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He stumbled and fell, dropping the gun. Before he could reach out, I kicked it away and thrust the knife into his chest. The look of surprise on his face would have been comical if I wasn’t on the verge of passing out.
With the last of my strength, I staggered through the smoke-filled kitchen, out through the laundry room, and into the blessed fresh air. When I looked back, there was no sign of Carlos. In seconds, the roof caved in and the cabin turned into a raging inferno.
I lay in the snow, heaving my guts up, trying to clear the smoke from my lungs.
Silas!
Eva? Where are you?
Then I heard him shout. “Eva!”
“I’m here,” I croaked, just as Cole’s wolf leaped through the trees with a roar. Silas appeared from behind the barn, blood trickling down his face.
“I thought the fire had taken you!” All of their emotions - terror, anger, and relief that I was safe trickled down the bond.
“Where’s Carlos?” Cole asked, not caring that he was naked and it was freezing.
“I stabbed him. I think he’s dead.” He better be fucking dead. There was no way he could have escaped, though. Not once the roof collapsed.
I didn’t have a knife wound, and I barely got out alive.
Silas pulled me into his chest and held me. “Thank fuck you’re safe,” he breathed. “When I came too and smelled the fire, I thought…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. I felt his emotions.
“The cabin, it’s all gone…” I stared at the fire, which wasn’t quite so intense now. This was their - our - home, and now it had gone.
“Eva, it’s just a pile of wood. We can rebuild it.” He stroked my cheek, wiping the soot away. “None of it matters. The only thing we care about is you.”
Cole
Eva’s face was black with soot and she reeked of smoke, but Silas refused to let her go. He cradled her in his arms while they both stared at the smoldering wreckage of our former home. There was nothing left of the cabin but a charred pile of smoking timbers. Everything had gone.
All the boxes in the attic containing photos and items belonging to our parents. Our computer equipment. Books. Everything.
Thank God the fire hadn’t spread to the barn. The tools and vehicles were safe, at least. None of that mattered, though. The insurance would pay for what we’d lost and we could rebuild the cabin. I knew Rufus would have no issue with us staying in a guest cabin on pack lands, given everything that had happened.
The only thing I cared about was Eva. I could sense the sorrow and guilt through our bond. She blamed herself for everything because that was her default starting point, as always.
“It’s not your fault,” I repeated.
“If I hadn’t thrown the booze at him, then the bottles wouldn’t have smashed, and the fire wouldn’t have started!”
“And if there’d been no fire, he might have hurt you before I arrived,” I reminded her.
She knew I was right. “I could have killed him with the knife,” she muttered.
“Yeah, you might have, but also, he could have stabbed or shot you.” I knelt down at her side and cupped her chin. “He’s gone. Brent is dead. We can rebuild the cabin, make it bigger. And now you can have a say in the design of it.”
“I can?”
“Yeah, sweetheart, you can. Once we sort the insurance claim out, we’ll hire an architect and get some plans drawn up.”
“We need more bedrooms,” she mused, lost in thought.
Silas and I exchanged glances. I didn’t dare hope she meant for kids, but I could tell Silas was on the same wavelength as me.
“I’d like children…one day,” she said with a shy smile.
“Sugar, you can have as many cubs as you want. In fact,” he grinned, “I vote we get started real soon.”
