“No!” Maya screamed as she tried wildly to yank her wrists loose, attempting to get free to push the claw away—or, better yet, run.
Fruitless. She wanted to close her eyes as the inevitable happened. She was about to die. Painfully.
And then, she heard a bark followed by a growl and opened her eyes as a large gray wolf leaped onto Vinnie, grabbing her neck in his mouth and closing his teeth into it.
Ryan. It had to be him in shifted form.
He was here to save her.
But she saw, beyond him, that Morton and Carlo had rushed toward them, both brandishing guns.
“Ryan!” she screamed. “Look out!”
Fortunately he was too connected with Vinnie for them to shoot without fear of hurting her, or so Maya believed. But they’d find a way. She was certain of it.
Meantime, Ryan had clearly heard her warning. Without lifting his mouth from Vinnie’s throat or his body from partly covering hers now on the ground, he managed to look in the men’s direction.
What was he going to do? Oh, lord, he couldn’t die because of her.
* * *
He had reacted immediately because he’d no choice. He would not allow them to harm Maya. He would not allow them to kill her.
But now they would kill him, and if so they might yet do the unthinkable with Maya.
Wouldn’t they be thrilled? A second dead human along with the corpse of a wolf, assuming he didn’t change back. They would get away with all this and still be able to make claims that could lead to the murders of shifters as well as the death of feral wolves.
Revenge? Maybe. He had been listening before leaping in. But they should have found those who had killed Vinnie’s family, not taken out their fury against all wolves...or shifters.
At least now he could harbor no further doubt that Pete wasn’t the one to attack Vinnie Fritts.
What could he do? If he stayed as he was, they might not shoot since they would hit the human woman with whom he had entwined his body. But this could not last forever.
Even with his human cognition, he did not come up with an immediate solution. Yet this sort of standoff could not last long.
But then—he saw another form bound out of the forest, a wolf who resembled him. No, a wolf-dog. Rocky.
His cover dog had no weapons to fight off the attackers except his teeth, which would do no good against guns. Yet maybe he could act as enough of a distraction...
“Get them!” That was Piers, who now appeared at the edge of the forest from which Rocky had emerged. He was a soldier, a member of Alpha Force, yet he probably had brought no weaponry here into the forest. Why would he? But he was giving Rocky commands that might lead to the dog’s death.
“Yeah, get ’em,” cried another human voice. Pete was suddenly there at Piers’s side, still in human form, holding up a phone to take pictures.
But the photos would only show him, in shifted form, and possibly Rocky attacking humans—unless Maya could turn and show how she was bound.
The situation was pure confusion now. Who would get hurt—or killed? Who would survive?
He had to pull away, take charge, act like the Alpha Force member, the alpha member of his allied pack, that he was. Yet what would happen if he moved away from this miserable excuse for a human who now smelled like terror but would undoubtedly do all she could to kill him if he backed off?
And then—two more wolves appeared from behind the two human men, leaping into the clearing, each heading straight for those miserable humans with guns.
The Sharan parents, shifted? The scent told Ryan the answer. He appreciated that they wanted to help. Without human cognition, they would hopefully follow the lead of other members of this canine pack, including Rocky...and him.
But would they, too, get killed?
He could not allow that. He could not allow any of his current pack to be harmed in any major way.
He had to ensure that Maya remained all right.
The guns were suddenly pointed away from him. Oh, yes, he had to take charge immediately to save those brave older shifters. With a growl, he bit down once more before releasing the throat of the woman beneath him, hoping he had provided enough of an injury, and a warning, to stay where she was.
He sprang into action.
Thanks to Piers’s commands, Rocky was now behind the men they all had to bring down. The men now facing the Sharans with their weapons.
Ryan began barking as he leaped forward toward the armed thugs, causing Rocky to bark, too, even as he followed Ryan’s lead and bounded toward their enemies from behind.
They turned and fired their guns. Ryan felt a pain in his right side as he soared sideways to minimize their ability to target him. No matter. He was alive. And he saw no indication in that fleeting moment that anyone else had been hurt—except for Trev.
He crouched down momentarily as if badly injured, while Rocky hurled himself onto Morton’s back and brought him down.
Ryan showed their other shifted pack members what to do, jumping up once more and grabbing Carlo’s gun hand in his mouth, biting down. Hard. Shaking his head until the man, bloodied and shouting, released the gun.
