Hunger of the Wolf (18 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Shock gripped Shilo as Dante settled her on the floor on her side. Watching her, he tipped the couch over her carefully, forming a darkened little cave around her. She heard movement and then a soft thud and realized he'd leaned her mattress against the couch. He stuffed pillows and bedding and the cushions from her easy chair at each end of the couch until there was barely a chink of light filtering through anywhere.

"Dante! Julie's coming up the drive with the suitcase,” Kane said sharply.

"Damn it to hell!” Dante snarled. “They won't be more than ten minutes behind her. Get outside. I'm coming."

She heard more dull thumps and lower, grinding ones as he quickly piled what sounded like every stick of furniture in the house around her.

As shocked and frightened as Shilo had been when Dante had bound her, the nightmarish sense that they meant her harm began to dissolve almost as quickly as it had reared its ugly head to begin with. She still didn't understand. She was still afraid, but the fear had shifted. Her mind had begun struggling to shrug off the shock and function.

They, she wondered, hearing their exchange? The rogues?

That didn't make sense, though. Why pile all the furniture around her like they had?

Bullets, she realized after struggling with the puzzle for a time. They'd formed a protective barrier around her because they were afraid she'd be hit by a stray bullet.
Stay put and you'll be safe. We're only trying to protect you.

The rogues wouldn't use guns, though, would they? Why would they be concerned about gunfire if it was the rogues?

But that had to be the reason they'd gone to so much effort to shield her. They weren't hiding her. The barrier was for protection, and the only thing that made sense was that it was for protection from bullets.

Julie and the suitcase?

That made even less sense.

Julie was coming up the drive with a suitcase and
they
would be following her.

Her
suitcase, she thought abruptly?

As scared as she was, as chaotic as her thoughts were, it clicked in her mind that the suitcase had to be hers. The suitcase was the lure Julie was using to bring
them
to Dante. And the lycans didn't use guns, they didn't need them. There would only be one group looking for her that would be carrying guns, and she knew it was
her
they were after, not Dante's pack.

They were protecting her.

Julie had led the authorities to them.

And Dante and Maurice, Kane and Jessie were going out to meet them for a showdown.

As insane as that seemed to her, she knew that had to be it. Dante had told her he would protect her, he would see to it that no one took anything away from her. He'd promised her that.

Her throat closed. She'd all but begged him to promise her that, and he had.

Somehow, he'd found out about that she was wanted, that the Feds were after her. She didn't how, but she knew that had to be it.

He hadn't come because the rogues were after her. He'd come because the Feds had shown up looking for her.

Horror filled her. The cops, or Feds, or whoever it was would cut them to pieces if they shifted into manbeasts, and she
knew
that was what Dante had in mind. Feeling cold terror settle over her that was far more weakening than the fear she'd felt before, she began struggling with the bindings, trying to pull her hands free, but she realized very quickly there was no way she could tear the tape he'd used to bind her.

Fear driven tears filled her eyes. She had to stop this before they were hurt ... or worse.

Calming herself with an effort, she closed her eyes and focused her mind on her wrists and ankles, trying to control the current she was summoning to a small burst. Her wrists and ankles grew hot. The smell of burning plastic stung her nose and more faintly, smoke. Ignoring the flicker of uneasiness the smoke sent through her, she pulled and jerked her arms and legs as she felt the tape melting and finally broke her wrists free. Pulling the last of the tape off, she wiggled around until she could reach her ankles and tore the melted tape from them, as well.

It was harder getting out of the barricade Dante and the others had erected around her. Dante had wedged her dresser, she thought, against the cushions at one end, her chest of drawers at the other. Rolling onto her back, she used her legs to shift the dresser until she'd pushed it far enough away she could crawl through the small opening around the arm of the couch. She glanced back as she got up and saw without surprise that they actually
had
piled almost everything she owned around her.

The sound of car doors slamming jerked her attention back to the threat. A knee weakening flood of adrenaline went through her as heard a man yell, “Throw down your weapons! Get down on the ground!"

Her heart leapt into her throat. Throwing caution to the wind she raced to the front door, wrenched the door open, and rushed outside.

The lights blinded her—the headlights of four or five cars and floodlights that had been switched on the moment the government men had leapt from their cars. She staggered to a halt, glancing around. To her left, she glimpsed Dante's pack, bared to the waist, spaced out in a line just beyond her house. Dante, just past the corner of the house, was nearest to her.

His head whipped in her direction as she burst from the house. “Damn it to hell, woman! Get back inside the house!” he roared furiously.

Almost simultaneously, she heard the click of triggers on a dozen guns. Dante heard it, as well. Shifting abruptly, he sprang toward her even as the deafening report of a gun being fired cracked through the stillness of the night. A half a dozen shots followed the first in rapid succession as Maurice and the others shifted. Almost as if time had stilled, Shilo saw the scene erupt into a tableau of violence, heard the snarls and roars of the lycans, the shouts and screams of the men, the explosions of the bullets.

