She grinned. “An eye for an eye.”
I frowned, trying to figure out what that meant, when Curt turned, panic in his gaze. He looked at Sawyer’s wolf and screamed.
Everything happened in slow motion then. Curt started to run toward Sawyer’s gray wolf, as I slowly turned down to look at my man. When I saw the red laser sniper dot on his wolf’s chest, my whole body seized up. I moved to fall forward and throw myself in front of him, but it was too late. The sound of a high-powered rifle cut through the space, echoing off of all four walls with a sharp snap.
Blood marred the floor and my legs went weak as I fell forward and caught the alpha.
Curt lurched into my arms, blood dribbling out of his mouth as we both collapsed onto the floor.
They shot the alpha…
They’d been trying to kill Sawyer, but his dad… a sob formed in my throat. War broke out in the ballroom, the sounds of fighting and snarling and screams filled the hall, but all I could do was look into the deep blue eyes of my future father-in-law as he smiled up at me. A thin trail of blood exited his mouth and trickled down his cheek.
“No!” Sawyer shifted to human form and collapsed beside me onto his knees. “Dad!”
“Get a doctor!” Eugene yelled.
A doctor couldn’t save this, nor could shifter healing. I knew by the amount of wet warmth pooling onto my thighs as his body lay draped over my lap that it was too late. He’d taken a bullet for his son, and for that I would be forever grateful.
Sawyer’s mom’s shrill and horrific screams filled the ballroom as she fell to the floor at her husband’s side. He reached out to her, lungs gurgling with each shallow breath. “I… didn’t love you, at… first,” he admitted, and we all held our breath. “But I grew to love you… very… deeply, my sweet love.”
She sobbed, clutching his hand and rocking back and forth. Tears rolled down my cheeks and I wished we could get Astra here, but there was no time… we were out of time.
Curt then looked at his son. Sawyer’s mouth was turned into a frown, but his face was void of all emotion. He was stuck in shock, I could feel it through our bond, he couldn’t believe this was happening.
“My son…” His chest rattled and Sawyer let out a strangled moan. “I’m… so proud of you.” Curt took in a deep wet breath. “You’ll make ten times the… alpha I was. Especially with Demi… at your…side.” He looked to me and I squeezed his other outstretched hand.
His eyes grew glassy as they began to look around the room. I thought he might just be dying, but then his gaze snapped to my mother’s teary face.
“Cora,” he whispered.
My mom fell to her knees, squeezing into the space between me and Sawyer, and took Curt’s face in her hands. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you,” she told him, looking him right in the eyes. “I should have been honest from the start and never entered the mating year.”
He nodded, pulling his hand from mine and stroking her pale cheek. “Forgiven.” He drew a long rattling breath then… and never exhaled. His chest just froze in place and Sawyer’s mom’s scream turned into a wolf’s howl halfway through as she shifted mid-yell.
Holy fuck. He was dead. Sawyer’s dad… our alpha. Dead.
“Sniper has been taken out. They’ve locked us in the room though.” Eugene’s voice came from above us and I realized he was talking to Sawyer. “What do we do, sir?”
He was avoiding looking at Curt’s dead body, which now lay in my lap, cutting off the circulation to my legs.
Sir.He just called Sawyer “sir” because he was now the alpha…
Sawyer shook himself, taking one last look at his father. “How many guards do we have and how many of them are there?”
“Thirty of us that are trained, eighty or so of the blood suckers. Two hundred guests made it in before the door got sealed. The rest are on the balcony having refreshments, I presume.”
Sawyer rubbed his temples as the sound of screams filled the space. Our fucking wedding guests were being slaughtered alive.
“Get the women and children and elderly in a corner and put twelve men to protect them. Send the rest with me to kill these blood suckers.”
Anger surged inside of me so hot and fast that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to sit this one out. “No. Takeallof the guards with you and I’ll protect the women and children,” I told Sawyer as I slid his father’s body off my legs and ripped the bottom half of my mermaid dress off in one jerking motion. The bloody fabric fell to the floor so that I was now wearing a minidress with my bedazzled Converse sneakers.
“Demi, I—”
“Sawyer,fuckhiding what I am. People are going to die!” I growled. And I was capable of catching bullets, yet I wasn’t able to for his father, something I had to live with for the rest of my life now. He knew how powerful I was, he knew I was an asset, he just needed to get over his urge to treat me like glass.
“Alright,” Sawyer breathed. “But be safe.” Then he shook himself, shifting into a gray wolf in seconds.
