Taken by storm(74)

Shay paused. “Of course, the pup might not live long without her mother. She might just waste away.…”

Maddy stifled a sob, and I saw the trap Shay had laid. He’d claimed the baby. It didn’t matter that I’d claimed Maddy—faced with the choice between watching Shay walk off with her child and going with him, to ensure the child lived—she’d choose the latter.

Every. Single. Time.

“The Senate will never let you do this,” I said roughly. “You can’t kill a pup.”

“A female pup,” Shay corrected. “With no twin. She’s a little miracle, isn’t she? And by the time you manage to call the Senate, she’ll already be dead. You wouldn’t want that, would you, Bryn? You wouldn’t want this girl’s baby to die. You wouldn’t hold her here, when she wants to come with me—don’t you, Madison?”

Bryn, please. Maddy met my eyes. I wasn’t sure if she was asking me to do something to stop this, or to let her go. I had seconds to decide, seconds, and all I could think was that Callum had let this happen.

“If you don’t believe I’ll do it, ask your friend with the gun.” Shay smiled in Caroline’s direction. The Were he’d beckoned forward—a man I recognized as his second—reached for the baby.

“The little girl with the good aim should know better than anyone”—Shay flashed a smile, full of fang—“I have no problem taking a parent away from a child.”

I remembered—too late—that Shay was the werewolf who’d given Caroline her scars. He was the one who’d killed her father. He was baiting her.

“Caroline, don’t—” I didn’t get the rest of the warning out of my mouth before the sound was swallowed up in gunfire. Dully, I surveyed the damage.

A bolt, directly through Shay’s throat. Six silver bullets, clustered in his second’s heart.

Maddy pulled her baby backward and scooted away from the man who’d had his hands on the pup when Caroline had fired.

A purebred werewolf might survive a cluster of silver bullets straight to the heart, but regular Weres reacted to silver like poison. Shay’s second-in-command might have been able to heal from a single bullet wound. But six?

Shay kicked the man’s body dispassionately to the side. “Now this,” he said, ripping the bolt from his throat, “is an interesting development.”

Beneath the roar of alarm in my mind, I heard Chase’s voice.

Wolves, Bryn. Lots of them.

Caroline had told me that Shay had his Weres poised along the perimeter, but I’d had no idea how many. One by one, they stepped from the shadows—from behind trees and rocks, from nearby caves.

They ran in from town, from Shadow Bluff territory, from all sides.

There weren’t just a dozen of them, or two. Shay hadn’t just brought his guard. He’d brought his entire pack.

Even with Caroline, even with Jed, even if Griffin could break through whatever it was about the baby’s birth that had pushed him away—we were still outnumbered.

And Shay wasn’t the type to take an attack lying down.





CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX





AS THE SNAKE BEND PACK CLOSED IN ON US FROM every direction, I half-expected Caroline to sprint for the hills, to settle down in a sniper’s nest, from which she could pick them off one by one—but she didn’t.

It took me a few seconds to realize why. She wasn’t the only one with a gun. The pistol looked out of place in Shay’s massive hands, but he clicked the safety off and pointed it just to my left. A pair of werewolves pushed Jed roughly toward Shay—and the gun.

The old man could have flashed out.

He could have fought them.

But he didn’t—because he realized what Caroline did not. This situation was volatile. The Snake Bend Pack was the third largest in North America, and if Shay hadn’t brought his entire pack here, he’d certainly brought most of them—and all of his fighters.

“Come on down, Caro,” Shay called. “Unless you’d prefer to be responsible for the death of your mentor, as well as your father.”

He called her Caro, the way Devon did. He even sounded like Devon when he said it.

“Let’s have us a little chat, shall we?” Shay continued jovially, as Caroline came to stand beside me, her eyes diamond hard, weapons well within grasp. “As a gesture of goodwill, I’ll even have my wolves Shift to human form. I’d appreciate it if you would do the same, Bryn.”

All around us, the sound of Shifting echoed off the mountain, but this time, I didn’t feel the call or the power. All I felt was dread.

Caroline had shot Shay.