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Perhaps not the most elegant way to coordinate the troops, but given the way Holden rolled his eyes, I suspected my point had been made. He stayed within the cover of the grass and edged towards the front of the barn. At least I assumed he was moving because I couldn’t see him anymore, and he was so quiet he might as well have been sitting still.
I waited a few moments, holding my breath in anticipation of him being spotted, or perhaps expecting him to acknowledge he was safely in position. All I got was quiet.
Turning toward Desmond, I jerked my chin towards the back of the ba
rn, and he set off crawling ahead of me. Since it was less distance to travel, we got there a lot faster than our initial trek across the field, and by now my hands were numb to both the cold and the pointy shards of hard grass that kept stabbing me.
The windows at the rear of the barn were dark, and the big sliding barn door was wrapped up with a length of chain and padlocked shut.
My fingers tightened reflexively around the sword. A bit of chain would be nothing for the blade to slice through, but metal on metal was sure to make one hell of a racket. Yet, if the door was bolted, it suggested there was something inside worth protecting. I couldn’t get closer to listen at the door without making myself seen.
I waved for Desmond’s attention then cupped my hand to my ear and raised my eyebrows. God, it was really a good thing I didn’t play charades regularly. I was not skilled at miming.
Des shook his head. I hadn’t expected him to hear much, since I wasn’t hearing anything either. I didn’t like this. We already knew we were being set up, so the silence was clearly a trap. But if Mercy and her wolves were lying in wait, shouldn’t we have smelled them by now? Or at least gotten some hint of their presence?
Yet there was nothing.
Magic.
Was Mercy forcing Grandmere to cloak the area? I wasn’t sure if that was a spell Grandmere was capable of, but I doubted she would cast it without a lot of…persuasion.
Motherfucker.
I wanted to swear out loud but managed to keep my teeth gritted and my opinions to myself. Desmond was next to me suddenly, his hand braced on my shoulder. My angry face must have given away how I was feeling. I was as bad at hiding my emotions as I was at miming.
As quickly as he’d appeared, his comforting grip shifted to a clutch that bordered on painful, and I swallowed a small meep of surprise, trying to swat his hand away.
Then the smell hit me.
Wolves.
Not the musk of a werewolf in his human form, but the full furry scent of a wolf on the prowl. And it was practically right on top of us.
Desmond grabbed me and hauled us both to our feet a moment before the big gray wolf lunged forward. It landed where I’d been crouched, its teeth bared and saliva dripping down like it was rabid. The creature’s eyes were practically black from how wide the pupils were blown.
I lifted my sword and backed Desmond and myself against the barn so we wouldn’t get any more nasty sneak-attack surprises. Desmond, smooth as hell, unfastened one of my holster snaps and withdrew a gun before I’d even noticed his touch.
“Do you know how to use that thing?” I asked.
He leveled me with a condescending glare that would have made Holden proud. “Please.” He tucked the gun into the back of his jeans and armed the shotgun with a satisfying shunk sound. It was a smart move on his part to grab the pistol. He only had so many rounds with the shotgun, and once he was out of ammo, he’d need a backup. Clever.
“Fine. But watch the shell casings. They’re silver, and they come out hot. If they touch you, you’ll get double burned.” I’d learned this lesson the hard way a few times out in the field and didn’t want him recoiling with shock when the metal hurt him.
Last thing I needed right now was a distracted wingman.
The wolf’s ruff stood on end, and he growled ferociously at the pair of us. I could smell a second one but hadn’t spotted it yet. If I could smell it, Desmond wouldn’t need a heads-up.
“Over there.” He angled the gun towards the other side of the barn, and a cinnamon-colored wolf burst out of the grass, skidding to a stop a few feet from us, matching its partner’s menacing snarl. What the hell was going on? It wasn’t a full moon, yet I had two werewolves in all their furry glory snapping at me. Were they, like Mercy and myself, able to change forms at will? Or was it something more sinister?
Desmond kept his gun trained on the new arrival, and I returned my attention to the gray wolf. A voice at the back of my head was nagging for me to listen, but I was otherwise occupied with the task of keeping Desmond and me alive.
Again.
Dry grass crunched to my left, and I swung towards it with my sword raised like an axe, ready to split a new attacker in half. Holden recoiled, almost backing into the wolf, before correcting his course and stepping away from both me and the animal.
“Whoa, there.” He raised his hands in surrender while his gaze darted between my sword and the wolf.
I lowered the blade and took a steadying breath. “Goddammit, Holden, I could have cut you in two.”