One of the Sharans—Kathie?—hurled herself onto Carlo’s back, ensuring that the man could no longer rise.
The other, Burt, jumped on top of Morton, holding him facedown.
Had they won?
No—Vinnie had not accepted his warning. She now had her arm around Maya’s throat. “Let them all go!” she screamed. “I’ll kill her!”
“You’ll do it on camera,” Pete yelled, aiming his phone toward her.
Vinnie appeared not to care. Maya was clearly attempting to break away, sagging and twisting as her eyes looked furious and frightened. But Vinnie’s hands moved to clutch her throat.
At least that clawing weapon was on the ground, out of the way. But Vinnie obviously intended to choke the life out of Maya.
He had to count on the shifted Kathie and the fact that Piers was near them, crouching as if picking up one of the guns.
Ryan broke away from Carlo, feeling the injury he had suffered in his side and ignoring the pain. He wished for this moment that he was not in shifted form, that he could grab a gun and aim it at the fiend who was hurting the woman he loved.
Loved? He dared not think about that now.
He crouched once more as if in pain and crawled along the hard ground covered with leaves—and blood. His blood. But no matter.
He drew closer until—
“Stay there, you filthy creature!” Vinnie shrieked, obviously tugging harder at Maya’s throat. Maya appeared ready to lose consciousness.
To die?
No!
Ryan lay on the ground for another second, as if giving in, obeying, giving up—
And then he sprang forward right at Maya, who, wonderful woman, had also been playing at submission. She pulled sideways and down, allowing Ryan to leap right at Vinnie, grab her throat once more in his teeth and go into worrying mode, shaking and tearing more at the flesh and what was inside.
He did not want to kill her, but one human here had already died thanks to injuries to his throat.
“No!” Vinnie’s scream turned into a choked wail. She suddenly released Maya, clutching at her own throat even as she fell to the ground gagging and crying as Ryan held on.
In moments, Piers was there. He held a gun so its muzzle touched the top of Vinnie’s head. “I’ve got her,” he told Ryan. “It’s okay to let go.”
Ryan gave one more shake, then obeyed. He backed off slowly, making sure he saw what he hoped to: Piers in control of Vinnie.
The other canines were obeying commands Pete yelled at them, restraining one of the two formerly armed men: Carlo. Pete had put down his phone and had grabbed a leash—Rocky’s?—and bound Morton’s hands behind his back.
All was under control...now.
Only then did Ryan allow himself to fall to the ground and lose consciousness.
* * *
No. Oh, no. It was all supposed to be over. The bad guys were now under control, and sirens sounded in the distance. Pete must have already called the cops, and they’d be here soon to arrest the people who’d attacked her—and Ryan.
But Maya was a wreck. Her hands now free, she sat on the ground beside poor Ryan. At least he was still breathing. Still alive, with his eyes closed.
But how could his wounds be tended to? What physician would know what to do with a shapeshifter in animal form? Or should it be a veterinarian? And how could they keep it all a secret?
“We’ll be back soon,” Pete said and led two of the wolves back into the woods. The way he had been talking to them, they had to be his parents. Was he a shapeshifter, too? Maya would find out later, she figured. Right now, Pete held his phone in his hands and seemed to be looking at the screen even as he led the shifted wolves away.
Piers remained there, at least, holding what must be one of their own guns on the three evil people who’d started all this: Vinnie, Morton and Carlo. Rocky sat on the ground beside him, ears up and head edged forward, clearly ready to spring if any of those horrible humans dared to move.
Sirens drew closer as if cop cars raced toward the parking lot below them. As the noise stopped, Piers looked toward Maya.
“We need your help,” he said.
“Of course.”
In moments, she was the one to hold the gun aimed at the Frittses and Carlo. Piers dashed off for a very short while and returned with a backpack in his arms. He removed some rope from it, quickly bound the arms of their captives, then tied them together. Finally, he made them sit down, tied their legs together as well, then bound them tightly to a nearby large tree—not far from Trev’s body.
“I’ll leave Rocky with you. We’ll be back soon.”
He pulled a large lantern from his backpack and turned it on, and the light in the clearing was immediately enhanced. Then he put the backpack over his shoulders, hefted Ryan the wolf carefully into his arms, and hurried off into the forest, another, smaller light tied to his chest leading the way.
