Then all hell broke loose. Darien lunged for Carruthers and Peter went for Connors. But three red wolves dashed into the room. Carol screamed. Silva grabbed for a lamp while Lelandi searched in Darien’s sock drawer. He hadn’t put her gun back here. Damn it. Why didn’t he tell her where it was? Too late. She and Silva could shapeshift, but Lelandi wasn’t any match for a male, gray or red. She was sure Silva wouldn’t be either. She seized the other bedside table lamp.
“Get into the bathroom and stay there!” Lelandi shouted at Carol.
But Darien had one of the wolves by the throat, pinning Carol into a corner.
Then Crassus stalked into the room like he owned the place, his strawberry blond hair unbound, his dark eyes challenging her. For an instant, she felt an inkling of terror. He could snap her neck in two and end her life easily. But even worse, he could claim her for his own if he could kill Darien.
Lelandi moved in Carol’s direction, her lamp readied, her eyes challenging him back. Cowering before the son of a bitch was not an option. But her heated blood ran cold now. He was bigger, stronger, and meaner than she could ever be. He wouldn’t hesitate to take her.
Like most of the reds in his pack, he wasn’t tall, but he was bulky, like a football player in his prime and was always itching for a fight. His older brother, Bruin, was the only one stronger, more deadly.
The sound of fighting was going on downstairs, and she hoped Jake and the rest would win against Bruin and his men. More than six reds had come into town.
As if he had no worries, Crassus folded his arms, and his lips rose in a gloating sneer. “Your father wouldn’t give you to me. I suspected it had to do with your temper. Would have made our mating much more—challenging. Or it might have been because you hadn’t come into a wolf’s heat yet, and he was afraid you wouldn’t be worth having.” His eyes as cold as ash, he added, “But Larissa is dead and you will now be mine.”
His words cut through her like an icy blade, but she tried to act nonchalant and waved a hand at Darien who was tackling another wolf. “Meet my mate. You’re already too late, Crassus. Live with it.”
He reached out to touch Lelandi’s hair, but she slapped his hand away. He laughed from the gut, sinister, cruelly. But before she could react, he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. A streak of pain slid down her spine, and she dropped the lamp. “You hoped Bruin would give you to another pack member—another subchief, even though your father insisted, but Bruin wouldn’t. Not unless I told him I didn’t want you. You can’t have a gray, You’re mated to me, albeit in absentia. But we’ll get to the good part after we rid ourselves of the grays.”
She struggled to twist free, his meaty hand tightening on her throat. Her vision darkened, she gasped for air, then Darien chomped down on Crassus’s arm.
Darien’s focus had to remain on the wolves in the room first, more deadly with their powerful bites, more of a threat than any of those in their human forms. But as soon as Crassus grabbed Lelandi’s throat, Darien had to get rid of the wolf he was fighting, then he aimed for the bastard. No contest existed between a wolf and a human, and he’d hoped the beast would have changed so he could take care of him wolf to wolf.
As soon as Darien bit Crassus’s arm, he screamed and released Lelandi. He ripped off his shirt, though his swarthy face exuded pain, and he struggled with the effort, his arm dripping with blood.
The twin cops who had entered the room initially, quickly turned wolf to deal with Peter now that the other reds were dead. Darien bit one of them while he waited for Crassus to change.
Lelandi was still clutching her throat, trying to draw air into her lungs when Carol cried out. She slid to the floor, her eyes dazed, her throat dripping with blood from a nasty gash. Lelandi skirted around the four wolves battling each other and reached Carol, her hand on her throat, stemming the blood. “Ohmigod, Carol. You’ll be... all right.” Some reassurance. It didn’t matter that Carol’s death would be the easiest solution now that she knew they were lupus garous. Lelandi desperately wanted her to live.
Silva was already on the phone. “Angelina, call Nurse Matthew right away and dispatch him to Darien’s home. We have multiple injuries.” She clicked off the phone and punched in numbers. “The new male nurse is on his way,” she said to Lelandi. She paused. “Charlotte? It’s Silva. Come right away to Darien’s house. We’ve got casualties, but the fight’s still ongoing.”
Silva hung up the phone and climbed over the bed to get to Lelandi, while Crassus ditched his trousers and shapeshifted. “Is she going to live?”
Lelandi yanked a pillowcase off one of the pillows and applied pressure to the wound. She didn’t think Carol was going to make it. The woman’s heartbeat was fading, and she was bleeding too much. “I... I don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll get some of that leftover bandaging Doc gave me to use on your wounds.” Silva climbed back over the bed and raced into the bathroom.
Standing as a wolf, Crassus bared his teeth at Darien. Crassus looked so damned arrogant. Didn’t he know he was no match for a gray alpha pack leader?
The two circled each other while Peter and the remaining red stopped to watch the fight between a leader and a subchief. Silva returned with the bandaging and she and Lelandi bound Carol’s wound. Darien lunged at Crassus, but the wolf twisted away so hard to avoid Darien’s snapping jaws, he fell on his butt, then quickly retreated.
“Hell, there’s more of them!” someone shouted from downstairs.
Lelandi took her eyes off Darien and Crassus to look at Silva. She looked as worried as Lelandi felt.
“No, they’re going after the reds.”
Lelandi’s mouth dropped slightly. What reds in their right mind would fight Bruin and his pack here? Then anger welled up to volcanic proportions deep inside her—not her emotions, but her brothers, the symbiotic reaction she had when her sister or brother’s feelings ran high. Leidolf was here.
Darien took a chunk out of Crassus’s ear, and he fell away in a panic, his ear bleeding. But Darien didn’t wait for another run. He cornered the red, bottled him between the sofa and the wall and leapt in the air.
Crassus yelped before Darien planted his teeth into his neck. It was the last sound the bastard would ever make as Darien’s canines snapped the wolf’s neck in half, then released him.
“Where are you, Lelandi, Silva?” Nurse Grey cried out from downstairs as lamps and tables crashed downstairs.
“Upstairs, end of hail, Darien’s room. Hurry.” Lelandi shouted.
Darien eyed the lone red wolf standing next to Peter, but he tucked tail and lay down on his stomach.
Nurse Grey and Matthew bolted upstairs with a medical kit. “Oh my, what’s happened?”
“Can you take care of her?” Lelandi asked, holding Carol’s hand.
“Yes, let me get in there and I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ll... I’ll be right back.” Lelandi dashed out of the room and down the hall.
“Leiandi” Sllva shouted. “No, wait!
Darien chased Lelandi down the stairs, and she was sure if he could, he would force her back into the bedroom to keep her out of harm’s way. But her brother was in the thick of it, and she couldn’t let anyone in Darien’s pack kill him, mistaking him for the enemy.
“No!” she yelled, trying to get beyond the grays to get closer to her brother, but one of the grays snapped at her, keeping her away from the reds battling each other. Her brother was fighting Bruin, and the grays were letting him? Then she saw another familiar red, her uncle, tearing into Bruin’s youngest brother, Cindon—as mean-hearted as Crassus and Bruin. It was rumored their father was a real psycho and bullied them until they became just like him.