“She’s going to have coyote babies,” Josh growled. “Anything else would be unnatural.”
Great. Let them argue over what grand purpose her womb was supposed to serve. Edging her body toward the wall, she slid her hand up her leg, toward the invisible gun digging into her side.
“No argument from me,” Diego said with a shrug. “None of my business what you do with her.”
Almost. Almost. Her knuckles scraped against the wall as she worked her hand closer to the gun. She’d have to shoot Diego first. Josh scared the shit out of her on a gut-deep level, but Diego was the one who’d snap her neck without a second thought.
Josh pulled her up by the shirt suddenly, slammed her against the wall and knocked the wind out of her, and the years fell away with breathless speed. She was sixteen again, gawkish and wounded, blinded by power of a strong male of her own species. She was twenty, two years married and discovering the dark side of a husband who had hidden it so carefully for so long.
Shame battered her as instinct forced her eyes down. Quiet. Quiet and passive. Don’t move.
Don’t make him angry. Don’t breathe…
“Shh, it’s okay.” He wrapped an arm around her and froze when his hand bumped into the gun. “What the hell?”
Invisible, not intangible. Magic could force people not to notice the gun, but it couldn’t make it not exist. Panic made her stupid, and she grabbed for the weapon.
Josh snatched it away first, staring at the gun and then her with a look of betrayed disbelief.
“Sera?”
Once you call attention to it, the glamour’s broken. So don’t wave it around screaming, “I have a gun.” That had been the gruff warning from the man who’d attuned the gun to her. Josh would be able to see it now, even if he put it down. So would Diego.
No more secret weapon. “I needed to be able to protect myself.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Diego took a single step forward and held out his hand. “Give it to me before you let her blow your brains out. You don’t have them to spare.”
Disdain dripped from his voice. The same barely concealed loathing that laced the words of every well-bred wolf who had to deal with her. Josh’s gender didn’t save him. He was a coyote.
He was lesser. And he was a fool if he’d believed a wolf like Diego would deal fairly with him.
Maybe not entirely a fool. Josh held the gun away from Diego, eyes narrowing. “Back the fuck off, Mendoza.”
“You’re blind. She’ll get you killed if you don’t take care of her first.”
The craziness was back on Josh’s eyes. He swung his arm around and pointed Sera’s gun at Diego’s head. “You try to lay a finger on her, and I’ll take care of you instead.”
Diego groaned and rubbed his eyes. “It serves me right for dealing with inferior fucking—” Josh squeezed the trigger, and thunder shook the room as the wards on the gun backfired.
The concussive force punched into Diego, sending him staggering, and slammed Josh back against the wall. The gun thumped to the carpet, and Sera dove for it.
No one chased her. Whatever spells had been woven around the gun to keep anyone but Julio or her from firing it must have been strong. Sera scrambled through the door and skidded down the hallway, barely seeing the walls on either side of her. She got the fleeting impression of roughly hewn wood, an impression confirmed when she bolted into the front room of a rustic cabin.
The front door was locked, but one jerk of even her limited shapeshifter strength snapped it from the doorframe. She flung the door wide as the first footsteps staggered into the hallway behind her.
Fight or flight. She had a heartbeat to decide, and instinct drove her out the door. The woods surrounded the cabin on three sides, with the fourth side facing a placid little lake. An idyllic location, and a remote one. She could scream herself hoarse without scaring anything more than the wildlife.
Cars or woods. An SUV sat on the gravel drive, but the chances its keys were waiting conveniently in the ignition seemed tiny. Another split-second decision, and she bolted toward the trees. If she had to she could toss the gun and her clothes and shift. Try to lose herself in the woods, or find a place to hide…
The door crashed open, and the wind carried Josh’s scent to her. He was too close. Too close to run, too close to hide.
Whirling, she lifted the gun and pointed it at his chest. “Don’t. I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”
Josh held up both hands, but his words were a denial, pure and simple. “You can’t.”
“You’re wrong.” She eased toward the car, keeping the gun steady with both hands. “Get me keys and let me drive away. If you make a run for it, maybe you can get far enough away to survive. That’s what you care about, isn’t it? Surviving?”
“I care about you!” he roared. “Us, our life together. I want it back.”
“We didn’t have a life together. We had your life and your dreams.” Her hip bumped against the front bumper of the SUV, and she braced her weight on both feet. “I was sixteen when you found me. You didn’t give me a chance to grow up and decide what I wanted to be.”
“So come home,” he whispered. “You’ll figure it out, and we’ll be happy again.”
Dominant power settled around her like a blanket, and her finger tightened reflexively on the trigger. He was going to make her do it. Make her shoot him, force her to splatter the brains of the man she’d once loved across the dirt driveway. And if it had only been her, she might not have had the strength to stand up to him.
But it wasn’t only her. It was her father, who left the light on because he wanted her to come home. And Anna, who was more fragile right now than anyone but Sera knew. And for Julio-He’d blame himself. All that responsibility on his shoulders, the need to keep her safe. His so-called failure with Kat. Losing her now would break him. He’d give up, and the dominoes would fall. Carmen and Miguel. Alec. Patrick. So many bad things had happened already. One more would be too much.
Sera swallowed hard as sick dread twisted in her gut. “Please, Josh. Let me go. Don’t make me do this. Just give me the keys—” He lunged, and she fired.
The first shot hit him in the shoulder and exploded. Her ears rang at the sound, but it was nothing compared to the sight. His arm was gone, blown off at the shoulder. But he was a shapeshifter, and feral rage clouded his vision as he snarled and staggered toward her.
The second shot tore his chest in half and shredded his still-beating heart.
She stared—shocked, horrified—and she was still staring when pain detonated in her skull.
The blow caught her off guard, knocked her to the ground as her gun skittered off across the fallen leaves into the darkness.
Diego stood over her, the heavy branch he’d used as a club still clutched in his hand. “Got him pretty damn dead, huh? That’s natural selection for you.”
“Fuck you.” She scrambled back, her head throbbing. Her vision was throbbing too, tingeing the world with darkness every time her heart beat. “Don’t do this. Whatever you’re trying to prove to Julio, this isn’t going to help.”
His face screwed up in confusion. “What?”
“Josh was supposed to kill him, wasn’t that the plan? What are you going to get out of killing me now?”
“Oh, that.” He shook his head. “You’re a loose end, girl. You could clear up a lot of things by being gone.”
Sera inched back, trying to remember which direction the gun had gone in. To the left, toward the trees. “And then you’re going to kill your own son?”
“Don’t make it sound so cold.” He gripped the club and advanced on her. “It’s how things are done.”