Savage Moon: Wolf Shifter Romance (Wild Lake Wolves Book 4) (13 page)

Chapter
Eighteen

White fangs, gleaming eyes, and chaos surrounded us.
Harold pulled another shotgun from the closet in the front hall and handed it
to me. “You know your way around one of these?” he asked, his sightless eyes
still managing to look like he was staring straight through me.

I took it from him, letting my fingers curl around
the cold metal of the barrel. “It’s been a while, but I can shoot straight if I
don’t have to shoot too far.”

“Same here,” he said. Incredibly, Harold took a
position on his knees at one of the front windows and racked a round.

“Is he serious?” I whispered to Alec at my side. His
chest heaved from the effort of staying in human form. His Alpha had already
shifted and tore across Pat’s lawn toward the rest of the pack hidden in the
trees.

Kane was close. I felt him in the heated scar at the
nape of my neck and the feverish way he made my pulse race. He was back. He had
a claim on me. He meant to take it.

I felt the rest of his pack too, fanning out to the
eastern and western border of the Bonner property. Kane was heading this way,
about to break through the line of wolves behind the barn.

Alec gripped me by the shoulders and turned me to
face him. His wolf eyes had taken over completely, shining silver and blue as
his nostrils flared. “You are
not
going back to him. Do you understand?
No matter what.”

I nodded and swallowed hard. “I don’t want anyone to
get hurt . . . or worse because of me.”

“This isn’t just about you, and you didn’t cause it.
This has been coming on with Kane for a long time. You just helped us prove
what I’ve suspected for a while. He’s trying to weaken the Wild Lake packs. I
think he wants to take over as some kind of chief pack. He’s crossed every line
there is, and he needs to be dealt with.”

“By who? You can’t get to him without going through
the pack. And they’ll die trying to protect him. Tell me what the good outcome
is here. Tell me what winning looks like.”

“You leave that to me. Don’t leave this house. You
hear me? Not for anything. This is neutral ground.”

“Pack law,” I spat. “Right. And you’ve just told me Kane’s
violated just about every other one. What makes you think he’ll honor that?”

“Because the packs will defend Pat and Harold over
everything. No matter what.”

My mark burned like the hot brand it was, nearly
driving me to my knees. But Alec still had a hold of me and gave me the
strength to stay on my feet. He growled low, sending a vibration through me as
I turned and faced the window.

Kane.

He came through the tree line toward the house. He
walked tall and straight, his eyes blazing red fire, but he hadn’t shifted. He
wore black jeans and motorcycle boots and carried a heavy chain in his hands.
The pack flanked him, fangs bared and dripping.

Bloodlust
. Alec had talked about it. I’d
felt
it when the
pack hunted. But I’d never actually seen them in the throes of it. I did now.
All five members of Kane’s packs’ eyes had gone blood red as they stalked
forward. They weren’t human. They weren’t even pure wolf. They were monsters.

“Shit,” Alec muttered. He’d done it. He’d gone
completely
Tyrannous
and turned the pack into his personal beast army. I
could only pray there was something left of the men inside them worth saving.

“They can’t think for themselves anymore.” Luke
appeared. A muscle twitched in his jaw as he stood beside me and passed a look
to Alec. “They never will again while Kane lives. It’s too late to do this any
other way.”

Cole and Christian walked beside and slightly behind
Kane. Now, they stepped aside and my heart dropped to my knees. I could see
what Kane held on the end of the chain.

“Jaxson!”

Oh, God. My brother! My poor, poor brother! He wore
a collar around his neck and his hands were bound in front of him. His clothes
hung off him in rags and most of his skin too. My brother was big. Six foot
three and two hundred pounds of burly muscle and strength of the grizzly inside
of him. But all that was gone now. He looked skeletal with hollowed-out cheeks
and soulless eyes that pleaded toward the sky as he struggled to stay on his
feet.

Alec said something, but his words came to me as if
I were underwater. I acted. Didn’t think. I ran out the front door, bounded
down the yard, and raised the shotgun, bracing it against my shoulder.

