Chapter 13

Wiley

F uck. My. Life.

The brand on Geneva's hip is healed, and thanks to the special salve Nan gave her, has faded into an unrecognizable circular scar that will hopefully disappear in time. But that doesn't mean the trauma of receiving the brand will ever go away, so why on earth would I think she'd ever accept my mark?

She doesn't understand what it means to receive it, and worse, what it means to me by refusing it.

I keep my features soft as I nod my head. "I understand."

She shakes her head and rests her forehead against my chest. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize, babe. It's a lot to ask. We'll figure it out. My wolf will have to deal with it."

Wrapping my arms around her, I know every word out of my mouth is a lie. He'll never deal with it and eventually it'll become a big problem.

But what else can I do?

Cigarette smoke in the breeze grabs my attention right before I hear male voices parked at the end of the street. My muscles tighten as I strain to pick up their conversation. They're too far away for Geneva's hearing, and I can barely make out their words.

"Which house?" A gravelly voice asks.

"The two with the walkway between them." A younger male voice says.

"But which one?"

"I think it's the one on the right."

"Wiley?" Geneva pulls her head back to look up at me, no doubt sensing my mood shift and tensing muscles.

I slap my hand over her mouth and motion with a finger to my lips to remain quiet.

"Kill her and anyone the whore is in bed with, and then bring me my son." A third male voice, but I don't need to see him to know who it is.

Motherfucker has balls of steel to track her to my doorstep. Why didn't Junta call me?

Shit. Where's my phone?

Sly's too far away to speak with telepathically, and I left my phone in the office before we went on our run.

I move Geneva off my lap, keeping my voice low as I put my mouth to her ear. "Hide under the table and keep quiet. Someone is on the street talking about the house. I'm going to shift and check it out."

I don't tell her it's her ex. That will send her into an emotional tailspin and people who panic do dumb things.

She shakes her head. "What?"

"Shhh. Hide." I say before I shift, taking one more glance in her direction as she crawls under the table. The telltale click of a round sliding into the chamber of a rifle is followed by the sound of a shotgun cocking open and closed.

Son of a bitch!

I can't take down three males on a neighborhood street without starting a panic in the community. Humans will declare open season on the wolves in the surrounding area, which puts all of us in danger. No, I need to get to the house before they do so I can secure Bo, Jimmy, and Nan before Sly and I tear these fuckers limb from limb.

I catch the flash of Sly's golden-green eyes in the park and trot over to him. "What are you doing out here?"

"Same thing you are, waiting for the moment I can fuck these assholes up."

"How did you know?"

"They nabbed my attention when they drove by a couple of times before parking. Plus, Junta called me because you weren't answering your phone."

"Where's Bo?"

"Nan's got him and Jimmy secured in the clinic. They're safe. Where's your mate?"

"Hiding under the table at the fire pit."

Sly licks his canines. "How do you want to do this?"

"Let them go inside. We'll take them down without witnesses."

"No bloodshed?"

"It'll be easier to clean up without it."

"I was hoping your wild ass wolf would say that."

Sly and I run behind the houses, skirting through the three yards that separate my house from the park. Jumping over four-foot chain link panels and pushing through holes in wood plank fences, we sneak up to the back of the house at the same time our two criminals enter the front.

"Did you leave the front door open?"

"Slightly ajar. I thought I'd make it easy on the assholes."

"Something's off," the younger male says.

"Small towns. People are careless because they think they're safe," the smoker retorts.

I shift into my human form and slip through the back door into the dark kitchen, taking in the two men standing in my living room. Wearing black clothes, both have tattoos covering their necks, bald heads, and faces. Prison tats, if I were to guess, the ink faded and applied without clean lines.

The older man with the smoker's rasp places his foot on the first tread heading upstairs and that's all it takes for Sly, who is also in his human form, to launch himself at the criminal's back. He puts him in a chokehold, cutting off his air and blood supply before the man knows what's happened to him.

My guy jumps back and turns to run for the front door. I kick my foot into the side of his knee, a satisfying pop causing him to stumble and fall, his head striking the corner of the coffee table and killing him instantly.

"I thought you said no bloodshed?" Sly looks over at my guy as he drops his guy mercilessly to the ground.

"It was an accident." I shrug, bending down to check his pulse.

Nope, he's definitely dead.

Geneva's scream rips through the night air. I shift and sprint down the street instantly. I'm almost at the trees when I catch her ex dragging her by a fistful of her hair. Snarling loudly, I launch myself at his back, taking him to the ground and pushing both of them back into the thick foliage.

My mate scrambles to her feet and runs back toward the fire pit at the same time John runs after her, turning to aim a handgun at me. He gets off two shots as I leap through the air, my teeth sinking into his forearm before viciously shaking my head.

And then I feel the fire spreading through my chest.

Fuck, I think he hit me. Twice. And it hurts more than I would've expected.

John screams in agony as I shred the ligaments in his arm, the metallic taste of his blood filling my mouth. Something heavy smashes the side of my head as he swings his free hand at me, causing my jaw to crack and me to lose my canine grip. I stumble back, rolling through the forgotten ash in the fire pit and struggling to get on my feet so I can protect my mate when I hear three more shots ring out in rapid succession.

