack of wolves didn’t kill them, and they wouldn’t let Cole kill them either, one of the wolves slamming into his side as he stood and prepared to swipe his massive bear claws and end a Russian’s miserable existence.
The wolves prevented him, pinning his body to the ground so that the human might escape.
Why?
I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like to play with my toys too, especially if they squeak, but they’re letting the enemy get into their cars. What the fuck?
Only as the taillights winked out of sight did Cole allow himself to change shape. All the animals swapped fur for skin until only men stood.
Slapping hands on his hips, Cole stood there with the same nonchalance as the other naked guys.
“So, nice weather we’ve been having,” he remarked.
The only thing he was allowed to say before Brody—one of Fabian’s inner crew—remarked, “That’s the bear who’s been spying on us,” and jumped him.