In less than a minute Tempest’s green and lavender mists were swirling in the living room, and Ronan was pacing on the edge of them. As they dissipated Tempest and Brandt became corporeal and Brandt reached out and grabbed him. “Hold on,” Brandt yelled as Tempest’s mists began to swirl again.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he heard Tempest’s voice murmur as though in a dream.
In less time than it took for Tempest and Brandt to get to him after his call, he felt his feet on solid ground.
“You can look,” Brandt whispered.
Ronan opened his eyes and looked around himself. They were in the woods on the far side of the tiny home community built on the shelter’s land.
“I feel four near the building. Three further away across the street. That’s where Giada is. I’m still feeling the kids over here, they’re hidden away,” Tempest said, looking out over the tiny homes. “Maverik and Bam are on site, too.”
Before Brandt and Ronan could make a quick plan, Ronan heard Giada scream, followed by soft whimpers and took off in that direction, shifting as he went, and leaving his clothes behind as his Wolf shook his massive body and kicked his legs free.
“Stay safe,” Brandt said, kissing Tempest quickly. She smirked at him. “You stay safe. I’m going to pay these guys’ boss a visit.”
Brandt grinned at her as she gathered her mists and disappeared. He discarded his clothing and shifted into his bear so he could better access his instincts, and quietly made his way toward the main building of the shelter where Tempest had said she sensed four men. As he got closer he heard a snarl, then the ripping and tearing of flesh. He stepped around the corner of the building and Maverik’s silver Wolf tossed a look his way as he finished tearing the windpipe out of the man he’d cornered.
Brandt’s Bear met his gaze for long enough to let him know he’d been seen, then he continued around the building. When he got there, Bam was standing there totally nude — which told Brandt he’d shifted back to his human form — and grinning at the man as he tried to provoke him into taking a swing at him. Despite the man’s obvious fear at seeing a bear change into a human, he was defiantly standing his ground.
“Give it your best,” Bam taunted. “Want me to hold my hands behind my back?”
“I’ll kill you!” the man threatened vehemently.
Bam laughed. “Okay.” He stepped forward and reached out one hand, shoving the man with only his fingertips off balance.
The man tried to swat Bam’s hand away, and took a swing at Bam’s face.
Bam caught the man’s fist in his own and grinned at him as he continued to hold it within his own fist, slowly squeezing until the man started screaming and slowly going to his knees, as Brandt heard the sound of popping bones. Bam’s smile disappeared as he slowly bent the wrist attached to the hand he’d just shattered, forcing the man onto his back on the sidewalk. “Please! Please!” the man screamed, begging for mercy.
Bam lifted a foot as he held the man’s arm taut at an unnatural angle, and kicked at the man’s elbow, snapping it and leaving the arm dangling within his skin. But instead of putting his foot back on the ground, Bam slammed it down on the man’s chest. “You. Do. Not. Hurt. Children!” Bam bellowed, accenting each individual word with a stomp from his foot.
The man who was already screaming from his destroyed arm, tried to scoot himself across the cement and away from Bam’s attack.
But all it did was make Bam more angry.
Bam followed the painfully slow retreat of his chosen victim. Bringing his foot down on the man’s chest, breaking ribs, rupturing his spleen, his liver, and eventually his heart. “Kids are off limits, you sorry piece of shit!” Bam leaned over bellowing in the man’s face.
The man didn’t move. Didn’t whine or protest anymore at all.
Bam nudged him with his foot. “Hey! I’m not finished!”
The man didn’t respond at all anymore.
Bam straightened up and looked around the grounds. He focused on Brandt’s Bear and flashed him a cold smile. “I caught him looking for the kids. You don’t fucking hunt kids!”
Brandt’s Bear gave a single nod of his monstrous head.
“He’s dead. Now I gotta find another one,” Bam said before he shifted back into his Bear and walked off in the opposite direction of Brandt.
In the distance Brandt heard more screaming, the howls of multiple Wolves, and a woman’s sobbing. He took off at a run, his Bear loping fearlessly across the darkened property of the shelter. He’d gone no more than about thirty feet when a human stepped out in front of him, brandishing a gun in his direction.
Brandt didn’t even stop his lope, he just lifted one of his huge paws as he bore down on the man and slashed across his midsection eviscerating him in one swipe. The clattering of the gun to the ground wasn’t even enough to make Brandt turn and look. His focus was on the scene he heard unfolding in the park across from the shelter.
Chapter 20
Tempest used her preternatural senses to zero in on the DiCaviatoppi compound in an old, yet affluent neighborhood of Chicago. As she arrived, she considered just appearing in his bedroom, but then, where was the fun in that? Instead, she started at the heavily guarded front gate. She misted into being right behind the two men standing in the darkness, guns on their hips, huddled beneath heavy coats and hats in their attempt to remain functional despite the heavy snow and ice blanketing the area.
“It’s too fucking cold to be out here like this. Nothing is moving out here!” one of them complained, his gloved hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat.
