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“You think Mr. Fancy Pants wanted to look at Kalchik’s ugly mug any more than you lot? Or push his nose past all that Aqua Velva to reach the retched odor that was unique to Kalchik? Your beloved leader was a slob who covered his stink with more stink. How hard do you think it was to impersonate a hobo no one wants to look at or be within a few feet of?”
As I answered, my gaze drifted toward a woman emerging from behind a nearby tree. She looked to be in her seventies, but little of her hair showed any silver, and the beauty of her eyes had a way of erasing the wrinkles that surrounded them. None of that distracted me from the assault rifle she held in her hand.
Noticing the woman, shock and irritation twisted Dante's face as he tried to wave her back into position behind the tree. She didn’t pay attention, just kept approaching me in a slow drift, her expression going slack as something dark and painful floated in her gaze.
“Get back behind the tree, Maebh!” Dante barked. "I'll shoot you myself if you can't fucking listen!”
“He’s Sorcha’s,” she said, her voice filled with pain and a touch of wonder.
“Who let this senile bitch get a gun out of the armory!” Dante shouted, sweat beginning to dot his face. “Your daughter is dead and gone...”
As if she had just remembered the assault rifle she held, this Maebh woman lifted it, the barrel pointed not at me, but at Dante.
“I know the energy of my daughter like I know the lines of my hands. He is as related to me as he is to you.”
“Everyone may call you grandmother," he growled, “but I’m not your damn kin.”
“Thank the stars you’re not,” she agreed then gestured at me. “But you are related to him.”
Dante’s hand left the trigger of his shotgun to comb his fingers through his hair, his entire arm shaking with anger.
“It’s true,” Maebh pushed. “There’s a little bit of your father in him…and of Marcus and Kalchik and too many other cowards to name.” Pausing, she swept the tip of her assault rifle across the expanse of the trees where a mix of the Rockford and Champaign wolves remained hidden from my gaze but not my other senses.
“From many, comes one,” she sobbed with a pain that only a parent could feel as her aging body took one small step after another in Dante’s direction. “That’s what they did to her, all because they were afraid of her power. They left her soiled and shamed on my doorstep.”
Pushing his alpha at her, Dante tried one last time to shut the woman up. "You're as crazy as your slut daughter was."
“And you are so much your father’s son,” she growled back a heartbeat before she opened fire.
She had the assault rifle on semi-auto, that final bit of pressure from her index finger on the trigger slamming three rounds center mass into his chest in less than two seconds. Her focus didn’t waver from her target, neither did the rifle barrel. She stepped forward as he was blown backward, plugging him with another three rounds when he landed, this time to the head.
Those hiding behind the trees revealed themselves, but only as much as was necessary for them to draw a bead on Maebh as she continued to fire into Dante’s body.
My mind was slow to process what was happening—it was stuck deciphering her words.
Sorcha
Her daughter
Soiled and shamed
Bullets danced around me and the old woman. She had fallen to her knees and was pummeling Dante’s lifeless chest with her small, clenched hands. Some of Kalchik's wolves were firing at her—or me. The Night Falls shifters returned suppressive fire.
A searing flame punched into my left bicep, knocking the sense back into me. My gaze focused just in time to see that Riley had worked his way to another tree with no one else noticing.
He drew a line on Maebh.
“NO!”
The trees shook with my rage. Leaves fell from the branches. Riley hit the ground, dropping like a lead brick, his body folding in a sudden collapse. More bodies and rifles hit the forest floor.
For a few long seconds, no one said anything. No one but Maebh who sobbed and slapped at Dante's face.
“Shit,” Mallory said after a slow whistle. “They’re knocked out and we’re still standing.”
Passing me, his hand shot out and up in a high five. I managed to slap back in time. Grinning, he moved on to start gathering the weapons of the stunned wolves. Onyx, Axel, and his sons moved to help Mallory.
“Did you really just high five someone?” Onyx asked Mallory.
