I heard Jess’s scream like it was an air raid siren. I got Frank’s attention, directed him further down the highway, to one of the cabins on the right. As we pulled in, moments later, I shifted back to my human form and quickly tugged my clothes back on.
Before Frank could even stop the Jeep, my bare feet were on the front lawn, my legs propelling me forward as I sprinted across the pine needles and stabbing rocks. Goddamn, if this bastard had done anything to her, had hurt a hair on her head, had injured her in anyway, I was going to savor their blood as it dripped down my throat.
I didn’t bother to knock. I hit the door at a sprint, my legs propelling me forward, my shoulder hitting right at the frame and slamming it open, sending splinters exploding inwards as I barreled into the cabin, gun already drawn.
“Richard?” Jessica screamed from just ahead.
A blonde woman turned, knife raised in one hand, a hissing blowtorch in the other. “Who the fuck are you?” she bawled.
Karen? I leveled my pistol. “Don’t move a fucking muscle, Karen!”
She didn’t listen. She ran straight at me, knife raised, bloody murder in her eyes.
“Freeze, Karen!”
She kept coming, even as Frank came running up behind me
I pulled the trigger, the gun leaping and roaring in my hand, once, twice, three times.
Blood sprayed the plastic covered couch, the plastic covered chairs, and she fell to the plastic covered floor, screaming in pain. A pool of blood began to form around her as the knife dropped from her grip and the blowtorch fell, the flame going out as soon as the trigger was released.
“Jessica!” I yelled, bounding over the screaming, crying blonde psycho. I ran to her side, began to untie her bonds. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.”
“Sooner?” she asked. “I’m sorry I ran from you earlier.”
The knots on her bindings untied, I pulled her into my arms.
My mate melted into my arms, her legs nearly failing her as I held her up.
I kissed her on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve told you sooner. I didn’t mean to lie to you.”
She pulled back, looked into my eyes. “Would I have believed you even if you had told me?”
I grinned down at her, her green eyes shining like polished emeralds. I brushed a lock of dark hair from her face. “Probably not.”
She stood on tip-toes, kissed me. “I love you,” she whispered. “I don’t know why, but I love you.”
“Because you’re my mate,” I whispered back. We kissed again.
She smiled. “I am, aren’t I?”
And then Frank cleared his throat. “Little help, guys?” he asked, breaking us from our soul gaze. He pointed to Karen, who happened to be still bleeding on the plastic tarped floor. “Crazy woman bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds?”
I pulled out my phone and gave it to Jess before stripping off my belt and going to help Karen. “Call 911. Make sure Sheriff Peak comes with the ambulance, too.”
Chapter Fifty-two
Peter Frost
“That’s Mary Waynescott, huh?” Peter, cold beer already in hand, asked Deacon.
Deacon nodded at the lone teen girl sitting on the swing hanging from the undersized swing set in the Portage backyard, her head down, her blonde hair hanging around her head like a curtain. “Yep. Think you can talk to her?”
Peter sniffed, smelled the shifter blood in her from all the way over here. He didn’t say anything to Deacon, though, just nodded and stepped off the porch.
At first the girl swung lazily hung there in the swing’s seat, one foot tracking little circles in the dirt below her. She looked up, though, as Peter approached, her nose sniffing a little.
The two locked eyes, both well aware of who the other was. What they both were. “Mind if I sit?” Peter asked as he came to a stop in front of her.
Mary looked up at him, nodded.
He slid into the too-small swing, barely fitting his wide frame into the rubber seat, the chains and the overhead back creaking beneath his weight like the whole play set was about to go on strike. “You know what I am, right?” Peter asked.
She didn’t look at him. She just nodded.
“Ever meet anyone like me before?”
Mary nodded again.
“Were your parents like you and me? Your brothers, sisters?”
She nodded to parents, shook her head to the siblings.
He licked his lips, took another drink of beer. “Do you know who hurt them? Any idea?”
She looked over at him, her dark eyes full of more pain than Peter could ever imagine having again. Mary shook her head again, looked back down to dirt between her legs.
“Do you want to?”