Page 66 of Cuffed By the Wolf

Jennings and Sanchez step closer.

“We’ll take care of cleanup and ensure Sasha, Tara, and Genevieve are locked up tight,” Jennings says.

I have to trust the tiger shifter. If she has to shift, she’ll rip our enemies’ bodies apart. Sanchez is a fae — he’ll try to keep from killing, but he won’t let the enemies slip away.

“I know how to do the protection spell,” Sasha says.

“We’ll be fine,” she says, planting a kiss on my head. “Go.”

This time we run through the woods at full force, ready for blood.

Quietly, we assess the barn from our position near the property line under the moonlit sky. The night has gone still around us, crickets cutting out the second we go silent, replaced by the distant, uneasy shuffle of too many bodies moving inside a wooden building that was never built to hold this many. The smell reaches us even from here — old hay and diesel and, underneath it, the unmistakable musk of shifters trying and failing to mask their scent. Fitch saunters toward us in his brown bear form, huge and silent for something his size. Blake gracefully halts at his side, tawny coat catching what little moonlight makes it through the trees. We all take in the wolves going in and out of the barn, backlit gold every time the door swings open.

Time to play.

My team and I had already gone over the plan this morning, so we know what to do. We break off from each other. Taking long, predatory strides, I approach the side of the barn, close enough now to hear voices over the animal sounds inside.

“Where the fuck are Harris, John, and Rick?” Carson asks.

“Shit, they should be back by now,” he grunts.

“We need to get out-of-town now,” Jenny urges.

“We’re leaving soon. I need that other painting.”

“Forget the painting. You’ve made more than enough money on the first one.”

A loud slap sounds in the air. “Ouch,” Jenny cries.

“Beta, shut up and make yourself useful. Make sure the boat is ready to depart tomorrow night at eight p.m.,” Carson orders.

Stepping around the corner, I growl.

His icy blue eyes are trained on me now. “Seems the wolves I sent after you just can’t get you to stay down.” He runs across the oversized barn, his hired help stepping in front of me. I count six. I’m not sure if there are more covering the perimeter. Carson uses this moment to shift.

Bone cracks and fur rips through skin faster than I’ve ever watched another wolf do it — sloppy, urgent, more animal panic than practiced control. He transforms into a black-and-white, menacing wolf, saliva already dripping from his fangs.

Jenny clutches her stomach and scampers to a corner. Doesn’t look like she’s healing from Sasha’s magic. Good.

My team moves in beside me. Carson’s wolves step aside like they’re parting the Red Sea. He ambles down the aisle toward me, unhurried, like he still thinks this ends his way.

The wolves howl as he approaches me.

What the fuck? Is he their pack leader?

Carson growls. We walk around in a circle, and I bare my teeth, saliva dripping from my fangs.

I’d love a little snack.

He lunges at me, nipping my leg. I attack his belly, trying to dig my teeth in. Before I know it, fights break out all over the barn — the crash of bodies into stall doors, splintering wood, Tyson’s snarl somewhere to my left, Jax’s roar answering it, the whole building filling with the copper smell of blood and the panicked stamp of something in a back stall that isn’t part of this at all. My focus goes back to Carson.

He shot a gun at my omega and ran her off the road. He has to pay for almost killing her.

He jumps back, growling, baring his teeth. We leap in the air and our bodies collide, full weight and momentum meeting in midair, and for a second neither of us has the ground under us at all. We ferociously try to rip each other’s heads off. We fall to the ground, clawing and biting, rolling across the barn floor through scattered hay and worse, until I get the angle I want and pin him down, teeth ready to sink in.

My brother howls, getting my attention.

I took an oath as sheriff to bring bad guys to justice.