Wild Instinct (2 page)

The lie was in her scent. If Teri could, she’d go back in time and erase the friendship that had exposed her to the wolves who’d breathed her scent, recognized her as a potential breeder and raped her, responding to instinct rather than logic. Half-blood children had no worth. Sarah Anne couldn’t blame her any more than she could bring herself to dispute Teri’s claim. The woman had just regained her emotional feet. And strangely, the pregnancy had provided the vehicle.

“So what’s our plan?” Rachel asked, calm as always, her de meanor as restrained as the bun that always held back her long black hair. No matter what, Rachel was always serene.

“Same as before. Shoot as many as we can.”

Teri smiled a cold smile. “That works for me.”

Sarah Anne cast a glance at Teri. If she was terrified, she was hiding it well. “Remember, shoot for the organs and the brain. Do as much damage as possible on each individual. Wolves don’t go down easily.”

Only a catastrophic series of injuries could bypass a werewolf’s ability to heal.

Teri smiled again. “I’m good with that.”

The scars were the tip of the iceberg when it came to the injuries Teri had sustained. Sarah Anne could easily believe she was fine with anything that had to do with taking out a male wolf. She carefully checked the trail. The shadows glided closer. Still only ten, as far as she could tell. It might as well be one hundred.

“Rachel.”

“I know.”

She needed to say it anyway. “Don’t let them get my son.”

Rachel placed her hand on Sarah Anne’s arm. Her scent, her energy, all radiated comfort. Sarah Anne didn’t know how Rachel held on to hope. “Things aren’t going to be that bad.”

They already were. “Take Josiah, shift, go out the side entrance and then run like hell.”

Rachel grabbed Josiah’s hand. “Maybe I can carry—”

Sarah Anne shook her head. “We already discussed it. You can’t carry Meg, and she can’t change.” Like her mother. “She’ll never be able to keep up.”

Meg, hearing her name, sensing the tension, puckered up and stamped her foot. “I want ’Siah!”

Every instinct in Sarah Anne echoed Meg’s cry. Sarah Anne pulled Meg against her thigh, rubbing her hands up and down her tiny ribs. How was she supposed to make this choice? She stared at the figures getting closer, the wind carrying the taint of their scent, and she knew. She just did. “Josiah’s going with Aunt Rachel.”

“No.”

She met Josiah’s stare. Someday he’d be an Alpha, maybe a Protector, but right now he was a baby, and staring down his mother was beyond his capacity. But not by much. “You go with Rachel, Josiah. You do everything she tells you and you make your father proud.”

His little feet were planted shoulder-width apart. A snarl rumbled in his chest as his nostrils flared, scenting the danger riding the wind. “I’m not leaving you.”

Sarah Anne blinked at the flash of the man he’d someday be. His father would have been so proud. Smoothing her hand over the rich chocolate color of his hair, she blinked again, this time in an effort to hold back the tears. “You have to go. Rachel needs protection, too, and I don’t have anyone else to send with her.”

His chin set. “She can stay here.”

He also had her stubbornness. “No, she can’t. She has to take an important message to Pack Haven.”

“I do need you, Josiah,” Rachel interjected.

His chin trembled, and he suddenly became a little boy again. Her little boy, who was trying so hard not to be scared as she asked the impossible of him. Meg hugged her leg and looked up, hazel eyes big with the belief that her mother could work miracles. “Please, Mommy?”

Sarah Anne heard the faint swish of brush against clothing as the soldiers approached. They were out of time. She grabbed Josiah and drew him in, bending to hold her son and daughter close in her arms one last time—her life, her future—breathing in their familiar scents, playing over in her mind every good memory she could find, bonding them together in that moment, just in case there wasn’t another. “Remember who you are, Josiah,” she whispered into his hair. He nodded, the tear he wouldn’t let her see seeping through the thin cotton of her shirt.

“I’m a Protector.”

