The shooter’s eyes widened, his lips curved down, and he pulled the trigger, firing once, twice, three times. The impact of the bullets ripped into her chest, throwing her against the brick building, and she nearly collapsed. At first, no pain registered as she struggled to stay on her feet. When she didn’t immediately expire on the spot, he stared at her as if she was the devil incarnate.
Then the pain struck hard and for an instant, her thought processes threatened to shut down. When he raised his gun, her brain caught hold.
She dashed toward the forest skirting the town, intending to double back as soon as she could and get help for Tom. She’d give the shooter a real run for his blood money. Thank god the bullets didn’t burn like silver ones would. She’d live, if she could find refuge and allow her body time to heal.
“Bloody hell!” Her assailant took chase.
Stabbing pain streaked through every inch of her now, and she could feel the hot blood seeping from the wounds. Every second her heart pumped more blood out, and she felt her legs weakening.
Run, damn you, Lelandi. If ever she had to push herself, this was the time.
Branches broke several yards behind her as she dove around trees, scrambled over fallen, rotting trunks, clawed through thick brush. As much noise as the gunman was making, she again assumed he was human. Good. He couldn’t see the trail of blood she was leaving, nor could he smell her scent. Then again, the breeze was shifting so much, it would help to disguise her location. Oh hell, as much perfume as she was wearing, probably even a human could follow her. She tried to remain downwind of him.
Tried—was the key word, because her senses were failing—one by one.
She no longer heard the birds singing in the trees, or the wind whistling through the firs, just her heavy breathing and the blood roaring in her ears. Her eyes blurred and she misjudged the lay of the land. The ground seemed to give way. And she fell.
Striking branches and brambles, she grabbed for anything to stop her tumble down the steep incline, skinning and cutting her hands. She lost her hat first, her glasses next. A branch scraped off one earring, then the other. Her hair tangled on every branch in her path, yanking at her scalp, the branches and twigs giving up their hold as she roiled. Downward... downward, banging against rocks and stumps. her whole body bruised and battered, she gritted her teeth against the pain.
For a second, she worried about the damned disguise and the trail she’d left behind for the attempted murderer. Then her back struck something rock hard, unforgiving, massive. The pain shot straight up her spine, all the way to her brain, short-circuiting it.
Blackness enveloped her as her night vision and all her senses shut down.
Chapter 3
REACHING A DULL ROAR, THE CONVERSATION AT THE TAVERN centered around Lelandi’s sisters appearance in town when Darien’s cell phone rang. He wasn’t surprised to see Tom’s cell number and assumed Lelandi’s sister was causing trouble. He sure as hell hoped she hadn’t slipped away from him. “Yeah, Tom? What’s up now?”
“Got to come quick!” Tom yelled into the phone, his voice breathy.
“Tom?” Darien leapt from his chair. ‘Where are you?”
“Gunshots fired. Hastings Bed—” The phone died.
“Gunfire at Hastings!” Darien’s heart hammered his ribs as he and Jake bolted for the tavern door.
From the thunderous roar of boots tromping down the street behind him, everyone from the tavern must be on his heels. While he raced toward the hotel, his muscles tensed for battle, concern for the woman and his brother’s safety swamped him.
Although the insidious thought flashed across his mind that she might have shot Tom.
“Hastings Bed and Breakfast,” he hollered to Jake, clarifying it wasn’t Hastings Hardware.
“Crap, Darien, what now?”
“Gunshots were fired. Hell, I don’t know.” Darien berated himself that he’d put Tom’s life in danger, when he should have gone instead.
His cell phone rang, and he jerked it off his belt. “Tom, what the hell’s—”
“I’ve been hit.”
“Where are you?”
“Behind…” Tom quit speaking.
In the eerie silence, Darien held his breath in anticipation as he and Jake stopped dead. “Tom? Tom!” Silence. “Armed gunman somewhere near Hastings. Get Doc Oliver. Tom’s been shot.” Darien shouted to his men.
Gray-haired and bearded Mason. still wearing his gray suit—the usual attire for Silver Town’s bank owner—yanked out his cell phone. “Got it. boss.”
“Silver bullets or regular?” Jake asked.
“Phone went dead.”
More shots sounded in the woods farther away. Darien cursed and quickened his run toward Hastings. “Careful, men. Not sure what kind of bullets the shooter’s using.”
He motioned for some to skirt around the front of the B&B. Then he, Jake, and several others headed around back.
“Where the hell is Tom?” Jake asked under his breath.
“Passed out maybe.”
“I’ll kill whoever the son of a—”
Groans came from behind a Dumpster. Anger blazed through Darien’s veins as he and Jake bolted around the green trash bin.
Tom lay on his back, holding his bloodied head, his eyes dazed. “Where’d she go? Odin’s beard, my head hurts like a—”
“Tell the others we found Tom!” Darien shouted to some of the men as they drew closer. One of them handed him a handkerchief. Crouching next to his brother, Darien lifted his head in his lap, then tied the handkerchief around the bleeding wound. “Silver or regular?”
“Not silver. My body’s rejecting the bullet, but it hurts like hell.” Tom closed his eyes. “Where’s Larissa?”
Two more men came running toward them.
“Doc Oliver’s on his way.” Mason shoved his phone into his pocket. “No sign of the girl or the gunman.” He arched a gray brow in question. ‘Sure they aren’t one and the same?”
Hoping it wasn’t so, Darien looked at Tom for an answer.
“Thor’s thunder.” Tom’s gaze drifted and he squinted his eyes closed. “He shot Larissa. too.”
Darien swore under his breath. The notion the maniac threatened Lelandi’s sister’s life twisted his gut. Issuing the next order took all his strength, when he wanted more than anything to take care of the matter himself. “Find her, and get that damned gunman.”
Any other decision would sound like he cared more for the red’s safety than his own brother, or a pack member—not a leadership quality. Applying pressure to the wound, he hoped Doc Oliver would hurry, because no matter how much he told himself otherwise, the woman looked too much like his dead mate to deny his feelings for her. Even in death, she held his heart captive.
Unable to contain his impatience he shouted. “Where the hell is Doc Oliver?”
Three more shots rang out, reverberating through the forest, and Lelandi cringed. The gunman must be shooting at shadows. She hoped.
Survival of the fittest. That’s what ran through her mind as she lay in the underbrush nestled at the base of a stand of spruce, her back wedged up against a moss- blanketed boulder. Her mind drifted when the pain from the three bullets lodged in her heart intensified. Her back didn’t feel too swift either. She’d survived worse. Hunter’s wounds when she was a wolf, an attempted rape, a near drowning, now this. Her guardian angel sure worked overtime for her.
The pain grew hot, but the perspiration on her skin, refrigerated by the cool breeze and the blood soaking her turtleneck chilled her further. Something moved toward her. Intently, she listened to the sound of its scurrying and smelled the scents. Cold, crisp autumn, a hint of moisture in the air, a time when she baked apple pies, made special soups and hot spicy chili, decorated with pumpkins. squash. and colorful mums, the colors complementary to her fiery red hair and green eyes. Autumn, her special time of year.