Dante's body jerked and shuddered as two bullets impacted in his back just as he landed in front of her.

It took Shilo's brain moments to interpret the meaning of it, took moments more for the horror to sink deeply into her psyche. She stared at him in terror as his feet slammed into the dirt, opened her mouth to scream as yet another bullet hit him, spinning him around before he pitched forward and plowed into the dirt.

"No!” she screamed as she watched him crumpling toward the ground. “No! Dante!” Tears filled her eyes, tears of rage and grief as she lifted her head to stare at the men still firing at Maurice, Kane, and Jessie ... and her. Sucking in a deep breath, summoning every ounce of power inside of her, she pushed the electricity from her in blue-white forking arcs as she waved her hands in a wide sweep that encompassed the Feds. She felt electricity arc from her eyes, as well, snaking out to lick at the men, their cars, their guns. The power lifted the Feds from their feet and flung them backwards away from the cars they'd used to shield themselves. The wicked forks licked over the cars, magnetizing the metals in the vehicles, and the guns and bullets pelted against the cars like rocks.

Her knees wobbled as the power left her. She felt so heavy, she thought distantly as blackness encroached, and then she felt herself descend into an abyss and drift toward the dirt at her feet.

* * * *

He was going be too late, Dante thought in shocked disbelief even as he launched himself toward Shilo to shield her from the gunfire. Fiery pain exploded in his chest as he felt the bullets slamming into his back and burrowing through him. The impact knocked the breath out of him. His knees wobbled as he hit the dirt in front of Shilo, trying to shield her with his body, and then he felt another bullet slam into him. It staggered him, sent his balance off and he felt himself pitching toward the ground, unable to break his fall, unable to protect Shilo as he'd intended. He plowed the dirt. Struggling to shake off the pain and weakness, he dragged his arms beneath him to push himself up again, whipped his head around to look for Shilo and watched her pitch forward into the dirt. Rage swept through him then. Uttering a snarl, ignoring the pain in his chest, he leapt to his feet and charged toward the men still gathered around the cars and firing wildly. Maurice, Kane, and Jessie launched themselves toward the men, as well.

There was no real battle. The men were completely unprepared for what they encountered. Of those Shilo hadn't stunned with her burst of electro-kinetic energy, those still conscious, several of the men screamed. All of them who could whirled to run as they saw the four snarling beastmen racing toward them. Some threw their guns down. Others fired blindly behind them as they ran, but as fearful as they were, they were no match at all for the beastmen, unable to run fast enough to elude them and most of them too mindless with terror even to consider leaping back into the cars. The pack tore through them in a blood rage, tearing some of them limb from limb. Dante swiped his claws at one and ripped his head from his shoulders, sending it rolling and bouncing across the ground. Without even pausing he leapt from that man to the hood of the car where one man had taken refuge, ripped the door off the vehicle and dragged the man out by one leg, then slammed him against the car until his body had the consistency of a jelly fish.

Maurice seized another, lifted him from the ground and broke his spine. Jessie launched himself into the air and tackled one man like a football player, grabbing his head and twisting it all the way around. Kane caught two more, slamming them together and then driving his fist through both and shoving their hearts through their chests.

None escaped. They made certain of that.

When the screaming finally stopped, Dante paused to look around. Men were lying everywhere. Blood coated the ground, pooled, streamed in narrow trickles. Seeing one man crawling toward his vehicle, Dante strode toward him and broke his neck.

When he straightened again to check the carnage, he felt his rage slowly dissolve and with it, his strength. He looked down at his body, saw a hole in his pec and two more in his belly. The bullets, he thought, had gone through him. He lifted his head and looked for Shilo.

His throat closed when he saw she was where he'd last seen her, still as death. With an effort he crossed the yard and finally dropped to his knees beside her, staring down at her, trying to ignore the ringing in his ears and listen for her breath, the sound of her heart. She was breathing, he realized finally, lightly, but breathing. Carefully, he turned her onto her back, searching her for wounds.

The only blood on her was the blood dripping from him.

He'd thought the bullets had gone through him and hit her anyway. Relieved, he settled beside her and focused on trying to dig the bullets out of his flesh so the wounds would close. Maurice, Kane, and Jessie staggered up, swayed on their feet and finally dropped to their knees.

"Is she ... alright?” Maurice asked hoarsely.

"Does she look alright?” Dante growled.

"She was shot?"

Dante shook his head. “I couldn't find a wound. She expended too much energy, I think.” He paused, looking the men over. “Who else is wounded?"

"I caught one in the thigh, but it went through, another one in my side.” Maurice said on a pained breath.

