Comes Now the Wicked Woodsman (10 page)

"Exactly!" Clover answered and gave Paisley a light shoulder bump. "And Mallory doesn't have one of those apps on his phone."

"So for all we know, Mallory took the video? Which would mean he's the shooter, right?"

Paisley's questions echoed my thoughts. I also knew a few details neither girl was aware of yet, like the kerosene used to hide the shooter's scent or that Mallory was one of the best riflemen the Woodsmen had in its ranks.

My fingers started strumming at the steering wheel again, the angry young woman next to me almost forgotten as we drew close to the small spread of homes and businesses that made up the official city limits of Night Falls.

Kerosene had been used to hide the scent, meaning someone would recognize the shooter because it was an inside job or Onyx's old pack, or there was a chance we'd come into contact with the shooter later, like someone from the Illinois prides allied with Onyx's pack. But kerosene was a tactic Mallory had advocated more than once when he was regaling the younger Woodsmen about the old pack wars he'd been in on Gulf Coast. And he was one of our best, if not our best, riflemen.

But was the shooter actually good?

I didn't think so. Six shots had been taken just to graze Paisley's head. The shot that took Clover down could only be marginally considered a kill shot. She hadn't died and a mere fraction of an inch to the left or the availability of competent and quick emergency medical services would have meant even a human could have survived the shot.

So Mallory had two out of three strikes against him -- the video and the kerosene.

Pulling to a stop at the back of my drive, I ordered Paisley and Clover to stay in the truck, Rooster and Clark watching over them while I went inside with the other half of our escort to make sure the house hadn't been booby trapped in our absence.

When I emerged fifteen minutes later, Clover was already out of the car and tapping her foot impatiently. A glance over her shoulder told me why.

The window was down on the passenger's side. Rooster stood by the open window chatting with Paisley. Or he was trying to. She didn't seem ready to engage anyone other than Clover in conversation.

Clover cleared her throat and shot me one of her looks. She didn't use it often, not with me at least, but its meaning was clear.

Don't fuck this up!

"This" was me and Paisley, something Clover had been trying to make happen since she had found out Paisley would be going to college in Michigan. Baby sister had ramped up her efforts when Paisley decided to major in forestry. With only one nearby park, Paisley was as likely to get a job near Night Falls as I was to ever get another kiss from her sweet lips.

"Inside," I growled, hooking Clover's arm as she started to storm past me. "When I tell you to stay in a vehicle, you obey. You don't get out and make yourself an easier target."

She blinked, tears welling in her luminous green eyes as she rasped her reply. "I'm not going to stay in the truck and risk Paisley becoming collateral damage -- again."

Wrenching her arm free, she pushed past me and slammed the screen door against the side of the house. Paisley followed more demurely, gaze down as she went out of her way to get from the truck to the house without coming within arm's reach of me.

Rooster followed after with the bags and Clark grabbed the sheet of plywood from the back of the truck.

Right, time to grab a hammer and nails and really piss my baby sister off.

********************

Braeden

"That is ugly as shit," Clover said as I sank the last nail into the plywood.

She had already given me hell over putting it up in the first place, especially after I confirmed her suspicion that this was the only room getting the window blocked. But it was either that or I was going to have to sleep in the same room as Paisley because I had no doubt Clo would run away with her best friend. The board would stay up until I felt confident I could trust them to ride out the thirty days.

"Really," she kept poking. "It could not be uglier if you literally rubbed feces all over it."

I shrugged, hammer bouncing lightly against my thigh. "So tell Clark what color you want him to pick up at the hardware store."

"Prison gray," Clover sniped.

I shrugged again, my gaze locking on Paisley. Through all the hammering, she had stayed on the bed, silent as she slowly unpacked her bag.

"Like I said, tell Clark."

Paisley stood, her gaze darting to pick out a path from her spot by the bed to the door without brushing against me before she returned to staring at the floor.

"I need to use the restroom," she announced to no one in particular.

I took a few steps away from the door. I wouldn't coddle her the entire month, but I would give her a day or two of doing everything within her power to avoid acknowledging my existence or looking at me.

She hated me. I got that. Hell, after what I had done last night, I kind of hated myself. I had taken her out to the barn to let her have a private melt down after telling her Taron's plan. But the idea of anyone else, shifter or human, wooing her hit me hard. It didn't help that she had Rooster's scent on her and I had just watched a video showing me how close I'd come to losing her completely.

But no matter how badly I wanted to claim her, or how willing her body had been, I shouldn't have taken her.

There were more reasons for holding back than I had fingers. Paisley had gone through a hell of a lot of trauma in less than 24 hours. She had been shot, had seen her best friend shot, had dragged Clover to safety then discovered a wolf that half an hour later would transform back into Clover and now she was a prisoner facing a parole that came with a lifetime mated to some male from a different species.

Hell, I couldn't even begin to guess what she thought about the fact that we could shift or if Clover had told her about the alpha state. For humans, the alpha state was the real horror show. Alpha shifters were not cute little doggy-woggies. We were beasts.

The state of the pack added more reasons to why claiming her was a mistake. Taron had only achieved an uneasy agreement by insinuating any single male was free to court Paisley so long as she was willing to be courted by the male. And there I was, the club's vice president and second in command with the pack, physically claiming Paisley the same damn day.

