Red (34 page)

My field of vision narrowed. Blood roared in
my head. Desperate, I tried to lunge forward, my heart threatening
to burst in my chest. But my legs buckled and I fell, too far away
to stop him. I screamed again, inhuman, terrified, waiting for the
shot.

My dad crashed into Patrick. I hadn’t even
seen him moving. Injured, his hands still bound, his rush was
unbalanced. Patrick sent him flying backward with an elbow strike.
But the distraction was enough for Sawyer to clamp his jaws around
Patrick’s gun arm. Another shot exploded, splintering a tree on the
other side of the clearing.

Sawyer lunged forward, wrenching the arm
like a bulldog, but Patrick used some kind of judo throw, turning
Sawyer’s momentum against him, flinging him away and scuttling
toward the packs. Sawyer tumbled, skidded to a stop and scrambled
toward him. Patrick, one hand wrapped around the bite on his arm,
fell into a fighter's crouch, a knife in his other hand.

My knife.

They circled. The knife was not Patrick’s
natural weapon, and he was wounded. He gripped it in his fist,
making awkward slashes that Sawyer mostly avoided with ease. Sawyer
feinted left and dodged, coming under Patrick’s guard to nip at his
leg. The deadly dance went on, neither of them gaining ground.
Sawyer couldn’t go in for a killing strike without the risk of
being stabbed. Lunge. Nip. Slash. Again and again. As their
stand-off continued, Sawyer started to slow. He couldn’t go on like
this much longer.

Sawyer’s leg gave, causing him to stumble.
Patrick charged, swiping wide. The knife flashed. Sawyer danced
back, but not before the blade caught him across the chest. Blood
spilled, bright and hot, soaking his fur.

And I went mad.

My wolf rose above the tangled snarl of rage
and pain, growing, pressing up and out, until my body, my mind, was
filled with her. The limbs that were stuck at improper lengths tore
into shape with a crunch. All along the length of my skin I felt
the prickling sprout of fur. I did not take a backseat to the
beast. I became the beast. The gut-wrenching agony faded, replaced
by a steadying strength.

I rose to my feet—all four of them—no longer
weak, no longer defenseless. And I fixed my eyes on Patrick.

He continued to brandish the knife at
Sawyer, driving him back toward the drop off to the creek. Sawyer
was weakening, slowed by blood loss. Even as I watched he took
another edging step in retreat.

No.

I sprinted toward them and leapt, landing
claws extended on Patrick's back. As he staggered under my weight,
I sank my teeth into the meat of his shoulder. His scream echoed
off the mountain and his blood burst warm and sharp into my mouth,
like some kind of exotic fruit. I bit harder, teeth tearing through
flesh and muscle.

Patrick whirled, trying to fling me off, but
my jaw was locked on his shoulder, my claws digging deeper into his
back. With a roar, he raised the knife to slash at me. I saw the
glint of the blade coming at me and my stomach clenched with fear.
Sawyer sprang at him, mouth closing around Patrick's knife hand,
his bulk and momentum driving us all to the ground in a tangle of
limbs.

We landed hard, and the impact loosened my
hold. Patrick scrambled away from us, bleeding, frantic to find the
knife or some other weapon. But we were between him and it. He
turned to run only to realize we had him caged between us and the
edge of the drop off to the creek.

Gotcha.

Patrick faced us, eyes now wide and white
around the edges as he looked from me to Sawyer, hands raised in a
universal sign of surrender.

We stalked forward, shoulder to shoulder. I
couldn't help but lean over to rub my head against Sawyer's
shoulder, just to feel that he was really real and not some figment
of my fevered brain. But I met with muscle and fur and heat. Life.
It was real. He was real.

"Look, let's talk about this," said Patrick
backing up a step..

I cocked my head in a gesture I hope he took
for
Really?

"You don't need to do this. I know you don't
really want to hurt me or you'd have done it already."

I wished I had my voice to ask him how he
thought that was gonna work. How we could let the hunter live and
not expect to be tracked again, constantly looking over our
shoulders for the rest of our lives. Been there, done that. This
ended here, with me, as I'd always said it would.

