SEVEN

 

“Look out!” Kyra screamed before covering her eyes with her hands. Her body jerked to the left, indicating Tyler had managed to not crash into the large tree. However, thanks to the snow and ice on the roads, she also felt the truck careening.

“Hold on!”

She uncovered her eyes, needing her hands to do exactly as he’d instructed. With one hand on the door handle and one on the dashboard, she braced herself for impact. The truck continued to slide diagonally, spinning, until it finally came to a stop. The black sedan that had been chasing them rolled to a stop in front of them and four men emerged. Three armed with guns. One armed with pure cruelty.

“You all right?”

Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, she couldn’t formulate an answer. The overly muscular Italian man in the expensive suit grinned maliciously at her. The evil bastard had to have jumped on a plane to catch up to them. Winning was that important to him that he’d went to the trouble of retrieving her himself. He knew he could beat her into submission. He’d done it plenty of times before. He knew she was weak. He knew she was his.

“No. You’re mine.”

Tyler’s growled statement broke the trance and she looked into his blazing red eyes. “If you can get into my head well enough to know what I was just thinking, you know why I fear him.”

Tyler nodded. “He won’t kill me and I won’t let him hurt you.”

“How can you protect yourself if you’re focused on me? I’m not worth dying for.”

He touched her cheek. “Good try, but I’m smart enough to know that you are. Still, I don’t intend on dying today.”

“Kyra!” Rock yelled from where he stood. “Come to me, and your friend will live.”

She reached for the door handle, but Tyler’s hand clamped over her wrist, stopping the action. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Saving you.”

Tyler shook his head. “You walk over to him and all three of those men are going to shoot me where I sit. Then he’s going to torture you before finally killing you.”

“Come on out, Kyra.” Rock laughed. “You know you’ll never win against me. Pure luck got you this far.”

She bit her lip. He was right. Rock was vengeful and possessive. He wouldn’t spare someone he suspected her of sleeping with. But what other options did they have? They were sitting in a truck in the middle of a snowy clearing, no shelter in sight, and three armed men had guns trained on them. “If we keep sitting here, they’ll just come drag us out and kill us. If we get out, even at the same time, they’ll kill us. What are we supposed to do?”

A howl ripped through the air, followed by a chorus of others.

“Wait on the cavalry,” Tyler replied with a grin.

Kyra looked toward the large snow covered hills looming before them, in search of the source of the howls. Her breath caught in her throat as a dozen dark shapes emerged, the sun behind them presenting them as shadows as they raced down the hills toward the clearing.

“Is that your pack?”

“Some of them,” he answered, grabbing his door handle. “Get ready.”

Rock and his men turned, shouting in fear as the large red-eyed wolves closed in. Under Rock’s order, they raised their guns and started shooting at the shifters.

“Now!” Tyler opened his door and slid out, pulling her along by her hand. “Run!”

He shoved her ahead of him as they ran in the opposite direction of the fighting. They crested a hill to find three brown wolves waiting on them. “Go with them,” Tyler ordered. “I’m going back to help.”

“No!” She grabbed his arm, nearly slipping in the snow as he turned back. “You’re unarmed.”

“I’m a wolf. I’m always armed. My pack needs help.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No, you’ll hinder us. I have to go.” He yanked his arm free. “Take her to safety!”

As Kyra stood still, her heart aching with the knowledge he found her as useless as Rock always had, he ran back down the hill to aid his pack, two of the brown wolves on his heels.

“We need to go.” A hand touched her shoulder, and she turned to see one of the brown wolves had shifted into a pretty Hispanic woman with long brunette hair.

“I can’t leave him.”

The Were laughed at her. “What are you going to do, human? Sacrifice yourself? The best place for you to be is where he knows you’re safe and out of the way.”

Maybe it was Rock’s declaration that she’d never beat him, or the years he’d beat the threat of death into her. Maybe it was the Were’s laughter at the thought of her being useful, or the pain of Tyler’s insinuation that she couldn’t be, but something in her snapped.

She wasn’t a werewolf, and she wasn’t one of Rock’s thugs, but she also wasn’t going to just stand there and let Tyler fight alone. She’d brought this danger to him, and now to his pack. She was not going to just hide away and let everyone else fight her battle.

Fueled by raw anger, she balled her hand into a fist and slammed it into the Were’s face. The woman’s head snapped back with a loud cracking sound. Pain flared from Kyra’s knuckles to race up her arm.

Not waiting for the Were to recover, she shook her hand in effort to shake off the pain, and turned to race down the hill. Halfway down, she saw bloody wolf bodies lying in the snow, slipped, and slid down the remaining length of the hill.

She scanned the clearing and saw Tyler in wolf form, attacking one of Rock’s men. A sigh of relief escaped as she realized he wasn’t one of the injured wolves. She didn’t see Rock. His men were all on their backs, trying their hardest to fight off the attacking werewolves, but the ones they hadn’t managed to gun down were doing a good job tearing them to pieces. Where was Rock?

“Hey!”

She whipped her head around to see the Were she’d punched barreling down the hill.

Kyra! Get out of here!

