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Baseball Jerk and the third guy started shouting, their shouts and curses lined thick with terror at what was happening right in front of their eyes. A soft thud sounded over the constant chorus of growling, shocked cries, and the sickly, wet sound oof flesh tearing and teeth crunching bones. Tugging her top down to cover her breasts, her eyes dropped to the ground.
Three rifles, lay scattered only a few feet from where she stood, the wooden panels gleaming in the sunlight.
A quick glance to her right revealed the third guy had remembered them, too. Behind her, Lacey heard the sounds of twigs crunching beneath hurried boots. Baseball Jerk must be trying to get the hell out of there. But Bruised Bastard wasn’t going anywhere.
His eyes darted upwards, meeting hers.
They both dived at the same time.
Dirt billowed up around her knees as they hit the ground, both reaching for a rifle at the same time. His feet kicked two of the weapons away from her, his hand grabbing the final one and snatching it away from her at the last minute.
Frustration ate at her gut, along with rage and hatred towards him and the others. It burned through her bones, fuelling the need to take the weapon from him. Her face screwed up with all the emotions, her eyes blazing daggers his way.
She reached for the end of the rifle but only grabbed air. A steel-capped boot struck her in her chest, wringing a cry from her mouth, and sending her sprawling back in the dirt. He took at a step backwards, his concentration drawn back to the wolf. Even from where she sat, she could see the red-hot fear flashing across his face.
He took another step backwards, his gaze solely on the creature in front. He cocked the rifle high, the barrel aimed straight for it, who continued to tear Bruised Bastard’s neck into tiny strips of mangled flesh.
Not on my watch, asswipe.
If that wolf was Mason – and she didn’t doubt it for a second – and those bastards shot him, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the next bullet would have her name on.
Whether that was before or after they’d finish what they started earlier, who knew, but Lacey did not want to find out.
Instead, Lacey scrambled to her feet, her limbs trembling with emotions: fear, anger, exhaustion. With a deep breath, she reached for the middle part of the gun. Wrapping her fingers around the metal, cold and hard within her clammy hand, she yanked it away from him, but couldn’t actually pry it from his fingers. A second later, a shot rang through the air, piercing through the ear-splitting pounding of her heartbeat in her ears.
The grey wolf lifted his head from Bruised Bastard’s throat, blood dripping onto the lifeless body at his paws, and sent a menacing growl in his direction.
“Shiiit,” he whispered, his eyes as wide as a saucer.
Lacey knew Mason could take him down, but the rage within wouldn’t allow her to simply let him take this kill. After everything they’d done to her, this was hers.
Mustering all the strength she could find, Lacey aimed a hard kick to the guy’s knee, producing a startled cry from his mouth as a sickening popping noise rang in her ears. Falling to the ground, his grip on the rifle loosened enough for Lacey to snatch it away. Gritting her teeth, she pulled back her arm, tightened her own hold on the weapon, and smashed the butt of it into the side of his face.
A second later, the wolf pounced on him, his massive paws pinning him to the ground whilst his razor sharp teeth quickly tore strips of flesh from his face.
Screams tore through the forest like a knife through butter. Nausea rolled in Lacey’s stomach, threatening to send her to her knees and bring up all the contents from the night before. Her eyes remained fixed on the carnage, and as teeth ground their way through cartilage and bone, satisfaction rolled alongside the sickening wave inside. She didn’t care if the man had a family, a wife, children, parents who loved him – this man was a rapist. He deserved everything he got. She only wished she could make this moment, these few seconds of exquisite agony, last a lifetime.
Shudders took control of his body, and the fingers that gripped the wolf’s fur, desperately trying to get it off him, started to fall away.
A single moment of pain would never be enough for what they truly deserved. But it would have to do.
Through the haze of her mind, Lacey thought she heard running, of twigs snapping beneath feet, but she couldn’t be certain. Her head twisted behind her, only to watch Baseball Jerk’s chubby body disappear out of sight.
When his legs finally stopped twitching, the grey wolf lifted his crimson-soaked muzzle. Amber eyes fixed on her face.
In her chest, Lacey’s heart froze as she waited to see whether her hunch was correct or not. If this really was the man who’d had shown her such pleasure, the one fate had marked her as his, he shouldn’t hurt her.
Shouldn’t, anyway.
But this wolf was an alpha. OK, he may not have a pack like Sam, but the energy surrounding him, the power barely contained in that mesmerising form, couldn’t be denied.
But neither could reality. He’d killed two men in front of her. Nathan’s words came back to haunt her.
“We are both man and beast, Lace. When the beast starts to kill, it doesn’t know how to stop.”
He’d gone on to tell her that some shifters, consumed by the taste of fresh blood and the love of the kill, couldn’t tell who was friend, and who was foe. All they knew was the desire for more. More blood, more death. And they got it.
But the following day, when the fur had receded and human cognition returned, they would find out just what the beast could do.