"Two,” Jessie informed him tersely without taking his eyes off Shilo.

"Four,” Kane said.

Dante looked at him, studying him over carefully, and finally grinned. “Fucking show off,” he muttered. “Dig them out and round up the living. I'm going to take Shilo inside."

It took an effort to lift her and get to his feet. Dante gritted his teeth and headed inside with her. He had to lay her on the floor and flip the mattress off the top of the mound he'd created to try to protect her before he could settle her comfortably. He thought her color looked better, but he wasn't sure if it was just hopefulness on his part. Wiping the blood off his hand on his torn jeans, he focused on shifting from claw to hand and then stroked her hair from her face. “Wake up, baby,” he said in his growlly beastman voice.

She didn't stir, but he saw her eyes shift behind her eyelids. He lifted her limp arm, nuzzling his face against her palm. “If you've hurt yourself I'm going to be so pissed off at you,
chère,"
he murmured raggedly
.

Julie came to the door a few minutes later. “Maurice sent me to tell you they've rounded up the garbage."

Dante nodded. “Stay with her,” he said grimly.

Three men were sitting up. The others were still unconscious. Feeling his rage mounting again, Dante strode toward the huddled group, scanning their faces. One of the conscious men, he saw, was the asshole-in-charge. He recognized him from their previous encounter.

He crouched down in front of the man. “Do you recognize me, you human piece of shit?"

The man's eyes were wide with fear. He shook his head.

Dante glanced down at his body, saw the wounds had sealed and shifted. “How about now?"

A shock wave rippled through the man.

"I want you to remember this face, because the next time you see it, you die. You understand me?"

"I'm a Federal Agent,” the man said hoarsely.

"And I'm your worst nightmare,” Dante growled, shifting into a beastman again. “I don't give a fuck how you do it, but you're going to go back to your people and you're going call off the hunt. You're to tell them Anne-Marie Whitaker is dead.” He jerked his head toward the house. “That woman in there—that's
my
woman."

The man swallowed a little sickly, but he was struggling to conquer his fear. “You don't want to mess with the government."

Dante tilted his head at the man consideringly. Abruptly, he shifted from man-beast to wolf. Lifting his head, he howled a long, mournful cry. Behind him, Maurice and the others shifted to their wolf forms and took up his cry. When they stopped, in the distance, wolves bayed from every direction, calls echoing through the night from dozens of throats, then hundreds. Dante shifted from wolf to man. “Look around you, government man. Take a good, long look."

The man looked. All around the farm, manbeasts had stepped from the trees. Glowing eyes stared toward the group just outside the cabin for many moments and then faded back into the trees and vanished.

"You doan want no war with me,
mon ami
,” Dante growled, his accent thick with his rage. “Those people out there, they're my people and that's just my pack. Every city, every town—they got their own packs. And you and me, we got us a special bond. I can find you anywhere. If I see one more Fed anywhere around my woman—and believe me, I'll see you comin’ a long time before you see me—I'm gonna hunt you down,
mon ami
, and it ain't gonna be pretty. I'm gonna gut you and watch you die real slow, and if you got yourself a woman, well I'll gut her, too. Kids? You'll get to watch ‘em all die. You takin’ my meanin'? It's called an eye for eye. You threaten me and mine, I take you and yours out."

He stood up. “I'm countin’ on you,
mon ami
. That's why I'm lettin’ you live ... for now."

The man swallowed convulsively. “What about this ... massacre? I can't cover this up."

Dante grinned at him wolfishly. “Sure you can. Y'all do it all the time.” He glanced at the other two men. “Either of you see anything tonight?"

Both men stared at him blankly for several moments and finally shook their heads vigorously.

"See,” Dante said with satisfaction. “Now wasn't that easy?"

Turning, he motioned his men over. “Let's put them in the barn. I think if they have a night to think things over, by morning they will have come up with just the right story to cover their asses."

He turned toward the trees as Maurice, Kane, and Jessie jerked the three men to their feet and headed toward the barn with them. Uttering a high-pitched whistle, he waited until his pack members came out of the woods and gathered in Shilo's yard. “Let's get the trucks in here and get this all packed up, people—everything."

Turning, he headed back toward the house before another thought occurred to him. Stopping, he turned to face the people moving around the farm collecting tools and trying to chase the fowls into crates. “And be careful with Shilo's pregnant cow."

He'd hoped Shilo would be conscious when he got back to her. She wasn't and he felt for several moments as if his chest had caved in. Dragging in a pained breath, he went in to the bathroom to wash the blood off. When he'd cleaned the muck off of himself and dressed, he scooped Shilo off the bed and followed Julie out to his SUV.

Leaving his lieutenants to oversee the clean up, he climbed into the back with Shilo and told Julie to take them home.