With emotions still running high from the Illinois-based attack, I could have been signing a death warrant for Paisley, my sister and me.

Paisley's surprised whisper drifted down the hall.

"What the fuck?"

My senses kicked into high gear. She didn't sound frightened, and the only extra body in the house was Clark.

Remembering where she was headed, I bolted out of the room and down the hall, my hand flashing in front of her to rip the sign off the bathroom door, but not before I got one last chance to read it.

Caution -- do not enter without permission unless you want to see a whole lot of dick.

I had sarcastically put the warning up the morning before right after Clover had walked in on me in the bathroom, my cock still semi-erect from trying to masturbate Paisley out of my thoughts. I hadn't been back to the house until now and one of the other Woodsmen had checked the bathroom for any dangers.

He had probably gotten a laugh out of it. But it was just another reason for Paisley to choose some other suitor, one who didn't have an occasionally oversize ego and was too refined to put such a note on the door.

"Clover doesn't always knock," I growled in explanation. "And I wasn't expecting you back here any time soon after you indicated you preferred the Crockers' ratty little cabins to my home."

"Still do," she shot back before shouldering her way into the bathroom and shutting the door.

Yeah, tell me something I don't already know, beautiful.

Hearing a smug grunt from my little sister, I glanced over my shoulder. She signed something then jabbed a finger at me. I had no idea what she was saying. She had tried to get me to learn when we first came to Night Falls and Taron took us into his home until he found us a place of our own when I turned eighteen.

Heading into the kitchen, I heard the faint crunch of something moving over the gravel drive, the sound too smooth to be feet and too soft to be anything other than a kid's bicycle.

Opening the door, I found Garland putting his kickstand down, his gaze cutting once to my side as he sensed my presence. Slowly he turned, his backpack held in front of him like body armor.

"Clover said to come right over."

"You maybe think she meant once it was light out?" I asked.

I forced the scowl from my face, reminding myself that Garland was just a kid and an elk. Not that anyone wanted to mess with a full grown alpha elk like Mojo, particularly if he had a reason to get his antlers up.

But Garland didn't need or deserve my scaring the piss out of him.

Stepping outside, I held the screen door open for him.

"Come on in. You drink coffee?"

"No." He jiggled his backpack and I heard the clink of cans. "I filled up before I came over."

"So you're just a little afraid of my baby sister?" I joked.

"Practically not afraid at all," he answered with a queasy smile before looking past the kitchen to make sure she wasn't standing in the next room.

"Down the hall and to the right," I directed, the first and probably only smile of my day twisting at my lips. "I imagine she's already got her laptop out and fired up considering that she had to go a whole day without it."

The kid nodded, turned and froze, his expression going soft.

His cheeks colored at the exact second I smelled a wave of feminine anger, its edges undefined. I stepped behind Garland to find that Paisley had just come out of the bathroom. I knew by the scent coming off Garland that he was smitten. And the little shit had been there when Taron had basically said she was fair game until she crossed someone off the list of players or finally selected her mate.

"Don't make me hurt you, young bull," I whispered softly in his ear as my hands landed firmly on his thin shoulders.

He twitched, his scent changing instantly. "Yes sir."

"Down the hall and to the right," I reminded him before crooking an imperious finger at Paisley.

"A moment of your time."

********************

Paisley

"Have a seat," Braeden said with a nod toward the couch.

Ignoring his order for where I should plant my ass, I sat on the edge of the side chair, cheeks blistering at the way he had called me to him like I was some kind of trained dog.

I expected him to sit, as well, but he stood in front of me, big hands fisted and planted on his lean hips as he looked down at me. For the first time since I woke up that morning, I stared directly at his face, his crotch being my only other alternative.

"Something's been chewing at the back of my brain all morning and I just figured out what it is."

I rolled my eyes. He only had one thing gnawing at his thick skull? Or was it just one unnamed thing?

Lifting one hand from his hip, he captured my chin with a pinch and held my head in place.

"Your irritation at Garland getting all moon-eyed was the first whiff of emotion I've sensed from you. That isn't normal."

He bent down, his body settling into a catcher's position while his hand moved to curl around my lower jaw.

"Do you feel like you're in shock?"

I snorted. If the day before was any indication, I could confidently say I knew what being in shock felt like -- the disjointed thoughts that had buzzed through my mind, the shaky nausea, the way all the sounds originating outside my body had been thickly muffled.

Sitting there in Braeden's house, I was most certainly not in any medical or psychological state of shock.

"No," I answered. Seeing the disbelief in his gaze, I offered as brief an explanation as I could muster. "I am not allowing myself to feel anything. That's why you can't smell my emotions."

"Baby girl, no one can make themselves not feel."

I looked through him, my voice and words hollow as I responded. "When you're in the back seat of the car when your parents are decapitated, you learn how."

Braeden's hand fell away and he stepped back. He laced his fingers together, the thumbs restlessly warring with one another before he abruptly pivoted, circumnavigated the coffee table and sat down with a hard thump on the leather couch.

Grabbing the arm rests, I pushed up.

"Stay," he growled. "If you want to continue being an emotional zombie, you won't go in Clover's bedroom while she and Garland are working through the video."

I wasn't eager to see myself getting shot, but if I wanted to keep my feelings shut off, I needed to get away from the man in front of me.

The thick, autumn gold brows lifted as if he were reading my mind and found its contents surprising.