The third person in the clearing said nothing, but Alec heard them walking, and then the sharp line of a red laser cutting through the night, hitting the leaves on the ground several feet away. Alec froze.
“You find something?” Deputy John asked.
“Tracks,” the third person said, and Alec went cold. They were following the tracks toward the downed tree Alec hid within. If they had infrared goggles, Alec was dead.
“Tracks? What kinda tracks—” Deputy Earl said, but his words were choked off by a gurgle, and the air was thick with the scent of hot blood, raining down on the leaf litter with a thick spray.
“Shit!” Deputy John shouted. “What the fuck was that?”
“What? What happened?!” the third person shouted, the laser disappearing as they turned away in a hurry.
Alec risked a peek over the huge trunk—the light of the moon was enough to see a twitching body on the ground, night vision goggles knocked off into the leaves, two figures standing over their dying companion.
Lights flicked on, and Alec ducked down, closing his eyes to preserve his night vision. Beams of light swoopedoverhead and through the trees, and Alec knew his hiding spot wasn’t going to last much longer.
“Oh fuck, oh fuck,” someone gasped out. “His head’s been ripped off!”
Gunshots rang out, an automatic rifle tearing through the air and trees, bullets riddling the ground and pinging off the oak tree Alec hid behind.
“Quit it! What the fuck you firing at! You wanna hit the boss?” Deputy John shouted, interrupting the shooting. “Whatever it was is gone, just use your eyes?—”
A harsh scream completed that sentence, and a cacophony of shots tore through the woods. Voices crackled over the radio, but it died with a screech of feedback and then went silent.
The shooting stopped, too.
Ears ringing, Alec waited for a sign it was safe to look.
A huge shadow leapt atop the tree trunk, and Alec smiled up at his mate, visible in the fallen flashlight beams in the clearing. “Did you get all three?”
“I did, little greenbough,” Leif replied, reaching down with one huge arm and helping Alec climb up out of the branches of the fallen oak. He sat on the trunk beside Leif.
“How many more in the woods?” Alec asked, taking in the fresh mayhem. There were three new headless corpses in the clearing that weren’t there a few moments prior, and Alec leaned into his mate, satisfied.
“The big boss, and three more of his men.” Leif pointed with his muzzle deeper into the woods. “They heard the shots and the screaming.”
“Are they running away or toward us?”
“I believe they’re foolishly coming this way,” Leif growled out.
“Idiots,” Alec said with a heavy sigh. “You okay saving the boss for me? I want to have a word with him.”
“With pleasure, little greenbough,” Leif said, and with a mighty leap, he disappeared into the shadows.
Alec stayed seated on the trunk, eyeing the growing pile of bodies in the clearing. “This is going to be a big bonfire.”
He pulled out his new phone, pleased to see he had several bars of signal this deep in the woods, and looked up whether they were in a burn ban area. No sense in starting a wildfire just to dispose of some inconvenient bodies.
Leif
His prey were carryinglarge flashlights and they were jogging through the heavy leaf layer toward the spot where Leif killed their buddies. They were loud, their breathing harsh and panicked, and none of them were the least bit observant, despite being dressed in quality camo gear with large hunting knives strapped to their waists. They stunk of stress and fear, and his primal instincts rode him hard, demanding he kill the interlopers.
They were hunting his mate.
He waited for the group to pass him in the darkness, and with one arm reached out and plucked the last man in the group off his feet, crushing his skull. He tossed the body aside, the others making enough of a racket that they heard nothing as Leif continued to follow them.
Two men and the mafia boss remained.
He presumed the man in the priciest camo getup was the boss—he carried a handgun and a rifle, and the twomen remaining with him carried automatic rifles of some kind. Humans and their guns.
