Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (5 page)

"Even luckier," Taron chuckled, "is that Rooster's a good enough man who won't seek revenge if her affection lies elsewhere."

I shrugged away from my boss's healing touch and turned to look up at him. He lifted his hands, a silent proclamation of innocence, but his honey gold gaze danced with mischief. Now that he had a mate, he was trying to get me hooked up as a family man.

"It was always going to come to this, Paisley finding out," Taron said. "You were never going to be able to push her out of Clover's life -- or yours."

Yep, definitely trying to play the matchmaker. Only he couldn't realize how very hard I'd been trying to cut Paisley out. She had to think I was a rude, self-absorbed asshole by now because that's the role I'd started playing when she first left Night Falls to attend college five years before.

Heading toward the front door, Taron stopped halfway across the small living room and looked at me. "I have a feeling this was some faction from one of the Champaign groups."

"It wasn't a normal, that's for sure," I said, remembering the bullet fragments in my pocket. Following after him, I removed the fragments and gave them another sniff before handing them over. Mixed in with the scent of Clover's blood was the cause of the rapid blood poisoning that had started to set in while I wasted time checking on Paisley.

"Datura," Taron growled as he drew a deep breath in, his nose hovering over the fragments.

I nodded. The white trumpet-shaped flower was deadly to humans in large doses. But shifters were far more sensitive to the poison it produced.

"Lucky the shooter only managed to sink one bullet," Taron observed, pulling the door open. "See if you can recover any more slugs. And move the girls to Rooster and Clark's place after Clover has had a few hours to recover."

Right, I nodded. The brothers had the closest thing to a safe house in Night Falls outside of the clubhouse. If Taron was right, the morning's attack was just the beginning.

********************

Paisley

Whatever tenderness Braeden had exhibited when he tended to my bleeding head and sprained ankle in the living room was gone when he returned to the bedroom a few hours later to wake Clover. Glaring in my direction, he ordered me to help her get a shower and into a fresh change of clothes.

He limited the shower to ten minutes. When we came out, he had the suitcase I'd brought from Michigan sitting by the front door and one of Holly's bags. Looking at the two long woolen coats draped over the back of the couch, one for Clover, one for me, I could see that he had raided my dead grandmother's closet as well.

"I'll do that," he said as I held one of the coats out for Clover to thread her arms through. "Get yours on."

The few words he spoke rumbled low in his chest before he spit them into the air. I couldn't understand why he was angry again. I hadn't done anything new, had stayed with Clover while she slept, no thought of escape in my head, only concern over her well-being.

And I certainly didn't think Braeden Hughes could read minds or he would have been a lot meaner to me a lot earlier in life -- like the first time he would have realized I had a crush on him.

Finished buttoning Clover into the coat, he jerked his head at Clark. "Help her out to the car."

I started to follow but his hand seized my elbow. Even through the thick wool, I could feel how hard he squeezed.

It was a jailor's grip and I was the prisoner.

"I'm not going to run," I whispered as Rooster picked up the two bags and followed after his younger brother.

"Good," he snapped. "Because I can't help you if you do."

I tried to twist my arm out of his tight grip but he only squeezed harder. He didn't want to help me, that much was clear. But time and again he had shown that he would do everything within his power to save his baby sister from having to shed a single tear.

A thick lump formed in my throat. I was only as safe as Clover's affection for me, and that had seemed to all but disappear the last few months.

I wasn't safe at all.

"We need to get in the Jeep and get moving," he said, dragging me toward the door. "They're sitting ducks while you try to stall."

I squashed the urge to point out that he was the one who had held me back. Instead, I let him fold me into the front seat, Clover in the back with Clark next to her and Rooster on his bike following behind the Jeep. Braeden kept his right hand on the stick shift the entire time, the fingers tensing whenever I moved the slightest and his gaze more often slanted in my direction than on the road.

When we finally pulled up to the front of Clark and Rooster's home, I was ready to jump out just to escape the silent antagonism, but I forced myself to remain in place until a curt nod of Braeden's head signaled his permission for me to unhook my seat belt.

Once inside the house, Clark helped Clover into the basement where the brothers had a massive recreational room set up complete with three couches, two giant screen televisions with all the major game boxes hooked up, a bathroom and a pool table that I still wasn't sure how they had ever fit it down the stairs.

I turned to follow, but Braeden seized my wrist and pulled me in the opposite direction.

"Borrowing the bedroom," Braeden said as we sailed pass Rooster.

"Already?"

The underlying hostility in Rooster's question shocked me. From what I had observed, the Woodsmen worked in many ways like a military unit. Club officers were to be treated with respect, even if you didn't like them. And Braeden was just one spot below the top position within the club.

"Watch it, cub," Braeden growled as he tugged me the rest of the way into the bedroom and closed the door.

A second later he had my back against the wall, his hard chest pressing against me as he forced me to look up at his scowling face, the green eyes blazing with anger.

"You don't run," he warned.

"I said I wouldn't."

Damn, he was really pissed about Clover's promise to protect me.

"You don't do anything that makes it look like you want to," he said, his chest pressing harder against mine, my breasts flattening and my lungs refusing to inflate. "Do you understand?"

I nodded, gasped for air and nodded again.

"Say it."

"Can't," I wheezed and pushed at his arms.

He jerked back, his body no longer crushing mine. His arms came up to cage me as he planted his palms on the wall. "I need you to say it, I need you to show you understand how much danger you are in right now."