The world stops spinning as fear grips my heart.

My mate.

Panting, I look up to find Geneva holding John's pistol in her hands. Tears stream down her face as she stands over him, the muzzle of his gun pointed at the man dead on the ground. Her finger jerks as she continues to pull the trigger, but the chamber is empty.

"Geneva?" I say, now in my human form. I'm covered in ash, bleeding profusely, but all I care about is making sure my mate is unharmed.

She looks over at me, her body trembling. Tossing the gun into the trees, she falls to her knees in front of me. "Bo?"

"He's fine," I rasp.

"And you?" She chokes back a sob.

"I'll be fine too. Did he hurt you?"

"No." She wails. "You're bleeding."

"It's okay," I lie, because I'm not one-hundred percent sure it will be okay.

Sweet Fates, this hurts.

Tom, my bear shifter neighbor, pushes through the tree branches, his eyes wild. He looks at me and then at John. "What the fuck is going on?"

Sly and Cricket run up the well-worn path, halting to take in the scene. "Fuck."

Sly crouches down next to me while Cricket checks John for a pulse. "Did you shoot him?"

"She did." I groan.

"Good job." Sly flashes Geneva a toothy smile, not that she's looking at him.

Her eyes fix on me as tears blur her vision. "He's bleeding." She says again.

He shifts his attention to me. "Yeah, he sure is. How are you feeling?"

"It fucking hurts," I pant, unable to catch my breath.

"Yeah, it does." He glances up at the bear shifter who works at the lumber mill twenty miles outside of town and has no military experience. "Can you carry him to the clinic? Nan's waiting for us. Cricket and I need to clean this up and then we'll meet you there."

"You SpecOps guys are next level crazy." Tom sighs and shakes his head. "Can you shift? I'd rather carry a wolf than a naked man."

"Geneva?"

"I'm with you." She sniffles, gripping my hand that shifts into a paw.

Tom picks me up, jostling me a bit too hard. I yelp which makes Geneva cry harder.

"He'll be okay, I promise." Sly tries to comfort her. "Go on. Bo's waiting for you at the clinic."

"Thank you." She jogs beside Tom as we exit the trees. The pain is indescribable. I know I'll heal, but I wasn't expecting the associated agony, and it takes everything within me to maintain consciousness.

Tom pushes through the clinic's backdoor where Nan stands by ready to fight. One look at me and her face falls. "Oh shit. Bring him in here."

He lays me down on a hospital bed and I instantly shift back into my human form, although it hurts infinitely worse than when I'm a wolf.

"Momma!" Bo cries out at the same time Nan throws a sheet over my naked body. "What happened?"

Geneva turns and scoops her son into her arms, turning his back to me.

But it doesn't matter. He wiggles, twists, and turns in her hold until he can look down at me, his voice laced with fear. "Wiley!"

"I'm okay, buddy." I drag my eyes over to Jimmy. "Can you take them in the other room?"

"No." Geneva shakes her head. "I'm not leaving you."

Nan arches her brow, turning to face my mate. "I need to look at the wounds and it's going to get messy."

Bo buries his head into his mother's shoulder, crying. "We'll be right outside the door."

As soon as they walk out with Jimmy and Tom, Nan tosses the sheet back. "Jesus. What did he hit you with?"

"Bullets."

"No shit." Nan rolls me to my side. "No exit wounds, but judging by the wheezing and blood spurting out of your chest, I'm guessing you took one in the lung while the other nicked an artery or your heart. Maybe we should run you to the hospital, just in case?"

"No. After what happened two months ago, I don't want to risk any inquiries."

Sly waltzes in, his brow raised. "You look like shit."

"Thanks." I gulp for air. "Did you clean up?"

"If by cleaned up you mean is Cricket driving a suspicious kiddie van with two dead bodies, three untraceable firearms, and one tied up scapegoat north to our dump site?" He grins. "Then yes. I called Erick. He's calling Colonel Packard for a favor."

"We're going to be working for him until the day we die to work off these favors."

"No kidding." Sly narrows his eyes, inspecting the wounds on my chest. "The bleeding should have stopped by now, but the bastard used hollow points, so cleanup is going to take a while."

"Pighead here doesn't want to go to the hospital." Nan motions at me while setting up an IV with fluids and hopefully pain meds.

"Anything that needs to be done can be done here. I don't want to expose us on the last day her ex was seen alive."

Sly and Nan exchange a look, but since Nan isn't telepathic, anything they want to communicate they have to say out loud. "I'm pretty sure the two guys we got in the house are cons, and with a dirty state trooper, a believable story won't be hard to fabricate. Something tells me Washington State police will want to investigate his death quickly and quietly, and it's not like he has a spouse crying for justice."

I close my eyes, a wave of exhaustion hitting me. "Good, good."

"You need to shift," Nan says sharply. "I want to put this IV in and your wolf will push out the bullets faster than you."

"Take care of her," I grunt and shift before passing out.