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“Shut…up!” he screamed, jamming the gun closer.
“Whatever you’re peddlin’, it ain’t working here. I’m just trying to keep my ranch, Wyatt. That’s all. You and your family are going to have to accept we are here, and learn to ignore us. Simple as that.”
“You know this place is going to be mine,” Wyatt said, waving his gun in the direction of the land. “With this place, and old Roy’s place, it’ll make a fine piece to start me out. Maybe I’ll get me a little wife. Maybe she’ll be fair and auburn-haired with pretty green eyes like the whore you wrangled. Make me some redhaired little babies.”
“Enough!” Garret barked. “Get off my land. Now!”
There was steel in his voice and the crack of tension was so thick, it was almost tangible. Wyatt smiled as if such a show of emotion was exactly what he wanted. He pulled his gun up and directed the barrel at Garret’s chest. “You get off my land,” Wyatt growled.
Garret bunched his muscles, and that wolf was so close.
She whipped around the house and chambered a round, stalked steadily forward as Wyatt and Garret turned at the sound.
“Eliza, I have this,” Garret gritted out in an unrecognizable voice.
“Don’t leave, Eliza Shaw. I don’t want you to miss the show. We were just talkin’ about you,” Wyatt sneered. He pulled the gun off Garret’s chest and held it carelessly in the air. “’Cept I had an idea.” He swung his gaze to Garret, likely ruling her out as any real threat. “I hadn’t even got to the good part yet! I was thinking, if your pretty little wife here died, you would be free to marry my sister and this land would be Jennings land after all. Am I right? We could unite the Packs like my pa wants. I don’t give a shit about that part, but he wants to avoid the attention of the elders.” Wyatt brought his pistol up steadily, and with a look of pure hatred in his eyes, aimed it at her. “Too bad it’s me here, and not my pa.”
He pulled the trigger, and with a gasp, she yanked the trigger, but the bullet went wide as she ducked behind the house. Wood splintered from the corner of the shot-up logs and sprayed across her face.
A howl pierced the night air.
“Eliza, get in the house!” Garret barked out before she could hear the popping of his bones, and Wyatt’s snarling.
Around the corner of the house, a black wolf charged, and she yelped as she bolted for the back door. One more turn around the corner and another black wolf waited for her, blocking her entry into the house.
She looked back, and Garret’s charcoal gray wolf was in a war with Wyatt’s.
She lifted the rifle and cocked it, pulled the trigger on the wolf as it leapt at her. A yelp sounded, and the wolf went spinning mid-air. The woods lit up with glowing eyes, and she scanned it in horror. “Garret!” she screamed. “There are too many of them!”
She bolted for the back door, but the wolves were moving for her. There were so many!
She yanked it open and checked for Garret. He was here! Garret’s wolf was bolting for her, and Wyatt’s wolf was limping behind him, slower. Thank God!
She turned and yanked the back door open, and the second Garret was through the door, she slammed it closed. Something massive hit the door and opened it a quarter of the way. She strained to close it, and Garret’s massive paws appeared beside her face, slamming it closed. She latched it securely and then bolted for the front door to lower the heavy wooden latch that would keep them from spilling in through there.
“Where’s the Pack?” she asked, but Garret had disappeared.
He reappeared with a large leather bag clasped in his hands. He was huge, all flexed-up, and fury dwelled in his wolf-bright eyes.
“I can take four of them,” he uttered. “You’ve got to pick the rest off.”
“Where’s the Pack?”
“I don’t know!” He shook his head as a snarl rattled his chest. He was loading bullets into pistols. He slid her a rifle. “Load it!”
One of the windows broke, and there was a glass bottle with an enflamed rag hanging out of it. She lurched for it to throw it back outside, but Garret yelled, “No!” He blurred to her and tossed her bodily against the wall, covered her with his own body as an explosion rocked the house.
In shock, she looked at the house as Garret moved off her. There was glass embedded in his back, but he shrugged out of her reach. “I’m going to draw them from the house. If they get in here, you go to the root cellar.”
“Garret, you’re hurt—”
“Where do you go?” he barked.
“The root cellar,” she whispered shakily.
“There’s a lock on the inside. They will have to chop through the entire floor to get in. Lock it. You hear?”
“Y-yes.”