He was so convinced of that. “And a Stone. Don’t ever forget that, or think it’s not a valuable part of you.”

Another nod.

“We have to leave now, Sarah Anne,” Rachel interjected quietly.

With one last squeeze, Sarah Anne let Josiah go. “Be careful.”

Rachel put her hands protectively on Josiah’s shoulder, a small, strained smile on her face. “I’m the careful one, remember?”

Sarah Anne remembered that, along with many other things.

Teri looked out the entrance. “It’s now or never, guys.”

A bolt of pure fear stabbed through Sarah Anne. Josiah’s escape out the side entrance had to be perfectly timed so he wouldn’t be seen or scented, and even with perfect timing the plan had only a scant chance of success. The weight of impossibility strained Sarah Anne’s voice as she lifted her daughter up. “Run very fast, Josiah.”

He nodded, looking like a little boy again as he asked, “And you’ll meet us at the south ridge, come morning?”

Nothing short of death would keep her away. “That’s the plan.”

It was enough for him. She caught Rachel’s hand as she turned away, tugging her around. She had to say it. “Thank you.”

The words were so paltry compared to the emotion backing them. If they got out of this alive, Rachel could ask anything of Sarah Anne, anything at all, and Sarah Anne would grant it.

Rachel inclined her head. “Anything for the Alpha female.”

“I’m not pack.” Even after eight years, it still hurt to say that. “Let alone Alpha.”

Rachel sighed as if the truth were a deception. Teri looked at them both and shook her head. “If pack means family, then I think we’re it.” She hefted the rifle. “Now, if nobody objects, I’ve got some damage to do.”

GUNFIRE echoed through the canyon.

“You can’t fault them for courage,” Garrett murmured as a woman and a boy slipped out the side entrance of the cave, shifted and then started to run perpendicular to the hillside, blending into the night, the female shielding the cub. The gunfire from the interior picked up in a rapid spate, no doubt in hope of keeping the main group distracted.

Beside him, Cur snarled as two bigger shadows slid into the night behind the woman and child. “Can’t fault the woman and kid for a damn thing, but I’ve got a hell of a bone to pick with those SOBs hunting them.” He touched his hand to the transceiver attached to his ear.

“Daire, you’ve got two friendlies in fur heading your way.”

Daire’s distinctive, gravelly voice rumbled over the connection that linked all five Protectors on this mission. “I’ve got them.”

“They’ve got company following.”

Daire’s satisfied growl preceded his, “Good.”

“Nice to know his reputation isn’t inflated,” Cur grunted over his and Garrett’s private frequency as he angled wide to cut off two soldiers heading up toward the side entrance.

Garrett supposed it was. He moved to the left, flanking the two soldiers who comprised his targets. The scum didn’t know it yet, but they were surrounded. Whoever had sent the note had been a bit vague on her directions, causing a critical delay. But they were here now and the matter would be settled.

“I’m just glad he’s on our side.” Daire was a big son of a bitch, even for a were, and he wore the violence of his history in the scars on his body. It took a hell of a lot to scar a were.

“Thought when he went freelance, he went rogue?”

“I’m not sure he hasn’t.”

Garrett wasn’t sure of anything when it came to this new pack, least of all Daire’s reasons for joining this mission. His and Cur’s motivations were easy to see. Neither had chosen to become part of the packless lost, and when the McGowans had approached them in the bar and offered them pack status, they hadn’t hesitated; they had run to accept. The McGowans were legend. Fierce fighters. Old-school Protectors, who put pack and honor first. It would be a privilege for any Protector to be asked to join forces with the McGowans. For outlawed rogues like him and Cur, it was a prize without equal.

Below, there was movement. Garrett sighted his rifle on one of the soldiers closing in on Kelon McGowan, just in case. He switched his transceiver back to all frequencies. “You’ve got trouble on your tail, Kelon.”

Through the sight, he could clearly see the smile of anticipation flash across Kelon’s face. “Thanks.”

