“Won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me, sweetheart.”
She shook her head. Tears meandered down her cheeks. “For me,” she whispered. “Please. For me. I won’t be able to bear it if they hurt you.”
“You’d mate another?” His words emerged dark, vicious, bitter.
“For your life? Yes.” She extended a hand, as if she could reach him from across the room. “Nothing I wouldn’t do.”
“No life without you,” he muttered.
“You’ll make one.” Pause. She looked away from him, swallowing a sob, the tears flowing more freely. “As I will.”
Her words clawed his gut, ripping open his belly, exposing a bag of shredded giblets, the pain so sharp it diced his guts. A blood-orange haze descended over his eyes. His heart. Jesus. How could the ticker even keep beating when she’d julienned the muscle like coleslaw?
“We’ve only known each other a day,” she tried. But the falsehood didn’t resonate, had no strength.
“Ten fucking years,” he snapped. “Ten years of racing beneath the moon together. Of play. Of friendship. You saved my life back then. Gave me something to live for. For what? This? To kill me now? I’m dead either way.”
“Ten years?” Cal raised an eyebrow, darting a disgruntled glance at his niece before shaking his head, as if shaking off the unwanted disclosure of their long-term bond. His focus returned to Brick, with lethal intensity. “Your choice, wolf. Summer’s made hers.”
Rebellion filled him like boiling acid but he couldn’t submit, couldn’t surrender. He stared back at the cat alpha and shrugged. “Put me in the fucking ground then. I don’t give a shit.”
“No.” Summer shrieked and shifted suddenly, flying at him, perching on his shoulder. Her song filled his brain, lulling him. “Aura Lee, Aura Lee, Maid with golden hair; sunshine came along with thee, and swallows in the air.”
“Don’t do this, baby.” He shook his head, trying to remain alert. “My life…my heart.” The last words he managed.
She flapped away. Zeroing in on her uncle.
The tranq gun exploded. Once, twice.
Chapter Six
She’d never been to Los Lobos. But she’d get no help from anyone in Shady Heart. Not with her Uncle Cal’s “on-off” switch stuck in the “out-like-a-light” position, as he sprawled on his office floor, frozen as the Blue Screen of Death.
How she’d pulled that off, she couldn’t imagine. One second she’d been perched on Brick’s shoulder, crooning in his ear, trying to comfort him. The next she’d been winging toward her uncle, ready to peck out his eyeballs—and batting the tranquilizer gun away from his side in the process. As it clattered to the floor, she’d shifted in surprise, snatching it up and plugging him full of industrial strength Carfentanil. He’d kissed the parquet floor in a heartbeat. The bigger they are….
Nothing she would not do for her wolf. Nothing.
“Good job, darlin’.” Astonishment painted her lover’s face. “Now what?”
“Now we get the hell out of here.”
“Um. Okay. Anything you say, sweetheart.” His gaze roved over her naked form, heating, and he grinned at her, brandy-colored eyes alight. “Have I told you lately, how awesome you are?”
“I bet you say that to all the girls with tranq guns in their hands.”
“Only the one I’m desperate to…buy condoms for.” He shot her a wink. Then looked at her uncle. “And by the way…getting out of here is a really good idea.”
She found her scattered clothes and pulled them back on.
Brick tried to prop himself up, but his arm fell back to his side. “Even better plan if I could walk,” he muttered.
She raced back to him, trying to lever his body off the floor. If she’d thought him heavy when he’d pressed her against his mattress, most of his poundage borne by his forearms and shoulders, the tranquilizer deadening his limbs now seemed to double his weight.
“Help me help us, Brick,” she urged. Slinging his arm across his shoulder, she ducked beneath him, forcing him to his feet. They couldn’t exit through the door into the saloon. The cats would be on them like mustard on a hot dog. She managed to drag him toward the bathroom in the rear of the office and throw open the window.
“I got this, Aura Lee.”
He clambered clumsily onto the toilet seat and yanked her up with him. She eyed the window. His size. His lethargy. Shot him a look full of doubt.
“Let me go first, sweetheart,” he hissed. “If I don’t make it, you shift. You soar. You get the fuck away from here. Fast as you can.”
“I won’t leave you.”
“Don’t underestimate the wolf.” He touched her chin with his finger, his aim only a little askew. “Listen to me, Summer. I need to know you’re safe. That you’ll get safe. Or I don’t stand a chance.”