“Yeah, after breakfast.” Mary nodded and yawned again.
“Or lunch.” John’s voice was wistful. “Too bad we can’t stay here. Naomi’s a good cook.”
“Since you helped clear the dishes, you all get dessert,” Naomi called out. “I made apple crumble.”
“Dessert?” Sailor cried happily. Then she whispered to John, “Definitely after lunch tomorrow. We can wait until after lunch.”
After dinner, one of the bartenders from the Watering Hole came to pick up Macy so she could work her first shift.
He introduced himself as David, and he looked at Macy as if she were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Hmm,” Macy murmured to Dakota as David went to wait outside for her. “He’s very pretty. Seems like a nice guy. I don’t usually go for the nice guys.”
“And how has that worked out for you so far?” Dakota asked her.
“You have a point. I guess I could try a little sample of nice and see if I like the taste of it.” Macy winked at her. “I may end up sleeping in town tonight after my shift, but I’ll find you in the morning.”
When it was time to sleep, Dakota and Naomi curled up on the rug in the living room, while the children slept in the shack’s one bedroom.
It was many hours later that Dakota sat bolt upright, a feeling of uneasiness rushing through her.
She listened carefully. What was wrong? She couldn’t put her finger on it. Naomi lay curled up on her side, snoring.
She could hear rustling and low murmurs in the other room, so she went to check on the cubs.
There were only three kids there. Her heart dropped. She’d really thought they were starting to come around.
“Where’s Sarah?” she asked.
John sat up and yawned. “She went outside to pee.”
“By herself, in the middle of the night?” Dakota said, exasperated. “I told you guys I need to keep an eye on you. She should have woken me up to go with her and stand guard.”
Sailor looked at her scornfully. “She’ll be fine.”
Dakota stuck her head outside, but didn’t see anything. The night was very windy, which interfered with her ability to scent, although she caught a faint whiff of Sarah from the west side of the cabin, in the woods.
“It’s not safe out there,” Dakota said. “Miles said there are lots of attacks in this territory.”
“I heard you say that Miles was a stubborn, stupid, pig-headed, stuck-up derpface,” John pointed out.
Oops. She might have expressed that opinion to Naomi a little earlier. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. And it doesn’t change the fact that he’s right about the danger, and if anything happens there’s no cell phones and no way for me to call for help.”
“Sarah told me that if a girl says lots of insults about a guy, it means she’s in love with him,” Sailor observed shrewdly. “You said…” she counted on her little fingers, “five insults. So you must reeaaally be in love.”
The children immediately started chanting. “Miles and Jamie sitting in a tree, K I S S I N G…”
All of a sudden, they heard a scream of terror ripping through the air.
Chapter Eight
Dakota and the cubs raced out of the cabin, dashing towards the sound of the screams. The rain from earlier had soaked the forest floor, and the leaves on the ground clung to their feet. Dakota shifted as she ran, her clothes splitting and tearing, and the colors of the forest dimmed but a million smells swirled through the air.
Fear. Lust. Rage. The coppery scent of blood.
Two male shifters in human form had Sarah in a net, in wolf form, and they were dragging her through the woods. She was snarling and snapping and thrashing. One of the men was bleeding from the arm. So Sarah had bitten him; good.
Dakota leaped through the air, tackling one of the men. Sarah’s siblings shifted as well, and swarmed over the other man.
