Melinda’s Wolves(102)

He glanced to the left and saw no way to escape. When he looked right, his eyes bugged out farther. He had to have lost his mind. It appeared that three large wolves stood at the edge of the tree line, six giant eyes glowing in the darkness, blinking like fireflies. If he wasn’t mistaken, they were smiling at him. One of them cocked his head to the side and nodded.

The first lick of flames at his clothes made him jump. He screamed. He was truly trapped. He backed away from the house, batting at his burning pant leg. But the force behind him wouldn’t let him escape.

He doubted anyone could hear his cries for help. The fire was too loud. The sounds of the house collapsing in on itself filled the night.

The blackness pressed in, pushing him, as though it were an actual physical force, toward the flames.

Wayne staggered backward, but to no avail. He was doomed. He dropped his shoulders in defeat as he realized the devil was at his back, punishing him for his crimes on earth.

A tear escaped his eye as he gave in to his fate. No bad deed goes unpunished, he thought as the flames jumped toward him, engulfed him, and sucked him into the intense heat.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


Melinda sat huddled in a blanket on the foreign couch of Keegan’s sweet elderly next-door neighbor. She was naked under the quilt. Keegan stood next to her, another blanket wrapped around him.

Trace wore a towel around his waist and towered over the old man who owned this house.

Sirens wailed outside from the many emergency vehicles. Firefighters worked feverishly to put out the flames. There would be nothing left of the house, but at least they could stop the fire from spreading to any nearby homes.

It had been scary for the last hour since the entire area was like a tinder box. July in Montana was not known for its rainfall.

The homes were not close together, but Melinda and her mates had little choice but to shift and trudge naked to the neighbor’s house.

At least the man was someone Keegan had known for years and even helped out on many occasions when he needed someone younger and stronger. Keegan had explained this from the porch as they waited for the man to open his door.

It wasn’t entirely ridiculous for people to have escaped a burning building in the middle of the night wearing nothing. Melinda suspected the neighbor was far more shook up to find three people on his porch than he was to find them naked.

He was incredibly polite, however, and didn’t utter a word or even shoot Melinda a concerned glanced. He ushered them into his home, handed her a quilt off the back of the couch and padded to the bathroom, returning thirty seconds later with towels and blankets.

Melinda had no idea how Keegan had the sense to wrap his body in a blanket, which kept anyone from realizing he didn’t suffer from any of the broken bones, cuts, and bruising they should have seen so soon after the accident.

A deputy entered the front room.

Trace shook his hand, holding his towel with the other.

This guy did raise an eyebrow and smirk. But then again, he would have been from the station where Trace worked. “Trace?”

“Mark.”

Melinda shivered when she realized this same man had ogled her as if she were a piece of raw meat on Tuesday.

Now his glance darted around the room, taking in the three of them as his eyes widened. “What the hell happened?”

Melinda huddled under the blanket, wishing she were anyplace else in the world. Instead she listened as Trace explained how the fire consumed the house so fast, he and his partners had only narrowly escaped through the bedroom window with no time to grab clothing.

He continued to explain how they had first circled to the rear of the house where they’d seen a man. Trace didn’t know who the man was, but he’d obviously started the fire and then gotten too close to the flames himself and been consumed. They would find his body several feet from the back door.

Trace did not explain the black spirit that pressed the sick bastard—who had surely been working for the casino builder—into the fire. He did not explain how the three of them shifted into wolf form to jump out of the window, even though it should have raised eyebrows that none of them had any burns to speak of.

And Trace did not mention the fact that Melinda and Keegan were both his life partners. Although, it would be nearly impossible for Mark to not surmise that last detail from his observation.

The door to the house opened again, and this time Sheriff Terrance Bergman entered. He tossed a pair of jeans to Trace and another to Keegan.

Mark blinked at his boss, but didn’t question how Bergman happened to have clothes in his cruiser and knew to bring them into the house.

“I’ve got it from here,” Bergman stated. He held the door open for Mark, who glanced several times at all three mates before shaking his head in confusion and stepping onto the porch.