My lips curled in a snarl and I paced
forward.

Patrick retreated another step.

Beside me, Sawyer faltered. I glanced at him
out of the corner of my eye, still keeping Patrick in my sights. As
we got even closer, I could practically feel him weakening. He
shook his head as if to clear it and continued to step forward.

What was going on? He hadn't bled that much,
had he?

Patrick turned his eyes on my mate. "You're
hurt, Sawyer. I don't know how you survived being shot earlier, but
you obviously can't take much more of this."

I snarled and snapped at him and he lifted
his hands in surrender again as he edged back one more step. His
foot knocked some rocks over the edge. They tumbled down the
incline, bouncing and cracking against the stone face before
plopping in the water. It was a long way down. Long enough to break
a neck or something else vital.

"Just stand down and I'll go. I'll leave you
be."

Right. Exactly like he'd let my mother
be.

"You don't want to do this."

No. I didn't. And yet, I did. This wasn't
about being an unthinking beast, about being out for blood for the
sake of blood. This was about survival. My survival. Sawyer's.
Patrick would never give up, never go away. And if he did, someone
else would take his place if we let him go. We would never have
peace, never have safety as long as he still lived. Because a man
didn't give up his entire life, his marriage, and his career in
pursuit of a centuries old family feud just because he surrendered
one battle.

I wished I could speak, to say what I was
thinking.

Even as I thought it, I felt my bones begin
to shift. With a yelp of surprise, I fell back to my haunches.
Things were moving fast, joints realigning, fur receding, muscles
transforming. Painful, but not the all out agony of becoming a wolf
in the first place. I looked to Sawyer, knowing my eyes were wide,
confused.

A blur of motion caught my attention, and I
turned to see Patrick lunging at me. With a roar, Sawyer threw
himself between us, slamming a shoulder into Patrick's midriff. He
flew backward, arms pinwheeling, searching for balance, even as his
feet left the ground and he tumbled over the side. His scream cut
off abruptly with a splash and a crunch. Then all was quiet.

Sawyer peered over the edge for a long
moment before returning to me. I watched in fascination as he
seemed to kind of . . . melt back to human with a great deal more
grace than I was managing. Then he was kneeling and gathering me
into his arms until we were a desperate tangle of human limbs.

I couldn’t touch enough of him. Even as he
was trying to kiss me, I was still frantically running my hands
over every inch, assuring myself that he was real and here and
alive. I framed his stubbled cheeks in my hands. "You're alive.
You're alive! How? I watched you die."

"Guess hell spat me back out," he said, one
corner of his mouth quirking up.

"Sawyer!” He looked like hell. He was
filthy, as I was. The long, shallow cut on his chest was still
oozing. And a fresh pink scar puckered just over his heart. I laid
my hand over it.

"I was starting to shift when he shot me.
Bullet missed my heart. I guess we're a little more indestructible
than I realized."

I wrapped my arms tight around him. "Oh God.
Oh God, I thought I'd lost you."

"I'm right here."

I pressed my lips to the scar, feeling his
heart heart beat strong and true and whole. “I love you.”

He made a humming, contented noise deep in
his throat.

A groan came from somewhere behind us.

"Dad!" I disentangled myself and raced
toward him.

He looked a total mess. Half his clothes
were burned, the skin beneath red and beginning to blister. His
hands were still bound. A quick search located the knife Patrick
had lost in the fight. I used it to saw through the ropes. I was
almost afraid to turn him over. But he groaned again as I released
his arms, so I grabbed his shoulder and pulled. A livid purple
bruise spread across his temple. He'd need to be assessed for a
concussion. I quickly checked the rest of him over. The shoulder
he'd landed on was dislocated, but he didn't have any broken bones
and wasn't bleeding from anything bigger than a surface scrape.

"Ellie?"

His eyes were open, staring at me.

"Hi, Dad. You're gonna be okay. Patrick's .
. . " I hadn't leaned over to look. I glanced back at Sawyer for
confirmation. He shook his head. "Patrick can’t hurt us
anymore."

Color was creeping across his face and I
started to flipping through my brain trying to figure out what that
was a symptom of.

