Austin and Denver looked like soldiers charging into battle as they sprinted up the driveway.
The Mage twisted around, and seeing the imminent danger coming at him from all sides, he reached for Maizy.
Prince’s wolf lunged, driving his sharp teeth into McNeal’s arm and thrashing about in violent motions. The Mage put his right hand on the wolf’s head and he yelped, but didn’t let go.
Maizy started to wail.
In a split second, Denver shifted mid-run. Clothes fell to the ground and in a blur of movement, his grey-and-white wolf charged toward Maizy.
I screamed, not able to comprehend seeing my little sister torn to pieces in front of me.
My father could barely maintain a grip as I struggled against him, reaching for my Maizy.
Oh God. Please, no.
My legs gave way, my father called me an ugly name, and that’s when I witnessed the unimaginable.
Denver’s wolf wrapped his body around Maizy, protecting her from the attack that ensued before her eyes between the Mage and Packmaster’s wolf.
Austin approached at a steady pace and his blue eyes were electric.
“Get back or I’ll shoot her,” my dad warned. “All of you freaks get back.”
At the edge of the woods, a pack of wolves stood like soldiers awaiting orders. They watched their Packmaster with the sapphire and brown eyes as he savagely attacked McNeal.
Dizzy and panting, I looked at Maizy and saw Denver’s wolf taking slow steps, pushing her farther away from the violence. He faced the action and bared his teeth, but his sole purpose was to guard Maizy. I’d never seen anything like it. Austin had warned me Denver’s wolf had a vicious and unpredictable nature, one that couldn’t be trusted.
Except with a six-year-old little girl who adored him.
McNeal made a guttural moan as the wolf’s canines pierced into his other arm, rendering them useless for harnessing energy as a weapon. His left arm had been jerked from the socket, and large chunks of flesh were stripped to the bone. The Mage kept reaching for slices of sunlight filtering through the tangled branches that would allow him to heal, but the trees were tall and the sun was low.
“Let her go, Nelson. Lexi’s your daughter, whether she came from your body or not,” Austin said in a steady voice, slowing his pace as he neared. “You raised her, fed her, and looked after her as one of your own. Don’t do anything irrational because of greed or fear.”
Austin’s eyes flicked briefly to my bleeding arm and he flexed his jaw. Strange things drifted in my head. Like, why was he shirtless with wet pants? What was the story behind his tattoos? Had he ever thought about me in the years since Wes’s death? Did he still like to eat Cheetos with cheese dip? Would I ever get to know these things, or was the gun against my head the last thing I’d experience in my life?
And when his frosty eyes lingered on me, I wanted to tell him I loved him. Loved him since I could remember, and now I knew without a doubt what I felt was more than a childhood crush or an attraction to my own kind. Austin didn’t feel the same way, but it didn’t erase how I felt. He had once vowed to kill the man responsible for ordering Wes’s death, but Austin didn’t flinch as a wolf took the honors and tore that man apart.
“I just want to get out of here,” my father said. “Let me through and you can keep the fucking diamonds. I only wanted to get this guy off my ass. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. Now that you have him, feel free to take him out for me. That bastard killed my boy.”
Austin inched forward. “I’ve spent the last seven years wanting to find the person responsible for killing Wes, and it led me to you. That Mage ordered his death, but you brought him into the dark corners of our world without a clue of how immortals perceive humans as disposable goods. You put your family in the line of fire by sending your son to work for a Mage!”
It was then I realized what Austin was doing. He was trying to get my father to turn the gun on him.
“Austin,” I pleaded, trying to distract him. “No. Please don’t do this. The Mage is the one you want. Wes wasn’t given orders to kill just anyone, Austin. You were supposed to be his first hit.”
He blanched as the words speared through him, and I had him for just a split second. The more Austin confronted my father, the more I feared for his life. My dad could shoot a cherry off a tin can, and Austin stood at point-blank range. But his eyes were resolute, and he never backed down.
Prince’s wolf yelped as the Mage threw another burst of energy into him. They weren’t sorcerers but powerful immortals who harnessed energy like a weapon. Blood was everywhere, and Denver’s wolf was almost out of sight. Suddenly, Maizy wrapped her arms around his neck and I scarcely breathed. My heart skipped like a stone across the water until Denver’s wolf slowly trotted out of sight with her safely on his back.