The Shepard's Agony (7 page)

“
So it was all a lie. Everything. You were never in the army. You never wanted me to meet your dad. You don’t have a farm in the country.
And
, you never…” she trailed off. She was about to accuse him of never loving her, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it. To say it would somehow make it more real.

“That’s not true,” he said indignantly. “I never told you I was in the army. I did want you to meet my dad, and I do have a farm.”

She raised her head. “
Oh
yeah? Where?”

He shrugged. “Somewhere in Saskatchewan.”

“You’ve never even been there?”

The truth
was
, his family had up and left the place when he was still a
baby
. It was still in the Shepard name, just sitting there, abandoned and waiting for someone to come back and save it from the weeds.

Shepard had many fantasies of leaving the
hunting life to live in the country as a farmer. Somewhere quiet where he could work all day and forget about everything horrible.

“I thought you were angry because I’m a Shepard, not because of some farm.”

“That’s not the point. You kill people for a living.”

Shepard didn’t try to touch her again, but he knelt before her and
spoke
. “Gwen, please understand that I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to get out. I’ve never killed a werewolf that didn’t deserve it since I was a
kid
. Before then, I never even knew they were people.”

Gwen’s lips thinned and she scowled hard.

Shepard tensed, unsure if he should prepare for an attack.

That was probably the wrong thing to say.

Gwen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He’d never killed a werewolf that didn’t deserve it? What was
that
supposed to mean? She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of him and his
family
, but stopped when a faint sound caught her ears.

Gwen snapped her head toward the door, the familiar sound of
barking catching her
attention. Not dog barking, but wolf
barking
. Her kind of wolf barking.

Gwen ran toward the door, surprising Shepard, who le
apt to his feet, but she just put her eye to the peep hole.

“
What is it?” he asked, knowing perfectly well that
her senses far surpassed his own.

She didn’t answer right away. Gwen could see the Mexican Grey Wolf and a Red Manned Wolf sniffing around outside by the truck, a truck she recognized to be her father’s. David must have stolen it
. John and Di
must have
tracked her
scent
on
the truck
. She briefly thought of throwing the door open and running out to them, but stopped herself. If they found David, no amount of convincing on her part would stop them from killing him. Shepard or not, two wolves against one man was more than enough.

Keeping her voice low, Gwen turned to him and
whispered
, “We need to get out of here.”

Shepard opened his mouth to ask what she’d seen when the screeching of tires came next. Gwen turned back to the peep hole and saw another truck skid to a halt, a newer and darker one. Two men le
apt out with guns and the shooting began.

Shepard ran to the window when he heard the truck, peeling back the curtains just enough to see the werewolves darting out of the way of the bullets and running into the shrubs.

“Damn,” he hissed. “You’re right. We need to go.”

“
Wait a minute. Those are my packmates. Who are
they
?”

“My brothers.”

Chapter Five

“
Your
brothers
!” Gwen exclaimed. More Shepards had arrived? She had to get out there and warn John!

Gwen grabbed the door handle and tried to rush outside, but it was
locked
. Shepard threw his arms around her before she could unlock it and escape.

“
No!”
he hissed, yanking her away. “No!”

Gwen struggled, forcing herself not to scream at him since it would give them away. “Let go of me! Let go!”
she hissed back.

“
Stop it! Stop,” Shepard said in her ear. She was too strong for him to hold her back for very
long
.
I
f she’d kept that up for much longer, he would’ve had no choice but to let her go. “If you go out there they’ll kill
you
.
Then
, they’ll kill your friends and I won’t be able to stop them.”

Gwen immediately went lax in his grip when his words sank horrifically deep. That was right, when the shooting started she’d forgotten
. If she went out
there
, he wouldn’t be able to help her or her friends, just as she wouldn’t be able to help him. They would both be pitted against each other and someone would surely die.

“
What are we going to do?”
she asked in a small voice. John had come looking for her and Di had tagged
along
. If anything happened to either of
them
, it would be her
fault
.
And,
if one of David’s brothers were hurt … what would he think of her? It
seemed
that neither of
them
had any choice but to stay out of it.

“
We’ll wait until they leave, then sneak off. It’s all we’ve got to
work with so it’s what we’ll do,” he said, loosening his grip on her arms but not releasing her. For a few small
seconds
, he held her
close
. She
allowed herself the small comfort and
leaned her back against his chest.

Gwen wondered why she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. She wanted to, everything would be so much easier if she did. He betrayed her in the worst possible way, used her and left her, then attacked her family and kidnapped her.
But
, what he was doing now, protecting her, it spoke against everything he did in the past. If she were heartless enough, she would have struggled harder, escaped to John and told him that David was actually a Shepard and then collect the reward money on his head.

Gwen mentally played out that scenario, shiver
ing at the
thought
. She then reached her hands up to hold his arms closer around her.

She could never do that.

Groaning with the thought, Gwen turned and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Shepard was having thoughts similar to Gwen
’s. He wished that he wasn’t a hunter and that she wasn’t a werewolf. Everything would have been so much simpler if they’d been born into normal families. But, no, they had to be
different
. Worse still, they had to be different from each other.

