Her Guardian Angel (Fire and Snow)(55)

"Shh, Adele. You're safe now. I've got you."

Adele started to think that maybe this wasn't a dream after all, surely she wouldn't imagine this amount of suffering.

A loud crack cleared her head of fog and brought her eyes up to look over Kit's shoulder. She watched as her chaton latched onto Cole's throat and tore it free with a roar. The animistic brutality was so far outside her realm of normal her mind couldn't register it.

Then all her eyes saw was red.

His hind leg. There was a rapidly spreading pool of blood beneath his rear paw.

So red.

Too much red.

He was loosing a serious amount of blood. Her eyes flicked up as she felt his gaze on her. They held contact briefly before he collapsed and lay in a heap of black and white fur, out cold on the concrete floor. Then as if they were linked, she felt her eyelids droop, the light dim and she joined him in the darkness that pulled at her.

~ * ~

Jake paced. He felt the pain, sorrow and fury flow from the open front door of the house, but he didn't know who was putting out what. The waves of emotion crashed against him, making it hard for him to breathe. This is why he got sick at jobs that involved injuries. He was strongly empathetic and the strong emotions of the gravely injured would make him physically ill. When he knew that not only were his two sons in the mix but two women and a child who he held very dear too, it was even harder to bare. Especially when he knew Adele had to be injured. His lips quirked a little as he thought about the fight they'd heard between Adele and Cole. She'd knocked him a few beauties by the sound of it. Good for her. He hoped they'd hurt like hell. It was the least he deserved. How could any man raise a hand against a female, adult or child? That bastard needed to be taken out. Jake might look human at the moment, but his heart was that of an animal and at the moment the animal inside him was begging to be the one to deliver the justice of taking the bastard out.

His radio squawked, forcing his attention back to current events. He seized it off his belt.

"Rosebery P1 here. Please repeat."

Conner's voice came over the line, sounding serious and strained.

"Rosebery P2. Come in Rosebery P1."

"I'm here, Conner. Was that a gun that went off earlier? What the hell is going on down there?" He didn't have the patience to worry about radio protocol, nor could he keep his emotions from his voice. He noticed that as he'd spoken, the others had gathered around him to listen in. All the cats that were on duty were here. The others were on their way. Including Clint and Sophie in the ambulance. If a shifter got injured, Clint was the only one who knew enough about them to be able to help them.

Conner's voice rang out loud and clear.

"We need medics, Dad. Two, one." They'd created a code for radio chat. Conner's 'two, one' meant two human, one shifter. They had to be careful over the airwaves to not give themselves away.

"Who?" Jake heard the fury in his own voice as he growled into the radio.

"Dominic. Gun wound, right leg. He's out cold from blood loss. I'm tying it up now to try to stop the flow."

"And the girls?" He was almost afraid of the answer, but he had to ask. Something bad had gone down for Dominic to have shifted and lose focus enough to get shot.

"Adele is banged up pretty bad, Dad. She passed out from the pain soon after Kit cut her loose. Kelly seems to be physically okay, but her eyes are glazed over and she's not responding to anything. She didn't even flinch when the gun went off. Kit's unlocking her collar and cuffs and she's not even twitching." Conner's voice was filled with pain and anguish which cut Jake straight through the heart. Then his actual words registered.

"Kit's unlocking her what? Where is the bastard?" He all but growled into the radio. He'd collared her. Like she was a damn pet.

"Dead. D. T." More code. Good, Dominic had ripped his throat out. It was going to be a bitch to explain to the medical examiner about cause of death, but it was a fitting reward for the bastard.

"A fitting end, I think. Ambulances are still on their way. ETA five minutes." He looked around him, pegging Jordan and Joel with a hard stare. "The twins are coming down to get Dominic out of there. You and Kit bring the girls up. Over and out."

He put the radio back on his belt as the twins were jogging through the door to go get their Leap brother.

"Right. We need the stretchers and all our first aid gear. And blankets, we're going to need blankets."

He headed to the back of the work SUV he'd arrived in with Dominic, Conner and Kit to grab the first aid stuff and blankets. Just as he and the others laid down all their supplies, he heard movement from inside. He looked up in time to see the twins carry Dominic outside. His son's one hundred and twenty kilo leopard form hung loosely in their grip, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. What had him dropping to his knees was the sight of the blood soaked shirt tied firmly around his son's hind leg. Blood slowly dripped from the bottom of his paw as the twins lay him down on a blanket Nick had brought. Nick had the first aid kit open and was grabbing gauze and bandages to apply pressure to the wound as they heard the ambulances sirens get closer.