"Ellie, you're naked."

I looked down. "Um. Yeah. Lost my fur."

"Here."

I looked up to see Sawyer holding out a
t-shirt. He'd robbed some shorts out of one of the packs for
himself. Grateful, I took it and slipped it on. One of Patrick's.
He was a pretty small guy, so the shirt barely came to the top of
my thighs, but so long as I didn't bend over, all the important
stuff was covered.

Dad was glaring at Sawyer. "I don't know
whether to thank you or kick your ass."

"You have nothing to kick his ass for, Dad.
We didn't—um.” Nope, couldn’t actually
say
that to my dad.
He knew well enough what I was talking about. “We didn't,” I
repeated firmly. “I was right. It's straight up genetics. And as
you can see, he's just like me."

"How is that possible?"

"There’s a whole helluva lot that your
family history got wrong," said Sawyer.

He bent and began rummaging through the
other pack, finding another pair of pants and tossing them to me
before helping Dad sit up.

I turned and shimmied into them. Dad's.
Naturally they swallowed me. Gripping the waistband, I shuffled
over to pick up the knife and the rope I’d slipped out of when I
shifted. While I was hacking, I could hear Dad giving Sawyer
instructions on how to reset his shoulder. By the time I’d
fashioned a belt to hold the pants up, it was done with a crunch
and a short scream.

I bent to roll up the legs so I could
actually walk, and I heard the
snick
of a chambering
round.

I didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop to
consider the impossible or the morality. I just turned, using the
momentum of my motion to fling the knife before I even consciously
saw my target.

My aim was true. The knife buried itself to
the hilt in Patrick’s throat. For a moment, he stood there, looking
like some kind of undead soldier, broken and twisted, bruised and
bloody, the gun wavering in his good hand. Then a thin trail of red
snaked down from the knife and he collapsed with a gurgling
wheeze.

“
That’s for my mother, you
son of a bitch,” I breathed.

There was a beat of stunned silence in the
clearing before Dad stumbled over to Patrick. I knew he was dead
even before Dad knelt and checked for a pulse. He kicked the gun
away for good measure.

Sawyer crossed to me. He didn’t try to
shield me anymore. Death was an ugly reality, one I would have to
find a way to live with. His hands slipped around mine, and as he
tugged me close, I finally looked away from the body and up at
him.

“
It’s finally over,” he
said.

“
No,” I said, tipping my
face up to his. “It’s just beginning.”

~*~

Sawyer

“
Bumps and bruises, some
scrapes. No lasting physical damage. You’re incredibly lucky, Miss
Rose.” The doctor laid down her otoscope and pulled off her gloves
with a snap of rubber. “We’ll be keeping your father overnight for
observation. I’ll send a nurse back as soon as we get him settled
in a regular room. We don’t technically need to keep you, but given
tonight’s events, I don’t think he’ll sign off on you going home,
so we’ll arrange somewhere for you, too.”

“
Thank you.”

The doctor fixed me with an amused glance.
“I assume you’ll be staying, as well?”

I tightened my hand around Elodie’s.
“Yes.”

“
Thought so. The sheriff is
still waiting to talk to you.”

Elodie sighed and dropped her head to my
shoulder. She needed sleep, not to be badgered at two in the
morning about something that was already over.

“
Send him in, I guess,” she
said.

As soon as the doctor left, Beasley and two
of his deputies crowded into the tiny room. The scent of Elodie’s
anxiety immediately bled through the antiseptic stink of the
ER.

“
We need to speak to
Elodie,” said the sheriff looking at me. “Alone.”

I tensed, prepared to tell him exactly what
he could do with that suggestion, but Elodie’s hand tightened on
mine in warning.

“
No. Sawyer
stays.”

“
Elodie—”

“
My father is still being
treated, I’ve just been through hell, and Sawyer saved my life. He
stays.” Elodie’s tone brooked no argument.

“
Fine.” Beasley nodded to
one of the deputies, who had a notepad and pen. “Tell us what
happened to you.”

Here we go,
I thought.
Time to
make that cover story fly.
I worried about how this was going
to go. Elodie had, thus far, proven to be a terrible liar.