Judas drew in a deep breath and galvanized his men into action with a single word. “Attack!”
His wolves exploded into action, water spraying everywhere as the opposing sides clashed. Arrows splintered through the darkness, striking their intended targets with unmatched precision. Katharine and Trevor were fast approaching from the right, firing arrows with the rest of the pack alongside them in wolf form. To my relief, I didn’t see Lennon, and I knew William would have insisted he stay safely behind.
Our pack became a wall of blood, brotherhood, and badassery.
Jericho’s wolf sank his teeth into a large male and gave him a violent shake, blood spraying everywhere. When the enemy collapsed in the struggle, Izzy’s white wolf peed on him before rushing to April’s side.
April wasn’t foolish enough to jump right in, since a wolf could take down a Mage by tearing off their hands. The tall Chitah moved like a predator—his upper and lower fangs descended, his amber eyes so sharp and penetrating that every wolf who dared to look at him flinched. He fought like a skilled warrior—snapping the neck of a wolf before pulling another by his tail.
Austin and Judas were statues, staring each other down amid the calamity all around us. The sky was a blanket of soot surrounding a light that gave no warmth.
“Call your men off,” Austin said. “You’ll lose every single one.”
Judas shrugged indifferently. “They’re not really my men. They’re just men who follow me because they want something. Those kinds of men are so easy to find—so easy to replace.”
I averted my eyes, wondering how quickly I could get to my gun.
“Now, you aren’t thinking about shooting your own father, are you?” Judas said, mocking me. He clucked his tongue. “You know as well as I do if you make a run for it, you’ll have at least two wolves coming after you.”
A grizzly roared, and a heavy splash sounded in the water.
Judas took a step forward. “I’m still willing to negotiate.”
Austin became a shield, protectively curling me behind him. “You can’t have my land, and you can’t have my woman.”
“Which means more to you?”
I peered around Austin’s right shoulder.
Judas was smiling at the ground. “It’s not her I want.” He flicked an irreverent gaze up to Austin. “You and I both know she’s carrying an alpha, and I’ll finally have something that’s mine—an alpha who will heed my command for no other reason than my being his father. You can’t buy that kind of loyalty.”
“You’re not the father!” Austin roared.
Judas sneered. “I’m close enough.”
Pain lanced my side, and I cradled my stomach as if my touch could soothe the frightened baby within me. I remained calm, slowly inhaling and breathing through the discomfort.
Austin’s voice trembled with fury. “You’ll never touch her. You’ll never touch my child.”
“I’m not leaving here without that baby. We both know it’s ready to be born. An alpha is strong and will survive my cutting it out.”
“Over my dead body!”
“As you wish.”
Judas pulled out a gun, aimed, and fired.
***
Austin braced himself when the gun appeared. He was too far from Judas to rush him, and shifting would expose Lexi, making her vulnerable.
He had to take the bullet.
That’s what a man did for his life mate—the mother of his child—the love of his life.
The bullet pierced his flesh like hot fury, searing through the skin below his right pec and channeling through his chest cavity. The pain was immense but irrelevant. The only danger was if it had pierced his liver or ricocheted off bone and punctured another vital organ. These were injuries he could heal from, but not if the bullet was still inside him. A wave of relief struck him when hot blood ran down his back, indicating the round had made a clean exit. Packmasters challenged each other in wolf form, so at least he would heal some during the shift.
The moment he looked up at Judas, fear struck him like an Arctic wave.
Judas lowered his gun, and his jaw slackened.
Austin slowly turned around. Lexi’s eyes glittered with pain, her mouth open in disbelief as her fingers grazed over a hole in her shirt where blood was soaking into the fabric.
Not his blood.
Hers.
The bullet had gone clean through Austin and struck Lexi in the right shoulder.
Lexi’s knees buckled, and she fell. He caught her and gently set her down, kneeling before her and brushing her hair away from her ashen face.
“It’s gonna be fine,” he said. “Just breathe slowly.”
She grimaced and curled into a fetal position. “It’s coming… I can’t stop it.”
When Austin snapped his attention back to Judas, the wolf inside him became one with his spirit, and they were both enraged. The two had collided in an explosion of emotions that took him to a primitive place in his mind—a dark place from where few men ever returned.
Austin could see by the remorse in Judas’s eyes that he hadn’t meant to hurt her, and that’s what pissed him off the most.