One little girl gulped back a sob, and the bigger of the two wolves turned and snarled ferociously at her. She clapped her tiny hand over her mouth, trembling violently, with fat tears swelling in her eyes and spilling down her face. The boy next to her, pale-faced, put his arm around her shoulders, and she buried her face against his T-shirt.
The other two men were in human form, holding silver-coated blades. Dakota could smell the silver from across the room. One of the cubs – a skinny boy with a wild explosion of ginger hair and so many freckles he looked like a join-the-dots puzzle – was bleeding from a deep slash to his arm. One of the bastards had cut him.
Dakota heard a deep, primal growl from beside her. It raised her hackles and went straight to a primitive part of her brain that screamed “Danger! Predator!” She was very glad that Anthea was on her side.
The wolves turned snarling, their hackles raised. They were both much bigger than Dakota. And even though Anthea outweighed the pair of them combined, and was mad enough to rip their heads off and wear them as earrings, the bad guys had one factor in their favor – or rather seven factors. Dakota and Anthea’s first priority was to get the cubs out of there unharmed. The two big, snarling wolves and the men with the silver blades would kill the children without a second thought.
Dakota crouched low and growled at the smaller of the two wolves. His lip curled back, exposing vicious yellow fangs. He narrowed bloodshot eyes at her and his ears flattened against his skull. Then he leaped. Anthea spun, lashing out with her gigantic paw and knocking him out of the air. He hit the wall with the sickening crack of broken bones and slid to the floor. The other wolf sprang for Dakota, bowling her over.
One of the men with knives seized a tow-headed boy around the waist and lifted him off the floor, pressing the razor edge of his silver-coated blade against the child’s throat. Anthea turned towards them. She thumped down onto all fours and rumbled a warning.
Dakota and the wolf struggled, twisting and snarling. He raked his teeth down her side and flipped on top of her, shifting into human form so he could get his hands around her throat. Two could play at that game. Dakota shifted too, and kneed him in the balls, hard.
He howled with pain and anger, and backhanded Dakota across the face. She tasted blood in her mouth, and spat in his face as he grabbed her by the throat again, staggering to his feet and pulling her up to her knees. She gasped for breath and scrabbled at his hands.
She was vaguely aware of a commotion on the other side of the room as the tow-headed kid went off like a rocket, sinking his teeth into the wrist of the man holding a knife to his throat. The man yelped and dropped the knife and the boy. He turned to make a grab for the child, but instead found himself facing off with Anthea. It would be difficult to say whether the curve to her muzzle was a snarl or a grin. Either way, it was very bad news for him.
Dakota was in trouble, though. Her mind was getting fuzzy and dark spots were swimming across her vision as her attacker choked her. She scratched his hands, trying feebly to pry his fingers away from her throat, but he was too strong. Everything started to go gray, and the noise of the fight was reduced to a strange underwater ringing in her ears.
Then she felt a blast of pure rage slicing through the room. Miles. His anger was like the crack of a whip. The shifter holding her released her, clapping his hands to his head and howling with pain. He fell to his knees, blood streaming from his eyes as Miles’s fury ruptured something inside him.
Dakota heaved in an enormous breath, coughing and gasping as Miles and his men stormed into the room. A metallic tinkle told her that the two kidnappers who were still standing had dropped their silver knives. As if that would save them. She tried to ignore the grisly crunching noise as Anthea made it clear what happened to anyone who threatened a cub in her school.
The fight was over in minutes. Apart from a nasty cut and a couple of bruises, the children were unharmed. The biggest casualty was Dakota’s dignity – she hadn’t thought the next times Miles saw her naked would be brawling with no pants on.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Miles asked Dakota for the fifth time as they stood outside in the parking lot.
She was bleeding from the mouth, but it had already slowed.
“I’m fine. I heal fast,” she assured him. “Go do what you need to do.”
Anders had put the call out to the local packs they were allied with, and they were pouring into the school parking lot. Worried parents had rushed there to pick up their cubs – and they were as mad as hell. The Clearwater Pack had made a fatal miscalculation when they’d chosen to betray Miles.