It would be so easy. He was only fifty feet away
from me. I had him in my sights and imagined the cloud of red I’d see when I
blew his fucking head off. But even as I thought it, I knew in some far corner
of my brain I’d never get the shot off. Wolves couldn’t outrun bullets, but
they could sure as hell outrun my trigger finger. Wade and Brandon charged me,
teeth bared and red murder in their eyes.

I heard the wolves shift behind me. Bones and sinew
tearing and reforming. But they weren’t what stopped Wade and Brandon’s
homicidal advance.

No. The earth shook. The trees swayed. Fur and fangs
burst through the trees all around us as wolf after wolf made their presence
known. But, they weren’t alone. They turned and stood their ground, assuming
battle stances with their tails high. Right behind them all hell broke loose.

Something broke through Bas’s line to the right of
us, and that’s what made me lower the shotgun. He ripped a small maple tree
straight out of the ground and hurled it at least forty feet in a spray of dirt
and mangled roots.

The Lord of the bears had come down from the
hillside, and he hadn’t come alone. All around us, bears advanced behind the
wolves, forcing them into a narrowing circle with Jaxson, Kane, his pack, and
me at the center of it.

Jax looked back and finally collapsed.

Those few seconds played out in my head a thousand
times, ending in a thousand different ways in my imagination. I raised my
shotgun again and blasted a hole through Kane’s chest. Or, I missed and hit Jax.
Or, my father broke through Kane’s pack and ripped Kane to shreds. Or Alec leaped
over me and got to him first. Or Wade and Brandon finished their advance and
brought me down. Wolf against bear. Wolf against wolf. Blood everywhere.

I imagined it all within the span of an instant, and
I could see no good end to any of it. I had asked Alec a moment ago what
winning looked like. He had no answer because there wasn’t one. Not now. This
could only end with me losing someone I loved or my own life.

A siren call slammed me back to reality. It came in
the form of Pat’s shrill whistle as she stepped off the porch and put two
fingers in her mouth. I can’t say her whistle had the power to tame the
shifters, but it sure as hell had the power to make them stop for half a second,
and that was all it took.

Alec got to me, pulled the shotgun from my hands and
pushed me behind him. He held his hands out away from him and shouted to Kane.

“Stop! Call them off.”

Kane smirked, but a simple jerk of his chin made
Wade and Brandon’s wolves halt where they stood. But Kane had no power over my
father or the rest of the bears. They broke into a run and headed straight for
all of us. My eyes caught Jaxson’s. He was broken, glassy-eyed, but enough of
him was in there to make a difference.

The sound of his tattered vocal cords ripped through
me as he let out a wail. It wasn’t a human sound, or bear either. It was
something in between. But it was enough. My father’s bear reared up on his hind
legs; his black paws clawed the air and he let out a keening growl that cut
through me and nearly took my legs out from under me.

My brother and father looked at each other, and I
was gutted. Jaxson couldn’t find his bear. My father didn’t seem able to find
the man inside of him. They were two halves of a broken whole with Kane at the
center of it. My fingers itched to raise the shotgun again.

Pat came to my right side. Alec’s wolf came to my
left. Jax’s call had prompted him to shift. I put a hand on his back, my
fingers sinking into his snow-white fur.

“Son,” she called to Jax. “You still got enough left
in you to call to them? Tell them to stand down for now?”

Jax staggered to his feet, the heavy chain around
his neck weighing him down. Pat sensed my fury and put a steadying hand on my
shoulder. Jax looked from Pat to me and back again. Kane just smiled and jerked
the chain hard. But Jax stayed on his feet. That simple act of defiance gave
him strength.

“And
you
,” Pat pointed to Kane. “You keep
them in check. You hear me? You’re on
my
property now. You dishonor the pact,
and you’re outnumbered. By wolves
and
bears. You hear me?”

Kane smiled. “Who do you think brought the bears
here, Pat? They fight with me.”

“No. They. Do. Not.” Jaxson croaked.

I took a chance. Stupid, maybe. But I couldn’t stay
back another second. I went to my brother. Alec growled low behind me and
snapped the air with his teeth. But, he let me go. It brought me dangerously
close to Kane, but the pack stepped aside and let me pass.