Never mind what his father would do if he found out that his youngest son had fallen in love with one of the creatures he’d sworn to wipe from the face of the Earth.

“
I think they’re gone,” h
e said finally, wanting very much to continue holding
her
, but knowing he needed to check to be sure they’d left.

“
I can still hear them,” s
he whispered.

“Can you tell where they are with your hearing?”

“Not too far from here. John keeps trying to circle back. He can smell me in here with you.”

Gwen was amazed he’d been able to track her at all if she’d been in a truck. David must have carelessly left the windows down in his haste to escape with
her
. Nothing that would leave a very fresh scent with the traffic on the highway, no matter how few cars there were at such an hour, but it would explain why it had taken him so long to find her.

“Then
, we need to leave now. They might see us, but we can’t stay here,” he said.

Gwen nodded. He was right, she had to go.
She couldn’t stay
to
help her packmates kill his brothers and he couldn’t stay to do the same. She didn’t care if John or Dianna saw her, she was technically a hostage, but what if the Shepards saw David? What reason would he have to run away from them?

She asked him this question while he opened the door and poked his head out to be sure all was clear.

“Then
, I’ll have a lot of explaining to do,” he said, grabbing her by the
wrist
, he pulled her outside and toward the
truck
. The night air was cool on her face and smelled wonderful and fresh compared to the dusty motel
room
Gwen was glad to finally be leaving.

They both ran to the driver’s side of the truck.

Shepard rai
sed a brow at her. “I’m driving,” he said.

“This is my dad’s truck, you wouldn’t get ten miles without it breaking down on you. I’ll drive.”

“But …”

She could tell he was struggling with the idea of letting her drive and fought the urge to stamp her foot or maybe even punch him. They didn’t have the time for his problems with letting women drive.

“
Go
already
,” she snapped.

“Fine
,” Shepard muttered, running around to the passenger side and jumping in.

As long as she kept the truck
running
, he was fine with having her drive. He didn’t want to have to pull over into the next motel again anyway.

Gwen climbed in the truck, suddenly halting with the key halfway in the ignition, her mouth parted.

“
What is it?” David asked a
s Gwen jerked out of her daze and started the truck.

“It’s nothing.”

***

Hunched low to the ground in the bushes, John growled an angry rumble deep in his chest when Gwen climbed into the driver’s seat with the human who’d taken her. He didn’t know what she was doing, but
he
had
no doubt she was being forced to do it.

Gwen!
he called to her mentally, watching her stall her actions for a second before she started the truck and drove off, ignoring his call.

It was easy enough to figure o
ut that the man with her was a
hunter
. What his intentions were with Gwen was still unknown, as was what he was blackmailing her with to make her comply with him.

Another gunshot sounded and he yowled when his ear exploded.

Shot, he was shot. John dashed toward the nearest cover he could find to inspect the damage
. He brought a paw up to rub against his ear, suppressing a whine with the horrible sting. His ear was gone.

***

Gwen’s skin crawled when she heard the shot. Something bad happened, but she couldn’t go back and find out.

Shepard reached a hand out to touch her shoulder, keeping the other on his gun in case he would need it to defend himself, from her
.
Luckily, s
he kept her eyes on the road and welcomed the comforting touch.

Shepard didn’t say
anything
, allowing her to drive in
peace
, both wondering what their next move would be until an idea came to Gwen. She jumped with enthusiasm and shared it with him.

“We’re going to a vampire’s house?”

She didn’t expect Dav
id to understand. Vampires and werewolves were natural born enemies. Like oil and water, the two didn’t mix.
But
, Evey was different. She wasn’t born a vampire, she was turned, and she wasn’t raised with the prejudices that the others were, not to mention she lived in the area. She could help them by sending a message to Bill and her father. For a fair price.

“Where does she live?” David asked.

Gwen told
him
. Though she’d never been there herself, the house was conveniently close to their usual Moon Night spot, only a twenty minute drive. Evey had given her the address the last time they’d seen each other,
which
, once Gwen stopped to think about it, was nearly a year
ago now
. Would she even still live there?

“
How did you and a vampire ever end up being friends?” he asked.

Gwen was glad he was talking, anything to take her mind off what she was driving away from.

“
We
met a few years back when the pack was having trouble with a coven of witches. Werewolf fur and skin are supposed to be very potent ingredients for potions and spells …” Why was she explaining that to him,
she didn’t know
. Of course he knew about it.

Shepard swallowed and nodded, but didn’t say anything
for fear of upsetting
her. Selling werewolf fur was the reason his family stayed in the hunting business all those years.

“
Well, anyway, Evey was having some
of the same trouble. She had a warlock on her trail who wanted to pull out her fangs with a pair of pliers.”

Shepard flinched in sympathy
. Feeling his teeth with his
tongue, he was
grateful they were there. He understood the problem immediately. Vampire fangs were even more precious on the black market than werewolf fur, mainly because most vampires had a habit of being filthy rich and capable of avoiding such things either through their own strength or the power of those they’d manipulate around them. Most of the time, werewolf pelts were actually sold to the vampires, the bastards.

Jacob
’s teeth were all he had since he could no longer hypnotize people after Garrett put those needles in his eyes. A rare enough talent already, and Jacob could never do it again.