What was Piers doing? Would he leave injured Ryan hidden around here when the authorities arrived so as not to show anyone the truth of what Ryan was?
Could Ryan survive?
Maya wanted to cry, but of course she didn’t dare do anything to keep her attention from the people in front of her. Sure, they were tied up, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t escape.
No way would she let them. They’d killed a man. They had tried to kill her.
They’d shot Ryan, the hero who had saved her from them.
She was relieved when a short time later Pete returned. With him were his parents—in human form.
Instead of staring at his cell phone now, Pete lifted it to his ear although Maya hadn’t heard it ring. Maybe it had vibrated. He spoke into it, turned to tell his folks to remain there and help Maya if she needed it, and handed his father a gun—presumably the other one that had been aimed by either Morton or Carlo.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes with the cops,” he said.
Kathie and Burt stood beside Maya, and Burt kept his gun trained on the others despite their still being bound. Sweet and obedient Rocky stayed there, pacing a bit behind them, and Maya felt sure that he was as scared as she about what was going on with Ryan.
She had no idea about how much time passed, but soon Pete was back, leading some uniformed officers from the Fritts Corner PD. “Okay,” said the tall man in front who appeared to be in charge. “Tell us what’s going on here.”
“These people jumped us, Officers,” cried Vinnie from where she was tied on the ground. “They brought some wolves here, said they were werewolves. One of them mauled poor Carlo and then killed Trevor.”
She motioned toward the dead body lying on the ground as Carlo, that supposedly poor, mauled man, jutted his head forward, obviously hoping to emphasize the cuts on his face.
“The gadget they used to make all the cuts, including the fatal ones, is over there,” Maya said, nodding toward one side of the clearing. “They did it themselves to make it look like wolf attacks. Then they tied me up and said they were going to use it to slash my throat, to kill me in a way to look like a wolf did it.”
“No way, Officer,” Vinnie cried out. “She’s just saying that to protect herself. It’s them that—”
“I’ve got some photos on my phone to help show what happened here,” Pete said. “And before you ask, yes, this wonderful dog, Rocky, is in some of them. He was trying to help us stop those jerks from hurting Maya or any of us.”
Maya wondered if he’d done anything while taking his parents away to shift back to human form to edit the photos on his phone—or put them in another file or somehow conceal evidence that there had been four canines here instead of one. There hadn’t been much time. But in her very limited experience, she’d been impressed to see what shifters did to protect themselves and each other.
If only that could have helped Ryan...
“Officers, so glad you’re here,” said a familiar voice from the edge of the forest. She couldn’t help looking in that direction and smiling. Could her thoughts of him actually have conjured up Ryan?
He stood there in human form. Very human form, standing tall and straight, his face a bit pale but perhaps that was just the minimal illumination from the moon above and the fading artificial light.
He must have shifted back after Piers carried him off. Had the shift somehow cured his wounds, as well?
She doubted it, but at least for this moment he appeared okay.
Piers stood behind him on his right side, the side that had been shot. They must have intended to hide that he’d been a shifter in wolf form who’d been shot by this group of horrible people.
Sure, they might have a reason to hate certain shifters but to take it out on as many shifters, or even regular wolves, as they could put themselves in contact with?
To take it out on the perfectly innocent Ryan?
Horrible!
“Okay, look,” said the officer in charge, who called himself Sergeant Pass. “We aren’t going to be able to sort this all out here in the middle of nowhere. We’ve already called the medical examiner’s office to send someone for the body. One of us will stay here, and all the rest of us will head to the station.” His fellow cops started herding everyone together, weapons drawn, after slicing off the ropes binding the Frittses and Carlo.
The Frittses and Carlo. They were locals. Would they receive special treatment?
But at least some of the photos Pete had taken would show what those horrible people had been up to.
The ones that could be shown to the cops and become evidence, though, would only show Ryan in wolf form, possibly injured.
He had saved her.
With the help of the others, he’d brought this group of crazed anti-wolf people down.
He’d therefore potentially saved a lot of wolves, both the usual type and shifters.
No matter what else happened, Maya would do all she could to make sure the world, including WHaM members and everyone else, knew what a hero Ryan Blaiddinger really was.
As long as she could do it without revealing any secrets.