I wrapped my arms around my brother and pulled him
close. He was skin and bones, but I could still feel the quiet strength of his
resolve. He’d been beaten, not broken. I ran my thumbs over the sharp angles of
his hollowed-out cheekbones. The muscles twitched along his square jaw. His
sable eyes flashed, and I went up on my tiptoes to put a kiss on his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. I knew the whole pack
could likely hear, but for now it didn’t matter. “This is all my fault. If I’d
have listened to you and Dad.”

Jax shook his head. “Stop. Just, thank God you’re
okay. Are you?”

I nodded. “I am now.”

Kane snapped the chain and Jaxson staggered
sideways. I lunged forward to grab him, but he went to his knees.

“What do you want?” My voice tore through my throat.
“What in God’s name could you possibly want? Me? Is that it? If I go with you
will you end this?”

Alec growled and slowly advanced. Wade, Brandon and
the rest of the pack formed a line in front of Kane.

“Stop!” I yelled to Alec. “Everyone. Just stop!”

I couldn’t take it. Not another second of it. The
bears behind my father reared up, and I saw the bloodlust in their own eyes.
Kane said they fought on his side, but they didn’t. My father had gone
completely feral. All he could see were his two children in the center of a
pack of murderous wolves. The bears weren’t going to make any distinctions if
it came to it. They were going to rip apart every wolf they could get their
paws on. And the packs would be forced to fight back.

So it seemed we were on the brink of a civil war
within the wolf packs, and an all-out massacre between the wolves and the
bears. My cursed mark flared hot. As much as I wanted to turn away, I couldn’t.
Kane had enough of a hold over me that from five feet away, when he wanted me
to look at him, I did.

I saw stone cold purpose in his eyes, and it chilled
me to my core. He didn’t care about me. He didn’t even care about his own pack.
He cared about one thing only. Total control. Total war was exactly what he
wanted. Wolf against wolf and bear against bear. He’d purge Wild Lake with the
blood of all the shifters so he could have it for himself.

The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile when he
realized I understood his look. He was giving me a choice. Stay here and die
with the rest of them, or come with him and live.

Chapter
Nineteen

Kane’s voice rose among all the heated growls and
bared fangs. I hooked my arms under Jaxson’s to help him stand.

“The girl is mine,” he shouted. “That’s all I came
here for. I’ve claimed her under pack law.”

“No, you haven’t!” Harold stepped forward. He might have
been blind, but his aim seemed deadly accurate as he pointed the barrel
straight at Kane. “You forced that mark on her. You know that goes against
everything.”

“I
claimed
her. Caleb, listen to me. I would
never hurt her. You let us leave here in peace and you can take your son back
with you.”

The bears behind him pawed the ground and my father
sniffed the air. I don’t know if he was in there. Kane might be wasting his
breath. But even in wolf form, Alec knew exactly what Kane said. He lunged
forward, brought his head low to the ground, and growled at Kane.
Unfortunately, my father saw it as a threat. He ran forward, his paws digging
into the earth.

“Stop!” Jaxson yelled again. He seemed to be the
only one able to get through to him. And thank God he’d worked out that Alec
wasn’t a threat to me. Only Kane was.

But, we’d reached a stalemate. If Alec tried to go
for Kane, his pack held the line in front of him and would tear him apart. The
same was true for my father. Though he had them beat by size, even the mighty
Caleb Lord couldn’t win against five wolves in a bloodlust. The rest of the wolves
squared off with the rest of the bears. This was going nowhere fast.

Pat whistled again. “Looks like we do this like in
the old days. Bas,” she turned to him. “As the Alpha of the largest pack in
Wild Lake, can you speak for all of them?”

Bas’s large, red wolf stood near the east edge of
the yard, nose to nose with one of the grizzlies. It had been a while since I’d
seen him, but I think it was Ian Corey, from up near the Canadian border. Bas
backed away from Ian. He took a chance and shifted, his muscled body rising
from a crouch, and walked toward the center of the yard, letting one of his
pack members take his place in front of Ian.

“For this? I can,” he said. He came to Alec’s side
and put a hand on his back. Alec sidestepped and let out a high-pitched whine,
but he stayed in wolf form.

