Megan lashed out with her right foot, kicking the gun from his hand, and lashed out again, tripping him as he lunged for the gun. She kicked madly at him as he lay on the ground, catching him in the jaw and wrenching a howl of agonized rage from his throat.
“Schuyler, run!” she screamed, as Bernard scrambled to his feet. Her hands were almost free.
In the distance, she heard the baying of wolves. Furious wolves. The baying rapidly drew closer.
Bernard jumped on her, knocking her to the ground, and shifted into coyote form. His eyes were balls of red fire, and saliva dripped from his jaws.
Schuyler, in cub form, flew through the air and bit Bernard on his flank. Bernard swung around wildly, sending Schuyler flying into the bushes, where she landed with a thud and scrambled upright. She threw her head back and howled, a call to her pack, a desperate cry for help.
Answering howls sounded in the bushes, but Bernard launched himself at Megan again. She’d managed to get up on her knees, but he knocked her down onto the dirt, and his jaws were snapping at her throat, and howls filled the air, and…chaos.
He fell off her. It looked as if the air was filled with gray fur. Massive, flying beasts, all jaws and teeth and wild eyes. The cavalry had arrived.
Megan rolled away, finally ripped through the remaining shreds of copper wire, and shifted to wolf form. She heard screams, wet, bubbling screams. Her brother and Loch and deputies from the station had all shifted, and they were a boiling pile of fur. She couldn’t see Bernard underneath the pile, but she could hear his agonized death wails.
Staggering, she looked around wildly for Schuyler. Schuyler was standing in the bushes, shivering hard, eyes wild, tongue lolling.
She jerked her head at Schuyler, and they dashed away, out of the clearing.
Once they were back by the roadside where Bernard had abandoned his car, they found highway patrol cars and more deputies pulling up. Both girls shifted back into human form and accepted oversized blankets from the deputies, which they wrapped around themselves as they waited for Tate and Loch to come out of the woods.
Schuyler’s lip was split and bleeding. Megan could feel her own mouth throbbing, and her legs were scraped and oozing blood. She and Schuyler were filthy and muddy, but they were alive. It was an amazing miracle. They were alive.
Megan was weak with relief, her heart pounding a million miles a minute.
A deputy handed them both cold bottles of water, and they sucked at them greedily, until the bottles were empty.
“How the heck did you do that?” Megan marveled to her sister. “How did you get loose from the copper wire?”
“I told you I can do magic tricks like Houdini. I’ve been practicing escape tricks for months now. I have the other kids tie me up with clothesline and then I get out of it.” Schulyer stuck her tongue out at her. “Dummy.”
Good old Schuyler, always a brat, even under the most desperate circumstances.
For once, Megan didn’t mind.
*
Tate felt as if a million-ton weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Earlier, when he and Loch had heard Schuyler’s howls, he’d feared they’d be too late. He’d surely broken land speed records tearing through the woods, and the sight of Megan and Schuyler under attack from that coyote…he took a deep breath to calm himself.
They were at the hospital, in a curtained-off room in the E.R. Megan sat patiently on her bed as a nurse practitioner dabbed salve on her stinging wrists where they’d been bound with the copper wire. Schulyer sat less patiently next to her, receiving the same treatment from a doctor, and yelping in protest.
At Megan’s pleading, he’d allowed Frank to come to the hospital room with him, although he deliberately placed himself between the two of them and shot Frank hostile, warning looks.
“I feel like this is partly my fault,” Tate said.
“So I’m not in trouble?” Megan asked hopefully.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Tate said. “You snuck around behind my back, you got involved with a man without my approval, and that is why you ended up being kidnapped by a serial killer. And your sister got caught up in it, too.”
Megan wilted visibly. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
The nurse and doctor had finished, and they left the room, leaving Tate glowering at Megan. He was relieved and furious at the same time.
“Do you understand that I actually care about your welfare, and I might occasionally know what I’m talking about?”
“You didn’t when it came to Frank,” Megan said heatedly.
“Tell him,” Frank urged her.
“Tell me what?” Tate asked, alarm rippling through him. “Oh, my God. Are you expecting cubs?” He’d kill Frank. He’d kill him right there in the emergency room.
“No,” Megan said, looking horrified.
“Then what?”
Megan glowered. “I know you aren’t going to believe me, but…Frank and I are fated mates.”