At that second, the only person I felt threatened by was the man in front of me, his gaze boring into me with a fury I hadn't earned.

"What do you care?" I asked, my own anger finally flaring to a point I could not fully control. "Clover's barely talked to me the last few months. If one of your people kills me, she won't be nearly as upset as you seem to think."

I hoped it wasn't true, but I still felt the weight of the silence and strain that had blanketed our interactions since early October.

"I'm not doing this for my baby sister," he growled, his big head lowering to within an inch of mine. My eyes crossed as I tried to match his angry stare.

"Then why are you doing it?"

Certainly not for the reason I wished.

He pressed his forehead against mine, tapped them together once. "If you get hurt, I can't heal you like I did with Clover. If you get shot or cut up, I'd be as useless as a human."

"Jeez, thanks."

Nice to know his general opinion about my kind.

He growled, his lips so close to mine I could feel the vibrations.

"You don't have to like what I say or the orders I give, you just have to obey them. Now tell me what I need to hear."

"Fine," I snapped. "You're an asshole."

Hey, he certainly needed to hear that. May not have been what he wanted, but definitely something he needed.

His hands seized the sides of my head, fresh pain scraping at the flesh wound I had received during the shooting. Turning my head, he brushed his lips against my ear, his voice a menacing whisper.

"Don't be a smart ass, Paisley. I'm not fucking joking."

Releasing me, he stepped back and crossed his arms across his massive chest.

"I can't promise anything." A quiver danced across my lips. I couldn't count how many times I had wanted to be that close to him, his hands and mouth in the same position they had been just seconds before but the intent accompanying their placement entirely different.

"How can I," I whispered, "when all I want to do is run?"

********************

Braeden

I left Paisley sulking with my sister in the basement of Rooster and Clark's home, their proxy vote in my pocket as I made my way to the clubhouse for the special session of church that Taron had called as news of the shooting spread.

Pulling into the clubhouse parking lot, I knew we were facing October all over again. Instead of only bikes, there were cars and trucks. The male shifters with mates and children had brought them along. The exterior storm shutters were closed on the clubhouse and I would have bet my bike that the interior, steel plated, shutters were closed and locked, too.

The cubs were probably down in the basement, the entrance open to the underground caverns the pack retreated to in times of danger. That kind of hysteria didn't bode well for Paisley -- or Clover.

My baby sister had saved all their sorry asses back in October with a brilliant plan to blackmail a small army of shapeshifters in Illinois from attacking us. But knowing she was the target of the shooting at Holly Ulster's cabin would leave some of them drooling and ready to throw her to the packs in Illinois to save their own hides.

I bounded up the steps to the front. Knowing by the closed shutters that the entrance would be locked as well, I slammed my fist against it a few times. The door jerked open to reveal Joshua Reeves, one of the pack's few cats, with a sick sheen to his skin.

"How are things?" he asked, squeezing each word out like he was pissing watermelons.

"Clover will be fine," I snarled, stepping around him.

Mojo slid next to us and closed the door as Joshua grabbed my arm. "I heard P--"

I froze him with a look before he could say her name. If he was going to try to use Paisley to inch his ass a little closer to the pack leader position, I would rip his guts out and feed them to him.

"That's everyone," Taron said, spotting me at the door. He stepped from a chair onto the only table capable of holding his weight, his head almost brushing the twelve foot ceiling. Standing next to the table was Onyx, his mate and the source of last October's tensions.

I looked around. The place was standing room only. The official ranks of the Woodsmen had swelled since the clash with the Illinois packs, the more isolated shifters that hung at the fringes of Night Falls under a truce finally joining the pack.

"By now you've all heard about a shooting up at Holly Ulster's ranch," Taron bellowed.

A wave of whispers erupted. Taron raised his hands, a building rumble in his chest audible over the discontented murmurs of his audience.

I shook my head. He was crazy if he thought I would ever want to step into his shoes. Hell, I didn't want to be veep, but I'd be damned if Mallory Craw was going to fill my seat. All that damn wolf knew how to do was rile everyone up to advance his position.

As Taron quieted the crowd, I glanced around in search of Craw. He was just a few feet from me, his back braced against the bar, his face set like stone but still looking like he was an oily bastard.

My stomach did a sick flip as Landa Judd leaned forward from where she stood behind the bar to catch my eye. I gave her a hard stare meant to communicate that whatever had happened in my drunken state the night before was a never-to-be-repeated event.

Her lip curled at one corner, the bright blue eyes crinkling as she sneered at me.

Fucking cats...

I forced my attention back to Taron and tried to forget I might have actually fucked a cat -- especially that one.

"Clover Hughes was shot," Taron said, his hands palm down and pressing at empty air to keep the room's noise to a low buzz of shock. "She's healing at a safe location at the moment. We don't know who the shooter was, but we believe he wasn't human."

Taron's hands could have danced for an hour and he wouldn't have lessened the outbreak of protests and chest beating among the shifters assembled.

"Calm yourselves!" the big bear roared. "If you're going to act like children, go down to the basement and sit with your cubs!"

I snorted, but quickly sobered. There was more at risk than finding out who had shot at Clover and whether a larger threat to the entire pack loomed on the horizon. Paisley's life was at stake, too.

"I've talked to the leaders of the Illinois prides and packs," Taron continued. "They all disclaim any knowledge. As disturbing as the idea is, this could be no more than a personal vendetta against Clover."