“Who speaks for the bears?” Pat called out.

That was going to be a hell of a lot trickier. When
they shift, bears are more feral on the inside than wolves. They don’t think in
words. I doubted my father or any of the rest of them could even hear what Pat
was saying. They just saw more wolves in one place than there had ever been and
Caleb’s son and daughter at the center of the threat.

Jaxson staggered and coughed beside me. “I can speak
for the bears.”

“Take these off him!” I shouted to Kane. “He can
barely stand, let alone run or shift, Kane. If you want me to so much as
consider going anywhere with you when this is all over, you let Jax go. Call it
a show of good faith. You think the bears are here to fight with you, but they’re
more likely to rip your arms from their sockets and beat you with them. Look
around.”

He did. And for the first time, I detected a slight
wavering of Kane’s bravado. My father came down hard on his front paws, shaking
the ground. He leaned his great, brown head far forward and let out a mighty
roar that blew Pat’s hair back as she stood next to him. God, one swipe of his
paw and he would have broken her in half. It meant he was mostly savage, but
not all the way. He wouldn’t hurt her. For now.

Kane turned toward me and tossed me a rusted key.
With shaky fingers, I freed my brother from the shackles around his wrists and
neck. The skin beneath it was rubbed raw from weeks and months in chains. Jaxson
couldn’t straighten his spine all the way from whatever cramped quarters Kane had
held him in. But, even though he couldn’t shift, I sensed his strong bear
inside, fighting hard to come back out. But God, the force of the shift might
tear him in half. I prayed he had the strength to keep the beast at bay until
his body had a chance to heal. While there was breath left in my body I’d fight
to give him that chance.

“You can use the barn,” Harold called out, still
waving his shotgun toward Kane.

“I don’t want her near him!” Kane said, seeing Alec
move even closer to me. “Not while I don’t have eyes on her.”

“Enough,” Bas said. “Your pack is standing right
here. Don’t you trust them to heed your commands?”

Kane let out a snort but backed away. I dug my
fingers into Alec’s fur to keep him still beside me. Then, I reached out and
grabbed my father’s thick coarse fur just above his shoulder. So there I stood,
caught between the wolf and the bear I loved, hoping for a way to get them out
of this with their lives.

Pat had the presence of mind to throw Bas a pair of
jeans as he started to walk toward the barn. He stabbed his legs through them
and stood beside Jaxson. I wasn’t sure Jaxson could manage putting one foot in
front of the other. He swayed, dangerously dizzy. Bas stopped and put a hand
out to him. Jax growled, mistrusting. But when he looked back at me I gave him
a slow nod.
He’s different. You can trust him. For now
.

So Jax took Bas’s offered hand and walked with him
toward the barn. Harold stayed on his porch with the shotgun and Pat fell in
step behind Bas. Kane followed close behind, leaving the rest of us in a
stalemate in front of Pat and Harold’s farmhouse.

Minutes ticked by. An hour. I couldn’t breathe. All
I could do was stand my ground with my hands digging into Alec’s and my
father’s fur. I felt the tension vibrate through each of them. They were both
coiled fury ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Kane’s pack represented the
biggest threat for lighting a fuse. They stood in a line in front of me, their
teeth bared, their deadly focus halfway between Alec and my father.

The sun began to set. Bats flew overhead, darting
among the trees and swooping low in front of me. Still, I waited. We heard
nothing from the barn. I half expected it to burn to the ground around them.

Finally, as the stars came out, the barn door opened
and Pat came out first. I couldn’t read her expression, but her gray hair clung
to her, her temples beaded in sweat. Jax came out after her, looking weaker and
grayer than when he went in. Bas came out behind him, his silver wolf eyes
flashing bright. Whatever happened in there had him keyed up and itching to
shift. I didn’t need to bear his mark to see it. Fur sprouted around his collar
and he took a deep breath to shake it off.

Pat got to us first and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Well, Patsy, don’t keep us in suspense. What happened?”
Harold said. He’d been so quiet, I forgot he was even back here.

Pat tucked a flyaway hair behind her ear and blew a
breath out. “Well, we have a solution. You’re not going to like it, but we’ve
got no other choice.”