Tyler’s harsh order in her head caught her attention and she turned back to see him running toward her, still in wolf form. Then the door of the sedan opened and Rock emerged. He’d hidden himself inside, most likely behind locked doors, as the wolves killed his men.

He raised a gun and pointed it at Tyler, finger poised to pull the trigger.

“No!” she screamed, running toward him.

Rock saw the action and retrained the gun on her, squeezing the trigger. A dark blur flashed before her face, obstructing her view as something hit her from the side, knocking her to the ground and stealing the air from her lungs.

She heard a yelp of pain, followed by a whimper, confirming her greatest fear. Sitting up, she saw a gray wolf bleeding in the snow. Tyler had jumped in front of her, taking the bullet meant for her. Again.

“Nooo!!!!!!!!!” She screamed, turning toward Rock. The Were who’d pushed her to the ground had already shifted into wolf form and lunged for him, sharp teeth sinking into his arm, effectively causing his grip on the gun to fail.

She looked around her for a weapon. Grabbing Rock’s gun would not do her well. She didn’t know how to shoot one and would more than likely accidently shoot the Were attacking him. She found a large piece of wood, thick as a club, and picked it up before rising to her feet.

She screamed as she ran toward Rock, rage giving her courage she’d never had before. Busy fighting off the Were tearing at his arm, he didn’t see her until she was close enough to swing.

He’d barely managed to glance her way before she swung the piece of wood. Blood spurted out of his nose as he fell backward into the snow.

“What the—” He looked up at her, hand covering his nose.

“Yea, I know. You didn’t expect the doormat to get up and beat your ass down.” She swung again. And again. And again. And again.

A hand clamped around her arm. “He’s not getting back up.”

She turned to see the Were assigned to take her away from the fight, stopping her swing. Looking down, she couldn’t even recognize Rock through the blood.

Tyler. She raced back to him, dropping to her knees. He still lay in his wolf form, bleeding. “Shift shape! Why haven’t you shifted?”

Silver, came his weak response. They had silver.

She gasped, having watched enough movies to know silver was deadly to werewolves. “Is he dying?” she asked the female Were beside her. “Can we save him?”

“He can,” the woman answered, gesturing toward the left with her head.

Kyra followed the movement to see a tall blond man crouched over one of the werewolves who’d been shot. His hand poised over the wolf’s side, he closed his eyes. A moment later the wolf shifted into human form.

The man went to each downed wolf, doing the same thing. Once done with the rest, he walked over to them, dropping to his knees at Tyler’s side. He held his hand over Tyler’s wound, closed his eyes… and Kyra watched in amazement as the silver bullet levitated out of Tyler’s body and into his hand. He quickly dropped it into the snow, as if the touch of it against his skin burned.

“Shift.”

Tyler immediately shifted shape, obeying the man’s command.

“I told you to get back to us safely, not to start a war along the way.”

“Did we lose anyone?” Tyler asked.

“Not this time,” the blond answered, “but these bastards had silver, which you obviously found out the painful way. They knew what we were and how to take us out. Will more come?” He looked Kyra in the eye, asking the question of her.

She opened her mouth to respond, but a sob came out. She’d gotten Tyler shot. Almost killed. She’d brought danger to all these people.

“Hey.” Tyler sat up, wincing as he did. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“No.” She wiped her eyes. “You got shot, Tyler. With silver. I caused all of this.”

“No. Your ex-boyfriend caused this.”

“I brought him to you and to your people.”

“You’re my people,” he said fiercely, grabbing her chin, making her look him square in the eye. “You’re my soul mate. You’re one of us. We protect our own.”

“Damn straight,” the blond said. “Nobody’s playing the blame game here. I’m just looking for answers to know how to better protect my pack. I’m Jason, pack leader.”

He held out his hand. Kyra shook it, tentatively.

“Geez, you’re like ice,” he commented. “Still human, you’re probably freezing out here. Where’s your coat?”

“Didn’t need one where we came from,” she replied. “I had a hoodie but left it back in Stix.”

Tyler rose to his feet and helped her up, wrapping his arms around her. “Let’s get her inside somewhere and figure out our next move.”

Jason nodded his agreement, then turned to instruct the Weres who hadn’t been injured on how to clean up the mess they’d made. The mess being three dead bodies and a severely beaten one.

“You beat the crap out of Mr. Wonderful?” Tyler grinned.

Kyra nodded, figuring shock was the only reason she wasn’t throwing up right now. She’d smashed his face in.

“I wanted to do that for you,” Tyler said, swaying a bit before straightening. “But I think it’s good you did. You need to believe in yourself.”

“You didn’t. You assigned me a babysitter and ordered me away.”

“I was protecting you, and I’d do it again.” He swayed again.

“The two of you can have your spat later,” Jason interrupted, supporting Tyler as they walked toward the truck. “You need to recover. Both of you.”

“I’m fine,” Kyra said.

“Not mentally or emotionally, you’re not. If there are more men coming, I need all my pack in top form. That includes you.”

She smiled, warmed by the inclusion. “What about Rock? He’s the one after me. He knows what you are.”

“Oh, he’ll be taken care of. Don’t you worry.” Jason winked at her.