My wolf snorts. I’ve had my skin for a minute now. Long enough to understand how good the woman I was holding feels when she’s moaning for me. These humans aren’t just drunk, they're terrible hunters.
I level a hard stare at the group. “This is Bloodstone Territory. No hunting or guns allowed past the boundaries and this meadow,” I sweep my hand around the grassy expanse, “is the fucking boundary. There’s a price to pay for breaking pack law.”
A murmur goes up among the hunters and the hunter that made the mistake of calling me friend steps forward. “We didn’t know where we were. It was an honest mistake.”
“The only mistake was you drinking half that bottle. Not your first from the smell of it,” I say, nodding at the bottle on the ground.
He holds his hands up. “They’re young. Needed liquid courage. We came out to hunt the ferals. We’re on the sameside.” There’s a holler and I know the Defenders are here. Good. I’ve had enough of this human shit. The hunter’s eyes go wide and he points behind me. “Where did-who are they?”
“Around here we keep the peace. This isn’t like Oak Fast,” I tell him and look around the group. “You’ll all have a trial for what happened here today. Pack law means pack justice.” A few of the hunters look like they’ve swallowed their own tongues. To be expected from humans but one of them lunges forward. The one that was staring at the she-wolf.
“Fuck that you fucking freaks!” He swings his rifle up. I sigh because he’s going to try to shoot me again. He isn’t fast enough. I move forward, prepared to disarm him but when I do, I don’t think to take into account the she-wolf throwing herself in front of me.
“No!” She screams but the word is more of a garbled bark. She’s shifted. Fuck. I grab for her but she’s too fast. Her wolf goes right for the man’s throat. The gun in his hands fires but when it does it’s straight up into the sky because he’s on his back with a wolf on his chest. I think about forcing her to shift but that will have her right on top of that sack of shit. Definite no go. She can rip his throat out before he gets the pleasure of touching her human form.
I point at the rest of the hunters. “Nobody move a muscle.” Immediately seven pairs of hands go straight up while their friend screams in terror from where he’s pinned.
“Who is that?” Lucian, my second-in-command and leader of the Defenders, asks, blue eyes on where the she-wolf is now shaking the hunter back and forth like a rag doll.
“I don’t know. Just met her.”
“She’s a fucking beauty. Scaring the hell out of that one.”
I nod. He’s right. I haven’t heard screams this high-pitched since the pups were forced into a summer choir and set their sights on operatics. “He deserved it. Shot me.” I’m not onehundred percent he’s the one that pulled the trigger but seeing as he just tried to shoot me again, I’m making the educated guess that it was him.
Lucian jerks back and looks me over. “You got shot? No shit.” He grabs my arm andtsksgetting a good look at the wound that’s already healing over. “That’s going to scar unless you can figure out a salve from Jo’s notes.” He’s right about the scar which I’ll live with because I’ve never been good at deciphering Jo’s notes.
Jo was our old healer. She delivered just about everyone in the past three generations and it’s been four winters since she passed. I smile remembering the ball of energy the healer was. The last thing she’d done was oversee renovations to the Healer’s rooms entirely. We thought about gutting the old rooms on the ground floor but it was easier to turn a new space into what Jo wanted. Without Jo we haven’t had a healer and her rooms have sat empty and dark since her passing.
The she-wolf slams the man down so hard that she manages to make dust rise from the muddy ground. Lucian lets out an impressed whistle and a few of the other Defenders start taking bets on her being a new recruit for their team. I don’t like the thought of her out with them patrolling the boundaries. Even if she can defend herself it doesn’t sit right with me.
“All right, that’s enough. Round this lot up and put them in holding until we can get a trial sorted.”
The older hunter I was speaking to pulls his hat off his head and gives me a searching look. “It was an honest mistake. We-really, please we have to go home. You can’t lock us up.”
“You hunted on pack lands and shot the pair of us,” I say, pointing at the she-wolf who seems bored with the hunter. She’s dragged him to a hunter and proudly dropped him like he’s her latest kill. “You’re going to trial. Once we decide what to do withyou then we can sort out you getting home but as for now, you’re prisoners.”
“But-” he tries again but it’s no use. The Defenders descend on them and disarm the hunters before any others get the bright idea to take a pot shot at us.
Lucian comes to my side. “We’ll get them up the hill and dry them off. Alpha will be able to hear the trial in the morning.”
I nod. “Morning is good. We’ll have enough light to get them back to town without them breaking their necks.” I don’t know what the punishment our Alpha will decide but we’ve got enough humans in the pack and connections to Oak Fast that I bet he’ll have them arrested by their own kind. Fine by me. I’ve got more than enough to deal with.
“But what are we going to do about her?” Lucian asks. He looks back at the wolf, uncertain. She’s trotted off now, back towards the path that leads to the trailhead. We watch as she drops her head and picks up a bag. It looks small in her teeth.
“Take her to Red River,” I say without thinking. “I’ve got shit to do.”
It’s true, I do.
“That right?” Lucian gives me a raised eyebrow.
“Gonna check the southern perimeter. Maybe run into town and let the sheriff know they’ll have their hands full once the Alpha decides what to do with the degenerates,” I say, motioning towards the hunters being marched up the path to Red River.
There’s a yelp and the sound of a bag hitting the ground a few feet away. I don’t have to look to know the she-wolf just took her skin back. From the sounds of it her wolf wasn’t too happy about it.
Lucian glances over her way and lets out a whistle. “She’s a beauty all right.”
“Eyes off her,” I order.