The enemy leapt straight for Kelon’s seemingly unprotected back. The rogue might be a soldier, but Kelon was a Protector, and that much faster, that much stronger, that much more pissed. He spun and caught the wolf midleap, evaded the swipe of the soldier’s claws through the simple expedience of breaking his arm, and then, in the split second while the man hung helpless, delivered justice with a graceful, lethal simplicity that Garrett admired. When the signal came, he’d do the same to the two men marked as his. These men hunted women and children of his new pack. They would not survive the night.

The sense of rightness strengthened as Garrett slid the rifle into the scabbard on his back and moved forward, ears tuned for the call to battle, adrenaline pumping through his body in a familiar rush, enhancing the drive of muscle, the acuteness of his senses. For the first time, he entered battle not to defend himself, or an ideal, but in defense of his pack. Satisfaction and pride blended with cold calculation as he crouched and waited, his marks in sight, one moving up the slide of rock to the cave entrance, the other tucked behind a tree ten feet away, gun aimed at the cave mouth. Garrett smiled, claws extending. The bastard would never get that shot off.

“Everyone in position?”

Donovan McGowan’s question whispered through his earpiece.

Four echoes of “Go” whispered back.

Garrett looked up toward the entrance. His second target had reached it, fanatically dedicated to his mission, clearly confident he could overpower the women inside. Garrett couldn’t wait much longer.

Gunfire flashed from the mouth of the cave.

A second later the McGowan war cry split the night, reverberating across the valley. Garrett leapt for the sniper, the element of surprise making the kill simple. Too simple for the rage pumping through him. Without hesitation, he picked up the battle cry echoing around him and raced up the hill. A hint of a woman’s fear blew down on the wind, catching on some instinctive recognition inside, pulling it forward, centering his rage, his focus. A baby screamed. A woman cried out.

He sent his promise ahead on another howl.

Two

THE enemy was on them.

Sarah Anne shoved more cartridges into the shotgun as a shadow became the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man. Beside her, Teri fired the rifle. Meg screamed, the terror in the sound an echo of the emotion churning inside Sarah Anne. Damn the bastards. Just one more thing to lay at their feet. Until that moment, Meg hadn’t known real fear.

The silhouette stuttered, but didn’t stop. Teri fired again. This time the shadow didn’t hesitate. As it came closer, Sarah Anne could make out the face of a wolf in battle heat, face slightly mor phed, claws extended, death in his dark eyes. Teri’s next shot produced only a metallic click.

“Drop back to Meg and reload,” Sarah Anne ordered, yanking up the shotgun.

“You can’t fight them off alone.”

No, she couldn’t, but she couldn’t stand Meg’s screams. “The shotgun does more damage.”

Another scream from Meg. The note in this one different, whipping her around. “Mommy!”

A quick glance over her shoulder showed another man in the cave reaching for her baby, claws extended. “Meg!”

She swung around, aimed the shotgun, knowing even as she did she couldn’t risk the shot. From behind her, down the hill, came a wild cry. Feral, primitive, deadly. A Protector’s challenge. Help was coming. Too late. Teri was already in motion, running for the man, gun held up like a club.

“Teri, no!”

The soldier turned, and waited, meeting Sarah Anne’s gaze over Teri’s shoulder. A sense of horror washed over Sarah Anne. She knew him. Colin. The werewolf from an affiliated pack whose suit she’d rejected. Teri didn’t stop, just issued a challenge as feral as any Protector’s.

“Get away from her!”

From outside the cave, more battle cries rose, so close, yet too far away to do any good. Stone scraped over dirt behind her. Her breath locked in her throat, she braced for the tear of the other soldier’s claws, diving desperately for her daughter and Teri. She heard the impact of two heavy bodies colliding, followed by snarls. She didn’t care. Nothing going on behind her mattered. All that mattered was her daughter and the woman so fiercely determined to pit her fragile, human body against a full- blooded were-soldier.